Demoting Steve Pearce was dangerous and here's why

It is clear to me from the comments that are being left that I've done a very poor job of illustrating why I think demoting Steve Pearce is a very bad idea for the Pirates. It's probably my own fault because school has been rather hectic lately and I have less and less time to sit down and properly write out posts on these things. Regardless, let's break things down a little better here.

The first and most important point that I think people are missing is this one: I don't think Steve Pearce is some kind of slam dunk 30 homer breakout star for the Pirates this year. I don't know that he'd be that much better than Xavier Nady over the course of 2008. I've seen far too many Pirate prospects get to the majors and fizzle to put too much hope on Pearce becoming more than an average first baseman/corner outfielder. At the same time, I realize that Xavier Nady is an average outfielder. When this whole debate started, I purposely overstated his flaws to compensate for the people that were blindly singing his praises. Perhaps I've kept doing that for too long and if that's the case, I apologize for being lazy. But yes, I fully realize the possibility that Nady might be a better outfielder than Pearce this year and if I had to put odds on it, I'd say they it was 50/50 as to who would put better numbers up this year.

How Pearce is going to hit this year is not the point. Over the winter we spent an endless amount of time in a circuitous conversation over whether or not Neal Huntington was doing the right thing by holding on to most of his chips and hoping their value went up during the season. Most of this conversation centered on Jason Bay, who Huntington got good, but not great, offers for. Huntington decided to hold on to Bay and it was the right move. For the three years prior to 2007, Bay was probably one of the ten most productive outfielders in the National League and his year in 2005. His bad numbers last year were probably at least influenced by his bad knee and there's no reason to trade him now when there's a good chance he'll raise his value during the season. The same situation does not exist with Xavier Nady. Xavier Nady is Xavier Nady and everyone in baseball not named Dave Littlefield knows it. He's an injury-prone fourth outfielder or a platoon guy or a fill-in for any contender. He could hit 12 home runs in April or spend the entire month on the bench and that won't change much because there's already too much of a record to indicate that it will.

That brings us to Pearce. Just about every metric and projection (MLEs, PECOTA, ZiPS, Bill James, the Hardball Times) indicates that Pearce is ready to play in the majors right not at a level similar to Nady. It doesn't mean that he will, but it does mean that time spent in AAA is wasting time that could be spent figuring out his true value to this franchise. If he hits in AAA, people will keep clamoring for his call-up. If he doesn't, people will say that he's bumping his head on the ceiling and deserves called up anyways. What concerns me the most is something that I've brought up several times: his age. He's 25 years old, which means that it's time for him to get his chance. Twenty-six is too old to be unsure about a player and if Pearce stays in AAA mid-season or later, that's the situation we're going to be in. I know no one's saying Pearce is going to be in Indianapolis all year, but it's certainly a possibility.

If Pearce does go to AAA and rake, all that does is force Huntington's hand even more when it comes to Nady. Other GMs knowing that Pearce is banging down the door is every bit as bad for Huntington's bargaining position as keeping Nady on the bench in favor of Pearce is. Maybe Huntington isn't waiting for a Nady trade. Maybe he's waiting for a Bay trade to slide Pearce in. That's equally unacceptable to me. One of the hallmarks of mismanagement in Pittsburgh prior to Huntington's arrival was constantly choosing proven mediocrity over potential ability and choosing to play Nady over Pearce is the same song again.

What worries me is that Huntington is making the mistake of overvaluing his players and undervaluing his minor league talent. We know he's got a buyer for Nady right now in the Mets and the offer probably isn't great, but there's just not much that can happen over the next few months that's going to change that. Give the fact that players like Nady are fairly common in the league, there's a good chance that that buyer won't be there in a month or two. Maybe Huntington will get lucky and Alfonso Soriano will blow his knee out and Dave Littlefield will sing the praises of Nady to Jim Hendry and we'll end up with an honest-to-goodness prospect for Nady, but then maybe ESPN will offer me a million dollars to by WHYGAVS tomorrow. That doesn't mean I'm dropping out of grad school and counting on it.

To put things simply, the next Pittsburgh Pirate team that plays meaningful baseball after the All-Star break almost certainly won't have Xavier Nady on it, but it might have Steve Pearce. Because of that, there's no reason to play Nady over Pearce, whether there's a buyer for Nady or not.