Pirates

Commentary from a far-flung Pirates fan

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I know no one likes to hear excuses, but between finishing up lab work before I head to Florida on Friday, trying to get everything together for the trip, the Penguins game in Raleigh tomorrow night (er, crap, later tonight, where does the time go?), team primers for FanHouse, and a huge FanHouse piece that I'm probably unheathily excited about writing, I'm just really short on time this week. So for right now, I've got a few quick (and I do mean quick) thoughts on last night's televised Pirates/Orioles game, plus some links that I've been meaning to share for a while.

First, last night's game:

• When Pedro Alvarez makes contact with the ball, it explodes off of his bat. Even his flyout to the warning track in his second AB was awesome in the sort of way that an Andrew McCutchen groundout that should be routine but he turns into a bang-bang play is awesome. But it's only fair to also note that his last AB, against veteran lefty Will Ohman, was terrible. Ohman completely twisted and turned him around for an easy strikeout. He's still got things to work on in Triple-A.
• Dan McCutchen needed 18 pitches to cruise through two perfect innings. You're up, Mr. Hart.

RJ Anderson at FanGraphs just spent two pieces examining the chances of Rajai Davis stealing 80 bases for the A's this year. Could you imagine how incredibly fast an outfield with Davis, Nyjer Morgan, and Andrew McCutchen would've been? Would a fly ball ever land for a hit with all three of them out there? It's best to never think of the trade that sent Davis to San Francisco ever again, I think.

Great post by Joe Posnanski about the Rule 5 draft, which talks quite a bit about Branch Rickey's hand in rebuilding the Pirates in the 1950s. Can you imagine what would've happened if the Pointy-Haired Blogger existed while Rickey was sacrificing wins left and right to stash talent?

Apparently, this old post is still relevant. The Pirates announced today that Colton Cain, Zach Fuesser, and Brett Lorin will all be out until mid-season with various non-pitching arm related problems; Cain had off-season back surgery, Fuesser has a broken finger, and Lorin had minor offseason hip surgery.

This news is not nearly as hugely bad as it might seem on the surface. Cain and Fuesser were both drafted out of high school last year and were most likely not going to join a minor league club until mid-season anyways (think Quinton Miller last year). Lorin missing time is a bit more problematic; he's going to be 23 at the end of this month and was impressive but being moved slowly through the Mariners' system (he peaked in the Sally League last year, which is low for a 22-year old). Because he's a big guy with a big fastball and good control, he seemed to have a lot of sleeper potential that could've moved him quickly to an age appropriate level in the system. He's still got that potential, but this will obviously slow his progress down.

In the past 18 years, there have been a lot of nominal "Future Savior of the Pirates." It comes with the territory; fans of losing teams need hope and that hope will always get heaped on prospects, especially highly regarded ones. I'm not certain I can remember one that's been more hyped than Pedro Alvarez, though.

Besides my obvious bias towards recency, I think that's a reflection of both reality and necessity; Alvarez is certainly a very good prospect with a great pedigree and because the Pirates spent seven years not drafting guys like BJ Upton and Matt Wieters, the 2008 draft is the first one since maybe the Kris Benson pick of 1998 in which it could be logically argued that the Pirates ended up with the best player in the draft (not that that's necessarily true, just that you could say that and not sound like a raving lunatic). But also, Pirate fans need a savior now more than ever before. Kids will soon be graduating high school without ever having experience a season in which the Pirates were more than an afterthought. Simply put, if we can't believe Pedro Alvarez is the Future Savior of the Pirates, there might not be anything to believe in.

This leads, unfortunately, to ridiculous expectations. There is a wide swath of the Pirate fanbase that expects that Alvarez is ready to play for the Pirates (and by play, I mean show up and start launching baseballs into the Allegheney at least three times a week) right now. This might be true, but there's not really any way to know for certain because of how short his minor league career has been.

