Dioner Navarro and the Tampa Bay Rays were hoping for the best after a simple pickoff play in the third inning. Navarro was struck by a pickoff throw during the Rays' 16-15 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday and departed with an injured left thumb. Navarro was hit when Jack Taschner threw over to first.

Dioner Navarro and the Tampa Bay Rays were hoping for the best after a simple pickoff play in the third inning. Navarro was struck by a pickoff throw during the Rays' 16-15 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday and departed with an injured left thumb. Navarro was hit when Jack Taschner threw over to first.

At the end of 2007, the Detroit Tigers needed a new shortstop. The Pirates had one, Jack Wilson, that they were willing to trade.

Detroit was willing to part with an advanced pitching prospect, Jair Jurrjens, who almost came to Pittsburgh, but the Tigers finally took the Atlanta Braves’ Edgar Renteria instead.

This choice was made through the rearview mirror. Renteria did have a better 2007 than Wilson.

But the value of the two men was comparable in 2008, and the younger Wilson was worth a lot more in 2009. This means the Tigers would have done better with Wilson, and that the Pirates should have gotten Jurrjens.

Apparently, part of the problem was that the Pirates wanted at least one prospect in addition to Jurrjens. In the Renteria trade, outfielder Gorkys Hernandez, whom the Pirates coveted, went to Atlanta along with Jurrjens.

It didn’t make sense at the time for the Pirates to trade for outfielders. Hernandez finally ended up with Pittsburgh after he was traded by the Braves, along with two pitchers, for Nate McLouth.

Perhaps the Tigers would have been willing to trade Jurrjens to the Pirates for Wilson, “straight up,” if Hernandez was not involved, but wanted someone better if the prospect was included.

Or perhaps, the Pirates were using the “old math” (pre-2005) that required one advanced prospect and two raw prospects for their veteran, even though Wilson was clearly no Nate McLouth.

Jurrjens turned out to be another “Charlie Morton” a year or two earlier. In his 2007 rookie season, he posted a lackluster 4.70 ERA. He improved it by a whole point to 3.68  in 2008, and again to 2.60 in 2009.

Certainly, he was better than any hurler the Pirates had during those two years. And if he had been in the rotation in 2008 there might have been less urgency to trade hard-hitting outfielders for starters.

Renteria was in turn traded to the San Francisco Giants, where Freddy Sanchez ended up. This means if his name were Wilson, the trade to the Giants would have re-established the Wilson-Sanchez double play combo in San Francisco.

That would have been a high price to pay for Jurrjens, but it wouldn’t have been that much, given his performance the past two seasons.

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Paul Maholm pitched one scoreless inning to start the Pirates’ exhibition season and pronounced that the left knee injury that had an impact on his 2009 season was no longer a factor.

“Actually, it wasn’t as much of a big deal last season as some people are making it out to be,” Maholm said.

Maholm went 8-9 with a 4.43 ERA last season after straining a ligament in his left knee during his final start in spring training. However, the injury was never made public until he admitted he had pitched hurt when asked by reporters during the final week of the season.

“I just don’t think it was that big of a deal,” Maholm said. “There isn’t a pitcher in the major leagues who goes out and makes 30-plus starts a season, takes the ball every fifth day and feels 100 percent every…

Pirates fans haven’t been treated to much good baseball or many star players since former Pirate Sid Bream raced home to win the NLCS for the Atlanta Braves in 1992.

But 2010 could be different, even if the won/loss column does show the Pirates with an above-.500 record when everything is said and done.

There is plenty to like about this years team and plenty of reasons to watch the Pirates as they continue the long journey back from the cellar. Here’s five of those reasons.

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For anyone who enjoys watching young players develop and stars bloom in the majors, Pittsburgh is the place to be the next few years. An organization that seemed hell bent on losing and destroying talent for almost two decades now has something it has not had in many years.

Young talent…and lots of it.

From Low A to the Majors, the Pirates have young players worth watching.

Let’s meet five of those players and take a look at what we can expect from them in 2010.

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Matt Garza looked good and felt even better. After two exhibition outings, including three scoreless innings Monday in Tampa Bay's 4-3 victory over a Pittsburgh Pirates split-squad, the Rays right-hander is happy about the way he's pitching this spring. Garza won 11 games two years ago in his first full season in the majors and was the MVP of the 2008 AL championship series while helping…

When you think Pittsburgh Pirates you probably don’t think of a sturdy, young, and reliable rotation. What probably comes to mind is 16 straight years of losing, 17 if you want to count the strike-shortened 1994 year. 

This year may not be any different, but if they extend the streak it will likely not be attributed to a poor starting staff. The Pirates have quietly built a talented and tough starting rotation. No name in their top four screams ace quite yet but strong rotations are built on consistency from the top to the bottom and the Pirates actually have that this year. Lets examine their top four starters and the two competing for the fifth spot.

Ross Ohlendorf

Ohlendorf had a strong 2009 starting 29 games and pitching 176 innings, netting a 3.92 ERA with 11 wins. Ohlendorf was fairly lucky if you look at the difference between his FIP and his ERA, but he is a contact pitcher and contact pitcher’s FIP’s are usually a bit higher than their ERAs. Ohlendorf was the most productive starter on the staff last year and although the Pirates have gotten worse defensively behind him, he should remain a solid starting option in 2010.

