Baseball 2010: Three reasons to believe ... or not
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Pitcher Zach Duke on the Pirates' rotation: "The potential is there." -
Jeff Banister is entering his 25th year in the Pirates' organization, his eighth as minor league field coordinator.
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BRADENTON, Fla. -- Jeff Banister is entering his 25th year with the Pirates, his eighth as minor league field coordinator. And to hear him speak through that booming Texas twang is to know that, as director of development Kyle Stark recently put it, "Banny just burns for this franchise and everything about it."
That includes its history.
Early this spring, Banister assigned the following designations to the three groups in the 150-player minor league camp: 1960, 1971 and 1979. And the players are taught to know that those years represent World Series championships for the team they represent.
Banister takes it beyond nostalgia, too.
"I tell all our players, 'It's not about the 17. It's about the 31,' " he said a few days ago at Pirate City.
The 17, of course, refers to the ongoing record streak of losing seasons. And the 31 represents the number of years since the last of those championships.
"For these players, it's not about breaking the losing streak. It's not about us taking shortcuts or doing things at any level just to get to .500. We're not looking for good players. We want great ones. We want another World Series. But we also know that's not going to happen overnight."
COUNTDOWN
TO OPENING DAY
The Post-Gazette's five-day preview of the Pirates' 124th season:
Thursday: Three reasons why the Pirates could be winners ... and why they almost surely will not be.
Saturday: Columnists Gene Collier and Ron Cook weigh in with their opinions.
Ron Cook | Gene Collier
No, and it most assuredly will not happen this year.
While Banister is hardly the only member of management who speaks of a wave of prospects washing over Pittsburgh someday soon, any reasonable forecast for the parent club's immediate future should be infinitely more reserved.
Some better younger talent?
Yes.
A better record for 2010?
It takes some doing not to improve on 62-99.
But winners?
Here are three reasons why the Pirates could -- and that's could in the most literal sense -- become winners again, as well as three reasons why they will not ...
3. The pitching
"The potential is there," Zach Duke said of the Pirates' young rotation that also includes Ross Ohlendorf, Paul Maholm, Charlie Morton and Daniel McCutchen. "It's just a matter of whether or not we can get it together and give our team a chance to win every day. You look at our No. 4 guy in Charlie, and he's probably got the best stuff of any of us. And he's No. 4. That speaks a lot to the whole group, I think."
That might well be.
Duke and Maholm have been consistent and durable performers, Ohlendorf had a strong second half last season, and Morton is universally viewed as having the highest ceiling. Moreover, there finally is some semblance of depth beyond the John Van Benschoten/Yoslan Herrera callups seen in recent years, with McCutchen, Kevin Hart and prospects Brad Lincoln and Donnie Veal.
First Published April 1, 2010 12:00 am
