Value Over Replacement Blog

VORB IS REBORN!

2005-06-07T02:51:00.000-04:00

as Bucs Dugout. Please update your links, and see you there.

Thanks for everything,

Charlie

Studes on the Bucs

2005-05-17T17:43:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice article by Studes on why the Pirates and Brewers have been playing so well recently.

Studes notes, as many have, that the Pirates' run scoring has far better recently than it was at the beginning of the season. Here are the Pirates' hitting stats for May. Daryle Ward, Jose Castillo, Ty Wigginton and Rob Mackowiak are all playing way over their heads, and Jason Bay arguably is too. Jack Wilson and Matt Lawton, who probably shouldn't be benched for any extended period of time, have been cold. Other than that, it looks like Lloyd McClendon has done a fairly good job figuring out who the hot players are - or maybe those players are hot because they're getting playing time, or maybe McClendon is just lucky. (Actually, it's probably some combination of the three.) In any case, all the players above except Wigginton have played a lot, while cold players like Tike Redman, David Ross and Freddy Sanchez have had limited opportunities to hurt the Pirates.

The Pirates have allowed few runs in May, also, but the team's 3.73 ERA this month simply isn't sustainable, with nearly as many walks during that period as strikeouts. (And no, I don't care how good Brian O'Neill thinks the defense has been, but check out his fine article anyway.) In the meantime, though, Mark Redman, Kip Wells and Dave Williams have posted good ERAs this month, and opposing hitters have failed to score much at all against the Bucs' bullpen.

Meyer on Littlefield

2005-05-17T00:29:00.000-04:00

What an unbelievably stupid, breathless, worthless piece of hackery this is.

"You always have to be prepared for what could happen," Littlefield said. "It's easy to think everything's going good and there's no worries, but every general manager will tell you that's not the case."

A foul tip can injure a catcher in an instant. A second baseman can be lost for two months because he stood his ground while a baserunner crashed into him trying to break up a double play. An outfielder can hit a wall trying to catch a long drive.

Or a starting pitcher can be lost for the season when a line drive strikes his knee.

All of which are incredibly pressing issues when the team you built has never contended and is nowhere near ready to contend!

"Since coming out of spring training, there have been some thunderbolts," manager Lloyd McClendon said. "I think Dave has done a tremendous job of trying to manage this roster and giving me the best players he can possibly give me under the circumstances.

'By the way, Dave, if you're reading this, please don't fire me.'

That makes one realize there's yet another category in the "What if" game, as in "What if" Littlefield hadn't done a good job?

Well, then, you'd probably have a ridiculously inept Ryan Vogelsong in the rotation for two thirds of a year. You'd probably have huge holes at center field and third base. You'd probably have had one of the worst offenses in the big leagues last year. You'd probably have a consistently terrible performance record. Good thing Littlefield has done such a good job.

Paul Meyer, Dave Littlefield, please do us all a favor and retire. Both of you.

Pirates Acquire Restovich

2005-05-11T17:29:00.000-04:00

The Pirates just acquired Mike Restovich from the Rockies for a player to be named later and cash. Presuming the PTBNL isn't a prospect and that amount of cash isn't much (in the last few months, Restovich has been DFA'ed by the Rockies and Devil Rays and waived by the Twins, though with the Pirates one never knows), this is a nice little trade. Restovich is just 26 and has an .806 career major league OPS, and he has always hit pretty well against minor league pitching, so there could be some upside here. Since Craig Wilson is hurt, Nate McLouth and Chris Duffy aren't ready, and the Pirates don't want to move Daryle Ward to the outfield, the Pirates have a corner outfield spot available. This is a nice opportunity to find out more about Restovich, who could be a dirt-cheap, league-average player the next few years if everything breaks right for him. He might grab some starts here and there in the outfield, then become a solid bench player if better players become available. This trade isn't any big deal, but that doesn't mean it couldn't turn out nicely.

On Bronson Arroyo and Other "Castoffs"

2005-05-11T03:17:00.000-04:00

Bob Smizik writes about Chris Young, Bronson Arroyo, Leo Nunez and Roberto Novoa. Theirs are stories that need to be told, but Smizik doesn't tell them very well.

On Arroyo: "[The Pirates] gave Arroyo, who was a highly regarded prospect, ample opportunity and he never took advantage of it. In parts of three seasons with the Pirates, he was 9-14 and gave no hint of what was to come."

In parts of three seasons with the Pirates, that's almost true, but it doesn't come close to telling the whole story.

In 2000, when Arroyo was 23, he put up an 8-2 record and a 3.65 ERA in 88.2 innings at Class AAA Nashville. In spite of these superficially strong statistics, he had no business playing for the Pirates at that point - he only struck out 52 batters at Nashville, so his strikeout rate was quite low, an indication that he needed more time to develop. But he ended up pitching 71.2 innings for the Pirates that year anyway, and the results were predictable: he got bombed, putting up a 6.40 ERA.

Arroyo split 2001 between Nashville and Pittsburgh. His ERA went up a bit at Nashville, but his strikeout and K/BB rates were much better, indicating improvement. In Pittsburgh, his strikeout rate was a bit lower than it had been in 2000, but his walk rate dropped too, and he lopped 1.3 runs off his ERA.

Arroyo spent most of 2002 at Nashville, where he was downright good, posting 116 strikeouts, 28 walks and an ERA below 3. He didn't play much at Pittsburgh that year, but again, he knocked more than a run off the previous year's ERA when he did (although it was a small sample, and his strikeout and walk rates were about what they had been in 2000).

Arroyo's record wasn't completely consistent, but the general trend was one of marked improvement. The reason why Arroyo may have looked like a failed prospect at the time was that he was called up well before he should have been. In reality, he was already a productive big league pitcher in the season before the Pirates let him go, and a 25 year-old who puts up the numbers Arroyo did at AAA in 2002 deserves a spot on a roster, especially the roster of a bad team. It is also worth pointing out that when the Pirates let him go, Arroyo was two years younger than Ryan Vogelsong is now, and Vogelsong continues to get chances with the Pirates even though his performance record is not as strong as Arroyo's was. Dave Littlefield really screwed up in letting Arroyo go.

Elsewhere, Smizik rightly calls the Pirates out for losing Chris Young for the veteran Matt Herges, and for having so many former farmhands on other major league teams but failing to get anything from their own top draft picks. The Young move offers an unfortunate bit of history that the Pirates recently repeated. At the time of the trade, Young had posted great numbers at Class A Hickory, but his status as a prospect was widely doubted because he was old for his level and because he relied too much on a small number of pitches. Young's subsequent rise through the minors and success in the big leagues (in a small sample, I know) shows that There Is No Such Thing As Not A Pitching Prospect (TINSTANAPP). Just as you can't rely on a successful Class A pitcher to eventually help you in the big leagues, it's probably unwise to discount successful Class A starters on the basis of things they might improve later anyway, like secondary pitches and velocity. But that's exactly what the Pirates did with Leo Nunez, who, like Young, was mowing down hitters at Hickory but having trouble with secondary pitches when he was traded for a crappy veteran. The kicker, though, is that Nunez' stuff was probably better than Young's was at the time, and unlike Young, Nunez was not old for his league.

Anyway, Smizik fails to mention the real reason why it was dumb to dump Arroyo, Young and Nunez: the Pirates were not contending when those players were lost. Any transaction a team makes must be judged from within the context of what that team is trying to achieve. For example, if the Red Sox were to trade a pitching prospect for a veteran, and then they didn't get anything from the veteran while the prospect ended up helping another team a few years later, that would be a shame for the Red Sox. But it would not necessarily indicate a major error in judgment. It might just have been a good gamble that didn't work out. As Smizik points out, "Bad trades and ill-advised personnel decisions are part of baseball. They happen to all teams." If a bad trade happens every so often, that isn't the end of the world. But all trades should come within the context of a plan. Dave Littlefield doesn't have one, or if he does, it isn't any good.

Unlike the Red Sox, the Pirates need talented young players to succeed, and unlike the Sox, the Pirates aren't perennial contenders in need of immediate help at the big league level. That's what's so galling about the losses of Arroyo, Young, Nunez, Chris Shelton, Duaner Sanchez, Walter Young, and others - not only was there no immediate need for the mediocrities for whom those prospects were lost (Herges, Benito Santiago, Mike Lincoln, Abraham Nunez, Mark Corey, Jim Mann, Raul Mondesi, Randall Simon and others), but the Pirates also had and continue to have a pressing need for young players. Not only will young players help them build for the future, but they're also cheap, and the Pirates simply don't (or won't) have the resources to reach the playoffs without a core of players performing much better than their salaries.

The Stats Geek on the Catchers

2005-05-10T00:56:00.000-04:00

Brian O'Neill explains that defense was also a good reason why it was a good idea to drop Benito Santiago. This is a good column. I comment less on O'Neill's work than I used to, but that's mostly because there's less in them that I disagree with.

In other Benito-related news, the Royals called up Leo Nunez today. From a PR standpoint, that's some poor timing for the Pirates. Actually, though, what seems to be happening here is that the Royals aren't making a good decision. Nunez didn't pitch very well at Class A this year, and then he pitched five good innings at Class AA. Those five innings are his only experience above Class A. I don't see much evidence to suggest that he's ready.

Moreover, he isn't old, and he pitched very successfully last year in the South Atlantic League as a starter. Given that Nunez has very good stuff (although he has a limited assortment of pitches), it would behoove the Royals to let him start in the minors unless he proves he can't handle it. A good starter is worth far more than a good reliever. Nunez should be in the rotation at High Desert right now, not in the Royals' bullpen.

Oust McClatchy

2005-05-09T01:17:00.000-04:00

Sign the petition.

And visit Eric Bowser's frequently updated Pirates Ownership Must Go, while you're at it.

Santiago Released

2005-05-08T18:05:00.000-04:00

The Pirates have released Benito Santiago. Kudos to them for correcting their mistake, which was trading for him in the first place. When he was acquired, I complained that there was no need to trade a real prospect, Leo Nunez, for a catcher when the Pirates had several young catchers, and catchers who contribute at Santiago's level are fairly easy to find anyway.

Near the beginning of the season, the Pirates proved me, and nearly everyone else who was paying attention, right. After J.R. House's injury problems finally got the best of him and Humberto Cota experienced a minor injury, the Pirates decided it would help to acquire yet another catcher rather than bring up Ryan Doumit or Ronny Paulino to ride the bench behind Santiago. So they acquired David Ross from the Dodgers for a nominal fee. He has hit fairly well since then, and his defense is far better than Santiago's, so the Pirates are now releasing Santiago rather than sending Ross to Indianapolis to be their second AAA catcher.

Ross was probably not available for such a low price when the Pirates acquired Santiago, since Ross was not really expendable for the Dodgers until they later acquired Jason Phillips. But that is not the point. The point is that talents like Ross and Santiago are not hard to find in the offseason. You shouldn't trade prospects for them, especially if you're a bad team and you're hoping to contend in the future rather than the present.

In case you're wondering, Nunez is now pitching out of the bullpen for the Class AA Wichita Wranglers, where he has allowed one earned run and one walk, with five strikeouts, in five innings. In April, he also pitched for high Class A High Desert, where he has a 9.00 ERA in 13 innings, although he struck out 15 and walked only three. His chance of making the big leagues will be reduced if he can't make it as a starter, but he still has a chance at helping the Royals in the future. Santiago has no chance of ever helping the Pirates.

Reasons To Care

2005-05-07T21:00:00.000-04:00

One of the few comforts in rooting for a very bad baseball team is thinking about what's going on in the minor leagues. The guys the Pirates have down there mostly aren't very good either, but at least they're interesting. Let's take a look at how some of the Pirates' more intriguing farmhands are doing so far.

Indianapolis

Ryan Doumit 7 HR .333/.416/.680
Graham Koonce 7 HR .264/.341/.583

Doumit is similar to J.R. House in that he's hit very well as he has climbed the ladder, despite not actually playing very much at some spots due to injury. Unlike House, he's healthy now, and he's hitting better at AAA than House ever did. If he keeps this up, Doumit might make the Bucs' complicated catching situation even more complicated in a few months. Koonce continues to mash at AAA; his upside is low, but he might provide a fearsome bat off the bench for a Pirates team that badly needs offense. The Pirates should call him up now.

Ian Snell 38 IP 36 K 6 BB 3.55
Zach Duke 37 IP 24 K 8 BB 3.41

After a rough start for Indianapolis, Duke has performed better recently, but his ERA is way up from last year. The Pirates were right to send him back to the minors; he needs a couple more months there. Snell deserves to take the next opening in the rotation in Pittsburgh. In the last few years, many Pirates' pitching prospects have received more hype (Duke, Sean Burnett, John VanBenschoten, and even Bryan Bullington), but none have been as consistently good as Snell.

Altoona

Well, actually, no one currently at Altoona has played very well there. Brad Eldred punished the ball as usual for a month, then got promoted to Indianapolis; infielder Craig Stansberry was good at Lynchburg and recently got promoted to Altoona. After that, there isn't much to report. However, this line is nothing if not interesting:

Matt Peterson 21.1 IP 9 K 22 BB 9.70

No, I didn't get those K and BB numbers backwards. Ouch.

Lynchburg

Javier Guzman 3 HR .333/.384/.510

The entire Lynchburg team is hitting well, but most of its players are so old that they have no chance of making the majors. Guzman isn't one of those; he's young, he plays middle infield, and he hit well for contact last year at Hickory. He was left off the 40-man roster last winter, but no one took him in the Rule 5 draft. He's hitting like crazy right now, and people who've had the chance to watch him have reported that the numbers aren't fluky - he's hitting the ball with more authority this year. Of the Hillcats' other hitters, only Mike McCuiston bears watching - he's a bit old for his level, but he has showed some on-base skills in the past and he's currently hitting .314/.435/.549.

Wardell Starling 30.2 IP 24 K 9 BB 3.52 ERA
Josh Sharpless 14 IP 23 K 6 BB 0.00 ERA

Starling is a real prospect - a tall 22 year-old with mid-90s heat and a good breaking ball. Watch out for him. Sharpless is 24 and he's a reliever, but his performance so far is too good to be ignored. He's not getting any younger, so the Pirates might want to consider promoting him aggressively.

Hickory

Yeah, this isn't so good. The most intriguing lines belong to Antonio Sucre and Kyle Bloom. Sucre, an outfielder who was acquired for J.J. Davis, has a .400 OBP but has shown no power at all. Bloom is a promising pitcher who has had a good strikeout rate and great ERA so far, but has walked 13 batters in 23 innings. Neil Walker has hit .279/.330/.433, which isn't bad for a kid his age in Class A ball.

Go Dejan

2005-05-01T05:19:00.000-04:00

I have very little to say about this subject that I haven't said before, but this is really nice work.

I'm Back

2005-04-30T16:01:00.000-04:00

Where have I been? Elsewhere. Writing music, going out, walking on the beach. Three of the Pirates' first several series this year were against the Cubs or Padres, two teams I get on television, so I watched several games. Jeez, it was tough - it was hard to watch knowing that if the other team got a lead, the Pirates were pretty much toast.

The offense this year has been horrible, which is the worst kind of horrible to be. When Ryan Vogelsong comes out to pitch, I groan, but at least I get to see the other team's players hit the ball hard. When the Pirates come out to hit, I get a bunch of weak grounders, which are no fun at all.

I don't like Lloyd McClendon much, but I have to give him credit for finding some playing time for some bench players - Freddy Sanchez, Bobby Hill, Dave Ross - who have managed to do something on offense. Jack Wilson, Ty Wigginton and Tike Redman have been beyond terrible; Craig Wilson has at least managed to get on base, but he hasn't done anything else.

Throughout all this, the Pirates' front office has been inexplicable; the only move they've made is to reacquire Abraham Nunez, who's just as pointless and poorly suited to the Pirates' needs as he was the first time around.

Bob Smizik points out that the Pirates will have a decision to make soon - Benito Santiago can come off the DL, so the Pirates will have to decide what to do about their catchers. Smizik thinks the Pirates should cut Santiago. He's absolutely right.

Sample Size Disease

2005-04-13T19:55:00.000-04:00

As much fun as it is to watch baseball again, now is actually a very difficult time to write about it. There are games going on, so one's usual ideas about how good or bad a player is can be defied by the player and his stat lines on a daily basis. At the same time, it's way too early to draw firm conclusions from the results on the field, so a player's 2004 stats are usually still much better indicators of his future value than anything he's already done in 2005. These situations can lead to some very bad writing.

Case in point: this atypically insane editorial from the otherwise excellent John Perrotto.

Perrotto points out that the Pirates used computer simulations to determine that Tike Redman should bat third. He then uses this as an excuse to take a cheap shot at "numbers" (which he does soften first, claiming that he sometimes finds advanced metrics helpful, but still):

I believe baseball instincts are just as important as numbers.

My instincts, supported by statistics, tell me Redman is not good enough to hit No. 3 on any major-league club. In fact, he isn't good enough to be in many teams' starting lineups.

What Perrotto's instincts tell him is obviously true, but it's also true that nearly everyone who has ever been accused of being a 'number cruncher' or a 'stat geek' has bashed the Pirates' decision to bat Redman third.

Then, he adds:

Hopefully, there was a money-back guarantee [for the simulations], especially since the Pirates failed to score more than three runs in any of their first five games and a total of 19 in their first seven.

Right, but Redman only batted third in two of those games! Apparently, though, Perrotto only said that to be nasty. He doesn't actually think that the Pirates' decision to bat Redman third is the only cause of their run-scoring problems, so he offers some of his own solutions. And here's where Perrotto's article really starts to get nuts.

I would suggest some drastic personnel changes, the biggest would be benching shortstop Jack Wilson or using him as a trade bait.

Well, that's drastic, alright. I fully agree that the Pirates should at least consider trading Wilson - they have a fair amount of talent at the middle infield positions, Wilson is coming off a career year, and he is signed to a reasonable contract. I'm less of a Wilson fan than many are, and I would be thrilled if the Pirates could get a blue-chip hitter or two for him. But benching him? That's crazy. He's still fairly young, he's coming off a very good year at the plate and his defense has improved to the point where he's quite an asset at shortstop. The Pirates are bad, yes, but that hasn't been Wilson's fault since 2003.

Perrotto then suggests a number of other moves, none of which are terrible in isolation. But, when taken together, they create the following defense:

C David Ross
1B Daryle Ward
2B Rob Mackowiak
SS Freddy Sanchez
3B Ty Wigginton
LF Craig Wilson
CF Jason Bay
RF Matt Lawton

This would be among the worst defenses fielded by a major league team in the last decade. The Pirates would be well below average at first, second, third, and right, and average to below average at shortstop, left, and center. They'd probably only be decent at catcher. And without Jack Wilson in the lineup, this team might even be worse offensively.

Perrotto is right that the Pirates' offense is inadequate. But sacrificing defense entirely doesn't even solve their problems on offense, and creates entirely new ones on defense. And benching one of the team's few good players out of impatience doesn't help the offense or the defense.

Pittsburgh vs. San Diego, 9 April 2005

2005-04-10T00:01:00.000-04:00

Oliver Perez looked as bad as his box score tonight - he threw hard but had all kinds of trouble throwing strikes, getting into a number of 3-1 counts even in a number of plate appearances that didn't end with walks. He didn't throw his breaking ball that much, and except for a couple of knee-bucklers in the fourth inning, it didn't snap nearly as much as it did in his best outings in 2004. Perez's outing could have looked much worse than it did, since the Padres hit a number of balls very hard that ended up dying in the outfield - this happens a lot in Petco Park.

Lloyd McClendon seems to be trying some different lineups in an attempt to produce offense - last night he started Rob Mackowiak at second, and tonight he benched Tike Redman, moving Jason Bay to center, Craig Wilson to right and Daryle Ward to first. The Pirates are having troubles on offense for three reasons: they've had the misfortune to start the season in a slump, they're a terrible offensive team, and Petco is a very difficult park in which to try to hit.

Pittsburgh vs. San Diego, 8 April 2005

2005-04-09T01:10:00.000-04:00

Here are some random thoughts on the first Pirates game of the year I was able to watch.

-Did you know the Padres' mascot - or, at least, the only one I saw - is a freaking monk who dances on the dugout and does all the usual dumb mascot stuff? How bizarre is that?

-Josh Fogg was looking like his usual mediocre self to me until I checked the box score and realized he had struck out five and walked only one. That's a nice outing.

-Craig Wilson has gone from having the worst hair in the big leagues to having merely the worst facial hair in the big leagues. Or the best in both areas, if you're really into Judas Priest and/or porn. (Actually, that's not entirely true: Brett Myers whips Wilson in the Best Porn 'Stache category.) Either way, Wilson had a nice game, with two singles and one of his trademark HBPs. He misplayed a foul ball and swung at some breaking junk down and away, though.

-Tike Redman drew two walks, so I hope you TIVOed this one, because that's not ever going to happen again.

-Miguel Ojeda was the first batter Mike Gonzalez faced, and I was a little confused when Gonzalez started out with some really mediocre-looking stuff. Gonzalez waited until he had a two-strike count against Ojeda, then whiffed him with an amazing glove-popping fastball. He was great after that - his only baserunner was Brian Giles, and that was only after Gonzalez almost nailed Giles with a questionable check-swing with two strikes and then barely missed the strike zone on his last pitch.

2005 Predictions

2005-04-07T17:05:00.000-04:00

Trev has posted his predictions for the 2005 season. Just for fun, here are mine.

A.L. East
Boston
New York
Baltimore
Toronto
Tampa Bay

Picking the Red Sox may be a bit of wishful thinking on my part. I think it'll be a very close race with the Yankees.

A.L. Central
Minnesota
Cleveland
Detroit
Chicago
Kansas City

I like Cleveland but am not sure they'll have they'll be able to overcome the Twins, who should benefit from the presence of Joe Mauer and an entire year of Justin Morneau.

A.L. West
Anaheim
Oakland
Seattle
Texas

I think Anaheim's much-ballyhooed outfield could actually turn out to be only average, but I love their bullpen and their depth - once everyone gets healthy, their bench could include Juan Rivera, Jeff DaVanon, Chone Figgins and Robb Quinlan, all of whom could be decent starters for lots of other teams. Oakland gets the nod over the other two teams because their pitching is actually much better. Still, I think this division contains four pretty good teams and that all four of them could be breathing down each other's necks all year long. The West is a great pennant race waiting to happen.

N.L. East
Atlanta
Philadelphia
New York
Florida
Washington

I won't make the mistake of betting against the Braves this year.

N.L. Central
St. Louis
Chicago
Houston
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
Cincinnati

I changed my mind - I picked the Cubs to win a few weeks ago, but doubt they can win without a healthy Mark Prior.

N.L. West
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco
Arizona
Colorado

The Dodgers and the Padres are the class of this division. Unless Barry Bonds comes back soon, the Giants should be terrible. The Rockies will be, too. Arizona threw a bunch of money around this offseason but made some ridiculously bad decisions; amazingly, their starting middle infield is Craig Counsell and Royce Clayton, who also have the first two positions in the batting order. Yuck.

Duffy to Pittsburgh...

2005-04-07T16:18:00.000-04:00

Jose Castillo to the DL. Here's what is going on here:

1. The Pirates placed their starting second baseman on the DL.

2. The Pirates recognized that since they already have five players in addition to Castillo on the 25-man roster who can play at least one middle infield position, they didn't need to use Castillo's spot on the 25-man roster on a middle infielder (likely Howie Clark, Cesar Crespo or Jorge Velandia, although Indianapolis hasn't updated its website, so it's hard to figure out who's down there right now). That's good thinking. Hopefully, the Pirates will use this window of time to get a closer look at Freddy Sanchez.

3. The Pirates decided they would use that roster spot on a position player. Again, good thinking.

4. The Pirates decided they would use that spot on a hitter who would back up the guy who's currently batting third in their order. This is actually less nonsensical than it seems when you remember who's batting third.

