I haven't had a chance to do much of a preview here at WHYGAVS, so I'm going to do a two-parter over the weekened here to get ready for Monday's opener. The premise is simple; I'm going to look at who's in each important position now, who's likely to be there when the season ends, and if there's a different long-term outlook. I'll do the position players today and the pitchers tomorrow.

Catcher

Ryan Doumit's not going anywhere in the immediate future, and I think the team is hoping that he's able to stay healthy enough to be a long-term answer at catcher. It's obvious why; he's one of the best hitting catchers in the National League when he's healthy and getting offense from an unlikely source would be a big boost for a team like the Pirates. The health questions here are huge, though. We were all excited to see him play 116 games last year. How long can he possibly last behind the plate? There's no obvious successors in the minors, though, so let's all hope that he grows out of the injuries or something.

First Base

Adam LaRoche is there now, though I kind of doubt he will be in September. There's always a team looking for some left-handed pop when the trade deadline comes calling and if the pattern that LaRoche has established to this point in his career holds true, he should be mashing the ball by mid-July. His contract is up and he's not really anything more than an average first baseman, so there's no real reason to hold on to him. If he's traded this year, Steve Pearce is the obvious choice to play out the string at first base, though there's no guarantee he'll impress the front office enough to earn that shot. Long-term, I think the Pirates would secretly tell you they want Pedro Alvarez at first. That's not because his defense at third isn't good enough, but rather if Andy LaRoche steps up at third, Alvarez will move to first to keep him there.

Second Base

Freddy Sanchez is the second baseman now, but I think he's probably a little more likely to be traded before the deadline than his buddy Jack Wilson. He had an awesome second half last year and batted-ball data indicated that his ugly first half involved some bad luck. He's not going to hit .340 again this year and his defense is never going to be good, but if he can stay healthy and hit .310 through the All-Star break, I think teams will be calling. The immediate replacement would either be Brian Bixler or Shelby Ford, depending on how they play in AAA and what other positions need filled. The team has sort of indicated that they see Ford as the long-term solution at second base. He's got some health questions, but he's hit fairly well at each stop he's made, especially given all the time he's missed with injuries. I guess it's possible that he'll blossom at AAA this year if he can stay healthy and get regular at-bats. He's certainly one to keep an eye on.

Third Base

This is Andy LaRoche's position to lose. The problem is that after his ugly stint with the Pirates in 2008, I don't think anyone will be surprised if he does, in fact, lose it. Everyone knows the story right now; his minor league numbers are awesome, his major league numbers have varied from middling to abysmal, and now he's 25 and no one knows what he is. He had an awesome spring, which lends some credence to the thumb injury explanation for last year, but until he hits in the majors, everyone is going to be skeptical. If he does breakthrough this year, it's awesome news for the Pirates because they can move Pedro Alvarez across the diamond and have both corner infield spots set,  plus they don't have to rely on Neil Walker breaking through as part of the long-term plan. If he doesn't hit, either Alvarez stays at third and the Pirates need to find a first baseman, or they hope for a huge step forward from Walker. Simply put, Andy LaRoche finding his stroke at the plate in 2009 could be one of the best things to happen for the future of the Pirates.

Shortstop

Everyone expects to see Jack Wilson traded this year, but I don't see it coming. I don't think he'll be extended either. He'll be here for 2009 to give his usual above average defense and poor bat, and then he'll be gone. The immediate succesor at when Wilson does eventually leave town is Brian Bixler, but even with his awesome spring I don't see him as more than a utility guy. His glove is decent and his bat likely won't be much better than Wilson's. There's not a really another answer low in the system right now, especially not after Jarek Cunningham's knee injury may force a move to another position. Shortstop is certainly one position the Pirates need a long-term answer at.

Outfield

It's Nate McLouth, Nyjer Morgan, and Brandon Moss right now, but at least two of these guys don't figure in to the long-term plans. Morgan is going to be displaced by Andrew McCutchen pretty early in the season, it seems, and Moss has a year to prove himself before Jose Tabata starts pressing him for his spot in right. In a perfect world, Moss would have a breakout year this year and the Pirates could then trade him when Tabata's ready to take his position, but given all of the question marks surrounding both of them (Moss's health and Tabata's ... lifestyle?) I think the Pirates would settle for one of the two breaking out. For me, the big question here is McLouth. Even with his big breakout year, he's kind of a tweener in the outfield with a corner's defense, but a great bat for a center fielder. His value is probably never going to get higher than it is this year, especially if he starts out hot at the plate again. Trading McLouth would create a pretty epic fallout with the fans, but he might be the best trade chip, especially if Moss breaks out or the Pirates draft Dustin Ackley and improve the Pirates' depth in the outfield.

