2004 PREVIEW Pirates face rough road in tough NL Central

Pittsburgh hasn't had a winning season since 1992.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Worst team in the division. Worst team in the National League. Worst team in baseball -- even worse than the Tigers, losers of a near-record 119 games last season.
Manager Lloyd McClendon has read all the doom and gloom predictions for his Pittsburgh Pirates, who haven't had a winning season since 1992 and certainly aren't promising to enjoy one this season.
And he gets so mad he almost feels like writing down the names of those who make these dire forecasts so he can give them a call next fall.
"It's amazing -- at the end of the season, none of these so-called experts are around to say they were wrong," McClendon said. "So we'll just see what happens."
The problem: The Pirates seemingly have so many wrongs, it's hard to see how much will go right in what now is one of baseball's toughest and most pitching-rich divisions, the NL Central.
Lack power
They lack power. (Raul Mondesi, can you hit 50 homers?) Their only big-ticket player might be baseball's highest-paid singles hitter. (Jason Kendall, whose hits will cost them about $45,000 apiece.) Their rotation is anchored by an often-hurt underachiever (Kris Benson, who hasn't pitched a complete season since 2000) and one who has yet to achieve (Kip Wells, who pitches a complete game about once every other season). The defense is better than a year ago but still has holes.
Last year, their only All-Star, closer Mike Williams, had an ERA above 6.00 at the break; remarkably, his replacement, Jose Mesa, had an even higher ERA (6.52) on a much better team, the Phillies.
Despite Mesa's large presence, the bullpen is even younger and more inexperienced than the one that had a league-worst 4.84 ERA last season. There have been no major lineup upgrades; Mondesi essentially is the replacement for Reggie Sanders, who hit 31 homers a year ago, then quickly departed for St. Louis.
The second baseman, Jose Castillo, has never played above Double-A. The left fielder, Jason Bay, acquired in the Brian Giles trade, had more than half (8) of his 14 career RBIs in one game. The first baseman, Randall Simon, was dealt to the Cubs following his sausage-slugging incident in Milwaukee, only to find his way back to Pittsburgh.
Littlefield has tough job
And Dave Littlefield might be working under the most severe financial restraints of any NL general manager. The $20 million payroll cut was so severe the productive Matt Stairs, who had 20 homers and 57 RBIs as a part-time player, wasn't brought back because the Pirates couldn't afford to raise his salary from $900,000 to $1 million.
"But it burns me up," McClendon said. "We've worked awfully hard to get past that [talk of losing 100 games]. We've done a good job of cleaning up that locker room, and we've brought our young players along. Those guys in that locker room now, they expect to win and they're highly disappointed when they don't."
McClendon's assessment: The Pirates, 75-87 a season ago, still have much ground to cover to get close to the likes of the Cubs, Astros, Cardinals, the teams they chased last season and figure to chase again.
But that long-promised youth movement -- remember the one that started when Barry Bonds and all those stars of the early 1990s left? -- is finally kicking in; the Pirates could have seven rookies on their roster once Bay comes off the disabled list.
Farm system producing
Now that the farm system is turning out players, McClendon can begin to see the light at the end of a tunnel that's been far longer and more congested than those that carry all that traffic through Pittsburgh's hillsides.
That's why, even though they lack few identifiable players beyond Kendall, Mondesi and Benson, names such as Castillo, Sean Burnett, John Van Benschoten, Ryan Vogelsong and Bryan Bullington might be recognizable fairly soon.
Castillo, initially ticketed for Triple-A, played his way into the lineup with an ahead-of-schedule big spring. Burnett and the right-handed Van Benschoten, who pitched well against the Yankees in his last spring start, will start the season in Triple-A, but could be in the majors by midseason. Vogelsong has jumped his velocity into the 96-mph range and enjoyed the best spring of any Pirates starting pitcher. Bullington stood out in the minor league camp.
"I like the young players over here," Mondesi said. "Those other teams, [who think] they're going to play easy with us, they're going to be wrong. ... We're going to surprise some people."
If they do, look for McClendon's cell phone bill to be a little higher than usual come October.