Perhaps the best way to answer that question is to look at where the team was and what my thoughts were when the season began. I looked at the post I made on April 4, Opening Day, to try and frame what took place over the next six months. I broke it down position-by-position. Quotes from that April 4 post are in red.
Catcher The team is pinning it's hopes on 36 year old free agent signee Rod Barajas. Barajas has shown that he can hit for power, and not for average, over the course of his career..... His back up is Mike McKenry,....
Well, we know that that didn't work out so hot. Barajas and McKenry combined for 23 HR and 70 RBI, but hit only .206 and .233 respectively. The HR and RBI totals sound good, but if you watched the team all year, you know that the two of them, especially Barajas, pretty much stunk at the plate, and the fact that opposing teams stole bases pretty much at will against the Pirates all season speaks volumes about these guys (as well as the Pirates pitchers). The fact that the Neal Huntington Regime (hereafter referred to as the "NHR") has been unable to produce even an adequate major league catcher is one of the many failings of the NHR.
First Base The Bucs are going with a platoon of Garrett Jones and Casey McGehee. This combo......could, possibly, work well for this team.
One of the brightest spots of 2012 was the emergence of Garrett Jones who hit .274 with 27 HR, 86 RBI and a .832 OPS. Used as a platoon player - only 74 of his 475 AB were against lefties - Jones had a career year. I know that players want to play every day, but some guys are just born to be platoon guys and there's nothing wrong with that. As for McGehee, there are some people who say that McGehee's trade at the deadline messed with the Pirates team chemistry, but, really, how many good things did people have to say about him when he was actually here?
Second Base Neil Walker, the Pittsburgh Kid (with apologies to Billy Conn). Lots and lots to like about Walker, but his decline in power over the last half of last season has been well documented..... Many have asked why the team hasn't stepped forward to extend Walker's contract as that did for Andrew McCutchen, but I think that the Pirates are, justifiably, waiting to see how Neil performs this year.
After a slow start, Walker began to produce big time for the Pirates, and you have to ask if it was a coincidence that the Pirates decline dovetailed with Walker's extended absences from the lineup due to his back injury. Walker may never be a superstar, but he has proven to be a solid major league second baseman and a clutch hitter, however one defines that term, perhaps the best clutch hitter on the team. How management approaches Walker's contract situation this off season will tell us a lot about Bob Nutting and the NHR.
Short Stop Clint Barmes takes over from Ronny Cedeno so there is really nowhere to go but up for the Bucs at short.
OK, I'll give you that Barmes was an improvement over Cedeno, but talk abut damning with faint praise! His .593 OPS included 106 strikeouts and only 20 walks. Like the situation at catcher, the failure of the NHR to develop a major league quality short stop over the last five years is a major failing of the organization.
Third Base Pedro Alvarez......No doubt he will continue to be the most watched and talked about player as the season begins.....No doubt this is the fish-or-cut-bait season for Pedro. If he gets untracked and begins to hit like he showed he could do in his 2010 rookie campaign, great. If he doesn't, then it is going to be excruciating to watch as he marches toward becoming a $6 million bust.
At a game in early May, Len Martin and I were having a conversation where we were saying that it was quite possible that Alvarez could end up being a bust. Obviously that didn't happen as his 30 HR and 85 RBI proved that he will NOT be a bust as a major league ballplayer. Still, he can be maddening player to watch, as proven by 180 strike outs, and the fact that he almost disappeared for long stretches of time during the season. He can make you jaw drop when he hits some unbelievably long home runs, sometimes five or six if them in the space of a dozen or so games. Then, he drives you nuts by going into 3-for-40 stretches with 22 K's. He - or someone in the organization - needs to figure out how to eliminate those deep valleys that crop up between the amazing peaks of which he is clearly capable.
Outfield The strong point of the team. Andrew McCutchen could be poised to really bust out and become a breakout star in the National League. Jose Tabata needs to stay healthy, and Alex Presley needs to show that he is not a Chris Duffy-like one hit wonder....Nate McLouth returns to the Bucs and should fill the role of fourth outfielder very well. And if a long term injury occurs, we all know that Starling Marte is getting his experience in Indianapolis.
McCutchen did indeed become a breakout star. He also, for the second year in a row, went into a slide in the second half of the season (1.039 OPS before the All-Star Game; .860 after). To be fair, the 2012 drop-off was not like the one in 2011. He played at an almost super human level in June and July (he hit.446 with a 1.249 OPS in July; who does that?) so some drop-off was expected, and he ended the season at .327/31/96/.953. As for the rest of the OF, Tabata and Presley both were sent down for stints in Indianapolis, and have the look of career fourth outfielders, McLouth stunk and was released early on. Marte made it to the Pirates, showed flashes of, if not greatness, then very-goodness, but is still unpolished, and Travis Snider, acquired at the deadline, has the look of possibly being a pretty good hitter. However, as it now stands, when Spring Training opens next year, there are still two big question marks flanking Andrew McCutchen in the outfield.
