Triple A Indy - a glimpes into the near future

One of the things to watch in the early part of this season is the Pirates Triple A team in Indianapolis. Last year they were awful. Just awful. But this year they are going to be loaded with the future of the Pirates. Just take a look at their probable lineup.
OF – Jose Tabata, Dwelven Young, Brandon Moss/Brandon Jones/Bryan Myrow
1B – Steven Pierce
2B – Brian Friday/Jim Negrych
SS – Argenis Diaz
3B – Pedro Alvarez
C – Erik Kratz
DH – Neil Walker (he will probably makes starts at lots of positions in the field)

There are going to be a host of pitchers at the Triple A level that ought to be high quality. The bullpen will have lots of people who are major league ready and have had major league experience in addition to draft choices like Jeff Sues. The starting rotation will probably include Donald Veal, Brad Lincoln, the loser of the Daniel McCutchen-Kevin Hart competition, and perhaps Daniel Moskos.

The immediate future of the Pirates sits in Indy, and that future will probably mostly be up by the end of the year. Tabata, Lincoln, and Alvarez are the core of the future championships. The Pirates are also very high on Donald Veal, who was lights out in the Arizona Fall League (a hitter’s league by the way) as well as the Hart-McCutchen loser. There is also a lot of potential in Moskos and Walker although where they fit is a bit of mystery. Diaz and Kratz probably will see some time as a back ups in the bigs and Negrych has potential to fill the second base hole, but mostly because of the lack of other options in the system until at least 2012.

So, if you want to see what the Pirates are going to look like next year, and even in the second half of this year keep an eye on Indianapolis. For the first year in a while, this team may actually be very good.