I've noticed a pretty strong wave of negative sentiment focused towards minor league performance recently both in the comments here and on other sites. I'm not sure if this is a reaction to the Pirates' ugly play, Pedro Alvarez's terrible start, or the fact that three of the four affiliates currently playing have losing records. Probably, it's a combination of all three factors, but whatever the case, there are some pretty common misconceptions about the minor leagues (both the Pirates' system and in general) that I think could use some clearing up.

The fact that three Pirate affiliates currently have losing records is meaningless. Somewhere in my old closet back in Hermitage, I have a 1995 or 1996 vintage On Deck magazine with a big story about how both the Jason Kendall-lead Lynchburg Hillcats and whoever the Pirates' AA affiliate was at the time (the Carolina Mudcats, I think) won league titles the previous year. And don't forget the several years in the earlier part of this decade that Dave Littlefield would trump things like, "All of our minor league affiliates are in the playoffs" or "Our minor league affiliates have the best combined record in baseball." These teams exist to get players ready for the big leagues and nothing more.

That's not to say that we have a great system because we certainly don't. And it's certainly frustrating to see the strikeouts rack up for Pedro Alvarez in Lynchburg and to see Jose Tabata hurt again in Altoona and there's certainly way too many "downs" in Charlie's rundown of how his top 20 prospects have performed. And when all of those things start piling up, it's easy to lose sight of the long-term picture. There's still a lot more talent in the system than there was at this time last year, and many of the guys that aren't underperforming are picks from 2008. Rebuilding a minor league system doesn't happen overnight and even when it's done well, there are large portions of it that are going to be hit or miss.

As frustrating as things are right now, just think back to last May. Behind McCutchen there was Walker, Steve Pearce, and Brad Lincoln, who hadn't even thrown since his Tommy John surgery. That was the entire system. Now there's Alvarez and Tabata, who are still blue chip talents despite their early struggles this year, Grossman, Lincoln is healthy and throwing well, Chase D'Arnaud and Jordy Mercer both seem at least worth keeping an eye on, and there are a handful of other guys from last year's draft (Quinton Miller and Wes Freeman at the top of the list) that are interesting as well. It seems to me that that's a pretty big step forward for just one year. Let's see where we are after the draft and trade deadline this year.

Just for fun, here are the velocities of Ian Snell's fastballs from his last three starts, with data obtained from Brooks' Baseball and replotted. Right click and choose "View Image" to see it at full size.

Can we conclude anything about his 130 pitch outing on April 29th from this chart? It's not easy to say, though it does look like his velocity yesterday was pretty similar to his velocity on the 29th. It certainly seems like there's more red dots (from his start on the fifth, the start after his 130 pitch effort) down around 87 or 88 mph than yellow or blue. To my casual eye, he did seem to look better on the mound yesterday. But let's please not push him to 130 pitches again, OK?

It is late at night as the weary blogger tries to find something interesting to say about the Pittsburgh Pirates after their eighth straight loss. He reads over his past recaps, seeing that they have gotten progressively shorter and shorter. He begins typing about himself in the third person. But then, how does one make a team that repeatedly loses games in the same fashion interesting?

Decent start. Bad bullpen. Not enough offense. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Decent start. Bad bullpen. Not enough offense. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Decent start. Bad bullpen. Not enough offense. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Decent start. Bad bullpen. Not enough offense. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Decent start. Bad bullpen. Not enough offense. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Decent start. Bad bullpen. Not enough offense. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Decent start. Bad bullpen. Not enough offense. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Decent start. Bad bullpen. Not enough offense. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

The redundancy of the words drive home the inaninty of following the Pirates. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Are the Pirates driving me insane, or are they created by my insanity? When did John Grabow revert to John Grablow? Will the Pirates ever win again?

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Livian Hernandez vs. Ian Snell this afternoon. I really hope we don't lose to Livian Hernandez, who I didn't even know was still in the league before looking at the pitching matchup for today. In the comments on the last post, Handsome Sam provided the ultimate, "this is what it's like to be a Pirate fan" clip. If you are offended by PG-13 language or incredibly juvenile humor, don't click play.

