Stealing First Base

OK, so it’s not that dramatic, but the feeling of the Pirates climbing to first place two days ago and then immediately relinquishing that position the next day was quite crushing especially in the way that it happened due to Jose Veras having a terrible outing in the 8th inning. (By the way, a lot of people on Twitter spewed hatred for Veras as if he were the world’s worst reliever after that. Not cool, guys. Veras has been very effective for the most part this year. Better than most closers around baseball, in fact.)

So today’s win felt more important than it probably was. It was important to get this win, don’t get me wrong, but in the grand scheme of things it was only a series win against the Astros. A win doesn’t keep them in contention any more than a loss would have eliminated them. But psychologically, it feels like the Bucs got back on the horse today, even if Joel Hanrahan blew his first save of the season and they won largely due to some extra inning errors by the Astros.

Today, the stars aligned perfectly for the Pirates. Not only did they beat the Astros 4-0, not only did Jeff Karstens throw a complete game shutout with ONLY 83 PITCHES, but the Cardinals and Brewers both lost, which put our Buccos in first place in the NL Central. Currently, we’re tied with the Cardinals. A win tomorrow and a Reds win over St. Louis would give us sole possession, but let’s not dwell on that. Right now, the Pirates are in first place in the NL Central.

The Bucs have stayed competitive throughout all the places they usually slump. There was no June Swoon. There was no falling off a cliff in Interleague play. It’s after the All-Star Break, and while we’re usually talking about the draft signing deadline and what prospects we can get for whatever veteran’s contract is up after this season, we’re now looking at a scenario where the Pirates could be buyers at the deadline and the focus is entirely on the Major League level.

I’m done with speculation. I’m done saying “Jeff Karstens can’t keep this up.” I’m done wondering “Can Alex Presley be an everyday starter?” I’m done wondering “Will Pedro Alvarez find his swing?” I’m done asking “What exactly is Charlie Morton?” Because you know what? Despite all those question marks, this team has consistently proven that they’re real contenders.

Through patchwork lineups and disappointing seasons from some players, the Pirates are still in it. Andrew McCutchen is one of the best players in baseball and I will not back off of this statement: watching him reminds me of watching Ken Griffey Jr. (Yeah, yeah. Griffey was left handed and McCutchen hasn’t hit 40+ homers a year yet, but they have that same “Wow, there’s no way anyone should be able to do that” factor and if you look at their numbers through their first three seasons you’ll find they’re closer than you think.) The rotation is somehow keeping this success going. I no longer care how. Joel Hanrahan is virtually a death sentence to opposing batters. And now the Buccos are taking advantage in a weak NL Central, and they’ve seized the day all the way to first place.

My birthday is July 19th. I only want two things: A Pirates win, and sole possession of first place on that date.

Let’s go Bucs.

As we sit here at the All-Star break, the Pirates are only one game back from the division lead at 47-43, which is the best record they’ve had at the break since the losing streak started. A lot of comparisons are starting to be made to the 1997 team, which came to be known as the “freak show” for performing well above expectations and finishing the year just short of a playoff berth with a 79-83 record.

There are certainly some obvious comparisons to be made when it comes to record and expectations, and there’s even a comparison in pythagorean record (what a team’s record “should” be based on runs scored vs runs allowed). The 1997 team finished with a pythag of 78-84, only one game worse than their actual record. At the break, the 2011 team has a pythag of 46-44…one game worse than their actual record. But I think that’s where the comparisons stop. Let’s take a closer look.

Firstly, I’ve seen it pointed out that the 1997 team had a much better offense. While that’s true on a nominal level, one has to consider the era. 1997 was in the heart of the steroid era, and offense in general was up around baseball. So while you can point to the fact that the ’97 Pirates had four regular players with an OPS over .800 while the ’11 team has only Andrew McCutchen (and Alex Presley in a much smaller sample), that’s a bit of smoke and mirrors.

In 1997, for example, Tony Womack had an OPS of .700, which was good for an OPS+ of 81. For those unfamiliar with “+” metrics, that means that when normalized for ball park and compared to all other batters in the Majors, Womack was 19% worse than the average batter (100 is average). In contrast, Jose Tabata has a .705 OPS this year and his OPS+ is 100, meaning that he’s been exactly league average with the bat (as measured by OPS, which is a flawed statistic, but is nevertheless a good way to get a handle on things like this.)

