BRADENTON, Fla. -- Shortly after high noon today, with forecast of more blazing, clear skies, the bats will crack and mitts will pop with the opening of the Pirates' minor league camp, the initial wave of 50 players already having reported yesterday.

Something else will crack, too.

The whip.

Kyle Stark is the Pirates' teen-faced but Marine-coiffed 28-year-old director of player development, and he plans to make no secret that these pupils will be partaking in the old school. A much less forgiving place, he promises, than in his first year on the job.

Strict regimens are expected to be followed before and during games, or managers can scold as they see fit. Curfews will be rigidly policed. Even the dress code will change, with all players now ordered to wear pants high, socks up.

Goodbye to the Joggin' George Hendrick look.

"There's a reason why certain coaching tactics have worked for a long time," Stark said. "Challenging guys, pushing them ... hey, at the end of the day, the idea is to to help them achieve all they can. We're not just here to roll out bats and balls. We're going to be relentless. We're going to get after it."

Within reason, he added.

"I don't think you need to have Bobby Knight everywhere. But we're going to have expectations, and, if we don't like what we see, we're going to hold people accountable."

That evidently includes those doing the coaching and instruction.

Emphasis on the latter.

Stark's system is certain to look different if only because four of the organization's six minor league affiliates will have new managers. That includes the top affiliate, Class AAA Indianapolis, where venerable Trent Jewett was replaced by Frank Kremblas.

Not one remains who worked under Stark's predecessor, Brian Graham. And Stark, as is his wont, makes no apology. He and his five roving coordinators stress development above winning, from strictly limiting pitchers' workloads to how lineups are filled out, and Stark's view was that too much geared toward the game.

"The passion has to be there for teaching the game as opposed to just managing it," Stark said. "Our staff should earn their paychecks from noon to 7 p.m., then again after the game. From 7 to 10, that should be the fun time. We're about development, about preparing. I think the nature of the guys we've added, guys with some pretty high energy, lend themselves to that philosophy."

Kremblas counts himself into that category.

"The key is to pay attention to detail," he said. "If they know that we're doing it, and that we mean business, that makes all the difference."

As for winning ...

"It's nice, but if our pitcher can get better by us ordering him to throw nothing but changeups for the first three innings, that's what we'll do."

Kremblas, 42, was Milwaukee's Class AAA manager the past four seasons in Nashville, Tenn., where he won three division titles and oversaw current Brewers such as Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Corey Hart and J.J. Hardy.

"The talent level was high," Kremblas said with a grin.

Even with that resume, and even though Kremblas' talent in Indianapolis will be the most experienced in the system, no exceptions will be made for disciplinary issues.

Not even those pants.

"We're doing it top to bottom," Stark said. "The rule last year was that they had to be up off the shoes. But some players pushed it, and we had a lack of follow-through from some staff. So, we've taken away the gray area. It forced guys to earn the right to wear their uniform the way they want."

By getting to Pittsburgh.

"You have to have discipline," roving coordinator Rich Donnelly, in his 28th year as a major league coach or instructor, said. "If we're doing things the Pirate Way, it has to be across the board. It's like dealing with a kid that makes a mistake. What he or she did might not be so bad, but it might lead to something else. So, pants up."

The players' view?

"It's a matter of looking professional, and that's what we should do as players," starter Brad Lincoln, a first-round draft pick, said. "I've got no complaints because I've always worn mine up, but I haven't heard any others, either."

The pants are a minor matter, obviously, when compared to other facets of development, and Stark is adamant -- despite few visible results last year -- that those are progressing. He cited:

• A full year in which all top pitching prospects avoided significant injury, a glaring shortcoming -- for a plethora of reasons -- under previous management.

The pitch counts were regulated so tightly by Stark and autocratic pitching coordinator Troy Buckley that Lynchburg's staff was docked three days' pay for allowing first-round pick Danny Moskos to throw two pitches too many.

Stark also began sending pitching prospects for biomechanical analysis, where their deliveries could be examined for flaws that might lead to injury.

The only pitching prospect hurt was Bryan Morris, but that was a lingering toe injury that came less than a month after his acquisition from the Los Angeles Dodgers. Two other lesser lights were injured.

• The Pirates did see marked progress in modest prospects such as infielder Jim Negrych and relievers Jeff Sues and Ronald Uviedo. (Sues, by the way, had a clean year after a long history of injury.) Another reliever, Evan Meek, successfully overcame an abysmal Rule 5 stint in Pittsburgh, after Stark and general manager Neal Huntington drew up a detailed plan.

"We're proud of what we've done with a lot of our power arms," Stark said.

Still, others, notably Moskos, took steps backward.

• More eyes saw more players. Stark paid regular visits to all affiliates, including those in Latin America, and he usually stayed for several days to ensure he was seeing more than a one-day dressed rehearsal for the boss. By all accounts, he spent much more time on site than Graham.

Huntington visited, too.

The Pirates' scouting staff, for the first time, became involved in development, with some of Huntington's special assistants -- whose general focus is the majors -- and some of scouting director Greg Smith's amateur scouts were sent through for a tour.

"There aren't words to describe how happy I am with how our two groups work together," Stark said. "And that helps in other ways. When our scouts see how we do things, it's much easier for them to go into prospects' houses and pound the table for the Pirates. They believe in what we're doing."

• A universal program of conditioning and nutrition was installed at all levels. Hanging outside the Pirate City clubhouse yesterday was a long list of different foods that enhance different baseball skills. The title: "Building a better Pirate."

None of which will matter, naturally, without more talent.

Although Huntington's two major trades last July infused some, most of it was at the upper levels. The system as a whole remains in Major League Baseball's bottom half, maybe the bottom third.

Stark witnessed that in an unusual way during the Pirates' five-week entry in the Florida Instructional League this past fall.

"The first two weeks, we had our A-ball players. The next two weeks, it was our new guys from the June draft," he recalled. "In theory, there should have been a difference between those groups. In reality, there wasn't."

That June class, then -- a $9.8 million collection led by Pedro Alvarez and several other bonus babies -- might serve as the ultimate measure for Stark's methods.

Not everyone appreciates those methods. There was plenty of private grumbling about it last summer, from the front offices of affiliates who wanted more wins to coaches weary of what they saw as a heavy-handed approach from Pittsburgh to the players themselves.

Again, no apology.

"Look, we could just keep doing things the way they were," Stark said. "But that clearly wasn't getting the results in Pittsburgh, and that's why we're doing all this, right?"