No idea why the Pirates and Mets are playing at 1:10 today, but they are and that means I can't watch them. Paul Maholm looks to make some headway after his last good start was wasted against the Brewers and he'll go against John Maine, who's off to a pretty rough start this year. Both today and tomorrow are pretty favorable pitching matchups for us, so hopefully we can steal a win here.

A few quick notes from the Trib: Adam Melhuse was signed and sent to AAA to provide some depth at catcher with Doumit out, Matt Capps might pitch today, and Jimmy Barthmaier is getting TJ and will be out for the season. That's pretty rough news about Barthmaier; I thought he was pretty intriguing last year at AAA and was hoping maybe he'd push for a rotation spot if Karstens was struggling this year. That will obviously no longer be the case.

When you're in a rut, you can't waste a start like the one Jeff Karstens gave the Pirates yesterday. You've lost five in a row and nine out of ten, and you get six innings from your fifth starter where he holds one of the best teams in the National League to just two runs. You have to win that game.

This Pirate team right now is, to borrow a phrase, who we thought they were. The starting pitching is better than last year's and the offense is somewhere between terrible and below average, but the bullpen is a disaster. This is, as you can probably guess, not a combination of abilities that's going to lead to many wins. Or, if the last six games are evidence, any wins at all.

You know what would be really great for a team that's lost nine of their last ten games? A chance to face Oliver Perez. The Mets have deprived us of that opportunity tonight by putting Perez on the "disabled list" (you know ... that place where crappy pitchers with no options go while the team tries to figure out what to do with them) and calling up Jon Niese. He'll make the start against Jeff Karstens, which is a pretty nice assignment for a guy making his fourth big league start.

Will the first trip to Citi Field be a chance for the Pirates to break out of their funk? Honestly, I'd be pretty surprised if it was, but I don't know how long the team can keep playing this badly. Maybe that's because I don't want to know.

But, oh God, sometimes the Green Mile seems so long.

For a long time, I was the kid that used to tell everyone every spring that this year was the year that the Pirates would break their losing streak. I gave up on that a few years ago, when I finally realized each spring that bad teams don't magically turn in to good teams. As has been said ad nauseum this year, there's a difference between teams like last year's Rays, who were a good team that most people slept on because of their bad history, and this year's Pirates.

And still, every single spring, I get excited when baseball starts. And when the Pirates roll through April at 12-11? Yep. I'm as excited as anyone. I can't help it. When I write, I try to ground myself in reality as much as possible and I tell myself things like, "This can't last, these guys aren't that good," because I know that's the truth, but there's always a little voice in my head that says, "Maybe this year is different. Maybe you missed something. Maybe the upgrade of the defense means more than you think. Maybe the Joe Kerrigan effect is bigger than anything you can quantify. Maybe this is for real."

And that leads us to my least favorite day of the baseball season. The day the crippling reality sets in that the Pittsburgh Pirates are going to be bad again. It's never easy to pinpoint the moment, but I'm pretty sure it happened earlier this week against the Brewers this year. That's actually not bad; it's happened at the home opener before.

It always amazes me when this realization disappoints me. I've known the Pirates were going to be bad in 2009 since at least 2007. It's not surprising that they're bad, but it's still somehow disappointing. It's like getting in trouble at school as a kid. At my school, they'd always call you to the principal's office, where she'd then tell you that she was calling your parents. And for the rest of the day, you'd hope that for some reason, your mom or dad wouldn't have gotten the message and that they wouldn't be upset when they got home. You might even convince yourself that was the case, but then your mom would come home and tell you that she had an interesting conversation with Mrs. Chess, and you'd know you were in trouble.

I know that I'm the guy that's been writing that the front office has a plan and things are looking up and things will get better, and I really do believe that. But I can't deny that this team is frustrating to watch sometimes, or that weeks like this one make me really wonder if the universe will ever allow the Pirates to field a good team. I'm not embarrassed to be a Pirate fan, nor am I giving up on the team. But sometimes, I just wish it didn't have to be so bad.

Things are just not going well for the Pirates right now. After a good start, Ross Ohlendorf fell apart in the fifth inning today, beaning hitters all over the place (including the rare bases-loaded-beaning of Ryan Ludwick), and by the time the beanathon was over, not even Robinzon Diaz's first career homer could save the Pirates.

Five losses in a row, nine losses in ten games. That's all for now, but the Road to 17 will be making its return tomorrow.