Diary of a long-suffering Pirates Fan: If you cannot believe in your team during Spring, when can you?

It’s the most common article in all of baseball.  The obligatory MLB pre-season prediction think piece.  But nowadays with new-fangled statistics and on-line betting forums, these prediction pieces are more analytical, more numbers-focused, and ho-hum more predictable.  Is there any media outlet not predicting that either the Dodgers, Braves, or Astros will win the World Series?  And is there any media outlet not predicting that the A’s, Pirates, and Nationals to finish last?  If you want to read that kind of think piece, you’ve come to the wrong place.  For me, it’s March.  And hope springs eternal.  Last year’s numbers tell last year’s stories; not this year’s.  And experts can tell me until their blue in the face that the Pirates will finish last.  But, I’m here to tell you.  This year, they’re wrong.  This year the Pirates are going to the World Series.  You can count on it just like Charlie Brown can count on Lucy letting him kick the football this year.

I’m often asked how I manage to hang in there year after year with the Pirates, knowing in your heart of hearts, that the baseball season is not likely to turn out well.  And the answer to that is:  “It’s  complicated.”  It’s a combination of unjust optimism, my love of the sport, and an unnatural and unhealthy desire to slow down to see the car wreck on the side of the road that is the Pirates that keeps me watching.

But it is also a creative thinking exercise I do every Spring where I completely and utterly buy into what the Pirates are selling.  It’s an exercise where I carefully consider the additions and subtractions to the Pirates roster the likely call-ups from the minors during the course of the season, and where there will be improvements over last year, and then armed with that information and the pre-season propaganda that the Pirates try to feed us every off-season (which basically can be summed up as “wait till next year,”), I concoct in my mind the Pirates path to the world series. Mind you, since 1980 the path I dream about every year is a path that never gets taken. It is not only the path not taken, it is a path, that in most years, never even exists.  But every spring I will my way to believing that a mythical path does exist and all it takes is for the Pirates to find the path and then to follow it to championship glory.

This is that 2024 path to world series glory for the Pirates.

PART ONE:  Pirates hitting will be improved

The Pirates finished near the bottom in run production last year.  22nd to be exact.  In a game where scoring runs is, you know, required for winning, a 22nd-place finish is not optimal.  When one considers that the Pirates had near bottom-of-the-league production from shortstop, 2nd base, catcher, and right field, it’s a wonder that they were able to produce 76 wins.

But things will be different this year.  Last year there was no O’Neil Cruz.  This year there will be.  Last year Henry Davis was hurt.  This year he isn’t.  Last year, there was no Jared Triolo for most of the year.  This year there will be.  Last year right field and 2nd base were a revolving door of call-ups and tryouts and who has a hot bat. But having weeded out last year’s nonproducers, both right field and 2nd base should see an increase in production. In short, the Pirates have upgraded each of the positions that underperformed last year.

Including First base.  Rowdy Tellez has been brought into platoon with Connor Joe at first base.  One of the themes of my yearly world series prognostications is the “if so and so can recapture the magic that once made him successful, then the Pirates will have found a diamond in the rough” theory.  Over the course of the Nutting Era, the Pirates have signed several such players.  A few have actually panned out, but most don’t. 

The poster child this year for that is Rowdy Tellez.  Two years ago Tellez hit 35 homers for Milwaukee.  Last year, due in part to injuries, his production fell to 13 homers.  The diminished 2023 production made Tellez affordable for the Pirates.  Most opinion pieces on this signing begin with the word, “If.”  If Rowdy Tellez can recapture his 2022 performance, Pirates fans will be seeing balls launched over the Clemente Wall with regularity.  The operative word is “If.”  But, in my prediction pieces, I prefer the word, “When.”  Because if you’re going to predict the Pirates are going to the World Series, there is no room for “If.”  For a world series to happen, Rowdy Tellez has to hit bombs.  Lots of them.  And he is going to. 

