Aramis Ramirez, Historically

As I noted yesterday, the new/old Pirates third baseman, Aramis Ramirez, is returning to the club for which he started his career in 1998. He was traded to the Cubs in 2003. Pittsburgh Tribune editor Joe Rutter, who was the paper's beat writer in 2003, remembers his departure in a column today: 

I can still vividly remember Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton hugging and laughing after learning they had been traded to the Chicago Cubs. The announcement came moments after the Pirates were beaten 2-0 by the Houston Astros at PNC Park. And while the rest of their teammates looked on in stunned silence, Ramirez and Lofton acted like they had just won the lottery. Which, in a way, they had. They were leaving a team that was 9.5 games out of first place and en route to an 11th consecutive losing season for a team that, although sitting in third place and 5.5 games out, was intent on making a run for the playoffs. And the Cubs did, winning the division on the final weekend of the regular season (against — who else — the Pirates) and reaching the NLCS before the infamous Game 6, Steve Bartman-fueled collapse.

So Ramirez (and center fielder Kenny Lofton, whom the Pirates had signed as a 36-year-old free agent for $1.025 million before the 2003 season) left what was arguably the worst franchise in baseball for arguably the most snakebit one. Lofton played only 56 games in Chicago before departing as a free agent to the Yankees over the winter, but Ramirez was the Cubs' third baseman from the time of the trade through 2011, hitting 239 home runs as a Cub, sixth on the club's all-time list. In return, the Pirates got pitcher Matt Bruback, who never made it out of the minors, utility player Jose Hernandez, who batted .223 as Ramriez's replacement and was released, and second/third baseman Bobby Hill, who batted .267 with an okay .352 on base percentage but no power in 185 games in Pittsburgh. So, yeah, it was a terrible trade, driven by economics (the arbitration-eligible Ramirez's salary went from $3 million in 2003 to $6 million in 2004).

Pittsburgh's PNC Park opened in 2001, which was the 23 year old Ramirez's first season has a full-time regular. Though the ballpark was his home field for only two and a half seasons, he's seventh on the all time home run list for PNC Park:

Rk	Player	G	HR	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
1	Andrew McCutchen	487	68	2064	1770	314	555	127	17	267	78	25	246	305	.314	.403	.520	.922
2	Jason Bay	370	61	1550	1314	222	372	78	12	241	30	2	203	327	.283	.381	.500	.881
3	Pedro Alvarez	337	56	1264	1140	139	267	51	4	185	6	3	109	323	.234	.302	.433	.736
4	Garrett Jones	338	51	1185	1059	137	261	64	5	175	8	2	105	225	.246	.313	.461	.773
5	Craig Wilson	316	47	1046	897	144	239	48	9	133	7	3	90	284	.266	.365	.497	.862
6	Brian Giles	223	45	953	779	153	252	69	7	143	16	12	160	96	.323	.440	.603	1.043
7	Aramis Ramirez	282	45	1168	1059	136	279	58	0	181	3	1	79	154	.263	.321	.446	.767
8	Ryan Doumit	320	41	1133	1019	127	291	69	2	156	5	4	82	173	.286	.350	.478	.828
9	Neil Walker	391	37	1595	1425	201	398	80	7	185	12	7	128	276	.279	.345	.423	.768
10	Adam LaRoche	213	36	864	769	119	231	69	3	125	4	2	85	168	.300	.368	.538	.906

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Generated 7/24/2015.

Some footnotes:

• Ramirez hit 29 of his homers at PNC as a Pirate, 11 as a Cub, and 5 as a Brewer. LaRoche hit three as a National and two as a Brave; Giles hit two as a Padre. They are the only hitters in the top 10 who didn't hit all their PNC Park homers as a Pirate. 
• Are Ramirez's 16 homers as a visitor the most in PNC Park history? Not even close: Albert Pujols had 29. His lifetime splits in Pittsburgh: 89 games, 354 at bats, 32 doubles, 29 homers, .376 batting average, .452 on base percentage, .718 slugging percentage.
• Ramirez also ranks 12th in PNC Park games played, ninth in at bats, 13th in runs scored, eighth in hits, 11th in doubles, and sixth in RBI. This, for a guy who called the park home only two and a half seasons. It says something about both his excellence and the, let's say, fluidity of the Pirates' roster over the past 15 years.
• McCutchen's in only his seventh season, but he's already No. 1 all time at runs, doubles, triples, home runs, RBI, stolen bases, caught stealing, walks, and total bases at PNC Park.

