The new wrinkle this year with a 1 game play-in game to determine which team gets to go further in the playoffs presents a huge conundrum to a manager: Do you pitch your staff ace in the play-in game or save him for the start of the true playoff series?  The kicker is that if you save your ace for the start of the traditional playoff series, you risk not even getting to that point if your nominal 2nd best starter doesn’t do well.

For a team like the Phillies, this isn’t really much of a problem.  They have Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and Cole Hamels to mix and match.  Same with the Giants and Nationals (although losing Strasburg to his shutdown will sting).  But the Pirates are a different case.

If the Pirates were to make the Wild Card play-in game, A.J. Burnett would most likely be Hurdle’s choice to take the bump.  That game is on Friday, October 5th.  Assuming that the winner of that game goes to the listed Sunday, October 7th bracket for Game 1 of the NL Divisional Series and carries forth from there, Burnett would not be able to pitch until Game 3 on normal rest.  Theoretically, he could go on 4 days rest and pitch Game 2, but that’s not how you would normally want to set up your rotation in the playoffs.

Compounding things further, if the Pirates were to make the Wild Card game, they would presumably be on the road for the 1 game pre-playoff.  Here’s the road splits for each of the Pirates’ 4 main starters by ERA/FIP/xFIP:

Burnett — 4.38/4.07/3.67

McDonald — 5.40/4.82/4.56

Karstens — 5.95/3.82/4.13

Rodriguez — 4.15/3.56/3.92

I suppose you could make the case that Wandy on the road would be an acceptable option for the play-in game, but that is still not a confidence-inspiring option.

What if the Pirates decided to treat the Wild Card play-in game as “found money” and went with a totally different strategy of using their bullpen to pitch that game?  If they won, the Pirates would be able to have their ideal rotation all set up, rested, and ready to go.  If they lost, it would still be an amazing cap to an unexpected season.  The downside would be the public relations flak from doing an unorthodox move and not putting forth the perceived “best effort” to win that play-in game.

The bullpen game could look something like this (remembering that Locke, Leroux, and Wilson are not eligible as a result of being called up on September 1st):

Chris Resop “starter” - 2 innings

Kyle McPherson – 2 innings

Tony Watson – 1 inning, to give opposing manager pause about flipping batters

Jared Hughes – 2 innings

Hisanori Takahashi – 1 inning

Chad Qualls – 1 final inning if winning by large margin (Grilli/Hanrahan if is tight)

Under this hypothetical scenario and assuming the Pirates win, Hurdle would be able to start A.J. Burnett in Game 1 and have both Grilli and Hanrahan on full rest.

However, that gets right back to the problem of the Pirates’ starters not being as great on the road as they are at home.  But at that point the Pirates are in the Divisional Series 5 game series and would be a true playoff team.  The fans would be assured of at least 2 home games.  If the Pirates really wanted to analyze this through, here’s the Home splits for the 4 starters by ERA/FIP/xFIP:

Burnett — 2.94/3.49/3.40

McDonald — 2.60/3.31/3.58

Karstens — 1.76/2.89/3.69

Rodriguez — 3.43/4.15/4.27

If Burnett is most likely the Pirates Game 1 starter in the NLDS, a strong case should be made for Wandy Rodriguez to be the Game 2 starter on the road (see above) and then have Jeff Karstens be the Game 3 starter at PNC Park, followed by McDonald as the Game 4 starter at PNC Park.  It would be possible based on the days in between games 2 and 3 that Burnett could be the Game 4 starter at PNC Park, as well.

All of this is just a thought exercise and not one that I would expect the Pirates to consider using, based on the aforementioned public relations nightmare that would ensue from the general public if the Pirates lost the play-in game with “a bunch of nobody bullpen guys” instead of A.J. Burnett.  But it will be interesting to see how the 4 play-in game managers treat that game in the inaugural go around.

