Pirates Need to Find Some Protection for Pedro

Pedro Alvarez is the Pirates clean-up hitter. Hopefully that doesn't change. At his best, Pedro is a hitter that every team in the league would love to have in their lineup. We are still a long ways away from being confident that Alvarez is going to be at or near his best the majority of the time, but for now he's looking pretty good.

That makes our lineup look a lot better. With Jose Tabata, Alex Presley, and Andrew McCutchen up ton and Pedro cleaning stuff up, this team should be able to score some runs this year. Despite that potential, there's still a hole in the offense. The Pirates have nobody to really protect Alvarez. After McCutchen and Alvarez there isn't a bat in the lineup that you would really worry much about.

We saw a bit of it this weekend. Alvarez hit clean-up Saturday and Sunday and didn't register a hit. He walked four times, which is good to see, but that very well may have been somewhat intentional on the part of Reds pitchers.

Saturday night in the sixth inning. Neil Walker led off the inning with a single; McCutchen grounded out. Alvarez worked a walk to get a runner to scoring position. However, both runners would be stranded there thanks to a Casey McGehee strikeout and a Garrett Jones flyout. The walk to Alvarez worked out perfectly for the Reds. Alvarez worked his second walk in the 8th with nobody on pace after McCutchen was picked off. McGehee actually singled there and at the time put pressure on the Reds after walking Pedro, but Clint Barmes struck out with the bases loaded to end the inning.

Sunday was more of the same. Pedro walked in the first inning to load the bases. There's no way that was an intentional walk, but a line out and a strikeout behind him ended the inning and the Pirates only real scoring chance of the day. In the third inning Alvarez walked again to put runners on first and second with two outs. McGehee grounded out.

Jones and McGehee started the year off pretty well, but have tailed off recently. Jones is certainly a guy that pitcher's have to be somewhat careful with, he's hit had two 20+ home run seasons in his career, but I can guarantee that pitchers are much less worried about Jones than Alvarez in this point. Jones isn't the ideal guy you want protecting Alvarez. Neil Walker is going to hit behind him at times this year, but he seems to be a guy that doesn't hit for much power, which is going to make it easier for pitchers to work around Alvarez.

Pedro can crush mistake pitches, but the fact is he's not going to get many mistake pitches when the guy's behind him aren't good hitters. A lot of this is on the top of the order as well. If those guys get on base the opposing pitcher is forced to come in the strike zone to Alvarez. But with the bases empty and an out or two, there's really no huge risk in being careful with Alvarez.

I'm not suggesting the Pirates go out and make some crazy trade for a bat right now, because it's too early in the season to consider things like that. I am saying that eventually the Pirates are going to need another slugger in that lineup if they want to get the most out of Pedro.

There certainly isn't anybody in the upper levels of the system that could be that guy. Josh Bell and Alex Dickerson are really the only possibilities right now, but they are very far away.

We should see the focus of the draft shift more to hitting in these next couple years, since they have done a great job loading up on pitching. We seem to be a long ways away from having a lineup full of home grown sluggers, but if the Pirates find themselves in contention again this year they are going to have no choice but to make a move for a bat to protect Alvarez.