Pitching It always comes down to this, doesn't it? Lots of questions. Can A.J. Burnett return from his eye injury quickly and return to his pre-Yankee form? Can Eric Bedard stay of off the DL? Can Jeff Karstens, Charlie Morton, and James McDonald continue to improve as they did in 2011, or will they flatten out? Can Kevin Correia avoid disappearing as he did after the All-Star break last year? In the bullpen, can Joel Hanrahan dominate as he did last year, and if he does, will the team be playing well enough at mid-season so that the front office doesn't elect to move him to dump salary come July 31?
Burnett did everything and more that was asked and expected of him. Bedard was pretty bad and was released. Karstens seemed to be hurt more than he wasn't. Morton had Tommy John surgery. McDonald was one of the best pitchers in the League prior to the All Star Game, after which he became one of the worst and ended the season in the bullpen. Correia was demoted to the bullpen after the team acquired Wandy Rodrigeuz at the deadline, bitched about it and talked about wanting to be traded (while the Bucs were very much in the pennant race), then returned to the rotation, where he accredited himself well, and finished with a 12-11 record. Hanrahan was once again a dominant closer with 36 saves.
Some people point to McDonald's implosion as the development that turned the season around negatively for the Pirates. Others have said that Correia's demand to be traded in the midst of a pennant race, upset the apple cart and damaged the chemistry of the team. Correia's attitude may have been unprofessional, but I don't think it was that significant, especially in light of how he continued to pitch thereafter. As for the JMac meltdown, when the history of the season is written, I do think that this was one of the key factors of how the team ended up.
Hanrahan, by the way, is eligible for salary arbitration this off-season. How Bob Nutting and the NHR handle this will speak volumes. I won't say for certain that Hanrahan will be cut loose by the Pirates, but I wouldn't bet against it, either.
Bench
I was going to reprint what I wrote back in April but why bother? Names like Nate McLouth, Jeff Clement, Matt Hague, Jordy Mercer - do I have to go on? - tell you all you need to know. The bench pretty much stunk and this lack of depth is another black mark that can go on the record of the NHR.
I then concluded as follows:
So, where does this leave us? Despite the gloom and doom above, I would like to think that this team will be better than last year's squad for the following reasons: 1) the starting pitching will improve and not implode as it did last year in August and September, (Well, it did improve, but then it did implode, so I went 50/50 on that one.) 2) McCutchen will break out big time in leading a strong outfield unit, (McCutchen certainly did break out, but as for a "strong outfield" - not so much) 3) Alvarez will somehow, some way find his hitting stroke and give the offense a needed lift over last year's punchless line-up, (that did happen, although the bottom third of that batting order was pretty much punchless over the course of the entire season) and 4) Clint Hurdle is definitely the right guy in the dugout to lead this team out of the desert of 19-and-counting losing seasons.
(A word about Hurdle. There is one school of thought that says who the manager of any given team is matters little; that it's all about the players. John McGraw could have managed the 2010 Pirates and they still would have lost over 100 games. John Russell, on the other hand, could have managed the '27 Yankees and they still would have been Murderer's Row. At the other end of the spectrum, I have a buddy who positively loathes Hurdle, thinks he's the worst manager of all time, and should be fired immediately. Me, well I fall somewhere in the middle. I think a manager can make a difference, and I think that there is a lot more to like than not like about Hurdle. Still, the Pirates have had second half collapses two seasons in a row under Hurdle, and that should give somebody reason for concern.)
Will they better last year's 72 win team? Sure, why not. Will the 19 year losing streak end? I really, really hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid not. A slight improvement, and 77 wins in 2012.
Hey, they ended up with 79 wins, two more than predicted! This is good, right? Afraid not. When the team peaked at 16 games over .500 and were in the hunt not only for a wild card spot but the division title two-thirds of the way into the season, the final third of the season and a 79-83 record can only be seen as a disappointment, and, in the words on friends Dave Jones and Joe Elinich, a lost opportunity, and opportunity that they had in their grasp and kicked away.
As to the question of "did they over-achieve?", it is obvious now that they most certainly did for those magical months of June and July, and maybe that is what makes this season all the more disappointing. Maybe they will grow from this. Maybe August and September of 2012 are the steps backward that will allow the Pirates to take some giant steps forward in 2013. One thing for sure, this season not only was exciting and fun for much of the way, but the way it ended brought not only sadness to Pirates fans but anger at a front office that seems to care more for profits than winning, that has no understanding of the Pirates fans and little respect for them. Bob Nutting has promised that he will "personally investigate everything" that went into this second half collapse. We'll see what happens, but I, for one, am not putting a lot of credibility into anything that Bob Nutting has to say at this point.
Sorry that this post went so long, but, hey, we are dealing with 162 games here! Enjoy the off-season, and I know that The Grandstander will continue to have lots more to say about the '12 season as time passes and the off-season machinations begin.
I appreciated the length...and the way you weaved your previous commentary into the current post.
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