Cutch Starved

 

Andrew McCutchen has been playing in the MLB for 16 years now, 17 seasons in all. In that time he has become, and remained, one of my favorite active players while playing for two of my teams and making a playoff run with one of them. He won an MVP in a year where it feasibly could have gone to Paul Goldschmidt, he hit his 300th home run at Citizens Bank Park as a member of the away team, he hit 79 and 80 RBIs in two of his most inconsequential seasons, and he's all but certain to retire as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team where he's the surest legend they've had in decades. It is impossible for someone to be as likable as Cutch has been while also being as honest and realistic as Cutch has been. This year alone, Cutch has argued against officials and umpires on social media, and talked about the hidden BS of the game, and this has only endeared people to him more. It's the Joey Votto class of athlete, where he's such a good player and such a great baseball figure that everything he does can be rationalized as positive. 

Cutch is 38, and he'll be 39 in October. There is a strong possibility that he's gonna hang it up after this season. I don't think he has much more to accomplish, I think the chances of him seeing the Bucs to a ring are nonexistent, and I think his numbers have diminished to a point where he'd just be resting on mythology. Right now, as a DH for the Pirates, he's hitting .243 with 11 homers, 50 RBIs and a 0.3 WAR. He's a solid contributor and a great clubhouse presence but he's not the team, much like Miguel Cabrera wasn't in his last few years. The Pirates right now are Paul Skenes and Oneil Cruz and Mitch Keller. Cutch can contribute with a homer or so every so often but that's not gonna be the difference maker between a playoff spot and a last place finish. They're already in last, and they're not going anywhere.

I do think about Cutch's legacy as a player. Undeniably he was one of the stars of the 2010s, and his Pirates teams were a ton of fun. He was a rare .300 hitter in a generation that was just starting to emphasize power hitting. He's not gonna come near 60 WAR, and his drop-off is gonna scare people from voting him as a Hall of Famer for a while, but I think that if Dave Parker's in now, Cutch probably should be as well. From 2010 to 2015 he had a 35.3 WAR and a .299 average. That's a lot to get done in a peak period, and I think it's worth thinking about.

As for the Pirates themselves...not really much for them to do at this rate. They've spent the week getting slaughtered by Milwaukee, as all teams have seemed to get in line to do this year. They just lost Cruz to the concussion IL, and don't really have many perks heading into the last quarter of the year. Nobody's hitting home runs, nobody's hitting for contact, it's just a sad scene. At the very least, Don Kelly's done better as a manager than Shelton did, but who's to say if that means anything? Still got the same owner anyhow.

For now, I suppose Pirates fans can head to games not knowing if they'll have seen the last of Andrew McCutchen. Unless he wants next year to be a true victory lap year, which is also likely.

Coming Tomorrow- Every Athletic seems to get a turn to spontaneously hit a bajillion homers, and now it's this guy's turn.