5. The Pirates decided they would use that spot on Chris Duffy, who, if one actually pays attention to his performance record and not the orgasmic exclamations from the Pirates' management and its lapdogs, is not nearly ready to hit in the big leagues. I can't comment much on his defense except to say that his reputation in that area is very good, although at least some of that reputation has come from reports from the same partisans and/or idiots who have recently decided, despite the amazing amount of evidence to the contrary, that Duffy is a top prospect.

I'm skeptical, but if Duffy really is terrific on defense, this isn't a completely terrible move. I said last week that Duffy will not contribute to a major league team for any sustained period of time and I still believe that is basically true (although I was a bit too hyperbolic; I probably should have said "contribute much"). But as a weak hitter with a supposedly strong glove, he'd be most useful as a bench player on a team with a couple of decent pinch-hitting options already on the pine and a very bad defensive outfield. The Pirates are that team.

When I started this post, I was going to grouse about this decision. If I were making the call, I'd probably grab Graham Koonce instead, and I still feel the Pirates are promoting Duffy for the wrong reasons - to hype him as a prospect, give the fans some cheap thrills, and have him 'learn' while sitting on the bench. But, all things considered, this isn't bad. Normally, I'd whine about Duffy's service time, but he's not a good prospect, so who cares?

* * *
The Cub Reporter has a nice piece up about the Pirates. The intro, about Atlas Shrugged and the economic structure of baseball, is very perceptive and well written. Check it out.

This Made Me Laugh

2005-04-06T15:41:00.000-04:00

I've been watching the Red Sox - Yankees game on ESPN and they've been repeatedly running a banner at the bottom of the page saying that three Pirates minor leaguers have been punished for steroids. Great press, huh? I was immediately worried that one of them would be Brad Eldred or Nate McLouth or someone else who has potential, but no, it was Jon Nunnally, Brian Mallette, and Tom Evans.

Dave Littlefield wins the Hypocrite of the Day award for this one:

"If there's a positive in this, it's that Tom Evans is the only one who has been part of our organization," Pirates general manager Dave Littlefield said. "We have a zero-tolerance philosophy in terms of drugs."

Despite that policy, Littlefield said the Pirates did not plan to release any of the players after their suspensions end.

Hilarious! They're serious about this no-tolerance policy, but not so serious that they'd be willing to part with three journeyman non-prospects who are doing something illegal. I personally don't care much about the steroids issue, so I mostly avoid writing about it here. But I find it funny that Littlefield doesn't even bother to frame his moral righteousness in such a way that he can avoid looking completely ridiculous after a follow-up question.

UPDATE: A commenter points out that "zero-tolerance" might actually mean something like "punishing after the first offense." Littlefield did say he was referring to "drugs" and not "drug users," and Mallette et. al. will be punished, which means that maybe what he said isn't as hypocritical as I originally thought. Now I just wonder what he's talking about, since it's the league, not the Pirates, that actually metes out the punishments. In any case, nothing to see here, move along...

Tike Redman to Bat Third

2005-04-02T03:33:00.000-05:00

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

If this is Lloyd McClendon's idea of an April Fools' Day joke, it's not very nice to Tike Redman.

If it's not, this is the cockamamiest baseball idea of all time. The effect of this move will be to take plate appearances away from Jason Bay and Craig Wilson, the two best hitters on the team, and give them to Tike Redman, who's possibly the worst hitter on the team.

Here's the Trib article. Here's the Post-Gazette writeup. I'm posting them both because of they offer an amazing array of half-baked explanations and bizarre reasonings.

McClendon, from the PG:

"But, if you want to talk about legitimate No. 3 hitters, we don't have one. We don't have Jim Edmonds. We make do with what we have, whether that's Tike or Bay or anybody else."

'We don't have a legitimate No. 3 hitter, whatever that is, so it makes sense for me to put my most pointless hitter there'?

From the Trib:

"I like his contact, I like his average, I like his two-strike approach, and I like his speed atop the order," McClendon said. "If he's on base, that's going to allow the big boppers behind him to see a few more fastballs."

If his "speed atop the order" is the issue, wouldn't it behoove McClendon to put Redman at, you know, the top of the order? That would be a stupid and unimaginative thing to do, but at least McClendon wouldn't be breaking new ground for stupid.

From the PG:

Part of McClendon's motivation, as he explained it, is to move high-average players to the top. That would be Lawton (.277 last season), Jack Wilson (.308) and Redman (.280). This way, he added, he could minimize his team's glaring shortage of players with a history of good on-base percentage.

That's an interesting theory, in a Sean Connery / Celebrity Jeopardy sort of way. Hey, if Jose Castillo, a high average hitter in the minors, gets off to a hot start, expect to see him batting cleanup by May.

"We've got quite a few guys who have a lot of strikeouts, if you look at Craig, Mackowiak, Bay and Ward, and that's something we've got to be concerned about," he said. "We need to keep the ball in play, keep the runners moving. We've got to somehow score more runs."

Oh, for...

Look.

Daryle Ward, Strikeout Concern, 2004: 45 K 293 AB AB/K: 6.51
Matt Lawton, Professional Leadoff Hitter, 2004: 84 K 591 AB AB/K: 7.04

Lawton's strikeout rate would look a bit better compared to Ward's if I'd factored in the two players' walk rates. But Ward's strikeout rate and Lawton's are similar. If strikeouts at the top of the lineup are the issue, why would McClendon want to lead off with a player whose strikeout rate is similar to that of another whom he considers part of the problem? I'm not arguing that Lawton shouldn't be the leadoff hitter, but that even given the ludicrous rationale offered, this decision makes no sense.

Now let's consider the rationale itself. Are strikeouts the problem with this offense? Of course not. The value of a strikeout, by run expectancy, is only .01 more than that of any old out.

So:

Craig Wilson, 2004: 169 K x .01 = 1.69
Tike Redman, 2004: 52 K x .01 = .52

1.69 - .52 = 1.17

If baseball history is to be believed, the difference between the cost of Wilson's strikeouts and of Redman's was a little over a run in 2004. That's before considering everything else they did on offense.

It isn't that strikeouts have no effect as compared to other outs - if there's a man on third and no outs, striking out is bad. Rather, it's that strikeouts have almost no effect as compared to other outs. For a team with the Pirates' deficiencies, offensive strikeouts should be far, far down their list of concerns.

What about the put-high-average-players-at-the-top theory? Well, this one is sort of similar to the put-high-OBP-players-at-the-top theory that intelligent teams believe in, except without the intelligence.

Let's assume that the lineup before this move would have been

Lawton
J. Wilson
Bay
C. Wilson

and now it will be

Lawton
J. Wilson
Redman
Bay
Wigginton/C. Wilson/Mackowiak.

Here are the 3rd and 4th spots, by 2004 stats:

Before:
#3: .282/.358/.550
#4: .264/.354/499

After:
#3: .280/.310/.374
#4: .282/.358/.550

By moving Redman to the third spot, the Pirates presumably gain 16 points of batting average in the third and fourth spots combined. They lose 48 points of on-base percentage and 125 points of slugging percentage.

A single is better than a walk, in that a single can move a runner on first to third or a runner on second to home, and a walk cannot. But what does that mean in concrete terms? Let's do a quick and dirty analysis.

Redman's 2004 BA: .280
C. Wilson's 2004 BA: .264
Redman, hits per 500 at bats: 140
C. Wilson, hits per 500 at bats: 132

With 500 at bats each in a season, at their current batting averages, Redman would get eight more hits than Wilson. Remember, though, that a single only has more value than a walk or an HBP with runners on base (or if a fielder makes an error on the single). Lawton and Jack Wilson's combined on-base percentage is likely to be about .350 in 2005, so let's say that one or both of them gets on base in front of Redman about 45% of the time.

8 hits X .45 = 3.6

The difference between Redman's batting average and Craig Wilson's might help Lawton and Jack Wilson move up an extra base about four times over the course of the entire season. Again, that's before considering the other massive differences between Redman and Craig on offense.

What about speed? That can't be McClendon's real motivation for doing this, since #2 hitter Jack Wilson is not especially speedy - he's never stolen more than eight bases in a season. If speed were the issue, the more obvious - and slightly more sane - solution would have been to put Redman in the #2 spot and move Jack Wilson down in the order. If McClendon would like to go all Juan Pierre / Luis Castillo on the National League, he probably should take note of the fact that Jack Wilson is just Alex Gonzalez with better contact skills, and that the Marlins ranked 11th in the NL in runs scored last year.

I suspect McClendon's real reason for moving Redman up is that he wants to load the top of his lineup with players who look like top of the order hitters. McClendon probably looks at Lawton and sees a savvy, athletic veteran who can steal bases; he looks at Jack Wilson and sees a small, scrappy, situational type of hitter who does the little things; he looks at Redman and sees another athlete who can steal bases. Me? I look at McClendon and see a man who has lost his ever-lovin' mind.

Name This Blog

2005-03-31T12:16:00.000-05:00

Hello readers,

Please come up with a cool name for this blog. You can email me or post it here in the comments. The name must give some indication that this is a Pirates page. The person who suggests the winning name gets a shout-out in the first post under the new name, and dinner the next time they're in San Diego.

Either the Pirates Have the Worst Farm System in Baseball...

2005-03-31T01:25:00.000-05:00

...Or Chris Duffy is not their second best prospect. Which is it?

The hype about Duffy is absurd. He's barely a prospect and will never contribute to a big league team for any sustained period of time.

Also, where are Neil Walker and Tom Gorzelanny?

Pirates Acquire Ross; Roundup

2005-03-30T22:55:00.000-05:00

The Pirates have acquired David Ross from the Dodgers for David Ross for a bit of cash. This is a nice little move. The Pirates had nothing but prospects and question marks at catcher. It wouldn't help them to call up Ryan Doumit or Ronny Paulino to ride the bench if one of their question marks got injured, and if you have to depend on question marks, it's best to have as many as possible.

Ross was terrible for the Dodgers last year, but he hit well in every season before that since 2000. He spent some of that time in hitter-happy Las Vegas, where even Joe Thurston can look good, but he also hit well at Class AA and in brief stints in the majors. He isn't someone you want your team depending on, but he's terrific AAA roster filler - if someone in the big leagues gets injured or tanks, he could probably fill in nicely as a backup, and he might even surprise people by hitting really well for a while. The Pirates took a big risk by going with Benito Santiago and Humberto Cota at catcher this year; Santiago is a huge injury and collapse risk, and Cota has played so sparingly the past two years that it's hard to tell if he's any good or not. Ross helps mitigate that risk.

* * *

The Pirates are close to finalizing their roster, and they've decided their last two bullpen arms will be John Grabow and either Mark Corey or Rick White. Personally, I'd rather play a never-was with a high strikeout rate (Corey) than a washed-up has-been like White, but that's no big deal, and I'm glad to see that Grabow will be in the pen - his strikeout rate was very high last season, and his ERA was a bit high because he allowed more hits than one would expect. He's only 26 this year, so he probably has some upside.

From the same article, Tom Gorzelanny, who is probably the Pirates' best pitching prospect after Zach Duke, is having elbow trouble and might have to have surgery. Jeez, is this a mess.

The Stats Geek offers a best-case scenario for the 2005 Pirates. After a very long introduction about Albert Camus that I can't believe got published (although I liked it), the Geek says that the Pirates' have a shot to succeed because of the number of busts who won't be on their roster anymore. That's reasonable, but the Pirates have replaced those busts (and one big non-bust, Jason Kendall) with a number of players who are huge collapse risks - Santiago, White, Ty Wigginton and Matt Lawton come to mind, as do returning mediocrities like Tike Redman, Daryle Ward, Jose Mesa and Josh Fogg. There is some chance that the Pirates could hit .500 this year, but I'd argue that chance is too tiny to even bother thinking about.

The Hardball Times' new Pirates preview gets many broader points right but misses a lot of details - author Tom Talavage inexplicably omits Chris Stynes from a lists of bad veterans who played for the 2004 Pirates, doesn't seem to get that the A's traded Mark Redman and Arthur Rhodes to the Pirates in order to dump their salaries, and doesn't seem to understand that Sean Burnett is out for the foreseeable future.

Williams Named Fifth Starter

2005-03-26T17:57:00.000-05:00

Zach Duke to Indianapolis.

I'm quick to criticize Dave Littlefield and Lloyd McClendon when they do things wrong, so I'll be equally quick to praise them for getting this one right. I think Williams will be a solid starter for the Pirates. If he (or Josh Fogg, or Mark Redman) isn't, hopefully Duke will do enough in the minors to guarantee he'll be in Pittsburgh by June.

On the Oakland A's

2005-03-23T01:12:00.000-05:00

Some of the rather ridiculous A's-hate going down in Dejan Kovacevic's new Q+A compels me to give the issue a lot more attention than it deserves.

Kovacevic asks his readers to explain why the management techniques of the Florida Marlins don't get the praise that Oakland's do. He prints several responses and sums up his own position after the first one:

...I disagree 180 degrees about the worth of championships. That is what all sports are about.

Of course they are. The issue here is what role management has to play in championships won.

More from Kovacevic:

I am increasingly convinced that the Beane love affair is more about numbers than anything else. As I wrote above in the Q&A, I am not big on emphasizing statistics above all else. Seems to me there is an entire segment of the baseball-loving community that feels completely comfortable analyzing the game from a cubicle rather than getting out to the stands and watching it. I find such practice to be preposterous. The game is played by humans, not by matrix dots on your PS2 screen.

Strawman alert! Honestly, what baseball fan doesn't watch baseball? And what does that have to do with Oakland GM Billy Beane, who played major league baseball? Watching baseball and trying to organize our observations about it (that's all statistics are, right?) are not mutually exclusive. Obviously.

And then the readers weigh in. Hoo boy.

But Oakland won more due to the Hudson-Mulder-Zito pitching trio than for any other reason. Beane didn't acquire those players.

Uh, hello? Beane drafted Zito and Mulder and was involved in the A's front office when Hudson was drafted. It is certainly no surprise that there are readers submitting arguments with false premises, but why is Kovacevic publishing them? And why doesn't he at least correct them?

Then, from a different reader:

Theo Epstein worshipped at the Billy Beane shrine until a light bulb finally went off in his weasel brain (weasel because he twice pawned off damaged goods on Dave Littlefield in 2003, but that's a different discussion). Adding Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz strengthened two positions at which the Red Sox had been very weak defensively. Look what happened. It only took the Red Sox eight decades to figure out defense wins games.

Oakland has had one of the best defensive teams in baseball the last two years running, and advanced methods of evaluating defense were discussed extensively in Moneyball. It is a ridiculous myth that Beane does not care about defense or that Beane has consistently lost in the playoffs because of poor defense. Beane's A's have fielded some less-than-elite defenses, sure - but they've also fielded some great ones. I'll stop repeating the cliche that "Moneyball is about exploiting market inefficiencies, not OBP" when the people who say otherwise actually read the book or, you know, pay attention to baseball.

Kovacevic simply says "Argh" in response to a reader's question of what we would think of the 2003 Marlins if Josh Beckett and Dontrelle Willis had gone down with injuries that year.

Methinks Kovacevic somehow lacks the ability to see shades of gray here. Kovacevic's position seems to be that if a GM's team wins a championship, he deserves all the credit, whereas if a team fails to win a championship, the GM must be at fault somehow. Why can't a team's performance be the result of both planning and luck?

Obviously - obviously - lots of things that result in wins and losses for his team are out of a GM's control, as the Beckett/Willis question makes abundantly clear. Is it to Marlins GM Larry Beinfest's credit that Beckett and Willis were healthy for most of 2003? Possibly - but why then haven't Beckett or Brad Penny or A.J. Burnett been able to stay healthy in just about any other year? Is it to Beinfest's credit that he acquired Chad Fox to help out down the stretch in 2003, and Fox posted a 2.13 ERA? Possibly - but why then did Fox post a 6.73 ERA for the Marlins in limited duty in 2004? Is it to Beinfest's credit that at midseason, he traded a number of prospects for reliever Ugueth Urbina, who posted an ERA two full runs lower than his career average in 38 1/3 innings down the stretch? Maybe - but why then were all of Beinfest's main in-season acquisitions in 2004 (Paul LoDuca, Guillermo Mota, Juan Encarnacion, Billy Koch and Ismael Valdez) all merely acceptable or downright bad?

I don't mean to suggest that the Marlins' management didn't do anything right in 2003 or the seasons that led up to it. They had a fairly good core of young talent that matured and played just well enough to sneak into a wildcard race and into the playoffs, and for that they deserve some credit. But the Marlins were very bad for several seasons before 2003, and merely okay in 2004; if the Marlins' world championship in 2003 was the result of brilliant management, why hasn't the management appeared brilliant in any other season?

The answer is, quite clearly, that every season, good or bad, is a mix of planning and luck. The Marlins planned decently for several seasons before 2003, then got quite a huge dose of great luck that year. The Urbina example is telling. The Marlins gave up a king's ransom to get him - including Adrian Gonzalez, a very good prospect, and two more marginal ones - after offering the same package to the Mets for Armando Benitez, a better reliever than Urbina who, as it turns out, didn't perform nearly as well as Urbina down the stretch. At the time, the Marlins' record was 47-45 and they were 4 1/2 games behind the Phillies and Diamondbacks in the Wild Card race.

Here are Urbina's numbers in 2003 and 2004:

2003 TEX 38 2/3 IP 41 K 18 BB 6 HR 4.19 ERA
2003 FLA 38 1/3 IP 37 K 13 BB 2 HR 1.41 ERA
2004 DET 54 IP 56 K 32 BB 7 HR 4.50 ERA

Which one of these is not like the others? Urbina is a good pitcher, but there is no way Beinfest could have known that he'd be spectacular with the Marlins before going back to being merely okay for the Tigers. There's no other explanation for what happened there than LUCK LUCK LUCK.

Let's say that in a hold 'em game, a player across the table from you abruptly pushes all-in despite not being short stacked. You have pocket aces, so you call and are thrilled when he flips over a 5-7 offsuit. Then comes the flop and it's 7-7-5. Does that mean that the player's all-in was a savvy move? Sure, it turned out nicely, but there's no way the player could have known the flop would turn out so well for him. He made a bad gamble, but it worked. He got lucky. It's clear to us when it happens in poker; why is luck treated so dismissively when it comes to baseball?

Another question first: if luck plays an important role in the way a baseball season turns out, how to we evaluate GM performance?

Let's say I flip a coin three times, and each time it comes up heads. Does this mean the coin is magical, that it's coming up heads as a result of mystical forces we can't see? Of course not; it's just a coincidence. Flip it a hundred more times, and you'll almost certainly get tails dozens of times. The more you flip it, the more likely it is that you'll get tails about 50% of the time.

Sorry for the elementary, and possibly condescending, little lesson, and feel free to skip the next couple paragraphs if you already know where I'm going with this, but I get the feeling that some people don't. The point is that in the case of coin flipping, and in the case of baseball, repetition tends to neutralize luck. This is why the Devil Rays can beat the Yankees a few times each year, but can't ever finish ahead of them in the standings. This is why a player can hit .450 in April, but not over the course of an entire year. And this is why any team can beat any other team in a short playoff series.

If the Devil Rays beat the Yankees three times out of five in July, no one except the Yankee faithful would blink an eye. Why, then, do baseball fans freak out and draw wild conclusions when an underdog wins three of five in a playoff series? It's because it appeals to our need to create narratives for ourselves to describe playoff baseball, which I find perfectly exciting even without the narratives. Such narratives give the results of the playoffs a kind of moral or even supernatural authority. Derek Jeter is a god in the eyes of many because of his playoff performances - and never mind the fact that he flopped badly in the 2004 ALCS against Boston.

To many fans, the playoffs have some mystical quality; some indefinable trait emerges in the hearts of one team, giving it the strength to come through when it matters most, and never mind that that trait often fails to show up in the very same players in later playoff series. And not only is there some indefinable trait that causes winners to win - let's call it "guts," or "moxie," or "clutch" - general managers should be able to identify that trait in a player before he exhibits it. It's impossible to predict in whom or when this trait will turn up, since the same players don't demonstrate it year after year. You only know after the fact - unless you're a major league GM, in which case you're praised or criticized for your ability, or lack thereof, to spot it. This is what Kovacevic's position amounts to, and it's basically a belief in magic. He criticizes Beane fans for buying into some sort of "mystique," but the mystique that Kovacevic buys into is far more pervasive, confusing and nonsensical.

Of course championships are what matter, but what courses of action are likely to result in championships? Here's a good one - field the best team possible and make sure it gets to the playoffs. After that it really is just five or seven games. They're five or seven really important games, but they're prone to unpredictable outcomes that are out of a GM's control. People seem to understand this concept intuitively when it's applied to a collection of five regular season games, but believe that something changes when the playoffs begin. There's no evidence that anything much does change. I don't see why this should make watching the playoffs any less fun. There are still heroes and great stories - it's just that the heroes are simply really good baseball players who happened to come through at the right time, rather than a bunch of superhumans whose hearts grew to twice their normal size and then returned to normal a week later.

The 2003 Marlins were a good team who will be remembered as a great one; there was a lot of luck involved their World Series victory, and I won't give much extra credit to Beinfest for it, since much of what happened was out of his control. He and Dave Dombrowski get credit for building a good team. They should be proud of that, and Beinfest should be thrilled about winning the series. Isn't that enough?

Now, back to an earlier question: how do we evaluate GM performance? And back to an earlier answer to a different question: over the course of a baseball season, or a career, repetition tends to neutralize luck. The more games are played, the more likely luck is to even out. The most important piece of evidence of GM ability is thus wins over time, which suggests that Beane is a better GM than Beinfest. Despite budget constraints, Beane's A's have won over 90 games five years in a row; Beinfest's Marlins have done so once.

This is, of course, a very simple way of looking at things, and we might also consider the logic of individual moves, as well as other factors, when assessing Beane's performance compared to Beinfest's. While Beane has certainly made some questionable moves, however - Scott Hatteberg's current contract comes to mind - this approach would make Beane look even better.

Still, for our purposes here, performance over time is a great place to start. While championships are, again, what matter most, Kovacevic has not proven that championships tell us more about how a GM performs than their performance in the regular season. He would rather judge Beane and Beinfest on seven total playoff series - less than forty games - rather than the thousands of games their teams have played since they took their jobs.

The suggestion that luck may have played a role in the Marlins' win frustrates Kovacevic ("Argh"!), and I'm guessing one reason why is that he doesn't even want to consider that luck has anything to do with GM performance, despite abundant evidence that it plays a major role in the success of a GM's team. Did Beinfest have some sort of special skill when he traded for Urbina that he didn't have when he traded for LoDuca? Of course not, it's just that one trade worked and another one hasn't, and the one that worked just happened to come in the context of a playoff run. But many fans would rather imagine that this isn't the case so that they can make a hero of Beinfest, or Derek Jeter, as a way of explaining a series of events and giving it power. The guys who simply do things right year after year, like Beane, don't fit so cleanly into the stories people want to remember. Beinfest is a decent GM, but Beane is a lot better, World Series title or no.

So, you may be wondering, what does this have to do with the Pirates? Nothing. They're terrible, man.

Mackowiak to Rays?

2005-03-21T02:06:00.000-05:00

The Tampa Tribune reports that the Devil Rays are "dazed," confused and flummoxed by the recent retirements of Danny Bautista, Roberto Alomar and Marty Cordova. The retirements of these three below-average players should be a blessing in disguise and an opportunity for the Rays, who could give these players' at-bats to shortstops Jorge Cantu and B.J. Upton and outfielders Jonny Gomes and Joey Gathright, all of whom are better players than the ones they'll be replacing. It doesn't seem that the Rays want to do this, however. Here's a particularly stupefying sentence:

The blow can be absorbed with the presence Jorge Cantu, though LaMar was hesitant to hand the everyday job to the 23 year-old.

