It has not been an easy season so far for our new friend Rowdy.
The Pirates were hoping for a big time rebound from the power bat who smashed 35 home runs two years ago, but they’ve gotten anything but.
Not only have the Pirates seen middling (at best) results from Tellez, they’ve seen one of their earliest free agent signings quickly fall down the totem pole on fan favorite lists. Tellez has lost more and more fan support over the season, and his comments sticking up for teammate David Bednar have only aged worse and worse.
His “don’t boo” comments after a third blown save by Bednar have grown to be infamous for Tellez’s Pirates tenure. He was, at the time, trying to stick up for his teammate, but his remarks on telling the Pirates fanbase what to do – or more explicitly, not do – came off as condescending to various sectors of the fan base who have watched awful baseball for years on end, usually with no end in sight.
Tellez has only been in Pittsburgh for a few months. He tried to entrench himself in the city when he said “we don’t do that here,” but if we was going to do that, he needed to have the stat line himself to back it up.
Instead, his bat has gone completely cold. Tellez is slashing .183/.275/.225 on the year, with 1 home run and 6 RBI. His lone homer is the only extra base hit of the season.
While his bat has suffered for a while, Tellez was a pleasant surprise on the defensive side as well. Well, in the beginning anyways.
Tellez was stellar in snagging line drives in his direction, many of which we probably guessed he wouldn’t be able to field. But now, even that has eroded away.
His latest blunder at the first base position came yesterday in the team’s 7-5 afternoon loss to Milwaukee.
In this second picture, third baseman Jared Triolo had made a beautiful play along the third base line to pick off the ground ball, and was able to get the throw to Tellez who is…not on the bag.
Just flat out an unacceptable play by any big league first baseman.
The situation has gone from bad to worse for the man who signed a one year, $3.2 million deal with Pittsburgh this winter, and it forces the question of how much longer the Pirates can put up with this.
Tellez has routinely been pinch hit for late in games in recent days; it happened multiple times against his old team, the Brewers. His platoon partner at first base, Connor Joe, took over and was able to notch hits in the process.
Joe’s reputation as a big leaguer is that he destroys left handed pitchers, but struggles with the righties. Last season, that was a pretty fair narrative; Joe had a .265 average vs lefties, and was .235 against righties.
This season, even though the left handed numbers are still higher (.310) than. the right handed ones (.279), Joe is still well outperforming his counterpart in Tellez no matter who is on the mound for the opposition.
Of course, both those figures are probably due for regression. Joe is a career .250 hitter, but even if those numbers will eventually come down, why not ride that hot streak for as long as you can? Especially when the other option can’t crack .200 on the year.
Joe is fine as a first baseman. Is he perfect? No, but neither is Tellez at the position.
Another potential option for the first base job could be coming in the form of Yasmani Grandal. The free agent catcher signed by the Pirates is currently in Triple-A with the Indianapolis Indians on a rehab stint.
This idea was brought up to me by Voice From The Graves, a good follow on Pirates Twitter.
Grandal is primarily thought of as a catcher, but he does have experience playing first base. Over his 1,138 MLB games, 95 of those have come at first base.
Sure, that’s a small sample size (8.34% to be exact), but that still is experience for the 35 year old.
Grandal was originally brought in to be the backup catcher for the Pirates behind Henry Davis. Grandal suffered plantar fasciitis in the early goings of spring training, which took him out of activities entirely down in Bradenton.
In his place, the Pirates called up Jason Delay once the season began to serve as the backup catcher, but he too fell to injury after just one game. That forced the Pirates to trade for Joey Bart, who now has the second catcher role.
Davis, meanwhile, has not been the type of bat the Pirates were banking on him being for this season. The first overall pick from a few years prior has been fine behind the plate, but next to it he is slashing a mere .180/.288/.230 for the Pirates.
Bart, meanwhile, is batting .304 with 3 home runs in 7 games for the Pirates so far, and could get some significant time as Pittsburgh travels west to take on his old team in San Francisco.
Assuming the Pirates do plan to call up Grandal once he is ready, what does that mean for the catching position? If Pittsburgh plans to have three catchers on the roster, Grandal needs to spend some time at first base to make the most out of that decision.
That also opens up the question of who to option to Triple-A. Edward Olivares might find himself the odd man out in that equation. He hasn’t necessarily done anything wrong, but given that he isn’t an everyday player, he might be one of the easier players to send to Triple-A.
In that scenario, the Pirates can have Davis and Bart as the main catchers, and Grandal as kind of a floater between catcher and first base. A veteran like Grandal might also be benefit Davis, who is still incredibly young in his major league journey.
If you wanted to get crazier, you could call up Grandal and option Davis to Triple-A, where you hope he rebounds and gains some confidence. Then, when the Pirates saw enough, you could figure out what was needed to get him back to the majors.
In either scenario, however, Tellez can take some time as a bench role player to hopefully get himself right. It was a risk when the Pirates signed him, especially as early as they did, and so far that risk has not panned out at all.
It’s still early, it’s not even May yet. Fans who want the Pirates to designate Tellez for assignment are probably dreaming a little too much; the team just simply isn’t going to do that any time soon.
It is realistic, however, to think that the Pirates could have Tellez ride the bench for a little bit while they explore some other options. It would allow Tellez time to step away and hopefully work out the many kinks in his bat right now, while also allowing somebody like Grandal to draw into the lineup and show what he can provide for this team.
(Featured photo by Kim Klement Neitzel/USA Today Sports)
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