[u0007890]

http://www.wpgb.com/pages/extra.html

The Best Season in 18 Years
Thursday 09-30-2010 3:01pm ET
MY COUCH -- Despite all the losses at the ML level--102 and counting--2010 has been the best season for the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise since the start of The Streak 18 years ago.


And it's really not close.


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The mess that has led to 18 consecutive years of losing actually started in the late '80's.


Though the Bucs had been playing good ball at the major league level, the quality of the Pirates system had been eroding for years when the Pirates won the first of their three NL East titles in the 1990's. After nabbing arguably the greatest player to ever walk the earth in the 1985 draft and Jeff King in 1986, the Pirates drafts in subsequent years were very poor...especially on the top end.


Mark Merchant, Austin Manahan, Willie Greene, Kurt Miller, and Jon Farrell were the Pirates 1st round picks from 1987-1991. None played a day in Pittsburgh, though Greene was packaged (with Moises Alou) to grab the helpful Zane Smith in 1990.


The 1987 draft produced, literally, no major leaguers that materially helped the Pirates. None. Tim Wakefield and noted RBI enthusiast John Wehner were the only two players to come from the '88 class. And between the '89, '90 and '91 classes, only Kevin Young, Tony Womack and Steve Cooke did anything for the big league club (and they didn't do much).


That's two middling starters, a bench guy, a middling 1Bman, and a middling 2Bman in FIVE YEARS worth of June drafts. It was a debilitating run of ineptitude in the single most important area of player procurement.


The wins at the major league level were doing a great job of invigorating the city and the fanbase but as the Bucs were winning those three NL East Titles, the very foundation of the club was crumbling. The future was slipping away.


The Pirates were losing stars and failing to replace them.


--------------------


The Pirates stockpile of talent as reflected in win totals:


1987: 80
1988: 85
1989: 74
1990: 95
1991: 98
1992: 96
1993: 75
1994: 53 *strike-shortened season; Bucs were 8 games under .500 at stoppage
1995: 58
1996: 73


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By 1993 Doug Drabek, Barry Bonds, John Smiley and Bobby Bonilla were all gone, with Bonds and Drabek leaving after The Francisco Cabrera Incident (Cabrera got eleven plate appearances in the 1992 regular season. 11.).


Subsequent years saw new unis fashioned with new players wearing them and, heck, even a beautiful new stadium was built. But the story remained the same--the Pittsburgh Pirates were chronically talent-poor. Occasionally the teams were slightly less bad, but, as we all know, there was never enough talent on a roster to break .500 in a given season.


The Dark Ages under McClatchy/Bonifay/Littlefield lasted from 1993-2007 and were notable, chiefly, for a lack of managerial savvy which revealed itself though the club's near-complete neglect of amateur talent procurement, the lifeblood of any MLB team.


-----


Considering the aforementioned lack of savvy for a decade and a half, it's easy to understand why none of The Dark Age seasons would qualify as the Pirates best season since 1992.


One could even argue that the '87-'92 seasons--years in which the major league Pirates had successes and eventually won some Division titles--were ultimately counterproductive due to the gross neglect in virtually all areas of amateur talent. But I'll not outwardly discount the value of major league success to that degree, even if I privately believe it to be mostly true.


That leaves the title for 'Best Season Since the Start of The Streak' to one of the seasons since The Dark Ages ended: 2008, 2009 or 2010. These were all losing seasons in the bigs, but with an obvious thread of commonality--improved upper management.


2008 marked the first full season under the Nutting/Coonelly/Huntington regime and this is where things began to turn around.


Slugging infielder Pedro Alvarez was selected in the 1st round of the '08 draft and, after some protracted negotiations with The Boras Corp., he was signed. His selection and signing announced the return of reasonability to the Pirates braintrust, a key first step toward winning in the majors and re-establishing some trust within the fanbase. The Pirates were finally producing star-level talent again.


The Pirates took other high ceiling (read: expensive) players in that draft as well, finally spending some dollars and assuming the appropriate amount of risk for a small-mid market team.


There was also much re-tooling of the major league roster in '08, which was the logical first step given the lack of inventory both in the majors and in the minors. Some successful trades were made, some unsuccessful trades were made. But strategically, these moves needed to be happen.


Had the new management team been more successful in some of those trades--most notably the Jason Bay deal--this post might've been written in the waning days of the '08 season, celebrating 2008 as a landmark season for the club's resurgence and eventual success. As it is, '08 earns mere 'runner up' status.


