Sanchez won't predict another batting title, but ...

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BRADENTON, Fla. -- Freddy Sanchez, your surprise National League batting champion, has every reason to believe that what he accomplished last year he can pull off again this year. He says as much, too, without a trace of preening, without any manufactured humility and with no practiced nonchalance whatsoever.

The Pirates' 5-foot-10 infielder works at his stroke every day. His single-minded approach to hitting, to every at-bat, is the envy of the Pirates' clubhouse. In addition, he's in relatively good shape (relatively only because he sprained his knee slightly Tuesday in an exhibition game), he's focused and he's ready for the season to begin.

So why shouldn't Sanchez expect big things in '07? Why shouldn't the Pirates expect the same?

Sanchez won't go so far as to predict a second straight batting title in '07, any more than he'd guarantee a winning season for the Pirates. But Sanchez -- who has played second, third and shortstop for the Pirates -- said he certainly can have a similar season to his breakout '06, when he hit .344 to become the first Pittsburgh player to win a batting crown since Bill Madlock (.323) in 1983.

Similar would do Sanchez just fine. And it'd no doubt work out pretty well for the Pirates, too.

"You have to believe that you can. And I believe that I can," Sanchez said at McKechnie Field, the team's spring training home in Bradenton. "I always knew that if I was given the chance, given the opportunity, that I could help a team win. That I could be a good, productive major league baseball player. I still have that confidence. And hopefully I can keep it going."

Sanchez's manager, the perpetually positive Jim Tracy, won't be so foolish to say Sanchez will win another batting title this season, either. But the skipper thinks so much of his newfound star and what he means to the team that Tracy can't bring himself to say that Sanchez won't win it.

"If he wins another one, that wouldn't surprise me. I'm not saying he will, in 2007," Tracy says. "But at some point, if he wins another one ... it wouldn't surprise me at all."

It took several years for Sanchez, 29, to get to the point where he can publicly show this much confidence. He was an 11th-round draft pick whose minor-league career was derailed by injuries. He didn't get any meaningful playing time in the majors until 2005, when he became Pittsburgh's utility infielder.

Last spring, Sanchez was still so lightly regarded by the Pirates -- the team that traded for him (he was drafted by the Red Sox in 2002 after playing at Oklahoma City University) -- that the penny-squeezing Bucs brought in 36-year-old Joe Randa to be the starter at third base. That was a nice jab in the face to start Sanchez's season.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't [disappointed]," he says. "At the time, I thought that maybe I deserved a <em>chance</em> to be the starter, show what I could do."

But Randa went down early with an injury, Sanchez took over and took off, and after a few months the Bucs began to play better, too. Few in Pittsburgh believe that Sanchez's rise to prominence -- he was named to the All-Star team -- and the Pirates' improved play in the season's second half were mere coincidences.

"He's fought through adversity all his life. Time and time again, he's defied the odds," says Pirates general manager Dave Littlefield. "He's a guy that's nice to have on your team as a part of the group. You hope to have people emulate the way he plays and the way he handles himself."