Kovacevic: Following boom and gloom, 17 final thoughts heading into 2017

BOSTON -- At 2:05 p.m. today, Rick Porcello will pitch to Adam Frazier at our nation's most venerable ballpark, and the 131st National League baseball season for the Pittsburgh Baseball Club will be formally underway.

But before any of that, my 17 final thoughts heading into 2017:

17. Man, April's a rough ride.

Have you looked at this opening month?

Three each against the Red Sox and Yankees, six against the Cubs, three against the Cardinals. That accounts for 15 of the 24 games. Those first two opponents are expected to soar right back to the top of the mighty AL East, and everyone will recall that the Pirates went 4-14 against Chicago in 2016, 9-10 against St. Louis.

Yikes.



"I think every team wants to start off on the right foot," David Freese replied when I brought this up. "But going up against some quality organizations that are looking to do some stuff in October ... it's a good test. April in and of itself always comes with its own challenges. You don't want to put too much pressure on yourself. But it all counts. And we're going to have to take care of business."

16. Jared Hughes will be just fine.

He'll do very well for the Brewers, who signed him Sunday. And he won't allow a single negative sentiment to cross his mind about the Pirates now or ever.

All the bratwursts and all the best of luck to this extraordinary young man.

15. Starling Marte, star center fielder.

For all the offseason fuss over the Pirates shuffling all three outfielders around, one move will overwhelm all the rest. Because man, can Marte play a beautiful center.

The other night in Bradenton, a ball was screamed over his head. I'm talking way over his head, at least as it appeared off the bat. And yet, rather than turning tail to sprint after it, Marte calmly turned aligned his path with the trajectory of ball, glided underneath it in front of the track and almost casually leapt and pulled it down on his backhand.

I asked afterward how he could have been so confident.

He silently, playfully shrugged.

14. Not nearly enough efficiency.

The rotation enters as the question mark. It's inconceivable that anything else would rise above. But within that, what really rises above is the lack of efficiency that could reasonably be expected from this group.

Ivan Nova had three of the Pirates' five complete games after arriving in the trade, but no one else can be counted on that way: Gerrit Cole finished last year with an elbow ailment, he really hasn't been efficient throughout his career, and he wasn't efficient all spring. Jameson Taillon, Chad Kuhl and Tyler Glasnow are too young to anticipate they'll suddenly be driving deep into games.

That, combined with all these challenging lineups in April, will take a hard early toll on the bullpen.

Or not, if you ask Nova.

"I have confidence in these guys, and I tell them, 'Just be calm. Be yourself. Pitch like you know," he said. "They're going to be good."

13. Good riddance, Jung Ho Kang.

If he never plays for the Pirates again, maybe everyone who thinks that baseball matters when weighed against three DUIs, a hit-and-run, lying to the police and whatever happened in Chicago that was mysteriously buried ... maybe they'll finally get it.

And that goes double for the front office, which has yet to utter a syllable to suggest he'll be suspended if he ever gets a U.S. visa.

12. You can't replace two bench guys belting 31 home runs.

Sean Rodriguez hit 18, Matt Joyce 13, and that's to say nothing of Kang's absence pushing Freese into starting duty. Even if Marte, Gregory Polanco and Josh Bell raise their own power numbers, it's hard to imagine the overall output growing because of the bench losses alone.

Look at it strictly from the pinch-hitting perspective, even if that's often inflated when weighing bench value: In 2016 pinch-hit at-bats, the Pirates' .738 OPS ranked seventh in Major League Baseball, and it came with seven home runs (tied for fifth), 45 walks (by far the best of anyone) and 30 RBIs (fifth).

That's a whale of a weapon for any manager. Clint Hurdle won't have it.

11. What's in Tony Watson's tank?

Maybe the silliest narrative of last summer was that Watson couldn't handle the closer's role once he was thrust into it after the Mark Melancon trade.

Oh, Watson struggled, all right. No one would dispute that. He gave up contact unlike any we'd seen off him in a half-decade. But citing some mythical fear-of-closing factor, given all he'd done over the years in the eighth inning, is both antiquated thinking and completely missing the point. Which is this: Over the past five seasons, Watson has logged 68, 71, 78, 78 and 70 appearances, more than any reliever in the majors.

He's been overused. That's the problem.

And if 2016 didn't offer enough evidence to that effect -- meaning the whole year, not just post-Melancon -- then maybe this spring did, too, as he was hit hard for eight runs and eight hits in eight appearances covering 5 1/3 innings.

In the past week, we had a good talk. Watson assured me he's completely fine, totally dismissing the spring showings. But it's more than fair to worry.

Not whether he can be the closer. But whether he can pitch the way he always had. Because even if Felipe Rivero eventually takes the role -- and he might on merit alone -- this pen needs a healthy, successful Watson.

10. Reclaim PNC Park.

Don't laugh this one off. Home field advantage is the realest of all intangibles in sports, but the 2016 Pirates, after three years of owning their home field, let that go and were actually worse at PNC, 38-42, than on the road, 40-41. The previous three years, all of which resulted in a playoff berth, their home records were and 50-31, 51-30 and 53-28.

To repeat, there's a real thing to be had here: The Pirates over those three years built up a lot of their confidence, their camaraderie over being able to compete with anyone who passed through. And from the other perspective, opponents would talk before a series about it being tough to play in Pittsburgh, crazy as it sounded when that first started.