Paul Maholm

Maholm is another contact pitcher for the Pirates, and he is not the last one I will mention. This lefty has totaled 401 innings over the past two years in 62 starts. That averages out to 6.46 innings per start which should help in keeping the bullpen fresh. He has a 102 ERA+ over the past two seasons which is a bit above average compared to the rest of the league. He is a solid middle of the rotation starter. 

Zach Duke

Duke is very similar to Maholm but Duke was a bit more successful last season. Duke has yet to have a season like Maholm had in 2008, but he did post a 101 ERA+ last season in 32 starts. Duke threw 213 innings last year and he had his lowest ERA of his career at 4.06. Again, Duke does not have ace type stuff but he is a very solid starter. Many teams would love to have solid and reliable lefties like Duke and Maholm in the middle of their rotation. Duke’s biggest problem has been allowing too many home runs, as he allowed 23 last year. He’ll need to reverse the trend of an annually increasing fly ball percentage if he would like to limit the homers. 

Charlie Morton

Morton probably has the best overall stuff on the roster. He was the biggest piece acquired by the Pirates in the Nate McLouth deal made last summer and the Braves were upset to let a talented young starter like Morton go. Morton has yet to put it together at the major league level but he does feature a mid 90s fastball with a plus curveball. Morton has the ability to take over as the top pitcher on the staff if he is able to get comfortable at this level. Morton has shown glimpses of dominance as he closed the season off with a complete game shutout of the Cubs, allowing just seven base runners and striking out eight in the process. 

Daniel McCutchen

McCutchen is battling for the fifth spot and at 27 it is his time to prove that he is worth a starting spot. McCutchen has had a solid minor league career posting a 3.12 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 7.3 K/9, and just 1.9 BB/9. McCutchen got his first opportunity in the majors last season starting six games and saw success in his final three starts. He finished the year with three straight quality starts allowing just six runs over the course of 18.1 innings.

Kevin Hart

Hart is a former Chicago Cubs minor league pitcher of the year. He has had trouble at the major league level but he has solid AAA numbers. Hart has struck out 159 batters in 166 innings in his AAA career. He claims that he tried too hard to impress his new team last year and he changed his motion in order to do so, which may have led to his poor results in his 10 starts as a Pirate. Even with the poor outings last year, manager John Russell has stated that Hart is very much in the race for the fifth spot in the rotation with Daniel McCutchen. 

Every pitcher that I have mentioned will be either 27 or 28 next season, the expected start to the prime of a baseball player’s career. Only Morton possess the stuff to be a front line ace on a staff, but the solid production from the entire rotation is what makes this staff underrated. There are few teams with solid rotations that have a good mix of right-handers and left-handers who have the ability to pitch deep into games as the Pirates have.

This may not be the year that the Pirates break the streak, but they have put themselves in position to have a strong starting staff which should help them compete in the open NL Central. The Pirates have the lowest payroll in baseball and they are relying on these starters to give them solid innings throughout the year, with the hope that they may be in the race with some flexibility at the trade deadline. I, for one, believe in this rotation and think that they can be one of the better rotations in the National League.

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Charlie Morton’s 2009 ERA of 4.55 shouts “league average.”  But that’s exactly what he is not, because he got there in a funny way.

My father (a retired civil engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University) used to say that there were two types of “B” students.  One type made “straight Bs.” The other (rarer) kind made half As and half Cs.

The latter were the ones to watch, because if they brought their Cs up to Bs, they’d have a 3.5 average.  And it might actually be easier for them to turn their Cs into As than for straight-B students to turn their grades into As.

On this scale, Charlie Morton’s “average” stats might consist of two “As” and one “D.” Or even three “As” and one “F,” if you count his one-inning, ten-run, 90.00 ERA in Wrigley Field as the latter.  This statistical property is called “skewness.”  Which is all to the Pirates‘ benefit (holding ERA constant).

With their light hitting, the Pirates are underdogs any time their starting pitchers turn in even a “B” performance, because opposing starters are likely to make a similar showing.  Then hitters decide the game.

Zach Duke is now such a pitcher: very few really bad outings, only a handful of brilliant ones.  But he typically gives up a run or two more than the Pirates can score, which is why he is a “losing” pitcher, despite being (barely) above league average.

The Pirates are favorites only when their starter has an “A” outing.  Then, it’s a question of whether or not their batters can eke out that extra run or so above what the pitchers give up, to put themselves on top.

Morton was “unlucky” in this regard in 2009: three of his “A” outings turned into losses, leaving him with a 5-9 record, instead of the 8-6 he might have had.

On the other hand, while the Pirates are somewhat less likely to win a “C” start than a “B” start, the difference is less than for most other teams.  That’s because the Pirates win fewer “B” starts than most.  By the same token, a “D” or “F” start isn’t that much worse for Pittsburgh than a “C” start.

Meaning that a pitcher who pitches a lot of “A” games, then “kitchen sinks” a bunch of ERA-skewing runs into a handful of bad starts is a very useful pitcher for the Pirates.  That pitcher is Charlie Morton.

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BRADENTON, Fla. – Kevin Hart, vying for a spot in Pittsburgh's starting rotation, battled through one rocky inning and Ryan Church hit a two-run homer Saturday, as the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies played to a 3-3 tie in 10 innings.