Before I get into it,  I thought it was appropriate to throw out links to all the previous 2010 season preview posts.

Written back in Janury: Prospects part 1 & part 2

Its probably useless at this point, but for the sake of completeness, here is my “very brief” spring training preview

Probably my favorite of the series, Expectations

And finally, the Pitching & Defense and Offense previews

OK, let’s get to the predictions

April 5th, Today:  The Pirates will start the year off 1-0, getting to Vicente Padilla early and often and the bullpen holds on for a 7-5 victory.

April 28th: The Pirates lose the last of a 3 game sweep in Milwaukee, falling to 10-11 and below .500 for good.

June 3rd: An off day.  Aki Iwamura is traded for a mid-level pitching prospect, clearing the way for Andy LaRoche, off to a hot start, to move to second base and Pedro Alvarez to make his big league debut at home the next day against San Francisco.  Alvarez finishes the season with 22 homers.

June 7th: The Pirates select phenom Bryce Harper second overall in Major League Baseball’s first year player draft.

July 13th:  Andrew McCutchen is the Pirates lone All-Star, as the team crawls into the break 10 games under .500.

July 20th: Brad Lincoln makes his Pirates debut by giving the team their first victory of the season against Milwaukee.

July 31st: For the first time in god knows how long, the Pirates do not make a major deadline deal.

October 3rd:  The Pirates beat the Florida Marline to end the season with 70 wins, good for last in the NL Central, 4 games behind 5th place Houston.  Jose Tabata spends the entire year at AAA, and is not called up as many expected when the season began.

October 4th: In a one game playoff, Aroldis Chapman beats Adam Wainright giving the Reds the NL Central crown.

November 4th: AL wildcard Tampa Bay beats NL West champion Colorado to win the world series in 7 games.

Pirates MVP: Andrew McCutchen

Pirates ROY: Pedro Alvarez

Pirates “Cy Young”: Charlie Morton

NL Cy Young:  Roy Halladay

NL ROY: Aroldis Chapman

NL MVP: Albert Pujols

AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez

AL ROY: Austin Jackson

AL MVP: Evan Longoria

For opening day, and probably until Pedro Alvarez is called up or someone gets traded, the lineup is going to look something like this:

1. A. Iwamura, 2B

2. A. McCutchen, CF

3. G. Jones, RF

4. R. Doumit, C

5. L. Milledge, LF

6. J. Clement, 1B

7. A. LaRoche, 3B

8. Pitcher

9. R. Cedeno, SS

Starting at the top, Iwamura is a solid on base guy who should set the table nicely.  Everyone, myself included expect ‘Cutch will only continue to get better and while there’s certainly room to question Jones (I don’t think anyone expects him to keep up his 21 HR, .938 OPS in 82 games pace he set last year), it’s very reasonable to expect he can hit 30 or so dingers and drive in a bunch of runs hitting in the 3 hole.

The next 4 are the real question marks and will make or break this team from a run scoring point of view.  Doumit has proven over the career he can hit the ball well, especially for a catcher, when he is healthy.  The big question is, can he stay healthy for the full 162 game season, or will he see time on the DL once again in 2010.  Lastings Milledge is probably getting his last shot to prove himself as an every day big leaguer.  He’s been saying all the right things this spring, and one of those things he’s been saying is that he’ll be able to hit for more power now that the wrist injury he had last year is fully healed.  Only time will tell of course, but I believe this is the year Milledge finally breaks out.  Clement is probably the biggest question mark of all, having only played 75 career games in the bigs, none of them at 1B.  Based on his minor league numbers, he’s proven all that he can at AAA, and between his power and the Clemente wall in right field, one can at least hope he can be a productive number 6 hitter.  Finally, we come to Andy LaRoche.  Everyone knows what he did last year, and while that was a massive improvement over what he did in ‘08 after coming over in the Jason Bay trade, he still has a ways to go to be where you want your everyday third baseman to be offensively.  Based on his minor league numbers though, there’s reason to believe he could get there, and what he does will go along way to dictating what the pirates do when Pedro Alvarez is ready.  Even if he doesn’t improve over his ‘09 season, he’s a very solid on base guy, and you could do a lot worse for your number 7 hitter.  It’s probably unreasonable to expect all four of these guys to break out to their potential at one time, but if 2 or three of them can, and Jones can maintain 80% of what he put up in the second half last year, the team should be in good shape offensively.

