Getting the fans involved: Predict the 2011 season
Monday I posted on “11 things to look forward to in ’11″ and I was curious what my readers thought about the new season for the Pirates.
So for fun, here are three questions (please answer in the comment section):
What are you most looking forward to during the 2011 season?
Who do you think will have the best/worst season for the Pirates?
How you think the Bucs will finish? (Predict a record) Will the streak finally end?
Kristy Robinson
I am looking forward to seeing how Clint Hurdle manages the team as well as assist the batters. I think the best season for hitters will be Pedro Alvarez think his average will be about .310 with lets say 30 homers and around 85-90RBIs. I think he would benefit the most from Hurdles tutelage. Pitching wise I would say starters Ohlendorf will rebound and win around 15 games with a era of 2.40. Worst season will be Synder I feel that catchers will struggle regardless of whose behind the plate other than Sanchez. For the final question I think they will have a losing record yet again. Pains me to say it but I am thinking 65-97 overall all and a winning home record. Just my opinion, love the blog and the tweets keep doing your thing!
I’m most looking forward to full seasons from our 1-4 hitters (Cutch, Jose, Walker and Pedro), and hoping they continue to gel as they did late in the season. Living in Indy, I’m looking forward to seeing a crop of good young starters hopefully making their way west soon because again, the worst part of the team is going to be their starting pitching. I think Correia and McDonald will be good, but the rest really concern me. Worst player? If I had to choose, then probably Cedeno. We might see a regression from Walker, but the best season should be for McCutchen, as our centerfielder finally becomes and All-Star. If the pitching surprises us, then 82 isn’t out of the question (and Hurdle wins Manager of the Year) – but my money’s on 74-88.
-newpiratesfan
I am most looking forward to seeing Clint Hurdle does when this team begins to struggle (which is inevitable). Will he be able to shake things up to get the best out of his players? The best season will come from Pedro Alvarez. While the avg wont be too high I expect 25-30 HR from him which will be a blessing. The worst will go to Lyle Overbay. I doubt he keeps the job at 1st base very long. Forget the streak, this team hasn’t won more than 70 games since 2004! won’t happen this year, however I do see them playing a lot more competitive games. A 10 game improvement is pretty drastic for a team (especially one that hasn’t made any huge improvements) but you can’t get much worse than last year. 67-95.
-Steve
section316.mlblogs.com
You know me – I like to give realistic predictions, and I always throw in a sarcastic jab or two…so hopefully people will remember that before I’m accused of “abuse,” haha. First, I am most looking forward to a year of watching every game, laughing at the mistakes the Pirates will make, and not worrying about all the games they will inevitably lose. At least this year I won’t be rooting for them to lose every game because I’m not betting against them for money. It will be nice to enjoy seeing wins from time to time like I used to. Secondly, I believe the best season will come from Andrew McCutchen. He was among the league leaders for quite a while before succumbing to multiple injuries which I believe hindered his performance. This year (barring injury), I think he will set career highs in every offensive category as he is playing for a possible contract extension in the off-season – at least he had better be offered one…if not, the front office will have a lot of explaining to do. Conversely, I believe Kevin Correia will have the worst season as a Pirate. He will be exposed as the terrible pitcher he is and prove to be a giant waste of $4 million – money that should have been spent on drafting, development, or a long term contract for the aforementioned McCutchen. If the Pirates get more than one win per $800K, I’ll be surprised. Finally, the Pirates “should” win more games than last year. This is about the only thing I can promise. Looking up and down the roster, this team is no better than the teams from 2005-2008 which included Jason Bay, Xavier Nady, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, Ian Snell, and Tom Gorzelanny. You can find a parallel offensive player and pitcher on those teams for each of the current Pirates players. Those teams from the past consistently won 67 games. In my opinion, anyone predicting the Pirates to win over 75 games is comical. I will be generous and predict a 65-97 record, a respectable 8 game improvement from last year. I will give the Pirates a one-googleplexionth chance of not posting a 19th consecutive losing season. Go Bucs. That is all. Later. Greg Mercer
Thanks guys for your input. I got some other responses on twitter as well.
It seems like most are looking forward to seeing how manager Clint Hurdle handles the ballclub.
McCutchen and Alvarez are most popular as the Bucs “2011 stars”.
Most fans are prediciting another losing record, making it 19 consecutive seasons.
Thanks again.
Kristy
I wanted to respond even though I’m late
I made predictions last year and some were of Epic Fail proportions simply because there’s alot that you can’t predict. You can’t accurately predict injuries, length of injuries, type and severity of injuries. you can’t predict streaks, bad seasons, good seasons.. there’s a lot. I blame everything else except my own evaluations on my poor predictions from last year
That said, this years team can improve 10-15 games and finish in that Dave Littlefield range of wins. That’s a nice improvement, good step forward and it should provide more certainty heading forward. to achieve that we can’t have what Charlie Morton and Aki Iwamura did for a couple of months. We can’t have Ross Ohlendorf regressing a little and Paul Maholm being inconsistent. Clint Hurdle’s main job is going to be getting the most out of what he has. Something Russell didn’t do. It’s going to take that to achieve 10-15 wins over 2010.
Kipper