Division by Division Preview: NL Central

The Pirates are still four to five from being truly competitive, not only within the division, but in baseball as a whole. Unfortunately, the work that has been done to the team to this point will be done in vain as essentially every player on the current 25 man roster will not be with the team when they are competitive. Then why haven’t they made trades of players whom are at essentially their peak values-I’m looking at you Freddy Sanchez. If you think about it, are 12,000 fans really purchasing tickets to see Sanchez? Or maybe they are buying those tickets to see a 68 win team that they wouldn’t support a 58 win team? Clean house, and start from scratch.

The rotation is young and talented. However, they are neither young enough nor good enough to carry this team into being a contender for years to come. I wouldn’t expect the Pirates to start shipping off Snell, Gorzelanny and Maholm already, but it wouldn’t hurt to start sending out feelers.

The bullpen, like the rotation, has a fair amount of promise. It is both young and talented. However, the team will not have many leads to protect and will consequently be using quality arms in meaningless situations. This is another situation where the team should begin to look four or five years down the road rather then a year or two.

I can not sit here and write about the Pirates lineup without again mentioning that the club really should be without half of the players they are currently going out there with. In fact, I am still scratching my head as to why the club did not roll the dice on Dallas McPherson. That said, this lineup is too weak top to bottom for an opponent to at all worry about facing them. In fact, this lineup is the equivalent of Mike Piazza’s arm.

Major Addition: None – This is not a bad thing though. Consider the free agent or trades the Pirates have made in recent years that were supposed to get them into the playoffs. Now consider how terrible those moves were and the fact that they didn’t even come close to working out. Not making a move was the best move to make.

Major Subtraction: None – Again, the club kept everyone that wasn’t a free agent. Although they would have been better served making some trades, letting Chacon and Armas walk was an outstanding (and obvious) decision.

Breakout Candidate: Capps/Snell – Both players already technically broke out. However, both still have a lot of room to grow. According to Dave Rouleau, Ian has ditched two of the pitches that allowed for him to have such success in the minors. Look for Snell to slowly work those pitches back into his repertoire and take some major steps forward. Capps, on the other hand, got his first taste at closing in the bigs logging 18 saves. Given the full time role at closing in 2008, maybe he can pile up close to 40 saves and become a trade target of the Astros.

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