Finally, the Pirates are all set to bat the pitcher 8th and Ronny Cedeno in the 9 spot to turn the order over.  While I like the idea in theory (see here), I don’t like having a career .280 OBP guy playing that role, and would much rather see Andy LaRoche or Lastings Milledge batting ninth.

Moving to the bench, Delwyn Young has been a solid hitter his whole career except when he is expending all his energy pre-game trying to learn to play second base.  John Raynor is speedy and could be a nice pinch runner and defensive replacement.  Ryan Church is a very solid fourth outfielder and Bobby Crosby was the AL rookie of the year in a former life.

With all that said, I’m probably in the minority here when I say this team could be solid offensively.  They aren’t going to be great by any stretch of the imagination, but I really do believe that offense isn’t what will kill this team, but rather the pitching and defense.  And once Pedro shows up, likely in early June, well let’s just say the offense can only get better when that happens, and this team is going to begin to come together for the future at that point.

*In the upnroven category are Lastings Milldege in LF and Jeff Clement at 1B. Clement is there for obvious reasons, but I felt like I needed to explain Milledge a bit. His careez UZR/150 in LF is 10.4, but that’s only over 93 games. Over the larger sample, 298 OF games, more than half of them in CF, his UZR/150 is -10.0. Until the sample size in LF is larger, I’m calling his defense unproven.

On the pitching side, the starting rotation looks like this. Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Ross Ohlendorf and Charlie Morton return from last year. Daniel McCutchen won the 5th spot from Kevin Hart this spring, but I expect to see both of them start some games this year, as well as 2 guys starting the season at AAA, last years rule V pick Donnie Veal and former #1 pick Brad Lincoln. Of this group, Morton and Lincoln have the highest upside, but both are young. Lincoln especially figures to have some struggles once he gets called up, which will probably happen sometime in June or July. Duke and Maholm are pretty much known quantities to Pirate fans at this point. Neither is gonna blow you away, but both manage to get a lot of ground ball outs and are relatively effective when the defense behind them is good. Unfortunately, as I already said, that is not likely to be the case and they are therefore likely to have some troubles this season. Overall, this group definitely has a lot of potential, but there’s just too much young inconsistency here to expect anything great to happen. They all have the potential to be good, but who steps up will be very telling in how this team moves forward next year and beyond. Behind these guys is a large group of starters at AA and AAA, and in the years to come they will be pushing for spots, so the ones who wish to be a part of the long term answer need to step up now.

While the rotation is mostly the same form last year, the bullpen had been almost completely overhauled. Gone is Matt Capps, Steven Jackson and others. In their place is Octavio Dotel, Brendan Donnelly and DJ Carrasco. I really like what Neal Huntington has done with the Pen and think they will be able to keep this team in a lot of games and hold leads, on the rare occasion they are given them.

Overall, the pitching is going to be good but not great from end to end. The nice thing is that if anyone fails to perform, there is someone behind him at AAA waiting for the opportunity to show their skills. I expect a lot of guys to be given just that opportunity this season, and even if its going to be frustrating at times, it should be fun to watch this team come together and see who steps up. This theme of competition for spots is one I expect to see this year and into next year, and its one I’ll touch on in my offensive preview as well, coming tomorrow.

Coming down the stretch last season, the Pirates were truly dreadful, playing some of the worst baseball seen around these parts in decades.  After the July 31st trading deadline, the team was 18-41 leading to their overall record of 62-99.  With little exception, the team that lost so consistently down the stretch last year is the team you will see this year, so it is hard to expect drastic improvement.  For any number of reasons though, the 2010 Pirates win-loss record isn’t what I want to focus on, so when I talk about expectations, I’m not talking about what I expect in terms of wins and losses.  Rather, there are several specific areas where I would like to see marked improvement in order to show me that this team continues to be on the right track toward long term winning.  I want to focus on those areas.  I don’t mean to imply that if all of these expectation aren’t met that the franchise is doomed.  Rather, my point is this:  it is very easy to look at the past 17 seasons and the current win loss record and conclude that no progress is being made.  It is harder, and requires a deeper analysis, to identify the areas the team is improving, and where they must continue to improve.  As Charlie over at Bucs Dugout notes, even 3 or 4 years ago it was obvious 2010 wasn’t going to be a good year for the Bucs.  But where is the team improving?  What signs can we expect to see this season that display that improvement?  And perhaps more importantly, what are the potential signs that things are headed in the wrong direction?