In 2009 more good work was done in the draft, with a slew of high ceiling pitchers highlighting the class. Catcher Tony Sanchez was taken with the 1st round pick, and though many in the industry questioned the move, the Pirates look to be laughing last as Sanchez has seen nothing but success as a professional. He could arrive in Pittsburgh as early as 2011, though 2012 is more realistic.


2009 also saw the completion of a new Latin Baseball Academy in the Dominican Republic, it's completion heralding a re-dedication to the fertile pool of talent from that part of the planet.


The Pirates were dead-set on pairing a shiny new Latin prospect with their shiny new facility, but failed in this regard after Miguel Sano's agent, Rob Plummer, spurned the Bucs over-aggressive stalking of Sano and sent him instead into the grateful hands of the Minnesota Twins.


Had the Bucs brought in Sano, 2009 might've rightfully claimed the title of 'Best Season Since The Streak'. Alas, they did not and it does not.


That brings us, finally, to 2010.


Jameson Taillon. Stetson Allie. Luis Heredia.


If the '09 class of talent was notable for the risk the Pirates assumed with good young arms, the '10 class was notable for the risk the Pirates assumed with great young arms.


In '09 the likes of Zack Von Rosenberg, Colton Cain and Trent Stevenson represented the highest ceiling pitchers the Bucs selected, and though these players do possess upside, none were projected to be true 'ace' level starters.


With Taillon, Allie and Heredia, the Pirates added three potential aces to their system.

This distinction between good players and great players is hugely important to understand as the difference between good talent and star-level talent is essentially the difference between a competitive team and a Championship team.


And that's why this '10 season, despite the ignominy of posting 100+ losses in the majors, is SO meaningful. In the span of four days in the summer of 2010, the Pittsburgh Pirates drastically altered their future: they went from having zero potential aces in their system to having three.

To put that into context--there are about 10-12 true 'aces' currently in MLB. Those players are typically worth about $20-30 million per season in terms of value to their teams and once they hit free agency, they can expect to make $20-25 million per year.

To have three players in your system capable of reaching that level of production when previously...for decades...you have had none, that's incredibly meaningful.

And believe it or not, it's not the only reason 2010 has been such an important season for the Pirates.

That the Bucs have been so horrendously bad in the majors in 2010 will actually work to their benefit long-term. By earning the worst record in MLB the Pirates will select first in the very talented 2011 draft...and given the Pirates recent industry-leading aggression in the draft, that means yet another superstar-level prospect will almost assuredly be in Pittsburgh's fold this time next year.

Jameson Taillon + Stetson Allie + Luis Heredia + Anthony Rendon/Gerrit Cole/Matt Purke. That's 4 more potential superstars than the Pirates had in their system prior to June of 2010. That's a relative deluge of talent, and it's coming to Pittsburgh.

To procure it (or in the case of Rendon/Cole/Purke, put themselves into a position to procure it) in the span of one season makes 2010, without equivocation, The Best Season for the Pittsburgh Pirates Franchise since the start of The Streak 18 years ago.

-Roc

[Trey_Beamon]

Reads like something found on OBN or PiratesProspects.

Viewpoints aside, am I the only one who finds Rocco incredibly annoying? His voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

[herrmorpheus]

Reads like something found on OBN or PiratesProspects.

Viewpoints aside, am I the only one who finds Rocco incredibly annoying? His voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

For me, it's the speed. Dude needs to slow down.

[BigBadBucs]

I have to agree with Rocco. I really think that most of us will struggle to recognize a turnaround because we are so jaded with the depressing results of past ineptdtness. Rocco's history lesson is quite revealing to me because I really never paid attention to the drafting back in the 80's. It was horrendus and set a trend that destroyed the future of this team. The future is nothing more than a series of today's and so if your today's are not used wisely then the future will not be promising. The last few years have been markedly different for the Pirates because the quality of draft picks is better because the upside and ceilings are much higher for many of their picks.

I always have a hard time evaluating what's really going on with the Bucs because I still think that Nutting will screw this up eventually. You see! It just won't go away. Nutting has to make my skepticism go away. Having said that, I think that there are more positive things going on than ever before.

I do find myself wanting to watch the young Bucs even though it's September and football season is upon us. I wouldn't have turned on the tube to watch the losers of the past at this time of year. This year has been a step up for me in that regard.

Good Article!

BBB

[buckeyebucco]

I like Rocco, maybe because I only get the chance to listen to him several times a year.

[LonghornBuc]

BBB, I just went through our pitching rotations for the past 15 years and we have had some pretty decent guys coming through here. Schmidt, Cordova, Benson, Perez were all ace rated guys. We had a lot of mid rotation guys as well. Of course, we have never signed a FA worth a shit, so all these guys were basically internally produced (even if by trade).