Does Johnny Cueto Have the Pirates' Number?

It was, to date, the pinnacle of the Pirates' renaissance. October 1, 2013. National League Wild Card game. The Pirates' first postseason game since 1992, and the first ever at PNC Park. A raucous sellout blackout crowd. (Note to people outside of Pittsburgh: "Blackout" refers to everyone in the stands wearing black. It doesn't have anything to do with a power outage. That, unfortunately, happened to the Pirates' lineup, save Pedro Alvarez, in the Divisional Series against St. Louis.) The Bucs' Francisco Liriano vs. the Reds' Johnny Cueto. And it wasn't close. Marlon Byrd and Russell Martin hit home runs in the second inning. Cueto allowed nine baserunners and four runs before getting pulled in the fourth inning, chants of "CUE-TO" ringing throughout the ballpark. Liriano cruised and the Pirates were 6-2 victors. It was not only an embarrassing defeat for Cueto, who at one point dropped the ball while standing on the mound, it was also the last game for Reds manager Dusty Baker.

Since then, Cueto's faced the Pirates seven times, including yesterday's season opener. The results are pretty overwhelming: 1.53 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, five wins for Cueto, seven wins for Cincinnati. His two no-decisions were both games in which he left positioned to get the win (yesterday, leading 2-0 after seven; and last June 17, leading 3-2 after six) only to watch the Reds bullpen blow his lead in a game the Reds ultimately won. Has Cueto become the Pirates' kryptonite?

I don't think so, for two reasons. First, the Johnny Cueto the Pirates faced in the 2013 wild card game wasn't the typical Cueto. He started only eleven games all season that year in between two stints on the disabled list due to a strained lat muscle. Prior to the wild card game, Cueto had started only two games since the end of June, on September 16 and 23. He was still rusty, and it showed. By contrast, he's been healthy since, leading the league in innings pitched and batters faced.

Second, the Cueto the Pirates have faced since October 2013 is basically the same Cueto the rest of the league has faced. Look at this table:

ROW = Rest of world, i.e. everybody other than Pittsburgh.

Other than ERA, there's not a lot of difference, is there? He's allowed fewer walks against the Bucs, but also gotten fewer strikeouts. Otherwise, everything looks pretty much in line, except ERA. So what's going on with runs?

Well, here's another comparison:

RISP = Runners in scoring position

That pretty much tells the story. The Pirates' raw statistics--hits, walks, home runs, strikeouts--are similar to Cueto's other opponents. Their overall batting average is the same as the other hitters Cueto faces. But once they get players on base, the Bucs have been unable to bring them around to score. They're 2-for-27--two for twenty-seven!--with runners on second and/or third (with a bases-loaded walk and a run-scoring ground out added in).

Nobody hits well against Cueto, who was the runner-up to Clayton Kershaw for the Cy Young Award last year. The Pirates, overall, hit on a par with Cueto's other opponents. Once they get runners in scoring position, though, their bats turn to ice. That's why Cueto's dominated them.

The silver lining is that batting with runners in scoring position, or the lack thereof, isn't a particularly replicable skill. In 2013, the St. Louis Cardinals famously led the league in batting with RISP, at .330. The Pirates were second-to-last, at .229. But last year, the two were neck-and-neck, as the Cardinals tumbled to sixth, at .254, and the Bucs rose to seventh, at .249. That sort of variation suggests that batting with runners in scoring position includes a fair amount of luck. So while it's never easy to score against Johnny Cueto, it doesn't need to be as hard as it's been for Pittsburgh over their last seven games against the Reds hurler. It's reasonable to expect improvement in 2015.