Welcome to Rumbunter’s 12 Days of Trademas! On each day between now and the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, we will profile a player or two who may be a potential trade target for the Pittsburgh Pirates. We will highlight both the cases for and against that player in order to give you the full scope of what acquiring that player might entail.

The first player we are highlighting in our ’12 Days of Trademas’ series is Ben Zobrist of the Oakland Athletics. Zobrist came to prominence as a member of the Tampa Bay Rays. During his nine years with the club, he took on a variety of roles all over the diamond, much like the Pirates’ own Josh Harrison. Perhaps that doesn’t do it justice, as Zobrist has played every single position on the diamond save for catcher in his career. Over this past offseason, he was traded to the Athletics as the Rays started into rebuilding mode.

Now would be a good time for us to take a look at Zobrist’s career stats.

Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 2006 25 TBD AL 52 198 183 10 41 6 2 2 18 2 3 10 26 .224 .260 .311 .572 2007 26 TBD AL 31 105 97 8 15 2 0 1 9 2 0 3 21 .155 .184 .206 .391 2008 27 TBR AL 62 227 198 32 50 10 2 12 30 3 0 25 37 .253 .339 .505 .844 2009 ★ 28 TBR AL 152 599 501 91 149 28 7 27 91 17 6 91 104 .297 .405 .543 .948 2010 29 TBR AL 151 655 541 77 129 28 2 10 75 24 3 92 107 .238 .346 .353 .699 2011 30 TBR AL 156 674 588 99 158 46 6 20 91 19 6 77 128 .269 .353 .469 .822 2012 31 TBR AL 157 668 560 88 151 39 7 20 74 14 9 97 103 .270 .377 .471 .848 2013 ★ 32 TBR AL 157 698 612 77 168 36 3 12 71 11 3 72 91 .275 .354 .402 .756 2014 33 TBR AL 146 654 570 83 155 34 3 10 52 10 5 75 84 .272 .354 .395 .749 2015 34 OAK AL 60 242 209 35 54 17 1 5 31 1 0 30 22 .258 .347 .421 .768 TBR (9 yrs) 1064 4478 3850 565 1016 229 32 114 511 102 35 542 701 .264 .354 .429 .783 OAK (1 yr) 60 242 209 35 54 17 1 5 31 1 0 30 22 .258 .347 .421 .768 View Original Table

Generated 7/19/2015. Provided by Baseball-Reference.com Generated 7/19/2015.

Now that we’ve re-familiarized ourselves with his work, let’s see if Zobrist is a true fit for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The case for Zobrist More from Rum Bunter Pittsburgh Pirates News: A Top Outfield Prospect Recalled From Altoona

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Pittsburgh Pirates News: Team Re-Claims Carson Fulmer Off Waivers (again)

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Positional flexibility. That is the name of the game in the Neal Huntington era. From Harrison to Sean Rodriguez to Travis Ishikawa, Huntington has shown time and again to greatly value a player who can play more than one position. Zobrist has that in spades as we mentioned above. This year, Zobrist has plied his trade at second base and the corner outfield spots. That sounds tailor-made for the Pittsburgh Pirates, with the looming Jordy Mercer injury news clouding the infield picture.

At the plate, Zobrist is a switch-hitter who does great work against left-handers. His career split of .285/.364/.443 is impressive, buoyed by a fantastic 18.3% strikeout rate. For their part, the current Pittsburgh Pirates have a pretty close split when it comes to left-handed versus right-handed starters, but the key differentiation is in the strikeout percentage. Pirates hitters are striking out against southpaws 25.7% of the time as opposed to 22.4% against against RHP. Zobrist would be a great band aid in this regard and gives Clint Hurdle great lineup flexibility with two switch-hitters in play.

The case against Zobrist.

While there is no one obvious red flag working against Zobrist being a fit in Pittsburgh, there are a few caution flags to note, if you will. First, Zobrist suffered a mild MCL injury earlier that caused him to miss a month. One wonders if his knee can hold out the rest of the way. (Zobrist has not missed any additional games due to the knee injury since being reinstated on May 25th.) Zobrist has also seen his power and RBI numbers drop steadily over the past few years. The last piece of caution surrounding Zobrist is more of a philosophical one. Zobrist screams ‘rental’ with his impending free-agency coming after the 2015 season concludes. While the Pirates brass has not shown any trepidation towards rentals in the past, it’s curious to speculate if their thinking is swinging the other way. Being in on David Price in 2014 while he still had a year of control left may indicate that Huntington and staff wouldn’t shy away from a bigger commitment.

We would be remiss if we didn’t highlight the fact that Billy Beane is the GM of the Athletics. Widely regarded as one of the top general managers in baseball for more than a decade, one can reasonably assume from his track record that any prospects or major-league talent Beane may ask for will have great value. Thus it may make everyone involved think twice about any deal struck with the Athletics.

Conclusion

I loathe the term “window” in sports. For me, the implication is that teams only have a certain amount of time to compete for a championship before it’s time to break it down and rebuild. Yet, something feels special about this 2015 Pittsburgh Pirates team, and it would be a shame to see it fall short due to an overzealous need to hold onto prospects. With his multi-positional flexibility and excellent split against left-handed pitching, I think that Ben Zobrist would be an amazing addition to this team.

What do you think? Let us know on twitter! You can tweet us here or use the #12daysoftrademas hashtag! You can also air your grievances in the comments or on our facebook page.