Free Agents Don't Help Pirates Offensively

Clint Barmes and Rod Barajas have been just awful at the plate this season after coming to Pittsburgh with somewhat high hopes of being offensive and defensive contributors. Sure, they were both signed primarily for their defense, but I think the Pirates really thought that they could have a positive impact on the offense as well. Eleven games in, and that has not been the case.

So far those two have five hits in 60 at bats. That's a .083 batting average. The only good news is that three of those five hits have been for extra bases, including a Barmes home run.

It's far too early to write these two off, but this seems to be a yearly occurrence. The Pirates sign a few free agents that don't excite anybody but at least improve the team upon signing. Then they go on and perform just horribly. Let's take a look at the last four years of Pirates free agent signings.

2011
Lyle Overbay: 103 G, 352 AB, 8 HR, .227/.300/.349
Matt Diaz: 100 G, 216 AB, 0 HR, .259/.303/.324

2010
Ryan Church: 69 G, 170 AB, 3 HR, .182/.240/.312
Bobby Crosby: 61 G, 156 AB, 1 HR, .224/.301/.295

2009
Ramon Vazquez: 101 G, 204 AB, 1 HR, .230/.335/.395
Eric Hinske: 54 G, 106 AB, 1 HR, .279/.307/.357
Craig Monroe: 34 G, 79 AB, 3 HR, .215/.287/.354

2008
Doug Mientkiewicz: 125 G, 285 AB, 2 HR, .277/.374/.379
Jason Michaels: 102 G, 228 AB, 8 HR, .228/.300/.382
Luis Rivas: 79 G, 206 AB, 3 HR, .218/.267/.311
Chris Gomez: 90 G, 183 AB, 1 HR, .273/.322/.333

That's a whole lot of crap. I was going to compare each of those lines above with the player's career averages, but I don't even feel that that's necessary to prove my point. All of these players underperformed after signing with the Pirates. Mientkiewicz and Gomez are the only ones who you could argue didn't underperform in a big way.

If you're looking for an explanation you aren't going to find it here. It doesn't seem logical to say that players come here and just don't have the desire to perform. You'd think the opposite actually. If they didn't want to be here, you would think they would want to perform better to make themselves more attractive to other teams. Most of those players above quickly faded out of relevancy shortly after their time with the Pirates was over.

My best guess is that the Pirates don't have a lot of options for who they can sign in free agency. They'll never be players for the big names that you know will perform, so they have to settle for these bottom tier guys who are most often on the back-end of their career and on the decline. That holds true with Barmes and Barajas, who are 33 and 36 years old respectively. Those two are certainly in the decline stage of their career and the Pirates are just hoping to squeeze one productive season out of them.

This year the Pirates did take a slightly different route in signing guys that will help defensively. That way if they don't perform on offense, they can at least help the team with the glove. We've already seen an improvement from Barajas over what Ryan Doumit did with the Pirates, however at least Doumit would hit the ball sometimes. Barmes is a solid defender who hasn't looked all that solid so far this year, but by season's end I'm sure he'll have some really solid defensive metrics and we'll be happy with what he gave us on the side of the ball. However, offense is a huge issue for the Pirates this year and it's not going to be surprising if those two don't contribute much at all with the bats.

I'm not sure how long they'll put up with these two guys if they continue to struggle the way they are, but I'm guessing they have pretty long leashes. Both of them got pretty big contracts and their defensive ability (plus the lack of legitimate backups) will probably keep them in the Pirates lineup for most of the season. Here's hoping they don't become offensive liabilities.