Let me start by completely contradicting the entire paragraph I just wrote.  Even if wins and losses aren’t the most important metric, they are a metric most people focus on, so any post talking about expectations that doesn’t at least address wins and losses is incomplete.  Therefore, I’d like to state for the record that I expect the Pirates to finish around the 70 win mark.  PECOTA projects a 70-92 mark for the team, and that sounds about right to me.  I actually think 70 wins is on the high side of where they will likely finish, but there are so many open questions (prospect promotions, potential trades, etc) and moving pieces with this team, any projection is going to be volatile.

With wins and losses out of the way, lets talk about some other expectation for this season, starting with a certain highly regarded hitting prospect.  I think pretty much everyone expects Pedro Alvarez to be called up in early June, similar to Andrew McCutchen last season and immediately take over duty as the everyday third baseman.  I think it’s important to keep in mind that he is starting the year at AAA, a level he never saw last season, and it may take him some time to get acclimated to that level of pitching before he excels.  Likewise, there seems to be a lot of people expecting Pedro to show up in June and immediately start raking, after all, both McCutchen and GFJ showed up in Pittsburgh last season and excelled immediately, so why can’t Pedro.  The flaw in that logic is that both players had several seasons at AAA under their belt, making the jump less dramatic.  I do expect Pedro to be called up in June or July, but I actually expect him to struggle a bit early on.  We know from his time in Lynchburg last season that he can be a bit of free swinger, so expect lots of strike outs balanced by some impressive displays of power.  A final line for the year of .260/.350/.480 seems reasonable to me, and as long as he is improving as the year goes on, posting his best numbers in September and October, I think I’ll be happy.  If he does indeed struggle in his first month or so in the majors, that is not a sign that the apocalypse is coming (plus, if the Pirates really could cause an apocalypse, it already would have happened at some point in the last 17 years, right?).

Pedro Alvarez is a very key piece in the development of this organization, but he’s not the only one.  I don’t really feel like enumerating every key prospect and my expectations for them this season (not to mention, I already kind of did that here and here), but I would like to touch on my expectation for the farm system as a whole.  When it comes to the farm system, this season is really no different than any other.  Basically, I want to see progress.  I want to see the high bonus HS arms they drafted last June to make solid pro debuts.  I want to see guys at AAA, much of which has been acquired via trade the last 2 years, pushing for spots on the big league roster.  All of this probably seems obvious and self explanatory, but there is a larger point I want to make here.  Not every prospect is going to succeed, as long as there is a general progression of talent through the pipeline, the system as a whole remains in balance which leads to a successful big league club.  The success(or failure) of any given prospect shouldn’t define the success of those running the organization.  As long as over the long term, guys are progressing through the levels, the organization is in good shape.  However, we are at a tipping point in how this team goes about acquiring that talent.  As has been publicly stated several times by the front office, the trades are “over.”  I put quotes around over because for a team in the pirates financial situation, there will always be trades, but I do believe that the en masse trading is done with.  That means that the vast majority of talent now will be acquired via the draft and international free agency, and player development in the key.  At this point, almost every player you now see called up to Pittsburgh will be a Neal Huntington acquired player.  A GM’s success or failure must be defined by his ability to evaluate, acquire, and develop talent and it will be the same with Huntington.  Therefore, now is the time to begin evaluating for real Huntington’s success in this area.

As I stated in the open, much of the roster is exactly what it was at the end of 2009.  The one area of the roster where this isn’t true is the bullpen.  Neal Huntington has stated frequently throughout his tenure as Pirates GM that relief pitching is the hardest thing to project in baseball, the implication being that spending big dollars on free-agent relief pitchers doesn’t make sense.  With that in mind, the way he went about building the bullpen for this season, combining young, talented, for the most part pre-arbitration arms with a few key veteran acquisitions and brining in a bunch of non-roster invitees to compete for the few remaining spots is likely to be his model to build a relief corps for the foreseeable future.  It will be very interesting to see how successful that effort was.

A quick aside: Generally, on this blog, when I talk about success I try to use numbers, and try to avoid speaking in loose, undefined language.  As a blogger, there are a lot of obvious advantages to always keeping things concrete.  For the purposes of relief pitching though, trying to do that is very difficult.  So many things affect bullpen performance, from inherited runners, to the defense behind them, that there are very few good statistics to measure relief performance, and the ones that do exist are hard to understand.  Baseball Prospectus uses something called WXRL and while I have a cursory understanding of that number, I don’t think it would mean much to most people if I said something like “I expect the pirates bullpen to post a composite WXRL of 10 this season.”  So for this one instance, I’m going to be speaking in very general terms, forgive me in advance please.

