Looking ahead

Today the Stats Geek and the Bucs Dugout both tackle the task of trying to figure out just what our 33-27 record since the All-Star Break means. I talked briefly about it at the end of August, and the conclusions are still the same. The Pirates offense has been downright awful since the break and they've still been outscored by 30 runs in games since then. The pitching has been better and the four young guys may get better next year, but the offense isn't good enough for that to mean anything. In fact, without any upgrades it will likely get worse. The 2007 Freddy is much more likely to be around his second half .766 OPS next year than the .850 number he has on the season. There's very little in Ronnie Paulino's minor league record to suggest that he'll bat .320 again (and it's always dangerous to hedge your bets on anyone who has a large part of their OBP tied up in batting average), guys like Castillo and Doumit provide more questions than answers and if the Pirates expect anything from Jack Wilson beyond what he's given them this year, they're foolish. Even with the addition of the Stats Geek's "Lefty McThump" (a heftily overpaid Luis Gonzalez is still my bet, yes he's been good this year, but yes he'll be 40 next year) I don't know how good this offense can be. As Charlie says, it would be foolish to treat this team like a .500 team in the offseason when making personnel moves. The Geek points out that they were 9-25 in one run games in the first half (aka incredibly unlucky) while they're 14-3 in the same situation since the break (aka incredibly lucky). That puts the "true 2006 Pittsburgh Pirates," if you will, right where they are now, a team that's about 20 games under .500. Certainly 33 wins in 60 games is fantastic when it took 90 to win their first 30, but all that does is kind of make 2006 the mirror image of 2005. Same front office, similar players, same final results, same outlook.