The All-Star Aura

Part three of the "Dave Littlefield is the Smartest GM in the National League" series, or perhaps more accurately "Why I think Dave Littlefield is an evil genius." The Introduction can be found here, part one here, part two here, and part four here.

Quick summary to this point: Dave Littlefield has decided to build a baseball team in Pittsburgh that will appear to the fans to be competitive while not actually competing, thus keeping his job security higher than it would be if he took the necessary risks to build a winning team in a small market. This is best illustrated by the Wilsons, while Craig is probably an all around better player, Jack's flashy glovework and hustle are immediately obvious to the fans while no one gives two shits about a guy that hits doubles and gets hit by a lot of pitches. As I said in this post yesterday (and in the comments of the same post), I get the impression that Littlefield knows the value of Craig Wilson, but feels that the fans won't understand it, thus he just decided to sign a lefty that will bash some balls towards the river because idiots will love that and the fans are mostly idiots. The question is why all of this effort all of a sudden to create an illusion towards a winning team. I have a couple of thoughts as to why and I'll hit one today (the obvious one) and one tomorrow (the not quite as obvious).

Of course, any Pirate fan knows why 2006 is different from 2001-2005 at PNC Park. The All-Star game. That fact alone will probably bring more people to PNC in 2006 than there's been in any year since it opened. In fact, screw the "probably," more people came to PNC Park in 2005 than in any year except 2001 and a big part of it was the All-Star Game (it wasn't the baseball being played there, that's for sure) so you know they're counting on a big gate in '06. But that's not all their counting on this year, the ASG also brings publicity. For the whole first half of the season, when people talk about the All-Star Game they'll mention Pittsburgh, PNC Park, and by association, the Pirates. If the Pirates are playing well, that will get mentioned everytime the All-Star Game does. Tune into Sunday Night Baseball and you'll hear Miller and Morgan saying

Miller: And fans, don't forget to log-on to MLB.com and vote for your favorite players for the 2006 All-Star Game. This year's game will be held in beautiful PNC Park in Pittsburgh, and you know Joe, those Pirates are really playing some good baseball. Dave Littlefield and Jim Tracy are really starting to turn that team around.

Morgan: Blah blah blah "old school." Blah blah blah "blue collar." Blah blah blah "hustle."

You get the idea. The key idea here is that only the first half of the season matters. Once the festivities are over, Pittsburgh goes back to being the armpit of the NL Central in most people's eyes. If they go 10-30 after the break, no one will notice or care because they don't have to think about Pittsburgh anymore, all they'll remember is that the Pirates were turning things around at the All-Star break.

Look at the signings Littlefield has made, they're all more likely to produce before the All-Star break. First off, they're all old or at least on the downslope of their career. That means they're likely to wear down during the season. After the All-Star break. Look at Burnitz at the break last year. He was hitting .276/.342/.475 (which we'd certainly take for a full season). He had 14 homers and 48 RBIs. He finished the year at .258/.323/.436 with 24 homers and 87 RBIs. He put up a lovely .536 OPS (not SLG) in the month of September. Joe Randa went into the break at .300/.370/.502, enough to shut even me up. Sure, some of it was Great American, but by the end of July (which he played most of with Cincy) he had fallen to .282/.349/.475. He finished at .276/.335/.452.

The point is this, if Randa and Burnitz can come close to replicating their first halves and Casey can be healthy, we'll be a much improved team in the first half of the year. That's the half of the year the national spotlight will be on us and Dave Littlefield will be judged by different baseball people all over the country. Imagine the hoopla surrounding this team if the Cards get off to a slow start (which they might given this offseason) and we stay around .500 and are within 5 games at the All-Star break when the circus (I mean that more ways than one) comes to town. From that point on, Randa and Burnitz will drop off, Casey is more likely to get hurt, maybe a young pitcher or two will come up with a twinge because they're pitching more than they ever have before, and Roberto Hernandez may drop dead of old age. The thing is, none of that will matter. The tickets will already be sold and the impression will already be made.