OK, back to the question at hand, what do I expect from the Pirates bullpen this season?  Lets just say that I expect the bullpen to be “better” than last year.  I expect Octavio Dotel to be more successful at closing games than Matt Capps was last season (that shouldn’t be hard).  I also expect to see the bullpen blow fewer leads and do a better job of turning quality starts into victories, but again, I’d like to stress that that is heavily dependent upon the defense (which will be bad this year, as I’ll detail in a future season preview post) so this may not be an easy thing to measure.  I think the important thing here is to see how successful a team can be building a bullpen from other teams castoffs, which is essentially what we have in Pittsburgh this season.  If it proves to be successful, it’s a very encouraging sign for future seasons when the quality of relief pitching will matter much more than it does to a 70 win team.

I’m already at 1600 words, so I think I’ll stop here.  I have (at least) 2 more season preview posts coming before opening day, the first focusing on position players, and the second on pitching, and I’m sure I’ll talk about expectations of certain players and how it relates to the team’s progress toward winning in those as well.

For a team that finished with 99 losses last year, it looks to be a surprisingly quiet spring with 4/5 of the starting rotation and 7 of the everyday 8 more or less locked in.  That does leave some competition around the fringes, and while I don’t really feel an in depth analysis is warranted here, I would like to spend a few words on each decision to be made between now and opening day.  As I see it, there is a starting job at SS to be won and a 5th starters job up for grabs.  There is also, assuming the Bucs go with a 5 man bench and 7 man bullpen as they have the past 2 years, 1 bench spot and by the same logic 3 bullpen jobs to be determined.

At short stop the incumbent is Ronny Cedeno, and it would seem he has the inside track to be the starter there on opening day.  But Bobby Crosby wasn’t brought in as one of the few free-agent signings this off-season just to ride the pine, so I suspect that if he excels in the spring and Cedeno struggles, he could quickly find himself penciled in as the everyday starter.  When Crosby was signed, my post focused on his injury issues, and my suspicion is that even if Crosby proves to be the better player and deserved starter, he will still be frequently spelled by Cedeno to try to keep Crosby fresh and avoid the injuries that have plagued him in years past.  That being said, Cedeno thrived at the plate after coming over via trade last year and, from what I can gather, that continued in Venezuela this winter.  Based on that, I think its reasonable to expect he will continue to hit in the spring and Crosby will have to earn his playing time.

Who actually wins the fifth starters job, to me, is almost irrelevant.  In a way, Daniel McCutchen and Kevin Hart are opposites on the mound.  McCutchen is a heady pitcher with good control but underwhelming stuff.  Hart, on the other hand, is a nibbler (even typing that word evokes horrible images of Ian Snell in my head) who just needs to learn to consistently throw strikes and let his 95 MPH fast ball do the work for him.  No matter who wins the job, I see a lot of ups and downs with some very promising performances and others that make you hate being a Pirates fan.  I also foresee the loser starting the year in AAA, since they both have options left, and the winner eventually losing the job to Brad Lincoln when he is deemed ready for the big leagues in June or July.

The 1 bench spot that is available is really anybody’s guess.  Locked in to the bench are Ryan Church (backup corner outfielder, can play 1B or CF in a pinch), Jason Jaramillo (backup Catcher), Ramon Vasquez (utility infielder) and the loser of the Crosby/Cedeno competition (backup SS).  Those four pretty much cover the diamond, especial when you consider versatility of existing starters such as Garrett Jones ability to play first base, so I would expect the last bench spot to be determined primarily on upside and hitting ability rather than positional specialty.  The options for the spot include Brandon Moss, Rule V pick John Raynor, local product Neil Walker, Steve Pearce and Delwyn Young.  Given his status as a Rule V guy, Raynor has to have a bit of a head start on this spot, and if he can show some base-running acumen, and an ability to hit for average, I think he’ll given a shot to stick around as an extra outfielder.  I’m gonna rule Walker out since he still has options left and the other 3 are basically known commodities at this point.  All of them can hit a little bit, but not well enough to really warrant everyday playing time.  Of the 3, I’m giving the nod to Moss, for no particular reason other than instinct.  Either way, this will be an interesting one to watch as spring progresses.

