Tired of losing, Giles sees promise ahead
BRADENTON, Fla. – Brian Giles’ consistency is almost scary. His home run totals since joining the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1999 are 39, 35, 37, 38. He has 37 doubles each of the last three seasons. His batting average was .315 in 1999 and 2000, .309 in 2001, .298 last season.
“My numbers have been fairly consistent over the last four years,” Giles said.
No kidding.
What troubles Giles is the Pirates have been just as predictable – predictably bad, with 83 losses in 1999, followed by 93, 100 and 89 the last three seasons.
An argument can be made there’s no better player in the majors on so poor a team than Giles – among all NL players, only Barry Bonds was better than Giles last season in getting on base and hitting for power.
But now that he’s 32, seemingly at the peak of his consistent career, it’s obvious the losing is wearing on Giles. He knows that careers are judged not just by how many homers a player hits and how many runners he drives home, but how many games he wins.
That’s why, 149 homers and 365 losses into his Pirates’ career, Giles finally sees a glimmer of hope, some signs a team coming off 10 consecutive sub-.500 seasons may be ready to end its endless cycle of losing.
He’s not predicting the Pirates will overhaul the talented Cardinals in the NL Central, contend in September or get over .500 for the first time since 1992. After all, the Pirates haven’t won more than 79 games in any season since their 96-win season in 1992 and are a combined 41 games under .500 with Giles.
But when he looks around the Pirates’ clubhouse, he sees veteran players with winning resumes and not-old pitchers who have won games in the majors, rather than those who merely hope to do so. He sees a bullpen that might be one of the NL’s best, a bench that many contenders wouldn’t mind having.
He also likes what he doesn’t see: prospects rushed to the majors prematurely, visibly nervous by their new surroundings and doomed to fail in them.
“Every season here has been a rebuilding process,” Giles said. “Nothing against the younger players in our organization, but it’s awfully hard to perform at this level and have success at the same time you’re having to learn the game.”
Despite being limited by a payroll one-third the size of the Yankees’ $150 million, general manager Dave Littlefield has built a more competitive team by adding outfielders Reggie Sanders, Kenny Lofton and Matt Stairs, first baseman Randall Simon and pitchers Jeff D’Amico, Julian Tavarez, Jeff Suppan and Matt Herges.
Adding veterans late in their careers is a gamble, as evidenced by the Derek Bell mistake, but Giles doesn’t see such a failure among this group.
“People are still going to say the people we brought in are on the downside of their career, but this team has been starving for those kind of players,” Giles said. “It’s a different atmosphere and, for the first time, you go in feeling like you have a chance of winning. That’s something we haven’t had for the last three or four years.”
It’s not just the veterans, either. Giles sees improvement in the Pirates’ young talent, products of a farm system in which every Pittsburgh minor league team enjoyed a winning season last year.
“We’re much better than last year – that team probably wasn’t half as good as this team, and we were only 71/2 or 8 games out at the All-Star break,” he said. “If we can keep guys healthy and everybody goes out and has their normal years …”
Giles didn’t finish the thought, so teammate Jason Kendall did it for him.
“It’s going to be a fun year,” Kendall said.