While we'd rather just sit here and soak in the great baseball that is being played, you can't stop the "can they keep it up?" questions from coming around. I know there are some people that aren't too fond of sabermetrics, but I feel the best way to answer such a question as the one above is with their help. So I put together some statistics for you all to look at.
We'll go position-by-position and see which Pirates are set up to improve in the second half and which ones are ready for a decline.
The Pirates have got pretty good production out of their catching tandem. Possibly the biggest positive of this year in catching is that only two guys have started at the position. Rod Barajas is most valuable as a defender, but he's helped the Pirates a bit with the bat this year as well. His .229 BABIP suggests that his batting average should be coming up slightly, although the .249 career BABIP is a testament to him being a home run swinger and not very fast. His walks are up which is good, but the rest of his numbers are down from his career averages. His slow start to the season has a lot to do with that, he's been better than what the numbers suggest recently (which is the case with pretty much every Pirate hitter outside of McCutchen), but his age and change of home ballpark plays into that as well. You should never have expected Rod to play to his career averages at the plate this year, and I think we've seen a pretty good picture in the first half of what we'll see in the second half with Barajas. The most important thing is that he stays healthy.
Michael McKenry is going to play a role in keeping Barajas healthy. He has been hitting the ball better than almost anybody recently, and the Pirates have been very happy with what he's given them this year. His .272 ISO is off the charts and shouldn't be expected to be continued. Pretty much all of his stats were boosted a ton by his play when Barajas was hurt, because he wasn't getting that much action before that. One hot streak really jacked up his numbers this year, and they are almost certainly unsustainable for him. Again, this doesn't really matter because he's a backup catcher. Anything he gives you with the bat is gravy.
The infield production is pretty much the story of the Pirates first half offensively. They basically all stunk until June, and then they all got hot (minus Barmes, who just went from historically horrible to really horrible). Garrett Jones could be having a career year; he's been able to sustain his current hot streak for longer than we've ever seen him sustain such a streak. His .298 BABIP is slightly above his career average but right on with the league average, so there's nothing notable there. The walks are way down, which is discouraging, but the power is up. Jones has been facing right handers almost exclusively, which has no doubt helped his numbers. That should continue as long as Casey McGehee stays productive. McGehee has increased his walks and strikeouts this year and posted right around his career averages the rest of the way across the board. McGehee is a guy who had two big seasons when he was finally named a starter and then had a horrible season last year. He hasn't had a peak or valley this year, which is all the Pirates really wanted out of him. If he and Jones can continue to play how they've averaged in the first half, the Pirate are in good shape at first base.
Neil Walker is another guy that has been extremely hot lately. His numbers didn't look very good until recently. His average has climbed the whole way to .291 and the on-base and slugging have come with it. His power is down, but that's to be expected with that out of nowhere rookie year just two years back in which he hit for far more power than he'll ever be expected to. Walker is solid and has been great recently. I don't know if he's a .290/.360/.415 hitter, but he's still getting better and finishing the season with a line like this isn't out of the question.
The first half LVP award goes to Clint Barmes, who didn't have all that much in terms of offensive expectations going into the season. If he could just come here and play good defense and hit a few home runs and stay above the mendoza line, he'd be a good player for the Pirates. Well, he hasn't really done that. The defense is fine, which is the most important thing, but it's really hard to carry a hitter that struggles to stay above .200 on your team all year. Barmes has a low BABIP, but has no sense of the strike zone with a laughable 1.5 BB%. Chances are he'll be better than this in the first half, but I'm certainly not putting any money on it.
Pedro Alvarez has been a positive thus far, despite having two really bad stretches. His strikeouts and walks are the same as what we've seen since his first call up, but his power is way up, which is all we really want. His 16 homers are one of the big reasons the Pirates are where they are right now. The BABIP is low, but the average is right where his career number is. You can't take too much out of the career averages with him just because he's still developing and just doesn't have a very big sample of career at-bats. While you'll never expect high averages out of a hitter like Alvarez, I think he can do much better than .231/.305. You may see him increase that quite a bit in the second half, as it seems he's figured something out in these last weeks. You can't be sure he has, but things certainly are looking up in Alvarez land.
