The Numbers
	2002 record: 72-89, .447 (22nd overall) Runs scored: 641, 15th in NL Runs allowed: 730, 10th in NL Run differential: -89 (22nd overall) Starters' ERA: 4.49, tied for 11th in NL Bullpen ERA: 3.78, 7th in NL Payroll (Opening Day): $42.3 million (24th overall) Attendance: 1.78 million (22nd overall) 3-year record: 203-282, .419 (27th overall)

2002 in review
What went right?
Brian Giles. No matter what else former GM Cam Bonifay may ever do in baseball, he'll always have Cleveland. Acquiring Giles from the Indians for lefty reliever Ricardo Rincon ranks up there with Jeff Bagwell-for-Larry Andersen as one of the true fleecings in baseball history. Giles continued to be baseball's most underappreciated player in 2002, putting up numbers that Barry Bonds would be happy with: a batting average right near .300, 80 extra-base hits, and 135 walks. There certainly aren't 10 better players in baseball.

Kip Wells. The booty from another good trade, Wells came over along with two other pitchers for Todd Ritchie. While Ritchie was busy providing practice for Patrick Hayashi and Alex Popov wannabes, Wells was giving the Pirates a good start every fifth day, finishing the year with a 3.58 ERA in 198 1/3 innings.

What went wrong?
The Curse of Carl Barger and Andy Van Slyke continued. The last Pirates team to post a winning record had some guy named Barry Bonds on it.

The Pirates "offense" scored just 641 runs, beating out only the pathetic and battered Brewers squad, despite having the NL's second best offensive player in Giles. Aside from Giles, the Pirates hit an aggregate .238/.297/.356. To put that in perspective, the Pirates offense would have been about the same had it consisted of Giles and eight Deivi Cruz clones.

In retrospect, the critical decisions were:
1. Signing Jason Kendall to a six-year, $60-million extension. In November of 2000, the Pirates signed Kendall -- coming off a big comeback season -- through the year 2007. Since signing the contract, Kendall has managed just 65 extra-base hits in two full seasons, and his high walk rate of 2000 appears to have been an aberration. He's gone from a potential MVP candidate to a problem that needs to be addressed.

	Jason Kendall Catcher Pittsburgh Pirates Profile
	2002 SEASON STATISTICS GM AB R HR RBI AVG 145 545 59 3 44 .283

2. Raising ticket prices after a disastrous 2001 season. Last year, attendance dropped by more than 25 percent from PNC Park's inaugural season. The Pirates thought the city's honeymoon with the new ballpark could support a price increase, and fans responded by staying away, leaving the team in a public-relations lurch. Given the bad contracts the Pirates have had to deal with, they can ill afford to have a lot of variance in their attendance and the resulting revenue stream.

3. Failing to revamp the player development system. The Pirates haven't produced a truly great hitter in ages. They no longer have the capability to build an offense from within, and instead have spent the last few years bringing in overpriced second- and third-tier players like Mike Benjamin, Pat Meares, and Derek Bell. They're now free of the very worst of those deals, but it won't matter if they can't figure out how to start developing productive offensive players.

Looking ahead to 2003
Three key questions
1. Is Kris Benson healthy? He looked good down the stretch, pushing his ERA down from 8.23 after six starts to 4.70 for the season. But his injury was to the elbow, his velocity was off, and his peripheral numbers for the season didn't do much to inspire confidence. Benson struck out just 79 batters in 130.1 innings, down from 184 in 217.2 innings in 2000. He's going to have to be healthy and effective if the Pirates are even going to field a competitive team.

2. Who's going to hit? It's more of a rhetorical question than anything else. Going into 2003, the lineup aside from Giles looks like something that might have been put together by Rachel Phelps. Maybe Matt Stairs, Adam Hyzdu, and a revitalized Aramis Ramirez hold the key to an offensive renaissance, but with an infield populated by some combination of Pokey Reese, Jack Wilson, Kevin Young, and Randall Simon, the Pirates' few good hitters will have to play out of their minds in order for Pittsburgh to escape the bottom third of the league in offense.

3. Will the fans show up? The short answer is "Why should they?" Due to a price increase, the end of the honeymoon, and the Pirates slogging through their 10th consecutive losing season, attendance dropped precipitously in 2002. The 2003 Pirates don't look like a contending team, and the grace period provided by PNC Park appears to be over. If attendance continues to decline, it could contribute to a vicious cycle of decreasing revenues, poor performance, and even lower attendance.