Memo to Chuck LaMar: The salary of your entire team is comparable to that of your division champion's third baseman. You must play 23 year-olds if you ever want to build anything lasting, and you should especially consider playing 23 year-old middle infielders who have already hit well at Class AAA and the big leagues.

In any case, the Rays are now looking for a new outfielder, and they're interested in Rob Mackowiak. This looks like a perfect match: the Pirates have something that the Rays shouldn't want but do, and the Rays have lots of something the Pirates should want - namely, young outfielders with pop and lots of upside. While the Pirates aren't likely to get Delmon Young or Elijah Dukes for Mackowiak, they might be able to get Jonny Gomes, who was recently (and inexplicably) sent to minor-league camp despite hitting 26 homers in less than 400 at bats at Class AAA in 2004.

Gomes isn't a Grade-A prospect: he won't hit for a high batting average because he strikes out as often as Craig Wilson would if he had to chug a beer every time Tike Redman misplayed a fly ball. And Tampa Bay's AAA park in Durham is very homer-friendly. Still, Gomes might be a 25-homer player this year. Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA forecasting system thinks Gomes would hit .366/.491 in the majors in 2005. Say what you want about forecasting systems, but there isn't a single outfielder in the Pirates' minor league system, other than perhaps Nate McLouth, who even has the potential to slug .491 in a major league season.

Mackowiak has a nice player to have around, and he probably deserves a real shot at a starting job in center field or at third base, but he's not a massive upgrade over Tike Redman or Ty Wigginton. The Pirates already have plenty of backup infielders, and if they can grab an outfielder from the Devil Rays, they'll be set there, too. Of course, I don't know what the Rays would be willing to give up for Mackowiak, but if the Pirates can get a high-upside player like Gomes, they should do that deal immediately.

Thanks to Primer.

Duke Vs. Williams

2005-03-20T05:13:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of buzz about Pirate prospect Zach Duke right now. While I don't want to break up the party, I'd like to suggest that it wouldn't be wise for the Pirates to give Duke a rotation spot to start the year.

Four of the five members of the Pirates' rotation will be Oliver Perez, Kip Wells, Mark Redman and Josh Fogg. That is certain. There are four pitchers in camp competing for the last spot: Albie Lopez, Ryan Vogelsong, Zach Duke and Dave Williams.

Lopez is a worse option at this point than Rick Reed was last year, and that's saying a lot. He was a marginal pitcher when he was in his heyday, and he's been out of baseball for a year. As fifth starters go, he's a last resort. And, fortunately, the Pirates have no need for last resorts right now.

Vogelsong was one of the worst starters in the majors last year, both from a statistical perspective and an I'm-gonna-throw-my-cup-through-the-TV perspective. This spring he has walked nearly as many as he has struck out. While it is often foolish to worry much about spring performances, Vogelsong's hardly inspires confidence. He was a scrub as a starter last year, and he'll probably always be one if he continues to start, no matter how many 95 MPH fastballs he throws. It would not surprise me if he became an effective reliever, however.

That leaves Duke and Williams. Duke is entering his age-22 season, he was one of the best pitchers in the minors last year, and he has been excellent this spring. There are lots of good reasons to get excited about him. He has never pitched in AAA, however. Last year, Jose Castillo was impressive in spring training, so the Pirates promoted him to the majors even though he had never played at AAA. The Pirates' decision to do this was defensible - with Freddy Sanchez on the shelf, the Pirates' only other reasonable options at second were Abraham Nunez and Bobby Hill. If it were possible to create a second base platoon in which one player did all the fielding and another did all the hitting, Nunez and Hill would have been perfect. Unfortunately, Second Base DH is not a position, so neither player was an adequate solution. So the Pirates called up Castillo, who was, predictably, a mess with the bat. Castillo showed promise but little in the way of results, and now he'll go to arbitration one year earlier.

The Duke-Williams situation is different from the Castillo-Nunez situation, in that Williams is actually a fairly good player. He had a downright excellent year at Nashville in 2004 and was effective in limited time with the Pirates. He was also a productive member of the Pirates in 2001 before he went down with a torn labrum, and it's worth pointing out that Williams' strikeout and walk numbers suggest that he is a much better pitcher now than he was then. He's not having a spectacular spring, but his ERA isn't astronomical and his K:BB ratio is solid.

I'm as excited about Zach Duke as anyone - he's worthy of all the press he's getting. But the Pirates stand to lose a lot by calling him up now. He could pull a Castillo and be ineffective. And no matter what happens, he'll definitely chew up service time and become expensive more quickly.

Even Dave Littlefield admits the Pirates aren't likely to contend this year. While the chances that Duke will become some sort of phenomenon and shut down the league are greater than the chances that Williams will, the Pirates will experience no long-term baseball benefit if that happens. And, most importantly, Dave Williams is actually a very good option as a fifth starter. The Pirates should leave Duke at Indianapolis for now and call him up when someone gets injured, or in June or July, after the time spent in the minors causes his arbitration timetable to be pushed back a year. If the Pirates called Duke up right now, they'd be doing it to excite the fans. Not only could that plan backfire if Duke flopped, it would involve sacrficing a chunk of the future for the present, and the Pirates can't afford that strategy anymore.

Encarnacion Rumor

2005-03-17T19:34:00.000-05:00

Please, no. Juan Encarnacion is the sort of player the Pirates have gone for lately - he's capable of putting up superficially impressive counting stats if everything goes right, but even if everything does go right, he's inadequate. He drove in 85 runs in 2002 and 94 in 2003, but forget about that: considering the parks he has played in, his best season was probably 2000 with the Tigers, when he hit .289/.330/.433. In 2002, he hit .271/.324/.449 in slightly more favorable hitting environments. He put up a .299 OBP last year.

Encarnacion doesn't even solve the Pirates' biggest outfield problem, which is center field. He hasn't played there since 2002. If he can't play center, he's not going to help much even if he improves on his godawful hitting the past two years; even during his best years, Encarnacion was only a few notches above replacement level for a corner outfielder. On defense, STATS Inc. says that he has the tools to be a good outfielder but that he takes bad routes and can't throw - stop me if you've heard that before. The Pirates would be just as well served by sticking with some combination of Tike Redman, Ben Grieve and Daryle Ward, despite those players' obvious shortcomings, rather than Encarnacion.

The other problem with Encarnacion is that he won't come for free - the Dodgers dumped him on the Marlins because he's owed about $4.5 million this year. The Pirates would probably have to pick up a big chunk of that contract, and they might have to give up a prospect too. I'm all for the Pirates spending money, but Encarnacion is not worth it. If the Pirates' advertising department just has to have a member of the 2003 World Champion Florida Marlins, I'm sure Lenny Harris can be had much more cheaply, and he'd only be marginally less useful than Encarnacion.

* * *

Check out Mike Emeigh's depressing Pirates season preview here. It's good stuff.

Rumor/News Roundup

2005-03-16T04:59:00.000-05:00

I've been absent for a week, and I haven't been able to watch any of the Pirates' games, but here are my thoughts on some of this week's news items.

Rowdy found this rumor roundup from CBS, which I'd usually never click on because it takes forever to load on my Lewinsky-era computer. There's some interesting stuff in there, though. First, the Pirates are interested in Mets pitcher Aaron Heilman and "may be" willing to trade Ryan Vogelsong for him. Riiiight. Heilman's no prize - he didn't improve in his third run through Class AAA last year - but if the Pirates can grab someone with any chance of becoming a useful starter for Vogelsong, I would hope they'd do that immediately.

The article also reports the Pirates have focused their gimme-an-outfielder-any-outfielder nationwide search on the Nationals' Terrmel Sledge, a functional lefty hitter who got a well-deserved shot in the big leagues in 2004 and did rather well, hitting .336/.462 with 15 homers in 398 at bats. He'll only be 28 this year, and unlike the Pirates' current corner options not named Jason Bay, he doesn't appear to be atrocious in the field, so he'd be worth a shot for the right price. I don't get the sense that Dave Littlefield has any idea what that price should be, but Nationals GM Jim "Cristian Guzman is worth TENS of MILLIONS" Bowden probably doesn't either.

I have a better idea, though. The article above also explains that the Reds might be willing to deal Wily Mo Pena for a starting pitcher. Grabbing Pena would be a huge coup for the Pirates: he's 23, he broke out last year, he has power, he has lots of upside, and he can play centerfield. In my opinion, the Pirates should consider trading any pitcher they have except Oliver Perez to get him.

In other news, Todd Ritchie retired. I feel bad reacting this way to the news that a former Pirate is switching careers and giving up his struggle with what must be tremendous physical hardship, but frankly, I'm glad the Pirates won't have the temptation to let him pitch for them.

Also, the Pirates cut a number of players this week. None of the cuts were particularly surprising, but I am surprised that Chris Duffy was not among them. Or, I'm surprised that since Nate McLouth was cut, that Duffy wasn't also. The Pirates probably figured they could keep an extra outfielder for a while, given that Jason Bay is currently dealing with a minor injury. But the Pirates' infatuation with Duffy is beyond my comprehension. He's not young, and he has very little power or plate discipline. He's not ever going to hit much at the big league level unless he undergoes some kind of serious transformation, and fast.

J.R. House - Now With Nuance

2005-03-09T19:51:00.000-05:00

I've had a bit more time to think about the J.R. House situation and I'd like to soften some aspects of the post below. I'll do my best to be objective, but I'm warning you: even at my most balanced, I can't talk about this move without also finding new ways of saying that the Pirates don't have any idea what they're doing or that they don't care about winning.

So, objectivity. Here's my full disclosure: I really like House. I want him to succeed. I grew up a Pirates fan; stopped paying serious attention in 1992 or so as I approached my teenage years, the Pirates stopped winning and Bobby Bonilla left; and then I returned to baseball in 2000 or so when a roommate sucked me back in. The Pirates were just as bad in 2000 as they are now, so guys like House, J.J. Davis, Aramis Ramirez, Bobby Bradley, and Sean Burnett - and then John VanBenschoten - were the future. They were among the few Pirates worth getting excited about. Over the last couple of years, it has been all kinds of frustrating to see these players' stars fade, implode or disappear due to horrible trades (Ramirez), injuries (Bradley, Burnett, VanBenschoten and now House), and outright neglect (Davis). Of the exciting young guys the Pirates had back then, the only one to live up to his promise in a Pirate uniform has been Craig Wilson, who was handled so stupidly during his first three years in the big leagues that he was perhaps more frustrating than any of the above.

So I apologize if I've been a bit harsh on Pirates management for what they've now done to House, especially since I didn't really do my research with regard to the reason why the Pirates were cutting him. House recently had surgery to repair a torn labrum and a partially torn rotator cuff. A poster at Honest Wagner just pointed out that a full recovery in time to compete for a job next season is unlikely. The poster also suggested that the Pirates' decision to cut House might have had to do with information about his medical history to which the Pirates have access and we do not.

I'll believe this last point when I see it - during the first couple of years I was a fan, I saw the Pirates make a number of moves I found inexplicable at the time, such as cutting Bronson Arroyo or playing Kevin Young instead of Wilson, and I thought, "Maybe they know something I don't." Usually, it turned out that the Pirates didn't know anything I didn't know, and that even a novice fan like myself could see how clueless they were. I'm not saying that I'm smart, even - just that it's clear that the Pirates under Dave Littlefield have made so many ridiculous moves that it seems unwise to assume they know anything that's not in the papers, unless real evidence to the contrary emerges.

All that said, House's shoulder is probably a huge mess right now. The torn labrum problem is an extremely messy one. It's not nearly as bad for hitters as it is for pitchers, but some of House's value stems from his ability to play catcher, and one important skill for catchers is the ability to throw the ball really hard to second. House had problems throwing runners out even before the surgery; in 2006 it would be pretty likely that Cecil Fielder could steal second off him.

Does this mean he can't or shouldn't play catcher? I don't know. Ideally, he wouldn't, but keep in mind that House plays for an organization that just 'solved' its catcher problem by acquiring a 40 year-old catcher who's thrown out only about twenty percent of the runners who have tried to steal on him the past two seasons. It's not at all clear that House would be worse in that area in 2006 than Santiago will be in 2005. If that's why the Pirates cut House, it's funny that they don't apply the same logic to players who are older, more expensive, and worse hitters. Meanwhile, much of House's offensive ability could stick next year.

I'm not saying that House is a great prospect, or that his hitting will continue to improve, or anything all that positive about him. But I don't need to. Keeping House around to try out for the team in 2006 would be, essentially, a $300,000 gamble. $300,000 is nothing in baseball terms, so if there's any upside at all it would have behooved the Pirates to keep House, since the downside is almost nonexistent.

Yesterday, Honest Wagner wrote:

For what they were going to pay House, the Bucs could hire eight secretaries to... do nothing but throw pencils at the ceiling. Or they could hire two pediatricians. Or they could hire three lawyers.

These observations seemed completely irrelevant and even sort of sweetly absurd to me at the time - after all, pediatricians won't ever help the Pirates win baseball games, and House might. But now I think Rowdy's words might be relevant in ways he didn't intend. After all, we've seen these cost-cutting moves before - Ramirez was traded for nothing, Jason Kendall was traded for very little, real free agents have been avoided, and so on. Even the 2003 Rule 5 fiasco may have been motivated by financial concerns.

As far as we fans are concerned, the Pirates might as well be using the money saved to hire secretaries to make holes in the ceiling. We won't see it. I imagine it'll be used on another car for the McClatchy family, or a new yacht for the Nuttings, or something along those lines. House isn't a great prospect anymore - everyone can agree on that. But here's something else we can agree on: he was released, and all his cheap years and upside were forfeited, for no other reason than to save three hundred thousand dollars. That's peanuts, per diem money. And that money will almost certainly not be used to help the team.

J.R. House Cut

2005-03-09T03:17:00.000-05:00

What? Why?

As with many moves baseball teams make, this one doesn't look like a huge deal. J.R. House is already 25 and he's out for the season. As with many moves Dave Littlefield makes, however, I really don't understand what's going on here. This may have to do with some misunderstanding of roster rules on my part, so let me explain what I think they are, and then if I'm wrong someone can correct me in the comments and I'll fix this.

The situation as of yesterday, as I understand it, was that J.R. House was a member of the Pirates' 40 man roster. He had an option left, which gave the Pirates the right to send him to Indianapolis this year. Since he recently had surgery, he would be out for the year. This would mean that the Pirates could place him on the 60-day DL once the season started and free up a roster space for someone else while retaining House's rights. Then the Pirates could hope House had a speedy recovery and let him try out for a spot on the team in 2006.

As far as I can tell, there was no downside to keeping House around for 2005 - except that the Pirates would have to pay his salary which, according to the article linked above, is about $260,000 more than they now have to pay him in termination pay. Please tell me that a quarter of a million dollars was not the reason House has been released. Please tell me there's something here I'm missing.

I don't mean to overstate the importance of this move. House's star has fallen in the past few years, and rightfully so, since he can't seem to stay healthy. But he has hit the ball hard at nearly every stop in the minors, and last year he hit .344/.508 at Class AAA. That doesn't make him the next Albert Pujols, but it certainly makes him worth keeping around. There's upside there.

Now let's consider the Pirates' catching situation. The Pirates have decided that House is not a catcher; I won't consider that fact here, since the Pirates' judgments of their own minor leaguers have proven wildly off the mark in the past. The Pirates' catchers this year are Humberto Cota and Benito Santiago. Santiago is an enormous collapse risk this year and is way too old to count on in 2006. Cota isn't particularly young and has a spotty track record in the majors and the high minors.

Behind him, there's Ron Paulino and Ryan Doumit. Paulino barely looked like a prospect after 2003 and was added to the roster largely on the strength of his defense and one decent season in 2004. Doumit has upside, but his injury history is at least as complicated and frustrating as House's. Behind those two guys, there are a couple of prospects - Neil Walker and Steve Lerud - who won't be near ready by the time the 2006 season rolls around.

My point is this: given the uncertainties the Pirates have at catcher in 2006, is it ridiculous to think that a fairly young catcher with obvious offensive potential and a record of success in the high minors might come in pretty handy, even if he might have some defensive shortcomings? And if he might come in handy, why cut him just to save the major league equivalent of pocket change?

In the grand scheme of things, this move might not matter; House might never recover, he might not hit, he might play football, or all of the above. But the Pirates gained little by cutting him now, and if House is lucky, he might become yet another Bronson Arroyo - a productive, cheap player who was lost for almost no reason at all.

So what does the future hold for the Bucs' catchers? Like House, Doumit will be out of options soon too. Next time he gets injured, don't be surprised if he gets the ax also. Then, the catching depth the Pirates developed under Cam Bonifay - including Craig Wilson, Chris Shelton, House and Doumit - will be almost completely gone. In the meantime, the Pirates will settle for yet another year of a stopgap veteran with few skills and no upside. Hey, Henry Blanco just signed a two-year contract for more than he's worth - look for Littlefield to trade Tom Gorzelanny for him in about nine months.

Pirates Being Cheap Brats

2005-03-02T16:00:00.000-05:00

You've probably heard by now.

Oliver Perez and Jason Bay both have less than three years of big-league service time, which means they aren't entitled to be paid any more than the major league minimum in 2005.

Many teams, including the Pirates, give some of their young players more than the minimum as a gesture of goodwill. For example, Tike Redman was paid $321,000, several thousand dollars above the minimum, to stink up the Pirates' lineup in 2004.

The issue, then, is not whether or not pay raises for players with no leverage is a good idea - the Pirates already give such raises. The issue is how lucrative these raises should be for Perez and Bay.

Under the current labor agreement, neither player has any leverage in negotiations, at least not as far as 2005 is concerned. Representatives of both players have expressed dissatisfaction at the Pirates' offers, however. It is their right to get petulant in haggling over salaries of players who already make about ten times what the average American makes in a year. Perez and Bay look slightly greedy and petty as a result, but it's their right to act that way if they so choose.

The Pirates look just as greedy, however, and worse, they look short-sighted. In the Kovacevic article linked above, Perez' agent Mike Fischlin points to Wade Miller's $525,000 contract in 2003 and Carlos Zambrano's $450,000 contract in 2004. The Pirates are currently offering Perez $381,000, which presumably means that Perez and the Pirates are less than $100,000 apart.

To any major league team, even a cheap one like the Pirates, $100,000 is chump change. $100,000 is two innings of Jose Mesa. I don't doubt that Perez and his agent will be inclined to seek a big payday once he becomes a free agent, but if he's happy in Pittsburgh, he'll surely think harder about the hometown discount contract the Pirates will surely offer him if he continues to pitch well. If the cost of a chunk of that happiness is only $100,000, that would be money well spent. Perez and Bay are two of only a few reasons to be excited about the future of the Pirates. They aren't entitled to ask for much, and they don't seem to be asking for much. Pay them.

UPDATE: In the comments, Ryan suggests that my original "Pirates Lowballing Perez, Bay" headline wasn't really accurate. I don't know of anyone who has done a coherent analysis of what sorts of salaries Bay and Perez should expect, but Ryan is probably right. I used the word carelessly - I meant it more as shorthand for "the Pirates are cheap," and didn't mean to suggest that the Pirates' offers were low compared to what we might expect. The bottom line is that $100,000 isn't a lot of money, and if that's the problem, just give Perez and Bay the $100,000. Perez and Bay are acting like jerks, but they're the future of the Pittsburgh franchise. If it only costs $100,000 to placate them, then do it, regardless of what they should expect to get.

The Kendall Effect

2005-03-01T00:23:00.000-05:00

The Stats Geek offers an analysis of how the loss of Jason Kendall is likely to affect the Pirates' offense.

Although I agree with the main idea of the article - that the Pirates didn't score many runs last year and aren't likely to score many this year - I must take issue with a few points.

Much of the article focuses on the horrible 2004 performances of Randall Simon, Chris Stynes and Abraham Nunez. Since the three combined to hit .216/.269/.299 last year, the Stats Geek reasons that "Offense should be regained, however, by replacing Nunez, Stynes and Simon with Freddy Sanchez, Ty Wigginton and Daryle Ward."

The problem with this reasoning, I think, is the assumption that just because Simon, Stynes and Nunez aren't on the team anymore, the Pirates won't endure any of those sorts of performances from anyone.

Here are the Terrible Trio's 2003 stats:

Simon: .276/.309/.434
Stynes: .255/.335/.413 (in Coors Field)
Nunez: .248/.310/.357

They weren't exactly Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds. But Simon, Stynes and Nunez also weren't nearly as bad in 2003 as they were in 2004. It's not as if what the Pirates got from them in 2004 was what they expected. We thought they'd be bad, but not that bad. (Similarly, we thought Jason Bay would be good, but not that good.) When you trot a bad player like Randall Simon out there, the results are always pretty nasty - but when you trot him out there and he starts losing the skills he had, things can get really nasty.

Let's look at the 2004 statistics of the Pirates who will replace them.

Benito Santiago: .274/.312/.434
Matt Lawton: .277/.366/.421
Ty Wigginton: .261/.324/.433
Daryle Ward: .249/.305/.474

Compare Santiago's 2004 to Simon's 2003, then remember that Santiago is forty years old and smack in the middle of a steroid crackdown, and tell me if you'd be surprised if he had a Simon-like collapse in 2005.

Then consider Ward's 2003 season, in which he hit .183/.211/.193 and was far worse than any of the Pirates' 2004 trio, and tell me whether it would be shocking if he pulled a Simon in 2005.

On offense, Lawton and Wigginton have always been a cut above Stynes or Nunez, but consider that Lawton is old and has injury problems, and that Wigginton has never been a very good player.

Then consider that Santiago, Lawton, Wigginton and Ward are likely to get a lot more than the 562 plate appearances that Simon, Stynes and Nunez got in 2004.

The Stats Geek writes, "The Pirates enter 2005 in no danger of suiting up Abraham Nunez, Chris Stynes or Randall Simon." With all due respect, I disagree. When you trot out old, mediocre players like Santiago and Lawton, or even relatively young, mediocre players like Ward and Wigginton, you run the risk of a fiasco if they collapse. I'm not saying any one of these players will collapse, just that they could, and it would be foolish to plan on those players maintaining their established levels.

Speaking of which, the Stats Geek shows how Kendall will replace Lawton by using their career leadoff numbers, which are as follows:

Kendall: .326/.409/.402
Lawton: .299/.380/.480

The trouble is that Kendall's line looks similar to his 2003 and 2004 stats, while Lawton's does not resemble any year he's had recently. Lawton hasn't come near a .380 OBP since 2001. And he has never posted a .480 slugging percentage in a season. (He had a .478 SLG as a 26 year-old in 1998.) Lawton won't come close to replacing Kendall in 2005.

Moreover, all these considerations about the Pirates' offense don't take defense into account, and Lawton, Wigginton and Santiago represent a massive net decline from Simon, Stynes and Kendall on defense.

Ricciardi Interview

2005-02-28T13:57:00.000-05:00

This interview with Toronto GM J.P. Ricciardi deals with the question of how closely bloggers should scrutinize GMs.

Essentially, Ricciardi is angry because Batter's Box supported him when he was making intelligent decisions but has abandoned him now that he isn't anymore.

Still, some of Ricciardi's arguments are interesting, at least:

“Over the last year, you guys have lost perspective a little bit," he said. "You get more excited when we sign a minor-league free agent who has never played in the major leagues than when we sign Scott Schoeneweis, who we’re trying to make a reliever of – you guys rip it apart."

Well, that's because Schoeneweis is terrible. Still, he has a point - bloggers probably place too much emphasis on minor transactions, in part because we have to talk about them and in part because many of us know enough about the minor leagues to get pretty excited when our team signs a player (like Graham Koonce) who we always thought should get a shot. It's hard to criticize minor-league deals too much, anyway, because there's so little risk involved - I felt a little bit weird even rolling my eyes at the Pirates' recent Todd Ritchie signing. Ricciardi's right - while minor league deals certainly matter, they don't matter much, and they're the sorts of considerations that make people think that the Royals' Allard Baird is a good GM, even though he hasn't done much that has worked at the major league level.

