The Pirates will finish the 2007 season in much the same way they finished the previous fourteen seasons: with yet another losing record. This season's ineptitude, however, prompted change in the form of a new CEO and a new general manager. And while I have no idea what changes to expect or anticipate in terms of the major league club in 2008, I do have the same difficult thought I had prior to the start of the 2007 season.
I don't care who the CEO is. I don't care who the general manager is. I don't care who the manager is. (Okay, actually, none of those statements are really true, as I think all of those people are critically important.) But in terms of on-field success for the 2008 Pittsburgh Pirates, allow me to say that I agree with the new general manager's view about how a team constructed as next year's big league Buccos probably will be can achieve "success." (For this team, please note that "success" could be taking a step in the right direction by achieving mediocrity, and depending on how other NL Central teams improve or regress, mediocrity could mean pennant contention for a few months of the season). The new GM says the players on the team have to "exceed expectations."
Allow me to get specific. There is no way the 2008 Pirates sniff mediocrity unless four of their starting pitchers manage to win at least 15 games and a fifth starter, or two or three guys who combine as a fifth starter, have at least ten wins by season's end.
Say what? Wouldn't that mean the Pirates would have one of the best rotations in the National League? Yes.
There's no other way the Pirates could sniff mediocrity? Sure. Snark alert: They could sign A-Rod for a $80 million two year deal and sell him off for prospects in the middle of the second year. False reality check: Even with A-Rod in the middle of the line-up, the Pirates still require 3 fifteen game winners and 2 ten game winners. Serious reality check: Even in my ridiculous sarcastic world of snark, there's no way the Pirates sign a coveted, above-average pricey free agent this summer, let alone the best player in baseball, not that any of those players would want to sign with the Pirates, anyway, making that whole issue moot until the team wins. The team's only hope for climbing to .500 is to get excellent starting pitching.
Which, of course, prompts the question no one wants to answer. Do the Pirates possess even a snowball's chance of having 4 fifteen game winners?
The sunny-side-up optimist: Sure. Gorzy pitches like he pitched for most of this season and gets slightly more run support. Snell dominates like he did for the first half of the 2007 season and is consistently strong throughout the entire season while also getting better run support than he got in the early half of the 2007 season. Maholm finds the niche he found post All-Star break this season and pitches like that for all of next season. Zach Duke recaptures his pristine rookie form or Matt Morris reverts to being the 20 game winning Matt Morris.
The negative cynical realistic pessimist: No, no way. Haven't we tried this in the past to no avail? Gorzy's way over his prior career high in innings pitched, so he's due for either an injury or a downturn. Snell's over his previous career high in innings pitched, too, and couldn't pitching so many innings this season hinder his ability to make progress in giving up fewer hits and keeping the ball in the park as he did for part of the 2007 season? Maholm--who knows about the bad back, and don't pitchers like him always get off to slow starts? Can we just admit Zach Duke was probably just a flash in the pan and that Matt Morris will go down as David Littlefield's worst acquisition? Can we realize that expecting four of those five guys to win fifteen games is utter, complete insanity and face cold, harsh reality?
The moderate, reasonable view: Are these pitchers, especially the ones who've pitched a lot of innings, going to stay healthy? Are the ones who showed growth this season going to be healthy enough to show growth next season? Will they have the proper relationship with their coaches to make progress? Doesn't history--and not just Bucco history--tell us that it's highly unlikely for everything to go swimmingly for every pitcher at once? Forget insanity and forget stupidity, but isn't it just plainly ignorant, in the sense of lacking knowledge, to assume that 4 of 5 of the starting pitchers can win fifteen games when pitching for a team that finished the previous season as one of the worst in the majors?
I still don't see how the Pirates come close to a .500 record without having 4 of their starting pitchers each win at least 15 games. The Bucco offense scored runs in August and could be less inept than it was in the first half of the season, but it will never be mistaken for a powerhouse. The Pirates need to have four starting pitchers go for at least 200 innings and each win an average of fifteen games (and seventeen and eighteen would be far better than fifteen). Which, of course, brings me to this:
What I Wish For: Gorzy shows no aftereffects of pitching more than 40 innings over his previous career total and picks up right where he left off this season while becoming a legitimate number 1 pitcher. Several people combine to motivate Ian Snell properly by telling him they don't believe he can have a WHIP below 1.20, an ERA under 3, and get 200 strikeouts over the course of a full season, and Snell, also showing no aftereffects of throwing 200 innings for the first time in his career this season, sets about proving a new chorus of naysayers wrong by earning NL top ten WHIP and ERA rates and climbing from top 10 to top 5 in NL strikeouts. Zach Duke and Paul Maholm do what they did so effectively their rookie seasons--pitch lots of innings, get outs, and win many games while having above-average pitching statistics. Matt Morris is a stabilizing and experienced fifth starter who always keeps the team in a game while maintaining at least league average statistics. (I'm also not that particular about who does what, providing at least 4 of the starting pitchers--even if it's someone not named--manage to win at least 15 games.)
The Problem with my Wishes: Aside from being dependent on lots of variables--effective coaching, proper relationships to coaches, health, etc, that is really, really, a lot to demand of any starting rotation.
For this Bucco fan, however, pitching remains fundamental. If the Buccos, somehow, someway, brought 75% of my wishes to life, I might see my team sniffing a .500 record. 80% to 90% of my wishes, and we're talking seriously "exceeding expectations" and about a record, given league-average play in other capacities, that catapult the team from mediocrity to a winning record.
But less than 70% of those wishes fulfilled? Even 60% fulfilled? Much as I hate to say it, even with 60% of those wishes fulfilled, you're probably still looking at a sub .500 record, albeit one probably far closer to .500 than the Pirates have sniffed in quite a long time.
As for 50% or less than 50% of my wishes coming true? Well, I'm not talking about that yet, but suffice to say, such a "come true" rate for my wishes is not likely to result even in mediocrity, let alone a winning season.
High expectations? Unreasonable expectations? Completely inane, outlandish expectations? Well--I'm not calling them expectations; I'm calling them wishes, and there's a difference.
But when the time comes to figure out how the Pirates will ever finish 81-81 or 82-80 or somewhere above that level, the truth remains: Pitching is fundamental. And when the pitchers fundamentally achieve above and beyond expectations, along with the rest of the team meeting expectations for league average MLB play, that's when I expect the Pirates to be a team that wins more games than they lose.
Here's to wishing/dreaming that a profound affectation of "exceeding expectations," for the sake of of both players who want to win and fans who are sick of losing, strikes the entire Pittsburgh starting rotation throughout the course of the 2008 baseball season.
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