• Zach Duke was thoroughly unimpressive, a huge departure from his home opener start last year
• Garrett Jones first home run was an absolute bomb.  Say what you will about the minor league track record, but his power is for real.
• It was really nice to see Doumit hit the home run that sealed it.
• In addition to Duke’s struggles, Carrasco also didn’t look good.
• All the normal 1 game, small sample size caveats, but the defense was pretty good today, aside from a late inning grounder that I thought Aki could have gotten to.

Also, Brandon Moss cleared waiver’s today and has been out-righted to AAA, which is nice.  If he can ever find his stroke at the plate, it would be nice to see that happen in Pittsburgh, rather than say, Texas.

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.

About a week ago I posted about Joel Hanrahan’s injury.  Today we got some good news on that front, as it was announced that his latest MRI revealed no structural damage to his injured throwing elbow.  There is still no hard time-table given for his return, but the terms “dissipating inflamation” and “no structural damage” are both very good things, and should mean he’ll be back sooner rather than later.

This one is behind a pay-wall, ESPN insiders only, but Buster Olney seems very bullish on the potential of this Pirates line-up, especially the power potential of Garrett Jones and Pedro Alvarez.  There is also a note in there about Paul Maholm altering his pre-game routine to conserve his energy for later innings.

Just heard this now, literally as I was writing this post.  Charlie Wilmouth of BucsDugout is going to be on the FanGraphs Audio podcast (they mention it at the end of the linked episode) on Thursday.

I’m not quite sure what it is about this pirates administration, but I think they have a tendency to get caught up in the moment and speak a bit more freely than they should be.  The latest example of this, Frank Coonelly today says that “2010 is the beginning of the next dynasty of the Pirates.”  Really?  I truly believe this team is heading in the right direction, but Dynasty?  As they say on NFL PrimeTime, Come on, Man!  Edit: I forgot to note this originally, but in that same post, Chuck Finder also adds that Neal Walker is being turned into a super-utility player, something I’ve speculated about in the past.

Finally, something I really enjoyed seeing this week was this tweet from Rob Biertempfel about the energy CF Andrew McCutchen gives this team.  Looking back to when he was called up last year, and that was expected of him at that time, he has met or exceeded all of it.  Its easy to dream on how great a player this kid can be, and I’m glad to hear that he’s the one providing the team its energy.

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.

The Sano situation is an interesting one, and its not something I’ve wrote much about so far, mostly because I don’t want to get myself too excited about anything until he is officially a Pirate.  Well in recent days that has become much, much more likely.  A few days ago, Jorge Arangure of ESPN tweeted that he thinks “it’s 90 percent” the Pirates sign Sano.  That’s when I started to get rather excited, but all of this still hinged on Major League Baseball completing their age investigation and confirming he is in fact 16.  Given the Bucs had already conducted a bone graft that confirmed he was between 16 and 17, that seemed like a foregone conclusion to me .  Now that stumbling block is out of the way.  Sport Illustrated is reporting that MLB has in fact completed its age investigation, and DK says that it will be announced Tuesday or Wednesday.

So where does that leave us.  In short, let the negotiations begin.  In addition to Pittsburgh, The Twins and Orioles have both been linked to Sano.  And no doubt, now that the age investigation is complete, there will be more teams throwing their hats (and money) in the ring.

Whats nice is that the Pirates have an inside track.   They have a long standing relationship with the player, his family, and perhaps most importantly his agent.  I don’t want to put words into his mouth, but this is probably at least partially why Arangure says the Pirates are 90% to sign him.

This would be huge.  It’s not that I think Sano is a sure thing, at 16 no one is.  There’s a lot that can happen between 16 and The Show.  But what makes this so impactful, and its not a surprise really, is that management is finally spending the big dollars in the international market.  Unlike the major league free agent market, signing international players at a young age is one way that small to mid market teams can gain a competitive advantage over the big boys.  This type of stuff never happened under Dave Littlefield.  I guess what I’m saying is that this is another huge step in the right direction.

The other big development, and I linked to the news of it yesterday, is that the Pirates have extended contract offers to both Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez.  Since that development, its come out that these offers were of the low ball variety.  Quoting DK:

The offer to Wilson, according to two sources, covers two years plus a club option. No money terms were divulged, but it was seen as competitive even though it represented a significant cut from his current $7.4 million salary. Wilson would prefer three guaranteed years.

But the initial offer to Sanchez, also made yesterday, was for two years and a total believed to be in the range of $10 million. That would represent a cut from his current salary of $6.25 million and, more striking, the total is $2 million more than the $8 million Sanchez is set to make in 2010 alone under the vesting option in his current contract, one that would be annulled under the Pirates’ proposal.

Sanchez is on a comfortable pace to achieve the 600 plate appearances necessary to trigger that option.

What this really means is that the Pirates are making a legitimate effort to re-sign Jack, but not quite doing the same with Freddy.  Signed or not, this has to be resolved in the next few days such that trade offers can continue to be fielded.  With all of this being said, I’m going to stick by what I wrote the other day in part 2 of my first half wrap up.  Freddy Sanchez is almost certain to be traded.  If the pirates offer negates that 8 million dollar option, without giving up something in return, Sanchez would be crazy to sign it, thus sealing his fate.  Jack will be kept in a scenario where no major league ready shortstop can be acquired via a trade.  My guess is that Neal Huntington and company do not expect to get a shortstop prospect in a trade, and therefore are making an effort to re-sign Jack.

Last, I’d like to discuss Garrett Jones real fast.  Jones is already 28, and as I said when we traded Nyjer Morgan, guys that old don’t tend to get much better.  I’m leery to get excited here because players who come up at 28, with just a stale cup of coffee at 26, don’t have a track record of being impact talent at the big league level.  But what he’s done so far is beyond impressive.  .313/.365/.833 for an OPS of almost 1.200.  Add to that 7 home runs and 3 stolen bases in just 12 games and its hard to ignore how well he has played since being called up.  Numbers like that are just as useful to the bottom line when they comes from a  28 year old as they are when they come from a 22 year old.  The tear Jones is currently on is unsustainable, so he’s sure to cool off.  But if he can give us solid power production and steal a few bases he could certainly play a corner outfield position or even take first base if and when Adam LaRoche is traded.  Call me cautiously optimistic.