Last but not least is the Bullpen.  New acquisitions Octavio Dotel and Brendan Donnelly are locks to make it as are Joel Hanrahan and Evan Meek.  After those 4, I think its pretty likely that D.J. Carrasco gets one of the 3 remaining spots as well, and Javier Lopez should be given every opportunity to be the LOOGY.  For the last spot, the competion is wide open.  Naming only the people you may have heard of before, there’s Chris Jakabauskus, Wil Ledezma, Jeff Karstens and Steven Jackson.  But beyond that, there are a whole bunch of Non-roster invitees who will be given a chance to prove they are worthy of this spot.  This is another one that will be interesting to watch as the Spring progresses, but if I had to guess, my hunch tells me the spot either goes to Karstens or Jakubauskas.

Note: I’m using Baseball America’s top 10 prospects for ordering, and have placed my “honorable mentions” at the end of part 2.  As a point of clarification, those honorable mentions are not (necessarily) numbers 11,12,13,etc, just a number of other prospects not in the BA top 10 who I wanted to write a few words about.

7. Tim Alderson

I had the good fortune of being in Altoona for Alderson’s debut in the Pirates system last August after he was acquired from the San Francisco Giants in the Freddy Sanchez Trade.  On that particular night he was working 85-88 with his fastball and using his curveball when he got ahead in the count to get strikeouts.  Allegedly, he also throws a change-up, but it’s a pitch I never noticed on that night.

At one time, he was seen as a potential future ace (which is why many were surprised that the Pirates were able to get him for just Freddy Sanchez), but with a fastball that doesn’t even touch 90 most of time, its hard to see that happening at this point.  The velocity on his fastball has come down from where it was when he was drafted in 2007 by the Giants, which probably has led to the reduction is his strikeout numbers as well.  On the plus side though, he walks almost no one and gets a lot of ground ball outs.  As I see it, the real key to Alderson’s big league success will be his ability to develop a change-up to go along with his other 2 pitches.  If he can do that, he has the potential to be a successful number 2 or 3 starter rather than just a back of the rotation guy.

8. Zach Von Rosenberg

Von Rosenburg was a key part of the Pirates draft strategy this past June of saving money in Round 1 by taking a guy who could be signed at slot money (Tony Sanchez, see part 1 for more on him) and then spreading that wealth throughout the draft by taking tough to sign guys with a lot of upside.  ZVR was their sixth round pick and was signed for a bonus of $1.2M, late first round money.  As far as numbers go, we have to go to high school to find anything because he singed late and therefore only pitched one inning in 2009 (though it was perfect).  In his senior year at Zachary HS, he posted 0.60 ERA and struck out 141 batters in 91 innings.  He also won 4 Louisiana state championships which is, if nothing else, cool.  He throws a pretty standard 3 pitch mix (fastball, curve, change-up) but all 3 are seen as advanced pitches, especially for his age.  Looks for him start 2010 at either low or high A and move quickly (for a high school draft pick).

9. Rudy Owens

Prior to 2009, Rudy Owens had done very little to make one think he had Major League potential.  Owens was a 2006 Draft and Follow pick who spent 2007 and ‘08 posting ERAs hovering around 5 (although some of his peripheral numbers did look good).  In 2009 Owens broke out in a big way, dominating low A West Virginia for much of the season before a late call-up to Lynchburg.  On the year, he posted a 2.10 ERA and a 6.65 K/BB ratio over 124.0 IP en route to being named the Minor League pitcher of the year.  Owens has frequently been compared to Zach Duke by Pirates post-game host Rocco DeMaro, and its a comp that makes sense to me.  Both are lefties, with middling velocity on their heater (Owens FB sits 86-90 MPH) who were drafted in the later rounds.  Owens is likely to start 2010 where he left off last season at high A Lynchburg.  If he can keep the ball down in the zone more to improve on his 38% grondball rate from ‘09, he should be able to move to AA or even AAA by seasons end.