JP is fully aware that numerous Bauxites have called numerous times for the acquisition of this or that player during the past few months. “We’re four steps ahead of you,” he said bluntly. The Blue Jays have already tried to trade for some of the players suggested by Bauxites – JP didn’t name specific players, but Brad Wilkerson, Austin Kearns and Nick Johnson were among the hitters most commonly suggested at Da Box...

JP went on to say that there are a number of aspects of deal-making that Bauxites simply would not know about – that a given player the Jays signed was maybe not their first choice, or that they gave a two-year contract to a player because another team was also willing to give it and the Jays either had to ante up or lose out. It’s a lot more complicated than it looks.

Again, a good point. GMs shouldn't be criticized too much for failing to acquire a specific player.

However, when a blogger says, "They really should have traded for Brad Wilkerson," or, in my case, "The Pirates really should have signed Corey Koskie," what they mean is actually something like this: "Acquiring Wilkerson or Koskie would have been a much better course of action than the one the team chose, which stunk."

Which brings us to this gem:

“The thing I like about Hillenbrand is that he’s a real aggressive guy, a real hard-nosed guy,” he said. “That’s the team we’re trying to be, and we’re going to be able to do that more now; he brings that toughness. With Koskie, with Hudson, and with some of the grinders we have, we have to be more of a grind-it-out team.”

Riiiggghht. "A grind-it-out team"? What does that mean? How does Shea Hillenbrand, a mediocre offensive player and a bad defensive player (despite his hilarious recent claims to the contrary), help the Jays? How does Schoeneweis help them? "The thing I like about Hillenbrand is that he's a real aggressive guy, a real hard-nosed guy" is GM-speak for "My acquisition of Hillenbrand was completely indefensible."

While bloggers' speculations aren't always completely fair, the broader criticisms they stand in for often are. A GM who just gave a multi-million dollar contract to Scott Schoeneweis has no business complaining that he's being criticized.

Let's Play A Game

2005-02-28T01:49:00.000-05:00

It's called "Which one of these is exactly like the others?"

I'll post a link to this article, and a link to this other article, and you tell me which one is different.

Give up? Me too. This is a pretty dumb game.

From Ed Eagle's Bullington article:

Because Bullington was selected by the Pirates with the No. 1 pick in the 2002 First-Year Player Draft, he is always sure to receive more than his share of attention from reporters and fans. And as the No. 1 pick for a franchise which must build through the draft and player development, Bullington is well aware of the high expectations that have been placed on his shoulders.

From Dejan Kovacevic's Bullington article:

Bryan Bullington displays a keen understanding that, no matter how well he pitches, how quickly he develops, it might not be enough to get anyone outside the Pirates' organization to evaluate him on his own merits.

Not when he was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2002 amateur draft.

Eagle:

"Bullington's development has gone well," said Pirates director of player development Brian Graham. "He has two full seasons of professional baseball under his belt. He is going to be a starter in Triple-A and he's not even [on] the [40-man] roster. That is pretty impressive."

Kovacevic:

"All aspects of his development have gone well," director of player development Brian Graham said. "He has two full seasons under his belt, and he's going to be a starter in AAA. ... That's pretty impressive."

Almost all the quotes in the article have the same sorts of similarities, which just amplifies the absurdity of the face-saving Dave Littlefield and Brian Graham are trying to do. The quotes beg the question: Who decides who the beat writers write about? Do the Pirates do it? Or do the beat writers huddle up each morning and decide who to write about that day?

Both articles give misleading impressions of Bullington's status as a prospect. Eagle works for Major League Baseball, so it's no surprise that he does this. Kovacevic's article is better written and presents a clearer picture, but the headline is "Bullington making steady progress in Pirates' system."

Kovacevic probably didn't write that, and it's technically true, but it's not the first thing you'd hope someone would remember about Bullington. If he weren't a #1 draft pick, he'd be back at AA in 2005, which means his progress wouldn't be steady.

On Eric Byrnes

2005-02-23T12:43:00.000-05:00

You hardly need me to point out that the Pirates are, in John Perrotto's words, "hot" for Eric Byrnes. Various sources are speculating that the deal will definitely happen, that it will never happen, and that the cost will be two prospects.

Here are the names I've seen mentioned as possible Byrnes Bait. They're mostly entirely unsubstantiated, so I'm just listing them here as a beginning point for discussion.

-Ian Snell
-Nathan McLouth
-Tom Gorzelanny
-Mike Gonzalez
-Freddy Sanchez

Freddy Sanchez is 27 years old. If the Pirates want to trade Sanchez for Byrnes, that's fine with me.

As for Snell, McLouth, Gorzelanny and Gonzalez: there are two important factors when evaluating any trade. The first is whether the exchange of talent is fair, and the second is how the trade works in terms of what each team is trying to accomplish.

This begs the question: what are the Pirates trying to accomplish? I have no idea. Recently, they traded a prospect for a stopgap starter. Six months ago, they traded Kris Benson to the Mets for a stopgap starter and two prospects. Six months before that, they DFAed various prospects and left several more unprotected in the Rule 5 draft. Six months before that, they traded a superstar for a young pitcher and two prospects. Around the same time, they traded a stopgap starter and a reliever for a prospect. They also traded a young and promising third baseman for a young bench player, a stopgap starter, and a prospect. Then they DFA'ed the prospect.

Anyone notice a pattern here? I don't. A GM certainly can attempt to achieve many things at once, but I have no idea what Dave Littlefield is trying to achieve. The only compelling explanation for his actions that I've heard is that he's trying to "Drive for 75" wins each year, sacrificing a little of the future and a little of the present at the same time in order to keep the Pirates from having a disastrous season and keep them from being pressured to spend money. What this means would be that the Pirates are sacrificing shots at the playoffs and the World Series just to avoid being completely abysmal.

This strategy is hopelessly depressing. But even more depressing is the alternative explanation: that Littlefield and Kevin McClatchy are completely incompetent rather than simply pretty bad.

I'm not aware of any other convincing explanations for Littlefield and McClatchy's behavior. And please, I don't want to hear from anyone that 'he has a plan, we just don't know what it is.' Littlefield has had three years now to turn his plan into action, and turning plans into action typically requires direction and a certain consistency of behavior. If he had a plan other than "Drive for 75," we'd know about it by now. The A's have a plan. The Indians have a plan. The Brewers and Braves have plans. The Pirates probably do not.

In the past, I've written about how the Pirates could have the best young players in baseball right now, with a team that could destroy everyone in 2007 or so. Unfortunately, they don't have a collection of great young players now, thanks to the Littlefield regime. (Baseball Prospectus released its list of the top 50 prospects in baseball this week; there's not a single Pirate on it.)

So given what's already happened, what should the Pirates do about Byrnes? Given that the pointless bungling of the last three years has already occurred, what should the Pirates do now with the talent they have?

The Pirates won 72 games last year with a young team, but some of their top performers last year are likely to take a step backwards this year; their major offseason move was to part ways with one of their best players. I don't see how it's possible for them to improve the 15 or 20 games or so necessary to win enough games to make the playoffs this year. Fifteen games is a whole lot, and there are only a few ways for a team to improve that much in an offseason.

1) Sign really talented players. The Pirates didn't do this. In fact, they did the opposite of this by ridding themselves of a really talented player.
2) Be completely abysmal, 2003 Tigers-style, in the year before the improvement. The Pirates didn't do this.
3) Get really wild breakout seasons from a number of players, without getting many regressions from other players to offset the breakouts.

Option number 3 seems like the only possibility for the Pirates to win in 2005, and it's extremely remote - in 2004, the Pirates got huge steps forward from Oliver Perez and Jack Wilson, good years from Craig Wilson and Jose Mesa, career years from Brian Meadows and Salomon Torres, and way-beyond-expectations rookie seasons from Jason Bay and Mike Gonzalez. The only even reasonably likely breakout candidates are Kip Wells and Jose Castillo. In other words, there isn't a ton of upside for 2005, and the Pirates would have to harness pretty much all of it to contend, even with Eric Byrnes.

Besides, Byrnes isn't even that good. Why do you think the A's, who have a much better shot at contending in 2005 than the Pirates, want to trade Byrnes for minor leaguers? So they can play Bobby Kielty and Charles Thomas who, again, aren't that good.

On the other hand, the Pirates do have a ton of pitching, and even a few position prospects, at AAA and AA, including McLouth, Snell and Gorzelanny. Not all of it is great, but at least they should have mostly prospects in the Indianapolis and Altoona rotations. They also control many of the key players currently on the major league roster - Perez, Bay, Jack Wilson, and Gonzalez - through 2007. So why not wait a year or two, see how the pitching develops, and then start acquiring players like Byrnes for a playoff push? The Pirates won't even be very good then, but most of the best players on the team will still be there, and so will a number of the remaining Bonifay prospects. Even given the planless wandering of the Littlefield administration so far, better days, although still not particularly good days, are on the horizon. Why squander them for the present, especially when the only prize is a player like Byrnes?

In certain contexts, Byrnes for Snell might not be a terrible idea. If Snell belonged to a team with a good rotation, serious outfield needs and a decent chance of making the playoffs, Snell might be a fair price for Eric Byrnes. However, those characteristics do not describe the Pirates - they have an okay rotation that Snell will probably wind up in at some point in the year and no reasonable shot at the playoffs. They have enough outfielders in general; their real problem is center field, and Byrnes doesn't solve that problem - he has good speed and plays hard, but like the Pirates' current walking disaster Tike Redman, he takes weird routes. UZR, which uses play-by-play data to determine how many balls a player gets to compared to how many he should get to, is probably the best defensive stat we have. UZR measures Byrnes at 24 runs below average in left field last year. Byrnes must be regarded as a corner outfielder, and not a very good one at that, and the Pirates already have plenty of defensively-challenged corner outfielders.

Given that Byrnes isn't a great fit for the Pirates and the Pirates aren't likely to contend anyway, they would be better off waiting for their young pitchers to develop before trading youngsters for players like him.

New News

2005-02-20T01:30:00.000-05:00

As if being a Pirates fan didn't feel bad enough.

Tike Redman on steroid use:

"Me, I've never done steroids. Everything I do is natural," he said. "But some guys, they come out there and hitting these bombs and these liners to the gaps like ... as soon as the ball comes off the bat, you can't move quick enough. It's already by you. I'm not talking about the moon-shot home runs. I'm talking about the line drives. You wouldn't believe it."

Got that? It's not Tike's fault his defense reeks, it's the 'roids. His failure to "move quick enough" wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that his routes to the ball look like a staircase turned on its side. Oh no.

J.R. House may be done for the season:

House learned yesterday from the Pirates' medical staff that he has a dual injury in his right shoulder, a torn labrum and a 30 percent tear of the rotator cuff... Although House described the injury as chronic, he pinpointed the start of the current trouble to his ninth game in the Dominican Republic's winter league two months ago... General manager Dave Littlefield said the Pirates were aware of House's chronic shoulder pain for an extended period of time.

Wait a minute - what is a catcher with chronic shoulder pain doing playing winter ball? That's a serious question. Is it common for teams to treat players this way?

Oliver Perez is reporting shoulder problems. Uh oh.

In the same article, the Eric Byrnes buzz continues. I like Byrnes just fine, but he's 29, he's not a great player, and I'm terrified of what will happen if Littlefield tries to trade with Billy Beane again. Most of the rumors suggest that the price for Byrnes will be a prospect or two. The Pirates' young talent was never all that good to begin with, and in the last six months Littlefield has traded one prospect, dumped several others, and had three important ones (John VanBenschoten, Sean Burnett and House) go down with major injuries. Please, let's stop trading prospects for roster spaces and other players who aren't that good.

Letter to Kovacevic

2005-02-16T03:21:00.000-05:00

Mr. Kovacevic, in this week's Q+A, you defend Dave Littlefield, writing:

"Look at the roster that Indianapolis should have this summer, and ask yourself when is the last time the Pirates had a Class AAA team that had more prospects than retreads."

Prospects at the AAA level are nice, but Littlefield doesn't deserve credit for their presence, unless one feels that those players are there primarily because of coaches hired by Littlefield.

The prospects at AAA this year are likely to be J.R. House, Jose Bautista, Nate McLouth, Chris Duffy, Cory Stewart, Bobby Bradley, Brian Bullington, Ian Snell, Matt Peterson and Jeff Miller. Ryan Doumit, Zach Duke and Brad Eldred also stand a good chance of winding up in Indianapolis at some point during the season.

Stewart was acquired by Littlefield in his excellent Brian Giles trade, but the chances that Stewart will turn into an effective big leaguer are small. Peterson was acquired and Bautista reacquired in a dubious trade in which Littlefield gave up the best starting pitcher on the market at the time along with another prospect, Jeff Keppinger, who would have added to the list of prospects at Indianapolis if he were still around. Bullington was Littlefield's top pick overall in the 2002 draft, and he didn't pitch well at AA last year; that pick now looks like a massive missed opportunity. Eldred was an inspired Littlefield selection. All the rest of the players in the long list of Indianapolis prospects were acquired by Cam Bonifay and his scouting director Mickey White.

If we instead look at the low minors, where most of Littlefield's picks in the last three drafts are playing, the picture looks bleak. While it's too early to judge those drafts conclusively, very few players Littlefield has drafted are looking like good prospects: there's pitcher Tom Gorzelanny, pitcher Paul Maholm (who was injured most of 2004), catcher Neil Walker, and not much else. The Pirates' teams in the low minors have posted good records during Littlefield's tenure, but that's mostly because of his reliance on non-prospect ringers like Adam Boeve and Jon Benick, who are way too old for their levels. There is ample reason for concern about what's going to happen when there aren't any more Bonifay prospects left to promote.

Given Littlefield's awful track record at the major league level and his embarrassing and pointless losses of good young players in the Rule 5 draft and to waivers, I can understand the need to look to the minors for some sort of ray of hope. Unfortunately, the credit for that ray should go not to Littlefield but to Bonifay, who's currently with the... uh... Rays.

Early NL Central Preview

2005-02-12T20:38:00.000-05:00

With Spring Training on its way, I'm taking an early look at what the NL Central might have in store this year. A lot of top talents left the division this offseason, including Sammy Sosa, Matt Clement, Moises Alou, Edgar Renteria, Woody Williams, Carlos Beltran, Jeff Kent, Wade Miller and Jason Kendall. The only similar talents to enter the division were Mark Mulder and Carlos Lee, and the only team that obviously improved itself was the Brewers. The Central is a wide-open division next year; while it's unlikely that any of its perennial bottom-dwellers (Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh) will climb to the top, Milwaukee has a shot, and 88 wins or so might be enough for one of the other three teams to win. Here are my analyses of the six teams and the order in which I think they might finish.

(NOTES: The additions and subtractions aren't exhaustive; I only listed the comings and goings I thought might have a significant impact on the 2005 season. Please put a note in the comments and let me know if I missed anything major, like a season-ending injury.)

CHICAGO
2004 Record: 89-73
2004 Pythagenport record: 94-68

Major additions: 2B Jerry Hairston, OF Jeromy Burnitz
Major subtractions: OF Sammy Sosa, P Matt Clement, OF Moises Alou, 2B Mark Grudzielanek, P Kyle Farnsworth, OF Ben Grieve, P Kent Mercker

Despite the losses of a number of big-name players, the Cubs are better off than they appear. Sammy Sosa hit .253/.332/.517 in 2004; Baseball Prospectus has pointed out that manager Dusty Baker has a track record of getting great performances from veteran hitters, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Jeromy Burnitz replace Sosa's production in 2005. Moises Alou's ridiculous .293/.361/.557 should be trickier to replace, but the Cubs will benefit enormously from a full season of Nomar Garciaparra rather than Ramon Martinez and the execrable Alex Gonzalez. On the pitching side, the Cubs lost Clement and they probably won't get another 3.47 ERA from Glendon Rusch, but those things probably won't matter if they can get full, healthy seasons from Kerry Wood and Mark Prior.

ST. LOUIS
2004 Record: 105-57
Pythagenport: 101-61

Major additions: P Mark Mulder, SS David Eckstein, 2B Mark Grudzielanek, P Mike Myers
Major subtractions: SS Edgar Renteria, P Woody Williams, P Dan Haren, P Steve Kline, P Kiko Calero, C Mike Matheny, 2B Tony Womack

The Cardinals were fantastic last year, but it's hard to see how they might win 100 games again. Despite the addition of Mark Mulder, the pitching will probably be worse - Woody Williams is gone, and so are three valuable cogs in Haren, Kline and Calero. It's hard to believe that Chris Carpenter, Jason Marquis and Jeff Suppan can again pitch almost 600 fantastic innings between them. Matt Morris will start the year on the DL, and Mulder collapsed badly down the stretch last year.

The Cardinals are replacing Edgar Renteria with the adorable but inferior David Eckstein and also have new starters at second base and catcher, but the main difference between 2005's offense and 2004's could be age. The 2004 outfield of Larry Walker, Jim Edmonds and Reggie Sanders returns, and while they were terrific last year, they're all ancient. It wouldn't be a surprise to see one or more of those three get injured or fall off the table next year, and if that happens, they'll likely be replaced by John Mabry or Roger Cedeno, both of whom are also in their 30s. Any offense led by Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen will be productive, but the Cardinals' hitting still shouldn't be as good as it was last year.

HOUSTON
2004 Record: 92-70
Pythagenport: 92-70

Major additions: Um, Dave Burba? John Franco?
Major subtractions: OF Carlos Beltran, 2B Jeff Kent, P Wade Miller

The Astros lost three very important players in Beltran, Kent and Miller. Their other stars are mostly at the age where a steep decline is just around the corner. Lance Berkman should be hurt to start the season. Pitcher Andy Pettite had elbow surgery in August and is a huge question mark. 2B Chris Burke and OF Jason Lane should get a chance to make an impact, and they'd better do it, or the 2005 season could get ugly very quickly for the Astros. If Burke, Lane and the young leadoff type Willy Taveras perform well and Roger Clemens, Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio keep it up for another year, the Astros should be able to impersonate a contending team for a while; if they don't, Houston could be leapfrogged by any or all of the three teams I've put below them.

MILWAUKEE
2004 Record: 67-94
Pythagenport: 67-94

Major additions: OF Carlos Lee, C Damian Miller, P Jose Capellan, P Ricky Bottalico, P Justin Lehr
Major subtractions: OF Scott Podsednik, 2B Keith Ginter, P Luis Vizcaino, P Danny Kolb, IF Craig Counsell

Things are finally looking up for Milwaukee. They've got an ace in Ben Sheets, some interesting young pitchers, and several grade-A hitting prospects. They also had an excellent offseason. They signed Damian Miller, a solid catcher who will provide an enormous upgrade over Gary Bennett and Chad Moeller, to a contract that seemed more and more reasonable as the offseason went along. They traded two mediocre players for Carlos Lee, a very good hitter in the prime of his career. Then they dumped their closer, Danny Kolb, on Atlanta in exchange for Jose Capellan, a very promising pitcher who could help Milwaukee immediately. This is a young and talented team, so a wide range of results are possible for the Brewers - they might fall flat again, or they might surprise nearly everyone. Either way, it's hard not to pull for an organization that appears to finally be back on the road to respectability. The Brewers should be contenders in the next few years.

PITTSBURGH
2004 Record: 72-89
Pythagenport: 74-87

Major additions: P Mark Redman, OF Matt Lawton, C Benito Santiago, OF Ben Grieve
Major subtractions: C Jason Kendall, P Brian Boehringer, OF J.J. Davis, P Frank Brooks

The Pirates' big move this offseason was to dump one of their few unambiguously good players in Jason Kendall on the A's in exchange for some money and a few trinkets. That bad move looked even worse as February rolled around and the Pirates found themselves several million dollars under budget and with no one to spend their money on. GM Dave Littlefield has said that the Pirates plan on spending that money this year come hell or high water, so expect them to trade promising young talent for a terrible veteran who will block a better and younger player the Pirates already have.

For 2005, the Pirates are a mess. Even when Benito Santiago isn't injured, he's a vastly inferior player to Kendall. Matt Lawton's defense will drive the Bucs' pitchers nuts, and his hitting is nothing to write home about. Mark Redman will be capable but uninspiring in the rotation.

As for the returning players: as bad as the Pirates were in 2004, they actually had quite a lot of good luck. Oliver Perez and Jason Bay were better than anyone could have expected. Jose Mesa got through the season without getting shelled. Brian Meadows and Salomon Torres had career years in the bullpen. Mike Gonzalez was simply ridiculous. And Jack Wilson went from being one of the worst hitters in the National League to an above-average batter for a shortstop. Despite their youth, it would be unreasonable to expect the returning Pirates to improve as a group. The Pirates' Pythagenport record last year was 74-87; I'd be pleasantly surprised if they won more than 74 this year. .500 is still a distant dream. The Pirates have a theoretical chance of contending for a while this year, but only in a 1997 best-of-the-worst sort of way, and even that won't last. They're a long way from building anything lasting, and in a few years they're going to wonder how the Brewers got so much better than them all of a sudden.

CINCINNATI
2004 Record: 76-86
Pythagenport: 66-96

Major additions: P Eric Milton, P Ramon Ortiz, 3B Joe Randa, P Kent Mercker, P David Weathers, P Ben Weber
Major subtractions: SS Barry Larkin

The Reds should again have a terrific outfield, but their infield isn't great, and Sean Casey won't hit .324/.381/.534 again. Their Pythagenport record suggests that they were also a lot worse in 2004 than their win totals indicated. This offseason, the Reds ownership correctly identified their biggest weakness - pitching - but they ended up throwing a ton of money (for them) at mediocre hurlers, which won't help. Eric Milton might give up fifty home runs this year. The Reds' fortunes are unlikely to change much until they develop some good starting pitching from within.

For Your Amusement

2005-02-08T02:01:00.000-05:00

I wouldn't normally post something like this, but since there isn't much Pirate-related news today, I'll mention it. There's a ton of bad baseball writing out there, but this is some of the worst I've seen in a long time, and it's in USA Today. It's written in a Rosenthal/Gammons bullet-point style, even though Rod Beaton has few juicy rumors to report. Beaton does, to his credit, have one of the better names of all time. To his discredit, he apparently does not have a copy editor.

-Beaton mentions that "Now you get utilitymen who bash while on the lineup card as first baseman, left fielder, DH and catcher." After mentioning only Ryan Garko and former Pirate prospect Chris Shelton, Beaton adds, "Get used to it. There will be more of these guys." This is, of course, hardly breaking news: Matt LeCroy and Craig Wilson have been cast in exactly this sort of power-utilityman-catcher role for years.

-Beaton then says that Eric Munson has been a flop, and that (therefore?) teams should be wary of drafting another USC catcher, Jeff Clement. Why? Is there some problem with USC? It follows from Beaton's logic that teams should eagerly draft all of USC's pitchers at the first available opportunity, since Mark Prior came from there.

-Then there's a paragraph on the Pirates: "The Pirates have had some starters suffer serious setbacks. Their No. 1 pitching propect was left-hander Sean Burnett, KO'd for the season. Another was/is, right-hander Bobby Bradley, back from a similar setback and lefty Paul Maholm. One starter, left-hander Zach Duke (5-1, 1.58 in AA), remains standing, and should eventually stand out."

In addition to at least two grammar errors and one spelling error in that series of sentences, there's awkward writing. To what does "another" refer? "Another" what? And why do we have to guess what Paul Maholm's name is doing there?

-Check this one out:

Arizona's Luis Gonzalez has really helped his arm strength and accuracy in workouts, "I feel like Tom Brady out there," he told The Los Angeles Times. And while we're into football lingo, Padres general manager Kevin Towers, 42, says ageless center fielder Steve Finley "is the Dick Clark of baseball. He never seems to age." Towers is too young to recall Clark's American Bandstand, but there is a re-creation of the hit on the Sunday soap, American Dreams.

What? 'And while we're into football lingo, here's an utterly irrelevant reference to a TV drama'?

