This was originally going to be a reply to zogger's post but it got way out of hand so I made it a diary... err fanpost.  I don't mean to pick on his premise because I know he means one player in terms of making us a better team, not necessarily a good team.  It just raised a related point to me as I was writing it.  Plus it's fun to argue about these things.

 

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I'm impressed so far with the Pirates' ability to hang in there so far, but I still don't see them being a .500 team.  Here's why, and feel free to disagree:

 

-P- The bullpen will not continue to pitch at this level.  There just isn't that much talent there.  While it's nice we appear to have fleeced the Braves for once -- IMO,  Neal Huntington hasn't gotten enough widespread praise for this move yet, because nobody out-talent-evaluates the Braves -- there's just not enough depth (with Evan Meek and Phil Dumatrait at the back of the pen) when someone slumps or gets hurt.  Really, there's not enough depth anywhere on this team.

Players are overachieving and will return to normal.  Xavier Nady's fast start will end. It always does. Nate McLouth can't hit this well forever, though I'll be rooting against this prediction.  He can go a lot of ways from here - he could be this year's Freddy-Sanchez-out-of-nowhere breakout and hit .340 with 50 doubles, or pitchers could figure him out and he ends up hitting .260 with 15 hrs, which certainly isn't bad for a CF, but our expectations are sky high for him.  Jason Bay's hitting is very encouraging, particularly his k/bb of 10/11, but it's too early to say he's back Through six games he was hitting .182/.357/.227, though in the last five games he's pulled his average up 100 points and three homers have remedied his Abe-Nunez-like slugging percentage. Still, it's too small of a sample size to say he'll continue to hit this well all year.  I love seeing Zach Duke pitching the way he is - man, did he look good blowing a fastball by Derrek Lee in his last start - but there's no way he's this good.  His ERA is 2.13 but his WHIP is 1.58.  He's given up 18 hits in 12 innings.  His ERA will at least double by the end of this month.

Lingering injuries.  There's no way Tom Gorzelanny doesn't end up on the DL in the next few months.  Then who starts?  Dumatrait? JVB? Bullington? Freddy's shoulder isn't going anywhere.  I was at that 15 inning marathon against the Cubbies and every throw he made to first, including double play turns, was a rainbow.  There's no way he avoids the DL for an extended period of time.  at least Chris Gomez can cover second adequately and his hitting has been better than expected.  Jack Wilson hasn't even been cleared for a rehab outing yet and will do another turn on the 15 day DL. The Rivas/Bambi platoon continues at SS for another two weeks, and it's going to get really ugly. They both look like amateurs both in the field and at the plate. Who, between Nady and Ryan Doumit, will tweak a hamstring first? My money is on Doumit.  Again, just not enough depth, particularly in the middle infield, and any injury to an outfielder not named Nady will result in Nyjer Morgan having a starting role. 

Who's going to step up to keep this pace when others slump?  who's underperforming?  Adam LaRoche?  Jose Bautista?  Does anyone expect them to carry the team and keep us out of the annual late May / early June season-killing slump?

Matt Morris gets to start every five days. I want to believe that this is a competitive major league team (really I do!) but I think this is as good as this team gets right now, so let's enjoy our bout with relevance while we can.  First pitch is at 10:05 tonight.

 

Kevin Goldstein put out his top 100 prospect list over at BP today.  As expected, your Pittsburgh Pirates put up their characteristic ho-hum showing with three appearances - Andrew McCutchen at 24th, Neil Walker barely cracking the list at 94th and a surprise appearance by Steve Pearce at 43rd.

McCutchen's ranking no doubt was hurt by his poor showing at AA and his position fell from last year's ranking of 15th.  That's still enough to make it as a 5-star prospect on Goldstein's list but as even he admits, the talent level of prospects is down this year.  Personally I think he should start back in AA and hopefully move up to Indy quickly, but management may disagree and start him in AAA.

We all know what Pearce did last year and KG's also noticed, putting him in the company of players such as Josh Vitters, Jose Tabata and Fernando Martinez.  Pearce wasn't even on KG's radar last year.  We've already heard (and judged the hell out of) management's plan for him this year.

Walker makes the list this year after being on the fringes last year.  This may not indicate that he's taken a step forward as much as the talent level has stepped back.  Goldstein even admits there's a handful of 3-star talent at the tail end of the list, which I suspect includes our third baseman of the future.  My guess is he, like the rest of this trio, will take the field for Indy when the season starts.

Other notable Pirate-centric rankings have former-bucco Brent Lillibridge at 63, almost-bucco Jair Jurrjens at 86 and should've-been-a-bucco Matt Wieters at 12th.  If you weren't mad about passing on Wieters before, you should be now.

Cincinnati's Jay Bruce is #1.

From the mothership:

"In a perfect world, Steve deserves a chance to win an everyday job at the Major League level, but with Xavier, with Jason, with Adam [LaRoche], we're not in a position to give that to him," Huntington said. "He's not going to want to hear this, but a young player needs to continue to play, and as a result, Steve will probably end up back in [Triple-A] Indianapolis where he can play every day and develop."

I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, it shows that the bucs probably aren't going to move Nady before the season starts and commit to a rebuilding project, which has been discussed at length and with much grinding of teeth in threads outside this one.

On the other, Pearce is obviously no sure thing and since the team seems committed to this "what the hell, let's see what happens and maybe we get 83 wins" plan for now Pearce would do nothing but rot on the bench for at least the first half of the season, much like McLouth last year.  No question that this would be a bad thing for his development.  I'd rather see him getting regular at bats in AAA than spotty ones on the ML roster.

Ideally I'd like to see them move Nady for whatever low-level prospect they can get and let Pearce split time with Doumit in right and occasionally spell Laroche at first.