10. Gorkys Hernandez

Of all the prospects in the Pirates system, Hernandez has my favorite name.  After all, how can you not want to root for an outfielder named Gorkys?  After the name though, there isn’t a lot to love about Hernandez.  He started off the year well with Atlanta’s AA affiliate, but after coming over in the Nate McLouth trade, he struggled  mightily.  At Altoona, he only managed to hit .262, striking out 22.1% over of the time, and posting  a career low .652 OPS.  Pirates management has shown a desire to keep their outfield prospects in center as long as possible, and Hernandez offensive numbers have never profiled as a corner outfielder anyway, so I would expect Gorkys to start the year at AA until Jose Tabata heads for Pittsburgh, at which point he should move on to AAA to play center field in Indy.  If he can greatly improve his offensive numbers, there is a chance he could man a corner outfield position, but at this point I don’t have any reason to believe that would actually happen.  The best case scenario I can envision is Hernandez breaking out in 2010, both offensively and defensively, to the point where he is seen as a Major League Center fielder again.  At that point, he could be traded to another team that needs a center fielder, bringing back Pitching (or another position of need) in return.

Honorable Mentions

Argenis Diaz

When Argenis Diaz was acquired from the Red Sox in the Adam LaRoche trade, he immediately struck me as being awfully similar to Jack Wilson.  I could explain, but I’d rather let Marc Hulet from Fangraphs do that:

Diaz…has the upside of… Jack Wilson….[H]is value is tied solely to his glove, as he’s an above-average defensive player. With the stick, he’s probably going to produce Ramon Vazquez or Adam Everett numbers. Diaz doesn’t hit for power (.058 ISO), he doesn’t hit for average (.253 average in ‘09), he doesn’t walk (7.0 BB%) and he doesn’t steal bases (His seven steals this year are a career high). Yes, he’s only 22 but there is really nothing to build on. Not one of those four categories I mentioned has seen an improvement in four pro seasons.

So if he’s never going to hit, why am I talking about him?  One look at the shortstop situation in Pittsburgh should answer that question, as neither Bobby Crosby nor Ronny Cedeno does anything to write home about with the bat.  An injury to either one almost certainly would mean that Diaz gets called up, and even if that doesn’t happen, we’ll probably see him in September.  He’s never going to hit much, but his glove is good enough that he could be interesting as a utility infielder.  And if he can somehow get to league average with the bat (its a stretch I know) he could be a good stop gap until we can find a shortstop who isn’t one dimensional.

Danny Moskos

Ugh.  To this day, even writing about him makes me angry, as he is the epitome of everything Dave Littlefield did wrong.  But we can’t blame the player for being drafted way too early, in front of a catcher who many think will turn into a perennial all-star.  It’s really sad though, that just 2 years after being drafted #4 overall, he can’t even crack the Pirates top 10 prospects, nor does he deserve to.  His FIP last year was 4.41, his WHIP 1.45 and his K/BB ratio is closer to 1 than it is to 2.  His future at this point is in the bullpen, and it would appear he will start 2010 at AAA.  If he want’s to be anything more than a journeyman middle reliever, he’s going to have to show something that, to this point in career, he hasn’t shown.  Given where he was drafted, he will likely get ample opportunity to do so, and it will be up to him to take advantage of those opportunities.

Bryan Morris

Since coming over in July of 2008 as arguably the most highly touted piece in the Jason Bay trade, Morris has struggled mightily in the low minors.  The low point of his post-trade nose-dive coming this past July when he was suspended by the team following an in game outburst.  Morris rebounded a bit once returning from the suspension, but he still has a ways to go to prove he was a worthy return for a top flight hitter like Bay.

Looking at his 2009 splits (courtesy of minorleaguesplits.com, a resource I’ve used for many players in this series) his biggest problem seems to be the decline in his K rate and increase in walk rate.  He gets a lot of ground balls(55.8%) and doesn’t give up very many home runs(.23/9IP).  But since coming over from the Dodgers, he has walked more batters than he has struck out.  The numbers don’t lie, and the numbers say that he is having command and control problems.  He is going to start 2010 where he ended 2009, at high A Lynchburg, and if he can continue the momentum he had once coming back from suspension, I’d expect to see him at AA soon, but beyond that, where he progresses is anyone’s guess.  2010 will be his age 22 season, so AA is about the level you’d expect him to be at, but considering how highly thought of he was back in July of ‘08, its disappointing that he won’t get there until sometime this season.

