Friday Insider: Truth on Walker, Alvarez ¹¹⁶

Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker each has slugged a three-run home run for the Pirates this spring. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

SARASOTA, Fla. — Roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our teams …

•  Neil Walker and Pedro Alvarez make up the right side of the Pirates’ infield and, if both hit to their goals, they’ll also make up the heart of the order, along with Andrew McCutchen.

Seems like they’re pretty important pieces. And they are.

But for how long?

Each case is different, but here’s what they carry in common: Both can become free agents after the 2016 season, and management has yet to make a meaningful move to keep Walker beyond that, and there hasn’t been any move to keep Alvarez.

I’ve been talking with team officials all week on these topics, topped by a candid conversation with Frank Coonelly yesterday behind home plate at Ed Smith Stadium, and I’m comfortable with portraying the above situations as follows:

The Pirates are not writing off that Walker could be part of the long-term future.

I’d been unsure of this, to say the least, but not after a series of firm assurances to the contrary. Coonelly offered a flat, hard, “Not true,” when I suggested they might be phasing him out in favor of either newcomer Jung-Ho Kang or prospect Alen Hanson. Coonelly added, “We love Neil Walker, and we’d love nothing more than to have him around for years to come.”

Feel free to make up your own mind. I believe him.

And here’s why: Management has very little to gain by signing Walker now, two years out. So much can happen with Walker and around him that it’s senseless to limit their own flexibility. Arbitration alone guarantees that Walker will be paid in the $10 million range — he’s at $8 million this season — and the Pirates already offered, just two months ago, to buy out those two years and Walker’s first year of free agency, 2017. That was declined because Walker seeks a significantly longer term. In that context, the Pirates are deciding between paying Walker like a true franchise player or waiting.

They’re choosing the latter, plain and simple.

Not to sound ridiculous and compare Walker to Ben Roethlisberger, but the Steelers just did the same with their known franchise player in waiting until he had one season left on his contract, not two, before signing him to a new deal that’s almost 40 percent non-guaranteed money.

If the Rooneys could be careful with that extreme example, why not the Pirates with Walker?

This way, they buy time to see what they have in Kang, Hanson, even Jordy Mercer should Kang look like a better fit at short. The more time they have, the more informed their decision.

The decision on Alvarez is simpler, and it might not even be made by them.

If Alvarez returns to 2013 form or exceeds it, he’s a virtual lock to walk via free agency. Alvarez implicitly trusts his agent, Scott Boras, and Boras’ longstanding policy has been to advise his clients to use the open market to their advantage. If that happens and Alvarez is among the power-hitting elite, he’s gone.

If that rebound never comes, don’t expect the Pirates to make the first move. They need to see a lot more of Alvarez before they could be persuaded to pursue an extension, and I don’t get the feeling they’re even in that solar system at the moment.

• I’ve been privileged to hear Neal Huntington speak informally, for years now, about his passion for protecting youth baseball, whether it’s pitchers being told to throw too much or coaches teaching baserunners to make a farce of the game and get into every rundown possible.

The other morning at McKechnie Field, the GM kindly agreed to discuss this topic for our site, and I hope you’ll appreciate his remarkably organized, informed thoughts as much as I did:

To repeat from Huntington in the video, this is that site, a combined venture of Major League Baseball and USA Baseball, for parents and children to check out:

• A.J. Burnett hasn’t just blown through the saloon doors and reclaimed his team. If he was leader in 2013, he realizes that being gone for a full year requires caution upon one’s return.

“These guys, they’ve been through a lot without me,” he was telling me a couple days ago.

If anything — and others in the clubhouse corroborated this — it seems almost like Burnett is staying quiet, calm, going about his business and surveying the scene.

• Corey Hart has been an instant hit with his new mates, and not just because he bashed a solo bomb yesterday and is off to a .444 spring start or because he’s fully convinced the medical staff his surgically repaired knees are finally fine again.

As one player put it, “That dude, that’s a man’s man right there. We all know what he’s done in this league, and it’s really cool to have him here.”

Expect Alvarez and Hart to open the season in a straight platoon. Expect that to change based on performance in either direction.

• Don’t fret over Andrew McCutchen’s ‘lower-body injury,’ as the Pirates are hilariously describing it in hockey terms even as they continue to be super-specific about everyone else. Consider it to be nothing more than the first phase of ensuring that the MVP doesn’t wear down over the course of a long summer. And there will be more of it.

• Speaking of hilariously describing injuries in hockey terms, poor Sidney Crosby had to cope with the Penguins’ awkward declaration last weekend that he was a late scratch for the Boston matinee because ‘he wasn’t feeling well’ by basically repeating that phrase the next day.

Reporter: ‘So, Sid, what was wrong yesterday?’

