The article he links to appears on the Pittsburgh magazine website.  It would easily be the biggest misuse of a journalistic platform related to the Pirates this year, were it not for the Pirates Report fiasco just a few weeks ago.  While I’m tempted to tear it apart Fire Joe Morgan style, I’m going to go another route.

There are lots of problems with what Conboy is saying.  But the most egregious of them seems to be a comical misunderstanding of the nature of the sport of baseball.  Baseball, at it’s very core is a game of one hitter vs. one pitcher.  It’s that nature that allows a pitcher like Strasburg to completely dominate a game, despite the fact that he plays for a Nationals team that is below .500, even after sweeping the Pirates this week.  Conboy’s assertion that players like Morgan are important to a developing team seems to completely ignore that aspect of the game.  In true team sports like Hockey, Football, and Basketball you have to rely on your teammates to help maximize your performance.  I have no doubt that in those sports guys like Morgan and Billy G can make a profound difference to a teams ability to win a championship.  But in a baseball, an individual sport disguised as a team game, team chemistry is incredibly overrated.

Now don’t get me wrong, Nyj-Mo was one of my favorite players when he was in a Pirates uniform.  He’s a plus defender with speed on the base paths who can survive as a slap hitter because of his speed.  But ultimately, this isn’t about Morgan’s skills on the field but rather what he does off of it for a young team.  From what I know of Morgan, based mostly on interviews and the like, he seems like an very likeable, funny guy.  That likeability almost certainly translates to the clubhouse, helping to keep teammates loose, but the assertion that it translates to wins on the field is at best unproven and at worst just plain wrong.

If Conboy wants to criticize Pirates management because Milledge hasn’t played well since coming to Pittsburgh and we’d be a better team with Morgan back, that’s fine.  It’s pretty clear at this point that Milledge has been a dissapointment.  Maybe you don’t like the risks Neal Huntington has taken in many of his trades and think disgraced former top prospects like Milledge and Clement never workout and aren’t worth trading for.  But that isn’t what Conboy says.  In Conboy’s world, Nyjer Morgan and Doug Mientkiewicz (for the record he never specifically mentions Dougie baseball, I’m just assuming Conboy would put him in the same camp as Morgan) would still be Pirates, and those 2 players would lead their young players to victory.  In the real world talent, not chemistry, is what wins baseball games.  I’ll even go a step further and bet that if the Pirates continue to develop talent, to the point that they become a winning team, the chemistry and morale in their clubhouse will be just fine.

Octavio Dotel came in for the 9th and immediately allowed a Jay Bruce homer.  If you look at Dotel’s splits against lefties, the Bruse homerun isn’t really a surprise.  For his career, Dotel’s FIP against southpaws is 4.68, compared to 2.80 against righties.  In short, he has always struggled against left handed batters.  In a 3 run game with Bruce as the only lefty set to come up, I’m fine with using Dotel.  But in a tighter game, I think JR would be wise to go another direction against left handed batters.

On the bright side, Lastings Milledge seems to have something extra this year that I didn’t really see last year.  At the plate, he’s been mostly a single hitter, and that’s going to have to improve for him to stick as a corner outfielder.  However, he made several nice defensive plays today, plays I’m convinced he would not have made last season after coming over from Washington.

EDIT: I forgot to add that there were two fly balls to left that I found interesting in light of recent discussion on outfield positioning.  Without looking at my score book, I don’t know the innings in which they occurred but, there was one hit toward the north side notch that Milledge managed to corral due to his positioning.  Then later there was ball hit down the line that probably would have been an out were the outfield positioned “traditionally” but it turned into an RBI single due to the left-center shift the team employs at home.  Don’t try to divine any great wisdom from that, just take it as 2 anecdotal plays that occurred in one particular game.

Its also worth noting that this was my first game in my regular plan seats, since opening day I was over on the first base side.  My seats down in section 27 provide a nice view as well as easy bathroom and concession access.  All told, it was a great day at the ballpark despite the cold.

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.

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.

I will say this about LaRoche though, despite his streakiness, his bat will be sorely missed in a lineup starving for power.  There are a lot of Pirates fans who are way down on LaRoche, and I think they are slightly mistaken.  I don’t necessarily think this is a bad trade, but its worth noting that the popular reaction to this is going to be “good riddance to LaRoche” and I don’t agree.

