Dunlap: Pedro Alvarez Is The Ultimate Mystery
No one wanted it to happen like this.
No one wanted Pedro Alvarez to throw his way from third base to trying to play first base.
No one wanted Pedro Alvarez to not perform up to the level at which we all thought he would.
No one wanted Pedro Alvarez cast aside, unceremoniously yet probably necessarily, in the middle of a cold winter night by the organization with which he was supposed to wind up being one of the most prodigious sluggers in their grand history.
But on the way to being a great Pittsburgh Pirate, it all fell apart for some reason.
It just did.
You scratching your head too?
It's inexplicable to some degree; unable to rationalize and, for some mysterious reason, it just never fully clicked for him here in Pittsburgh. That's probably the best way to put it: it just never fully clicked for Pedro Alvarez here in Pittsburgh.
And as Wednesday turned to Thursday, the tenure of Pedro Alvarez with the Pirates quietly ended with a press release.
He was not tendered a contract heading into his final year of arbitration.
He finished with exactly 2,500 at-bats, a .236 batting average, 131 home runs, 809 strikeouts, no real defensive position where he looked comfortable and an infinite amount of questions left unanswered.
Some of those questions...
Why did it go wrong?
Why didn't he live up to his enormous potential and matching signing bonus?
Why, all of a sudden, did he get the yips at third base and his throws begin to sail wildly?
Why, when he moved to first base, did he all abruptly struggle with catching the baseball, which hadn't been a problem in his past?
What is he like off the field?
Why does he tuck his ears into his baseball cap?
Why is he so inward, private and withdrawn?
Does his quiet demeanor mean that he doesn't have the drive to fully succeed?
Was Pittsburgh just not the right fit?
And, lastly, will he succeed somewhere else now that his Pirates days are behind him?
Perhaps that's the most commanding question, that last one -- what will become of Pedro Alvarez in his post-Pirates career. He is, after all, just a man of 28. He is also a man who once blasted 36 home runs and drove in 100 in a season while displaying that resplendent power where the ball comes off his bat with a sound as if it were shot from a cannon.
Certainly, some American League team will take a chance on Alvarez, plugging him into their lineup and hoping he can mash the baseball out of the yard -- even as they live with the strikeouts -- with decent regularity.
To me, this would be worth the gamble, worth a shot that Pittsburgh just wasn't the right fit for him for some reason.
The Pirates have moved on from Pedro Alvarez, but even long after he's gone, there's no question he'll remain one of the biggest mysteries this organization has had in quite some time.
Certainly no one wanted it to end like this, but it did -- and in a way you don't know whether to be happy for Alvarez's new beginning or sad that he never fulfilled his potential here.
Again, such a mystery.
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
