Developed Teams 2011: Pittsburgh Pirates

There are currently two total surprise teams who are in contention for the Central Division lead in their respective leads. These are both teams I like and want to see succeed. So in light of that, I have decided to profile them next in my developed teams project. The first of those teams is the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Rather than go by the developed players still with the club (of which there are a respectable seven, with one returning after a stint with other clubs), I'd like to go down the lineup as if I was introducing them before a game. I'll do a brief scouting report and go over some of their history. That might help keep this fresh. Oh, just for tradition's sake, there are a respectable seven developed players still with the team, one of which has returned after stints with other teams.

Leading off, we have Rajai Davis, who brings a lot of speed to the table and not much else - he leads the league in SB this year, but has only 1 HR and a negative defensiveWAR playing mostly Center Field. Luckily these Pirates have someone better to whom they can hand most of the AB's as the captain of the outfield: All-Star Andrew McCutchen. At age 24, the former 1st round pick has the potential to continue developing into a power-speed threat and a franchise player - plus he has really improved his fielding up the middle. Between those two is another first rounder, Neil Walker, who burst onto the scene last year and has put up some respective, if not eye-popping, numbers.

We all know how Jose Bautista has found one of the most impressive power strokes in the game last year in Toronto. What we also (mostly) know is that h started his career as a utility infielder in the Pirates' system, even though he bounced around a couple of other major league teams as a Rule 5 pick before putting on a Pittsburgh uniform. Looking at his minor league career, it's clear which team did the developing. You'll notice that Aramis Ramirez is at 1B on this team, which is strange because he's never played even an inning at first base in his major or minor league career. Well, we couldn't have both him and former first-round pick Pedro Alvarez both manning the hot corner (and the best developed first baseman on the squad, Steve Pearce, has only had a couple of cups of coffee so far in the majors), so someone had to shift. Since neither of them play particularly well in the field, I figured it was a wash as to who made the move.

Jeff Keppinger appeared in a non-developed related lineup I posted about just the other day, and although he hasn't played a lot of SS the last couple of years, that's where he's listed on MLB 11: The Show, so it all works out. Ryan Doumit gets the nod due to his 2010, and Jason Kendall gets the back-up job because of what he's meant to the team over the course of his (mostly early) career, although if we were going by more recent performance it might have made more sense to include Ronny Paulino. Also Nyjer Morgan is in that top bench spot - signifying the guy who would most likely DH in an interleague situation. Based on last year's/his career numbers, I would have liked to include Jose Guillen in a more substantial role, but seeing as he remained unsigned this year and is ostensibly retired, it just didn't seem right.

The starting staff is a little enigmatic, filled with mid-level talents and questionable players in general. Bronson Arroyo had put up decent numbers, although nobody quite knew how, given his stuff, but the truth might be just about catching up to him at age 34. Tom Gorzelanny, although he was picked in the 2nd round, has never really projected as anything more than a number 3 or 4 starter. Paul Maholm has shown flashes of competence, but the 1st rounder hasn't racked up enough strikeouts to be really effective. Zach Duke has been given a new lease on life by the Diamondbacks, but he's in the process of squandering that away. And Chris Young has been good, but he hasn't avoided injury since, well, ever.

The bullpen is a different story, with two top-shelf closing talents available in Leo Nunez and Matt Capps. The bullpen is stacked with lefties, with Burnett and Gonzalez (who are both struggling a bit this year), and Joe Beimel (who is not only a hometown hero, but the subject of a very catchy bullpen-related tune during his time co-setting up for Takashi Saito with Jonathan Broxton on the Dodgers). Their long reliever, veteran and all-around good guy Tim Wakefield, has alternated between starter and swingman for most of his career, and it looks like he'll settle in with the latter for his twilight years.

So there you have it. If you can guess which team I'm choosing next time (it's not hard), drop me a line in the comments section. I like reading comments...