Today is the last weekday we have to muddle through without baseball until October. On Monday the long winter and spring training, which somehow seems even longer, finally end. I'm excited about it because I'm always excited. But this is an important year in the rebuilding of the Pirates, and there are a lot of things I'm worried about.

For a few years now, I've been hoping the Pirates' front office would jettison regular season results for a few years to focus on rebuilding the system so that the system could in turn fix what's wrong in Pittsburgh. As far as I can see, that's the best way for a Pirate team to operate and while I might not agree with every little thing that Neal Huntington has done in his seventeen or so months on the job, I think he's looking at the big picture and building towards something that I can get behind. He started laying the foundation last year, but one draft, one good session in Latin America, and a couple decent trades only get a team so far.

What worries me is that now that the Pirates are finally moving in a direction that I feel might possibly be the right one, they've accidentally chosen the season played in the worst economic climate of my life to be the one in which they basically punt on the Major League season in hopes that everything comes together around them. Interest in the Pirates is already generally low; this year I've got a gut feeling that attendance is going to be abysmal.

If you haven't already, you should take some time to read Bill Simmons' fairly recent article about the economic problems the NBA is facing. You can already see a lot of the same things he notes taking place with the Pirates. They have some insanely cheap ticket packages this year. They spread the SkyBlast nights out across the season, I'm guessing because they hope that people come in from out of town for SkyBlast and stay for an extra game or two over the rest of the weekend. In fact, right now on Pirates.com, the headlining story isn't the final roster being set or anything involving the Pirates at all, it's this:

Now, maybe you're remembering back to what Bob Nutting told the press a week or so ago about ticket sales going fine, but you've got to remember what Nutting said. He said that season ticket renewal rate was up. That sounds great, but you've got to remember that the Pirates are coming off of two straight seasons where season ticket holders bailed right and left once the All-Star happened. Of course the renewal rate is up; I doubt it could get lower. That doesn't mean the renewal rate is good and it doesn't mean the season ticket base is bigger this year. Now factor in that walkups are already generally bad for the Pirates and they're not likely to do anything to attract a bigger walkup crowd, then consider the economy's effect on that portion of ticket sales and ... you see where I'm going.

Compounding the issue is that after the year is over, the Pirates won't be able to count on a big check from the league to help off-set the coming losses. The Yankees are exempt from the luxury tax this year with their move to the new Yankee Stadium.

Now, I'm not suggesting the Pirates are going to fold up or threaten to move or anything of that sort. Far from it. I'm not even suggesting that I think Bob Nutting is going to sell the team. I am suggesting that attendance is going to be very bad this year and that I think that the potential is there for the Pirates to lose a lot of money.

So we're heading in to a season where two things are going to happen. One is that attendance is likely going to crash, and revenues will crash with it. The second is that the Pirates are going to set the Major League record for consecutive losing seasons, and the fans, most of whom won't even be attending games, are going to be incredibly vocal about how upset they are over this 17th losing season. These are the fans that either don't pay enough attention to understand what Huntington's doing, don't understand the intricacies of rebuilding a baseball franchise, or simply don't have the patience to wait. Unfortunately, I think we've covered 90% of the fan base in one of those groups.

It's one thing for Bob Nutting to profess his faith in his front office in March when the young players in camp are playing well and people are generally not complaining. It's an entirely different situation when the team is losing, the fans are screaming for blood, and you realize that your attendance is going to drop by a quarter of a million fans. Throw in the uninformed national media, who will be saying things like, "This is a team that lost to a community college in spring training!" and it's easy to see it's going to be a very hard year to be a Pirate fan.

To this point, Nutting seems to more or less trust everything that Coonelly, and by extension Huntington, have done and he's pushed a ton of the right buttons since January 2007. I hope that that faith continues in the front office, no matter how ugly this year gets, because the last thing this team needs right now is to completely shake things up again. I don't think Nutting will do that, but I do think we should all be ready for an incredibly trying season.

He's the final addition to the 25-man roster, mostly on the strength of Evan Meek having a rash of bad luck staying healthy this spring. Sounds like Meek will be the first guy called up if he pitches well in AAA. Given the composition of our bullpen, he might get a phone call before April even ends.

Siiiiiiigh.

You know, I wasn't going to talk about this, but it's just so ...

/tries to make excuse about beating the Reds in the real exhibition game today

/stops

/double checks box score

/tries again to mention the Reds game

/gives up

Well, uh, hey, at least we made the right choice by demoting Virgil Vasquez?

The Pirates announced today that Sean Burnett, Craig Hansen, and Donnie Veal will all make the opening day roster, which leaves the final spot for Evan Meek or Jesse Chavez. This isn't surprising at all and it's what everyone figured the final spot would come down to, but think about the composition of the bullpen for a moment. Craig Hansen, Tyler Yates, and Donnie Veal. All in the same bullpen. Possibly joined by Evan Meek. Holy freaking crap, the rotation must be terrified.