The Pirates are managed by Clint Hurdle who is a folksy-speaking, cliche-spewing, dirt-in-the-uniform guy.  He has control of the clubhouse and, along with his staff, have the Pittsburgh Pirates playing winning baseball deep into the season.

The Pirates have a general manager in Neal Huntington that is also a lifelong baseball guy, but he embraces the statistical, as well as the scouting side of baseball.  His love of numbers and stats is so great that it spawned this stat bouillabaisse of a quote at his introductory press conference in November 2007:

We are going to utilize several objective measures of player performance to evaluate and develop players. We’ll rely on the more traditional objective evaluations: OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage), WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched), Runs Created, ERC (Component ERA), GB/FB (ground ball to fly ball ratio), K/9 (strikeouts per nine innings), K/BB (strikeouts to walks ratio), BB%, etc., but we’ll also look to rely on some of the more recent variations: VORP (value over replacement player), Relative Performance, EqAve (equivalent average), EqOBP (equivalent on base percentage), EqSLG (equivalent slugging percentage), BIP% (balls put into play percentage), wOBA (weighted on base average), Range Factor, PMR (probabilistic model of range) and Zone Rating.

Additionally, the Pirates have Dan Fox (previously a stat-heavy writer at Baseball Prospectus and Hardball Times) in the front office crunching data and producing models at a feverish pace.

The lineup that the Pirates put on the scorecard every night is a very traditional, old school-style of lineup.  I like to picture Dan Fox eagerly and hopefully checking the lineup when it is announced each afternoon, only to be crushed to see that it is one straight out of the 1970′s/80′s era of play.  He would be like a stat-nerd version of Tantalus, knowing he could help the lineup, only to continue to remain parched.

The authors of The Book has espoused lineup optimization for a few years.  It’s an idea that most of you are pretty familiar with and is pretty intuitive — you put your best hitters, regardless of body shape or power profile, high in the lineup to take advantage of their skills.  Additionally, the lineup’s ranking should be 1-2-4-5-3-6-7-8, in terms of placing the hitters by their ranked order.  Their research was based on thousands of simulations and research of years of data to determine scenarios that players encounter through the course of a game at various spots in the lineup.  Most versions of this focus on on-base percentage, but I thought I would take a stab at it using Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) and breaking it down by lefty/righty pitchers.  The number in parentheses is the players wOBA split:

Versus RHP

1. A. McCutchen CF (.387 wOBA)
2. G. Jones 1B (.386 wOBA)
3. Walker 2B (.359 wOBA)
4. P. Alvarez 3B (.364 wOBA)
5. M. McKenry C (.342 wOBA)
6. T. Snider RF (.315 wOBA)
7. J. Mercer SS (.295 wOBA)
8. A. Presley LF (.282 wOBA)

Versus LHP

1. A. McCutchen CF (.494 wOBA)
2. S. Marte LF (.424 wOBA)
3. T. Snider RF (.379 wOBA)
4. M. McKenry C (.394 wOBA)
5. G. Sanchez 1B (.315 wOBA)
6. C. Barmes SS (.312 wOBA)
7. P. Alvarez 3B (.296 wOBA)
8. N. Walker 2B (.269 wOBA)

I couldn’t fully commit to putting the 4th best hitter in the 5th spot.  Just couldn’t go full-nerd on that one.  There are some sample size issues to consider here, as Marte/Snider/Mercer don’t have many at-bats to work with.  Also, there are only 3 players that have more than 100 at-bats against a LHP this season.

Take a gander at what McCutchen has done against LHP this year.  Keep in mind that wOBA has a very similar relevance scale to OBP — average is .330 to .340, .350 to .360 is pretty good, and so forth.  To see McCutchen with a .494 wOBA is stunning.

Having McKenry as the cleanup hitter against LHP is not conventional in any sense, but it’s more a function of how anemic the remainder of the lineup is against lefties.

