Ranking the Top Five Pirates Third Baseman Since 2000
The third base position is one of the most important positions on a field for a baseball team. It is a position that is usually associated with power-hitters, but they also have to have a good glove to man the hot corner and not be a defensive liability. A lot of the guys who have played the position over the years have lacked the fielding prowess that they needed, but have more than made up for it in terms of power. It has been a carousel of a position for the Pirates, with several men handling the position, but they have also had some great players hold down the position. Most of them have been featured in the middle of the Pirates lineup and improved their defense during the year.
Now, Buccos Cove is revealing their Saturday Morning Rankings as we look at the top five third baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates since the 2000 season. For this list, offensive stats will all be taken into consideration no matter what position they played at the time. However, on the defensive side, we will just focus on their stats at the hot corner. Now, without further ado, here is the Buccos Cove Top Five Third Baseman since the 2000 season.
#5 Bobby Hill: .267, 2 HR, 38 RBI
For utility player Bobby Hill, defense was the name of the game as he worked his way onto the lineup through his work on the field. He bounced around between second base and third base, but the hot corner is where he ended up having his most success. In two seasons worth of games, he committed just two errors in just over 400 innings of work at the position and never had a fielding percentage lower than .970 in either of those seasons. Once he worked his way into the lineup, he held his own at the plate hitting .267 with two home runs and 38 RBI over 185 games played.
His best season both on offense and defense came in his first full season with the club during the 2004 season. He served as a utility player the entire season but was able to work his way into the lineup on a consistent basis mostly based on his defense. He would appear in 40 games at the position and committed just one error in 159.2 innings of work. He picked up 24 assists whole collecting 10 putouts thanks to his strong arm to get the ball across the diamond. As he got more playing time, his bat started to show its full potential. He would end up hitting .266 with two home runs and 27 RBI. He finished the year with 11 extra-base hits while reaching base at a .353 clip.
After the 2005 season, Hill would end up retiring from Major League baseball wrapping up four seasons in the Big Leagues where he was mostly a journeyman. He ended up playing for the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates during those four years and was never able to hold a starting job with any team he played for. He provided steady defense off the bench and knew how to play his role as defensive support. When he got into the lineup, he could hit enough to stay afloat, but it wasn't enough to keep him there. However, Hill played his role well in Pittsburgh and gave the Pirates young prospects time to develop.
#4 Colin Moran: .277, 24 HR, 138 RBI
Colin Moran didn't come to the Pirates in the best of ways in the eyes of many Pirates fans, and that put him in a tough position from the get-go. He was one of the top prospects brought back in the Gerrit Cole trade and was expected to be a powerhouse bat for the middle of the Pirates order. While he hasn't been the home run machine that the Pirates expected him to be, he has shown a strong ability to drive in runs hitting .277 with 24 home runs and 138 RBI in 293 games played. With Ke'Bryan Hayes still needing time to develop, Moran has been holding down third base and doing a decent job from the offensive side of the ball.
Out of his two seasons in a Pirates uniform, his best performance came last season as he grew into his full-time role at third base. He ended the year with the exact same .277 batting average that he had the year before, but set new career-highs in home runs (13) and RBI (80). He was a doubles machine throughout the season hitting 30 doubles and was one of just five Pirates players to reach that Mark last season. He also finished second on the team hitting .315 with runners in scoring position and his 80 RBI were third on the team. However, with his offense thriving, his defensive skills were spiraling in a different direction. He played 121 games at third base last season and saw his fielding percentage drop by more than 30 points, as he committed 14 errors in 882.1 innings of work.
If his defensive skills don't improve for the better, 2020 might be a completely different season for Moran. With Hayes now knocking at the door at the Major League level, Moran is going to have to be better defensively at the hot corner. Hayes is known for his defensive play and has a bat that is about on par with what Moran is producing. New manager Derek Shelton has had a lot of praise for Moran so far, so it is likely that he will be given a bulk of the opportunities at the position. It will be a make or break season for Moran in terms of his Pirates career, and he is looking to make an impact.
#3 Jose Bautista: .242, 43 HR, 159 RBI
Several years before he was the home run champion of the American League, third baseman Jose Bautista got his first true start in Major League Baseball with the Pittsburgh Pirates during the late 2000s. After bouncing around between three different teams during the 2004 season, he finally caught on as a regular in the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup. He spent parts of five seasons in a Pirates uniform and ended up hitting .242 with 43 home runs and 159 RBI. He showed some strokes of power during his Pirates career, eclipsing the 15 home run mark in two of those five seasons, but a spacious left field at PNC Park turned a lot of his deep fly balls into routine outs. He was never a sure-handed defender at the hot corner but had the bat to keep himself in the lineup.
