Disclaimer: When I was in Las Vegas in December I placed a $50 bet on the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the NL Pennant (it pays $3750 if they do). My brother placed the same bet. So any predictions I have about the Pirates are, necessarily tainted.**
Baseball is the sport that I love. Pittsburgh is the city I love. Unfortunately this leaves me no choice but to big a huge fan of our lovable losers, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Today the GM announced he was (probably) done making personnel moves, which gives me a great opportunity to point out why I’m excited about 2010.
Over the last two years, I can feel us inching closer towards the carrot on the end of the string. Management has been making all the right moves (there isn’t a single Joe Randa on this years roster). I honestly believe that this year or next (realistically, next) will be the year that we break the streak. I’ll give you a few reasons, and some players to watch. I provide this for you since I know most of you haven’t watched baseball since Francisco Cabrera slid under Mike “Spanky” Lavalliare’s tag in the 1992 NLCS because of a week throw by some skinny left-fielder named Barry Bonds.***
- Andrew McCutchen – Last Year’s breakout player (seen above scoring the winning run of a meaningless game last year). McCutchen is going to be a special player. His speed will likely fade when he’s older, so enjoy him now. The way he makes doubles into triples is truly special. He’s a true five-tool player, especially after he grew some power out of nowhere late last season.
- Pedro Alvarez – He’s one of the big ifs that could make this season really special. If he can make an early impact on the 2010 Pirates (instead of being a September call up), we could be in for a special year. I wondered aloud here, just how far in to the Allegheny Pedro is capable of hitting the ball.
- Garret Jones – Garret was a failure at the major league level. A washed up rookie doomed to the scrap heap. That was, until he got called up in the middle of last year. At which point he became the 5th Pirate rookie to hit 20 homeruns and became a legend. Statistics say that it was probably an aberration and he’ll be back on the scrap heap at this time next year. Here’s hoping statistics are as wrong about that as they were about the likelihood the Steelers would make the playoffs this year.
** In case you forget, you can watch the entire depressing playback of that game here. I actually subjected myself to the entire thing while I cooked up some dinner. I had totally forgotten three things (I was only 9 at the time); how obnoxious the “chop” was, that we took both 91 and 92 to 7 games and that Jose Lind had such a terrible error in the 9th.
*** My brother and I are calling it “World Series Insurance”. We’ll surely want to go to every game if the Pirates are in the World Series. Consequently, for $50 we bought an insurance policy that will pay enough for airfare and tickets should the Pirates actually win the pennant and make the series.
