Huntington notes: Alvarez, Melancon, Happ

Pirates GM Neal Huntington joined the KDKA-FM 93.7 the Fan morning show today and touched on most of the Pirates’ pertinent offseason topics.

You can find the audio of his appearance here. (As I’m posting this, I don’t believe it has been uploaded yet, but that’s where it’ll be, and I’ll check back and add the specific link once I find it.)

Some quick takeaways: The Pirates feel Tony Watson can close if they decide to trade Melancon in his final year of arbitration before he becomes a free agent. ... They are not committed to putting Pedro Alvarez back at first base, nor are they committed to starting Michael Morse. ... Tyler Glasnow and Josh Bell will start the season in Class AAA. ... Their decision on Neil Walker is not necessarily tied to how quickly Jung Ho Kang is able to return. 

Here is a transcript of the relevant portions of the interview:

Are the Pirates financially able to bring back Pedro Alvarez, Neil Walker and Mark Melancon?

We have the ability to bring all of those guys back if we decide that for 2016 and beyond that that’s our best club. The challenge becomes, how do we build around those guys and how do we supplement the rest of the club as we look to move forward.

What are the chances of Tyler Glasnow and Josh Bell joining the team out of spring training?

Our belief is the gap between triple-A and the major leagues continues to grow and has never been wider. In short stints, we saw some really good things from both of those guys in triple-A. Josh’s stint was longer. But we also saw reminders that they have extra work to and there’s refinement in their games. Josh, certainly, defensively, and in helping that power translate from pre-game to in-game. Glasnow, the consistency of the mechanics, which will lead to the consistency of the command and the development of a changeup, and the ability to throw the curveball for not only a put-away pitch but also a strike pitch so that he has more than one weapon when he’s equal or behind in the count at the major league level.

What’s the latest on Jung Ho Kang?

The latest update is he is doing everything in his power to get back as quickly as possible. The body needs time to heal, but this is a young man that’s hungry, that’s passionate, that’s bored, and wants to get back more active than his body’s allowing him to be right now. He is checking every box along the healing process. He’s begun early stages of partial weight-bearing. We look forward to the next step of full weight-bearing. We’re still a ways away from having a better feel for when he’ll be ready but at this point in time it’s gone as well as it could have hoped.

On Kang’s timetable as it relates to Walker…

They’re somewhat related but I think people have tied them more closely together than maybe we will tie them together. If we thought Kang would be back in August, it’s a completely different situation. With the fact that our hope is he’ll be back sometime early in the season, if not before, it’s not as interdependent as it may seem on the surface. We want to make sure we put as good a club on the field on opening day, and that we’re ready to get out and compete. We’ve not started well, and that’s one of the things we’ve talked about as a staff, is what can we do different, what can we adjust, to make sure we get off to better starts.

Is Pedro Alvarez your best first baseman moving forward?

It was certainly a harder transition than we anticipated it being, given that the year prior, the challenge at third was throwing. His feet and his hands worked as well as they’ve worked at any time he’s been a Pirate. We anticipated those feet and those hands would go to first base, and while it’s not an easy transition, we anticipated that like many he would go make the successful transition and it was much more challenging than we anticipated.

As we go forward, we’re still evaluating, will Pedro Alvarez be our best option at first base, given the dollars. And that’s the other part of all of these equations, as we did with [Joel] Hanrahan and as we’ve done with some other guys in the past. When you let a Russ Martin walk, it’s not just letting Russ Martin walk, it’s how do you back-fill and how do you reallocate those dollars. In Joel Hanrahan’s situation, it was trading Joel, but then reallocating those dollars onto the club.

Are you comfortable going into opening day with Michael Morse as the everyday first baseman?

We’re evaluating what is available on the trade market, what is available on the free-agent market, how do we best put this puzzle together. How does Pedro fit, how does Michael Morse fit, how do the total of nine arbitration-eligible guys whose salaries are increasing significantly, [Andrew] McCutchen, [Starling] Marte, those guys that are in guaranteed contracts, their salaries are increasing. How do we best fit? How do we put this puzzle together? There may be a scenario where Pedro and Mike Morse are at first base. There may be a scenario where we go get a left-handed complement to Mike Morse. There may be a scenario where we go with Mike Morse. There may be a scenario that we go get a regular first baseman and Mike Morse becomes a right-handed bat off the bench. It’s all part of the offseason process.

Did anybody not meet your expectations from last year?

I think the easy one is Pedro at first base. We anticipated some bounceback with the bat, obviously did a nice job with power. The first base was much more difficult than we anticipated.

(Huntington also mentioned the back end of the rotation, Charlie Morton and Jeff Locke.)

Are you optimistic about being able to re-sign J.A. Happ?

We would like to continue to have J.A. Happ be in a Pirates uniform. The work that he did, the man that he is, the upside that we still see despite a veteran pitcher. We would like to retain J.A. He has earned the ability to venture into free agency and listen to what the other clubs might have for him, and we’re doing the same thing. We’re walking down pathways with other pitchers that we feel are comparable, maybe a little better, maybe a little bit more of a reclamation project that will allow us to reallocate dollars elsewhere on the club. Our hope is to come to an agreement, but if he finds a better opportunity, we’ll do everything in our power to back-fill and move forward.

Do you have confidence that Tony Watson can close?

We do. And we do agree that the last three outs are different. We are not in the mindset of some in the game that anybody can close. We definitively do not believe that. At the same time, we’re fortunate in that we have a guy that we believe could step in, much like we believed Melancon could step in for [Jason] Grilli and Grilli could step in for Hanrahan.