More midseason report card or whatever you want to call it

I kinda slacked on these yesterday, but here's the rest of the hitters and the pitchers will follow sometime later today.

Jack Wilson- Sadly, Wilson's .259/.317/.364 line this year gives him the second best OPS+ of his career to date, one of 80. The worst part about Wilson's performance this year is that he spaced out for like a week, playing awful defense and seeming to not care about anything on the field. That lead to his actual benching in favor of Jose Castillo, who gave the team a shot in the arm with his play. Think about that statement. There's no use left for Wilson on the team here in Pittsburgh and it would be nice to find a team that wants a defense first shortstop for a pennant run (Red Sox?), but Wilson's contract makes him pretty much worthless to anyone. So, he talks too much, slacks off, and on top of everything, sucks. He's pretty much my least favorite Pirate right now.

Freddy Sanchez- It has become very clear that if Freddy's not hitting around .320 or higher, he's not a very valuable offensive player. Hitting .300 just isn't worth much without on-base skills and a bit of pop. Freddy has very little of either. He's still batting .296, but he's only got on OPS of .709, almost 150 points lower than last year. He's on pace to lose about 15 doubles and 2 homers from last year, too. It just seems like teams have figured out how to play those little drop doubles he hit down the lines last year and he's struggling for it. On top of everything, he's playing pretty bad defense at second base. Hopefully he can re-adjust and get a little hotter in the second half, but in the first half, well, he's no All-Star.

Adam LaRoche- After waiting all year for this guy to break out, it's finally happened. How hot has he been in the last couple weeks? Consider this, after a .133/.255/.265 April, he's got his line up to .239/.324/.439, which gives him an OPS+ of 100, exactly league average. When he's hitting, it's hard to believe he ever slumped as bad as he did because he looks so effortless at the plate. The first half was definitely a disappointment, but I'm expecting big things from LaRoche in the second half.

Ryan Doumit- Ahh, Doumit has finally embraced his role as the new Craig Wilson. Spurned by management, the guy tears the cover off the ball whenever he plays, but mostly unsubstantiated rumors of nightmarish defense keep him from being an every day player. Doumit's hitting well from both sides of the plate this year and has already set a career high in doubles and matched his career high in homers. He's also got the best outfield arm on the team, though it's clear that the place he belongs is behind the plate because there's not really any other viable options there as far as logical people are concerned.

Ronny Paulino- But logical people don't run the Pirates, so Ronny Paulino gets most of the starts behind the plate. Certainly, Ronny is a better hitter than his first half line of .234/.279/.348 indicates, but there's little reason to believe his .310 average from last year can be replicated. He's a bad defensive catcher with an undeserved reputation for handling the pitchers given small and skewed sample sizes between he and Doumit. Pretty much, he's a backup catcher and the sooner the Pirates realize it, the better.

Jose Bautista- Another guy for whom the second half will be the measuring stick for his year. He started out strong, but has tailed off badly in the past couple weeks and that's scary given how he did the same thing in the second half last year. When he's on he's got nice pop and can get on a ton. When he's off, he's clueless. He's surprised by playing some nice D at third this year.

Jose Castillo- Same old, now without power. He would probably make a nice utility guy on a team that wasn't playing utility guys at second and third already.

Josh Phelps- Still uncertain of his purpose on the team.

Don Kelly- No idea why he was ever on the team in the first place.

Humberto Cota- is still breathing.

Matt Kata- ?