Last season, the Pirates defense was a somewhat surprising bright spot, finishing the year as the best defense in the majors based on fielding percentage and errors. Of course, many of the players who led to that rating, Nyjer Morgan, Adam Laroche and Jack Wilson to name a few, are gone and after their departure last season, the team’s defense took a precipitous drop off. On a per position basis, the Pirates have above average defense at only 2 positions, Aki Iwamura at 2B (1.4 UZR/150 for his career) and Andy LaRoche at 3B (3.9 UZR/152 for his career). Beyond those 2, the defense is either average, below average or unproven* at every other position. The one wildcard tot hat is Andrew McCutchen in CF. Many think his defense will get better, and with his speed and tools it should, but last year his UZR/150 was -1.0, so we can’t just assume he wil be above average defensively this year until it happens. Overall, I expect the defense to be bad this year, and it’s going to be frustrating. Expect the team’s cumulative FIP to be lower than the ERA, and consequently, expect the defense to cost the team several games they should have won.

*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.

Tags: 2010 season preview, Akinori Iwamura, Andrew McCutchen, Andy LaRoche, Jeff Clement, Lastings Milledge