Not Kuhl

 

Ten years ago I was in Pittsburgh and caught a game at PNC. It was the glittering instance where the Pirates, who had been bad for the last 18 years, were creeping towards 2nd place, thanks to Andrew McCutchen. They did end up losing that night, to the last-place Astros no less, but it was nice to see the beginnings of promise from the once dead lineup. 

Any trace of that 2011 promise is all but gone. The only remnant of the mid-2010s playoff teams is Gregory Polanco, and he hasn't hit for average since 2018. Everything else is a mixture of cheap contracts with nowhere else to go and the up-and-comers like Ke'Bryan Hayes and Mitch Keller waiting for a good team to be on. And as 2021 looks to be another buffering period in between interesting teams, there's really nothing left for the Pirates to do this year but...sort of exist.

Like...okay. The pitching staff...is looking very dire. A lot is riding on Mitch Keller to be ace-level when he hasn't pitched more than 11 games in a season, and just got to pitching well last year. You also have guys like Chad Kuhl and Steven Brault, who've always been meant to buttress a rotation but now have prime spots in it. And while Brault, I think, will pull something nice off, I don't know about Chad Kuhl because other than little glints in previous seasons, he's only really had the very okay 2017 season for us to base anything off of. 

The only major league deal the Pirates signed this year was Tyler Anderson. Think about that. Todd Frazier's a big deal, but that was a minor league deal. Tyler Anderson's whole thing is staying around a 4 ERA and doing well enough to be sort of noticed but not well enough to run a rotation. And that's probably what he's gonna do here, though with way less run support than in Colorado or SF. And then you have J.T. Brubaker, who, as alright as he's been with the Bucs, would be a bullpen arm in any other city. 

So...the rotation is middling but not something that breeds confidence. And as for the lineup...Anthony Alford, Kevin Newman and Jacob Stallings all have starting spots, handsomely. Even with the impressive pieces like Hayes and Reynolds, that is this team. Guys that are passable, that most people have never heard of, filling roles just to fill them. I'll note here that Alford's been having a great spring, so I could be wrong about his impact, but...it doesn't look good at all.

Look, if they hadn't made the Chris Archer deal, they'd still have an ace in Glasnow, a steady OF bat in Meadows, and they'd have already brought up Shane Baz. Or, alternatively, they'd have already traded Glasnow somewhere like they did Musgrove and they'd be struggling to hold onto Meadows. 

The bottom line- the Pirates will be lucky if they lose only 100 games this year. It saddens me that we're back at this era of Pirates baseball, but here we are again. Just without Jason Bay this time.

Coming Tonight: I guess I do have to post a Houston Astro, don't I?