The biggest difference to me in the two teams is the potential. The freak show was, for the most part, made up of guys in the primes of their careers playing the best baseball they’d ever play. The only players you could point to with potential of further development were Jason Kendall, a rookie Jose Guillen, Jason Schmidt and maybe Francisco Cordova. While the average age of the 1997 Pirates was 26.7 as opposed to 27.2 for the 2011 team, the average age of starting position players not named Jason Kendall or Jose Guillen was 27. What’s worse is that unlike the Lyle Overbays and Matt Diazes and Joe Beimels of the 2011 Pirates, the Al Martins and Jermaine Allensworths of the 1997 team weren’t mediocre stopgaps until the team could find something better – they were the solution, both short and long term.

The difference between the two teams is that the freak show was driven by the success of players like Joe Randa and Al Martin and Kevin Young playing the best baseball they would ever play. Those guys were never going to get better. To some extent, you could say these Pirates have been in the same boat…much of the success has come from three pitchers in Kevin Correia, Paul Maholm and Jeff Karstens that are unlikely to ever repeat this level of performance.  Sprinkle in a career year from Ronny Cedeno and it’s easy to say “Yep, it’s just another freak show.”

But we’ve also got a lot of players that can repeat their performance and even better it like Andrew McCutchen (who is a beast this year), Jose Tabata, Neil Walker (both of whom have been average for the most part), Charlie Morton (who is authoring a unique career turnaround), and quite possibly Alex Presley (OK, he probably won’t have a better than 1.000 OPS for a very long stretch, but he’s shown that he belongs in a starting lineup.) Not to mention the rational hope that Pedro Alvarez will be much better long term than he was in April and May before his injury.

In addition, unlike that 1997 team whose farm system only included Aramis Ramirez (horribly mismanaged), Chad Hermansen (synonymous with “bust”), and Bronson Arroyo (who was projected to be a middling starter and mostly has been aside from some outstanding years in Boston and one in Cincinnatti) as serious prospects, the Pirates have continually infused the minors with top-tier talent. At the moment they have Tony Sanchez, Jameson Taillon, Luis Heredia, Starling Marte and Stetson Allie all in the minors and expected to have good to great MLB careers, and if all goes well this signing period they’ll add Gerrit Cole and Josh Bell along with a few others to that pool.

Are the 2011 Pirates a freak show? To an extent, sure. But they’re also a team with a much brighter future than the original.

We’ve now got 78 games in the books of 2011 season, and the Pirates stand two games over .500 and as legitimate competitors in the NL Central. Just three games away from the halfway mark, it’s clear that this is the best Pirate team in a long time. A win against the Blue Jays tonight or tomorrow will give them a winning record in Interleague play, something that’s pretty rare for this franchise.

Charlie at Bucs Dugout writes about what that means for next season, but I’m interested in what it means for this season, specifically the trade deadline.

There seems to be two schools of thought on this issue.

One school believes that it’s time for the Pirates to go for the gusto, trade some prospects to grab a high quality player or two at a position of need (names I’ve seen thrown around: Carlos Pena, Jose Reyes, Hunter Pence and more) and try to get to the playoffs this year.

The other school believes that by doing this, the Pirates will be abandoning the very path which has led them to success this year. They argue that the Pirates should stay the course. They should listen to trade offers, certainly, and if someone makes a good offer for someone like Joel Hanrahan or Paul Maholm they should pull the trigger, but that it’s not time to be trading prospects yet.

I, for one, thing that there’s a middle ground that the Pirates not only can pursue, but should. There is a definite 40 man roster crunch coming next year, as the Pirates will have a lot of players in the minors that have to be added to the roster or face being taken in the Rule 5 draft. Problem is, there are more players that could probably be rostered than there will be roster spaces. I think that rather than trade legitimate prospects for a very good rental player or standing pat and risking losing some of these guys for nothing, we should bundle a few of those guys that are on the bubble with some cash to get an average Major League producer at a position of need. We probably can’t get Carlos Pena that way, but maybe we can get a decent producer that some team out of contention doesn’t need…someone like Michael Cuddyer from the Twins or Luke Scott from the Orioles.

This doesn’t sound very exciting, but it does address a couple of needs: at the Major League level, you can replace below average production with average production. While that won’t translate to as many wins as replacing said talent with above average production and it certainly won’t make much of a splash, it’s an improvement none the less. In addition, it clears up some 40 man space and nets something in return for guys that could have been taken for nothing, even if that “something” is only a few months of average MLB production.

We’ll see at the deadline what the Pirates do, but I think my proposition is a reasonable one.