Jeff Locke

Of all the Pirates pitching prospects currently in the low minors, Locke has arguably the highest upside.  Yes, I realize that Rudy Owens is in the Baseball America Top 10 and that Locke is not.  However, Owens upside is a slightly better version of Zach Duke whereas Locke has the stuff to conceivably become a number 2 or 3 starter.  His fastball touches 94(but was often clocked in the 90-92 range this season) and he uses his curve and change-up effectively.  In ‘09, Locke’s K rate was down, as was his walk rate, which leads me to believe he may have been taking something off his pitches in order to gain more control.  Despite the drop in strikeouts, Locke’s biggest problem in ‘09 seemed to be bad luck, as his cumulative BABIP for the year was .363, well below the mean of .300 that most pitchers regress towards.  Locke will start 2010 at AA, and if nothing changes for Locke except for his luck, I would expect he’ll be recognized as one of the top young arms in the system by years end.

Donnie Veal

After spending all of ‘09 in the big leagues (due to his status as a Rule V draft pick) Veal isn’t technically a “prospect” at this point.  But after his impressive showing in the Arizona Fall League(3-1, 2.14 ERA, 22 K’s 7 BB’s) and the fact that he will likely begin 2010 as a starter in AAA, I thought he was worth mentioning.  As impressive as Veal was in the AFL, there just isn’t a lot in Veal’s minor league track record to make me believe he can ever become more than back of the rotation filler.

Despite that grim projection though, I think Veal represents the kind of upside teams like the Pirates should be acquiring and developing.  He was acquired cheaply, hid in the bullpen and DL for a season, and now will go to AAA to see if there is anything there.  If not, the investment in Veal was small, and doesn’t hurt the franchise in the long term.  And if it turns out Veal can be a useful player, either as a long reliever or a starter, then Neal Huntington looks like a genius.

Note: I’m using Baseball America’s top 10 prospects for ordering, and have placed my “honorable mentions” at the end of part 2.  As a point of clarification, those honorable mentions are not (necessarily) numbers 11,12,13,etc, just a number of other prospects not in the BA top 10 who I wanted to write a few words about.

1. Pedro Alvarez

When you look at the Pirates system, there is Pedro Alvarez, then everyone else.  Not that there aren’t other promising prospects, its just that Pedro’s potential is so great, it outshines everything else in the system.  Alvarez is a slugging third baseman who was drafted in the 1st round by the Pirates in June of 2008.  He would miss the remainder of that season in a contract dispute and made his professional debut in 2009.  Prior to Spring training last year, it was reported he was out of shape, and after a slow start at High A Lynchburg, there were some concerns that he may be slower to develop than everyone was expecting.  Pedro would eventually turn it on and be promoted AA, finishing with a total line for the season of .288/.378/.535.  He would also slug 27 home runs and add 32 doubles over 542 PA in 2009.

As we began this off season, there were concerns his body would prevent him from staying at third and instead force him to move across the diamond to first base in order to get to Pittsburgh.  He has spent the offseason training at the Atheletes’ Performance Institute which should lead to him reporting for spring training in much better shape than last year, and hopefully, a very productive 2010 from the young slugger.  I expect his 2010 to look much like last years Pirates rookie sensation, Andrew McCutchen.  He will wow people in the spring, start the year at AAA Indianapolis, get called up in June or July, and compete for the rookie of the year.

If this comes to fruition, the only question left to be answered will be if he can stay at the hot corner for years to come.  Having seen him play in person once last season in Altoona (granted, very small sample size), he looked sluggish at third and didn’t seem to have the kind of range you’d like to see in your everyday third basemen.  So I’m skeptical of his ability to stay there long term, and doubt he’ll ever win a gold glove or post impressive UZR/150 numbers.  But I’m not an expert, and all the prospect gurus seem to think he’ll have enough leather to stay at third for at least a few years before moving across the diamond to first base, which is good enough for me.

2. Jose Tabata

Jose Tabata is a very interesting case.  If it weren’t for Andrew McCutchen’s ominous presence in center field at PNC Park for the foreseeable future, I’d be a lot higher on him than I am.  But we can’t just ignore McCutchen’s existence, which means that in order for Tabata to come to Pittsburgh, he has to play a corner outfield position.  The problem here is that the ideal corner outfielder has considerably more power than Tabata has ever shown in the minor leagues.  Case in point; In 2009 split between AA and AAA, Tabata managed a grand total of 5 home runs.  On the other hand, Tabata has been playing at levels above his age for his entire minor league career (Tabata will start 2010, his age 21 season, at AAA).  In addition, power is often one of the last things to develop for a prospect, so there is at least some hope that Tabata’s power numbers will come along as he ages.  One last thing to keep in mind with Tabata before we move on.  Pirates’ GM Neal Huntington has publicly stated that he prefers to have a center field type defender manning the gigantic patch of grass that is left field at PNC Park.  Think Nyjer Morgan and Andrew McCutchen for some context of what this kind of defensive alignment looks like.  If Tabata’s power never develops, but his defense in left is far, far above average, his overall value in terms of runs and wins against replacement could wind up being in the positives which could justify an outfield with Tabata in left, McCutchen in center, and someone who can mash in right.

