The Pirates 2011 season is a story of could haves, should haves, but lasted only one have or half. I apologize for the lame play on words, but I just couldn’t resist. After all these bad years of rooting for the Pirates, one has to be able to laugh sometimes. Or, in the Pirates case, most of the time. Jokes aside, that sentence describes what exactly the 2011 Pirates season was. Which was a pretty good 100 games and a pretty awful final 62 games.
In the end, the Pirates improved on 105 loss season by losing 90 games. If you would have told most Pirate fans before the season that the club would only lose 90 games, many would have thought you were crazy. Lyle Overbay and Matt Diaz were going to make this team that much better? Give me a break! I thought the Pirates would win 65 games, which I thought was generous at the time. Obviously, some crazy things happened this season. Let’s look back at the amazing first half first.
The first half of the season was just so crazy and awesome. We all wanted to believe in the magic. I have never believed that managers are mostly meaningless to a team’s overall success, but even I have to admit that I was buying into some of the slurp coming out of Hurdle’s mouth. It seemed like him and Ray Searage could do no wrong.
They were doing miracles with mostly a bunch of overachievers. The story of the first half of the Pirates season, actually the entire season, has mostly to do with pitching. Pitching and defense is the easiest way to compete in major league baseball today.
The Rays have been proving that for years, then the Giants last season. The Pirates F.O. knows they cannot compete with the larger markets for the big time offensive players, so they must find other ways to compete. Following the Rays model, it almost worked for the Pirates.
In the first half, they got good pitching from reclamation project Charlie Morton, Paul Maholm, Kevin Correia, Jeff Karstens, and James McDonald.
Charlie Morton dropped down to ¾ in his delivery to get more movement on his pitches. It worked well enough, that people were comparing his delivery to Roy Halladay. Now if pitchers could copy Halladay, anybody would do it! Morton is special because he has always had the stuff to be good. Morton’s results were not as much of a shock to me as Jeff Karstens.
Jeff Karstens looked like the ace for a while there. When the Pirates were the talk of baseball in June and July, Jeff Karstens had an ERA of 1.77. He looked like freakin Greg Maddux out there for a couple of months!
Kevin Correia used smoke and mirrors and unusual offensive support to win 11 games. Wins are a phony statistic, but the 11 wins he earned demonstrated that he wasn’t terrible.
Paul Maholm had a good year also, even if he never got rewarded for many wins. Again wins are a retarded statistic, but it would have been nice if the bats would have showed up with Maholm on the mound.
James McDonald has better stuff than all the other guys, but looked to be struggling compared to the numbers the other four starters were putting up. McDonald was consistently pretty good for the most part, even though he had a difficult time with high pitch innings. That’s just the starting rotation. The bullpen was just as good or even better in some cases.
The Pirates bullpen was really good during the first half of the season. Joel Hanrahan was an All-Star closer with no blown saves. Jose Veras and the other set up guys were having nice seasons. The success was even more surprising because they were succeeding without their lone 2010 All-Star, Evan Meek, who had an injury filled season.
Instead of Meek, the Pirates received contributions from Daniel McCutchen and Chris Resop. Signing Jose Veras to a minor league deal turned out to be a shrewd move by Neil Huntington. Every time Veras came in, we all held our breath, but for the most part, he got the job done.
Unfortunately for the bullpen, the Pirates starters threw less innings than any other starting staff in the NL, which of course led to more innings for the bullpen arms. More pitchers from AAA were needed, which wasn’t a good thing other than some good outings by Chris Leroux and Tony Watson.
With the success of the starters and the bullpen’s resolve, the Pirates were able to compete with the National League for four months. Then all of a sudden, it all ended. The results of the pitchers went south, and so did the entire team.
It seems fair enough to point to the 19 inning marathon loss to the Braves on July 28th in that it led to every pitcher in the bullpen throwing more than usual. The ending was awful, in that home plate umpire Jerry Meals handed the game to the Braves on the worst call many have ever seen. But the length of the game potentially had more impact on the team because it taxed the arms in the pen.