Alvarez has only played 66 games at High-A and 60 games at Double-A so far, and while those those 60 games at Double-A were spectacular, the 66 games in Lynchburg were very good at best and somewhat troubling at worst due to his enormous strikeout rate there. As a result, the projections for him for 2010 aren't good at all; CHONE sees him as a .231/.299/.395 hitter in 2010 with an enormous 33% K-rate. Of course, projections aren't ever anything more than a handy guide. CHONE sees a hitter that struggled with his strikeouts in High-A in 2009, while it's possible that Alvarez was just a guy working the rust out after a long layoff in a league below his talent level. I suspect that if he played 126 games at Double-A at the level that he played 60 last summer, the projection would be much more optimistic (after one excellent season at Double-A, PECOTA predicted Alex Gordon to hit .282/.363/.509 in 2007, to give you a ballpark idea, and I know that's apples and oranges because Gordon's Double-A numbers were better and PECOTA and CHONE are obviously not the same projection system, but still) But I do still think it's fair to ask just what we should be expecting of Alvarez if and when he does make his debut this summer.

I think the best way to do that is to find hitters he might be similar to and see how they performed at his age. I've said for a while now that I think that maybe the best case scenario for him is to become Prince Fielder; a guy with a ton of power who strikes out a lot but not quite excessively and as a result is a perennial MVP candiate. Fielder isn't quite a 1:1 comparison though, because he was a high school draftee and thus a Major League regular by the age of 22, which is the age Alvarez was last year. His rookie year at age 22 would be a nice debut for Pedro, though, since he hit .271/.347/.483 with 28 homers in 157 games.

Of course, there are other guys to look at. There's always Ryan Howard, who's got monstrous power but isn't nearly as complete of a hitter as Fielder. He was still in High-A at the age of 23, and the Phillies kind of thought of him as a future Brad Eldred (which was funny, because the Pirates didn't trade for him that year because they didn't want toblock Eldred) before he broke out in 2004. His first regular playing time came at the age of 25 in 2005, when he mashed 22 homers in 88 games with a .288/.356/.567 line and the Rookie of the Year Award that was denied to Garrett Jones and Andrew McCutchen last year because Philadelphia is a valid baseball market and Pittsburgh currently is not.

Hoping any player with only 60 games at the Double-A level becomes Ryan Howard or Prince Fielder is at least somewhat wishful thinking, though. At the age of 24, Carlos Pena was supposed to replace Jason Giambi. It took him until he was 29 to find his footing. Justin Morneau didn't hit his stride in Minnesota until he was 25. On a more Pittsburgh- centric level, Garrett Jones took five passes through Triple-A to find his swing. Alex Gordon was rushed to the big leagues after just one Double-A season and he's still struggling to find air. In the past ten years, there have been 84 occasions in which a left-handed hitter hit at least 30 home runs and struck out at least 100 times (cherry-picked numbers, yes, but both seem like reasonable baselines for Alvarez if we're trying to find players that might be good comps for him down the road). Only five of those seasons (Hank Blalock in '04, Fielder in '07 and '08, Adam Dunn in 2004 and Eric Chavez in 2002) were accomplished by players under the age of 25, with six more coming from players during their age 25 seasons. That's not to say Alvarez can't come up and be an immediate force; he's an elite talent and people should have high expectations for him. If we dig back farther into the 1990s, Jim Thome and Carlos Delgado were both more or less fully- formed power hitters by the age of 24. And those are, again, sort of perfect world comparisons for Pedro.

I realize that my point probably seems muddled at this point, but I guess that's sort of my intention here. I think that Pedro Alvarez will be a very good hitter in the majors, but it's incredibly hard to nail down exactly how much development time some of these guys need. Because Alvarez is so well-regarded, it's fair to have high expectations for him, but it's also worth keeping in mind that there's a real chance he'll struggle a bit to open his career and that's not necessarily the end of the world for him.

Just an odd bit of ephemera that caught my eye; Pedro Alvarez has two triples in Spring Training and no home runs. He hit one with Lynchburg and none in Altoona last year.

