Alex Presley Will Help the Pittsburgh Pirates' Offense

On June 6, the Pirates somehow sit one game over .500 and three games out of first place in the NL Central despite sporting an offense that has been by far the league's worst during the first third of the season. Supporters have understandably called for external help, noting that even the addition of "AAAA" sluggers like Clint Robinson could boost the team's production.

But the Pirates don't necessarily need power. In fact, according to FanGraphs, hitting for power is the one thing the Bucs are doing reasonably well, and they have one such AAAA solution currently on their roster. He won't come close to solving their problems on his own, and the Pirates would be wise to continue pursuing offensive upgrades, but recently recalled outfielder Alex Presley can help the Pittsburgh offense on its path to respectability.

Presley was a revelation for the Pirates in 2011, posting an .804 OPS in 231 plate appearances after tearing up Triple-A for the first half of the year. His slow start to 2012, culminating in his getting sent down to the minors to refine his approach, was driven by walk (3.1 percent versus 5.5-8.0 percent) and strikeout (23.8 percent versus 15-20 percent) rates that were materially worse than his career performance. There is every reason to expect that Presley will perform significantly better over the rest of 2012 than he had prior to his demotion.

A performance around league average is all the Pirates should really expect from Presley, but a 290/330/440 (Presley doesn't hit many home runs, but he will leg-out his fair share of doubles and triples) line for the rest of the season is nothing to sneeze at. This is certainly better than the expected production from current everyday starters Garrett Jones and Matt Hague.

The Pirates have a long way to go offensively, and they would do well to scour the market for all possible improvements, however minor. Adding a solid table-setter in front of Andrew McCutchen in Alex Presley isn't a bad place to start.