In what was pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point, the Pirates announced tonight that Craig Monroe has made the 25-man roster. To make room for him, ¡Romulo! Sanchez has been cut from the 40-man roster and will be put on waivers. I can't help but think this is the front office's way of ensuring that there's not a Romulo Sanchez bobblehead night this year.

OK, that's not true. But don't be fooled by Monroe's good spring; he hit pretty terribly with the Twins last year in a role very similar to the one he's going to play with the Pirates this year. If we're lucky, he might be this year's Jason Michaels. If we're unlucky? Hey, at least Jeff Salazar's in AAA.

I've got some big apologies to hand out here, as I asked for spring training pictures from you guys and I've been pretty bad at posting them lately. I've got a pretty good sized backlog of reader photos to post this morning, and we're going to get to them because I'm going to be honest, I've enjoyed seeing the pictures everyone's been sending me this spring and I don't think I'm alone.

First up, we've got pictures from David Walsh, who calls Greenville, PA home. David actually sent these to me about eight days ago, so I'm going to apologize profusely to my fellow Mercer County native for taking so long to post these. David had some nice seats at McKechnie and got some closeups of Jack Wilson, Adam LaRoche, and Brandon Moss.

Next up, we've got Ryan Alexander, who made a spur of the moment trip to Bradenton and Sarasota to watch some spring training. That's going to happen to me one of these years; it's going to be 2 AM before I realize I'm in my car going 95 on 95 halfway through South Carolina. He's got Andrew McCutchen, Paul Maholm, and he also partakes in that peculiar Pirate fan habit of taking a picture of the scoreboard, as if to say, "Holy crap! We're winning!"

And finally, we've got Steve Williams from State College who made his first pilgrimage to Spring Training this year and among other things, got a chance to see Brandon Moss in his first real action of the spring.

All of these pics are clickable for higher quality, but if the loading time is too much, let me know and I'll crop them down a bit. A big thanks to Steve, David, Ryan, and everyone else who sent pics in this spring. I personally really enjoyed doing these little features as a change of pace and I think I'm going to try to do something similar during the season.

Nope, no jokes on my part. Instead, just a link to my favorite prank of all-time, George Plimpton's Sidd Finch story.

A second flap down by the pitcher's end was drawn open, and a tall, gawky player walked in and stepped up onto the pitcher's mound. He was wearing a small, black fielder's glove on his left hand and was holding a baseball in his right. Christensen had never seen him before. He had blue eyes, Christensen remembers, and a pale, youthful face, with facial muscles that were motionless, like a mask. "You notice it," Christensen explained later, "when a pitcher's jaw isn't working on a chaw or a piece of gum." Then to Christensen's astonishment he saw that the pitcher, pawing at the dirt of the mound to get it smoothed out properly and to his liking, was wearing a heavy hiking boot on his right foot.

Awesome.

The Pirates shipped eight players out today, leaving just one cut left to be made before the Opening Day roster is set. Virgil Vazquez, Jason Davis, Chris Bootcheck, Jeff Salazar, Andy Phillips, Garrett Jones, Denny Bautista, and Eric Kratz were all cut this morning, leaving one spot left in the bullpen to decide.

These moves mean a few things; Craig Monroe and Luis Cruz are all but assured of spots now and Jeff Karstens is locked in as the fifth starter. I was a bit surprised to see both Vazquez and Davis go, but my guess is that the front office wants to keep both of them starting for now, and thus the demotion. Similarly for guys like Phillips, Jones, and Salazar, another roster spot has to be opened for them to make the team over, say, Nyjer Morgan, and the Bucs don't risk losing them if they don't make the roster like they would if they cut Monroe. We can debate the merits of keeping Monroe aboard, but the fact is that if he's awful we can get rid of him and bring one of these guys up to fill the hole and it's unlikely that a ton of damage will be done.

That leaves four bullpen spots to be taken by Craig Hansen, Sean Burnett, Jesse Chavez, Don Veal, and Evan Meek. With those relatively limited options, I don't think the Bucs will risk losing Burnett or Hansen on waivers and if they were going to dump Veal back to the Cubs, they'd have done it already. That means the choice is between Meek and Chavez. I think Meek is probably a better reliever and since they're giving him a chance to pitch after both arm troubles and an ugly bout with the flu, my guess is that the team prefers him to take that spot. We should find out soon.

The other remaining question is whether or not an external move is coming. DK indicates that Huntington is working on a couple fronts, but nothing seems imminent. There are a few options out there (keep an eye on MLB Trade Rumors today, Jeff Keppinger, Robert Andino and Hayden Penn (same trade), Edward Mujica, and Ross Gload have already moved today) and Huntington could pull something off by the end of the day.