What to do with McCutchen?

The more prospect savvy among you have certainly taken notice of Andrew McCutchen's early season line by now: .282/.378/.549 with 4 homers and 7 doubles in 82 plate appearances. That's certainly a great start for a 21-year old in AAA and within no time at all, that line is going to start popping up all over the place in the Pittsburgh sports media (if it hasn't already, admittedly my distance disconnects me more than I'd like from time to time), which means that by this time next week (if not sooner), people are going to be clamoring for McCutchen to get a call to Pittsburgh and start over everyone's favorite whipping boy, Jason Bay. All I can really say to that is, "please not yet."

It's awesome that Cutch is off to such an good start in AAA. I had some serious concerns about him after he skipped past A+ and straight to AA, where he struggled for most of the year last year. The fact that he's hitting this quickly in AAA is a great sign that he's still the prospect we all hope he is. Still, he's got to stay in AAA for now. He's got to get more at-bats against pitching at this level. He's got to face pitchers that have had a chance to adjust to his hot start. If it gets to be July and Bay and Nady are traded and McCutchen's still killing the ball, I'll be singing a different song. But until then, there's just no reason to rush him to the bigs.