photo courtesy of piratesprospects.com

Alen Hanson has used a .323/.385/.587 first half to get himself into baseball’s top 50 prospects, according to Baseball America. The site released its mid season top 50 list, and four Pirates made it. Gerrit Cole is the Bucco farmhand highest on the list at number seven. Jameson Taillon isn’t far behind at number 15. Starling Marte shows up at number 36 and Hanson makes his top 50 debut at number 40.

If you do some simple math, you’ll see that the Pirates are 1/30th of the league, which is 3.3%. They possess 8% of the top 50 prospects, so they’re ahead of the curve a bit here.

Marte won’t be a prospect for much longer, and chances are Cole will lose the prospect title around June of next year as well. After the top four or five guys in the system, it gets pretty thin. The Pirates will be depending on guys like Josh Bell and Alex Dickerson to live up to their hype as well as hoping they get more surprises like Alen Hanson coming around frequently.

For now, the major league team is looking really solid and has a good amount of young talent here. While that takes some pressure off the farm system, it’s still very important for the Pirates to have a strong group of prospects. They aren’t going to be able to sign many guys long term, so they are going to have to count on getting production from prospects that they call up on a year to year basis.

It’s all good in Pirate land right now, which isn’t something we’ve been able to say much in the last twenty years.

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Jun 26, 2012; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen (22) celebrates scoring with manager Clint Hurdle during the sixth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

The Pirates are a competitive team this year, and it is no longer an incredibly uncommon thing. This team got everybody excited last year as well before falling apart in August and September, and now they are toying with Pittsburgh fans once again.

As you all have heard before, this year is different. That’s certainly true. It’s a different, more talented roster with a team that has experience in these situations before. I don’t want to point out the obvious or be too blindly optimistic, but here are some thoughts:

The Pirates have two legitimate aces in the rotation this year. Last year, the rotation when the Pirates were in first place was Morton – McDonald – Karstens – Maholm – Correia. Upgrade McDonald a bunch, keep Correia and Karstens the same, and then swap Erik Bedard and A.J. Burnett in for Charlie Morton and Paul Maholm. That’s quite an upgrade. It’s certainly possible for this rotation to not pitch as well as they have been for the rest of the year, but things are looking a lot better for right now.

Andrew McCutchen is better. Yeah, Cutch had a nice season last year. He’s taken it to a completely different level this time around though. McCutchen hit .291/.390/.505 with 14 home runs and 15 stolen bases in the first half before making his first all-star game appearance in 2011. Right now he’s hitting .341/.397/.579 with 13 home runs and 14 stolen bases, with 12 games left before McCutchen’s second all-star appearance. He’s ready to make 2011 look like an off year and put up MVP like numbers.

Pedro Alvarez is still here. El Toro only made it to May 20 last year before he was forced back to AAA because of poor performance. He certainly hasn’t been great this year, and had Pittsburgh talking about demoting him again a few different times this year, but he’s shown some very good signs and is hitting very well right now. Pedro hit .208/.283/.304 with two home runs in 36 games before being sent down last year, and right now he’s sitting at .228/.295/.466 with 13 homers and, most importantly, a firm grip on the third base job. Alvarez has been a pretty big positive when you step back and really look at it.

There’s more help in the minors. Last year, the Pirates were pretty much stuck with what they had in the major leagues in terms of reinforcements. Josh Harrison and Chase d’Arnaud were guys we thought could maybe come up and do some things, but the Pirates didn’t get too much out of either of them. Rudy Owens was having a horrible time of it at this point last year, Starling Marte was in AA, Tony Sanchez was struggling big time, and there just wasn’t much in general at the upper levels. This year, Marte is closer to the big leagues, Owens is having a stellar season, and Jeff Locke and Justin Wilson are putting up really nice numbers as well. There still isn’t much help in terms of offense, but the upper levels are stronger this year than last.

Experience might help. I’ve never been the biggest believer in this type of stuff, but I guess going through what they did last year couldn’t hurt them this year. I don’t know if it’s really going to help, but it might help them deal better with it. Who knows.

The Pirates have a long way to go still, and there’s never a reason to be sure about this team, but the light at the end of the tunnel is shining bright right now.

June 19, 2012; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Kevin Correia (29) throws a pitch against the Minnesota Twins during the first inning at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-US PRESSWIRE

News came out today that the Pirates are shopping Kevin Correia. This isn’t a surprise to me, in fact it should be basically a no-brainer.

I’ve been saying for awhile now that the Pirates would be a better team if they replaced Correia with Rudy Owens or Jeff Locke. It would be hard for me to believe that Neal Huntington and company don’t agree with me, but it’s never as simple as that.

Correia is a free agent at the end of the year and the Pirates have no reason to bring him back for next year with all the depth they have. Because of that, they should absolutely try to trade him and get something for him instead of losing him for nothing. Sure, they aren’t going to get much in return, it might just be a deal for cash and a crappy prospect, but even that’s better than nothing.

You can’t say for sure that this team will get better by replacing Correia with one of those two pitchers, but it’s certainly a pretty good bet. Locke, Owens, and even Justin Wilson have been dominating in AAA all year long and look like they could help at the big league level.

When the Pirates do trade Kevin Correia, they won’t be making the team better by what they bring back for him, it’s simple addition by subtraction. The Pirates simply can’t bench a guy they are trying to trade, it doesn’t work like that. If they want to get something for him, they have to keep him in the rotation and let him pitch until they can make a deal. After Correia is gone and the Pirates have something in return for him, they can bring up one of those starters and see what they have.

If the Pirates weren’t planning on trading Correia, they probably would have taken him out of the rotation awhile ago. However, they realize that it’s important for small market teams to get something for their players when they leave, and rolling Kevin out there every five games was the only way to make sure they could do that.

Again, the Pirates aren’t going to get much for Correia and they should probably just jump on the first decent deal that they’re offered. The sooner he’s out of the rotation the better. This team is extremely competitive right now and this season could come down to a couple games that decide if they’ll make the playoffs or not, so you have to play to win right now. Trade Correia as soon as possible and then replace him with either Locke, Owens, or Wilson.