To this point in the season, the team is 4-4, but I find it at least a little bit concerning that all 4 losses have all been by 6 runs or more.  That’s something to keep an eye on as the season progresses.  This team isn’t built to win high scoring games, so if they can’t hold opponents to 3 or 4 runs, they aren’t going to win very often.

Aki Iwamura is quickly becoming one of my favorite Pirates.  He almost always sees 5 or more pitches per turn, and has showing surprising power with 2 home runs.  He’s probably not going to slug .530 for the season, but his at-bats are can’t miss television at this point if your a Pirates fan.

Andrew McCutchen said in the Spring that he wanted to be more aggressive on the basepaths this season, and so far he’s done just that.  His 5 swipes, 0 caught, represent the NL lead in that category (Scott Podsednik has 6 in the AL).  While his performance at the plate hasn’t been great so far, he’s made up for that on the basepaths, and suddenly 60 bags seems very much within reason for the young center fielder.

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

*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.

With PirateFest now in the past, and pitchers and catchers reporting in just 13 days, I think its safe to call this the unofficial end of the off-season.   Lets take a quick look back at what has gone on over the last 4 months.

• October 4, 2009:  The Pirates end their ignominious 17th consecutive losing season with a loss to the Cincinatti Reds, their 99th of the year.
• October 17, 2009: The Pirates announce that Perry Hill will not return as their infield instructor in 2010.  He would eventually be replaced by former Bucco Carlos Garcia.
• November 3, 2009: Second baseman Akinori Iwamuri is acquired from the Tamba Bay Rays in exhcange for relief pitcher Jesse Chavez
• December 10, 2009: In the Rule V draft, held annually at the winter meetings, the Pirates select OF John Raynor from the Florida Marlins.
• December 12, 2009: Former AL ROY Bobby Crosby signs a deal with The Pirates.  Crosby is expected to back-up incumbent Ronny Cedeno, with the chance to win the starting job in Cedeno struggles.
• December 13, 2009: In a surprise move, The Pirates opt not to tender closer Matt Capps a contract offer by the midnight deadline, making him a free-agent.  Capps would eventually sign a one year deal worth about $3.5 Million with the Washington Nationals.
• January 13, 2010: Free agent OF Ryan Church agrees to terms with the Pirates.  Church will be the Pirates 4th outfielder, but will likely get plenty of at bats backing up all 3 outfield positions.
• January 16-20, 2010: After losing Capps(voluntarily so) earlier in the off-season, GM Neal Huntington made a flurry of moves within a matter of just a few days to revamp his bullpen by signing D.J. Carrasco, Octavio Dotel, and Brendan Donnely.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, The Pirates have already addressed their most glaring need by trading for 2nd baseman Aki Iwamura.  With that hole filled, their focus has shifted to acquiring arms to improve a bullpen that struggled down the stretch in 2009.  From the names being reported so far (J.J. Putz, Justin Duchscherer, Noah Lowry, etc) Neal Huntington seems to be targeting players who can be had at good short term value.  These types of guys are intriguing because they have all achieved some level of past success, but had down years in 2009 due to injury.  Of this group, I find Duchscherer the most interesting because of the possibility that he could start.  Right now, the Pirates front 4 starters seem all but assured of being Ross Ohlendorf, Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Charlie Morton with the fifth spot a toss up between Kevin Hart and Daniel McCutchen.  If the team can sign Duchscherer, he would have the opportunity to compete for the last spot in the rotation and also fall back to be a solid long reliever if he doesn’t win the 5th starters job.

As the off season progresses, it will be fun to watch which of these names become more than just preliminary interest, and to see if Huntington brings in anyone who will make an impact on wins and losses in 2010.

Pirates acquire Akinori Iwamura for Jesse Chavez

This deal actually happened when I was on vacation in Hawaii, which is why I didn’t post anything then.  So far, among Pirates blogs I’ve read, there seems to be a mixed analysis focusing on the fact that Chavez still has 5 years of club control left compared to Aki’s 1.  Obviously, you hate to see a young talented reliever like Chavez go, but as with any trade, you have to give something to get something, and Iwamura is worth that price to me.  Relief pitching is the most inconsistent and unpredictable position in baseball.  I liked Chavez, and I thought he had a lot of potential to become a high leverage reliever, but I would much rather have a known commodity manning second base.  I believe that one of the reasons our team went into a tailspin after the Wilson and Sanchez trades last season is that the defense up the middle that made our starting pitching look so good early in the season was no longer there.  A middle infield of Iwamura and Cedeno, while not Jack and Freddy, should provide 90% of the defense we saw early last year.  As with any trade, you can’t pick out the true winner and loser until a year or more down the line, but I’m gonna say the Pirates are a better team now than they were before the trade and I’ll like it even more if the end up extending Aki for a few more years past this one.

Perry Hill will not be back as our infield instructor

This one is a huge blow.  Hill was a mastermind of infield defense, and you don’t have to look very far to find quotes from players praising his work.  There was some controversy when he left over why he wasn’t coming back.  Regardless of the reason, Hill decided he didn’t want to work for the Pirates so he’s is gone and I’m sad to see him go.  The one point I’d make counter to that is that he’s only a coach.  Obviously you want to have the best coaches money can buy, especially with a young team like the Pirates have.  But as with any other sport, the talent on the field is what wins games, not the coaches on the bench.  Hill will be replaced by former Pirate Carlos Garcia.

Yankees win World Series

I address this not because I care about the Yankees or the Phillies.  I have a great amount of dislike for both teams and I yearn for the days when Pirates v. Phillies can be a rivalry again.  However, since it ended there has been a lot of discussion in the national media about The payroll advantage the Yankees have, and whether they “bought a championship.”  That is what I want to address.  To say the Yankees bought a championship is unfair to the Yankees.  They are playing within the rules and taking advantage of every opportunity they have, good for them.  Also, saying that they bought a title ignores the fact that almost every team in the Playoffs this year has an astronomical payroll (2009 payroll).  If you count the Tigers and their one game playoff with the Twins, 7 of the top 9 made the Playoffs this year.

With that, here is how I like to think of the advantage the top payroll teams have.  Every extra dollar is a dollar that can be used to make up for mistakes in personnel and player development.  If you the Kansas City Royals, the Pittsburgh Pirates, or any other team who can’t afford to sign the top free agents, you have to be almost perfect.  All of your top draft picks have to turn out to be great players.  When you trade your top players who are free agency eligible, the return has to turn out to be solid major league talent.  As you move up the ladder to teams with a few more dollars, there’s a little more room for error.  And when you get to the top, teams like the Yankees have an almost unlimited margin for error.  Their draft picks are almost irrelevant.  They can afford to take chances on reclamation projects like Billy Wagner.  Any mistake made in developing personnel can be covered up by a good free agent signing.  And those very free agent signings are very low risk because its proven talent.  Obviously its  huge advantage, a broken system that needs to be fixed.