Pirate Prediction 2010

The Pirates are an extremely hard team to predict for this year because of the certainity that they will be extremely different by the end of the year, and chances are they will be greatly improved from about June on as the Pirates slowly add Brad Lincoln, Jose Tabata, and Pedro Alvarez.

I think the poor showing by the Pirates in the Spring has to be tempered somewhat as they played the Yankees and Red Sox an awful lot. However, the poor performance by many Pirate pitchers is a bad sign. Ohlendorf does not look like he is going to be duplicating his success from last year, and Morton looks like he will be duplicating his inability to get wins. On a brighter note, Daniel McCutchen looks like he will be fine as a 5th starter. The offense is coming around. There is a lot of potential at the top of the line up with Iwamura, A. McCutchen, Jones, and Doumit. Follow Doumit up with the streaky Milledge, and the Pirates can put up some runs. The ultimate success of the Pirates then depends on the bottom of the order with Clement, LaRoche, the pitcher, and Cedano. That has the potential to be easy outs every time.

I do believe the Pirates have the ability to win the central as the Cards are fading as a team and so are the Cubs, the Astros and the Brewers. The Reds are the only other team on the rise like the Pirates, but both will have to get past Pujols, who is good enough to keep the Cards on top even though the team around him is fading. The keys to winning the central then will be Zack Duke and Andy LaRoche. Duke because he needs to be the steady influence in the rotation as Morton will be down more than up, and D. McCutchen will have ups and downs as well. Malhom is going to be okay and Ohlendorf will probably turn out alright. The key then is Duke. He needs to have another double digit win season, but he has to lower his loss total. He also cannot fade as the season goes. The Pirates lost all hope of reaching the .500 mark as Duke basically ran out of gas after the All Star break. And Andy LaRoche is going to be a key because he has to live up to potential at the plate now. He has Alvarez breathing down his neck. If he is ever going to hit better than .250 and get some power it has to be now. If he does then the bottom of the order looks a lot better and those 5-3 losses can start to turn into 6-5 wins.

The Pirates are in a great position to really help the team and the organization as a whole this year. Church is trade bait, and he ought to bring something good. Don't be surprised to see Dotel shopped around. And if things go bad then LaRoche and Duke are also on the open market as well.

The Pirates have to stay in contention into May for their to be any hope. Slow starts have sunk this team and when overcoming years of failure, a good start is key to ward off the mentality that is sure to hit. All in all, I don't think the PIrates will get the breaks they need this year to win the division, but I do think a charge in the arm will come with each call up, which will be staggered for effect.

My Prediction: 85 wins. They break the curse but finsih 3rd in the Division.