The lineup versus RHP is not that ridiculous of a lineup in terms of old-school sensibilities.  You have speed at the top with McCutchen, a good overall hitter in the 3 spot with Walker, power with Alvarez in cleanup and RBI-collectors at 5 and 6 with McKenry and Snider.  If you catch Hurdle at just the right moment when one of the moons of Jupiter passes in front of Mars, you might be able to convince him to run that lineup out one night.

But don’t hold your breath.  Although it would be nice to reward Dan Fox’s faith in numbers just one night at least.

Who will the Pirates be facing for the opportunity to go to the playoffs for the first time in 20 years?  None other than the team that both literally and symbolically sent the Pirates on this long odyssey through the desert of baseball’s landscape — the Atlanta Braves.  When I was at opening day this year, a girl at our tailgate mentioned that her favorite player was Chipper Jones.  She wanted to see him one last time and wondered when the Braves were coming to Pittsburgh.  After looking it up and seeing it was the last series of the season, we jokingly said that there would be plenty of good seats available for that one.

As it stands now, barring an unforeseen collapse, that final series will have oodles of potential meaning for the Pirates.  There is a good chance that the Pirates will still be mathematically fighting for a wild card spot, if not outright controlling one of them, so these games will be important for them in the baseball aspect.  However, just as importantly perhaps, will be the opportunity to purge the demons that have haunted this franchise since 1992 by making the playoffs through the act of winning games against the Atlanta Braves.

As of this writing, the Braves are leading the wild card chase by 3-1/2 games over the Cardinals and 4-1/2 over the Pirates.  But as witnessed last year, the Braves are capable of spectacularly choking down the stretch.  There is a non-zero possibility that the final series of the 2012 season may come down to a battle between the Pirates and the Braves for the final wild card spot.  Imagine savoring the chance to have the Pirates knock the Braves out of a playoff race while simultaneously ensuring that they make the playoffs.  All of the ghosts of Jose Lind, Stan Belinda, Barry Bonds, Sid Bream, and Francisco Cabrera could be exorcised in one fell swoop under that scenario.

But what of the flip side to that argument?  What if the Pirates and Braves are battling for the final playoff spot and it is the Braves that knock the Pirates out of the 2012 playoffs?  Imagine the teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing that would ensue if the  hated Braves broke the hearts of the fanbase of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club for a 2nd time.  This year is unlike 1992, of course, in that the 2012 Pirates are already playing with house money, while the 1992 Pirates were on the short list to win the World Series throughout the whole season and had a star-studded roster.  But it would still fiercely sting to fall short of the playoffs at the hands of the team from General Sherman’s favorite vacation spot.

The fact that this even exists as a possibility, positively or negatively, is unbelievable for those that have suffered through lo these many years.  It will be fascinating to see how the City would rally around the team if that final series of the season does have implications for the Pirates’ playoff chances.

The Red Sox are responsible for only $11M of that $287M (roughly 3.8% of the total) commitment.  In return, they get “financial flexibility” and rid themselves of problems in the clubhouse, especially in the case of Beckett.  By all accounts Crawford was a tireless worker that had the misfortune of being injured a good portion of his tenure.  Gonzalez just never seemed to handle/want the mantle of being a team leader and got run over for it in the Boston media.

The Dodgers got back pitchers Rubby de la Rosa and Allen Webster, infielder Ivan de Jesus, and 1B/OF Jerry Sands as the longer-term pieces.  De Jesus is most likely just a utility infielder and Sands appears to be a potential Quad A player that thrived in favorable hitting environments in the minors.  That leaves de la Rosa, coming off of Tommy John surgery, and Webster as the primary hopes for this trade from a talent standpoint.

Rubby de la Rosa has a blazing fastball and a full arsenal of pitches at his disposal, but control has always been his hinderance.  If all clicks and he responds from his surgery, he’s a #2 pitcher.  Webster has a more standard profile of a low 90′s/touch mid 90′s fastball, curve, and changeup.  Webster’s concern is his slight build and how it may affect his long-term durability as a starter.