-The Seattle Mariners worked for more than a year to get shortstop/second baseman Yuniesky Betancourt out of Cuba and signed. That detemination [sic], plus his age (22), suggest he is worth it all. The same goes for his good swing. That's another sign of the athleticism he has exploited as a position player at times.

-Just when it seems Japan's arms corps is not as strong as it has been, and the ones who arrive come over most often as middle relievers. An Ichiro or Hideki Matsui is rare indeed. The latest ordinary import is Denny Tomori, 37, who just left Japan and took his 8.50 ERA with him (stats from Jim Albright, the Japanese Insider, with BaseballGuru.com).

You might think I'm taking these out of context, but I'm not. Hilarious stuff.

Another:

"Nakamura could win spot in the post-Beltre world."

Did Beltre die? And who, or what, is spot?

* * *

Anyway, go back to your regular reading. You'll need something cogent to clear your head after the Beaton article. There's been some inspired Pirate blogging in the last week. It's just that I haven't been doing any of it. Check out WTM's argument about what the Pirates should do in the first round of the draft. Then head over to Let's Go Bucs, where Jeff has posted a table containing Pirate salary information.

Thanks to Ryan.

Sign Matt Diaz

2005-02-06T20:34:00.000-05:00

The AP reports that the Devil Rays have signed Travis Lee and designated Matt Diaz for assignment. The Pirates, who still want some outfield help, should grab Diaz. Diaz is coming off two straight years in which he has hit for excellent average and developing power in the high minors, and 2005 will be his age 27 season.

Yesterday, the Post-Gazette reported that the Pirates were one of three teams pursuing Danny Bautista this offseason. (Bautista wound up with - surprise - the Devil Rays.) Bautista is a bad hitter who hasn't managed an OPS over .800 since his injury-shortened 2002 season, even though he's been playing in one of the best offensive environments in baseball. He'll turn 33 during the 2005 season. In addition, the Pirates are still tentatively planning on giving a bunch of at-bats to Daryle Ward, who hasn't put up an .800 OPS since 2000. Given his atrocious defense, Ward is one of the worst starters in baseball.

Diaz is very likely to outproduce Bautista and Ward next year, and he can now be had for a ridiculously low price. The team that acquires him will be able to pay him the league minimum salary for his age 27, 28 and 29 seasons, and he has a decent chance at being a very good spare part or even a functional starter during that time.

Kearns or Huff to Pittsburgh?

2005-02-02T01:26:00.000-05:00

Dejan Kovacevic reports that the Pirates' attempt to get Jeromy Burnitz for one year and around $4.25 million is likely to be unsuccessful. The fact that they offered that money in the first place shows that the Pirates are willing to spend real money on a hitter, however. There aren't really any hitters left on the free agent market, though, so the Pirates may look to make a trade. Kovacevic names Austin Kearns, Aubrey Huff and Eric Byrnes as possible targets.

Kovacevic doesn't say if these names came from the Pirates' front office or if he's just guessing. I suppose there are two main ways to look at this article. The first, less cynical way is to be excited about the possibility of getting Kearns or Huff. Both have as much talent and upside as any current Pirate hitter except possibly Jason Bay. Kearns and Huff also happen to play for teams with seriously dumb front offices. The Pirates' front office is just as bad, but there's at least the possibility that they could wind up giving up far less for Kearns or Huff than they're worth, especially since they'd probably be willing to take on salary. Eric Byrnes isn't nearly as good as Kearns or Huff, but he's light years better than any hitter the Pirates currently have except Bay and Craig Wilson.

Huff and Kearns are genuinely valuable players, and the Pirates' much-ballyhooed "pitching depth" doesn't actually really exist, so it's doubtful that they'd give up too much in a deal for either player. The young pitchers I'd be most upset about losing are Oliver Perez, Zach Duke and Tom Gorzelanny, and I don't see the Pirates trading Perez or Duke.

The more cynical way to think about this article is to guess that Kovacevic is just wish-casting, and that the Pirates will instead try to get an older or lower-upside player. That's what they did before the 2003 season when they traded prospects for Randall Simon and Matt Herges. They did it again this offseason when they traded Leo Nunez for Benito Santiago. I'm trying to be optimistic here, but given Dave Littlefield's track record, my urge to be cynical is hard to suppress.

Burnitz Rumors Won't Die

2005-01-29T16:35:00.000-05:00

The Pirates are apparently still interested in Jeromy Burnitz. I respond by clenching my fists, raising my arms, making sure no one's looking, smelling myself a little bit, putting my arms back down, shrugging, and saying, "Eh." On the one hand, I'm all for the Pirates spending money, and the acquisition of Burnitz would likely send Daryle Ward and/or Tike Redman to the bench. On the other hand...

Burnitz probably isn't a good player anymore. He hit 37 homers last year, but he did it in the mother of all hitters' parks. There is some theoretical possibility that he'll keep some of that improvement going forward, but he wouldn't be the first hitter to leave Denver and vanish into thick air: see Jeff Cirillo, Chris Stynes, Jay Payton, Jeffrey Hammonds, Brent Mayne and Vinny Castilla. Add that to the facts that Burnitz is as old as the Rockies and that he was downright bad in his two previous seasons (even though he somehow managed to hit 31 homers in 2003), and you've got a lot of signs that Burnitz is in for a disappointing year.

Defensively, I'd have trouble trusting center field to a guy heading into his late thirties who has never had great speed, but Burnitz' defensive stats weren't disastrous last year, and he might be an improvement over Tike Redman anyway. The Bucs' outfield defense is going to be a mess next season, and I don't see any obvious way to avoid that at this point, with or without Burnitz.

If the Pirates want to sign Burnitz to a one-year contract, that's fine with me. Again, I must reiterate that a smarter course of action would have been to pool all this money being used to sign the likes of Burnitz, Benito Santiago, Jose Mesa and the like in order to sign an actual good player, but the Pirates appear to be past the point where that's possible anyway. The only ways signing Burnitz would be an actively bad move for the Pirates is if they gave him more than one year or used the acquisition to push Craig Wilson to a platoon role or the bench. Unfortunately, I wouldn't put those things past the Pirates.

More Pirates News

2005-01-26T13:45:00.000-05:00

John VanBenschoten may be done for the year. Yuck. Let's see: Jason Schmidt, Francisco Cordova, Kris Benson, Bobby Bradley, Sean Burnett, Ryan Vogelsong... a team that can't keep its pitchers healthy probably shouldn't be drafting them in the first round every single year.

The Pirates settle with Rob Mackowiak, who will be acceptable but hardly a bargain at $1.5 million.

Also, they signed Ben Grieve to a minor league contract. Assuming Grieve couldn't have gotten a major league deal from anyone else, this is a great move by both parties. The chances that Grieve will wind up with Pittsburgh at some point are very good. The chances that he will be productive are also fairly good, and he's still young and talented enough to possibly surprise people and have a season similar to the one Craig Wilson had in 2004.

Grieve has his drawbacks, that's for sure - he's a terrible outfielder, he stinks on the basepaths, and he arguably got worse every season from 2000 to 2003. But look:

2004:
Grieve: .361/.424
Matt Lawton: .366/.421

Grieve basically is Lawton, except he's worse on the basepaths and is four years younger. Oh, and Grieve won't be making $7 million next year.

Here are Grieve's most similar batters through age 28:

Sixto Lezcano
Dwight Evans
George Hendrick
Jose Guillen
Dusty Baker

These lists of comparables are rough at best, but every single one of these guys (except Guillen, who played last year at age 28 and shows no signs of slowing down) was productive after age 28. And jeez, Dwight Evans? Dusty Baker? Anytime you can get a 29-year-old on a minor league contract whose top 5 most comparable list includes Evans and Baker, you take him. This is a terrific high-upside, no-risk move by the Pirates. Grieve could easily outplay Lawton next year.

Pirates Roundup

2005-01-18T01:30:00.000-05:00

Hello friends,

Sorry for my recent absence. The last week or so has been very busy and exciting for me personally, and I haven't had the time or inclination to think about baseball much.

The Pirates news we've heard since Wednesday has mostly been uninspiring. The Pirates avoided arbitration with Kip Wells, Josh Fogg and Brian Meadows. Wells' upside is worth the $3 million gamble the Pirates are taking on him, but the $3 million plus combined the Pirates will be spending on Fogg and Meadows is unnecessary. Last week, Jeff did a good job explaining why Meadows isn't as good as last year's numbers suggest. Fogg is simply mediocre, and despite the Pirates' recent problems keeping their starters healthy, the Pirates might have been better served if they'd handed Fogg's rotation spot to a youngster like Ian Snell and pooled the money they'll be spending on Fogg, Meadows, Benito Santiago and Jose Mesa to sign a single player who could help their dreadful offense.

The other major/"major" move the Pirates made recently was to take steps toward signing Albie Lopez to a minor league contract. Lopez didn't play in 2004, has had elbow trouble, and was awful in limited time in 2003, but he could be a useful bullpen arm if everything breaks right for him this year. The same could be said for at least a dozen younger, higher-upside guys the Pirates already have in the minors, however.

New Pirates Q+A!!!

2005-01-12T01:06:00.000-05:00

I give you exclamation points because I finally have something nice to say.

I've read the Post-Gazette's Pirates Q+A for several years now and contributed to it a few times. It was never any good - the questions were fraught with small-market Pirate-pity, and the answers might as well have been written from someone inside the Pirates organization rather than an objective observer.

It looks like things are going to change now that Dejan Kovacevic controls the conch. Not only are his contributions this week mostly very fair and reasonable, the contributions from readers are much better than they've ever been, and not just because Primer regulars Wilbur Miller and Stephen Zielinski wrote in.

Here are some choice excerpts:

Reader: I think the success of the 1997 team is the root of why the Pirates were bad when PNC Park opened. That was supposed to be the first year a five-year rebuilding plan. The team was supposed to lose 100 games, finish in last place by a mile, and no one was going to complain. But something happened. The whole division stunk and the Pirates overachieved, keeping them in the division race until the last week of the season. So, the Pirates entered 1998 with a weaker roster in a stronger division. When the 1998 team failed to perform, Bonifay decided to abandon the plan.

There's nothing I can add to that but a nod.

Kovacevic: The unspoken question here is this: Why is third base seen as so secure? Anytime the Pirates discuss their options for improving the offense, the outfield and first base are mentioned, but never third base.

Anyone feel like looking up the numbers to compare the Pirates' production from third base to the rest of the National League in 2004? I am guessing that it is not favorable.

Okay. This is a great question. The reason third base is seen as secure is because Dave Littlefield traded his best trading chip at the time for Ty Wigginton and a couple of B-grade prospects. In order to make the trade look good, Littlefield now has to spend the next year or so pretending that Wigginton is a good baseball player. That's not a good reason why Wigginton's job is secure for now, but it's a reason.

The Pirates finished dead last in the NL with a .646 OPS from third base in 2004. A lot of that was the fault of Chris Stynes, but Wigginton also added to the stink - he also had a .646 OPS for the Pirates. In fact, the only Pirate who hit like a real third baseman while playing third base last year was Rob Mackowiak.

Rowdy wrote a really nice post about Mackowiak and Wigginton a couple of days ago that I've been meaning to mention. Rowdy wonders why Wigginton should be handed the job, especially since Mackowiak bats left-handed and Wigginton is a righty. I think platooning them is a good idea, at least until the Pirates acquire a better option or Freddy Sanchez plays circles around them both. Wigginton probably will hit better than a .646 OPS in 2005, but not that much better, and his fielding is a mess. Sanchez is supposed to be an adequate shortstop, so he should make a good third baseman, and his hitting could be much better than Wigginton's.

Back to Kovacevic:

There also was a near-universal call to challenge the Pirates' decisions, to scrutinize the team's finances, to keep a constant tally of payroll and expenditures, to interview Nutting, to wiretap McClatchy's phone, to rip through his bank records and many other suggestions in a similar vein. As one reader put it, "Question everything!"

I'm happy to know that other readers are as dissatisfied as I am. This Q+A is really encouraging. Keep it up, Mr. Kovacevic - and question everything!

Former "Ace" Returns

2005-01-11T15:01:00.000-05:00

Hey Pirates fans, remember how great the 2001 season was? What? You don't?

Todd Ritchie is back. He hasn't posted an ERA below 5 since leaving, and he had rotator cuff surgery in 2003. His chances of helping are all but nonexistent.

Ten Questions

2005-01-09T02:49:00.000-05:00

Trev calls for other Pirate bloggers to answer Dejan Kovacevic's questions in this week's Pirates Q+A in the Post-Gazette. Since there aren't any big news stories today, I'll play along.

1. Who deserves most of the blame for the Pirates' inability to win since moving into PNC Park?

Kevin McClatchy or whoever is pulling the strings right now, for being cheap and risk-averse.

2. When you see young players excel, as have Oliver Perez, Jason Bay, Jose Castillo, Jack Wilson and Mike Gonzalez, do you find reason for hope? Or do you just picture how they will look in another uniform?

Jose Castillo hasn't done anything yet in the majors. But to answer the question, my answer is neither one - the Pirates will have all these guys through what should be their best years. The problem is not that these guys will leave, but that the Pirates won't have enough talent to build a good team while they're here.

3. For old-timers only: Can you recall any Pirates player between Ralph Kiner and Perez who single-handedly drew Pittsburgh fans to the ballpark?

I'm not an old-timer.

4. What are your choices for Dave Littlefield's best and worst personnel moves in his tenure? This does not have to be limited to trades. It also can be an internal move (keeping Castillo in the majors last year, Rule 5 fiasco, drafting Neil Walker, whatever).

Best: the Brian Giles and Todd Ritchie transactions. Worst: All the others.

5. In your mind, which prospect in the organization who has yet to appear in a major-league game has the greatest potential?

I'd say Zach Duke and Neil Walker have the highest upsides, but my choice of Walker has more to do with his youth than anything he's shown on the diamond. I think Duke is the Pirates' best prospect.

6. If Major League Baseball shut down for a full season or more when its current Basic Agreement expires in a couple of years, and you had reason to believe that the end result would be a salary-cap system, how would you react during the work stoppage?

I don't know what Kovacevic is thinking here, but among Pirates fans, a certain logic often underpins questions like these:

A. The Pirates stink;
B. The Pirates spend less money than other franchises; therefore,
C. The Pirates would not stink if they spent as much money as other franchises.

The conclusion does not follow from the premises. While being in a small market probably puts the Pirates at a disadvantage (I say "probably" because we really don't know, since the Pirates won't open their books), lots of small-market teams find ways to succeed. The Pirates haven't. Their last general manager was awful, and their current one is probably worse. The people who are running the Pirates right now don't deserve success, and money has nothing to do with it. If the Pirates had more money, they'd probably just be throwing $25 million at Jaret Wright or something.

8. Who should start in center field? For that matter, what should the outfield look like? Feel free to throw in a free agent you think the Pirates should sign or acquire through trade. But be realistic. No Beltran.

I have no idea. The situation is a mess. Whatever the Pirates decide, Jason Bay and Craig Wilson should be playing every day. Matt Lawton will also probably play every day he's healthy; his defense is terrible, but he should be respectable on offense. Wilson can play either first or in the outfield, and I don't suppose it matters much to me whether Tike Redman or Daryle Ward has to ride the bench. If Ward or Graham Koonce shows anything in spring training, I'd let one of them play first and have an outfield of Wilson-Bay-Lawton. It would be an awful defensive outfield, but at least the Pirates would score occasionally, and it's not as if Redman has been fantastic on defense anyway.

9. How do you feel about the Pirates' decision to delay signing Perez to a long-term contract? Is it a needless risk that could cost the team money in the long run? Or a shrewd show of patience?

It's probably a moot point - Perez won't be with the Pirates any longer than he has to be.

10. A purely selfish one: What would you like to see in the Post-Gazette's coverage of the Pirates in 2005?

In the past, some of the Post-Gazette's coverage has almost seemed like it has come from within the organization rather than from outside it. I would like for the coverage to be more objective. I also second Trev's wish for more draft coverage.

Pirates Sign Koonce

2005-01-07T18:32:00.000-05:00

The Toledo Blade reports (scroll way down) that the Pirates have made four more minor league signings. WTM and Rowdy have both also pointed this out.

The news of of catcher Paul Chiaffredo's signing is neither especially interesting nor actually news (WTM has had Chiaffredo's name up on his site for weeks). Kirk Bullinger, another new signee, is just AAA filler.

Brian Mallette carved up the minor leagues as a reliever and put together a good season at Class AAA Louisville last year. He could be a nice fill-in if a reliever gets injured.

The most interesting of these signings is Graham Koonce, a veteran minor leaguer who possesses loads of power and patience but has never gotten a shot in the big leagues. Former Giants first baseman Damon Minor, who signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in December, is about the same age as Koonce and has a similar skill set. Minor, however, agreed to play in Japan a couple weeks ago. Koonce takes Minor's place.

Hopefully, Koonce will be allowed to compete with Daryle Ward in spring training. Ward's contract isn't guaranteed, and even given that the Pirates would have to pay a chunk of Ward's salary if they cut him, Koonce could easily be better than Ward for a fraction of the price. At the very least, Koonce should give Ward good reason not to show up to camp out of shape again.

KFFL reports that the Pirates have also signed Edwards Guzman, a no-hit catcher who might be a backup at Indianapolis.

UPDATE: This post has been corrected based on Brian's note in the comments section. Thanks, Brian.

Prospects: Rays Vs. Pirates

2005-01-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about Kevin McClatchy's (and Paul Meyer's, and Jim Molony's) recent assertions that soon a wave of prospects will arrive to show the Pirates are on the right track. I hope to show here that close examination of a relatively minor acquisition by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays exposes the silliness of McClatchy's claims.

Yesterday, the Rays reached a one year agreement with Alex "The Crappier One" Gonzalez, who played shortstop for the Padres, Expos and Cubs last year. The terms of the deal (one year, $1.75 million) aren't noteworthy, and yet this acquisition is a bit strange. The addition of Gonzalez to the D-Rays could end up affecting just about everyone else in the lineup.

The D-Rays have this shortstop B.J. Upton. Perhaps you've heard of him - after the Pirates passed on him in the draft, he flew through the minors and finished up the year hitting well in the majors. His baseball age was just 19 at the time. He's a tremendous talent worth building a franchise around.

The D-Rays also have another very good young shortstop, Jorge Cantu, who hit very well in AAA Durham and in the majors last year at age 22.

On top of that, the Rays have a perfectly good veteran shortstop in Julio Lugo. The Rays' solution to this "problem" may be to play Cantu at second and Lugo at short, with Upton starting the year in AAA to learn how to play defense better. They'll play Gonzalez, the new guy, at third.

That's strange, because the Rays already have a very good third baseman in Aubrey Huff. Huff's defense isn't that great at the hot corner, but on offense, he's the Rays' equivalent of Brian Giles, putting up very good numbers year after year as the best hitter on a bad team. Huff will likely move to first base or DH as a result of the Gonzalez acquisition.

Now let's look at the outfield. The Rays' corner outfielders next year will be Jose Cruz, a veteran with a good bat and a very good glove, and Carl Crawford. Crawford has already played two and a half seasons in the majors, but he'll still only be 23 next year. He has formidable tools, is a major asset on the basepaths and put up his first good season in the majors in 2004.

The Rays' centerfielder will be former rookie phenom Rocco Baldelli, who's also still very young. Baldelli will be on the DL to start the year, so the Rays may move Crawford to center and start Joey Gathright in a corner. Gathright has no power whatsoever, but he steals bases like crazy and has been an on-base threat at every level. He'll only be 23 next year.

But hang on - the Rays also have Jonny Gomes, who will be 24 next year and hit 26 homers in less than 400 at bats at Durham. They probably should find a spot for him as well. So let's pencil him at DH.

But Gomes probably can't play DH, at least not every day, since we already decided that Huff would occupy one of the first/DH spots, and recently the Rays did something really smart: they acquired Josh Phelps. Phelps will be 27 next year, so he's not a prospect anymore, but he was very good after joining the Indians last year, he wasn't bad in his first full year with the Jays in 2003, and he's only two years removed from hitting 39 homers in AAA and the majors in 2002. It wouldn't be a surprise to see Phelps hit 30 or more homers next year.

An examination of the Gonzalez acquisition shows that the Rays have high-upside young talent at practically every position. I haven't even mentioned AAA slugger Matt Diaz or a trio of young hitters around the age of 20 - Delmon Young, Wes Bankston and Elijah Dukes - who are currently going nuts on minor league pitching.

Admittedly, the Rays' young pitchers aren't as exciting as their hitters. And Chuck Lamar and Cam Bonifay are still in charge, which means they'll probably find ways to screw things up. But the point remains: if you're going to make promises to your fans about your great prospects, this is what your franchise should look like. Meyer recently listed Chris Duffy as an example of the young talent about to change the Pirates. Duffy couldn't hold a candle to at least seven young outfielders in the Rays' system: Baldelli, Crawford, Gathright, Gomes, Bankston, Dukes and Young. The Pirates don't have any hitters in their system who would be among the Rays' top 5 hitting prospects. The Pirates need to improve their minor-league system a lot before they make any more promises about their prospects.

Wilson Contract

2005-01-06T19:05:00.000-05:00

The Pirates have signed Jack Wilson to a two-year deal.

I don't have any particular opinion on this one way or the other. The relevant issues are how much Wilson would have made in arbitration, which is hard to predict, and whether he's worth $8 million more than Freddy Sanchez, who should be a decent cheap shortstop option for the Pirates for the next few years. Of course, Sanchez may eventually be needed to fill the Pirates' hole at third base.

Pirates' 2005 Chances

2005-01-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

The wonders of capitalism never cease to amaze me. Paul Meyer's been gone what - a week? - and already Jim Molony is primed to corner the market on wishful thinking about the Pirates.

I'm going to pick this apart, because it's fun and because Pirates fans deserve better than this junk. Also, I haven't done a "state of the Pirates" type of column in a while, and it's about that time.

We might expect the writing on mlb.com to be slanted toward the team; if this were the only writing about the Pirates that read this way, I probably wouldn't bother to comment on it. Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream writing on the Pirates looks like this. Here's Molony:

Slowly, but measurably, the Pirates have been building their system and trading away marketable veterans for more prospects to plug into that minor league system.

Also slowly, but measurably, they've been losing those prospects to trades, waivers, and the Rule 5 draft. The Pirates have only brought in one prospect this offseason - the marginal Antonio Sucre - and they've lost Frank Brooks, Tony Alvarez and J.J. Davis. In fact, in the Pirates' last trade, they did almost exactly the opposite of what Molony describes here, trading a marketable prospect (Leo Nunez) for another veteran (Benito Santiago) to plug into that major league system.

Littlefield has had to add a few stopgap veterans to plug holes until the wave of youngsters arrive...

Honestly, if Molony doesn't like actually typing sentences like this, I'm sure he can just bookmark any Meyer column from 2001 to the present and copy-paste a similar sentence.

In 2005, Littlefield will reach his fourth anniversary as GM with a team that has a realistic shot at .500...

Well, I guess the word "realistic" is subjective. More on that later.

...and a system that should soon begin producing the caliber and quantity of Major Leaguers the Pirates must have to contend for a playoff spot.

Where is this coming from? Who are these players? The Cam Bonifay signees who are just now making their debuts are the best hope the Pirates have, and that hope isn't that great. To put into perspective the absurd proclamations about prospects coming from the Pirates' front office and the press, take a look at this list (thanks, Primer) of the top 100 prospects in baseball. These sorts of lists are subjective, of course, but the people who wrote this appear to know what they're talking about, and there are two Pirates on this list, Zach Duke and John VanBenschoten. Neither is ranked above #56. Both players were drafted by Bonifay.

Not convinced? Look at what Trev has to say, or WTM. Not only is the Pirates' minor league system not that great, it's gotten worse under Littlefield, not better.

