Pittsburgh Pirates Wake-Up Call – Can the Pirates Catch the Cubs?

In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates.

So now that the World Series is over with the Cubs ending their never-ending drought (to the disappointment of many Pirates fans), we can finally turn our full attention forward towards the off-season. This is not to take anything away from Game 7; it was probably the best baseball game I’ve seen in my lifetime. But now the Pirates have the monumental task ahead of them of trying to close the gap on the Cubs, who became competitive with them in 2015 and soared past the team this season.

Obviously the Pirates don’t have the financial resources the Cubs have. But I believe that the Pirates have the talent, if the players on the team perform to what they’re capable of, to take on the Cubs in a playoff series. But arguably just as important, do the Pirates have the ability to catch the Cubs in the division?

That’s certainly a tall order. The Cubs rotation was dynamic this past season, but the Pirates have the ability to have a very high-upside rotation of their own with Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, and Tyler Glasnow leading the way. John Lester and Jake Arrieta are phenomenal pitches, but they will each likely begin to go downhill as age catches up to them. Cole, Taillon, and Glasnow have their primes in front of them.

If the Cubs don’t resign Aroldis Chapman this winter, the Pirates could have a better bullpen than the Cubs next season. We saw how afraid Joe Maddon was to use anybody out of his bullpen aside from Chapman in Game 7. The Pirates usually always have a great bullpen year-in and year-out.

The Cubs have a clear and distinct advantage offensively. The Pirates can be a good offensive team, but the Cubs are stellar in this regard. The Pirates will need Josh Bell to break out next season and Josh Harrison to improve if they have any hope of gaining ground in this area.

All-in-all, the Cubs are clearly a better team than the Pirates. But the Pirates have built their team through the youth in their farm system, and the players that carry a team are almost always those that were brought up through your system and not signed through free agency. I think the Pirates will improve this off-season, and I don’t think they will catch the Cubs in the division next season. But as the Pirates keep adding highly-talented prospects to the major league squad, and as guys like Lester and Arrieta get older and those contracts (assuming the Cubs ink Arrieta to a long-term deal), along with Jason Heyward‘s, come back to bite the Cubs, maybe, just maybe, the Pirates can compete with the Cubs in the division in 2018 and beyond.

Baseball Talk Around the Web

• ESPN released there way-too-early power rankings. Where do the Pirates sit? (Hint: it’s higher than I expected).
• And Bleacher Report gives its full off-season preview. There’s a lot to take in here, and a great read for us baseball fans starved for non-World Series-related articles.

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