The general discourse nationally about this trade is that the Dodgers are going nuts on spending (as I predicted in late June, but not envisioning to this extent) and that the Red Sox are cleaning up the bad deals done by Ben Cherington’s predecessor, Theo Epstein.  They are being lauded for getting out from under bad deals and infusing talent into a downtrending farm system.  Boston media is saying that these trades are refreshing and that building from within, not wildly spending on free agency, is how the top Red Sox from earlier this decade were built.

But if the Pirates offload bloated salaries or players that weren’t great in the clubhouse, each trade gets accused of a salary dump and open for dissection on whether the team “won” or “lost” each individual trade.  If the Pirates do it, they’re quitters.  If the Red Sox do it, they are wisely reloading their franchise.  When, or if, Webster and de la Rosa don’t live up to their prospect expectations, will the trade still be viewed favorably because it was done by the Red Sox and they were able to start the payroll slate clean?

I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.  And or market share and national clout.

Starting in the very near future, this blog will shift into a Baseball Business Blog that looks at economic issues and implications for the Pirates and other teams throughout MLB.  If you have any suggestions for articles, please leave them in the comments below.

There we were, two nerds huddled around a table built on a barrel, chomping down on deliciously lean corned beef on rye with mustard and a pickle on the side.  At first, I saw the hair.  It was magnificently styled and perfectly brushed.  It must have preceded him into every room, like an advance scout.  The next thing I remember seeing is the suit.  It was an extremely sharp gray suit.  Perfectly tailored.  And then the rest of Dave Littlefield walked into the deli.

Littlefield was accompanied by some other front office types, as well, and they were engaged in some conversation.  I had just finished reading Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball (an actual book, not on some fancy machine called an iPad or Nook) and was full of vim and vigor on how to re-invent a baseball team.

“That’s Dave Littlefield,” I said to the computer guy.

“Who’s that?” he asked.  He can be forgiven, because he wasn’t a baseball fan and he was a recent transplant from Boston.

“The General Manager of the Pirates.  I’m going to talk to him.”

“Please don’t do that…” were his last words he said to me, but I was already up and out of my seat.

I beelined directly over to Littlefield, probably startling him into thinking I was meaning him harm, and said hello.

“I just finished reading Moneyball, Mr. Littlefield.  I want to know if you had a chance to read it and what your thoughts were.”

Littlefield made a small, nigh-imperceptible wrinkle of his nose.  As if he caught a hint of molded cheese.

“I haven’t read it, no.  But it’s easier to write a book about being successful when you have Mulder, Zito, and Hudson in your rotation.”

Wow.  Guess that Dave was going to order some Haterade to wash down his sandwich at lunch today.  But he was right about the author overlooking (or at least minimizing) the presence of those three fantastic pitchers in the book.  Try to find them, or even a mention of them, in the movie, too.  However, the point of the book (and movie) wasn’t about the success of the 2002 A’s.  It was about how they found undervalued assets to offset player losses to large market teams.

In other words, the A’s were doing what every small market team should have been doing.  I instantly realized that the Moneyball angle was not one that I should pursue further, so I switched tracks to the upcoming trade season.

“You should trade Kris Benson to the Mets for their 3B prospect, David Wright.  Or to the Angels for their 3B prospect, Dallas McPherson.” 

I got right to the point back then, as you can see.  To say that I have finesse here in 2012 is humorous, but back in 2003 I was like a sledgehammer.  To put things in historical perspective, in 2003 the Pirates were having some financial problems and it was assumed that Kris Benson would be their most desirous asset to trade.  He was a pitcher in his theoretical prime (age 28) that seemed to be on the verge of breaking out.  The Pirates did have a young stud 3B in Aramis Ramirez, but aside from his fantastic 2001 he always seemed to be underacheiving slightly.  If the Pirates got a young 3B prospect, they could groom him and either trade Ramirez in a couple of years or move Aramis to 1B.

