Pirates failed Nick Gonzales before his third base struggles even began

Nick Gonzales has been one of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ best hitters this season. He has also been one of their worst defenders.

But after learning more about how Gonzales became Pittsburgh’s everyday third baseman in the first place, it’s difficult to put all of his defensive struggles on him.

According to MLB.com’s Aiden Stepansky, Gonzales “practiced at all infield positions and found out for sure he’d play the year at third on Opening Day.”

Opening Day? Seriously?

That detail should raise some serious questions about how the Pirates prepared Gonzales for a position he had barely played before.

Once Pittsburgh acquired Brandon Lowe to play second base, Gonzales’ future there was obviously cloudy. The Pirates also had Konnor Griffin progressing toward the majors as their long-term answer on the left side of the infield. Gonzales was going to have to move somewhere.

Yet instead of spending the offseason and spring training concentrating primarily on third base, he apparently prepared as a generic utility infielder before learning where he would actually play when the games already counted. That's not putting a player in position to succeed.

Gonzales' defensive numbers make the lack of preparation look even worse. Through 790.1 innings at third base this season, Gonzales has committed nine errors and owns a .952 fielding percentage. Baseball Savant credits him with minus-6 fielding run value, the worst mark on the Pirates.

Compare that with second base, the position Gonzales has played virtually his entire career. In 1,843.2 career innings there, his fielding percentage is .983.

Gonzales was saddled with the unenviable task of learning a substantially different position at the major league level — apparently without even knowing for certain that it would be his job until Opening Day.

Pirates didn't put Nick Gonzales in position to succeed defensively at third base

At second base, according to Gonzales himself, he can follow the pitch from the pitcher's hand and work into the play. At third, his focus has to remain on the plate because his reaction time is so drastically reduced. Pirates manager Don Kelly has also noted that Gonzales has had to learn different movements at third, including going back on balls rather than consistently attacking them the way he did at second.

Those are exactly the kind of things a player should spend an entire offseason drilling if his organization knows a position change is coming.

It becomes even more baffling considering Gonzales played for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic this spring, reducing the amount of time Pittsburgh had with him in camp. That should have made establishing his defensive role early even more important. Instead, Gonzales was learning everywhere.

Then, on Opening Day: Surprise! You're our third baseman.

None of this completely absolves Gonzales. He's a 27-year-old major league player, and eventually performance matters. Nine errors are nine errors. The Pirates also can't simply accept poor defense indefinitely, particularly for a club whose defensive mistakes have been a persistent problem this season.

That's why Jared Triolo has increasingly become the late-game defensive replacement at third. It's also why Pittsburgh may eventually have to determine whether Gonzales belongs at the position at all.

But evaluating Gonzales requires acknowledging how he got here. Pittsburgh drafted Gonzales seventh overall in 2020 because of his bat, and that bat is finally becoming what the organization envisioned. He's hitting .309 and leads the team with 137 hits.

After years of waiting for his offensive potential to translate to the majors, the Pirates finally have something resembling the hitter they thought they drafted. And yet they complicated that breakthrough by throwing another massive developmental challenge at him without giving him the preparation that challenge deserved.

Maybe Gonzales was never going to become a particularly good third baseman. His arm, reactions and instincts may ultimately fit better at second. No amount of offseason work guarantees that the experiment would have succeeded.

But that's exactly the point: We'll never know how much better Gonzales could have been with proper preparation because Pittsburgh didn't give him that opportunity.

The Pirates needed Gonzales to learn third base, and they should have told him that months before Opening Day.

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