On the other hand, our pitching right now is awful, and will be for several years without an Anne Frank type miracle. My point is simple, it may be a little better than in the past, but I think this "we are drafting better" story is a little overrated.

We dont trade well. We dont sign FAs of value. We dont keep FAs we develop (which hurts the trade value of anyone we have in arb years). We are still average at best in IFAs, even with Heridias signing. All of these shortcomings are essentially money related, even the trades.

I just dont see the current path putting nearly enough talent in the tank for any one year to be much better than a 500 season, and even that goal seems lofty. I dont see the Plan yet, maybe its still developing.

[crosscuttersno1]

There is no doubt we are drafting better than we ever have. However, that's has nothing to do with the owners pocketing money or the GM using what little major league payroll he has on several retreads instead of one or 2 good or even all-star like players. Fans still have every right to be hesitant and/or critical of the current regime.

[BigBadBucs]

BBB, I just went through our pitching rotations for the past 15 years and we have had some pretty decent guys coming through here. Schmidt, Cordova, Benson, Perez were all ace rated guys. We had a lot of mid rotation guys as well. Of course, we have never signed a FA worth a shit, so all these guys were basically internally produced (even if by trade).

On the other hand, our pitching right now is awful, and will be for several years without an Anne Frank type miracle. My point is simple, it may be a little better than in the past, but I think this "we are drafting better" story is a little overrated.

We dont trade well. We dont sign FAs of value. We dont keep FAs we develop (which hurts the trade value of anyone we have in arb years). We are still average at best in IFAs, even with Heridias signing. All of these shortcomings are essentially money related, even the trades.

I just dont see the current path putting nearly enough talent in the tank for any one year to be much better than a 500 season, and even that goal seems lofty. I dont see the Plan yet, maybe its still developing.

Absolutely Tex.

It's what the Pirates do at the major league level that grieves me the most and that's why I still can't believe that they will shell out the money necessary to improve this team. I have to admit though that they are drafting better and that does give me a little bit of hope. Until they buck up at the major league level I will still remain skeptical in the areas that you have clearly pointed out in your post.

BBB

[silverspring]

I enjoyed this season more than any in the last 18, including 1997. Well, maybe a tie. Watching Pedro, Tabs, Cutch and Local Guy was pretty cool. The draft and signing Heredia made me very happy, the Dotel trade was wonderful to see and securing the top pick was what really clinched it.

If they're going to win some day - and they may not - this is how it was going to start. I'm WAY more optimistic about our farm system than you guys.

How sad that this is what I'm left with as a fan.

[DoctorJohnnyFever]

I think Rocco's postgame show is pretty entertaining. Most entertaining thing about the Pirates, actually.

[jestor92]

There is no doubt the team is on the upturn. The sticking point with the upturn though is how the talent is handled (trades/waivers/extensions/free agent signings/etc), whether or not we'll actually pay the guys that are considered building blocks (see McCutch, Alvarez), and when or whether or not the wave of talent from the last 3 seasons of the draft will actually get to Pittsburgh. It's nice to have some pitching depth in the lower minors from the last few drafts, but how much of that depth is actually going to reach the majors and how much of that will flame out due to injuries/performance before they reach the majors. Then the key question is how much of that remaining talent will be able to have any kind of impact in the majors and not become AAAA players?

If the wave of young pitching talent reaches the majors in roughly 4-7 years will there be any kind of offensive talent on the roster (because that seems to be what is lacking the most in the minors) to make the team successful? Will the pitching talent get there before or after Alvarez and or McCutch and will we resign.

[sloshyj]

There is no doubt we are drafting better than we ever have. However, that's has nothing to do with the owners pocketing money or the GM using what little major league payroll he has on several retreads instead of one or 2 good or even all-star like players. Fans still have every right to be hesitant and/or critical of the current regime.

This is very true. I think fans who are consider pro-NH are really very jaded as well. We all are; it's just a function of degrees.

To be so ecstatic that the team is finally drafting the obvious choice, and then debate other malcontents about how it's meaningless in the grand scheme of poor ownership, is really very sad. We're all very sad, still following a miserable franchise.

Whether you're pro-NH or not, you're here talking about the team. We're all schmucks. We're all just miserable, talentless, no-good pieces of shit.

Or at least Winter is.

[GoBucs21]

I will wait for major league progress before I start declaring our minor league development and drafts a success.

Rocco is using two different means to evaluate the early 90s Pirates and the current ones. He killed the Pirates late 80s farm system based on a vast amount of major league data that came long afterward. He did the same with later teams. Yet, he praises this team because of the great new prospects, even though they've done little in the majors.

