We Have A Label For This

CBSSportsline's Scott Miller doesn't seem to understand what causes baseball teams to win and lose.

Ah, spring. Time for the Pittsburgh Pirates to rev up for another season.

Which, you know, means they can practice overthrowing first base, missing the strike zone, failing to move runners over and maybe even devote time to tossing rainbows over a few cutoff men.

He then goes on to spend most of the piece talking about the Pirates' problems and 15 year streak of finishing under .500. But here's a little list I prepared which should shed light on some facts that Scott might not be familiar with.

Not reasons the Pirates were bad in 2007:
-overthrowing first base (fourth fewest errors in MLB)
-missing the strike zone (13th fewest walks)
-missing the cutoff man (not statistically measurable, but impossible to affect team's record by more than a couple games)
-failing to move runners over (see "missing the cutoff man")

Reasons the Pirates were bad in 2007, have been bad since 1993, and probably will continue to be bad for the foreseeable future:
-not employing enough good baseball players

Later:

The Pirates are packing treasures from their past -- spring instructors Mazeroski, Manny Sanguillen, Bill Virdon and Kent Tekulve -- as proof that this organization once was more than sunken treasure.

"We're starting to go back to the basics," said Sanguillen, who has spent much of his spring tutoring catchers Ryan Doumit and Ronny Paulino. "Vocal communication. Motivation. Try to bring passion back to the game, and belief. Make them believe we're going to win."

I hate to sound like a broken record, but you might want to also work on employing more good baseball players.