“Do you really think we could get Wright or McPherson for Benson?”  The smarm in his voice matched the smirk on his face perfectly.  I was undaunted, though.

Historical Perspective #2 — back in 2003, there were 3 top 3B prospects.  There was Andy Marte from Cleveland, David Wright from the Mets, and Dallas McPherson from the Angels.  The “Anaheim” Angels had just won the World Series in 2002 and had a young 3B playing well in the majors in the form of Troy Glaus.  I felt that McPherson would be expendable for them.

“If the Angels want to win again this year, they would give up McPherson for Benson,” I said.  At this point, I realized I was wearing thin on his patience and his posse just wanted to masticate some deli meats.

I wished him luck and released Dave Littlefield back into the wild.  So how did things turn out?  The star-crossed Kris Benson ended up getting hurt in mid-July right before the trade deadline and the Pirates weren’t able to get any return for him.  They panicked and traded the young Aramis Ramirez to the Cubs for approximately 2 cents on the dollar.  Ramirez matured and blossomed into a fantastic 3B for the Cubs, while the Pirates continued to drop deeper into the abyss.

Kris Benson did get traded to the Mets in 2004, but his career at this point was tainted by repeated injuries.  The Pirates got a promising pitcher in Matt Peterson that never amounted to anything, a major-league ready Ty Wigginton, and the Rule 5 pick Littlefield foolishly lost in December 2003 named Jose Bautista. 

As for Dallas McPherson, he continued to mash homers in the minors, but a combination of a propensity for strikeouts and chronic back issues pushed him into the dreaded Quad A status.  He had stints in 2003-2005 with the Angels, but only got sporadic time and didn’t overly impress.  His injuries ruined him after that.

Shockingly, McPherson is only a 32 year old mammal.  It feels like he has been around forever but just an instant at the same time.  His career will never be what it was meant to be back in 2003, but at least now the Pirates have acquired Dallas McPherson in some form or fashion.

I might celebrate by going to Smallman Street Deli for lunch today.

In a radio spot shortly after his signing, I joked with the host to put me down for July 15th in the “Erik Bedard DL Trip Pool”.  I had written and said that I hoped the Pirates could get 24 starts and 120 innings out of Bedard in 2012.  Bedard’s next start will be his 23rd and he has pitched 116.1 innings so far for the Pirates this year.  His triple slash line is 4.56 ERA/3.92 FIP/4.02 xFIP (1.5 WAR) so you could say that his defense has let him down slightly.  His secondary stats (BABIP, LOB%, GB%) are all relatively in line with his career stats, so we are seeing a typical latter-half of Bedard’s career type of season from him.

If you subscribe to the $5M/WAR value (and WAR in general) then Bedard has already supplied his contract value to the Pirates in 2012.  He can maddening to watch at times, due to his placid demeanor.  I always wonder if he’s looking for guidance from a fan sitting in section 304 when he looks skyward during a moment of trouble on the mound.  But his strikeout ability (8.59 K/9) has lent a different shape to the rotation this year. 

Aside from his disastrous outing against the Cubs, I would say that Bedard has been the 2nd best Pirate pitcher after the All-Star Break, which is what many thought he could be at the start of the season.  It is vital for the Pirates’ success that Bedard maintain his 2nd half numbers and stay healthy.  But in terms of his contract, Bedard has already paid for that to date in 2012.

Let’s take a rough cut at who the competition may be.  In this list are the triple slash stats for pitchers (ERA/FIP/xFIP) so we can see potential regression trends or who’s getting “lucky”. 