Some of the best productions from last year’s team came from Hayes, Reynolds, and Suwinski.  The good news for Pirates fans is that none of those three can be said to have hit their ceilings.  On the contrary, Hayes, who finished 2023 on a tear, is going to pick up right where he left off last year.  And Reynolds, who performed to the norm last year without much protection around him in the lineup, will now have the added protection of Cruz in front and a much-improved Hayes behind him in the batting order, which should only help Reynold’s production.  The top three hitters in the Pirates lineup should be formidable.

As for Suwinski.  He’s just getting started.  He has hit more home runs in his first two seasons than did Clemente, Stargell, Parker, Bay, or even Barry Bonds in their respective first two years in the majors.  After a mid-year slump, Suwinski finished strong in September.  And while he doesn’t seem to be able to hit lefties very well, who cares if he is able to mash right-handers? A platoon can be found.  Plus, did you see the way Suwinski is able to draw walks last year?  He is going to be an on-base machine.

Last year the Pirates finished 28th in the league in homeruns.  But with the additions of Cruz, Tellez, and a healthy Henry Davis to the lineup and the potential improved production from Hays, Reynolds, and Suwinski, the Pirates should shoot up the HR leader board this year.

Perhaps the best proof of how much this team’s lineup will be improved is to consider who from last year’s team is no longer on the roster:  Tucipita Marcano, Rodolfo Castro, Alfonso Rivas, Ji-Man Choi, Mark Mathias, Chris Owings, Vinny Capra, Austin Hedges, and Tyler Heineman are gone.  Replaced by more productive players.    

Did I mention that a healthy Andrew McCutcheon is returning to the Pirates lineup?  And if that guy can recapture the magic that once made him great…….

The beauty of the 2024 version of the Pirates is that the baseball world is not going to see this coming. It’s easy to predict and expect the Pirates to have near bottom-of-the-league run production because that’s what they seemingly do every year.  But 2024 is going to be different.  The Pirates will run out a solid lineup from top to bottom every night.  A lineup that will be able to produce runs from the top of the lineup right down to the number 9 hitter.  It is going to be a pleasant change from what we typically see.

PART THREE:  Relief pitching will be good and the division stinks

Last year the relief pitching was good.  The key players from the bullpen last year are all coming back.  Plus the Pirates have added Aroldis Chapman.  I don’t need to expand on this here.  If the Pirates can take leads into the 7th inning and beyond, the bullpen should be able to preserve those leads.  On paper this looks to be the strength of the Pirates team.

The path to the World Series typically begins with a path to the division crown.  And in years past, when envisioning scenarios that have the Pirates winning the division, one hopes for a down year for the rest of the division such that the Pirates are able to somehow sneak through. The Pirates have never won the National League Central.  While the Pirates' futility through the years is to blame for that, so too is the fact that in any given year one of the Cubs, Brewers, Reds or Cardinals typically has a strong season.  There have been a few years when the entire division is experiencing a so-called down year. 

But this year the entire baseball world is predicting that the NL Central is ripe for the picking. The so-called experts say there are no strong teams in the division. It’s anyone’s (except the Pirates it seems) division to win. I do not share that view.  I believe the Cubs and the Reds will be much improved.  Which will make the road to the Division championship much harder.

On Paper the Pirates arguably have the best bullpen.  The Reds have the best-starting pitching.  And the Cubs are the best hitters.  How it plays out, we will have to see.  But just a hunch here.  The Cub's pitching is going to falter as the season wears on; while the Pirates' pitching is just going to get stronger.  The Reds pitching last year faltered down the stretch.  As did their hitters.  The Reds are said to have a deep prospect pool too.  The division, in my opinion, is going to come down to whose mid-season replacements will be better.  In years past that ain’t been the Pirates.  But this year it will be. 

With increased run production from the starting 9 and an infusion of pitching talent from the minors, the Pirates are poised to win the NL Central for the first time in history.  And from there, they will surprise everyone in the playoffs and make it to the World Series for the first time since 1979.  It is going to be a historic season.

You heard it here first.