I haven’t blogged in a while.  I haven’t blogged in a while because this team is downright depressing to watch right now.  In the words of whygavs in last night’s game recap:  “Well, uh, at least we scored a run?  This baseball team is pretty hard to watch right now.  I don’t have anything else to say about this.”

With that being said, where do we go from here?  What am I watching for the rest of this year?  For the purposes of this post, I’m going to largely ignore the progression of minor league players.  Like everyone else, I want to see Pedro continue to rake in AA and our young pitching prospects like Lincoln and Alderson continue their development.  This team is in a rebuilding mode and if your a fan of this team, you need to be following the minor league teams as closely, if not more closely, than you are the big club (There are several great sources for this sort of information.  Dejan Kovacevic’s PBC blog does a great job of posting daily minor league reports.  Raise the Jolly Roger likewise does a daily minor league roundup.  Finally, Rocco Demaro’s Extra innings post-game show always includes a minor league report, and his show is available in podcast form in case you miss it and want to catch up the next day).  But there’s nothing special about the minor leagues to follow down the stretch that you shouldn’t be watching a daily and weekly basis.  So focusing on the team playing at PNC park, here is what I expect to see and will look to happen as we move toward 17 straight losing seasons.

September Call-ups

As of September 1st, major league teams can expand their rosters from the standard 25 up to 40.  For a team like the Pirates, this gives them a chance to get a cheap look at what some of their young prospects can do in a month with the big club.  Given that this team has been in audition mode ever since Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez were traded, I don’t expect much to happen.  Robinzon Diaz played well while he was in Pittsburgh earlier this year due to Ryan Doumit’s injury, so I expect him to get another shot.  Brian Bixler has been up and down between Pittsburgh and Indianapolis over the last few years, playing well in Indy and poorly in Pittsburgh, but in order to give JR some infield depth, I expect to see him called up as well.  The last position player I see being called up is Jeff Clement, the 1B acquired from Seattle in the Wilson/Snell trade.  He has been hitting well in AAA Indy to the tune of a 1.134 OPS and 6 dingers in 13 games and it seems like he’s earned a shot.  In addition to those position players, I would expect to see a few guys called up to provide JR with some help in the bullpen, but I don’t really see that happening until the International League season ends on September 7th.

Who to Keep an Eye On

As of today, the Pirates have 48 games, a little more than 1/4 of a season, remaining.  In those games, there are a lot of questions about a lot of players that need to be answered.  Most of these questions are going to go beyond these 48 games and go into next season, but how these questions are answered will go a long way to determining who is a part of the Pirates future.

Can Lastings Millegde’ defense develop  enough to lock down a corner outfield spot long term?

No matter what Milledge does in the final 48 games, I expect to be given and extended opportunity next year.  Certainly though, he has something to prove.  One can project from what he did in AAA this year, and with the Mets in 2007, and with the Nats in the second half of last year that his bat will come around.  But his defense is a mystery to me.  I’ve said this on twitter and facebook before, that based on his speed and athleticism, one would think he would be a very solid defensive outfielder.  Based on what I’ve seen so far in Pittsbugh, he’s shown some flashes of that, but also made more than his share of boneheaded plays.  Will his work with the Pittsburgh coaching staff pay off and translate the solid defense we all would like to see, or will he continue to struggle and eventually be replaced by Gorky’s Hernandez, Jose Tabata, or another of the Pirates many outfield prospects?

Can someone take hold of first base?

There are options at first, but so far no one has taken the reins of the position.  Garrett Jones, Steve Pearce, and Jeff Clement will probably all be given a chance to do so down the stretch and one of them needs to step up and prove they deserve to be their to start next season.  Everyone seems to think that Pedro Alvarez is the long term future here.  The common wisdom being that even if he can break into the bigs at third, he will eventually have to make the move across the diamond.  In the meanwhile though, someone needs to play first, and it almost certainly be one of the three mentioned above, the other 2 being relegated to bench duty.  Whoever of the three can do the most with the bat over the next 48 games plus spring training next year will probably be given the nod to start next season.

Will Kevin Hart or Paul Maholm step up?

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet.  Brad Lincoln excelled in Altoona this year, and while his numbers have slipped some since being called up to Indy, it would seem he’s gonna be in Pittsburgh sometime next season.He’s going to have to replace someone and based on the current starting rotation it seems it would have to be either Hart or Maholm.  Duke has been our best pitcher all year.  Morton has the best stuff on the staff and while Ohlendorf has been a bit up and down, he’s been better of late and seems to be safe.  Maholm has been very shaky this year and really needs to round back in to from if he wants to stay in the rotation.  I haven’t seen enough of Hart to make a judgment but based on his numbers it would seem his BB/9 has to come down for him to keep his rotation spot.  One of these guys will stay in the rotation when Lincoln comes up and the other will go to the bullpen or something.

Obviously there are way more than 3 questions as we round out his season, but to my eye those are the three that are most begging to be answered.