CINCINNATI -- Can't predict ball, as they say.
And definitely can't predict the Pirates.
This is the day, of course, that Major League Baseball goes from grapefruits to the one, true opening game anywhere, here in the 150-year-old home of its most venerable franchise: Through the morning and afternoon, the schools and offices are closed, there's a parade through town and into historic Findlay Market.
"It's a holiday! A baseball holiday!" the legendary red-leg Sparky Anderson once famously exclaimed. "Ain't no other place in America got that!"
Nope. And at 4:10 p.m., the Reds' Luis Castillo will fire the first pitch to Adam Frazier, and it'll all get really real.
Beyond that?
As Clint Hurdle put it to me the other day in Houston, "Every season has that mystery. You don’t know what’s going to happen, do you?” And when I responded that, in fact, I don’t, he proceeded, "Neither do we. So that’s where we are: We’re just looking forward to the ride. Your best plan for your future is to create it. It should be a lot of fun.”
We'll certainly find out. Probably before long.
See, the problem with peering into the Pirates' future of a full summer is that they never enter a season equipped with the strongest roster they could have and, thus, they wait half the season before determining if it's worthwhile to add and, if it isn't, they're capable of going kablooey on the entire process. So what this morning looks like, oh, another 82-win roster, could just as violently swing toward 90 or 70 depending on which way the front office pendulum swings.
Crazy, right?
I know, I know. It's the opener. Hopes and dreams and rainbows and sugarplums and all that. I hear you.
OK, so, in the footsteps of John Perrotto's predictions yesterday, here are 10 of my own in no particular order:
• Ivan Nova will top the Pirates' fifth starter.
Hey, why not start with the easy stuff?
But then, if it's that easy, why can't the front office see it, too?
Nova, 32, isn't worth grieving as a departure in most events. But this wasn't most events. He was signed for $8.5 million through 2019, after which he was bound for free agency. The cost was reasonable to keep him, the risk negligible. And if he'd stayed, an already solid top four in the rotation would have had an additional option, and the team's strength would have been stronger.
As it was, slashing the payroll was the priority, so three infinitely cheaper options were lined up against each other in a sham spring competition -- Jordan Lyles was always going to beat out Nick Kingham and Steven Brault -- and the result was a lesser payroll ... and a lesser rotation.
Oh, they might add eventually. But they might not, if things don't go well. Never mind that things have a better chance of going well if all 162 games are taken seriously.
• Jameson Taillon will ascend to the elite.
Really, how can anyone not believe in this young man?
He's got all the tools, all the talent, plus the ambition level and awareness of a player attempting to become great. Not good. Not very good. Not conditionally very good. Actually great.
And after all he's already been through, to have finally pushed through a full season in 2018 -- he didn't allow more than three earned runs in any of his last 22 starts, an insane streak -- it takes a special cynicism, I think, to presume he's not about to rise up further.
"I want to be better. I need to be better," Taillon told me. "That's how I see it. There were a lot of things about last season I liked, but I didn't get where I need to be."
• Starling Marte will become the bad guy.
At least in the eyes of much of the fan base. And that's too bad.
He's a very good baseball player, brain cramps and all. In 2018, over a team-high 559 at-bats, he slashed .277/.327/.460 with 20 home runs, 72 RBIs and 33 steals. That, twinned with his brilliant range and arm in center field, would make him a welcome fit on maybe three-quarters of all teams in the majors.
But then, he does terribly ill-advised things, sometimes in the field, usually on the basepaths, and it's all anyone can remember. Even if the impact of those mistakes winds up minimal, they're brought up again and again while all the good is ignored.
I asked Marte in Houston how he's feeling heading into 2019.
"So good. So excited," he replied with a thump of the right fist to his heart. "Big year for me. Big year for everyone."
What he was thumping there ... that's always in the right place. At least remember that.
• Hurdle will be a worse guy.
Show me a manager who makes all the right bullpen moves, and I'll show you a genius.
Show me a manager presiding over a good pitching staff and a questionable lineup, and I'll show you tons of opportunities for the manager to look like ... less than a genius.
