5-17-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
The clock is quickly running out for Rowdy Tellez, whose early season remarks endeared him to some fans while ruffling the feathers of others. Unfortunately for him, things have gone about as badly as they could since then.
After posting a respectable .273/.385/.364 slash through the team’s first 12 games, Tellez has posted an abysmal .133/.185/.173 over 81 plate appearances since – with zero home runs in that span. He has seen his playing time decrease accordingly, relegated to the bench to provide more playing opportunities for Connor Joe – whose hot start has him tops in most offensive statistical categories for the Pirates.
So the question remains: What went wrong?
There must be some reason why the big power threat who clubbed 35 long balls in 2022 and 10 by this point last year has just a single one over his 41 games in black and gold.
For starters, even though he has been hitting the ball fairly hard (43.8% Hard Hit rate and Average Exit Velocity of 89.5 MPH), he only has 3 barrels in 80 batted ball events. A big reason for this comes down to launch angle.
Rowdy has been struggling to get behind the ball effectively. His infield fly ball rate (15.2%) is almost as high as his line drive one (17.5%). Additionally, he’s putting the ball on the ground 41% of the time – not a great number for the, uhhh…whatever the opposite of “speedster” is.
He’s been working on extra reps pre-game during the Brewers series, while taking a few extra seats in favor of Joe. In case you think the Pirates brass isn’t seeing what we’re all seeing, they get it too.
They are also not happy that he isn’t producing.
However, they also recognize that the potential is there to breakout and, if they can get that power bat unlocked and into the lineup, that would be a MAJOR weapon for this team – which has sorely needed from that first base position.
The team hasn’t had a 1B provide 3+ bWAR in 25 years, with the last one being from Kevin Young in 1999. Josh Bell came closest with 2.8 bWAR in his All Star 2019 year and now, with this extra playing time, Connor Joe already has 0.6 bWAR/1.0 fWAR on the year in only 146 plate appearances. He’s posted a .856 OPS and 146 OPS+ while providing plus defense at first base – some clearly strong numbers which the club has been lacking from the position.
The fans are calling for it and, soon enough, they likely will get their wish. The front office is going to give this experiment exactly as much run as it needs to confirm that it’s not working. And we’re getting very, VERY close to the end of days for Rowdy’s time in Pittsburgh.
Steel City Pirates 
I guess Rowdy will have to pay the piper soon enough
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