Pirates Could Be Carried By Their "Backend" Starters

Count on Zach Duke to post a losing record this year. That's only partly because he is a barely above-average pitcher. A more important reason is the Pirates' light hitting, which means that he stands to lose the majority of his starts against even average pitching.

And the most important reason is that Duke has been named the Opening Day starter, which means that he gets to pitch against the likes of the New York Mets' Johan Santana, or the Philadelphia Phillies' newly-acquired Roy Halladay, even though he is not (usually) in their league. (He did out pitch Santana once last year.)

Ross Ohlendorf is something of a question mark. He was the Pirates' "winningest" pitcher last year, because he was cast as a fourth starter, even though he is clearly better than that by any measure.

If, following adjustments made last year, he is as good (with a 3.00 ERA) as I think he is, he would be about the strongest second starter around, which may enable him to prevail DESPITE the Pirates' light hitting.

On the other hand, if last years' 3.92 ERA were more representative of his true ability, he would be below average in this role. It would take hitting at the level of his former Yankees (which the Pirates don't have) to enable such a pitcher to compile a winning record.

Paul Maholm, in the third spot, is the one Pirate pitcher who is clearly above league average. More to the point, he may be so by just enough to offset Pirates' hitting. The best guess is that he will post about a .500 record, give or take a game or two.

Charlie Morton is a pitcher whose "skewness" (defined in a previous piece) should work to his and Pirates' advantage. Count on him to have three or so blowout losses.

The rest of the time, he will pitch like a middle to front of rotation type, not a fourth starter, and can be expected to win a majority of these games. If that "majority" is greater than three, he should be a winning pitcher, even with the Pirates.

The Pirates are better situated for fifth starter (a very "fluid") position. Dan McCutchen currently seems like the strongest of the three candidates.

Alternate Jeff Karstens is a legitimate fifth starter generally, and particularly good against certain teams. Kevin Hart, who has been "snakebit," is a toss-up. His fifth starter rating is actually a composite of "league average or better" versus "won't make it."

But other teams will have worse problems filling the No. 5 hole. So with good management and a little luck, the Pirates should turn a profit here.

This situation came about because the five pitchers' 2009 ERAs ranged between 3.92 for Ross Ohlendorf, to 4.55 for Charlie Morton, an unusually narrow spread. There are no true aces and no truly terrible pitchers in this bunch. More like five pitchers hovering around league average, but skewed (slightly) toward the upside.

I learned the advantages of a "tight spread" as the captain and "first board" of a chess team in a Pittsburgh high school. With a 6-4 record, I was just above average in this role. But my lower boards were barely worse than me, which meant that they "cleaned up" against counterparts that were far worse than my opponents.

Unlike my chess team, the Pirates don't have a first starter that can beat his counterparts. So it might be the third slot before a pitcher approaches .500, although the fourth starter does have a chance to "clean up."

The question marks are the second and fifth slots. If they are both winning, the Pirates may have a better than .500 average for the first time in 18 years. If they both lose, the Bucs will continue their losing ways. And if one wins and one loses, it's still up in the air.