Pedro Alvarez: What's Wrong with Pittsburgh Pirates Third Baseman?

The concern going into the season with Pirates third baseman Pedro Alvarez was his glove, not his bat.

While his glove has come around and performed decently well, his bat has been terrible.

He is batting an abysmal .183 with only four RBI.

Alvarez has the fourth-most strikeouts in Major League Baseball with 22. Contact has been an issue with Alvarez in his brief career. He struck out 119 times in 95 games last season. He collected 16 home runs a year ago but has zero this season.

Is it time to panic?

Panic, no—worry, yes.

He is in his first full season in the big leagues, so obviously there is room for improvement. He has had slow starts at pretty much every level of his baseball career.

Last season he joined the club on June 16th. He was batting .197 on July 9th. We saw him jump his average up to .259 after July 21st. We saw a slight spike in home run and RBI totals during that time.

His June batting average was .152, July was .255, August was .250 and September was .311.

Three reasons not to worry

1. Pedro is a slow starter.
2. He has shown he is capable of hitting MLB pitching.
3. When he is on his game, he has the potential to do major damage.

Three reasons to worry

1. Pedro isn’t even making contact, and when he does, it is soft.
2. His confidence seems to be a major problem.
3. We have seen high draft picks underperform before for this franchise.

He needs to be more aggressive at the plate by swinging at first-pitch strikes. Most of the time he is behind early, and then he swings at a ball in the dirt when he has two strikes. His approach is letting him down.

I am not to the point of worrying quite yet. Hopefully, Alvarez will warm up with the weather.