After that game, all the good outings were few and far between for the starters, which led to higher inning totals for the bullpen. The bullpen faltered along with the starters. Blowout losses were rare in the first half, but all of sudden it was becoming common to see lineups such as the Cubs and Padres destroying Pirates pitching. Why was the pitching the key to the downfall? If it wasn’t for the pitching, there wouldn’t have been a good thing to right about in the first half either. The pitching had to come down to Earth; unfortunately they had little assistance from the bats. The offense was lousy from game 1 through game 162 this season.
The offensive production was the one consistent the entire 2011 season. Unfortunately for the Pirates, it was consistently bad. As good as the record was in the first half, it actually could have been better if the offense could have been at least average.
There was some progress made by Andrew McCutchen, who has officially become a nationally recognized star. He was consistently in the top 5 in WAR in the National League during the season. He fell off in September, but overall he made strides in all areas.
Especially defense where McCutchen was put in a better position in to succeed in CF this year. UZR, although no one knows how reliable it is yet, gave McCutchen +3.5 rating. Overall, McCutchen ended the season as 5.7 Wins Above Replacement Player. Top ten in the NL.
Neil Walker seemed to be the clutch hitter of the team. He consistently drove in runs in the first half, leading the team in RBIs. Anyone that follows baseball today will tell you that RBIs are unreliable statistic. That’s because it has more to do with who is in front and/or behind the particular player in the lineup. One thing Neil Walker succeeded at for the most part in the first half was avoiding the nonproductive Abs with players in scoring position.
Neil Walker had a decent year with 36 doubles, but with his lower OBP, he needs to produce more homeruns. Walker did make improvements at 2B, which helped him earn a 3.0 WAR.
The other noteworthy contributions came from Jose Tabata, Ryan Doumit, veteran Derrek Lee, and rookie Alex Presley. It was an unfortunate year for Jose Tabata, in that he lost a good amount of games from injuries to his hamstring and wrist.
He has a lot of upside, but I have a bad feeling that he might not reach it because of his injury prone nature. The Pirates believe in him though, by giving him a “very” team friendly contract that can cover up to eight years. Tabata’s injuries did open up the door for another young player to take over in leftfield.
Alex Presley had a pretty amazing rookie year if you just look back to where he was just a couple of years ago. Presley was struggling to stay afloat at High A (Lynchburg). But all that changed in 2010, as Presley breezed through AA and succeeded at AAA as well. He even earned a September call-up to the Pirates, but saw little action. It seemed to be a one year wonder, at least that’s the way the Pirates approached it.
Presley began the season at AAA again, where he consistently was the best hitter on the team. Presley led the Indianapolis Indians with a .333 average. It took Tabata’s injury to finally call up Presley on June 28th against the Blue Jays. He hit a home run in his debut and took off from there.
An injury to his hand really hurt the team because during the stretch when Presley first came up with Chase D’Arnaud, the offense was scoring more runs. Presley now looks like a future piece, and was one of the major positives for 2011.
Derrek Lee was another positive for the offense. The Pirates traded for Lee near the trade deadline for fringe 1B prospect Aaron Baker. I thought the move would have no consequence at the time because I believed Lee to be done. I thought it was a good gamble though on Huntington’s part.
Lee ended up being the big middle of the lineup threat in the lineup during the second half. After struggling in April-June for the Orioles, Lee began to pick it up in July before the trade. His OPS rose to .804, but that was nothing for what he had in store for Pittsburgh. In August, his OPS was 1.038; and in September, it was .969. He also got injured, but was the major cog in the lineup when he played.
Ryan Doumit also had some nice offensive numbers this season. Probably in his final season as a Pirate, Doumit hit for a .303 average and had an OPS of .830. As usual when it comes to Doumit, he could not stay healthy. He only had 236 ABs during the season, due to his ankle being broken in June.