Meanwhile, another FanHouser (John Hickey this time) was in Bradenton and he turned in a nice piece about Andrew McCutchen. 'Cutch also told Jen Langosch he's hoping to steal some more bases this year.

Meanwhile in the left sidebar, a new poll. Who will lead the Pirates in home runs in 2010?

As promised, the update on the 1977 Pirates in Jeff Polman's Play that Funky Baseball is after the jump.

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After spending the weekend either in lab or watching UNC get slaughtered by Duke, I sat down and spent a little time tonight sifting through the spring box scores to see if anything interested happened. Interesting during spring training is a relative term, of course, because in order for it to be interesting it's got to have relevance on the baseball games that will actually count and those don't start for a month.

Keeping in mind my post from last week about things to watch during exhibition games, there are a couple things that stand out. Kevin Hart walking four batters in an inning during Saturday's tie against the Phillies is certainly not a good thing. It's just one inning and Dan McCutchen wasn't great in his first outing of the spring, but I'll again mention that Hart's struggles with the Pirates last year really stemmed from his inability to get ahead in the count. Four walks in an inning is not a good sign. Hopefully we'll see something better next time he takes the mound.

There were also a couple things worth noting from today's game. Bobby Crosby had two hits including a homer while playing first base. I'm not sure it's worth reading in to him seeing some action at first (in his two other spring appearances he played shortstop), but he has gotten about the same amount of work as Ronny Cedeno, who's 1-for-8, to this point. John Raynor, who has to make the team because of his status as a Rule 5 player, had a double and a triple and is 4-for-10 so far in the early part of the spring. His potential competition, Brandon Moss, Steve Pearce, and Jonathan Van Every are a combined 0-for-21. Finally, Chris Jakubauskas, who's in competition for the last spot in the bullpen, got lit up for three runs in an inning and two-thirds today.

None of these things really mean anything this early in the spring, but trends all have to start somewhere.

As you might've noticed, the site was down for a few hours today thanks to some things that were beyond my control, but Derek and Ben at Bloguin got things back up quickly this afternoon, so thanks to them for the assist.

Anyways, I did a Pirate fantasy preview over at Razzball, so you should check that out. Also at Razzball, they're holding a "worst fantasy team possible" contest. They're hoping for a big response and, well, I figure Pirate fans know an awful lot about bad baseball players so I'm passing it along. There's no cost to enter, but you could win a hot tub. Somehow, combining the worst fantasy players possible and a hot tub seems like a hilarious premise to me, so if you're looking for a different sort of fantasy baseball experience this year keep them in mind.

If you missed it, Tony Sanchez homered in his first spring training at bat last night. And today, we get the baseball rarity that only happens in spring training; the tie!

And finally, since I assume that most Pirate fans already have at least a partial eye on the draft already, MLB Trade Rumors discusses the doubts about Bryce Harper. I know we've been over this here before, but it's worth noting (again) that just because Harper is a great talent doesn't mean he's a slam dunk because no baseball prospect is. I saw one prospect guy (I can't remember who, thanks to Twitter I read so many opinions anymore that I can't keep them all straight) refer to him as both the most overrated and best prospect in the 2010 draft.

One of the more interesting aspects of Neal Huntington's talent acquisition plan thus far has been the way he's gone about acquiring pitching talent in the draft. Rather than pay heavily for the Matzek/Shelby Miller types, he's picked an interesting mix of college and high school arms. The goal is clear; rather than put all of their eggs in one very talented basket, they're spreading the bonus money out to a bunch of guys that maybe the scouts don't think quite as highly of, but are talented and projectable in their own rights and hopefully one or two or more will blossom into something very good, but if they don't the monetary loss isn't quite as high and there's more to fall back on.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with this plan and the Pirates seem to be executing it quite well in the draft so far, picking up guys like Zach Von Rosenberg, Quinton Miller, Billy Cain, Trent Stevenson, Victor Black, Brooks Pounders, Justin Wilson, and Nate Baker. The strategy also carries the risk of ending up a whole bunch of Zach Dukes and no Clayton Kershaws or Rick Porcellos, but that's something to worry about down the road and not right now.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make it any easier to read stuff like this tweet about the spring debuts of former Pirate draftee Tanner Scheppers or recent Reds' free agent signing Aroldis Chapman. I don't think sinking $30 million into an unproven pitcher is a good idea (I wholly agree with Charlie on this one) and unlike a lot of Pirate fans, I think the team handled the Scheppers situation about right (remember that they did, in fact, offer him a signing bonus about in line with where he was drafted in the early second round, but he thought he was worth more and the team had very legitimate concerns about his shoulder at the time), but this sort of thing is an illustration of how far the Pirates' system still has to go. I've been asked a few times in the last month or so why the Pirates don't have more prospects in this or that top 100 list, and it's because they've drafted guys that will have to pitch their way onto those lists.

