McCutchen

Dejan's spring training article today focuses on McCutchen who, starting today, will be with the big boys at the big league camp in Bradenton. Of course most of the column features his impressive stats from the GCL and NY Penn League last year (though I would stress sample size on the second one, he only played 13 games for the 'Cutters of Williamsport), though McCutchen does expound upon why he's actually not averse to working the count beyond three balls and trotting to first base:

"My high school experience helped a lot there because I knew I'd get walked a lot," he said. "I just kind of took that attitude with me to pro ball."

Of course, that's why the Pirates are here, to eliminate that patience. Just two paragraphs below, Brian Graham is quoted as saying:

"You're looking at someone who has that leadoff ability but also could get you home runs. We see Andrew as having a power kind of swing, and we want to make sure we give him the opportunity to develop that."

That seems brilliant. The scrawny kid who homered twice in ~200 ABs in minor league ball last year, yet showed great plate patience and the ability to drive the ball into gaps needs to develop more power. Instead of emphasizing and improving upon what he's doing right, let's screw him up early and turn this 5'11" 175 pound kid into a power hitter. It's pretty safe to ignore the .430 SLG he put up in Bradenton and the .442 he put up in Williamsport because he didn't hit a lot of homers, right? I mean doubles and triples are great, but we want HOMERS. That's right, let's make him into something he definitely is not. Kind of a strange emphasis to put on a guy for an organization that just hates those pesky strikeouts so darn much.