edit: Any players you want done just message me and I will look into them!

The Pirates are the only Pittsburgh team I don't hate with a passion. Mostly because for about 10 or so years they were the AAA affiliate for the Red Sox. Then finally in the late 2000's they started getting a team together and getting some real star power they had lacked since Jason Bay. Andrew McCutchen was one of those cornerstones. He's been a great hitter for years and hit over .300 from 2012 through 2014 narrowly missing it in 2015 as he hit .292 that year.

Yet here we are in 2017 where in 190 at bats, Cutch is hitting .203 or Adam Dunn in a White Sox jersey levels. He looks lost after his solid 2016 season, yet what changed? Why is Cutch suddenly just awful? We all know the Pirates will be dropping him after this season, if not trading him during the season, but what is going on with one of the most reliable OF's out there?

Early bird gets the worm

McCutchen is a notoriously early season stud hitting over .280 in the first half in every season except 2016. In 2016 he hit .247 which still isn't bad. Yet thus far in half the plate appearances of a usual first half, Cutch is batting a paltry .203 to date. One stat of note is during full counts, he has 10 walks compared to 11 strikeouts currently with a .138 batting average. He's only been under .230 with a full count in 2 other seasons (2011, 2013) and even in those seasons he took far more walks than strikeouts. If all continues as is, this would be the first season where he draws more strikeouts than walks during a full count.

Most of the worry lies in what COULD BE rather than what we are actually seeing. Simply put, Cutch is in a funk. He's facing almost the same percentages of pitches aside from an uptick in change-ups that could contribute some and 3% of pitches faced being knuckleballs, but that is such a specific pitch it isn't much to discuss. The knuckler is definitely not at the core of Cutch's issues. So what is?

Dat Ground Game

Cutch is hitting the most grounders of his career thus far (44.2%) and the fewest home runs per flyball (10.7%) since 2010. His medium hit percentage is dominating his soft and hard hitting percentages which seems to be leading to more grounders and pop flys. He isn't getting enough "umph" to drive home runs, but not enough "finesse" hits to squeak over 2B and SS into the shallow outfield for a base hit. His hard hit percentage has taken the biggest nose-dive (31.2%) and is nearing his worst career hard hit percentage from 2009 (30.5%). He just isn't driving hits into the stands right now. Worse yet, he is likely to surpass the amount of grounders into double plays. His highest was in 2013 at 8 GIDP and he sits at 7 right now in half the at-bats.

Single and not luvin' it

Cutch is hitting loads of singles compared to his total hits. Of his 35 hits he has 21 singles, 7 doubles, a triple and 6 total home runs. The singles aren't necessarily an issue, but he just isn't making that hard contact, as discussed earlier, enough to turn those singles into doubles or home runs. Mix that with all of the grounders into double plays and sitting at a 17/35 walk to strikeout ratio and it looks like he's in a season long funk thus far.

Yet if we take out the 6 home runs from his stats, he is left with only 14 runs and 14 RBIs. So in 29 total hits outside of home runs he is producing very little in the way of RBIs and runs. This isn't always his fault though as becoming a run relies on your teammates hitting behind you. RBI's also have something to do with Marte missing in my opinion as he is an offensive juggernaut. This funk seems more about his lack of getting on base and the talent around him rather than an actual issue with his plate vision, swing or any of that. He's actually making better Z-Contact right now (84.6%) than in the past 3 seasons (14: 84.0%, 15: 82.6%, 16: 83.8%). Hell, he is making better overall contact now (79.1%) than the past 3 seasons (14: 78.6%, 15: 75.9%, 16: 76.8%). All this while his Z-Swing percentage is down to the lowest (67.9%) since 2011. He's also being a slight bit more selective with his pitch choices as well since his swing percentage is also down and his swinging strikes percentage is the lowest (17: 9.1%) since 2013 (8.9%).

The Take Home

Andrew McCutchen needs to start making better hard contact and start swinging a bit more in general. His selectiveness on pitches is fine, but he is making poor hits. The amount of double plays is hurting him as runners are RBI chances and the GIDP ends a lot of offensive potential for Cutch, but the only thing really missing here is that hard hit percentage. He's making fine contact, facing verbatim pitch velocity across the board and is a shade below most of his averages aside from his batting average. The biggest issue is making that hard contact.

McCutchen looks like he will be ok, but in a low average way. He's turned it on in the 2nd half of all seasons except 2011. Cutch is only 6 home runs away from his 1st half average of 12 home runs compiled from all his previous seasons. The big worry is that hard hit contact, as ive stated a lot thus far, doesn't rear it's head. He needs to reach 16 or more doubles, 25 more runs and around 20 more RBIs to get to his averages. The key is the next two weeks. If Cutch can get his average up then the rest of the cards will fall into place. If he can just get on base then all will be well.

My Expectations

I think its going to be a down year for Cutch honestly. He is, at his peak now, a 70-80 runs and 70-80 RBI guy with around 20 or so homers a year. His average is probably somewhere around .260 which is respectable, but as an OF I don't see him returning to dominance again. He is likely to fall outside the top 20 OFs in fantasy. Khris Davis, JD Martinez, Billy Hamilton, Desmond, Benintendi, Duvall, Ozuna and David Peralta will all finish ahead of Cutch this year to me and that's just the guys that were below him last season. I would say to wait till he has a hot week or two then try to move him. He's a 3rd or 4th OF this year depending on your league settings and at best a low end 2nd OF for the foreseeable future.