A Nightmare Scenario for Pedro Alvarez: Playing for Cleveland

With apologies to Clevelanders everywhere, I can think of a number of reasons why Pedro Alvarez would rather be in Pittsburgh than in Cleveland, or C-Town, or The Mistake on the Lake, whichever you prefer. Pittsburgh is located where the first Europeans reached the “Golden Triangle” at the confluence of the Ohio, the Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers. “Golden Triangle” not only sounds very appealing, in a slightly sexual way, but to my knowledge none of the three rivers confluence-ing in Pittsburgh have been on fire like the Cuyahoga River that runs through Cleveland.

Pittsburgh has regularly finished near the top of lists of “Most Livable City in the U.S.”, including last year when the ‘Burgh narrowly beat out Honolulu for the top spot. It was the third time in seven years that The Economist had Pittsburgh at or near the top of the list of the most livable cities in the continental United States. Cleveland, on the other hand, was named the most miserable city in the United States, according to a 2010 poll by Forbes.com.

So it’s clear the Pedro Alvarez is quite fortunate to be with the Pittsburgh Pirates as opposed to the Cleveland Native Americans, just for the pure livability factor of the city.

When it comes to baseball, this pattern continues. The Pirates are 31-25 (.554) and in second place in the NL Central. Cleveland is 27-29 and in fourth place in the AL Central (all data is through June 7^th). According to the playoff odds at FanGraphs, the Pirates currently have a 67.6% chance of winning their division or being a wild card team. The Indians are at 51.5%. If not for the parity of the American League, this gap would be even greater.

More importantly, and the point of this article, there’s something very specific to Pedro Alvarez that makes it fortunate that he’s with Pittsburgh this year and not Cleveland. Pedro Alvarez does not hit well against left-handed pitching. This is not a major revelation. I think most people reading FanGraphs know that Pedro struggles against lefties. In his career, Pedro has hit .193/.263/.315 against lefties, with a walk rate of 8.3% and strikeout rate of 36.7%. Yikes! His wRC+ against lefties in his career is 61. Against right-handed pitchers, Alvarez has hit .248/.321/.474, with an improved walk rate of 9.5%, a much improved strikeout rate of 26.9%, and a 118 wRC+. For reference, based on his career wRC+, Alvarez hits like the 2015 version of Starling Marte (.256/.317/.473 this year) against right-handed pitchers and like the 2015 version of Lonnie Chisenhall (.209/.241/.345 this year) against lefties. Chisenhall was just sent to the minor leagues. Pedro Alvarez, like former Pirate Andy Van Slyke before him, is fortunate that he lives in a predominantly right-handed world.

Adding to the good fortune for Alvarez this season is the limited number of left-handed pitchers the Pirates have faced. The average team in the Major Leagues has had 24.8% of their plate appearances against southpaws. The Pirates have had the lowest percentage of plate appearances against lefties, just 17.5%. That’s more than one standard deviation below the average. The Cleveland Indians are on the opposite side of the coin, having had 38.0% of their plate appearances against lefties, which is more than two standard deviations above the average. Consider the handedness of the starting rotations of the non-Pittsburgh and non-Cleveland teams in the AL Central and NL Central:

The non-Cleveland teams in the AL Central have 12 right-handed starters and eight left-handers (40% lefties) currently in their starting rotations. The non-Pittsburgh teams in the NL Central have 17 righties and just three lefties currently in their starting rotations (15% lefties).

I was curious how big a difference this would make for Pedro Alvarez, so I decided to look at it in two different ways.

For the first scenario, I took Pedro’s batting line against lefties (20 PA) and righties (173 PA) this year. I figured out what percentage of the team’s plate appearances against each type of pitcher Alvarez has had. I then applied those percentages to Alvarez if he were to play on a team that has seen the league average number of lefties and on the Indians, who have seen the most lefties this year. Here are the results:

Alvarez goes from a .244/.316/.453 hitter with the Pirates to a .220/.289/.403 hitter with the Indians. Not only would he be moving from one of the most livable cities in the U.S. to one of the most miserable, his production would take a big hit. He also loses some playing time because the Pirates have limited him against lefties and the Indians and the league-average team have faced fewer righties.

This leads me to the second scenario. The Pirates have rightly limited the number of plate appearances against lefties for Alvarez this year. Just 20 of his 193 plate appearances have been against southpaws. If Alvarez was transplanted to Cleveland, or to a league-average team, perhaps they would also keep Alvarez riding the pine when a lefty is on the mound. In this second scenario, I moved Alvarez to the Indians and to a league-average team and limited his plate appearances against left-handers to his actual number of 20.

If he were limited to 20 plate appearances against lefties, Alvarez would hit similarly well but would lose playing time. In the case of a hypothetical move to Cleveland, Alvarez would have 41 fewer plate appearances, the equivalent of around 11 games based on his current 3.6 plate appearances per game played.

Pedro Alvarez, you are a fortunate man. Not only do you live in a world with many more right-handed pitchers than lefties, but you also play for a team that has seen more right-handers than any other team in baseball. Now go enjoy the spectacular view of Pittsburgh while riding on the Duquesne Incline, then get a Primanti Brothers sandwich and head over to Point State Park near the “Golden Triangle” and enjoy one of the country’s largest fountains on a beautiful Pittsburgh day.

(I feel like I should maybe apologize to any Clevelanders who might be reading this, but I don’t know if they have Internet in Cleveland yet, so it’s probably not necessary.)