As you can see, it’s a pretty deep crowd this year, with some teams (WAS, SF) having multiple contenders.  In an attempt to winnow down the list, let’s take a look at certain candidates.  Kyle Lohse has some large differentials between his slash lines, plus he has the lowest K/9 on the list, so eliminate him.  Ryan Vogelsong continues to be a great story, but if you can’t make the case that you are even the best on your own staff, you get eliminated.  Although Steve Carlton did it, it is very tough to win the Cy Young on a last place team, so Cole Hamels is probably not a realistic contender.  And even though Felix Hernandez won the AL Cy Young with 13 wins in 2010, Clayton Kershaw’s win total is going to surpress his chances.

So keeping Burnett in this exercise, that leaves Burnett, Gonzalez, Strasburg, Dickey, Cueto, Bumgarner, and Cain.  You could make a case for any of these 7, but realistically Burnett is the next guy to get cut from the list.  Bumgarner and Cain have virtually identical stats, but Cain has a perfect game and 1-hitter on his resume this year, so Bumgarner will have to wait his turn.  Cueto has been the most hittable and has the lowest K/9 of these 7 remaining contenders, so I’m crossing him off next.  That leaves Gonzalez, Strasburg, Dickey, and Cain.

With the typical caveats that each of these pitchers still have probably 10 starts to make until the end of the season, I see this coming down to R.A. Dickey versus Stephen Strasburg.  Dickey’s arcane arsenal of different types of knuckle balls makes for a great story, even if his team will be finishing under .500.  If Strasburg gets shut down to preserve his arm, then his teammate Gonzalez will jump in as the “first place Washington Nationals Cy Young” representative.  If I had a vote, I would go Dickey-Strasburg-Gonzalez as my personal 1-2-3 for the Cy Young. 

Andrew McCutchen may be the clubhouse leader for NL MVP, but A.J. Burnett is the Pirates’ team MVP.  He has set the tone for this season with his play on and off the field.  He is the true stopper that this team has been searching for since 1992.  Burnett has been Neal Huntington’s greatest acquistion to-date, but that does not make him a Cy Young candidate in 2012.

Hanson is starting to get the national recognition from his fantastic season.  In their recent mid-season Top 50, Baseball America rated Hanson number #40.  John Sickels was a little less sanguine and put Hanson at #77 (listing his as a 2B, even though he has played SS nearly every game this year).  But the moral of the story is that Alen Hanson will be in every major prospecting outlets’ Top 100.

How does Hanson’s age-19 season compare to other recent highly ranked shortstops?  Here are the stats for certain players from Baseball America’s Top 100 coming into this season and what they are doing at their current ages:

Jurickson Profar (#7 pre-season, #2 current) — Profar is sort of in a class by himself because he is only 19 this year and already excelling in Double A.  His line of .281/.357/.464 (821 OPS, 13 HR, 14 SB) is stunning for a 19 year old that will see major league action in 2013 with the Rangers.  Profar was in Low A last year and was skipped completely over High A to Double A this year.

Manny Machado (#11 pre-season, #9 current) — Machado was a “young” HS draftee in 2010, so 2012 is also only his age-19 season.  Like Profar, he is also in Double A and he is also putting up very solid numbers at the level.  Machado’s line is .265/.347/.427 (774 OPS, 10 HR, 13 SB).  There is some talk that Machado will get too thick for SS and may move to 3B in the future, but right now he is doing well.

Francisco Lindor (#37 pre-season, #14 current) — Like Machado, Lindor was a young 17 year old when drafted, so his full season debut in Low A in 2012 is as an 18 year old and not a good comparison here.  (For what it’s worth, he has a 722 OPS, 5 HR, 23 SB season).

Xander Bogaerts (#58 pre-season, #31 current) –Bogaerts is 19 in 2012 and in the High A Carolina League.  His season to date is .303/.380/.504 (884 OPS, 15 HR, 4 SB).  Like Machado, he is also expected to move off of SS in the future.