"You have to take care of your own field, No. 1," Francisco Cervelli said.

9. Cutch will bounce back. J-Hay will bounce back.

I could load this up with quotes. I won't. You'll see. They're both as determined as I've ever seen them, they both have bona fide cause to believe their 2016 production was hurt by elements out of their control and, maybe neatest of all, they're both in this together. Inseparable as ever.

I didn't even want to put this one in the top 10, but hey.

8. The lineup as a whole will hit.

Second-silliest narrative of 2016 was that the Pirates plummeted 20 games in the standings because of their offense.

Except, you know, that they actually improved in all areas offensively.

I'm not sure this edition will be better, if only for the bench. But I do like the slotting effect allowed by Frazier at leadoff, should that work out. And I like even more that the heart of the order opens with a particularly high ceiling for Marte, who's absolutely bound to blow away his nine home runs from last season, and Polanco, who could break out into someone truly special. Mix in the Cutch rebound, and that's a very good heart, followed by a solid bottom half.

7. Enjoy Tyler Glasnow!

This front office has taken some awful, even unscrupulous measures to prioritize payroll and kick the can down the road, not necessarily in that order, but when their backs have been against the wall, more often than not, they've succumbed to the right thing.

They moved heaven and earth to get Drew Hutchison in the rotation, in a blatant attempt to salvage that stomach-turning salary dump last summer, but Hutchison just wouldn't cooperate. He virtually pointed a gun at everyone's collective head and forced himself to the minors.

The result?

Glasnow is in the majors, probably faster than anyone would want, especially after seeing more of his bouts with fastball command through the spring.

I'm OK with this part. The kid's dominated at every level, including Class AAA. He's already dipped his toe in the majors, too. It's a fine time for him to brought along slowly as the No. 5 guy, so long as Hurdle brings out the quick hook when that four-seamer starts spraying.

Besides, this approach is refreshing in that it offers potential to the rotation, something it absurdly lacked last year when Ryan Vogelsong was summoned to kill innings.

And it's infinitely better than attempting to justify scandalous transactions and all the shameless lies that followed.

6. I love Ivan Nova.

Full marks to Neal Huntington and staff for identifying and acquiring him. Full marks to Nova for staying.  It could be a perfect fit.

5. Will anyone come?

Attendance at PNC dropped by an average of 3,079 paying customers from 2015 to 2016. Sellouts dropped from 23 each in 2013 and 2014 to six last season. And contrary to common misperception, that doesn't happen because fans decide in midstream that they don't want to attend games. It happens in the previous offseason, when the overwhelming portion of season tickets and group sales are sold.

Which means that this drop occurred after a 98-win season.

Which means, in turn, that it was probably based a bunch on the front office's badly botched offseason that followed that 98-win season.

I don't know about you, but I haven't exactly gathered that it's all wine and roses with the fan base this offseason, especially the reaction -- fair or not -- to Cutch being shopped at the Winter Meetings. So between that and all the success the Penguins and Steelers have enjoyed over the past 10 months and the lack of lure to support baseball first and foremost, I'm having a hard time imagining that attendance will roar right back this summer.

4. This bullpen brings it.

"There are some serious arms here," Watson was saying, and he's right on. Between the optimal version of Watson, a year-older Rivero, a bullet-throwing Juan Nicasio and a bunch of other strike-throwers, Hurdle can mix and match as he pleases, lefty/righty, whatever, and manage his way through even a five-inning start if needed.

This can't be understated or underestimated.

3. Is Cutch a goner?

He's the greatest of a generation for the Pirates. It'll be a long, long time until the franchise sees anyone else achieve close to what he has over such a sustained span.

The front office knows it's coming. He knows it. Everyone does.

2. A Chicago dynasty? Please.

I'm not as fatalistic about the Cubs as many seem to be. Baseball no longer lends itself to repeat champions -- no one's done it since the Yankees took their third in a row in 2000 -- much less dynasties. And that's partly because payrolls have leveled somewhat but also because even the most loaded rosters are one clutched elbow, blown-out knee or drug suspension away from falling off.

But wow, there's been this broader public sentiment for months now that there's just no point in living, much less competing, since the Cubs are going to win 150 games and sweep their way to a second championship. And I'm not seeing that.

I'm not saying the Cubs won't win the Central. They're the favorite, for sure. And the Cardinals are right behind them, maybe even right with them.

But this idea that the Pirates should just concede the next century or so ... trust me when I say it isn't shared in that clubhouse.

1. Playoffs or bust.

I also get the sense that there's a lot of lowering the bar for the Pirates, no doubt influenced by how the front office expertly manages precisely that each offseason.

Sorry, not here.

There's no justification for a team with a strong, mostly young, dynamic core like this couldn't be supplemented along the way and emerge into a real player within the Central. If they get through this April unscathed, if they find a surprise or two in that rotation, if they settle the back end of the pen, there's no reason that couldn't be built into something more.

Well, except that we saw it play out that way early last summer, only for the front office to publicly beg for reasons to pull the plug and eventually, of course, doing exactly that and fulfilling their own prophecy of failure once it fell apart.

What will it be this time?

I stopped forecasting long ago that this front office would ever take any single season seriously, but I believe in Hurdle, I believe in a good many of these players, and I believe that they can make enough of a run that, with their backs against the wall yet again, management could again succumb to the right thing.

This could be a contender. Now, too, not in 2023 or whatever.