Pirates Offensive Answers Lie at the Major League Level

The Pirates are hitting .189 as a team after five baseball games. There are only two teams in the league worse than that. This is an all too common problem for the Pirates, but this year's issues may be a bit more discouraging.

Last year the Pirates were in contention for four months of the season, but were struggling to score runs through those months. Pedro Alvarez had started the season just horribly and was placed on the DL. The team was approaching the all-star break and the whole city of Pittsburgh was crying out for the team to add a bat. A lot of people, including myself, were consoled by the hope that Alvarez would come back from the DL and start swatting home runs like he had a year previously. There was hope that a bat would come from the minor leagues to help out. There was also hope later that the team would make a trade for a bat (which they later did adding Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick).

Two years ago, it was much of the same early in the season. That brings us back to Alvarez, who was gearing up to make his big league debut. It didn't take long for him to come up, as he arrived in mid-June. Also, Neil Walker came up early on in the season and helped the Pirates offensively with a nice season.

Now we are to the part of the rebuilding process where we really don't have any big name players in the minor leagues that we can count on to come up and help the team. Starling Marte is the only exception, but I don't really see him fitting in anytime soon with Tabata and Presley manning the corners. You can't take Presley out with him playing like he has been since he's been in the major leagues, and you gave Tabata a long contract last year and you never want to bench a 23 year old kid. I'm not sure if Marte is going to come up this season, and he's not exactly the thumper that you might hope for. Sure, Marte can hit for great average and hit some home runs, but chances are it'll take him some time to develop at the major league level. He does provide some offensive hope for the future, but not in a big manner.

Basically the Pirates are going to have to solve their offensive woes with the players they have at the big league level right now. Alvarez is a still a huge part of that. We have seen him hit a monster home run already this year, and he almost added another last night, but in general he has looked pretty bad at the plate since spring began. He's a huge part, but not the only part.

Andrew McCutchen needs to have a big year at the plate if this team is going to try and make a run. He's the best hitter on this team and one of the more dynamic players in the league. If he gets going, a lot of things can happen. Neil Walker is also a big part of it since he hits in that clean-up hole most of the time. If those guys struggle, it's going to be a long year.

While we don't have a lot of hitting talent in the upper levels of the minors, you can still be somewhat confidence in this offense because of the young talent we have in Pittsburgh right now. These guys aren't prospects anymore, but they are certainly better players than the guys we had in their spots while we were waiting for them to come up. The offense looks better this year than it has the last few years, but it still is a big risk to hold this team back in 2012.

If we get to the point where we are competitive around mid-season, we could be looking at trading for some offensive help, but for now the guys playing everyday are going to have to figure it out and find a way to get this team to that point.