Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Blogger predictions

Charlie over at the fine Pirate blog Value Over Replacement Blog has posted his preview of the NL Central, and has predicted nothing but bad things for the Bucs. Here I thought I was a pessimist!

I certainly agree that contention is not around the corner. But I found some of Charlie's criticism unfair. For example, Charlie uses the fact that many players last year performed significantly better than was expected. But the players he cites (other than Mesa, let's not go there) are all young. Did Perez, Bay, J.Wilson, and Gonzalez have career years or did they merely attain new levels of performance? I don't think we can expect all of those players to repeat or better their 2004 performances, but after years of having young players not meet their potential, let's not punish the Pirates for having players who did.

Charlie also criticizes the Pirates 2 biggest off-season acquisitions. He says the following about Matt Lawton:

"Matt Lawton's defense will drive the Bucs' pitchers nuts, and his hitting is
nothing to write home about."

Let's look at this acquisition in context. Lawton will probably spend the majority of his time playing RF. This will shift Craig Wilson to first base. In 2004, Wilson got the majority of the team's RF at bats, while 1b was largely split between Randall Simon and Daryle Ward. No matter how poor Lawton is defensively, the combination of Lawton/Wilson is vastly superior boh offensively AND defensively to the combination of Wilson/Simon/Ward.

Next, he has this to say about Mark Redmen:

"Mark Redman will be capable but uninspiring in the rotation."

OK...that's likely to be true. Then again, Redmen is the Bucs #3 starter. How many teams experience inspiration from the #3 spot on a regular basis?

I found the rest of Charlie's analysis of the Pirates and the NL Central to be pretty much on the money. I just thought he was a bit tough on the ol'Bucs.

posted by bkopec @ 9:22 AM   3 comments