Maybe Rocco wasn't in Pittsburgh in the early 90s. Or maybe he just forgot about the hype. I can remember a lot of people talking about how good three particular Pirate prospects were in the early 90s. Cooke, Young and Carlos Garcia were all highly regarded prospects in the Pirates system. Throw in the minor league free agent acquisition of Al Martin and those four were as highly regarded as any four in the Pirates current group of prospects.

There were other young guys who showed some promise to, as much as anyone in the current system. Randy Tomlin was a young pitcher who had 2 and half really good seasons before getting hurt. Tomlin was a part of the 88 draft. Tim Wakefield rose and fell with the Pirates and went on to have a pretty good career. He was a part of the 88 draft. Injuries and early departures make the 88 draft seem worse than it was, and potentially not worse than the 2009 draft.

I also believe the Pirates had the minor league organization of the year in the late 90s. We had Aramis Ramirez and Chad "walk on water" Hermanson coming up to join young guys like Jason Kendall and an outstanding young pitching staff. What happened there was that a dumbass valued defense too highly and traded Ramirez. Hermanson sank like the Titanic and Lamont did his best imitation of Dusty Baker. Within a few years, the minor league organization of the year was a major league disaster.

I know PJ is saying, "what's your point". My point is that saying this year is the best Pirate year in 18 years, is jumping the gun and changing evaluation methodology. We can't say that this year is the best because we have our best prospects. We've had great, or greatly rated prospects in the past 19 years. They just couldn't play major league baseball. Its going to be a while before we know if the current group of great prospects can play major league baseball.

The only thing we can say, definitively, is that the team and organization is better than it was under DL. But then, that's not really saying much. Come to think of it, neither did Rocco.

[Trey_Beamon]

If any season should be considered tops, it's 1997. The team flirted with a division title and I believe was named BA's organization of the year.

Then again, picking "the best" of 18 miserable seasons is a pretty ridiculous exercise when you think about it. They all sucked.

[mercerboy]

I met Rocco at the last game I went to. I think he's a good dude. Yeah, he's hopeful for the new management team, but considering the Pirates are drafting more of the people that the "experts" think are the right guys instead of random cheap guys more often than not is a good thing. Ultimately the team will be judged by how the major league club does. I have no problem with that. I just want to see strides taken by the ownership to actually put money into the team if/when these young players turn out to be competent major leaguers. Until that happens, I won't be as optimistic as Rocco (and most of the other Pirates bloggers) are.

[jpbucco]

Looking at the minors, I finally see a light at the end of a very long tunnel.

[Pjoma]

Seems to me that Rocco read the newsletter by Joe Sheehan in June 2010 before he wrote his take. At least, coming from a guy who's never had a good thing to say about the Bucs, Sheehan is unbiased.

The Joe Sheehan Newsletter
Vol. II, No. 19
June 16, 2010

Pedro Alvarez, who was a hyped prospect before Stephen Strasburg redefined the concept, will be promoted by the Pirates tonight to make his major-league debut. The left-handed-hitting third baseman was the fourth pick in the 2008 draft out of Vanderbilt. His selection was something of a watershed moment for the Pirates, the first time in years they’d nabbed the best talent available with a very high pick in the draft. Taking Alvarez represented a break from the old ways of doing things in Pittsburgh, a sign that the new front office, under new GM Neal Huntington, would be burying the penny-wise, pound-foolish approach of the old regime in favor of doing whatever was necessary to build a championship team.

Not a single thing that has happened in the intervening two years has provided any reason to doubt that notion. The Pirates, who put off a full rebuild for a decade under David Littlefield, have undergone a radical restructuring under Huntintgton. The former director of player development and assistant GM in Cleveland, Huntington brought over the Indians’ approach, mixing scouting and data, including the hiring of Baseball Prospectus staffer Dan Fox to bolster his data operations. He traded away the entire lineup he inherited, the kind of housecleaning that had been necessary for years. The Pirates have spent more money in the draft than any other team the past two years and could be in line to do so again in 2010. They took the best talent available at #2, in Jameson Tallion, and a player with huge upside and signabilty concerns, Stetson Allie, in the second round. This is how successful franchises behave. Why dispensing with the core of a .450 team brought so much criticism was hard to understand, but Huntington had to deal with significant angst then, and still does today.

