...We All Fall Down

Jeff Karsten winding up for a pitch/AP Images

They had a winning record and were leading the division in late July, but then the wheels came off. Where did the Pirates go wrong?

By Thomas Rende

This past season we saw a resurgence from a team that started to make strides toward resembling a respectable franchise. The thought of seeing their first winning team since 1992 almost made fans care again (they ranked 15th in the league in attendance). They had a winning record and were leading the division in late July, but then the wheels came off. After gaining the divisional lead they finished the season at a clip of 22-44 and relived another losing season, their 19th in a row. My question is, how did they fall off the face of the baseball earth?

We'll start with the pitching. The Pirates don't present a pitching rotation that makes an opposing team shake in their boots but they were relatively effective last year. They did a good job of keeping the opposing team off base. Paul Maholm and Jeff Karstens were particularly well in this respect as they both posted a WHIP that was under 1.30. The pitching as a whole suffered a drop off when their losing streak began. There WHIP rose to over 1.5 which revealed control issues on the staff and an ERA that got up to 4.78. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt as none of their starting pitchers are over the age of 30, which indicates a lack of experience to major innings at the big league level. Their bullpen is pretty well set but with the the loss of Kevin Correia they might have to pull the trigger on this A.J. Burnett deal to strengthen a mediocre, soft tossing staff.  

At least the offense has the one marquee name that fans can recognize in their program books. Andrew McCutchen is a star in this league but didn't help his fellow comrades in the second half of last season. His OBP went down sixty points to a mediocre .330 and his slugging percentage dropped by over 100 points. These numbers showed a fall off for McCutchen but many speculate he was trying to over compensate for his teammates' horrible play. There wasn't a stark difference in the offensive from the first half of the year to the second for the rest of the offense. The consistency was bad because they didn't play that well in the first half. They ranked 27th in the majors in offense thanks to a feeble 107 home runs and a .307 OBP. They also failed to register more than 2 players with a Wins Above Replacement level above 2. This shows an offense that couldn't contribute anything more than a couple wins to the team. What does the offense need to do? Well, getting better play from Neil Walker and Pedro Alvarez would be a huge plus. These are two extremely talented youngsters that could really bolster a lineup that is lacking depth. They made an under the radar move in acquiring Casey McGehee, who is looking to regain his 2010 form where he hit for 23 home runs and over 100 RBI's. Reacquiring Nate McLouth is a blast from the past, but he hasn't performed well since his last half of a season with the Pirates.

The team has some issues but with additional depth in the pitching rotation and a more consistent offensive effort, this team may flirt with a positive record for once.