Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Offseason thoughts

I realize I never posted a recap for the last game of the season. It was pretty awful. The Pirates lost 5-2, there were some of defensive blunders (looking at you, Doumit), and the only real highlight was Ronny Cedeno hitting a home run.

Lots of things were happening around that time that kept me away from the blog. First and foremost, school started up in late August, and this being my last year (woo!), my major classes are taking up most of my time, not to mention all the things I have to do for graduation and looking for a job, etc, etc. Second, the Pirates were playing really awful. It felt like a chore watching the games every night, and I really didn't feel like writing about it the next morning.

But that's the beauty of the offseason; after having your hopes dashed yet again, all it takes is a post like this one by Charlie from Bucs Dugout to get you pumped for next season.  You start to think that if the Bucs did those things he outlined they could be like the 2007 Rays. That pitching wouldn't matter as much because the defense would be solid. I'm all for it. If it doesn't work, what's the worst that could happen? Another losing season? Been there, done that.

Like Charlie says, we focus on pitching every year, and look how well that's worked out so far. There has to be a reason why guys like Oliver Perez and Josh Fogg were able to have bounce-back seasons the year after playing so poorly with the Pirates. The 2007 Mets with Perez weren't a run scoring machine. They were +54 and scored 804 runs, putting them in the high middle for runs that year. But they had a solid defensive team, with Carlos Delgado, Luis Castillo and Jose Reyes all having under 12 errors for the year. Josh Fogg was in a similar situation in 2006 with Colorado as behind him he had Todd Helten, Jamey Carroll, Matt Holliday, Cory Sullivan, and Brad Hawpe, all of whom had less than 6 errors on the year. While that team was only +1 with 813 runs scored and a losing record, they made a few tweaks and in 2007 they skyrocketed to 90-73, +102 with 860 runs scored, not that much more than they had scored the year before. That team made an appearance in the World Series.

I'm not saying the Pirates will make the World Series if they make these changes, but it's time to do something different than we've been doing for the past 18 years.

So now I feel excited about next season. I have hope that if these defensive changes happen, the Pirates will be at least somewhat competitive by August. After all, as Pirate fans, we have to be eternal optimists.

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