So, How 'Bout Them Buccos?

Assuming that there will be no postponed games this week, on Thursday the Pirates will have officially played 25% of the 2017 season.  Time to take a look at how things are going and answer the question posed in the headline above.

The good news is that the Pirates are right behind the defending World Series Champion Cubs in the standings.    You'd have settled for that on Opening Day, right? The bad news is that the Cubs are one game below .500 and in fourth place, which means that our Pittsburgh Pirates are in last place, six games below .500 (16-22), 3.5 games behind the aforementioned Cubs, and six games behind the first place Cardinals.

More good news - the Pirates are on a two game winning streak.  More bad news - this comes on the heels of a six game losing streak.

The State of the Bucco Union is bleak these days.  Let us count the ways....

• Power hitting third baseman Jung Ho Kang remains in Korea appealing his third DUI conviction and trying to get a visa to enter the USA.  My betting money says that Kang never plays another game for the Pirates, and if by some remote chance he does, it won't be in 2017.
• Starling Marte, perhaps the team's best all around player in 2016 is currently sitting out an 80 game PED suspension.
• The much ballyhooed new outfield alignment of Polanco-Marte-McCutchen has been blown up largely due to Marte's idiocy and now consists of WhoeverTheyCanGetToPlayLeftfield - McCutchen - Polanco.
• Tyler Glasnow: 1-3, 7.98 ERA, 21 BB, 2.08 WHIP, 29.1 IP.  Do I have to say any more?
• Andrew McCutchen, the former MVP and the guy who has been the face of the franchise for the last ten years, leads the team in RBI with (only) 17 and does have 6 home runs, but he is hitting only .242 and has an OPS of only .689.  His below average season of 2016 appears to be continuing.  It is a surprisingly early erosion of skills as Cutch is only 31 years old.  More to the point, his body language and the look on his face seems to be screaming "get me out of here".  I am guessing that he will get that wish when July 31 rolls around.  It will be a sad end to the wonderful story that was Cutch's time as a Pirate.
• How about free agent acquisition Daniel Hudson, who figured to be a solid eighth inning set-up guy? 0-2, 7.80 ERA, 22 H, 15 BB in 15 IP.  That is beyond awful.
• Trips to the DL for Adam Frazier and David Freese, the guys who had been their best hitters early in the season.
• I won't even talk about the bench.  It ain't worth mentioning.

And, of course, there is the news that pitcher Jameson Taillon had to leave the team and have surgery for testicular cancer.  That, of course, goes beyond baseball and is a truly sad and terrible human story for a young man only 25 years old.  It is hoped that he recovers fully from this (the outlook in such cases caught early enough is good), but it speaks to what appears to be shaping up as a star-crossed season for the Pirates.

I know what you're asking...say something good about the Pirates for crissakes, willya!  So, I will.

Felipe Rivero.

Acquired from the Nationals for Mark Melancon last year at the deadline, Rivera has put up the following line so far this year:

1-1, 0.87 ERA, 20.2 IP, 22 K, 4 BB, 0.82 WHIP, .176 BA Against

Plus, he seems to hit 99 or 100 MPH with every pitch.  He has been perhaps the most effective player on the team.

I will close out by mentioning a subject that it has been much discussed in a couple of Facebook groups that I am in, and that is Clint Hurdle's future as Pirate manager.  I will start out by saying that I like Hurdle as a manager.  He has done a terrific job resurrecting the dead that was the Pirate team he inherited from the moribund John Russell in 2011.  Yes, I can bitch and moan about this line-up card or that strategical maneuver, but you can do that about any manager, but overall, I consider him a Good to Very Good manager.  

That said, I think that this will be Clint's final year as Pirate skipper.  The fact that the front office has not extended him through 2018, making him a quasi-lame duck, says a lot.  I also think that Hurdle himself may just see how that same front office failed to capitalize on that 98 win 2015 season, and say to himself, "screw it, I've had enough of this".  As it is with McCutchen, Hurdle's body language seems to be saying that this is his swan song.  Whether he will be fired or allowed to "retire" makes little difference in the end, I suppose.  Current bench coach Tom Prince seems to be the heir apparent.  Frankly, that excites me not one bit, but he will come cheap, and we all know that that excites Bob Nutting a great deal.

So, the remaining 75% of the Bucco season doesn't appear to hold a lot of promise insofar as competing for a post-season berth is concerned.  The real question may be Can they finish with a winning record?  To do that, they will need to turn the ship around pretty soon, or a full scale fire sale is sure to take place when that July 31 trade deadline comes around.

Gonna Need Some Angels In The Infield (and Not The Anaheim Kind of Angels)

Opening Day for the Pirates is tomorrow, so I can't put it off any longer - It's 2017 Prediction Time!

I have already missed on one prediction.  I said that Trevor Williams would nail down the all-important Fifth Starter role, and not Tyler Glasnow.  I believe that I DIDN'T have that, but it is of some comfort to me that my pal Joe Risacher didn't have that one either, so I'm in good company.

As you can tell from the title of this little monograph, my biggest concern with the Bucs this coming season is not with the Starting Pitching, although that is a concern, but, rather, with the state of the infield.  It all began with the ill-fated decision of Jung Ho Kang to get plastered, get behind the wheel of a car, and get arrested and subsequently convicted of this crime for either the third or fourth time of his life (details are fuzzy, much like Jung Ho's judgement). So, it is now unknown when or even if, Kang and his home run bat and third base defense will be available to the team in 2017 or ever again, and that causes a lot of dominos to fall.