Sid: ‘I … I just wasn’t feeling well.’

Reporter: ‘Injury or illness?’

Sid: ‘I wasn’t feeling well. I’m feeling better now.’

This will be next, mark my words: PITTSBURGH INJURIES: S. CROSBY (NOT FEELING WELL)

Mike Johnston’s Penguins lead the NHL in penalty minutes and misconducts. — GETTY

• The Penguins don’t think the refs are out to get them as much as they think that the refs don’t reward them for beating players one-on-one with their skill. That’s the No. 1 beef I hear in the room, and it hasn’t changed — not even now after the Wes McCauley or all the continuing fuss last night in the latest stinker in Dallas. Right or wrong, fair or not, they trace this back to Crosby swinging his stick in anger after disagreeing with the officiating in a mid-November game against the Rangers, and they feel it’s only snowballed since then, highlighted by a general disdain among all officials for Steve Downie.

But what’s also occurred in that span is … virtually nothing from Mike Johnston on this front.

The coach, by all accounts, has sensed how strongly his core players feel about this issue, and yet, per those same accounts, he’s loath to confront them directly on it. This is, of course, crazy. He’s also smart enough to grasp that the Penguins aren’t winning this duel now or anytime in the next millennium. They must concede, they must behave, and he knows it. But all he’s done to date is to repeatedly roll Downie under the bus, when Downie is only the most visible symptom.

If Johnston can’t or won’t tell the core, who will?

I’m going to repeat this, and I don’t care who it ticks off: This is all about discipline. That doesn’t necessarily mean discipline on the ice. It means the coach having control.

• Number of games and practices Chris Kunitz has missed over the team’s past 22 games while allegedly being affected by an iron deficiency: One practice, an optional.

Same as his goal total in that span.

Imagine a coach with any real resolve and/or authority not seeking alternatives at such a key position and such a key time.

• Management and coaches have been positively delighted by Ian Cole since his arrival. They feel he’s affirmed their feeling that he was buried within St. Louis’ extraordinary blue-line depth, playing a sound, smart style in his own zone while invariably skating out with his head up.

• The two most interesting items in Todd Haley’s fan-forum session with Steelers Nation Unite earlier this week were, in this order, that Martavis Bryant could overtake Markus Wheaton as No. 2 wide receiver and that Dri Archer could still get 5-6 touches a game.

And I rank them in that order because no one should ever doubt Haley’s passion for the NFL equivalent of small-ball. He loves his scatbacks, his screens, his short-yardage frivolity. And be very, very sure he loves Archer, even after a rookie season in which essentially zero progress was witnessed.

Of the Kent State product being buried by all of Le’Veon Bell’s activity, the OC said, “That put Dri in a bit of a difficult spot, being a rookie from a smaller school. When you get guys like that, sometimes the transition time is a little longer than we all would like, himself included.”

Two yards and a speck of dust. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

• Antwon Blake’s arrest last weekend for public intoxication was the result of his walking around outside bars visibly drunk, according to the police report in Oceanside, Calif. No other description of his actions was detailed, so it’s safe to assume that was it.

Not to make light of irresponsible drinking, especially where driving is involved, but if the Pittsburgh Police arrested everyone on the South Side guilty of public intoxication, the state would need to build a new full-scale jail within city limits every Saturday night.

Based on how similar — or worse — matters have been handled by the Steelers in the past, don’t expect the team to administer anything more than a smarten-up plea.

• So the Steelers are repeatedly inviting free-agent cornerbacks to the South Side while checking out draft-eligible edge rushers — Missouri’s Shane Ray and Kentucky’s Bud Dupree — and we’re still wondering how all this will play out?

James Harrison will be back, he’ll either babysit Jarvis Jones or push Arthur Moats, or both. And the other outside linebacker will be a pedigree draft pick who soaks and learns.

Andrew McCutchen and 7-year-old Owen Taylor take in batting practice Tuesday. — DEJAN KOVACEVIC

• Good dude: Alvarez.

No, I’m serious. I have doubts about his passion for baseball. I have ample awareness that he doesn’t like the media and that I’m no exception.

But that doesn’t change anything about the scene I witnessed Tuesday morning at McKechnie, where 7-year-old Owen Taylor was granted his Make-A-Wish dream by spending the day in full uniform with his hero, McCutchen: At one point during batting practice, Owen and Cutch were momentarily separated, and Owen spotted Cutch out in right field. Owen began heading that direction, then moved into fair territory behind the screen at first base.

Alvarez noticed this and sprinted — I mean sprinted — to shield Owen from any batting-practice balls, then proceeded to escort Owen step for step out to where Cutch was waiting.

Would anyone do it?

Yeah, probably.

Was I still moved by it?

Absolutely.