The Pirates Are Betting On Francisco Cervelli, And On Keeping Him Healthy

Three weeks ago, the Pirates announced a three-year, $31 million extension with catcher Francisco Cervelli. The news qualified as a surprise for a few reasons. Most notably, Cervelli was months away from hitting the open market and being tagged as one of the top available backstops—meaning, in the simplest terms, he was gonna get paid. Add in how the Pirates, a self appointed "small-market team", are seldom the ones doing the paying, and you can understand why Cervelli signing an extension was regarded as a low-probability event.

But in retrospect, maybe it shouldn't have been. Maybe we should've recognized that Cervelli is the exact type of player who the Pirates might value more than anyone else.

Normally, this would mean the Pirates dig how Cervelli frames pitches; or how he excels at developing a good rapport with his staff; or even how he rarely swings at pitches outside the strike zone. Indeed Cervelli has all those desirable traits. Yet what theoretically makes Cervelli more appealing to the Pirates than any other team is something you wouldn't suspect: his past inconsistencies.

Prior to the November 2014 trade that sent him from the Yankees to the Pirates, Cervelli had earned a reputation for being undependable. Injuries and a suspension stemming from his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal had limited him to one professional season in which he'd recorded more than 400 plate appearances. Cervelli raced past that mark in 2015, finishing with more than 500 plate appearances and 130 games played. In 2016, he's appeared in 43 of Pittsburgh's 50 games―putting him in a group of 10 catchers who have caught the equivalent of a full season since the start of 2014, and on pace for another 130-plus game season.

What does that have to do with the Pirates valuing Cervelli more than other teams? Consider that Cervelli's transition into a workhorse just so happened to coincide with the Pirates becoming medical technology trailblazers. Obvious (and worrisome) ethical concerns aside, Pirates' players have bought what the team is selling―or offering, anyway. This includes gear like the Zephyr BioHarness 3, a contraption that looks like a mix between a bulletproof vest and a robotic parasite, and that collects vital data from its host, including heart rate and calories burned.

The Pirates' investment in those new technologies is part of their aggressive push to unlock one of baseball's mysteries: how to keep players healthy. "The Pirates definitely value their strength and training staff, or their 'performance team' as they describe them," Travis Sawchik, who reports on the team for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and penned the book on the Pirates, wrote in an email. "They believe they add value to the club."

Pittsburgh's assertion appears correct. If you look at the results since the 2014 season, when Ben Lindbergh detailed the Pirates' attempts to build Iron Man, then it appears the performance team is making headway.

The Pirates had the fewest days lost to the disabled list that season, according to Corey Dawkins' Baseballic injury database, and in 2015 excelled at keeping their best players on the field. Almost as important, the Pirates' core players have remained well. Here, from a team perspective, is the low-fat gravy: those core players are more than willing to credit their physical gains to the fancy equipment. Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole, the undisputed faces of the franchise, have each said as much publicly. The benefit to the Pirates is clear: if the best players on the team are all-in on this stuff, then how can a bench player or rookie resist the mechanical serpent?

Cervelli, predictably enough, is among the Pirates embracing the new-age gear. Perhaps that's part of the reason why the Pirates broached the idea of extending him back while working on a long-term contract with Gregory Polanco, who, as luck would have it, shares an agent with Cervelli: Rafael Nieves of Beverly Hills Sports Council. According to Nieves, the Pirates were the aggressor in the talks ("They wanted to keep him there," he said). Cervelli was interested in remaining because, per Nieves, he feels at home in Pittsburgh's clubhouse, where he's become a starting catcher and a noted leader on one of baseball's best teams.

All the feel-good stuff aside, what made the Pirates lock in Cervelli when they wouldn't do the same for his predecessor Russell Martin? The cost, of course. Martin had good years in Pittsburgh, and was everything you'd want in a starting backstop―including, as luck would have it, a public face for the Zephyr technology. But Martin had done well before ever arriving in Pittsburgh. Cervelli's track record was less impressive, and his expected payday suffered for it―to wit, he'll make roughly half what Martin will over the next three seasons.

The catch is that those blemishes, while reducing Cervelli's price into Pittsburgh's range, also make him a greater risk.

Forecasting health in the public domain falls somewhere between shooting blind and huckstering, but the usual rule of thumb is that past injuries are the best predictor of future injuries. That's problematic if you're a Pirates fan, since Cervelli's medical history includes at least three concussions, multiple broken bones (wrist, hand, and foot), and some hamstring trouble. Chalk up those scrapes and bruises to bad luck, or to the rent paid for catching―Sawchik noted that the Pirates were more willing to take the plunge because "Cervelli did not have a chronic injury while with the Yankees"―it doesn't matter, because the reality is both could come into play again.

That concern exists since backstops are exposed to danger more than any position other than pitcher. As such, it's not surprising that some studies have shown catchers age poorly. Maybe that's still true, maybe it's not―you don't have to run the numbers to realize there's downside in signing any 30-something-year-old catcher to a multi-year contract. As one baseball executive said on the subject, "Injury monitoring and prevention for catchers is very difficult, simply because chance plays a larger role in their getting injured."

So what are the Pirates―a franchise that until this season had never ranked outside the bottom-10 in payroll during the Cot's Contracts era (FYI: they're 19th)―doing by signing Cervelli? They're making three assumptions and/or bets. First, they know that Cervelli's contract isn't long or rich enough to sink them if it goes south. Second, they know that Cervelli is likely to make his best efforts to remain in top shape, thereby reducing the odds of a non-freak injury. Nieves, who also represents the indefatigable Salvador Perez, said Cervelli is the hardest worker he knows.

Last, and perhaps most importantly from the Pirates' perspective, they know they're good at keeping players on the field. Credit that to their training staff, their MI6-like gadgets, the winds of the universe, or some combination thereof, but it has been true. And if it remains true, the Pirates will have an exploitable competitive advantage―one that lends itself to getting the most of players who, like Cervelli during his final Yankees days, are overlooked due to their dints, and one that could make them an even more appealing free-agent destination.

Sure, most players will chase the highest offer, but in special circumstances, the Pirates might be able to sign an oft-injured player who wants to dip his heels in the healing waters of the Alleghany River so that he can land a bigger, better contract the next winter. To some players, this could serve as a legitimate tiebreaker. Don't believe it? Here's Nieves again: "It's a good selling point. Between that and Ray Searage, the Pirates are in a good spot."

But before the Pirates can benefit from their status as baseball's Dhanvantari, they'll need to prove that their stuff works on the tough cases. Consider Cervell a worthy patient zero.