Who’s here for now? Akinori Iwamura was acquired to plug the whole that currently exists at second base. Hopefully, this is his only year with the club. If he’s back next year, that means that Andy LaRoche isn’t playing at second base, either because he couldn’t hack it there or because Pedro Alvarez is at first. I’d much rather see Pedro force LaRoche to second and Clement hit well enough to stay at first, because that would mean things are progressing nicely for the Pirates.
Ryan Doumit is under contract for a couple more years, but with Tony Sanchez poised for a quick ascension, Doumit might be shipped off this year if he’s healthy and productive in the early part of the season. This will probably anger Pirate fans, but then again the sort of Pirate fans that get angry about this sort of thing are probably already pissed, so maybe the complaining won’t be as loud this year.
Ronny Cedeno is getting his Chris Duffy Memorial One Last Chance to start in the big leagues, but we all already know he’s probably not good enough for an every day job. Let’s just hope he doesn’t do what he did with the Mariners last year. Hurry up, Chase D’Arnaud. And it goes without saying that Ryan Church and Bobby Crosby are short-term bench guys just hoping to get a chance to play so they can go somewhere else.
Who’s here for the long term? Just one guy for sure. I don’t think I need to say anything more about him.
Whose window is open? The most interesting guys to watch are going to be the ones that have a chance to join Andrew McCutchen in the category above, but who really need to perform well enough to earn it. Garrett Jones is certainly one of these guys; he needs to prove to the Pirates that last year wasn’t a fluke and it was a true late-career breakout. He doesn’t have to be a 40-homer guy, but if he can hit 30 and keep his batting line around the level (or slightly below) where it was last year, he’ll be a valuable every day player.
Jeff Clement is another guy who’s getting his shot this year. There’s an oddly pervasive opinion that he has needs more time in the minors to “prove” he can hit, but Charlie rightly points out today that he’s hit plenty well in several Triple-A assignments. The question with Clement is how that bat develops. Like Ryan Doumit, he’s got a great bat for a catcher, but he’s not a catcher anymore and what’s a great bat for a catcher is barely an acceptable bat for a first baseman. So can Clement do it while learning a new position? This is the time to find out.
Joining Clement and Jones are two former top prospects who’ve gotten a second lease on life with the Pirates; Andy LaRoche and Lastings Milledge. I’ve written plenty about both, and they’re both under the magnifying glass as well this year. Milledge swears he can hit with more power than he did last year now that he’s fully recovered from his wrist injury. He needs to; his .291/.333/.395 line with the Pirates last year was a big improvement over what he did with the Nats, but it wasn’t good enough to be a regular left fielder on a good baseball team. Milledge is probably capable of this; his minor league slugging percentage was .470. He needs to show it this year.
LaRoche is a little bit of a different case. He’s a year older and he’s got a full age-25 season under his belt (Milledge’s longest season up was his 138 game stint with the Nats in 2008 when he was 23) so I think we have a more complete picture of the type of hitter he is. Without a drastic change, he’s not that 30-homer guy that he was projected to be back in the Dodgers’ system as a young prospect. Instead, to really have success, he’s got to be the hitter that he was in May and September last year; a guy that hits for a good average that’s not empty because he’s driving extra base hits into gaps and has the ability to take a few walks. If LaRoche hits that way over a larger portion of the season in 2010, the Pirates will find a starting place for him in 2011, whether it’s by moving Pedro Alvarez to first base so he can stay at third or by moving him to second.
One guy that has to be mentioned even though he’s in the minors: Pedro Alvarez. He’ll likely make his Pirate debut this year. I hope it’s good.
What to expect from the offense in 2010: There’s no way around the fact that the Pirates are going to struggle to score runs this year. Even if they get breakout performances from one or two of the guys above, they’re still going to have a couple guys that don’t make the jump and a couple guys that just can’t hit in the lineup. The offense, like every other aspect of the season, is up for evaluation this year. The Pirates’ goal in 2010 is to really to try and find as many every day players for the future as they can. On April 1st, they really only have one. Hopefully by the end of the year, there will be a few more.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
