Pirates Need to Pull the Plug on Rowdy Tellez Experiment
p/c: Icon Sportswire
Last week, I did an article regarding Ben Cherington and his lackluster free agent signings from this past offseason. One player who has been the biggest microcosm of that is Rowdy Tellez.
Signed to a one-year deal for $3.2 million, on December 15th, Tellez was brought in to be the Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman entering 2024 - at least paired in a possible platoon with Connor Joe.
On Easter Sunday against the Miami Marlins, the Pirates received a key hit from Tellez, which was a go-ahead, 3-run homer in the seventh. Pittsburgh would win the game 9-7 in 10 innings.
The early going of 2024 has been a struggle for David Bednar. So much so that on April 9th, he was booed by the PNC Park faithful, following a third blown save and a loss. After the game, Tellez offered his support to Bednar by telling Pirates fans that David is a Pittsburgh guy, and that “we don’t do that here.”
The comments were mostly met with criticism among media and fans, for someone having to answer to Bednar’s ineffectiveness, even if the intentions were good.
Whether those comments were deemed appropriate or not, it doesn’t matter, as Tellez is performing very poor offensively. Among MLB first basemen, with a minimum of 125 plate appearances, Tellez has the lowest OPS (.483) and wRC+ (41). To put his 41 wRC+ into perspective, Josh VanMeter, who most deemed as one of the worst Pirates players in recent memory, had a 57 mark during the 2022 season.
For his big league career, Tellez owns a slugging percentage of .476. That figure is a mind-boggling, .233 with Pittsburgh - again the worst among first basemen. In the more traditional sense, Tellez has gone 40 consecutive games without a home run, has just three doubles, and has only driven in eight runs.
In addition to the lousy, offense, the defense at first base with Tellez has been a downgrade for the Pirates, this after witnessing Carlos Santana play the position at a Gold Glove level last year.
Whatever the reason is, manager Derek Shelton seems reluctant to play Connor Joe at first base on a regular basis. Either that, or management wants to keep justifying what’s become a bad signing in Tellez.
Internally, the Pirates have a few options they could potentially turn to down in AAA. Jake Lamb is tearing the cover off the baseball, for the Indianapolis Indians, as he’s currently tied for fifth in hitting in the International League, with a .342 average. Two other options getting time at first base are Matt Gorski and Malcom Nuñez. Gorski has been red hot at the plate recently, posting an OPS of 1.099 over his last 10 games. As for Nuñez, he’s been okay for the Indians, with a .722 OPS.
While I’m not suggesting that any of those names I listed are long-term answers at first base with the Pirates, the bottom line is that it wouldn’t take much for any of them to be an upgrade over Tellez at this point.
There’s no doubt Ben Cherington was banking on Tellez to perform at the level he did two years ago with the Milwaukee Brewers, when he blasted a career-high 35 homers. For Cherington, the $3.2 million dollar gamble has been a disaster, and it’s time for the Pirates to wash their hands of that mistake, and at least attempt to reasonably address first base, while the team is still hovering around .500.