The Pirates are one of the worst teams in baseball this season, on the heels of losing 99 games in 2009 and 95 in 2008. This is exactly what is supposed to happen. Putting undercompetitive teams on the field to stave off this kind of stretch while sustaining an illusion of contention is one reason why the Pirates had 15 consecutive sub-.500 seasons before Huntington was hired. To build a great team, you have to be willing to build some bad ones, to trade players who have present value but no future with your team for those who might be able to contribute to that future. If there’s a criticism to be made of Huntington, it’s that he hasn’t done a particularly good job of this; while the fans and media in Pittsburgh seem focused on what he traded away, popular but fungible players such as Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson and Nate McLouth, the main problem for Huntington has been the lack of return on those deals. That is one reason why the 2010 Pirates look as bad as they do; Jeff Clement and Charlie Morton and Ronny Cedeno and the rest of Huntington’s haul have simply been awful.

The Pirates’ poor performance in 2010 has even raised the notion that Huntington could be let go at the end of the year. This would be an enormous mistake. Huntington walked into a situation not of his own creation, with a farm system decimated by years of poor drafting and minimal international efforts. The 2010 Pirates aren’t bad because of Neal Huntington’s efforts, and in fact, the 2010 Pirates are close to irrelevant to his job performance. Huntington didn’t waste four straight #1 picks from 1999-2002 on pitchers who would combine for 10 MLB wins. He wasn’t in the room when the Pirates chose Brad Lincoln over Tim Lincecum, Daniel Moskos over Matt Wieters, the tail end of a decade-long run of hyperconservative, cost-conscious draft picks that is the single biggest reason why the Pirates are where they are.

You don’t fix what was wrong with the Pirates in three years. Three years is barely enough time to put the plan in place. It’s barely enough time to start restocking the system with talent, to change the way the organization thinks about its goals, to . On-field results over a three-year period for a team such as the Pittsburgh Pirates tell you nothing about what the current GM is doing and everything about what the last guy did. If the Pirates fire Huntington, what will happen is that the next GM will get credit for the work Huntiington did. (I’ve written frequently about Ned Colletti “winning” two NL West crowns with Paul DePodesta’s roster. See also Ruben Amaro, Jr. in Philadelphia.)

You cannot evaluate Neal Huntington by the Pirates’ record in 2010. As bad as the team looks, the Pirates are closer to being a championship-caliber team now than they ever were or were going to be when giants such as Xavier Nady and Jason Bay walked the earth. It’s slowly coming together, as a core of Alvarez, Andrew McCutchen, Tony Sanchez and Neil Walker on the field; Tallion, Allie and Lincoln on the mound. That team won’t play together for a few years still, but it has a chance to be the best team in the league, something that you haven’t been able to say about any version of the Pirates in nearly 20 years. Huntington is doing exactly what he was hired to do, and that the fans and media in Pittsburgh can’t quite grasp this, that they still hold the 2008-09 trades against him, is an indictment of their sensibilities.

Having defended Huntington, I will say that I’m not completely on board with the decision to promote Alvarez. It does have a feel of “hey, look over here!” to it. Whereas recent call-ups Strasburg and Mike Stanton have forced there way to the majors with dominant minor-league seasons, Alvarez has been good, but not necessarily great, at Indianapolis. His power is unquestioned: a .533 SLG and a .256 ISO, similar to what he did at lower levels a year ago. His contact rate is a concern, as he’s struck out in 28% of his at-bats, with a 68/30 K/BB, which has limited him to a .277 BA. His defense hasn’t improved: 11 errors against eight DPs turned, the third level at which he’s had more errors than DPs. His future may still be at first base, which in turn ramps up the offensive expectations. If he’s Paul Sorrento or something like that, that’s not a franchise player. Alvarez may be better off working on his plate discipline and defense in Indianapolis rather than becoming Pittsburgh’s answer to Strasburg. The timing of his promotion feels like an attempt to make him the latter.

[KraigK]

Really dumb

[Jeff King]

Cooke, Young and Carlos Garcia were all highly regarded prospects in the Pirates system.

Garcia was a huge disappointment. There was so much hype about him that I compare his tenure as a Pirate to the movie that you keep hearing about and then while you're watching it, you're still waiting for it to start the whole time. I remember every month or so, I'd be thinking, "so...is this it?"

[GoBucs21]

Garcia was a huge disappointment. There was so much hype about him that I compare his tenure as a Pirate to the movie that you keep hearing about and then while you're watching it, you're still waiting for it to start the whole time. I remember every month or so, I'd be thinking, "so...is this it?"

Yes, he was. There was always rumor that he was about 3 years older than his listed age. After he went to the Jays, the Jays said they learned (not sure what that means) that he was actually 5 years older than his listed age. It didn't help, to convince people that he listed age was correct, when he completely fell off a cliff after we traded him.

He was my neighbor when I was stationed in Pittsburgh. He was supposed to be around 25. He looked more like 35 then.

He was a nice guy though. One of the more pleasant athletes who lived in that apartment complex.