As you've likely seen by now, Nate McLouth talked to the Pittsburgh media after the Pirates/Braves game this afternoon and made some pretty negative comments about the Bucs. Without even having to look, I'm sure this will cause an uproar within a certain section of the fanbase.

I'm sorry, but I can't get worked up over this stuff. As much as the non-stop losing drives us nuts, it's not like the players sit in the clubhouse and relish it or something. McLouth was treated terribly by the Pirates during the Dave Littlefield era, then traded away shortly after signing an extension. I can't imagine anyone likes to be traded, even if it is from the Pirates to the Braves.

The one comment that's causing the most consternation seems to be the one about McLouth never realizing that he needed contacts while he was with the Pirates because their eye exam is a "joke." I don't know what eye exam the Pirates do and maybe it is a joke, but in general the Pirates' training staff has drawn pretty good reviews (subscriber link) and frankly, I'm always amazed when baseball players, who's eyes are incredibly important to them, say things like, "I had no idea my eyesight was bad!" I've worn glasses since I was ten years old and contacts since high school, and I always know when my prescription needs tuned up. In fact, about two years ago I went to the eye doctor and I told him, "Doc, I've been coming here my whole life and reading this exact same chart year after year. Once I start going, I always know what letters are coming up, whether I can see them or not. But seriously, my right eye is getting a little blurry so please take a closer look at that one."

Maybe the Pirates should give better eye tests, but maybe they don't do anything different than anyone else. The Brewers' Corey Hart recently made a similar discovery and McLouth's bad eyesight wasn't even detected by the Braves; it was found by his own personal eye doctor.

As I have the last couple years, this winter I helped the Hardball Times out with their season preview by writing player comments for the Pirates players expected to see significant time in 2010. This year, they've changed the format up quite a bit; instead of publishing in book form, it's now called THT Forecasts, an online database with Brian Cartwright's Oliver projections that include six-year projections and 2010 projections made with playing time estimates. Plus, as mentioned, each team has its own specific blogger writing comments for most of the players likely to play at the Major League level in 2010. Maybe the coolest part is that the 2010 projections will be updated weekly to reflect playing time and early season performance, which seems awfully helpful for fantasy baseball.

The cost is $15; if you're interested in learning more you can check out David Gassko's post with all of the details here and you can sign up for it here.

For some reason, I'm incredibly fired up for this Pirates/Yankees exhibition game that's been over for like five hours now. That's why I'm going to pseudo-blog it. Aided heavily by the fast-forward button on my DVR, I'm going to post thoughts on the game liveblog style after the jump. I won't be doing play-by-play or anything and I'm just going to post it all at once, but in honor of the first spring training game and to commemerate the annual return of baseball to our lives, follow along for some thoughts on what we all already know is the Pirates' 6-3 loss to the Yankees.

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Separating meaningful performances from meaningless ones in spring training is not an easy task. With some players tuning up and others fighting for spots on every single team, playing fields are far from level. Some players are working on specific tweaks -- pitchers are refining pitches, hitters are working on various aspects of their swings, etc. -- and so even results might not mean anything.

