Pirates have turned losing into an art form

April 4, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Five seasons. Ten seasons. Fifteen seasons. Now, 17 seasons.

Year after year, manager after manager, roster after roster, the losses keep mounting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. A remarkable 1,518 of them since 1993, an average of 89.3 per season — the most of any major league team.

In baseball, nobody does it better on a consistent basis than the Yankees and Red Sox, but nobody does it any worse than the Pirates. Owners of the record for the most consecutive losing seasons in major American pro sports history, they’re taking losing to an art form even the Detroit Lions, New Jersey Nets and Los Angeles Clippers can’t match.

“It can be a humbling game,” left-hander Paul Maholm said.

In Pittsburgh, where recent championships by the Penguins and Steelers serve as bookend reminders to the Pirates’ ineptitude, the same question arises every spring from frustrated fans: When will it end?

As the Pirates wound down a mostly bad spring training in which their pitchers didn’t pitch well and their hitters mostly didn’t hit, there’s nothing on paper to suggest it will happen in 2010.

Ownership’s response to a fifth consecutive season with 94 or more losses? The payroll was cut to the low-$30 million range, nearly the identical level of the 1992 Pirates — coincidentally, the last Pirates team to win a division and achieve a winning record.

Long gone: Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, Nate McLouth, Njyer Morgan, Adam LaRoche, John Grabow, Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny and Matt Capps.

Replacing them are a low-paid mix of discarded players (Garrett Jones, Lastings Milledge, Akinori Iwamura, Ronny Cedeno), prospects who didn’t make it with their former clubs (Jeff Clement, Andy LaRoche) — and one rising star in center fielder Andrew McCutchen.

The rotation (Ross Ohlendorf, Zach Duke, Maholm, Charlie Morton, Daniel McCutchen) doesn’t include a starter who won more than 11 games last season.

The bullpen is populated mostly by castoffs (Octavio Dotel, Brendan Donnelly, D.J. Carrasco, Jack Taschner), although all have had success in the majors.

The Pirates are attempting to rebuild cautiously and conservatively, putting money into the draft and their farm system. It’s an approach that’s worked elsewhere, but they’re trying to do at the same time division rivals Chicago and St. Louis don’t hesitate to pay for top talent.

Even the Reds, unsuccessful for a decade and located in a similar-sized market, paid $30 million for a promising but unproven prospect (pitcher Aroldis Chapman).

“Oh, no, it’s not really known for us to do anything like that,” McCutchen said. “I wasn’t really looking toward anything like that.”

While some prospects should start arriving before the All-Star break (former first round picks Pedro Alvarez and Brad Lincoln, former Yankees farmhand Jose Tabata), there are no guarantees that prospects will become stars. Remember failed first-round picks Chad Hermansen and Bryan Bullington, John Van Benschoten and Bobby Bradley?

Despite management’s glowing reports about the franchise’s deepest pool of young talent in years, industry publications rank the overall farm system only in the mid-teens.

No wonder team president Frank Coonelly’s off-the-cuff remark this spring that the Pirates were on the verge of being a “dynasty” inspired equal doses of wonderment and ridicule among losing-scarred fans.

So did manager John Russell’s comments that the Pirates should stop focusing on reaching .500 and start concentrating on winning championships.

“Our goal is to come together and start thinking playoff baseball,” Russell said. “Our standards are set and, from now on, that’s what we’re looking forward to.”

Huh? During the final two-plus months of last season, with a lineup similar to that which will start this season, the Pirates went 19-45.

Russell believes the roster-gutting trades of the last few seasons are over, and there’s enough talent on hand to supplement the prospects who are coming. Still, position by position, the lineup the Pirates will field Monday against the Dodgers appears to be less talented than the one that was dealt away the last two seasons.

For now, the Pirates are building around the fast and confident McCutchen, who could be a 30-homers, 30-steals talent. Jones, picked up as a minor league free agent from the Twins, hit 21 homers from July 1 on and was one of the majors’ most pleasant surprises.

Otherwise, there are question marks all around.