This will be an exasperating team to follow. That's as close as I'll come to a concrete prediction for the bigger picture. Because they'll pitch, but they won't hit enough to pull away from many opponents. That, of course, will magnify every move Hurdle makes, every mistake from every reliever, and it won't necessarily be fair to any of those people because, well, they weren't the ones who failed to bolster the lineup.
• Gregory Polanco will have a big year.
No, I haven't lost my mind. I know he'll be out a while to open the season. But the prognosis for a May return was at the very outset from his shoulder surgery and didn't take into account the timetable if everything went swimmingly. Which, I'm told, it has. He's currently swinging, throwing and, yeah, playing right field in Bradenton, and he's doing so without limitations.
In a long talk I had with Polanco this spring, he spoke of feeling humbled by the injury, of feeling that fear that athletes experience when their life's work is suddenly stripped away. He harnessed that energy into a positive and applied it to his rehab.
"I worked so, so hard," he told me. "I can't wait to come back. I can't wait to get back on that field."
• So will Josh Bell.
Maybe I'm naive, but I'm a believer in the big man.
And because of that, principally, I'm a believer that this lineup won't be the embarrassment some seem to be presuming. Adam Frazier can flat-out hit. Marte, Polanco, Jung Ho Kang and Francisco Cervelli can hit. Corey Dickerson will hit like a madman through the All-Star break. I don't have much faith in the rest, but the rest doesn't matter with most other teams, either.
If Bell can do his part, there's plenty here. But Bell really needs to do that 2017 thing again:
• The defense will dip.
Jordy Mercer and Josh Harrison weren't the rangiest or most pristine middle-infield combo in baseball, but they were better defensively -- and they'll continue to be that in Detroit -- than what the Pirates will have in Erik Gonzalez and Frazier. Even giving those two the benefit of the doubt, they couldn't conceivably put it all together after only a single spring together, one in which Gonzalez didn't enter as the designated starter.
"You know what? I thought it went well," Frazier told me in Houston. "We feel like we had a lot of opportunities to work together even when it wasn't a game, when we'd stay back in Bradenton on a road game to work on the shifting and stuff. All our communication's been good, the signals, who's getting what ball, how we're playing a situation ... honestly, I feel like we're in a good spot with the chemistry factor."
They did combine for a fine forceout Monday night at Minute Maid Park, I should share. Gonzalez bobbled a highly challenging short hop in front of the bag, but he and Frazier both maintained poise to at least get the lead runner at second.
"Yeah, I'd say that was a good example," Frazier confirmed. "There was some trust there."
This actually has me more worried than any facet of this team other than Bell's bat. Because the Pirates' rotation will be at is best if it's keeping the ball on the ground, and if those aren't consistently converted into outs, a colossal disruption will be at hand.
• Felipe Vazquez will need help ... in a decade or so.
"That guy," Keone Kela was telling me, "he's just unbelievable, the things he can do, the confidence he has. And still, he's so grounded. He's just one of us."
Should Vazquez sputter -- and it's happened on a couple occasions since his arrival -- Kela can close. Kyle Crick and Richard Rodriguez are highly effective back-end options, too.
But don't count on it: Vazquez's career WHIP, or walks and hits per inning pitched, over four years is 1.10. That's exceptional all by itself, but the consistency per season -- 0.95, 1.29, 0.89, 1.24 -- powerfully suggests he'll be immune to the standard seesaw stats most relievers experience.
He's special.
• There will be a sellout.
One, anyway.
Unlike 2018, when PNC Park wasn't once packed to capacity, that'll happen for the home opener Monday. But even then, only because they're virtually begging people to take tickets, if you've caught some of these promotions.
The exact same market set a franchise record in 2015 with 2,498,596 total tickets sold, a figure that plummeted to 1,465,316 last summer. A million fans went poof in a four-year span.
It's the market's fault, right?
• Oh ... 79-83?
Come on, you knew I'd spit one out. There it is.
These Pirates might well outpitch the 2018 Pirates and, within that alone, they could outdo the 82 mark. But offense and defense matter, too, and shortcomings with either can take a toll on all concerned. It's tougher to keep spirits up after those types of losses. It's tougher to stick together.
And, should things veer too far off course, it's tougher to force the front office to treat the season at hand as if it matters.