Bautista's best offensive season in Pittsburgh came during the 2007 season when he managed to hit .254 with 15 home runs and 63 RBI. Strikeouts had been a problem for Bautista throughout his career, and that 2007 season was no exception as he went down 101 times in 532 at-bats. After having a breakout year in terms of power in 2006, he continued that string of success hitting 15 home runs during that 2007 season to go along with a total of 53 extra-base hits. He would lead the team in doubles that year with 36, using the big gaps at PNC Park effectively. However, his defense at the hot corner left little to be desired as his fielding percentage sat at just .956 that season.
He would end up being traded by Pittsburgh during the 2008 season in a deal that no one really thought anything of at the time. The Pirates received back-up catcher Robinzon Diaz while Bautista was sent off to Toronto. He would eventually become the face of the franchise and of Major League baseball when he would hit back-to-back 40 home run seasons. He went on to be a six-time all-star in Toronto whole appearing in several home run derbies. While he could never put up those type of numbers in Pittsburgh, he played solid baseball for the five seasons he was with the Black and Gold.
#2 Aramis Ramirez: .267, 76 HR, 318 RBI
Aramis Ramirez had two different stints in Pittsburgh during the 2000s with the runs coming at different points in his career. In the early 2000s, he was a rookie making a name for himself, while during the 2015 season he was at the tail end of his career, looking to ride off into the sunset. We did not count his two seasons before 2000 for this list, but in those other five years with the team, he managed to hit .267 with 76 home runs and 328 RBI. He was a pure run producer during his time in Pittsburgh, and utilize the big gaps at PNC Park to his full advantage.
His breakout season in Pittsburgh came in 2001 when he shocked the league hitting .300 with 34 home runs and 112 RBI. Ramirez had shown power potential throughout the Minor Leagues, but it hadn't clicked in his first three seasons in the Big Leagues. It was the first time in his Big League career that he even hit double-digit home runs and the first time in his pro baseball career that he eclipsed the 100 RBI mark. He became a fixture in the middle of the Pirates lineup and ended up being snubbed for a spot on the all-star team that season. Defensively, he still needed a lot of work at the position when he posted a .945 fielding percentage leading to him not getting the all-star nod.
The Pirates would end up trading Ramirez during the 2003 season in what many have called the worst trade in Pirates history. He went on to have a nine-year career with the Chicago Cubs, where he was named to the all-star team three times during that stint. He added three more years with the Milwaukee Brewers before coming back to the Pirates in 2015. He hit .245 with six home runs and 33 RBI and helped lead the Pirates to their third consecutive postseason appearance that year. The Pirates would be eliminated in the NL Wild Card game, and Ramirez decides to retire with the team that gave him his start. Ramirez was a great guy and a great player and one Pittsburgh will never forget.
#1 Pedro Alvarez: .236, 131 HR, 401 RBI
When Pedro Alvarez was taken with the number two overall pick in the 2008 draft, there was a lot of excitement surrounding the young third baseman. He had shown an ability to hit for power and was going to be the everyday third baseman of the future for the Pirates. While he had his ups and downs throughout his Pirates career, he did eventually reach that expectation. He spent parts of six seasons in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform and ended up hitting .236 with 131 home runs and 401 RBI. While his average is the lowest of anyone on this list, he succeeded at driving in runs at a consistent rate beating out every other third baseman in the 2000s.
His best season with Pittsburgh was the year he helped the team break the 21-year losing streak in 2013. He would take the reigns as the true clean-up hitter on that team leading the way with 36 home runs and 100 RBI. He even got the chance to participate in the home run Derby that season as he led the Pirates in home runs and was in the running to be the National League leader for most of the season. While he was toying with the short porch in right at PNC Park, he was also using the gaps at a high rate with 22 doubles throughout the course of the year. His fielding percentage was one of the best of his career at a dismal .941, and it prompted the eventual move to first base for the Big Bull.
After Alvarez left Pittsburgh following the 2015 season, his career quickly went down the toilet. He tried to catch on as the Designated Hitter with the Baltimore Orioles but failed to recapture the power numbers he saw in Pittsburgh. He only ever had one more twenty home run season after leaving the Pirates and was last seen in the Major Leagues in 2018 with the team. Alvarez is currently a Minor League Free Agent with the Miami Marlins as he tries to make his way back to professional baseball. He earned the number one spot on this list with his offense and will always be remembered as the Big Bull.
That concludes our list of the top five Pirates third baseman since the 2000 season. Do you agree with our list? Follow us on social media where you can debate with us and say who you would add, who you would replace, and who would stay the same. Be sure to follow us on Facebook at Buccos Cove, and check out our brand new Twitter page, @Buccos_Cove. Next week, we will continue our Saturday Morning Rankings as we move to the outfield and look at the top five Pirates left fielder since the 2000 season.
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