According to Jeff Schlegel, a travel columnist writing for the New York Times, "Pittsburgh has undergone a striking renaissance from a down-and-out smokestack to a gleaming cultural oasis."  Unfortunately, their baseball team does not look ready for such a renaissance this year.

1: THE BASICS

Team name: Pirates

Team status: crappy

2:  GETTING SLIGHTLY MORE SPECIFIC

Last winning season: 1992 (right before they lost Barry Bonds to free agency [but note that he never had more than 34 HRs in a season in Pittsburgh...])

And I know you're all anxious to see the back of peoples' heads in the Pirates' baseball stadium, PNC Park, so here you go:

via upload.wikimedia.org

3: SERIOUSLY, THOUGH

I rushed back from a spring break trip to Montreal to write about pretty much the crappiest team around?  These guys make the Reds look good.  Like, really good.

4: BUT WHAT ARE THEY SAYING ABOUT US?

I wandered over to Bucs Dugout to see that they are doing NL Central previews.  It turns out that the Reds are in the NL Central, and look at the shit they're talking about us:

OFFSEASON

Not good. Like the Astros, the Reds seems to think that once you have a decent core in place, the right thing to do is to spread the rest of your money around to as many mediocre veterans as possible. In addition to signing Hernandez, Taveras and Rhodes, the Reds also re-signed a number of their own free agents, including David Weathers (one year, $3.9 million), Mike Lincoln (two years, $4 million), Norris Hopper (one year, $402,000) and Jerry Hairston (one year, $2 milion). Individually, there were arguments to be made for each of these signings: both Weathers and Lincoln were modestly effective last year, Hopper cost barely above the league minimum, and Hairston posted an .871 OPS in 261 at bats in 2009. But Weathers is 39 and had problems with walks last year, Hairston will be 33 and had two straight years absolutely awful years before 2008, and Lincoln and Hopper have never been very good.

More troubling was the signing of Taveras to a two-year, $6.25 million deal, ostensibly to be their starting center fielder. As a basestealing fiend and a solid defensive outfielder, Taveras has his uses, but he managed just a .295 slugging percentage last year in Coors Field, and he has absolutely no business starting. Ramon Hernandez, meanwhile, has good power for a starting catcher, but his batting average has been dwindling for a while now, and he may be close to done.

Wait a minute, I agree with them.

5: BECAUSE I'M TOO LAZY TO E-MAIL ANYBODY IN ADVANCE

Yes, that would require planning and passing up good eating, drinking, and whatnot in favor of working on this.  Sorry, but the incentives are just not there.  My solution: quote random comments from Bucs Dugout!  Like, say, this one, in a rousing discussion of the starting rotation for this year:

Crap

I keep telling myself we have better depth at pitching than last year, but after the top 3, I’m not sure who we can count on. Ohlendorf sounds better than he is. We’re basically praying that Gorzo starts to pitch again. I’d hate to have two soft throwers like Duke and Karstens as starters with our defense, but that might be our best bet. Maybe Maholm, Duke, Snell, Gorzo, Karstens.

Even in the "top three", we’re counting on Maholm not regessing, Snell "fixing his delivery" or whatever, and Duke keeping his ERA under 6. Not good.

Yeah, so brings us to section 5.A.  That's right:

5.A: STARTING PITCHING

Their pitching staff is just full of young, mediocre (or worse) pitchers.  Let's look at their top five starters from last year:

• Zach Duke, 26.  The guy had a freak performance in his rookie season in 2005: 1.81 ERA, 1.2 WHIP in 84 IP, for an ERA+ of 234 (textbook example: effects of small sample sizes).  He then returned to Earth in the next three seasons, with an ERA+ of 99, 79 and 86 and WHIP of 1.5, 1.7, and 1.5.  But yeah, he's young, turning 26 in a month.
  
• Paul Maholm, 27.  Another freak small-sample-size performance in his 2005 rookie season, ERA+ of 194, WHIP of 1.16 in 41 IP.  But after two blah seasons, he turned in a solid performance last year, bringing his WHIP back down to 1.28 and finishing with an ERA+ of 111 in 206 IP.  And did I mention that he's also young?
  
• Ian Snell, 27.  His breakout season was in 2007, when he got his WHIP down around 1.3 and posted an ERA+ of 116.  He then proceeded to suck even more in 2008 than he did in 2005 or 2006, with a WHIP over 1.7 and an ERA+ of 76 in 164 innings.
• Tom Gorzelanny, 27.  He had a solid performance in 60 innings in 2006, then continued that in 201 innings in 2007.  Both seasons, his WHIP was below 1.4 and his ERA+ was above 110.  But he seriously sucked last year, with a WHIP of 1.8 and an ERA+ of 62 in 105 IP.  Hence the mention above of praying that he "starts to pitch again."  Hey, it could happen...
  
• Phil Dumatrait, 26.  Wait, this guy is still around?  My sources tell me that the Pirates picked him up off of waivers and he pitched 78 innings last year with an ERA+ of 78 and a WHIP above 1.5.  But, um, he was better than Gorzelanny.  At any rate, he's gone.