Let's just get Andrew McCutchen out of the way first. His numbers are ludicrous. Every single column after the walk and strikeout percentages there is astounding. Can he maintain a .407 BABIP and a .362 batting average? Probably not, but he's probably not going to be far off. MVP.
Now for the bad part. The Pirates have gotten very little out of their corner outfielders, which is why we are all so anxious to see Starling Marte in the bigs. Jose Tabata hit .230/.295/.341 before finally getting demoted about a week ago. Time will tell if he'll see the majors again this year, I would be kind of surprised if he didn't, but his days as a sure everyday starter are in question. Marte will have a starting job at some point and it'll be up to Tabata and Presley to fight it out for the other spot. Tabata was unreasonably bad in the first half and you should see marked improvement if he returns. Presley managed to outperform Tabata but had his struggles as well. A 3/45 slump had him sent to the minors for two weeks, and he managed to salvage a little bit statistically upon return. The walks are low, the strikeouts aren't encouraging, and nothing else impresses you to make up for it. He doesn't have many major league at-bats either, so you can't look at his career averages as telling of much. Presley isn't a major league starter in my eyes, and he's shown you why I think that this year.
The starting pitching has been great. That's the reason the Pirates were keeping their head above water through the first two months, and they have done a pretty good job since the offense has turned it around as well. James McDonald and A.J. Burnett have pitched like aces and show no signs of slowing down. Neither of them have frightening BABIP's or LOB%'s and their FIPs show you that the ERA's are legitimate. If you're gonna worry about these two, worry about health only.
Jeff Karstens looked very good in his last two outings. However, he's a guy that always look shaky when you look at the sabermetrics. He's made us saber heads look like idiots over and over again the past few years, so I'm going to stop attacking him. His strikeouts are up this year, despite the small sample, and his BABIP and LOB% actually show bad luck. Again, he's only made six starts so the statistical jury is still out on the 2012 Karstens, but we're getting to the point where it sounds foolish to predict bad things for Karstens, he just keeps getting guys out, and getting them out quickly.
The two guys that have been less than impressive in the first half are Kevin Correia and Erik Bedard. A good luck all-star last year, Correia has a ridiculously lucky ERA this year, as displayed by his near run difference in ERA-FIP. He's kept the ball on the ground more this year, which is a good sign. His HR/FB is up, which is a sign of bad luck, but nothing else impresses you. His strikeouts are stupid low and his BABIP has been good in the first half. There's no way he improves these numbers in the second half, and I'd even dare to say that there's no way he holds his job through the entire season. Bedard on the other hand was very impressive in April and some of May before falling off after seven starts. His strikeouts and walks aren't far off from his career averages, the BABIP is only a little bit high, and the rest of the advanced crap doesn't throw any flags up. Bedard has just been plain bad recently. As he'll tell you, he's just throwing pitches and "they're hitting them". The FIP shows he's been a bit better than he has been, and at least a slight improvement should be expected. There are injury questions still and we don't really know what kind of trade value he has. It'll be interesting to see what the Pirates end up doing with Bedard this year.
That was ridiculously long and I'm sure not many of you actually managed to read the whole thing. Basically, the numbers say that these Pirates probably aren't a team that will win 56.5% of their games for very long, but they don't predict any kind of collapse either. Realistically, the Pirates could play a few games under .500 in the second half and still have a really good shot at the playoffs. They will also be getting better in one way or another at the end of July when they make a trade or two. They still have Marte on the way up as well, and if that wasn't enough for you, their second half schedule is a breeze. It appears that this team is only getting better as the season progresses.
Numbers aside (and I really do "numbers aside" stuff), there's something special about this team. Sports are extremely mental and emotional, and all of that stuff seems to be on the Pirates side this year. I don't know if you believe that's meaningful, I'm not even sure I do. Whatever happens though, it should be a fun ride. Let's try to keep inside of ourselves and not look to far down the road. The Pirates are 11 games over .500, so they'll be relevant for at least another three weeks. Enjoy it and don't take it for granted.