Thursday, July 17, 2008

A treatise on the Pittsburgh Pirates


The Pittsburgh Pirates have been rebuilding every year for as long as I can remember. As the second half gets underway, they are, surprise!, bad, again. They are six games under .500 without the slightest chance of making the playoffs let alone finishing the season with more wins than losses. It really is too bad at how incredibly inept Pirate management has been as this is a great baseball town. The fans have been anxiously waiting to see a competitive team at PNC Park for years now. There is no quick fix for this team, unfortunately, and the future looks very bleak.

This is a small market team - 27th in the league in payroll - and when small market teams are managed poorly and unable to cultivate minor league talent, the results are catastrophic. There is no quick fix for a small market team when they have had many consecutive years of prospect fails: Sean Burnett, John Van Benschoten, Bryan Bullington, and Paul Maholm were the Pirates' 1st round draft picks, all starting pitchers, from years 2000-2003. This represents just a glimpse of the grave problem the Pirates have had in developing talent within. Small market teams that are successful like the Twins, As, and now Rays, are competitive when they are able to bring up several of their prospects to the bigs at the same time. The Marlins come to mind executing this flawlessly with their last world series title. They won with basically lots of homegrown players who peaked at the same time. A small market team like the Pirates as currently situated, with such a thin minor league system, coupled with their weak major league roster, simply cannot compete anytime soon. They must extensively restock and replenish their system in hopes of having several prospects pan out, bring them up, and get some years of production while they are still under arbitration.

The only real bright spot in this organization is their young outfield core which will emerge, hopefully as soon as next year, in Pearce-McClouth-McCutchen. Catcher Ryan Doumit also figures into their plans for the future as he is putting together a monster, and relatively injury-free season. Outside of this, they are an absolute mess. After they blew up their roster in '07, they need to face the hard fact that they need to do it again. Their staff, which seemed on the cusp of breaking through after last season, has regressed horribly (like, really, really bad, and probably to the point of no return). The Pirates have just flat out not produced a top of the rotation pitcher out of their farm system in a really long time. Their starting pitching has been utterly horrible year in and year out, and if a cause of their laughing stock status must be pinpointed, this would be it.
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Hitting, what to do, we are bad, etc.

Before I get into the pitching I just want to address two things. 1: their infield is a fkn mockery joke are you serious and 2: if Bay AND (not OR) Nady are in Pirate uniforms after the trade deadline, it would be a serious blow for the future of this club.

Infield: Ok, Adam LaRoche is grossly overpaid for what he does, which is basically strike out, hit a couple solo dongs, and suck. Their middle infield rotation of Luis Rivas/Jack Wilson/Freddy Sanchez/Chris Gomez is ridiculously bad and none can hit; AAA pitching would probably own them and they all belong in AA, I have decided. Sanchez, one time NL batting champion, is batting .226 who in 358 abs has 18 (!!!!!!!) extra base hits, and they have been batting the guy 2nd in their lineup (!!!!!) virtually all season. Bautista is incapable of playing every day at the hot corner, he is just bad. What's worse, the Pirates have no real infield prospects who are close to being ready to contribute. The only infield position they have locked up for the future is 3b with 2008 2nd overall pick Pedro Alverez likely to be a big time player. There is no real solution for their infield. They will not go out and sign a bunch of guys, as they don't spend money, and they don't really have any strong internal solutions. We'll see what they get when (if, ugh) they deal Nady and Bay, as their infield is a glaring problem.

Outfield: Their current outfield of Nady-McClouth-Bay is outstanding and has been a solid, productive aspect of the team this year. But, as a team, they suck and are going nowhere. Nady and Bay are two of their top hitters, but are too old and do not in any way fit into the rebuilding plan the Pirates must once more/continue to undergo. This team absolutely must deal them both. Bay and Nady are in high demand as there are a plethora of teams in contention who could use either of their bats and the Pirates have GOT to deal them both. I cannot stress this enough, clearly. Unfortunately, these are probably the only two hitters (sans Doumit and McClouth - untouchables) who the Pirates would be able to get value (read: anything) for. Fortunately, the Bucs fired former GM Dave Littlefield, the same Littlefield who thought Matt Morris (horrible, not a league average pitcher, making a truckload of money, so many deficiencies I can go on forever) would save the Pirates in '07, has been axed. First year GM Neal Huntington, hopefully, will understand that the current roster construction is absolutely horrible, that their minor league system is thin, at best, and must be replenished. Reports out now have been saying Huntington is asking for a blue chip prospect for Bay and Nady, which he will not get, but at least he is actively shopping around. Hopefully, he will not remain stubborn at his unattainable asking price and take the best offer of minor league prospects for both these guys. Again, the Pirates already have their future corners in McCutchen and Pearce eagerly waiting a chance for regular at bats.