Still, the front offices and coaches are evaluating something. These games are nominally meaningless since they don't count in the standings, but there are things that are happening that are meaningful. I won't pretend to be in the heads of John Russell or his staff or Neal Huntington, but there are a few things I'll be watching a little more closely than others as exhibition games start this week.

Perhaps the one that will be the most immediately meaningful in the 2010 regular season is Kevin Hart's control. Despite the recent talk about Brad Lincoln making the rotation right out of the gate, I just don't think that's terribly likely for a number of reasons. That makes Hart the odds-on favorite to be the fifth starter when the season starts, as per the statements made by JR when camp started. Hart's problems last year all seemed to stem from a lack of control, so his control is what's important to watch here. Since we know that Joe Kerrigan is working with Hart on his mechanics, I really think that everything he does in terms of results (ie, is he getting hit hard, his ERA, etc.) is secondary to whether or not his control has improved.

There's also the battle for the last roster spot to watch. This one might be harder to gauge because picking between guys like Moss, Raynor, Pearce, and Young comes down as much to organizational philosophy as it does to spring training performance. Pearce gives a nice platoon option for guys like Jones and Clement, Young plays a wide variety of positions decently, Raynor and Moss bring good defense to the table. It seems to me that none of these guys can really afford to hit poorly this spring, but the decision will likely be based on more than that.

Speaking of Clement, keep an eye on Jeff Clement's defense. Actually, just keep an eye on how often the team and the media-types refer to him as "uncomfortable." If that's happening a lot, I'd wager it's not a great sign for him.

In the "less likely to mean something" category, it'd be a good early sign if Lastings Milledge shows some power in camp. There are a lot of factors to keep in mind here, including level of competition and the sometimes crazy McKechnie Field winds, but if we're operating with the assumption that his hand injury cost him power at the end of last season it'd be nice to see that that's no longer the case before the season starts. Of course, he's mostly assured of both a roster spot and a starting job and so we don't really know what JR and Don Long have him working on right now and so it's not really worth getting worked up about him either way this spring.

The same thing applies to the mythical power swing of Jose Tabata. Something to look for and something it would be nice to see, but not the end of the world if we don't see it. I don't think there's a lot to look for in the race for the last bullpen spot either. Either the Pirates will give Dan McCutchen a chance, or they'll toss an inning-eater in there. The identity of the inning-eater might be determined on the mound, but it's pretty inconsequential either way.

Beyond that, I'm not sure there's much that can be read directly into over the next couple weeks (if I'm forgetting something I'm sure you'll let me know about it). It's possible that Bobby Crosby could completely outperform Ronny Cedeno and steal the starting shortstop spot or that Pedro Alvarez could strike out 25 times in a row or something, but those sorts of things are pretty obvious when they happen. In any case, this is what I'll be following most closely and by extension probably what I'll be writing the most about over the next couple weeks.

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow's Pirate/Yankees game will be broadcast at 1 PM on the MLB Network and it's my understanding that since FSN Pittsburgh isn't carrying the game, it won't be blacked out in Pittsburgh. Which means that if you're as baseball-starved as I am that you should plan your afternoon or at least set your DVR accordingly.

It doesn't matter that Pedro Alvarez had three hits or that Eric Kratz, Brandon Moss, and Steve Pearce homered or that Bryan Morris pitched well in an inning of work after a rough season. I mean, those things are nice but given the level of competition and wind in Bradenton, they're relatively meaningless. What does matter is that the Pirates managed to beat their community college foes 6-1 this afternoon, to end their all-time longest losing streak to the Manatees at one and hopefully spare us from "The Pirates are worse than collegte teams!"jokes for a full season. Whew

To the Manatees and their players, who took a serious beating among Pirate fans and bloggers this week, I think it needs to be said that this is really all in fun and that we all wish them the best of luck during their season now that they don't play the Pirates anymore.

Also, I'd like to point out that we're covering a team a day at FanHouse for the next month and today was the Pirates' designated day, so make sure you check out Ed Price's excellent piece on the state of the team (I'm not being a company shill when I say that I love the opening line. It's so true it hurts.) and my own team primer.

