Pedro Alvarez is bad at baseball right now, is it time to drop him?

When thinking of a Pedro Alvarez headline, there are many different ways to go. That is why it is so important to make sure that you are: Original, funny, and informative about the topic located within the article.

Bad headline: Vote for Pedro!

It's unoriginal-ness makes it unfunny. It is also not informative. It is also giving you the wrong idea, because Pedro Alvarez is not deserving of your vote. Let's stick with the first name though.

Pedro Fart-inez!

This is referring to the fact that there was another Pedro named Pedro Martinez, but Alvarez is like a farty version of the great pitcher. This is funny if your reader knows that you are intentionally going for the lowest common denominator humor, therefore making it highbrow humor. "You don't get it. It's over your head." sort of like Tim & Eric.

Pedro Blow-mez

Same deal here, except we are talking about Pedro Gomez, ESPN.

But neither of those headlines tell you what player you are even talking about. In actuality, the articles would have to contain some mention of those people and they won't because your article is about how Pedro Alvarez is having a terrible season at the plate and whether or not he is worth waiting for in fantasy leagues. Alvarez recently had a game where he got a hit and did not strikeout... That's news! Really, for him, it is big news!

As of today, Alvarez is sitting on a .073/.174/.073 batting line with three hits, one RBI, and 16 strikeouts in 41 at-bats. Pirates relief pitcher Jeanmar Gomez has only two fewer hits than Alvarez, who was once considered one of the best hitting prospects in baseball. Who was once the second overall pick that would not need much time in that minors and subsequently tore up those assignments. Hell, who hit 30 home runs just last season.

I personally have the pleasure of having Alvarez on my bench in my one keeper league. Since I also have David Wright, Alvarez may sit on the bench for as long as he likes, but after preaching PATIENCE two weeks ago on faketeams, I have to wonder how much I should listen to my own sermon. Is there anything left to save with Alvarez?

Now we know the meat of the article: Is it now okay to drop Pedro Alvarez?

Pirates, Do We Care-ibbean?

Alvarez Stuck In the Pits-burgh

Pedr-Oh No! Time To Drop Struggling Hitter?

Michael Barr of Rotographs wrote about Alvarez today and noted that his swinging strike rate and contact rates were alarming;

He’s swinging at more outside the zone, making contact on less than half of those swings and when the ball is in the zone he’s making awful contact at 65%. His overall K rate isn’t anything we should be surprised about with Alvarez, but that damn near 20% swinging strike rate is the worst in baseball.

Alvarez is still on my bench and his Yahoo! owned% has quickly fallen to right around 50%. This seems to be one of those cases where you are letting go of a player at possibly the very worst time. He was drafted with much regularity and yet after less than 50 plate appearances people are jumping ship. And Alvarez is only one of a few hitters in Pittsburgh that can't seem to hit anything.

Russell Martin is hitting .086. Gaby Sanchez is hitting .136. Clint Barmes is hitting .121. Jose Tabata is hitting .222. And Neil Walker has only recently raised his batting average to .234. As a team, the Pirates have hit only seven home runs, and two of those come from backup catcher Michael McKenry. But does any of that mean you shouldn't just get rid of Alvarez now and lose all hope? Not really.

It was only two seasons ago that Alvarez hit .191 over 74 games with the Pirates and spent time in the minors again, and it was only last year that he hit .244 and struck out 180 times. Alvarez is still mostly a name-recognition prospect that has hit .231 in 1,280 major league plate appearances. There does not seem to be a feasible way that Alvarez is this bad, but it does seem plausible that he is fairly bad.

I think it's safe to drop him, and then watch him go off for someone else over the final 100 games.

So what is the most clever and informative way to put that in a headline? I've got it.

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