Pittsburgh Pirates In Spring Training: What We've Learned

One hopes that the Pirates we saw in spring training weren't the "real" Pirates.

We've definitely seen this movie before.

The good news is that this is still a team that can give a lot of trouble to the best of the best. So far, they've won two games against the New York Yankees (both off CC Sabathia), and one apiece from the talented Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, and Minnesota Twins teams.

The bad news remains that the Pirates can't beat other "bad" teams. They have lost two out of three to the Houston Astros and two out of three to the Baltimore Orioles.

This inconsistency against opponents is due to the Pirates' internal inconsistency. When they're good, they're very good. On a handful of days, they don't even need to take a back seat to the World Champion Yankees.

When they're bad, no one is worse. Not even the Washington Nationals or the Houston Astros.

So don't write off the Pirates for the first draft pick in 2011.

The Pirates need to be more clutch. Their win-loss ratio of seven and 20 is basically replacement level. Their "Pythagorean" win percentage, based on 135 runs scored to 163 runs allowed (.407), is at least halfway respectable.

But they lost five games by one run and five by two, while winning only three one- and two-run games. The remainder of their victories, more than half, were "blowouts."

Old standbys like Zach Duke and Paul Maholm failed to progress in the spring and may  have both reached their practical limits (around a 4.00 ERA). Ross Ohlendorf's spring was the worst he has ever pitched.

On the other hand, Charlie Morton has shown some good stuff early in the year. The bad is still mixed in there, but that's basically fully "accounted for." The "goodness" is not. And Dan McCutchen is moving right along, developmentally, having taken a step up the ladder to fifth starter, a position for which he may be overqualified.

Lastings Milledge can hit for average, Garrett Jones can still hit home runs, and Andrew McCutchen can do both—but Pirates' hitting ends there. After promising 2009 seasons, newcomers like Pedro Alvarez and Jose Tabata are simply not league-ready as of now.

Many recently traded-for infielders, Andy LaRoche, Ronny Cedeno, Akinori Iwamura, and Jeff Clement, all appear to be light hitters. Ryan Doumit, following injuries in 2009, still appears to be on-again, off-again.

Better Pirates pitching ought to hold their runs allowed to closer to 700 than 800 in 2010. But runs scored may also be closer to 600 than 700, in the manner of 2009, the lightest-scoring year for the Bucs in a long time.

Barring some major improvement in "clutchness," that translates into a less-than-.500 record in 2010.

If the Pirates can actually put their best players on the field, including some now in the minors, they could give a lot of teams a lot of trouble.

But last year, they went through an extended losing streak because they were playing largely with their bench-level players, which in turn are weaker than most.

That seems to have been their experience in spring training as well.