Despite the fact that the Pirates rank near the bottom of Major League Baseball in numerous offensive categories to start the season, Ben Cherington believes things will improve based on internal measurements that show players' surface performance is below what is expected.

Speaking on his weekly radio show today, Cherington went into further detail regarding the observations that support the staff's beliefs that better days are ahead. 

"It basically comes down to two things. There's the actual outcomes in the games and things we see. Did that ball fall in for a hit? Did it not? Did that ball get through the infield? Did it not? Did they strike out? Did they walk? All the things we see, and ultimately that's the most important stuff because those are the things that are happening in the game that add up to wins and losses, and we want to win," Cherington said. "Those are what we call the surface outcomes, the things that actually happen." 

Cherington added that underneath that, they can look at what they believe is the more "predictive performance." Instead of the actual outcomes on the field, they measure what they think is happening and how they would predict things to play out in terms of outcomes. 

"For example, we all know a hitter can hit a line drive to a shortstop and it could be caught. That's an out and an outcome. But if he hits that ball that hard and at that trajectory over time and over the course of the season, history tells us it's going to add up to hits a lot of the time," Cherington said. "It’s basically looking at what has actually happened and what we’d expect to happen over the course of a season if a hitter continues to do these things. If a hitter continues to make these swing decisions and hit the ball this hard at this angle and this distribution across the field over the course of a season, what would we expect to happen. What we’re seeing so far in our group is that what is actually happening, which we know needs to improve, is below what we would expect to happen over the course of the season." 

Cherington said this still wouldn't be one of the best offenses in baseball even if what they expect to happen actually does. He said it's still his job and the job of his staff to help the team improve in other ways. 

"But it is important to look at that because we’re in the business of making bets on people and decisions, so if we see something under the hood that we think over time is predictive of more success, then we’re going to want to give that more time if we can," Cherington said. "We want to see that play out. We don’t want to cut something off before we get to the good stuff. It’s a constant balance between what is actually happening today on the field and what will probably happen if we give this more time.”