Nick Franklin (#77 pre-season, #35 current) — I like Franklin as a bellweather for Hanson, because there were also many doubts about Franklin’s ability to stay at SS.  To date, his perceived lack of range and arm have not hindered him.  As a 19 year old back in 2010, Franklin was in the Low A Midwest League and put up a .281/.351/.485 (837 OPS, 23 HR, 25 SB) line.  He had an injury-plagued 2011, but has rebounded nicely in 2012 as a 21-year old splitting time between AA and AAA.  His combined line for the year is .288/.360/.461 (821 OPS, 8 HR, 12 SB).

Other shortstops on the Baseball America Pre-Season Top 100 list include players like Hak-Ju Lee, Andrelton Simmons, and Jean Segura.  None of these three have exhibited (or project to exhibit) the type of power that Hanson has generated in 2012.  These three are more speed-based offensive threats, rather than power-speed blends.

Obviously, all Pirate fans would love for Alen Hanson to be aggressively promoted like the Rangers did Profar (and continue to thrive like Profar), but a more realistic approach is the level-by-level one.  If Hanson at age 21 can put up Nick Franklin’s type of line while playing a reasonably competent SS, we should all be thrilled.

My snap reaction is that I would have loved this trade in 2010 for the Pirates.  Taking away the context, the Pirates traded a reliever for a young corner outfielder with 4 years of control left.  However, adding in the context that exists in 2012 and I’m not sure this deal by itself is going to help the Pirates make a push for the playoffs.  In fact, it may have weakened them for a playoff run in 2012 by taking a key cog away from the shutdown bullpen.

At this point of the season, if a starter gives the bullpen a lead going into the 7th and I know it would be Lincoln-Grilli-Hanrahan, you could get one hand on the Jolly Roger (with some dramatics along the way, but it got done).  Now the Pirates will hope that Jared Hughes will step up his game another notch and that Chris Resop can become a dependable “pitch with a lead” guy in the 7th.

With Joel Hanrahan going into his final year of arbitration in 2013 and expected to garner around $7.5M, I was in favor of trading him in the offseason and having Grilli-Lincoln be the 8th/9th guys next year.  Does this move indicate that the Pirates may keep Hanrahan for 2013 with that inflated salary?

The Pirates will have Bryan Morris out of options going into the 2013 season, so he will be part of the bullpen mix.  He has the fastball-slider combo that profiles as a high-end setup guy.  Justin Wilson is moving closer to the bullpen every day and could be a weapon as a power lefty.  Victor Black, once he irons out some control kinks, can be a dominant reliever next year, too.  Replacing Lincoln moving forward is not my concern; it’s replacing him in 2012 that does.

As for Snider, the Pirates picked up a 24 year-old corner outfielder with power potential that has 4 years of team control.  He appears to be very susceptible to lefties, although this year all 3 of his major league homers are off of left-handers.  He is not fleet of foot so expect him to be in RF for the remainder of the year.  There is also a chance that the Pirates may be viewing him as a potential 1B option, too.  He has never received steady playing time in the majors with the Blue Jays, as his career high in games is only 82.

If this trade were made at the Winter Meetings this offseason (with the Pirates basking in glow of a playoff appearance), I would love it.  But right now at this time on the edge of the run up to the playoffs, I’m not sure that the Pirates didn’t set themselves back.

2012 is important for the Astros to sift through all the recently-added players from 2011′s trades and callups from the minors.  The 2012 season will be a pretty bleak season for fans at Minute Maid Park.  – 2012 Houston Astros Forecast from the 2012 Pirates Prospects Annual.

When I wrote those words in December 2011, I knew things were going to be ugly for the Astros in 2012.  But…wow.  Things are really, really bad for the Astros.  After trading away their last veteran, Wandy Rodriguez to the Pirates, the Astros are now stripped bare.  They have Francisco Cordero making the remainder of his $4.5M salary set this year by the Blue Jays.  After that, the next highest salary is $1.5M by Ben Francisco (also obtained from the Blue Jays) and the $1.1M salary of Jed Lowrie. The rest of the players on the 25-man roster all each make less than $1M.