This is not to say there's nothing in the Pirates' system. One thing they do have is depth. But most of the prospects they have are second-tier prospects, and it's likely that many of those players would fail at the big-league level. It is also likely that many would succeed. Given the Pirates' recent history of blocking prospects who might have some holes in their games - the Santiago trade is a good example of this - it's unlikely they'll show the sort of patience necessary to sort out which of their B-prospects will make it at the major league level. [I copped some of the ideas in that sentence from Russ (post #29) at Baseball Primer.]

In four years, the Pirates will probably still be in the holding pattern they're in now, and people like Molony, Meyer and McClatchy will probably still be saying that any second there will be prospects to save the day. Teams like Cleveland, Milwaukee and even Tampa Bay, who seem poised to take advantage of the sort of favorable draft positions the Pirates have had, are much more likely to be where their fans want them to be by that time.

Back to Molony, though:

This team is not quite there yet. Littlefield has had to add a few stopgap veterans to plug holes until the wave of youngsters arrive, but even so, the 2005 Pirates could be manager Lloyd McClendon's best team yet.

Molony's main arguments in favor of this last assertion are as follows:

-The Pirates have Mark Redman now.
-Some prospects will help in the bullpen.
-Matt Lawton is "proven."
-My favorite: "Continued development is expected from third baseman Ty Wigginton and center fielder Tike Redman." Uh huh.

If Jason Bay can play centerfield, the Pirates might be able to improve dramatically simply by shifting Tike Redman to the bench. It doesn't look like that will happen, however. It seems more likely at this point - and I can't freaking believe this, but I've seen this in several articles now - that Redman will play center and Craig Wilson will move into some sort of job-sharing arrangement with Daryle Ward and Lawton. If that happens, the Pirates will have instantly downgraded their offense considerably from last year, and that's even before considering the loss of Jason Kendall.

I suppose I don't understand where this improvement will come from. Benito Santiago is a massive downgrade from Kendall at catcher, probably 20 runs or so over the season. Where else can the Pirates make up those 20 runs? They might get a few back as Jose Castillo improves. Although Jason Bay and Jack Wilson will probably remain solid players, however, both are more likely than not to take steps backward next year. It's possible that Ty Wigginton will be better than the Stynes/Wigginton/Mackowiak/Hill mess next year, but it's also possible he pulls a Stynes himself, but with worse defense. There is no reason to think that Daryle Ward and Tike Redman won't continue to be among the worst starters in baseball at their positions. Matt Lawton will likely be considerably worse than Craig Wilson, again with worse defense. (If you thought that wasn't possible, just watch.)

The Pirates would probably improve dramatically if Tike Redman, Ward, Wigginton and Santiago lost their jobs and were replaced with Bay, Craig Wilson, Sanchez and House, but that's not likely to happen unless the players in that first group tank so badly they force Lloyd McClendon to bench them, and in that case the Pirates' season is in big trouble.

On the pitching side, Mark Redman will probably help, but there's no reason to think he'll be any upgrade over the two thirds of a season the Bucs got from Kris Benson in 2004. It's true that Redman could keep Ryan Vogelsong out of the rotation, and that would help, but Vogelsong could end up grabbing the fifth spot anyway. Beyond that, where will the improvement come from? Kip Wells could bounce back a bit, and some rookies could indeed help out some. But it would be unwise to expect for Mike Gonzalez and Oliver Perez to be as ridiculous as they were last year. It would also be unwise to expect the same good performances from Jose Mesa, Brian Meadows and Salomon Torres.

Last year, the Pirates allowed 66 more runs than they scored. In order to have a reasonable expectation of finishing .500, they'd have to find a way to close that gap. They made that gap larger by replacing Kendall with Santiago. So where are those 80 or 90 runs going to come from? All the scenarios I can see involve last year's surprises (Bay, Perez, Gonzalez, Jack Wilson, Torres) continuing at the same rates while many others get better. As old readers of Rob Neyer's column will tell you, that's hot stove error number one. The Pirates could finish above .500, sure. Is that a particularly realistic goal for them? No.

Molony ends his column with the following note:

Jim Molony is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

That's nice to know. Maybe next time he'll act like it.

Pirates Considering Contract for Wilson

2005-01-01T04:50:00.000-05:00

Dejan Kovacevic writes, "The Pirates and shortstop Jack Wilson are negotiating a contract that could cover all three of his remaining arbitration-eligible seasons, and there is optimism it will be completed within two weeks."

What? Rototimes says that Wilson has two arbitration-eligible seasons left, not three. Shouldn't Wilson be eligible for free agency after the 2006 season? Or is he eligible after 2007 because he was a Super 2? I wrote a lengthy post dissing Kovacevic for the sentence above, but now I'm not sure it's not true. Somebody in the know, let me know.

Now, on to the story itself:

Odle [Wilson's agent] would not divulge the financial terms being discussed, but he did acknowledge that other contracts signed this offseason by shortstops are being weighed on his end of the negotiations.

Kovacevic then mentions the $40 million contract for Edgar Renteria and the $16.8 million deal for Cristian Guzman as examples.

Hopefully, the Pirates will dismiss the Guzman deal with an eyeroll. Wilson's a way better player than Guzman, but Guzman's not worth a quarter of what he's being paid.

I'd rather have Renteria than Wilson for the next four years, but it's not obvious that Renteria will be better than Wilson over that period. Still, if Wilson's agent is suggesting that Wilson should get anywhere near $40 million (or even $20 million), the Pirates should just take Wilson to arbitration and forget about a long-term deal for now. This offseason has been very kind to shortstops - Guzman, Renteria, Orlando Cabrera, Omar Vizquel and David Eckstein all signed very lucrative deals, and only Nomar Garciaparra and possibly Jose Valentin got less than they were worth.

Ultimately, the Pirates should realize that their contract negotiations with Wilson shouldn't necessarily have anything to do with the current free agent market. The difference between Wilson and the Renterias and Cabreras is that Wilson can't auction his services to the highest bidder. He has to play for the Pirates for the next two years (three?) as long as the Bucs are willing to take him to arbitration. If the Pirates want to reach a three-year deal with Wilson (which, by the way, I don't think is a great idea), the relevant facts should include:

1. Wilson's arbitration values for the 2005 and 2006 seasons, which the Pirates can make educated guesses about; and

2. Wilson's value on the free agent market in the 2006-2007 offseason (if this is, in fact, when he's eligible), which none of us can know much of anything about. In early 2001, who would have thought that Reggie Sanders and Kenny Lofton would be playing for a million bucks in 2003, or that Ivan Rodriguez would be playing for the Marlins on a one-year deal? Not only is it hard to know what kind of player Wilson will be in two years, nobody really knows what the market for free agents will be like.

All this is a very long-winded way of saying that if the Pirates and Jack Wilson want to agree on a long-term contract, the most relevant point should be what Wilson could be awarded in arbitration the next two years. The outlandish contracts for the likes of Orlando Cabrera and Cristian Guzman have very little to do with that.

UPDATE: According to a couple of sources, Kovacevic was right about Wilson's arbitration eligibility. Super 2's get four years of arbitration, not three.

Pirates Draft Analysis

2004-12-31T05:11:00.000-05:00

WTM is at it again - he recently posted player-by-player analyses of the last six Pirates drafts. It's certainly too early to say anything definitive about the Littlefield drafts, but WTM shows us that the early signs aren't so good. 2002 isn't very promising: the first overall pick, Bryan Bullington, isn't even really looking like a future big-leaguer right now. Second-rounder Blair Johnston flopped at Hickory, and third-rounder Taber Lee hasn't hit much. Fourth-rounder Wardell Starling, sixth-rounder Brad Eldred and twelfth-round pick Bryan Holliday could wind up being productive players - and Eldred in particular looks to have been an inspired pick, especially for an organization in need of power - but it doesn't look like Littlefield got much talent despite a favorable draft position.

2003 first-rounder Paul Maholm had his 2004 derailed by a facial injury. Second-round pick Tom Gorzelanny has pitched very well and third-rounder Steve Lerud has showed promise, but after that no one else from the 2003 draft has done anything terribly interesting. (It also appears the Pirates only signed 21 players from that draft, which hurts their odds of turning lower-round picks into prospects.) 2004's draft looks a bit more encouraging, but it's hard to read too much into only a couple months' worth of stats.

I'll stop talking now - WTM is the real expert in these matters, and those last two paragraphs you just read are only my way of saying that I find his analysis of the Pirates' situation compelling.

WTM's year-by-year writeups also say a lot about the weird careers of minor-league baseball players. Nothing for these players is permanent, and at any minute a player could be promoted or demoted or released without anyone knowing or really caring. This seems funny to me, since a lot of these players are only a few steps from the big leagues, at least theoretically. But some of these guys might as well be ghosts.

2002 23rd-round pick Dean Devine: "Retired after a few games."
2001 13th-rounder Jeff Dutremble: "Pitched briefly in 2001, then was injured and eventually released."
1999 42nd-rounder Frank Torre: "Signed but never played."

I'm sure this isn't noteworthy to anyone else, but I find it fascinating - these guys were all probably stars for their high school and college teams, then they get at least a theoretical shot to play in the best baseball league in the world and have their highlights all over ESPN - but then they get flushed out of baseball and they completely disappear from public life. There's nothing illogical about it, of course, but the contrast between what could have happened to these guys and what actually did intrigues me.

As I write this, I'm thinking of my first grade teacher's son, whose name was/is Ron Stephens. In 1985, he graduated from Linsly in Wheeling, West Virginia and was drafted by the Red Sox. He pitched at the University of Cincinnati instead and was there when I was in first grade. He visited our class once. He was a huge guy, or at least that's how I remember him. I feel like I remember him ducking to get through the doorway, but there's no way he was that big. Anyway, his mom knew I liked baseball, so she had Ron give me a ball. It stayed on my shelf all the way through high school, and I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere.

Anyway, Stephens got drafted again in 1988 by the White Sox. I know he pitched at least a couple of years in their system and was very good in at least one of those years, I believe for Utica. Stephens never made the majors, though, and now I can't find his minor league numbers - or any real information about him. Does anyone know anything?

Pirates 2005 ZIPS Projections

2004-12-28T20:53:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the absence, but there really hasn't been much to write about in the last week.

Baseball Think Factory - Baseball Primer has posted its 2005 ZIPS Projections for the Pirates. Obviously, projections don't predict the future perfectly - they can't predict playing time at all, they don't know what to do with scouty observations or injuries, and predicting the performances of baseball players is an inexact art (look at the columns of numbers) no matter what tools are available.

Still, these things are fun to look at, and in fact they look pretty good - none of the projections look terribly outlandish.

A few of the more interesting ones:

J.R. House: .267/.320/.458
Daryle Ward: .257/.309/.433

That looks about right. The Pirates just acquired a veteran catcher to keep the first guy in the minors, and just paid the second guy a million bucks. Ward is a lefty and House is a righty, however.

Brad Eldred: .237/.284/.456

ZIPS seems to think Eldred's power will translate but that he won't be able to make contact. That seems to be about what the scouts think. Still, that power is terrific - ZIPS thinks he would hit 25 homers in 447 at bats. Eldred needs some more time in the minors, but he could be looking good in 2006 if he can make contact more consistently.

Jack Wilson: .286/.326/.413

This looks like a soft landing for Wilson. ZIPS thinks that his batting average and power will suffer a bit, but that he'll take a few more walks than he did in 2005. Either way, a .739 OPS and very good defense seems fine for a shortstop.

Nate McLouth: .282/.339/.394
Tike Redman: .287/.332/.386

ZIPS thinks McLouth will be Redman in 2005. The Redman projection looks a little optimistic - it has Redman taking a dozen more walks than he took last year.

Jason Bay: .286/.375/.497

The projection says Bay will be merely very good in 2005, probably because his 2004 strikeout rate was so high.

Mike Gonzalez: 3.36 ERA

ZIPS says Gonzalez will take a big step backwards but will still be an effective reliever. Gonzalez had 55 strikeouts and 6 walks in 2004, and ZIPS predicts he'll have 75 Ks and 27 BBs in 2005. Gonzalez will have a hard time putting up a 9:1 K:BB ratio again, but I don't see why it should drop below 3:1. I think he'll be better next year than ZIPS suggests.

Brian Meadows: 4.80

Ouch - but I doubt ZIPS takes into account the facts that Meadows is much better as a reliever than as a starter, and he should be reliever in 2005. I think his ERA will be better than 4.80 next year.

Jose Mesa: 4.63

That looks about right - that's a guy you give a minor league contract to, not a guy you give millions.

Oliver Perez: 3.84

Uh oh. ZIPS guy Dan Szymborski explains in the comments that Perez' 2004 DIPS ERA was much higher than his actual ERA, and that the Pirates' defense is likely to be bad again next year.

Mark Redman: 4.31

ZIPS thinks that Redman will land somewhere between his 2003 performance and his 2004 performance.

All in all, nothing here looks terribly encouraging. None of these projections make me look at the numbers and see something I didn't see before that would suggest the Pirates will win more than 75 games next year. Of course, the offseason is still young.

Non-tender Deadline

2004-12-21T21:12:00.000-05:00

The passing of the non-tender deadline yesterday means it's open season on these non-tendered players. Trev at has made a list of players the Pirates might be able to use. Here's mine.

The best-known player on the list is Wade Miller (SP), who has been a very good starter for the Astros. He probably isn't healthy, and he may have to sign an incentive-laden deal or a Jon Lieber / Aaron Boone-type contract in which he would sign for multiple years but not be expected to play much for the first year. In any case, he'll probably cost too much for the Pirates' blood.

Next is Josh Phelps (1B) of the Indians. Trev points out Phelps' similarities to Craig Wilson. The Pirates already have the real thing, of course, but with first base the mess it is right now, why not take a flyer on another? After a monster 2002 in Toronto and AAA Syracuse, Phelps was looking like a star in the making, and even if he can't get back on track, he still hits for enough power to be useful as a bench player.

(Phelps' career also bears some similarities to that of the player whose at bats he'd theoretically take. Daryle Ward was once a pretty fantastic prospect, particularly after an excellent season at AA and AAA in 1997. But Phelps is three years younger.)

Miguel Asencio (P) was only 21 when he was taken from the Phillies in the 2001 Rule 5 draft. He's missed most of the last two years due to some pretty grisly injuries, but he had very good stuff before that and will only be 24 next year, so he might be worth a minor league contract.

Eric Munson (3B) possesses serious power and plays third base. Enough said. Well, maybe not. He's a Tony Batista-type player in that he rarely fails to make an out unless he's hitting a home run. Still, from the little I've read, he can probably handle the position as well as Ty Wigginton, and Munson hits lefty, so they might be good platoon mates. It might not be a great idea to spend two roster spots on Wigginton and Munson, though.

Billy Traber (P) is still only 25, and he's a lefty, and he's only a couple years removed from being a very highly regarded prospect. He demonstrated very good control in the minor leagues, although his strikeout rates were rather low. He has a decent performance record for his age at the major league level. He doesn't throw hard, but he has five pitches. Traber has had lots of trouble with his elbow and finally broke down near the end of the 2003 season (sorry, Billy!), so it's not certain that he'll be good when he comes back. Still, he's certainly worth a minor league contract.

Finally, there's Dustan Mohr (OF). Anyone who puts up a .394 OBP deserves a look from the Pirates. That .394 is in a relatively small sample size, and it's way out of line with Mohr's history in the majors and minors. But even if Mohr tails off, he should be able to help the Bucs, especially if he can play center field occasionally.

Pirates Offer Contracts to All Seven

2004-12-21T11:29:00.000-05:00

Ridiculous. In my last post, I said that what the Pirates did yesterday would say a lot about Dave Littlefield's plans for 2004 and the future.

Well, the results are in, and we've learned that Littlefield would rather stick with the crap he's got than use available funds to improve the team. The Pirates offered contracts to Kip Wells, Craig Wilson, Jack Wilson, Rob Mackowiak, Josh Fogg, Brian Meadows and Daryle Ward. The first three guys are worth keeping, and offering a contract to Mackowiak is defensible given his bat and the Pirates' situation in center field. But Fogg? He'll cost millions, and the Pirates already have lots of young starters. Meadows? He's a pretty good reliever, but there's no reason to pay a million dollars or more to someone like him. And, seriously, Daryle Ward? Why in the world would you pay a million dollars or more to Daryle Ward?

There is one silver lining to this situation, and it's that we now know the Pirates are willing to spend some money. Good. But here are some 2005 salaries to which the Pirates have committed (the ones for the arbitration-eligible guys are approximate):

Jose Mesa: $2.5 million
Josh Fogg: $2 million
Brian Meadows: $1 million
Daryle Ward: $1 million
Benito Santiago: $.7 million
TOTAL: $7.2 million

$7.2 million can be used to pay the yearly salary of a player who is very likely to be an enormous upgrade (Corey Koskie, who's a much better offensive player and exponentially better defensive player than Ty Wigginton) or a player who at least has enormous upside (Richard Hidalgo). True, these players might not want to play for the Pirates, but $7.2 million is a significant amount more than either of them got. The Pirates could then sign a bunch of guys to minor league contracts in order to find the next Meadows or Mesa. These arbitration offers are a terrible use of resources. Fogg, Ward and Santiago are scrubs, Mesa's pretty bad and a thousand years old, and there's no reason to commit to a reliever who isn't dominant.

* * *

Conversation with my brother:

CHARLIE: The Pirates gave contracts to all those players, including Ward.

SAM: Well, but they didn't do the worst possible thing, right?

CHARLIE: You mean non-tender Craig Wilson or something?

SAM: Right. If they don't do the absolute worst possible thing, you've got to consider that a victory, right?

* * *

SAM (upon learning of the Benito Santiago trade): Darwin would say that this team shouldn't exist.

Pirates Must Decide on Seven Players by Monday

2004-12-18T23:51:00.000-05:00

Joe Rutter reports.

Here are the seven Pirates who are eligible for arbitration.

Jack Wilson, SS
Craig Wilson, OF/1B/"C"
Kip Wells SP
Josh Fogg SP
Brian Meadows P
Daryle Ward 1B/"OF"
Rob Mackowiak UT

The Pirates have until Monday to reach agreements on contracts with each of these players. For the players that do not sign a contract by Monday, the Pirates will have to decide which to take to arbitration. Although they can still negotiate with the players they choose until arbitration occurs, they must take those players to arbitration if an agreement cannot be reached.

The arbitration process is one area in which I can't criticize the Pirates' front office the way I usually do, or at least I can't until Monday. I am regularly mystified by the salaries players get after going through arbitration. This may be due in part to my limited understanding on the process, although I also suspect that sometimes the arbiters are just as confused as I am.

In any case, by Monday we should have a lot more information available on Dave Littlefield's plans for 2004 and the future.

Keeping the Wilsons and Wells should be a high priority for the Pirates. Jack Wilson could get more in arbitration than he is worth - after the 2003 season, he got $1.8 million in arbitration. That seemed like an insane amount to pay a player who at that point had shown nothing on offense, especially since most defensive metrics suggested that his defense was worth less than met the eye. In 2004, however, he earned his money by improving his defense and having a solid offensive season. Not all those gains are likely to stick in 2005, especially since his plate discipline remains ghastly, but he should continue to be one of the Pirates' few genuinely good players.

Craig Wilson and Kip Wells should also be worth two or three million dollars each in 2005. In 2004, Wilson was the generic but effective slugger everyone thought but the Pirates always thought he would be; health permitting, he’ll hit at least 25 homers again in 2005.

If Wells is healthy, he should bounce back a bit from his 4.55 ERA in 2004. Batters hit .321 on balls in play against Wells in 2004, which is very high, even given the Pirates' bad defense. Pitchers have very little control over what happens to balls once they’re put in play. His batting average on balls in play should be lower in 2005, and so should his ERA.

The cases of Fogg, Meadows, Ward and Mackowiak are less clear. Fogg is a nice guy to have around, but he’s mediocre, and the Pirates recently acquired his mirror image in lefty Mark Redman. As I've pointed out recently, Fogg’s strikeout rates are dropping, which doesn’t bode well for his future. Given that the Pirates already have a number of capable young starters who are ready for the big leagues or close to it, now would be a good time to use the two or three million dollars Fogg is likely to get on someone else. That’s probably not what the Pirates will do, however.

Meadows was downright excellent for Nashville in 2003 and very good for the Pirates in 2004. He should be a fine reliever again in 2005. He’s started for the Pirates before, but he’s been terrible after throwing 45 pitches in a day, so it might not be a good idea to count on him to do that again. If he can't start, he's fungible. Rutter says the Pirates will probably non-tender Meadows if they can’t reach a favorable deal by Monday; that’s what I would do, too, although I’d like to have him back.

Daryle Ward was a pleasant surprise in 2004, although that doesn’t mean he was actually any good – he hit 15 homers in 293 at bats (Rutter’s article incorrectly claims that he had 25), but he also posted a .305 OBP, which is dreadful for a first baseman. His defense also leaves a lot to be desired. Given that his 2004 performance was on the upper end of what we might have expected for him, he isn’t the sort of player the Pirates should be paying much or counting on. The Pirates did neither in 2004, and they shouldn’t in 2005. I’m all for keeping Ward if Jason Bay can really play center field – Craig Wilson can be moved to right field, Matt Lawton can be moved to left field and Tike Redman can be moved as far from the field as possible. But even in that case, the Pirates are likely to get better production from J.R. House or Brad Eldred if he’s ready, or even a cheap stopgap like Brad Fullmer. (Fullmer is coming off an injury but could nonetheless provide a lot of offense for a small price. He's also left-handed.) Ward isn’t worth taking to arbitration.

Rob Mackowiak came out of the gate strong last season, then didn’t hit much after May, but he wound up with an OPS similar to his career total. His value to the Pirates now is, or at least should be, connected closely to his hitting ability – he’s played a zillion positions during his career, but he doesn’t play any of them all that well, and the Pirates limited him to corner duty and centerfield last year. He didn’t play second base at all. He’d likely be better as a starting third baseman than Ty Wigginton next year, but the Pirates are unlikely to bench Wigginton only months after acquiring him in the Kris Benson trade. Another problem for Mackowiak is that the Pirates have a ton of young infielders; neither Bobby Hill nor Freddy Sanchez will have starting positions going into spring training, but both will be cheap, and Sanchez is also likely to be better than Mackowiak. Mackowiak may provide insurance in center field next year for the Pirates, however, and he has showed some plate discipline and power in each of the last three years. The Pirates will probably keep him, and I think that’s what I would do as long as he’s not too expensive.

More on Santiago, and Comments

2004-12-17T18:14:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I checked about a dozen Royals blogs before I could find one that had anything to say about the Benito Santiago trade. Apparently, nobody noticed it, except Royals Revival, who likes Leo Nunez' strikeouts, control, and stuff.

I've added Haloscan comments to this site in the hopes that more people will post comments. Now, you won't be asked to log into Blogger if you try to say something. There are a couple of threads here that have been active in the past couple of days, so I pasted the comments from those into the new comment system.

I Still Want Stinnett

2004-12-16T20:01:00.000-05:00

The trade is done - the Pirates sent Leo Nunez to the Royals for Benito Santiago and some cash to pay part of his salary.

With regard to my last post comparing the Diamondbacks' situation to the Pirates', a couple people have pointed out that Stinnett is coming off Tommy John surgery. I have no idea why that wasn't mentioned in any of the stuff I read about Stinnett before I posted, and more to the point, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to try to figure out why Stinnett only played 20 games last year. That's my fault.

Still, I'd much rather have him. Stinnett is supposed to be ready to go in time for spring training, so for all I know he's still a better bet to be healthy than a 40-year-old catcher with a jillion games caught and a complex injury history. Santiago is fragile and no longer terribly effective on offense or defense.

Also, Stinnett himself is not the point. He was a convenient guy to use for the purposes of my post because of the similarities between the Diamondbacks' situation and the Pirates'. But there are lots of guys who will perform at the sorts of levels we might expect of Stinnett and Santiago next year, and you don't need to give up prospects or money or even roster spots to get them.

