Five Questions with Bucs Dugout

Charlie Wilmoth of Bucs Dugout took the time to answer five questions about his Pirates.

1. Based on the combination of  plate discipline and power many of us felt Andy LaRoche had a future as an above average 3rd baseman. Eight hundred major league at bats later he has done nothing to indicate he will ever live upto those expectations.  Is he strictly a place holder for Pedro Alvarez or can he be good enough for them to move Alvarez to 1st base?

Charlie - I think you're underrating LaRoche a little. He didn't exactly tear the cover off the ball last year, but he got on base respectably and played good defense. He wouldn't have to improve much to be above average, and since last year was his first full season, I don't see any reason to think he couldn't. The Pirates will probably move him to second base when Alvarez arrives.

Charlie - It's definitely flukish in the sense that he's very unlikely to ever post a .928 OPS again, but his offensive performance was so good, and sustained over such a long period of time, that I won't dismiss it completely. I think he can probably hit well enough to be an average outfielder over the next couple of years, despite his lack of defensive value. That's not much, but until last summer, I didn't even think Jones was a legitimate major leaguer.

Charlie - Speaking only for myself and not for all Pirate fans, I'm not about to let my heart get all aflutter about anyone's Spring Training performance. Young could hit enough to be a good starting second baseman if he could play second base, but he can't, so he'll probably just bounce around the league for a few years in a Jeff Keppinger sort of way.

Charlie - McCutchen's game is exceptionally well-rounded. He hits for average, he draws walks, his power is coming along, he's a potential future Gold Glover, and his baserunning is amazing. He's also a ton of fun to watch on a purely aesthetic level, which definitely makes those September series against the Astros more interesting. He's a very good player now and a potential superstar down the road.

Charlie - The short answer is yes. There are some things he probably deserves some criticism for, like not yet signing any high-profile Latin American amateurs, but he's done a pretty good job given the toxic waste dump he's cleaning up. You know how Ned Colletti is kind of an idiot, but he keeps winning because of the excellent core of talent he inherited? Neal Huntington is the opposite of that. When he took over, most of the Pirates' 67-win core was due to hit free agency after 2009, and the organization had practically nothing in the minors, other than McCutchen. It takes a long time to fix problems like those, particularly when you can't just throw money at them. Huntington wisely dealt most of that 67-win core and has made the Pirates among the majors' biggest spenders in the draft. Shockingly, though, other teams were unwilling to part with Jason Heyward and Desmond Jennings for a bunch of 67-win players, and building through the draft takes years. It will take a couple more seasons for Huntington to really get things sorted out, if he ever does. I know I'm not being totally fair to Colletti, by the way--he definitely deserves credit for the Andre Ethier and Manny Ramirez deals, and Huntington has so far ended up with the short end of the stick on the latter.

Charlie - Since you asked this, you probably realize that the Pirates are still pretty thin on obvious impact players beyond those two. If I have to pick one guy, it's Starling Marte, an incredibly toolsy outfielder who could easily finish the year as one of the better prospects in baseball (or not). Beyond that, there's actually a fair amount happening, which there wasn't a couple years ago. There are a bunch of reclamation projects in the majors (Lastings Milledge, Charlie Morton, Jeff Clement, LaRoche) who bear watching, and Jose Tabata is on the way. And I think Tony Sanchez, who the Pirates took a lot of flak for grabbing with the fourth overall pick last year, is actually pretty interesting--he has hit well since being drafted, and his defense is supposed to be stellar. And beyond that, Class A will have a ton of good players the Pirates have signed in the past two years, often for bonuses well above slot. Zack Von Rosenberg, Quinton Miller, and Victor Black
 are already solid prospects, and there are several other pitchers who don't yet look like much on paper but who have been very impressive in camp--Bryan Morris, who came from the Dodgers in the Ramirez deal, is one of those.

See, what gets Dodgers fans going is the prospect of heading to the postseason. What gets me going is the number of prospects playing for the West Virginia Power. In a few years, if we're extremely lucky, the latter could lead to the former.

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