The Astros started the 2012 season with a $60.8M payroll.  If the season started today, their payroll would be around $18.1M, not counting offset money sent in the Rodriguez deal.

Once Jim Crane took over ownership of the team from Drayton McLane last year and hired stat-minded GM Jeff Luhnow, it signified that the old McLane-Ed Wade days of never saying surrender were over.  The rotten husk must be removed down to the core and rebuilt from the ground up.  The rebuild actually did start last year under Ed Wade, as he traded away Hunter Pence to the Phillies for a great return (Jonathan Singleton, Jarred Cosart, Domingo Santana, Josh Zeid) and Michael Bourn to the Braves for a not-so-great return (Jordan Schafer, Brett Oberholtzer, Paul Clemens, Juan Abreu).  Jeff Luhnow has continued it this month by dealing Carlos Lee, Brandon Lyon, Brett Myers, and Wandy Rodriguez.  However, none of the prospects obtained within the 17 players received by Houston in the July 2012 flurry of trades are forecast to be front end talent.  Perhaps by my biased view, the best player Houston received this month was Robbie Grossman, and even he does not seem to be more than “solid regular”.

When Neal Huntington took over the Pirates in November 2007, a rival executive was quoted as saying it would probably take 5-7 years to rebuild the Pirates, due to the lack of impact talent at the major level and the barren farm system left behind by previous GM’s.  Here we sit after 4 bad seasons record-wise under Huntington’s tenure and sure enough…in the 5th year the Pirates are good and contending.

But the Pirates in November 2007 had a rising multi-tool star in Andrew McCutchen.  A few months later in June 2008, the Pirates drafted a “can’t miss” college power prospect in Pedro Alvarez 2nd overall.  The Astros have neither of those things on the horizon.  Jonathan Singleton is a fantastic 1B prospect and is excelling at age 20 in AA, but his profile seems to be one of moderate power and high on-base percentage, not the masher one usually associates with 1B.  George Springer could be a masher and he plays CF, but his high strikeout rate is alarming at AA and doesn’t portend future success.  The Pirates got lucky when they dealt Octavio Dotel for James McDonald (Andrew Lambo is a bust at this point).  The Astros will need to score on one of those types of trades, too.

The Astros did have a great draft in June 2012, as the drafted Carlos Correa first overall and signed him for well below the $7.2M slot price ($4.8M).  As a result, they went over slot to get Lance McCullers, Jr. and Rio Ruiz, too.  For the same value of the $7.2M 1st round slot price, the Astros got 3 high-end players instead of one.  However, all three of them are high schoolers and most likely 4 years away from the majors, at least.

The Astros are in the midst of sifting through their talent on hand to determine who, if any, will be cornerstones of the franchise for the next  5+ years.  The only possible player the Astros may think of extending after the season could be 2B Jose Altuve, even though he is a midgety 5′-4″.  The fans have really taken to him and his ability to hit for contact, so perhaps some type of Jose Tabata-contract could be in order.

A major difference between Houston and Pittsburgh’s situations, though, is market size.  The Houston market is much larger than Pittsburgh and can easily support an $85+M payroll for sustained periods of time.  Under Luhnow, it will probably be a methodical build, but the Astros should be able to augment the talent with free agents more freely than the Pirates were able to during their rebuild.  I don’t think it will be until 2014 that the Singleton/Springer/Cosart/Grossman group will arrive in earnest and there will be growing pains with them as there were with the Alvarez/McCutchen/Walker group for the Pirates.

Further complicating things for the Astros is their impending move to the very tough AL West with the powerhouses of the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Oakland A’s primed to relocate to a bigger market, and the deep pocketed ownership of the Mariners.  It will be rough sledding and the Astros fans will probably stay away for a while, but it’s not likely that the Astros will compete until 2016.