Charlie - Bucs Dugout
Pat - Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke?
Question 1: With their recent success against competitive teams and climb of the standings, do you see the Pirates making a run for the Wild Card?
Charlie: No. The Pirates' decent start has been driven primarily by four hitters: Xavier Nady, Nate McLouth, Ryan Doumit and Jason Bay. Doumit is now injured and I'm not convinced that Nady's start is in any way the real deal. Their rotation is a complete joke and doesn't have much hope for improvement. I think Pat agrees with me on that last point about the rotation, so I'll leave it to him to describe why.
Pat: There are so many things wrong with the rotation right now, I don't even know where the start. Ian Snell seems to have lost his zip, Tom Gorzelanny has lost velocity AND control this year (paging Dr. Andrews...), and the best starter to this point has been Zach Duke, who I don't think could strike out a blindfolded Adam Dunn. Paul Maholm has been his usual inconsistent self, and I really don't think Phil Dumatrait is a major league starter (though he's been better in the rotation than I expected, which doesn't say much). There's some reason to think that Snell and maybe Gorzelanny will come around, but Duke's numbers will almost certainly catch up to him and balance that out. Throw in the fact that there's just no one in AAA to back these guys up in the case of injury, and this truly might be one of the worst rotations in the league.
Ryan Doumit (Bill Richardson/BDD)
Question 2: Which player is the most likely to get traded before the July trade deadline? Why?
Pat: I've got to believe that the answer here is Nady, for a number of reasons. He is off to a great start and I think that GM Neal Huntington knows he's hitting a bit over his head right now. That immediately marks him as a trade candidate. Huntington's asking price is going to be a bit lower for Nady than it is for Bay and to be honest, I'm not certain he's going to be able to convince teams that Bay is worth a lot more given his recent history. Nady's also going to be a free agent after the 2009 season, has Scott Boras as his agent, and plays two positions the Pirates think they have well covered between Andrew McCutchen, Steve Pearce, and Adam LaRoche (whether that's true or not is a different discussion). I don't think Nady's going to be the only player traded, but if I had to pick one, it'd be him.
Charlie: You may have a good point about Huntington's asking price for Bay. Then again, Huntington has to know that he's not going to get a king's ransom, even given Bay's decent start. Huntington shopped Bay in the offseason and the reported returns were disappointing (the Indians offered Cliff Lee and a couple of youngsters, which would have turned out very well, but didn't look so great at the time). I think it's pretty likely that Nady and Bay both go, along with a reliever or two.
Nate McLouth (Bill Richardson/BDD)
Question 3: Is Nate McLouth for real? Please present the player and your projections for this year and the future.
Pat: Honestly, I'm not all that surprised by McLouth's great start. I mean, I didn't think he'd have 11 homers before Memorial Day and I didn't think he'd ever be slugging .615 after the first week of the season, but he's shown pretty good progression as a hitter and was downright productive when the Pirates gave him a shot in the second half last year. He's maybe the first Pirate since Brian Giles who has really able to take aim at the short wall in right in PNC and use it to his advantage. He's going to come back to earth some, because I don't think he's a 1.000 OPS guy or a 30 homer guy, but to see a final .280/.380/.500 line with maybe 25 homers doesn't seem out of the question to me. How he finishes this season will go a long way towards informing us as to whether or not he can do this again. Honestly, though, I'm more intrigued by Ryan Doumit's hot start because it's a little more surprising to me.
Charlie: Giles is an interesting comp for McLouth not just because they're both lefties who are well suited to PNC, but because they're both small-ish outfielders who didn't have a ton of power in their early 20s but otherwise had well-rounded skill sets. Giles gained a bunch of power in his mid-20s, adding home runs to decent speed, excellent contact ability, and a good batting eye. McLouth clearly isn't going to be as good as Giles was, but I'm willing to buy that a lot of the power he's flashed this year is real. Like Giles, he showed good contact ability and a good eye in the minors. McLouth also had speed and doubles power. If a player starts with a skill set like that, it can't be too surprising when other good things happen as he gets older. Maybe I'm looking at this through black and gold-colored glasses, but I think McLouth is a legit 25-homer player. .280/.380/.500 seems optimistic, but not unreasonable.
Question 4: Present a prospect in the farm system that you think is under the radar.
Charlie: This would be an easier question to answer if the Pirates had more prospects to pick from. I'll take Jamie Romak, who was acquired from the Braves with LaRoche. He has a skillset that's unusual among Pirates prospects -- power and walks are his game -- and the Pirates are moving him slowly despite some impressive performances. They sent him to the Low Class A Sally League last year even though he'd already hit well there the previous year, and this year they did the same thing, sending him back to High A Lynchburg even though he had an .863 OPS there in 2007. Another who comes to mind is Andury Acevedo, a big shortstop who played a handful of games for the Pirates' rookie league team last year as a 16-year-old (!) and hit .444 with three extra-base hits in 18 at bats. That may not mean anything, but I want to see more. The problem is that former general manager Dave Littlefield pursued a low-reward strategy in the draft, so the Pirates' minor league system is now littered with draftees who weren't even all that good in college. Presumably, new GM Neal Huntington's drafts will be different. Pat, what do you think this year's draft will look like?
Pat: That is the million dollar question, isn't it? Huntington and team president Frank Coonelly swear that they're not going to skimp on the draft this year, but that's something that has to be seen to believe. Honestly, I just want them to take a player I feel like I can be excited about. Andrew McCutchen was really the only pick of the Littlefield era that fit that bill, beyond that the drafts were uninspiring "safe" picks that weren't that safe at all. I know the MLB draft is no sure thing, but it's insane how many picks Littlefield pissed away.
Question 5: If you were the general manager, would you commit to a long-term contract with Adam Laroche? Why?
Charlie: No, because he's simply not that good. He's 28, his OPS as a Pirate is now below .800, and his career OPS is .816. Give him a long-term deal that covers his decline years, and he's the next Kevin Young. In fact, LaRoche's late twenties are turning out to be pretty similar to Young's: some power, some glovework, a bunch of strikeouts. Young's decline was hastened by knee problems and LaRoche has healthy knees, but still -- aging first basemen generally aren't good investments unless they're great, and LaRoche isn't. Even when he has a run of success, it feels so incredibly fragile. He has a long swing and appears to be lost at the plate for months at a time. LaRoche becomes a free agent after next season. Pat, who do you want to see starting at first for the Pirates in 2010?
Pat: First off, I agree with everything you've said about LaRoche. Acquiring him to be the lefty to take aim at the short wall in right was exemplary of Littlefield's complete lack of understanding of baseball -- LaRoche isn't a pull hitter and never has been, but because he took Snell deep a couple of times, Littlefield decided he was. As for first base in 2010, I'd maybe say Steve Pearce. I haven't seen him play the outfield a whole lot, but he's probably better off in his natural position and if McLouth can keep hitting the need for a corner outfielder isn't nearly as pronounced as it was before, presuming McCutchen is the centerfielder in 2010. That said, I'd love a Carlos Pena-type finding at first base (though those sorts of successes are admittedly rare), some big lefty to come in and just take aim at the 310 sign. I don't know how realistic that is, but a guy can dream, right?
