Veteran Triple-A masher is not the answer at first base for the Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates signed Jake Lamb to a minor-league deal this past offseason. He’s gotten off to a decent start, and now many fans want him to be Rowdy Tellez’s replacement. Although the Pirates need first base help, and fans have set a low bar to get someone else to replace Tellez and help Connor Joe out, promoting Lamb might end up being a lateral move rather than an upgrade.

Some might not agree based solely on how he’s doing at Triple-A. Lamb is batting .331/.416/.468 through 185 plate appearances. He has a strong 17.3% strikeout rate and a 13% walk rate. Lamb hasn’t hit for much power and has just a .136 isolated slugging percentage, but he still has a quality 129 wRC+ at Triple-A. So why not bring him up?

A lot of important metrics put Lamb in a similar light as Tellez, believe it or not. It’s not all about what you see on the back of their baseball card. They swing and miss at about the same rate. Tellez has a 25% whiff rate, while Lamb is at 23.6%. When Lamb makes contact, he averages an 87.8 MPH exit velocity. Meanwhile, Tellez sits at 89.2 MPH. Lamb makes more quality contact, but his 4.7% barrel rate is only marginally better than Tellez’s 3% barrel percentage.

No, Jake Lamb wouldn't be an upgrade on Rowdy Tellez for Pirates

These are things that really need to be pointed out. It is as simple as Lamb and Tellez both swing and miss around the same amount, make good contact around the same amount, and hit the ball as hard as each other, except Tellez is in the majors, and Lamb is at Triple-A. How do you think Lamb’s ability to hit the ball and hit the ball well is going to translate into the bigs this year if he’s already not doing well in either stat in the minor leagues?

The only thing that seperates the two in any way is launch angle. Lamb has a 12 degree launch angle while Tellez is at 17 degrees. Lamb has hit far more line drives, which go for hits more often, and has a 26.1% LD%. Tellez’s LD% is just 18.2%. This might be the only thing worth considering when thinking about Lamb vs Tellez. Again though, that's at Triple-A, and not the majors.

But it’s not as if the Pirates are holding back a high-end player with good numbers in recent seasons, either. Since 2018, Lamb has hit just .205/.306/.359 with an 82 wRC+. Meanwhile, Tellez made his debut in 2018 and has hit .229/.299/.430 with a 95 wRC+. Sure, Tellez has 2,026 plate appearances since ‘18, while Lamb has just 898, but there’s a 64-point difference in OPS and a 13% difference in wRC+, both of which favor Tellez.

Do not take this as me saying Tellez deserves more playing time; he doesn’t. But if you think Lamb is going to be an upgrade, think again. There’s a better chance he’s a downgrade rather than an upgrade, as hard as that might be to fathom. If the Pirates want another player to take over Tellez’s role, let it be Matt Gorski or even Malcom Nunez. Heck, go out and sign Ji Man Choi or Mike Ford; at least they’ve had recent success in the majors. But if you want Jake Lamb in the Majors, don't expect anything more than Rowdy Tellez 2.0.