The Philadelphia Phillies have taken advantage of their market size and have built one of the best pitching staffs of all time with the help of a big bank. Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt led the Phils to 102 wins last year, and nobody was the least bit surprised. Oswalt has since departed, but the team still has a fantastic World Series hope with the three aces on their staff.
Everyone knows the obvious difference between the Pirates and the Phillies in the financial side of things, but I'm seeing another difference - and his name is Vance Worley.
Worley was drafted in the third round of the 2008 draft - not exactly a can't miss prospect. He signed quickly and made 13 starts in 2008 before starting the 2009 series in AA (skipping A+ ball entirely). He wasn't great in that season at AA posting a 5.34 ERA with just 5.9 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing a lot of Phillies people were disappointed and regretting the choice to have him shoot past a level in the minor leagues. However, 2010 was a great year for Worley and it led to him making his big league debut that same season. He became a fixture in the rotation in 2011 and posted a 3.01 ERA with 8.1 K/9 and finished third in Rookie of the Year voting. The Phillies got a top of the line rotation in the third round, and he became a major league pitcher in less than three years.
That's the difference I am talking about. That doesn't happen to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Over the last 10 years, the Pirates have taken seven pitchers in the first round. Those names are: Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Daniel Moskos, Brad Lincoln, Paul Maholm, Bryan Bullington, and John VanBenschoten. Maholm is the only one on that list that you could even argue has been a good draft selection for this franchise. Obviously the jury is still out on Cole and Taillon and they are very good bets to make the money count, but you can never be sure.
My point is that the Pirates have been terrible at developing young talent, especially on the pitching side of the ball. They have basically wasted four of their last ten first round draft picks, and you just can not afford to do that when you're a small market team like the Pirates.
It doesn't seem fair that a team like the Phillies can go out and get Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee to add to an already established ace in Cole Hamels, and then turn a third round pick into a top of the line starter in Worley. The Phillies would have been just fine is Worley wouldn't have pitched well last season, but no, he just turned into a stud like the rest of the pitchers around him.
Such is life as a Pirate fan.
At least we can cling on to hope in the forms of Jameson Taillon and Gerrit Cole, but if those two turn out to be busts, I'm just not sure how this team is ever going to compete.