Pitching: 2008 Staff, what could have been and what sadly is

Coming into this season, the Pirates looked like a potential sleeper team. Their top four starters in Snell-Gorzy-Maholm-Duke were all very young, Snell the oldest at 25. All were with considerable upside as each have flashed a significant amount ability at one point or another in their careers. But, they have all (except for Maholm, kind of) have badly sucked this year. They are all still very young, so a correction is possible, but it is not prudent for the Pirates to wait and see if they are all able to turn it around. The staff, as currently constructed, is not reliable. It is similarly not one on which to build upon for the future. The Pirates need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Ian Snell: The Pirates were hoping to have Snell emerge as the staff ace this year following his breakout 2007 season. In just his second full season in the bigs, Snell put up a 3.76/1.33 last year with 177 Ks in 208 innings. Entering his third full season, where pitchers often break through to that next level, it has been a forgettable year for Snelly. He has completely lost touch of his pitches; his control has been a huge problem for him all year long. In 94 innings this year, he has allowed 55 walks to just 71 strikeouts while allowing 125 hits. His era is 5.92 and his whip is 1.91(!). He needs to be sent down to the minors so he can get his delivery worked out and get his head back on straight. This guy is a tough competitor, but very hard headed. He wants to compete and he wants to win, badly. He has great fire and a good makeup, I really like this guy. He is still just 25, and his stuff is electric, but he can just as easily continue this downward spiral as he can realign his mechanics and continue pitching as he did last year. It looks to me, now, that he will not materialize as a staff anchor. But he can be a capable #2 starter in the bigs if he fixes his shit, and I have the most faith in him in turning it around compared to the rest of the rotation.

Tom Gorzelanny: Coming into this season, the club was hoping that Gorzy would pitch at the top of this rotation forming a good lefty-righty combo with Snell. However, he has managed to pitch even worse than Snell this year, leaving the future of this rotation further in doubt. Gorzy, in his first full season in the bigs, had a breakout campaign in 2007. The southpaw threw a 3.89/1.40 in 201 innings. He's not a big strikeout guy but he gave up just 18 dongs and is very good at managing the game with the stuff he's got. This season, however, Gorzelanny has been a total disaster. He has recently been demoted to AAA, something you have got to think is coming soon for Snell, in order to try and get back on track. This year in 87 ip he has an era of 6.57 (!) and whip of 1.83 (!!). His '05 and '06 minor league numbers are impressive; he compiled a 1.24 whip at AA ball and .98 whip at AAA ball, respectively. He also pitched well after his promotion to the bigs in '06 and followed through with another solid year in '07. Hopefully, Gorzelanny will be able to fix himself now that he is back down in the minors and be able to return to the rotation before years end. But, his stuff is not overpowering and he is more of a game manager than a stud. He relies on deception and changing speeds to get hitters out and his whip has been a bit high for his era in the majors. He looks to me as a middle of the rotation guy, at best, providing he gets his stuff turned around in his current minor league stint.

Paul Maholm: Maholm has been pitching well this year to the tune of a 3.93/1.29. This may be sustainable, and these numbers are that of a #3 or #4 starter in the national league. But a correction closer to his body of work is more likely, I suspect. In his first full season in '06 he finished up the year with a 4.76 era and 1.61 whip in 171 innings. In 2007, he finished with a 5.03 era and 1.43 whip. He is not a big strikeout guy, and his minor league numbers are not overly impressive. He is a #5 starter based on the numbers he compiled in '06 and '07, and that is where I believe he is best suited in a major league rotation. He is not a guy to build a rotation around by any means and going into the year he had less expectation to perform as Snell and Gorzy were both expected to continue their maturation process. Maholm is, however, capable, but I do not believe he is any type of answer to their rotation woes in the long term.

Zach Duke: Duke is in many ways an embodiment of the struggles the Pirates have faced when trying to put together their rotation. He was their top minor league prospect in 2005 after putting up stunning numbers in AAA: 108 ip, 2.92/1.21. He got called up that same year and dominated major league hitters in the second half: 84 ip, 1.82/1.21. He then proceeded to completely forget how to pitch. He was worse than league average in his sophomore season in 2006 and even worse in 2007 before injury cut his season short. In 2008, back to full health, Duke was slotted in as the #4 starter but has pitched more like a #5 so far: 110 ip, 44:33 k:bb, 4.40/1.58. He is 25, still young, but has clearly shown a disconcerting drop off since his stellar 2005 breakout. Now 3 years removed, there is no reason to believe that he will come even remotely close to duplicating those numbers. He does not strike guys out, a 44:33 k to bb is absolutely atrocious, and it seems like his career in the bigs may be coming to an unfortunate, and early, end. Once with such a bright future, Duke has since struggled mightily.

This team is f***ed, eoh

The staff is currently a mess. All their guys have pitched pretty poorly and the future looks very uncertain. To make matters worse for the Pirates, they really have just one prospect who projects into their rotation in the near future, and not a very good one at that. Brad Lincoln, a first round selection by the Pirates in 2006, projects to be just a middle of the rotation guy. The Pirates spent their 48th overall pick on hard throwing starter Tanner Scheppers, but he is a rook, unproven, and will require seasoning in the minors.

The future is dim for the Pirates. After a half season in the books, their staff is bad. I also do not think it will not get much better in the near future. Their outfield will be very good in 2010 after, hopefully, Pearce and McCutchen have a year under their belts. It is impossible to predict what their infield will look like as they need to do a complete personnel overhaul at 1b, 2b, SS, and 3b. It looks like they only have one internal replacement at 3b in Alverez, so it remains to be seen how good, or more likely bad, their IF will be. Their pitching prospects are pretty miserable and they don't have any guys with top of the rotation upside in their system. All of the above reasons illustrate why they absolutely must trade Bay and Nady and get whatever prospects they can out of them. This team will not be competing until, minimum, 2011, if even by then. Hang in there Pirates' fans :\