Tuesday Pirates Rant™ – Best 63-87 Team in the League!!

This is a conflicting time for the cynical Pirates fan. On one hand, Dave Littlefield is still the General Manager, Jim Tracy is still the manager, Jeff Manto is still the hitting coach, and Kevin McClatchy and the Nuttings are still the owners; therefore it’s almost impossible to legitimately get your hopes up about anything.

On the other hand, the Pirates are 33-27 since the All-Star Break (best in the NL Central...as sad as that may be), the super-young rotation (Zach Duke in particular) has done quite well recently, Freddy Sanchez is still leading the NL in hitting (leading Miguel Cabrera, .341 to .340), Chris Duffy has dominated in the last five weeks (batting .326 with 15 stolen bases, 27 runs scored, and even a smattering of walks!), Jason Bay is still a star, rookie catcher Ronnie Paulino has turned in one heckuva debut season, the Pirates will have money to spend in the offseason, the NL Central is awful, the Pirates have somehow rebounded from being 30+ games under .500 to avoid losing 100 games, they just clinched a winning season record at home for (sadly) the first time ever, and they just swept the Mets at PNC Park over the weekend, preventing them from clinching the NL East in Pittsburgh.

All these signs are very encouraging, and the fact that you’re still totally and completely pessimistic about 2007 makes you feel like a giant stick in the mud.

To make me feel less like Debbie Downer, let’s go to the blogs...most of whom are even less optimistic than me.

Here’s Bucs Dugout, quoting Dave Littlefield:

The Pirates would love to be big-time players in the free-agent market this winter as they search for a right-handed veteran starting pitcher and a left-handed power bat.

"The desire is there. We have the dollars," general manager Dave Littlefield said. "Generally, though, [big free agents] have gone to teams that have won. So our biggest thing is to win. You have to win first."

I have no idea whether to read this as an excuse or as an admission of something that's mostly (but not entirely) true, or both. But in any case, this admission certainly is convenient - we have money to make the team better, but we can't spend it. I've read arguments by Pirates fans that Kevin McClatchy and company actually prefer that the Pirates win 70 games a year rather than 90, because if they win 90 then there's pressure to spend to get one more star to get the team over the hump. I don't exactly buy that argument, but this quote from Littlefield gives it additional credence. As long as the Pirates keep losing, Littlefield is saying, they're not at fault for not spending money on a star. And Littlefield himself is certainly not at fault when management gives him $15 million to spend and he comes back with Sean Casey, Jeromy Burnitz, Roberto Hernandez and Joe Randa.

Here’s Bucco Blog (normally the most optimistic of Pirate bloggers), discussing the sweep of the Mets:

No matter how 'irate' you are as a fan.. no matter how much you hate the Pirates front office and ownership group.. no matter how much you have bled as a fan the last 14 years.. you have to admit the sweep was sweet.

No.. it doesn't mean the team is any better than it was back in April... but it was still sweet. A small victory notched in our long belt of failures, if you will.

Does it mean I'll run and go buy season tickets for 2007?

Nope.. not a prayer in hell.

Not yet, anyway. I'll wait out Kevin McClatchy, Robert Nutting, and Dave Littlefield's moves over the winter and see how much they screw things up first.

Here's Where's Van Slyke on the strong second half (he references this column by the Post-Gazette's Stat Geek).

Even with the addition of the Stats Geek's "Lefty McThump" (a heftily overpaid Luis Gonzalez is still my bet, yes he's been good this year, but yes he'll be 40 next year) I don't know how good this offense can be. As Charlie says, it would be foolish to treat this team like a .500 team in the offseason when making personnel moves. The Geek points out that they were 9-25 in one run games in the first half (aka incredibly unlucky) while they're 14-3 in the same situation since the break (aka incredibly lucky). That puts the "true 2006 Pittsburgh Pirates," if you will, right where they are now, a team that's about 20 games under .500. Certainly 33 wins in 60 games is fantastic when it took 90 to win their first 30, but all that does is kind of make 2006 the mirror image of 2005. Same front office, similar players, same final results, same outlook.

And finally, if you're interested, here's a well-written piece at Only Bucs about the Pirates' complete and total failure in Latin America.

I want to be optimistic about 2007. Really, I do. But at this point last year, as Zach Duke and Paul Maholm were both putting up sub-2.25 ERA’s in their rookie campaigns and Chris Duffy was batting .341, Pirate fans were able to say “Wow, look at all this great young talent! All they need is a right-fielder and a first-baseman, and they could be really good!” One Jeromy Burnitz, one Sean Casey, one Joe Randa later, and $17 million later, the Pirates started the season 30-60, then traded for Shawn Chacon. This year, Pirates fans are saying, “Well, they’ve got some decent young talent. All they need is another starting pitcher, a left-handed power hitter, and maybe another decent outfielder, and maybe they’ll reach .500 next year.” Not exactly the progression you’re looking for...especially when that starting pitcher will probably be Jason Marquis and that left-handed “power” hitter will probably be Luis Gonzalez.

Until next week, when the Pirates will—one way or another—have had a direct impact on both the NL West and Wildcard races (they play LA and San Diego this week).