So, who's on third?  It appears that some combination of David Freese, John Jaso, and Josh Harrison will man the hot corner.  But, wait, you say, isn't Harrison at second base?  Apparently not, because the team itself seems a bit tepid about Harrison as a second baseman.  Not sure when that discontent began, but it appears to be real, and Adam Frazier now seems to be the next Pirates second baseman.  Frazier came up from Indy last year and performed admirably as a utility guy and pinch hitter, and he has been tearing the cover off the ball throughout the Grapefruit League, so, who knows, he may be the second coming of Dave Cash.  However, the ever cautious Pirates front office had never touted Frazier as anything more than a utility/super-bench guy, so it is hard to see him as the guy you rely on for 140 or so games at a critical position.

First base will be manned by former super prospect Josh Bell.  Bell made a stunning debut when brought from Indy last year so one can be optimistic.  However, there was knee surgery in January, and a Grapefruit League batting average below .110 this spring.  And we are continually being cautioned that he is "still learning" to play first base.

The makes Jordy Mercer the beacon of infield stability at short stop.  Mercer is a nice ball player, but if he's your best and strongest infielder, that could be a sign that you might have troubles contending for post-season glory.

Two other infielders round out the roster, filling out the coveted, controversial, and always much talked about 24th and 25th spots on the roster.  Phil Gosselin, obtained in a minor deal with Arizona in the off-season, and one time hot shot prospect Alen Hanson.  Let the kvetching begin.

So, I will leave you with a couple of predictions for 2017:

1. Gerritt Cole will have a bounce back season, and look more like the nineteen game winner/under 3.00 ERA guy he was in 2015.  He will be a true ace and will make the All-Star team.
2. Sadly, the will be the last year for Andrew McCutchen in a Pirates uniform.  This has been much discussed since the end of last season - at times it seemed to be the ONLY thing that was discussed about team - and the only question is will he finish the season with the team, or be dealt at the July 31 deadline?  This is a topic sure to be written about as the season progresses.
3. We will see Austin Meadows at some point in the season.
4. And the big prediction..Wins and Losses.  I am going to be optimistic and say that the team will win more than it loses.  Let's call it 83 wins, which, alas and alack, will not be good enough to make the post-season.
5. The Los Angles Dodgers will defeat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

As always, watch but don't bet, enjoy the season, and Let's Go Bucs!!!

The Fifth Starter

As is the case with any major league baseball team, the biggest question entering into any baseball season is "How is the pitching going to be?" because, as any cliche loving baseball fan knows, and say it with me now...

PITCHING IS (pick any number between 75% and 90%) OF THE GAME!!!!!

This is no less true of Your Pittsburgh Pirates.  Entering into the season, the first three slots in the rotation were ceded to these guys:

Ivan Nova - Gerritt Cole - Jameson Taillon

Performance thus far in Spring Training has borne this out.    The fourth spot, based largely on performance in 2016 belongs to Chad Kuhl, so one of the main discussion points of the Spring has centered upon who will grab that fifth spot in the rotation.

So how has ST gone for the Bucco Moundsmen?  (Stats are through March 24):

	IP	W-L	ERA	H	K	BB	WHIP
Gerritt Cole	7.0	1-0	1.29	7	5	1	1.14
Jameson Taillon	12.1	0-0	3.65	9	10	4	1.05
Ivan Nova	10.0	1-0	0.90	6	7	1	0.70
Chad Kuhl	12.0	0-0	3.75	6	10	3	0.75
Fifth starter:
Drew Hutchison	17.0	0-2	7.41	23	15	7	1.76
Tyler Glasnow	14.1	1-0	5.65	19	23	6	1.74
Trevor Williams	13.2	2-0	2.63	12	12	2	1.02
Steven Brault	15.2	3-0	3.45	16	8	5	1.34

As I mentioned above, Cole, Taillon, and Nova have been solid, and Kuhl looks pretty good as well.  Then there is that four-way battle for the fifth spot.  In the paper this morning, Clint Hurdle was quoted to the effect that each of the four have been given the chance to separate himself from the others, and none of them has.  I think that the team would have liked to have seen Hutchison earn the spot, if for no other reason than to justify that salary dump deal with Toronto that brought him here last summer.  Glasnow is the golden boy prospect, and 23 K's in 14.1 IP sure is eye-popping, but the ERA's for both guys seem to have earned them a ticket to Indianapolis to start the season.

That leaves Williams and Brault.  Brault is left handed, and would become the only lefty in the rotation, and that may give him an edge over Williams, who has the slightly better ERA and WHIP.  Flip a coin.

As always, keep in mind the following:

• Spring Training stats mean almost nothing.  They may or may not be an indicator of regular season performance.
• A fifth starter is just that - the fifth best guy you have.  More than one guy will no doubt fill that role throughout 2017.  If that guy, or the combination of that guy, can pitch past the sixth inning with regularity and be within two games of .500, plus or minus, I am guessing that the Pirates will sign on for it right now.
• And what the fifth guy does will mean squadoosh unless (a) We get the the 2015 version of Cole, and not the 2016 version, (b) The two months performance we saw from Ivan Nova was NOT an aberration (his career ERA is over 4.00), and (c) Taillon and Kuhl continue to build upon progress from their pretty good rookie seasons.

I'll take a look at the everyday line-up and the bench later in the week.