In a related move, Steve Pearce has been recalled from AAA to be the everyday first baseman.  While it can’t hurt to give Pearce a good long look as an everyday player, I would have preferred to see Garrett Jones play first and Lastings Milledge recalled for the outfield.  I don’t personally believe Pearce will ever hit enough in the biggs to be an everyday first baseman.  If he could hit off the bench he could be a decent pinch hitter and fill in player, but he proved in his cup of coffee earlier in the season that he can’t do that.  Although, thinking about it some more, this probably isn’t long term.  Sooner or later, Lastings Milledge play at AAA is going to force Neal Huntington’s hand.  At that point, the Pirates out field gets really crowded, and either Delwyn Young or Garrett Jones would need to more to the infield to get everyone enough playing time.  Until that time, I’m just going to hope I’m wrong about Steve Pearce.

First the Hinske deal.  Eric Hinske was on a one year contract, he’s 32, and he was hardly playing (only 106 ABs so far this year).  He was distinctly not part of the future of this team.  To get anything in exchange for him is a win, even if we did have to cover about half of his remaining salary, sending the Yanks $400k.  In return we got 2 prospects, both currently playing A ball.  Eric Fryer is a 23 year old outfielder currently playing at high A Tampa Bay and will be assigned to Lynchburg.  Last year at low A West Virginia, then part of the Brewers farm system, he hit .355 with 26 2Bs and 10 Hrs in 104 games.  So far this year in Tampa he has hit .250 with 2 dingers.  He has played mostly left field, but can also play behind the plate.  Casey Erickson is a left handed pitcher, and will be assigned to low A West Virginia.  In 21 appearances with Charleston, Erickson has gone 3-3 with a 2.25 ERA.

I love this trade, absolutely love it.  While neither of the prospects we got in return is considered to be an impact level player, this trade characterizes what this front office is doing right.  Neal Huntington never stops, he never settles.  He continues to add pieces and organizational depth, taking advantage of every possible opportunity to do so.  Eric Hinske is a good guy and a nice player, but he was never going to be a part of the future of this club.  Instead of just letting him play out his contract here and lose him at years end, NH went out and made a move to get something in return, even if its small.  For a team in situation the Pirates are in, these are the kinds of moves that need to be made.  If either of these guys turns out to be anything at the big league level, this trade is a win.

Of these 2 moves though, the one more likely to have a long term impact is the Nyjer Morgan trade.  Frankly, I’m still not sure how I feel about this one.  Nyjer is one of my favorite players on the buccos roster this year.  His glove is a thing of beauty.  His interviews are fun to listen to, and the way he plays the game, you can tell he’s having fun out there.  For evidence of that, just go back to the game last week where he was mic’d up.  It was very entertaining to say the least.  But he is also very limited offensively, and at 29 he’s not likely to ever develop into much more than what he is now.  Along with Nyjer, the Pirates sent Sean Burnett, a pitcher who has done a very nice job in making the transition from being a starter into the bullpen.

In return, the Pirates received Lastings Milledge, a player who seems to have been a top prospect and ready to break out, first with the Mets, now with the Nats, since about the turn of the century.  Milledge has career numbers of .261/.326/.400 for an OPS of .726.  While these numbers don’t really jump off the page, the indications are that he has the tools to do much more than that.  He has definite baggage and character issues that have followed him, and from all accounts that seems to be what have prevented him from becoming the player his skills indicate he can be.  You may remember, for example, that after he hit his first career homer, he was criticized for high-fiving a fan when returning to the field for the next half inning.  The point is this guy is ultra talented, but also, ultra risky.  At 24, he is also five years younger than Morgan, which could make him part of the outfield of the future.  However, I should balance that by saying he has more Major League service time, and will be arbitration eligible after this season. (EDIT: It seems this is not true.  Due to the service time Milledge has missed with injuries, he will not be arbitration eligible for another year, after the 2010 season and not before.)  The Nats also sent over Right handed reliever Joel Hanrahan.  Hanrahan has a career ERA of 5.30, 7.71 this year. Neither of those numbers looks good.  I’m not quite sure what to make of the reliever swap here.  I don’t really know much of anything about Hanrahan, aside from seeing his numbers.  I believe he was given a shot at the Nats closer job this year and blew it.  Burnett seems to have developed into a solid reliever, lefty specialist, but frankly that’s not a big piece in this deal, and long term it probably won’t have a ton of impact.  This trade will ultimately be judged on Milledge for Morgan.

So, considering all of that, I’m not sure if I like this deal.  I really haven’t seen enough of Milledge to really know how much I like him, and I have seen enough of T-Plush to know he’s the kind of player I love to watch.  It seems obvious, though, that the Pirates are getting the more talented player in this deal, at least offensively.  Based on that, and Neal Huntington’s track record making trades, I have to support this deal in principle.  It certainly seems much more likely that the Pirates can calm Milledge down, allow him to mature, and have him reach his potential than it is that Nyjer will develop into an elite player at age 30. I guess only time will tell on this one.  Either way, stay tuned, as you never know when the next time NH will make a big move, they seem to be coming almost daily now.