By picking a suspect guy in Stinnett to focus on, though, I give supporters of this trade an easier time, and they really should be having a very hard time making arguments, because this trade stinks. Does anybody out there think that Santiago represents more than a minor upgrade over House and Cota? In my mind, one would be hard-pressed to prove there's an upgrade at all, but just to give the benefit of the doubt, let's say Santiago improves the Pirates by ten runs over House and Cota this year. That will never, ever be the case, but what the heck?

Keeping in mind that the Bucs aren't going to contend this year, does anyone really feel that upgrade is worth keeping one of the Pirates' best prospects at a level he's already mastered? Is that upgrade worth losing one of the team's best pitching prospects for? How are the Pirates ever going to contend if they keep dumping prospects like this?

Instead of continuing to repeat myself here, though, I'll just point you to WTM's bio of Santiago, which explains the problems this trade poses for the Pirates in the short term and the long term (aside from the cost of losing Nunez, which is bad enough). It's a really, really bad trade.

* * *

Also, check out Mike Berquist's analysis of the Pirates' two Arthur Rhodes deals as his Phillies blog. He argues that in addition to screwing up the Pirates' offense, these deals also make their already-bad defense even worse.

I Pine For Kelly Stinnett

2004-12-14T19:06:00.000-05:00

Or, How the Pirates are Getting Outsmarted by the F*$@ing Diamondbacks

So, the Pirates are about to give up a 21-year-old flamethrower with a very good performance record in Leo Nunez in order to get 39-year-old drug abuser Benito Santiago. This would be a bad idea for a young, non-contending team no matter what the circumstance. But it's especially bad when we consider that Santiago is unlikely to help the team much.

2004 Stats
J.R. House .288/.344/.508 (in AAA)
Humberto Cota .227/.271/.500
Benito Santiago .274/.312/.434

There's no convincing evidence here that on offense, Santiago will outperform either of the catchers the Pirates already have. In fact, it seems unlikely that he will outhit either of them, since 1) House and Cota are young and likely to get better, while Santiago is as old as the hills and just as likely to erode and 2) Santiago put up his numbers in a good hitters' park, whereas neither Cota nor House played in hitters' parks.

Further, it seems unlikely that Santiago will even be available to help the Pirates next year, since he only played 49 games last year despite beginning the season as a starter. If a player has injury problems one year, he's also likely to have them the next year, particularly if he's a 40-year-old catcher.

The Pirates are concerned that Cota can't hit - they're probably right about that one - and that House can't catch. But however bad House may or may not be as a catcher, Santiago is not likely to be an improvement behind the plate. He had six passed balls despite a small number of games played last year. His arm, once a major strength, has become a weakness - I was unable to find the number of runners he threw out in 2004, but in 2003, he threw out just 8 of 44 runners attempting to steal on him.

The Pirates probably think that someone like Santiago would be good to have around not necessarily as a starter, but as an insurance policy in case things go wrong with House or Cota. I disagree. If House or Cota gets hurt, the Pirates can use Craig Wilson as a backup for a while, or call up prospect Ronny Paulino. There is no need for the Pirates to acquire a veteran catcher now, especially not one who isn't an improvement on the guys they already have.

But let's say you're Lloyd McClendon, and you may go into convulsions if you don't have a veteran catcher available. It seems like a bad idea to me to depend on Santiago - who, again, played 49 games last year - to be around to play at all. And there's another problem: the Pirates can probably only spend two of their 25 man roster spots on catchers. So if you carry Santiago, who has a guaranteed major league contract, you effectively move House back to AAA. House already hit well at AAA, and with Ryan Doumit and Paulino likely to be there at some point next year, House is likely to play first or outfield rather than catch if he's there anyway. In other words, there is no particular benefit to moving House to AAA rather than the majors.

The Arizona Diamondbacks entered the offseason in a position similar to the one the Pirates are in now. They had two reasonably promising young catchers, Koyie Hill and Chris Snyder. Both are question marks, however. Hill is coming off an injury. (Ty Wigginton ended Hill's season with a bodyslam that caused Wigginton to bleed from the head and an intern at SportsCenter to develop carpal tunnel from pressing rewind over and over.) And Snyder spent all of 2004 at Class AA El Paso and, like House, faces questions about his defense.

So what did the Diamondbacks do? This week, they signed Kelly Stinnett to a minor league contract. They don't have to pay Stinnett much of anything for the privilege of taking him to spring training, and he can play at Class AAA unless there's a problem with Hill or Snyder. Both those guys can therefore stay on the major league roster, and the Diamondbacks pay virtually nothing for their insurance policy.

What makes this even better for the Diamondbacks is that Stinnett a good bet to outperform Santiago next year. He's five years younger than Santiago, he hit very well in a small sample last year in the majors, and he has a respectable lifetime .709 OPS, barely below Santiago's. There's no reason to think Stinnett can't reach that next year. At this point, his defense is likely better than Santiago's, too.

It's important to remember, also, that both these guys are, or should be, backup or third string catchers. The minute differences in performance between them look even more minute when one considers the small number of games that both should be playing in next year.

The Royals themselves are going into camp with a young starter, John Buck. Instead of keeping Santiago to tutor him and back him up, they're depending on journeyman Alberto Castillo, who hit a measly .255/.348/.329 at AAA Omaha in 2004. The Royals and the Pirates are in similar places right now - they're both bad teams trying to claw their way up. Why are the Royals willing to part with Santiago and promote Castillo?

The answer is that neither figures to play much next year, so the differences between them won't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile, the Royals will gladly take a very promising prospect off the Pirates' hands.

Instead of going through with this terrible trade, the Pirates should just sign someone like Stinnett and send him to Indianapolis. The differences right now between Santiago and Stinnett, and even Alberto Castillo, are minor. And there are always plenty of Stinnetts and Castillos available. True, they don't have Santiago's name recognition, but given the sports world's recent worries about steroid abuse, perhaps that's a good thing. (Attempts to justify this Santiago/Nunez trade on the grounds of veteran leadership are silly, and not just for the usual reasons that arguments for veteran leadership are silly: is Santiago really the kind of leader the Pirates want?)

Meanwhile, the Pirates can keep a roster spot free for House, who clearly deserves a shot in the big leagues. And they can keep Nunez, who may one day develop some name recognition of his own. I'm not convinced a veteran catcher is necessary at all, but if you've got two interesting young catchers, it's far better to do what the Diamondbacks did than what the Pirates are thinking of doing.

Trade For Santiago Expected Soon

2004-12-13T14:05:00.000-05:00

The Trib reports that the Pirates are close to trading for Royals catcher Benito Santiago and will likely give up pitcher Leo Nunez in return.

Yesterday, Trev of the excellent new Bucco Beyond articulated something I've felt for a while: that analyzing trades can be complex because of the number of ways you can look at them.

Well, this trade wouldn't be one of those trades that's tough to analyze, because it reeks from every angle.

Let's start with this one: Santiago will be 40 before the season starts. He only played 49 games last year and has played more than 130 games in a season only once since 1996. He put up lukewarm offensive statistics last year in one of baseball's better hitters' parks. He can't throw runners out anymore and his range factor is off from years past.

Or how about this one: Just days after the steroid scandal broke in a big way, the Pirates are acquiring a player who told a grand jury he used steroids. Now that's PR.

Or this one: the Pirates already have two catchers, one of whom may have a very good big league career ahead of him. Why the Pirates would want to acquire Santiago rather than playing J.R. House at catcher is beyond me. House hit very well at AAA last year. He's ready. If the quality of his offense doesn't offset his defense (and I'm sure it would, I'm just covering all the angles here), Humberto Cota is available. There is no need whatsoever for the Pirates to acquire a veteran catcher.

Is that enough for you? No? Don't worry, I've got more.

About the guy the Pirates are rumored to be trading to the Royals: he's 21, he throws 95, he has an excellent performance record, and his nickname is "Little Pedro." There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect, of course, but Nunez is one. His ceiling is probably as high as any pitcher in the Pirates system.

Or how about this angle: in case the Pirates have forgotten, they're nowhere near contending. Why are they considering trading any prospect for a 40-year-old?

Don't do it, Littlefield.

Thanks to Baseball Primer.

Pirates Trade For Lawton

2004-12-11T19:35:00.000-05:00

The Pirates have traded Arthur Rhodes for Matt Lawton. According to the AP, each team is sending cash to the other to complete the trade. Since Lawton is signed for about $7 million for this year only and Rhodes will make about $7 million total this year and next, I imagine that the Indians will send money to the Pirates this year and the Pirates will send money to Cleveland in 2006.

Unless the Pirates are sending a lot more cash to Cleveland than they're receiving - and I have no reason to believe that is the case - I like this deal, at least when considered in isolation from the mistakes the Pirates have made before. Lawton is by no means a perfect player - he doesn't field very well, he almost certainly can't play centerfield anymore, he gets hurt a lot, and he doesn't hit for much power. But he should be a good leadoff option for the Pirates - not nearly as good as Jason Kendall would have been, but pretty good.

Meanwhile, the Pirates give up very little. Rhodes' velocity is off from his '01-'02 prime, and his strikeout numbers are way down also. And the Pirates have several lefties who could be very good out of the pen next year, including Mike Gonzalez, John Grabow, Mike Johnston, and possibly Cory Stewart.

Perhaps more important than any of this is the fact that the addition of Lawton means the Pirates are one good player away from being able to keep Tike Redman and Daryle Ward from ever starting again. Lloyd McClendon has said that centerfield is Jason Bay's best position. So let's say the current lineup looks like this:

LF Lawton
SS J. Wilson
CF Bay
1B Ward
RF C. Wilson
3B Wigginton
C Cota
2B Castillo

Redman's gone, which is a plus. But other than that, that lineup is kind of ugly. By midseason, however, the Pirates could be looking like this:

3B Sanchez
SS J. Wilson
CF Bay
LF Lawton
1B Eldred
RF C. Wilson
C House
2B Castillo

Lawton's the only lefty in there, but Rob Mackowiak and Ward would be lefty threats off the bench. That lineup could score some runs. Sanchez, Bay, Craig Wilson and Lawton should all get on base at reasonable rates, while Jack Wilson and J.R. House should provide above-average power at their positions. Castillo and Eldred are question marks, but both have lots of upside.

Essentially, the Pirates have traded Jason Kendall for Lawton and Mark Redman. If the Pirates are willing to spend the money they save on Kendall's contract in 2006 and 2007 (a huge if, given the Pirates' recent history), and if they open a spot for House and use Lawton to plug one of their offensive holes rather than as an excuse to bench Craig Wilson or something, the Pirates could come out of this series of trades looking okay, at least on offense.

New Bucs Minor League Signings

2004-12-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

Dave Littlefield has made several nice no-risk signings.

One of them is Mark Corey, who we've all seen before. He'll likely do what he did last year, spending part of the season at Class AAA and pitching in Pittsburgh when someone gets injured. He should continue to be a pretty good low-cost option.

Littlefield also signed Damon Minor to a minor league deal. I like this move a lot. Minor was looking like a very good prospect after he racked up 30 homers and 87 walks in the PCL as a 25-year-old in 2000. He barely played in 2001, then was a helpful role player for the Giants in 2002. He didn't hit in 2003, which got him traded to the Phillies, who sent to AAA Scranton, where he didn't hit much either. He was back in the Giants' organization in 2004 and he again hit well, with 17 homers and 50 walks in only 338 at bats. He can apparently handle first base and he possesses obvious power and patience, so if the Pirates are lucky they could end up with a very good bench player next year at virtually no cost to them.

Another new addition is Joe Roa, who's a control pitcher - he doesn't strike out many guys, but he doesn't walk many either. He's pitched for about a jillion organizations and hasn't been effective for all of them, but he was decent all year coming out of the Twins' bullpen.

Indianapolis' third baseman next year will be Jose Leon, who turned 28 yesterday and has spent his career with the St. Louis and Baltimore organizations. He hasn't hit in any of his brief stops in the majors, but they've been brief, and he tore the cover off the ball at AAA Ottawa last year. Hopefully, he won't be the Pirates' 2004 version of Chris Truby, killing the ball all year at AAA despite a gaping hole at third base at the major league level.

Bucs May Non-tender Fogg

2004-12-07T13:13:00.000-05:00

Peter Gammons reports. This is fine with me. Fogg's a useful, but nonetheless mediocre, starter.

Here are his 2004 stats:
IP 178.1 K 82 BB 66 HR 17 ERA 4.64

Here are his K/9 rates in the last three years:

2002: 5.23
2003: 4.50
2004: 4.14

I'd post his K/BB numbers, too, but they're almost irrelevant at this point, since Fogg simply isn't striking anyone out, and his K rates have progressed from bad to terrible. What kept Fogg from being awful last year was his HR allowed rate, which declined considerably from previous years. If his strikeout rate keeps dropping, though, even that's not going to help him.

Here's the Pirates' rotation next year:

Very Likely
Oliver Perez
Mark Redman

Likely
Kip Wells
Dave Williams

Possible
John VanBenschoten
Ian Snell
Ryan Vogelsong

Possible Mid-Season Promotions
Zach Duke
Bobby Bradley (finally)
Cory Stewart

What if there's a problem?
Salomon Torres
Brian Meadows

The Pirates have lots of options already, including lots of pretty good ones. Except for Zach Duke, every one of the players listed above is already on the 40-man roster. There's no reason to worry much about losing Fogg, who will be 28 and unlikely to improve next year. The Pirates should non-tender Fogg, then use the money saved to help acquire someone who stands a chance of really benefiting the team - not a bargain free agent like Randall Simon who stinks it up and blocks better players, but someone who's markedly better than the available options, preferably a third baseman.

Update: I just looked at Batting Third and he's talking about this too.

Pirates Interested in Nishi

2004-12-02T13:57:00.000-05:00

The Pirates are reportedly interested in infielder Toshihisa Nishi, and Nishi is interested in coming to the majors.

I don't understand this. Nishi is 33, and he plays second base. The Pirates already have not one, not two, but five players (Jose Castillo, Freddy Sanchez, Rob Mackowiak, Bobby Hill and Ty Wigginton) who are younger than Nishi and can at least kind of play second base. At the very least, they've got two players who can really play the position, which is plenty.

Would Nishi help on offense?

2002 .244/.285/.371 8 HR
2003 .246/.291/.356 8 HR
2004 .289/.329/.475 28 HR

I have no idea why he had the power spike in 2004, but it doesn't really matter. In two of the last three seasons, his numbers would have been unacceptable at the major league level. And these numbers came from Japan, where the competition is typically just a tick better than Class AAA in the USA. Nishi's power is really his only skill on offense - he doesn't draw walks or really hit for average, and he no longer steals many bases. Many players to come from Japan recently, such as Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, have seen their power decline severely after coming to the majors.

I don't know enough about baseball in Japan to know whether this is just a coincidence or whether it's related to differences between the majors and Japanese baseball. Some have speculated that the decline in Matsui's power might have something to do with the fact that Japanese pitchers rarely throw sinkers.

In either case, though, it seems safe to say that Nishi wouldn't hit for much power in the majors. He's old and likely to decline, he'd be coming from a league in which the level of competition is lower, and since he didn't hit for power in 2003 or 2002, it's doubtful that he has much power left anyway. And if he doesn't hit for power, he's not going to help the Pirates at all. The Pirates have plenty of guys to play second, including two (Castillo and Sanchez) with real potential. They don't need another.

Thanks to Honest Wagner.

Littlefield Debunked

2004-11-30T01:11:00.000-05:00

Dave Littlefield's ludicrous justification of the Jason Kendall trade (Littlefield is telling the press that paying too great a percentage of your money to one player isn't a good idea) has been debunked on the Pittsburgh blog Batting Third. The issue is being debated by me and others at Honest Wagner.

Minor Pirates Signings

2004-11-28T15:31:00.000-05:00

Wilbur Miller's Pirates Scouting Report has been updated, and he has posted his opinions on Mark Redman and Arthur Rhodes.

WTM also has scouting reports for a number of players the Pirates have signed to fill out the Indianapolis and Altoona rosters. Several of these guys could wind up in Pittsburgh at some point. Here are the new players most likely to become Pirates, along with the last organization of each:

Bryan Reith, P, Reds
Kevin Olsen, P, Marlins
Chris Enochs, P, Astros
Paul Stewart, P, Brewers
Howie Clark, UT, Jays

Clark and Stewart, especially, look like they might be useful.

Pirates Redouble Efforts To Make Themselves Worse

2004-11-27T17:37:00.000-05:00

Just when you thought you couldn't be more upset about the Jason Kendall trade, Dave Littlefield just found some new ways to ruin your day!

Here's the fallout: Frank Brooks has been designated for assignment in order to make way for Mark Redman and Arthur Rhodes, both of whom had higher ERAs than Brooks last year. Brooks will be 26 next season, and thus likely to improve; Rhodes and Redman will also probably bounce back a bit from last year, and Redman will probably pitch a lot of innings, but those two aren't getting any younger. I'd put Brooks at even money to outperform Rhodes next year. Unfortunately, he won't be doing it for the Pirates, so we may as well consider the trade to be Kendall, cash, and Brooks for Redman and Rhodes.

Oh, and it gets worse: the Pirates recently found out that J.R. House has another minor league option in 2005, so he probably won't be in competition for a starting job. Thus, the Pirates will try to go get a catcher, even though they like Humberto Cota.

What good would it do to send House to AAA again? He did very well as that level last year and he's a highly regarded prospect. Craig Wilson can also catch if need be, and the Pirates also have Ryan Doumit and Ronny Paulino in the high minors. They don't need a catcher. House and Wilson may not be great defensively, but their offense is so far beyond what the Pirates will be able to get on the free agent market that they'll easily make up for it.

Also, given the market for catchers and the current free agent climate, now seems like a very bad time to try to get another catcher. Damian Miller, who's a good defender but an injury risk who isn't a good bet to outperform House on offense, recently got a three year deal from the Brewers for over $8 million. Henry Blanco, who hasn't posted an OBP above .267 since 2001, recently turned down a two year deal with the Twins. The Twins then reached a two year deal with Mike Redmond, a career backup. The Pirates risk spending too much on a catcher and committing to him for too long. It is an extremely bad bet that whoever they get will be better than House. Also, if the Pirates sign another player to a major-league contract, they'll lose yet another youngster to waivers. Why are the Pirates even considering this?

J.J. Davis Trade

2004-11-24T19:38:00.000-05:00

The Pirates traded J.J. Davis to the Washington Nationals today for the young outfielder Antonio Sucre. Given the circumstances - Davis was a goner no matter what - the Pirates did fairly well for themselves, acquiring a player who, coincidentally, seems to be a younger and slightly inferior version of Davis himself. (You may have to read that last sentence a couple times - its logic only applies in the Pirates' bizarro universe.)

Sucre will be 22 next year. He spent last year in the Class A South Atlantic League. His numbers weren't spectacular, but his power developed a bit, with eight homers and 22 extra-base hits in 363 at bats. He also drew a reasonable number of walks. Like Davis, however, he struck out a ton, which makes me wonder whether he'll be able to make contact at higher levels. Also like a young Davis, his tools and upside are supposed to be terrific - unlike Davis, though, he hasn't yet managed to turn those attributes into good performance.

Kendall Trade Appears Likely

2004-11-24T19:07:00.000-05:00

Jason Kendall appears likely to be traded to the A's. These rumors have gotten loud enough that they can't really be called rumors anymore, and I think the trade will happen fairly soon.

I don't think I have to tell you that if the trade is at it's rumored to be, this isn't a good baseball trade for the Pirates. The Bucs would get starter Mark Redman and lefty reliever Arthur Rhodes.

Redman is 30, and he has pitched for the Twins, Tigers and Marlins as well as the A's. He has spent most of the last three years soaking up lots of innings and putting up ERAs around 4. Except for his career year in 2003, his strikeout and K/BB numbers have been underwhelming, and he served up 28 homers in 2004. His last three teams play in pitchers' parks, so his numbers could get uglier if he joins the Pirates. In terms of performance, a roughly comparable player would be Jeff Suppan, who also pitches a lot of innings, gives up his fair share of homers and doesn't strike out or walk many batters. In other words, Redman is a valuable player, but certainly not someone who will make up for the loss of Jason Kendall.

Rhodes, 35, has pitched for the Orioles, Mariners and A's. He pitched poorly as a starter early in his career, but he showed promise after switching to relief while with Baltimore. He was spectacular in 2001 and 2002 in Seattle, but his K/BB ratios have slipped dramatically since then. He also doesn't throw as hard as he used to. Oakland tried to make him their closer last year, but he blew a bunch of saves and wound up on the DL with a back sprain. By the time he returned, Oakland had acquired Octavio Dotel to replace him, and Rhodes was used sparingly after that. He finished the year with a 5.12 ERA.

Redman might help a bit in the rotation, but he also might eventually hurt the Pirates by blocking younger, more promising players. It's possible, but highly unlikely, that Rhodes will return to something resembling his 2001-2002 form. It would be wishful thinking to expect much from him. The Pirates will likely send cash to Oakland in the deal, but they'll end up saving some on Kendall's contract. Given that the Pirates have already saved lots of money by trading Brian Giles and Aramis Ramirez and not put that money back into the team, you'd have to be pretty gullible or optimistic to think they're going to use the money saved to make the team better.

New Pirates Blog

2004-11-24T14:25:00.000-05:00

The new Let's Go Bucs blog is the most promising new Pirates website I've seen in quite a while. The man who runs it, Jeff, currently has a couple of nice pieces about the Pirates' reliever usage.

J.J. Davis, Perhaps for the Last Time

2004-11-24T01:27:00.000-05:00

Well, maybe not. It's entirely possible that Davis could put up a string of productive seasons for some other team, then block a prospect by rejoining the Pirates as a free agent when he's 35.

Barring that, this could be it. He's gone, and some team is going to claim him, because as Rotoworld explains, he'd be a good pickup for just about anyone.

Anyway, here's a quote from today's Paul Meyer:

Then, because he was a No. 1 pick, the Pirates continued to give him chances. Had he been a lower pick, Davis would have been gone a few years ago. Anyway, the Pirates kept him and then continued to keep him because they didn't want to concede they'd wasted a first-round pick. Last spring, I think the Pirates knew they should put Davis on waivers. If he cleared, he'd have gone to Nashville. If some team claimed him, fine, and let's move on. It was a mistake to keep Davis on the 40-man roster last winter. It was a mistake to put him on the 25-man roster when the season began. It was a mistake to keep him on the 25-man roster when it was way apparent he couldn't play in the major leagues.

95% of that is preposterous.

Had he been a lower pick, Davis would have been gone a few years ago.

Oh, really? That's interesting, because lots of lower picks have showed far less promise than Davis and not been cut. "A few years ago," Davis was in his early 20s. Here's what he did:

1999 Age 20 Class A Hickory:
317 AB .265 BA 44 BB 26 2B 19 HR .533 SLG

That's a superb season for a 20 year old at that level.

2000 Age 21 Class A+ Lynchburg:
485 AB .243 BA 52 BB 36 2B 20 HR .445 SLG

Yep, that's a still a prospect. Davis showed excellent power for a 21 year old in a pitchers' league.

He wasn't great the following year:

2001 Age 22 Class AA Altoona
228 AB .250 BA 21 BB 13 2B 3 3B 4 HR .386 SLG

But Davis then returned to prospect status with his performances in AA and AAA the next two years.

Looking over Davis' performance record from 1999 to 2003, I see one pretty bad year and four very good ones. I see no indication that the Pirates were showing any extra patience with him because he was a top pick.

Davis had his only bad year in 2001, when he was in AA. Rob Mackowiak (chosen in the 53rd round) and Carlos Rivera, both of whom eventually made it to Pittsburgh, hadn't even gotten to AA when they were 22. In fact, Rivera drew six walks and hit five homers in 233 at bats at Lynchburg in 2000 when he was 22, and he didn't get cut. The Pirates may have been frustrated with Davis because he struck out a lot, but he was clearly a very good prospect, not someone you keep around just to avoid admitting you made a bad draft pick.