Stats Corner
Brian Giles (above) drove in 103 runs, the third year in the last four that he's had 100 or more RBI. Mike Williams established a career high with 46 saves, third-most in the NL. After having a stellar year in 2001 (.300-34-112), Aramis Ramirez hits the skids in a big way last season (.234-18-71). Josh Fogg (12-12, 4.35) was 9-6 with a 3.56 ERA in 17 starts in the first half.

Can expect to play better
Aramis Ramirez. No, he's not a superstar, but with improved conditioning and any semblance of luck, he should be able to better his disastrous, injury-marred .234/.279/.387 campaign of 2002. He's only 25 this coming season, is reportedly in considerably better shape than before, and was once one of the best prospects in baseball.

Can expect to play worse
Giles. Not that he's likely to drop off a cliff or anything; it's a tribute to just how excellent his 2002 season was that a typical .295/.410/.570 season from Giles would be a significant dropoff. The Pirates didn't really have anyone with a breakout season out of line with reasonable expectations in 2002.

Projected lineup
2B Pokey Reese
C Jason Kendall
Brian Giles
Aramis Ramirez
Randall Simon
Craig Wilson
Tony Alvarez
Jack Wilson

Rotation
Kip Wells
Josh Fogg
Kris Benson
Jeff Suppan
Salomon Torres

Closer
Mike Williams

A closer look
Maybe someone near one of the Three Rivers broke a mirror.

The Pirates are the only team in the National League whose hitters have been below the league median walk rate in each of the past seven seasons.

Year	League median walk rate	Pirates walk rate	Pirates offense rank
1996	8.07%	7.78%	3rd out of 14
1997	8.56%	7.96%	9th out of 14
1998	8.25%	6.55%	15th out of 16
1999	9.35%	9.30%	12th out of 16
2000	9.50%	8.09%	9th out of 16
2001	8.06%	6.55%	15th out of 16
2002	8.60%	8.10%	15th out of 16

To put runs on the board, you need to get runners on base, and there are two ways of doing that -- getting hits and drawing walks. The Pirates don't seem to have learned that walks aren't just something that pitchers mistakenly allow. Walks are seized by hitters who come to the plate with a plan, and control the strike zone.

This blind spot isn't just limited to the major league roster. The Pirates organization has preached "aggressiveness at the plate" to the point where it doesn't coexist with a disciplined approach, and as a result, the Pirates have failed to convert the raw offensive potential in their farm system into productive and patient hitters. Players once considered top prospects, like Chad Hermansen and Aramis Ramirez, have lost command of the strike zone and seen their careers stall or crash.

Here's Hermansen's trek through the Pittsburgh minors and beyond:

Year	Team	At-bats	Walks	OPS
1995	Pirates (Rookie)	92	9	.896
1995	Erie (Class A)	165	18	.821
1996	Augusta (Class A)	226	38	.890
1996	Lynchburg (Class A)	251	29	.814
1997	Carolina (Double-A)	487	69	.851
1998	Nashville (Triple-A)	458	50	.854
1999	Nashville (Triple-A)	496	35	.851
2000	Nashville (Triple-A)	294	25	.688
2000	Pittsburgh	108	6	.522
2001	Nashville (Triple-A)	447	41	.751
2001	Pittsburgh	55	1	.470
2002	Pittsburgh/L.A.	237	22	.651

Hermansen was once one of the top prospects in baseball, showing the ability to hit for average and power with solid plate discipline. It's not as if he's turned into the second coming of Oscar Azocar or Ozzie Guillen -- he's just stalled out in terms of differentiating between balls and strikes, and good pitchers have taken advantage of that weakness.

Of course, it would be unfair to judge the entire Pirates player-development system based solely on one player's development. Nagging injuries or individual variance could be responsible for the entire difference. It's also possible that Hermansen, still young and in a new organization (he's with the Dodgers now), could break out and become the star that many once predicted he would be.

The Pirates need to learn the value of walks and on-base percentage. From little things like using some combination of Pokey Reese, Jack Wilson, and Tony Alvarez (27 walks in 507 Double-A at-bats) at the top of the lineup, to potentially big problems like signing Randall Simon, who starts flailing at pitches when he falls out of bed in the morning, the Pirates just don't get it. Life is OBP, OBP is Life, and you just don't get a big OBP without walks.

And luck doesn't have much to do with it.

You can check out more work from the team of writers of the Baseball Prospectus at baseballprospectus.com. Baseball Prospectus is a registered trademark of Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, LLC.