Those were the few positives from the everyday players this season. Obviously, there were more negatives than positives with the offense this season. There is no reason in writing about how terrible Lyle Overbay, Matt Diaz, or Brandon Wood were. It was pretty much expected with those guys. The two negative performances I want to focus on could both have a lasting impact on the future of the team.
The first negative performance that I must delve into is Chase D’Arnaud. D’Arnaud was supposed to be the future at shortstop. He may still be, but he will have to make major improvements to his game. D’Arnaud struggled both offensively and defensively with the Pirates this season. He has the tools to be an average to above average shortstop in the big leagues.
With his arsenal of speed and strong arm, D’Arnaud can be a very successful player, but it was clear that he wasn’t ready for the major leagues this season. He was no match at the plate and consistently struggled with throwing the ball. A little more seasoning at AAA can do wonders for D’Arnaud.
The Pirates need Chase D’Arnaud to reach his potential because there aren’t many candidates to exceed at shortstop. If D’Arnaud can improve, the Pirates will be able to move on from the Cedeno era, which many people cannot wait to end.
Chase D’Arnaud could be a major factor in the Pirates future success, but he is nowhere near as important as Pedro Alvarez.
Pedro Alvarez’s season has been well documented. The first round pick that was supposed to be the savior of the organization has not lived up to that billing to save the least. It became unbearable to watch Alvarez’s ABs. Alvarez ended the season hitting for a poultry .091 batting average and .561 OPS. Through the beginning of the year, Alvarez was seemed to always be down 0-2. His approach looked to be broken, but there are also some major holes in his swing.
Just observing from TV, I could tell Alvarez had no chance of hitting an outside pitch with any authority. And I’m no scout. Alvarez has a lot of work to put in on recognizing and hitting off-speed pitches if he is to ever succeed at the major league level. I don’t know if winter ball is the answer, but that is something that he definitely needs to fix soon.
Pedro Alvarez is the most important offensive player in the entire Pirates organization because he is the only true power bat near the major league level. If Alvarez fails, the Pirates will have both third base and first base to fill. It will be a lot easier to fill one position than two. The Pirates don’t have the money resources to sign another power threat.
If the Pirates are to succeed in the near future, Pedro Alvarez will need to be a part of it.
One major positive was the excitement the Pirates brought to the city for the four months they were in contention. I always knew this city would be amazing if the Pirates would be competitive. Pittsburgh fans don’t hate baseball, but hate losing. If the Pirates can turn this terrible streak around, the fans will come out in droves.
We saw that the fans will come this year. With nearly 2 million fans this season, the second most in PNC Park history, Pirates baseball still brings many customers. When I think of the Pirates, I can’t help but think of the famous quote from James Earl Jones’ character Terence Mann: “Oh…people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”
PLEASANT SURPRISES
- Pitching made a near one run improvement from 5.00 ERA to 4.05 ERA
- Michael McKenry came from nowhere to be a stabilizing presence at catcher
- Alex Presley continuing his minor league hitting success in the majors
- Chris Leroux and Tony Watson look to be future bullpen arms
- Ronny Cedeno wasn't terrible in the field with a UZR of +5.9
DISAPPOINTMENTS
- The number of strikeouts by Pirate hitters was comical this season
- Pedro Alvarez's development was the biggest individual disappointment this season by far
- Injuries to many key players including: Tabata, Presley, Doumit, and Maholm
BEST MOMENTS
1. Michael McKenry hitting the 3-run home run to win the game against Carlos Marmol and the Cubs
2. Andrew McCutchen’s walk-off homerun against the Diamondbacks to bring the Pirates to 500 for the first time in June
3. Derrek Lee’s 9th inning grand slam against the Cubs in September
4. The Pirates taking 2 of 3 from the Phillies and Red Sox in consecutive weekends
Email me at: rydog2469@yahoo.com
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