Today, revenge will be ours.

Since my Pirate preview stuff is due for FanHouse tomorrow and I'm busy Photoshopping Xs over manatees' faces in preparation for tomorrow's big grudge match against said Manatees, let's hit a couple light links for the night to prepare for the annual mark of baseball's beginning tomorrow afternoon.

Rob Biertempfel talked to Kyle Stark about the minor league system and Stark names some sleepers for 2010. Stark obviously knows these guys way better than I do, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on Brett Lorin, Quinton Miller, and Jarek Cunningham this year.

I answered some questions for the Brewers Bar about the Pirates 2010 outlook.

Jen Langosch has her daily recap, including an appraisal of Jeff Clement's defense.

On a beautiful North Carolina afternoon yesterday, several of my friends and I gathered around a TV at a local bar to sit on the edge of our seats for 2+ hours and watch the gripping hockey gold medal game. We did all of the things good hockey fans do; yell and pound on the bar when the US scored, scowl at the Canadian family over at a table when they cheered the opponent's goals, laugh at the southerners who yelled "SHOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!" during a power play, bemoan the US's dump-and-chase offensive strategy down by two goals in the second period, and grimce when Sidney Crosby (on the one day that I'm not sticking up for him and trying to point out that he really is as good as people say and here's why) scored the gold medal winner.

There was one very odd moment early on in the game, though. When noted Pirate fan and NBC play-by-play guy Doc Emrick mentioned that the Pittsburgh Pirates were gathered around their TVs watching the game in Florida, all of my friends stopped and stared at me.

"What?" I said, looking into my beer. "It's not like I'm the only Pirate fan in the world."

Jeff Pohlman's Strat-O-Matic replay of the 1977 season kicks off tonight and since '77 is recent enough to drum up some nostalgia even in fans like me that weren't born at the time, I'm planning on giving Sunday night updates throughout the pseudo-season with two purposes; to keep everyone updated on how everyone's 1977 favorites are doing (and of course, to solicit the collective bench coach advice of anyone that cares to give it) and to post YouTube videos of awesome (and not awesome) music from 1977. If you're not interested in this kind of stuff, I'll put the body of the posts under the jump and you can just skip it.

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Not much happening on the Pirate front today since there's a golf tournament this afternoon, but I've got some links to share before everyone puts on their USA hockey hats this afternoon.

There's two good FanGraphs links to share. First is an interview with Charlie from Bucs Dugout and second is a look at Jason Kendall's only remaining offensive skill, getting hit by pitches.

There's another good Lastings Milledge piece in the PG today, but man, if I read one more thing about his work ethic and how dedicated he is to turning himself around, I'm going to start expecting a .300/.400/.500 season with 30 homers out of the guy (NOTE: This line is not what I expect out of Lastings Milledge).

Vegas Watch has the over/unders for the MLB season if you're in to that kind of thing. The Pirates are at 71. Over or under?

Finally, voting closes tonight for the Best Pittsburgh Sports Blog tournament. I still don't want to campaign for myself over Bucs Dugout, but I do appreciate everyone that's done so on my behalf on Twitter so far and I encourage people to go vote one way or another simply to run up as big an overall vote total as possible for the two Pirate blogs in the finals.

Awesome injury news out of Bradenton today; Joel Hanrahan met with Dr. James Andrews and his ailing elbow was cleared by the doc, which means that he can resume throwing and might be ready for Opening Day. Not sure there's much else to say here; the bullpen is better with the Hammer in it than it is without him, and so the fact that he doesn't have real damage and won't miss significant time is excellent news.

*I fully recognize that it's unfair to characterize Andrews as a "beast" and that he's just the guy that fixes the pitchers that have broken themselves. It's just that so many guys are injured these days that his name has become a harbinger of doom. Really, it's just more fun to think of him as some sort of Cthulhu-like unspeakable evil force and that pitchers aren't actually injured until Andrews wills them to be injured. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Andrews Birmingham wgah'nagl fhtagn.