3. Tony Sanchez

Tony Sanchez was drafted by the Pirates #4 overall out of Boston College this past June and the pick was widely criticized as being a reach.  Sanchez was quick to sign and went on to make a rather impressive professional debut in 2009.  Spending most of his time at low A West Virginia, Sanchez posted a .409 OBP and a .949 OPS.  While only time will tell if his numbers at the plate will translate as he moves to higher levels of the minor leagues and eventually to the bigs, the pro debut certainly gives me reason to believe in Sanchez.  In addition to the bat, Sanchez is considered to be very advanced defensively as a catcher.  With such a small professional sample size, there is only so much analysis we can do on Sanchez at this point, but as the 2010 season moves along, Sanchez may very well be one of the most interesting names to watch.  He will likely start the year at high A.  If he hits well there, moves up to AA and does the same, we could easily see Sanchez as the starting catcher sometime in 2011.  On the other hand, if at some point this year the bat starts to flounder, we might be waiting a bit longer to see Sanchez behind the plate for the Pirates.

4. Brad Lincoln

At number 4 we find the first pitcher among the Pirates top prospects, Brad Lincoln.  Lincoln was the Bucs #1 pick in 2006 but missed all of 2007 due to Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.  He came back in 2008, but really seemed to breakout this past summer, regaining his pre-surgery form.  He excelled in Altoona for most of the summer before a late season call-up to AAA Indy.  After the call-up to Indy he did struggle a bit, but not so much to make me overly concerned.  Lincoln’s best pitch coming out of college was his curve ball, and while I didn’t see him pitch this year, it’s been said that the life on his curve was back this season, which is good news for his long term outlook.  He works his fastball in the 90-95 range, mixing in his plus curve and his change-up as well.  The 2 knocks on Lincoln are that he doesn’t get enough ground balls and that he allows too many home runs.  Both are, in theory at least, symptoms of him not working down in the zone enough.  If he can resolve that issue, its quite possible he’ll be on the hill at PNC this summer as soon as June or July.

5. Chase D’Arnaud

Chase D’Arnaud is the eventual heir to the middle infield throne held for so long by Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson.  Where he ends up playing when he gets to Pittsburgh probably depends as much on need as it does on D’Arnaud’s ability, as he can play short, second, or even third base if needed.  D’Arnaud handles the bat quite well for a middle infielder, posting a .398 OBP and an .852 OPS in 2009 split between West Virginia and Lynchburg, his first full season of pro ball.  In addition to the bat, D’Arnaud also showed decent speed in ‘09 by stealing 31 bases on 39 tries.  While he may still be 2 or more season away from being in a Pirates uniform, there seems to be plenty of optimism about his ability to be a productive infielder for the Buccos for a long time once he makes it to Pittsburgh.

6. Starling Marte

Marte is, far and away, the least major league ready of the 6 prospects I’ve dug into in part 1.  He was a 2007 international free agent signing(relatively cheaply at $85K) out of the Dominican Republic and made his North American debut in 2009.  The problem with profiling a guy like Marte is that I have no idea what to make of his 2007 and 2008 numbers in the Dominican Summer League.  But taking those away leaves only one season, 54 games, played at low A West Virginia, and frankly that’s not a lot to go on.  For what it’s worth, everyone who knows about these things is really high on Marte, and all indications are that he will continue to show more and more power as he continues to develop.  He’s a bit of a free swinger, so his walk rate, and in turn his OBP is a bit lower than what you’d like to see.  This is a habit, though, that many players from the Dominican exhibit early in their pro careers, so its pretty easy to assume he’ll eventually learn a bit more patience at the plate.  Overall, I’d expect to see Marte as a prospect for several years to come, but he may eventually be a shining example of what a small investment in Latin America can yield.

That’s it for today, but I expect to get part 2 finished and published in a couple of days, so look for that coming soon.