A Post-Gazette article on Monday quoted the Pirates GM, Neal Huntington:

 

Also today, general manager Neal Huntington said the first cuts of the spring will come "early next week," with a larger wave a week later.

Huntington said, too, that Jimmy Barthmaier, owner of an 18.69 ERA, is off the list of rotation candidates. The field now remains eight, Huntington said, reiterating that only Paul Maholm is a lock, with Ian Snell and Zach Duke right behind, but adding Virgil Vasquez to a field that already included Ohlendorf, Tom Gorzelanny, Jeff Karstens and Daniel McCutchen.

 

Wait, who?  Oh, that's right.  All three came over from the Yankees in the Xavier Nady trade last season.

• Karstens posted an ERA+ of 102 in 51 innings after coming over, and Ohlendorf continued the sub-70 ERA+ sucking he had been doing in NY.  They're both 26, though.
• I don't think that McCutchen has played in the majors before, though he has posted nice strikeout numbers in the minors.  He kept his WHIP below 1.2 in AA and AAA across the Yankees and Pirates organizations last season.  Also 26.

One more note about the starters: Duke, Maholm, and Gorzelanny are all lefties.

5.B: RELIEF PITCHING

Their relievers were surprisingly not-horrible last year, anchored by then-24-year-old closer Matt Capps (137 ERA+, sub-1.0 WHIP), 30-year-old John Grabow (145 ERA+, 1.3 WHIP), and Damaso Marte, whose 119 ERA+ and one K/inning were traded with Nady to the Yankees.  They also relied heavily on mediocre performances from Tyler Yates (88 ERA+), Sean Burnett (87), Franquelis Osoria (68), T.J. Beam (100), and Denny Bautista (68).  Given that the PIrates basically did nothing in the offseason, unless a rookie breaks out the relief corps should look a lot like last year's, sans Marte.

5.C: NON-PITCHERS

5.C.1: WAS THERE A TWO-FOR-ONE DEAL ON LAROCHES?

The hope was for the corners to be manned by Andy and Adam LaRoche.  However, Andy is an idiot who didn't believe his doctors when they told him he'd have to keep doing the prescribed exercises:

"My back felt great and this offseason I didn't really stick with (the exercises) like I should," LaRoche admitted. "I guess the doctors were right when they said I'll have to stick with them for the rest of my career."

He missed the spring training opener, but I imagine he's playing by this point.  So let's look at the actual starters...

5.C.2: THE OFFENSE: THE BROTHERS LAROCHE AND OTHERS

Last year, the Pirates were strong at catcher (Doumit: 128 OPS+), first (Adam LaRoche: 123), and in the outfield (Nady, now gone, Bay in left, also now gone in that big Ramirez deal, and McLouth in CF with 126).  The rest of the infield was mediocre: Freddy Sanchez (79) at second, Jose Bautista (95) with the most starts at 3B, and Jack Wilson (77) at short.  Nobody has any real speed except for McLouth (23 SB/3 CS).  And I have no idea who's supposed to fill out the outfield.  They did invite Andy Phillips to spring training, so maybe they'll try him.  According to some guy at Bucs Dugout, outfielder Andrew McCutchen does have some promise, but he may not even start the season in the majors.  So, it looks like they'll be relying on lots of retreads to fill in those outfield holes, unless I'm completely missing something.

This is always possible.  In fact, aren't the Reds doing the same thing?

6: CONCLUSIONS AND AVENUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

I'm sure if I say that this team will suck even more than the Reds this year, that will come back to bite me, but I think that I can say it with some confidence anyway.  The Pirates took a team that went 67-95 last season, pulled what the Reds love to do when blessed with a good outfield (decimate it), got little in return, and then basically did nothing else.  They're now hoping that the guys who played way above their heads last year can maintain that, and the others can return to their top form.  This seems unlikely to happen.

Of course, their greatest strength is their youth.  Given how young pretty much the entire team it is, a few players could always find their stride.  But since there are so many holes, it's going to be pretty tough for enough guys to step up this year to give this team a chance of making the playoffs.  And with their pitching situation, this could be another long, painful season.  At least a few young offensive players should be fun to watch...

APPENDIX A: ADDING AN ACTUAL LINEUP

There was a complaint in the comments about the "conspicuous" absence of a projected lineup, so here's one.

Morgan LF (career OPS+ in 267 ABs across two seasons: 98)
Sanchez 2B
Mcclouth CF
Doumit C
LaRoche 1B
LaRoche 3B
Wilson SS

And in RF, one of Hinske (2008 OPS+: 107 with the Rays, after bombing with Boston in 2007 to the tune of an OPS+ of 83), Moss (he's only 25, with an OPS+ of 95 over his two seasons in the majors), or Pearce (career OPS+ in his two seasons: 91).

Holy crap, that's a depressing lineup. 

Incidentally, I was dubious, but even with his batting average of .271, OBP of .298, and slugging percentage of .371, Sanchez usually batted second last season--356 PAs second, 162 first, 61 third, and only a handful anywhere else in the lineup.  This for a guy with zero SBs all season.  As if this lineup needed help to be any crappier...