My opinions about Davis should be well known to regular readers, so I won't rehash them here. I'll just say that they're pretty different from Meyer's. There is, however, something I agree with in that paragraph up there:

It was a mistake to keep Davis on the 40-man roster last winter.

Well, actually, I don't agree with that, but given the Pirates' behavior since keeping Davis last November, I share Meyer's exasperation. The Pirates gave Davis less than 40 major league at bats even though he hit very well in AAA in 2003, hit well in 2004 Spring Training, and hit well on "rehab" AAA in 2004. Then Davis went nuts again this month in the Mexican Pacific League. Then, the Pirates removed him from the 2004 roster. Meanwhile, we still don't have Chris Shelton. If the Pirates had no intention of allowing Davis to develop, why did they keep him on the roster in the first place?

New Pirates Links

2004-11-23T13:03:00.000-05:00

Baseball Primer recently posted two Pirates-related links. The first is a rumor-mill column from Ken Rosenthal, who writes:

In addition to exploring trades for one of their top three starting pitchers, the A's are also involved in two- and three-team discussions regarding Pirates C Jason Kendall, who is guaranteed $34 million over the next three seasons.

A straight trade between the A's and Pirates likely would involve the Pirates receiving LHPs Mark Redman and Arthur Rhodes, who are owed $16.15 million combined over the next two seasons.

Ouch. What does it say about the Pirates when they're trying to dump salary on another small-market team? This move would take the Pirates' cheapskate reputation to ridiculous new levels.

* * *

Elsewhere, the Pirates' gift to the Tigers, Chris Shelton, is the Arizona Fall League MVP. This guy can really hit. He'll be hitting in the majors again soon, possibly by this summer.

On Mientkiewicz and Kim

2004-11-20T18:42:00.000-05:00

El Guapo's Ghost wrote me to ask what I think of a deal that would send Jason Kendall and cash to the Red Sox in exchange for Doug Mientkiewicz and Byung-Hyun Kim.

Both players are nice to have in the right context, but from a baseball perspective this wouldn't be a good move for the Pirates, so I have to say that I don't like the idea. Mientkiewicz had a poor year offensively in 2004, but his defense is top-notch, he's still fairly young, and he has put up decent offensive numbers in the past. For a contending team in need of a first baseman, he might be an acceptable short-term solution or bench option, but his offense isn't good enough for him to be anything more at this point. Pirates GM Dave Littlefield seems to love Mientkiewicz - his name has come up repeatedly in Pirates trade rumors. Littlefield probably thinks, perhaps for good reason, that the lefty Mientkiewicz would see his numbers improve at PNC Park, but I don't see them improving to the point where his offense would be above average at first base. His defense, of course, would be an enormous upgrade over whoever else the Pirates might play there next year, but I'd still rather see the Pirates give J.R. House a real chance than watch another mediocre veteran who will be gone in a year. House might play catcher if Kendall is gone, but I think a lot of those at-bats would go to Humberto Cota, which would probably be pretty bad.

I like Kim about as much as anyone at this point, and it's easy to forget that he'll only be 26 next year. His upside is still very high. But he's pretty clearly a head case, and he can't be regarded as anything but a question mark right now.

If the Red Sox were to offer this deal, I think the Pirates might take it, depending on the amount of cash involved. But their team would be much worse as a result. Kendall isn't worth the money he's making, but he's worth a good amount, and any difference between Kendall's salary and those of the players acquired for him is likely to go into the pockets of the ownership, anyway.

Thanks for writing, EGG.

* * *
Leone for Third is linking to VORB now. Go check them out for articulate and often very vivid disucssion of the Seattle Mariners. Right now, they're discussing the Mariners' attempts to sign a third baseman... who isn't Justin Leone.

Roster Results

2004-11-19T23:58:00.000-05:00

The AP reports that the Pirates have been a bit wiser managing their roster this year.

Players added to 40-man roster:
Brad Eldred, 1b
Nathan McLouth, of
Chris Duffy, of
Rajai Davis, of
Jeff Miller, rp
Matt Peterson, sp
Leo Nunez, sp

Players dropped from 40-man roster:
J.J. Davis, of
Tony Alvarez, of
Carlos Rivera, 1b
Abraham Nunez, ut

Most intriguing players left unprotected
Javier Guzman, ss
Ray Sadler, of
Rich Thompson, of
Taber Lee, ss

Least intriguing players left protected
Tike Redman, of
Daryle Ward, 1b
Ryan Vogelsong, p
Humberto Cota, c

I don't see any good reason to believe that Chris Duffy, Rajai Davis or Tike Redman have greater chances to succeed than J.J. Davis or Tony Alvarez. Considering age and performance, J.J. Davis and Alvarez have by far the best minor-league profiles of the five. J.J. Davis certainly has the best tools of the group, also, and Alvarez probably has the second best. I've never seen a halfway decent defense of the Pirates' decisions to bury J.J. and Alvarez - all such arguments tend to stem from assumptions about the extremely tiny sample sizes of those players' performances at the major league level, or vague questions about "attitude." I'm sure attitude problems don't help teams, but players without people skills may have skills in other areas - just ask Albert Belle. (Actually, don't ask Belle anything - he might throw a baseball at you. But you get the idea.) Also, most of the evidence of these players' attitude problems comes from quotes by the Pirates' management that may well be self-serving.

Meanwhile, Rajai Davis, Duffy and Redman don't seem likely to succeed at the major-league level. Redman will already be 28 next season and doesn't seem likely to ever return to anywhere near the heights of his freakish half-season with the Bucs in 2003. He has no plate discipline at all and is very hard to watch in the outfield. Hopefully, he'll be at Indianapolis or on the bench this year; if not, look for more one-pitch outs, as well as terrible routes and throws.

Duffy is supposed to be better with the glove, and he has shown good speed and on-base skills in the minors, but he will be 25 next year and has not developed much power. Given that he's likely to peak soon, I don't see him helping much in the future. Like Duffy, Rajai Davis has shown good speed and decent on-base skills in the minors, but he has even less power than Duffy, will be 24 next year and still hasn't played above Class A.

Still, it's hard to get too upset over this; the Pirates had already made the mistake of trying to ruin J.J. Davis' career in particular, and Alvarez will be 26 next year. So even if the other three don't do much, there's at least a solid chance J.J. and Alvarez won't, either. Both will almost certainly be claimed, however; if I were Allard Baird of the Royals, I'd claim J.J. Davis immediately.

The only other player the Pirates didn't protect that I'm at all concerned about is Javier Guzman, a very young shortstop who played at Class A Hickory this year. He has shown the ability to make contact, but he hasn't yet learned to take a walk and has been prone to mistakes on defense. A team might claim him because of his youth and prospect status. It's difficult to imagine him sticking with a major league team the entire season, but even a few months stuck on a bench could hinder his development.

Other than that, the Pirates made reasonably good decisions today. Eldred, McLouth, and Peterson were, or should have been, no-brainers. Miller has had a great season in the Arizona Fall League and could be a very productive member of the Pirates' bullpen this year. Leo Nunez is a young flame-thrower with excellent upside. And there's no reason to worry about the losses of Abraham Nunez or Carlos Rivera. Abraham Nunez would have been about the tenth best infield option the Pirates had next year, and Rivera supposedly has a good glove at first but probably doesn't have the bat to stick in the majors.

These decisions still aren't ideal, and it's quite an indictment of a team when the best you can say about them in three months is that their Rule 5 draft is unlikely to be a complete debacle again, but there you go. This is such a relief that I almost want to make a T-shirt out of it: "PIRATES ROSTER DECISIONS: NOT COMPLETELY TERRIBLE IN '04."

I've Got Lowered Expectations...

2004-11-16T21:21:00.000-05:00

But at least I'm not a Washington fan!

Mesa, Omar Vizquel and now Cristian Guzman - what's going on here? If this trend continues, the resulting change in the market may be a blessing in disguise for the Pirates, who may have no choice but to sort through all the B-grade prospects who are ready to take their turn in the majors.

Personal note to Jim Bowden: Why couldn't your recent spending spree have included a two-year, $7 million offer to Jose Mesa?

Craig Wilson Trade Rumor

2004-11-15T17:38:00.000-05:00

The Beaver County Times reports that the Pirates may trade Craig Wilson this offseason for a player who isn't yet arbitration-eligible, and speculates that this means the payroll will still stay low.

I don't think it would be a terrible idea to trade Wilson, necessarily, but if the Pirates do it they had better receive excellent talent in return. If the Pirates just re-signed Jose Mesa and Salomon Torres instead of keeping Craig Wilson, they're even dumber than I thought - and I think the fans would be furious, since the Pirates have already spent enough money to show that the money excuse won't make any sense. Wilson is a popular player in Pittsburgh, and even casual fans know he's much more valuable than Mesa or Torres. So if the Pirates trade him, I hope for their sake that it's clear that it's for baseball reasons, not to dump salary.

New Contracts For Torres, Mesa

2004-11-11T14:27:00.000-05:00

Mesa first: the AP reports that his contract costs the Pirates $2 million in 2005, plus a $4 million option or a $500,000 buyout in 2006. We might as well just call it a one-year, $2.5 million contract, since Mesa isn't going to be any good this year, and it's hard to see the Pirates bringing him back at $4 million even on the off chance that he is any good. This is a ridiculous, pointless waste of money, and I can see no reason for it other than Proven Closer Syndrome (and the closely related Veteran Fetish Syndrome). I've written about this elsewhere, but the Pirates are going to regret this one.

Next up is a two-year contract for Salomon Torres. I haven't seen the financial terms anywhere. Since the Pirates also recently declined their option on Brian Boehringer, I thought I'd do a Rob Neyer-style "Player A / Player B" comparison with Boehringer and Torres before the two relievers were awarded two-year contracts. I found out, though, that Torres' current value is a lot higher than Boehringer's pre-contract value was. Torres pitches more innings, puts up much better K/BB numbers and has lower ERAs. Torres can also be used as a starter in an emergency (although he's been much better as a reliever). In fact, Torres was an excellent reliever in 2004: his VORP in 2004 was better than such well-regarded relievers as LaTroy Hawkins, Guillermo Mota, Damaso Marte and Jason Isringhausen.

Still, I don't like this contract, unless it's for minimal money. It's dangerous to give multi-year contracts to non-elite relievers because they pitch so little in a year that it's tough to really gauge their true talent levels; I won't be surprised if Torres' ERA is a run or more higher next year. Also, if a team loses a Torres-type player it's never too hard to find one who's just as good or close enough.

Then there's the broader problem, which is that even if Torres and Mesa perform as the Pirates think they will, they're just puzzle pieces (and Mesa is like a puzzle piece that you accidentally dropped on the floor and your dog chewed on for a while). The Pirates are acting like they're already a contending team, passing out contracts to relievers in their 30s. They're not, and they won't compete until they get improvements or upgrades at several positions where guys play every day or accumulate hundreds of innings. The Pirates have plenty of young pitchers (Mike Gonzalez, Frank Brooks, Ian Snell, Dave Williams, Jeff Miller and so on) who could fill Torres' and Mesa's spots and probably be only a few runs a year worse than Torres and better than Mesa.

Meanwhile, instead of pooling their money to fix a problem at a position where good players are not so easy to acquire, the Pirates will continue to have a veteran pen and one of the worst third basemen in baseball. These moves are aimed at preserving the status quo, not getting better. Obviously, it's hard to get better if you let your best players go, but Torres and Mesa aren't likely to be the Pirates' best players next year, and a team in the Pirates' position has got to be proactive about improving, not just maintaining.

New Kendall Rumors

2004-11-09T16:08:00.000-05:00

The Beaver County Times reports that the Pirates and Padres are talking about a trade of Ryan Klesko for Jason Kendall.

Again, I'm not sure what the Padres get out of this unless they're planning another trade as well. As Geoff Young at the Padres blog Ducksnorts points out, Kendall isn't a huge upgrade over Ramon Hernandez, the catcher the Padres already have.

In its current form, this deal is intriguing for the Pirates. Klesko is also only owed $16 million over the rest of his contract, while Kendall's is worth $34 million. More importantly, this deal isn't that bad from a baseball perspective. Some baseball fans here in San Diego talk about Klesko in disparaging terms, probably because he didn't hit his second homer of this past season until mid-July. But Petco Park was extremely tough on hitters last year, and Klesko still managed to put up an .847 OPS, which put him right behind Brian Giles' .849. Giles put up better-looking numbers at PNC, and so would the left-handed Klesko. Even better, Klesko had a superb .399 on-base percentage last year.

If Klesko were to join the Pirates, he'd likely have to play first base. He's decent there, and he's bad to the point of being hard to watch in the outfield. That would, or should, mean that Craig Wilson and J.R. House would share the catching and right field positions (unless Littlefield can somehow also get Hernandez in the deal, in which case I'll almost be inclined to take back every bad thing I've said about him). The Pirates' defense would take a huge hit as a result, but the offense would probably be downright decent, especially given that the Pirates would have some money left over to sign a real free agent.

1. 3B Koskie (Hey, why not? He gets on base and he runs well.)
2. SS Wilson
3. CF Bay
4. 1B Klesko
5. RF Wilson
6. LF To be determined (J.J. Davis? Tony Alvarez? Free agent?)
7. C J.R. House
8. 2B Castillo

That's really pretty good. It probably won't happen, since these Klesko rumors seem farfetched and Dave Littlefield will probably find a number of ways to shoot himself in the foot (by, for example, resigning Jose Mesa), but this is the sort of lineup that would make me excited to watch the Pirates hit.

Bay Wins Rookie of the Year

2004-11-08T15:10:00.000-05:00

Jason Bay wins the National League Rookie of the Year award. Bobby Crosby wins in the AL. I don't have any real comment, since the voters basically got it right - Crosby and the Royals' Zach Greinke were pretty clearly the cream of the crop in the AL, and I've discussed Jason Bay and the other top NL candidate, Khalil Greene, elsewhere. All three players had great rookie seasons. On my Baseball Prospectus ballot, I voted for Bay and, I think, Crosby. Meaningless as these awards ultimately are, they're good publicity for the Pirates, and Bay's win may increase the Pirates' willingness to play deserving rookies.

Mesa to Re-sign?

2004-11-05T18:24:00.000-05:00

Oh no. Not only are the Pirates close to re-signing Jose Mesa, the Trib speculates they could pay him at least $2 million. What a colossal waste of money. I don't want Mesa on the team at all - his strikeout rate is dropping and he puts a million guys on base. I'll put the over/under on Mesa's 2005 ERA at five and a half. But even if he put up the same results he did in 2004, $2 million for seventy okay relief innings is a terrible waste.

The Pirates don't even have an organizational need for relievers or "closers"! Mike Gonzalez is a stud closer waiting to happen, and the Pirates are up to their ears in pretty good options for the other bullpen spots.

I'll say this again: mediocrities like Mesa don't bring anything to the... uh... Table that the Pirates can't get from a rookie. Spreading millions around to a bunch of guys like Mesa is unlikely to help the team in the short term, and it keeps young players from developing in the long term.

Kendall to San Diego?

2004-11-04T17:25:00.000-05:00

Chris Kahrl wonders if Sean Burroughs might be sent to the Pirates in a deal for Jason Kendall.

It appears that the Pirates want the team to follow me out here. I'm not exactly sure why the Padres would do this trade, since they already have a perfectly good catcher in Ramon Hernandez, but this is the sort of Kendall deal I'd favor. Burroughs is still very young, and while his power isn't coming along yet, his on-base skills are very good, and he can field his position. He fills an organizational need and spares the Pirates from having to deal with Ty Wigginton again. Judging from the recent rumors surrounding Kendall - like Kendall and Craig Wilson to the Dodgers in exchange for Brent Mayne and Yhency Brazoban - I'd be very surprised if the Pirates were able to pry Burroughs away without throwing in another good player in return.

Pirates Negotiating With Wilson

2004-11-03T14:42:00.000-05:00

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that the Pirates are talking to Jack Wilson about a two-year contract.

Accompanying the article is a picture of Wilson swinging at a ball several inches below his knees. I think the Pirates should keep Wilson next year, but why sign him to a multi-year deal now? The Pirates will have the option of keeping him for the next two years anyway. Wilson was downright excellent this year and will probably be okay going forward, but I think it's pretty likely that 2004 was a career year for him - since he continues to swing at balls below his knees. Wilson showed no plate discipline whatsover in 2004, which should make everyone wonder if he can continue to hit for a high average. And he faded badly after the All-Star break. Some of Wilson's 2004 improvement is likely to stick, but not all of it, and he's never come close to being an average big-leaguer before this year. Signing Wilson now seems like a textbook example of buying high.

Free Agent Catchers

2004-11-01T23:10:00.000-05:00

Aaron Gleeman has a look at the catchers who will be available this offseason. After Jason Varitek, it's not pretty - Damian Miller is the second best choice, and after that there's Doug Mirabelli, Todd Pratt and some tumbleweeds. It should be a big priority for the Red Sox to sign Varitek; if they don't, they'll have a huge dropoff at catcher that will be difficult to make up for elsewhere.

In addition to Boston, there are a number of possible contenders and/or big spenders who might be looking for catching help this offseason: offhand, there's the Dodgers, the White Sox, the A's, and possibly the Mets. (The Astros and Cardinals probably each ought to consider getting a new catcher but probably won't.)

What this means to me is that if the Pirates are determined to trade Jason Kendall, they'll probably do it this offseason. I don't want them to trade Kendall - they won't get nearly enough talent in return, and the money saved on Kendall's contract probably won't be used to help the team - but if I did, I'd want them to wait until Varitek signed somewhere and the other catching-thin teams started to feel the strain.

Hot Stove Burning

2004-10-28T22:28:00.000-04:00

Now that the major league baseball season is over, my attention turns to the Arizona Fall League, where six Pirates prospects are playing for the Peoria Seguaros.

House, J.R., C .304/.407/.524, 1 HR
McLouth, Nathan, OF .278/.344/.426, 1 HR
Sanchez, Freddy, 2B .326/.418/.478, 1 HR

These numbers don't look bad, and they're not at all, but teams have become reluctant to send their best pitching prospects to the AFL for fear they'll get hurt. The result is that hitting numbers across the board are much more superficially impressive than they are in the minors. McLouth's performance is below the league average (although his age probably is too), and Sanchez's and House's performances are about average for the league, or slightly better.

Former Pirate prospect Chris Shelton, by the way, is hitting an absurd .429/.469/.804 with four homers in 56 at bats. This guy would probably be one of the best hitting prospects in baseball if he hadn't missed most of his last season of development due to the Rule 5 process.

Here are the pitchers:
Bradley, Bobby 6.07 ERA 13.1 IP 13 K 3 BB
Johnston, Mike 5.73 ERA 11.0 IP 9 K 5 BB
Miller, Jeff 0.00 ERA 8.2 IP 9 K 0 BB

Bradley and Johnston aren't looking so great, especially since Bradley has long been viewed as a top prospect (though he's never lived up to the hype) and Johnston is older and has pitched in the big leagues. But Jeff Miller, a reliever, is making a strong case to be added to the 40 man roster this year. If he's exposed to the Rule 5 draft, he'll probably be taken - and I'd also bet he'd stick with a new team and thrive.

Correction

2004-10-27T01:45:00.000-04:00

Paul Meyer reports today that Bronson Arroyo was dropped to make way for Jeff Suppan, not Jim Mann, as I stated the other day. I checked Retrosheet, and Meyer's right. Oops.

Mann was acquired a couple months earlier, and the Pirates cut Adrian Brown to get him. He apparently was still on the roster when Suppan was acquired, so the Pirates still effectively chose Mann over Arroyo.

On the Red Sox Offense

2004-10-26T01:35:00.000-04:00

I criticized Bob Smizik's column yesterday on former Pirates now in the World Series, so to be fair I'd like to point out that his column today on the Red Sox is very good. Smizik rightly points out that the Red Sox scored nearly 100 runs more than the Cardinals' this year, and he also identifies the reason why (well, besides the DH rule): Boston's lineup is strong from top to bottom, whereas St. Louis' has huge holes. St. Louis has started Tony Womack, Mike Matheny and So Taguchi in the Series. The fact that those guys were legitimately Tony LaRussa's best options indicates that Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty didn't finish his job last winter. The Cardinals clearly have a formidable core of offensive talent, and they've gotten far more out of their pitching than I ever expected, but the Cards should have acquired better hitters to play catcher and second, especially since Womack can't play defense and there were good, cheap options available. Mark Bellhorn cost the Sox around a million bucks, for example.

Lots of sportswriters would do well to learn from something else Smizik does in his column. He uses the traditional statistics fans like, such as RBIs and wins, as evidence to prove his case, but he doesn't draw erroneous conclusions from them. He even notes that although the Red Sox have made eight errors so far this series, "Their defense... is not as bad as those errors might indicate." Nicely done, Mr. Smizik.

Ex-Pirates in the Series

2004-10-25T02:31:00.000-04:00

Bob Smizik has a new column on former Pirates who are playing for the Red Sox and Cardinals.

Amazingly, there are eight of them:

Tony Womack
Reggie Sanders
Julian Tavarez
Al Reyes
Jeff Suppan
Pokey Reese
Tim Wakefield
Bronson Arroyo

Smizik concludes that the Pirates screwed up by not keeping Reyes and Arroyo. I'm not so worried about Reyes - he wasn't young when he and the Pirates parted ways, and while he put up good numbers this year, he pitched so few innings that those numbers probably don't mean much.

Arroyo is a different story. Dave Littlefield messed that one up badly - he let go of Arroyo in order to put Jim Mann on the 40 man roster. That was a bad move at the time, and it's looking much worse now. Arroyo was at the end of his age 25 season when the Pirates let him go, and while it's true, as Smizik notes, that the Pirates "gave him plenty of chances," it's also worth noting that Arroyo's performance improved each year. In 2002, Arroyo posted a 4.00 ERA in nine games with the Pirates, and he struck out 116 and walked 28 in 143 innings with Triple A Nashville, with a 2.96 ERA. Given that Arroyo was a 25 year old pitcher with good stuff, it was silly of the Pirates to let him go, particularly in order to acquire a generic Triple A reliever like Mann. Littlefield is rarely held accountable for this terrible move, which is strange, since it was almost as stupid as some other disastrous Littlefield transactions that are criticized all the time.

According to Smizik, Wakefield was released by the Pirates in 1995. It does appear that his pitching was a complete mess then, but Pirates coaches get a demerit for not figuring out what his problem was.

Smizik has a bizarre obsession with Tony Womack, and he says the Pirates were "dead wrong" about Womack and that "It's true his on-base percentage could be better, but it has been good enough for the Diamondbacks and Cardinals."

Sure - he was good enough for a team that had Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling as its top starters and Luis Gonzalez hitting fifty-plus home runs. I'll concede that Womack was decent in 2004 for the Cardinals - until you consider his atrocious defense. Womack hasn't helped these teams succeed; they have succeeded in spite of him. He would make the Pirates worse now. Of all the decisions the Pirates have made in the last ten years, losing Womack was one of the few good ones, so it's strange for Smizik to repeatedly claim that the loss of Womack was a mistake.

Smizik says that the Pirates lost the other four players - Sanders, Tavarez, Suppan and Reese - for financial reasons. This is at least partly true, but let's not get carried away here. The Pirates could have afforded any of those guys, but they chose to do other things with their money - spend it on other players, and put it in their pockets. All clubs must consider finances when making personnel decisions; the Pirates are not unique in that regard.

Would the addition of these players to the 2004 Pirates have improved the team much? Well, Suppan and Tavarez would have certainly helped. But Reese is nothing more than a defensive sub at this point, and Sanders would have kept Craig Wilson glued to the bench. Suppan and Tavarez might have netted the Pirates and extra two or three wins, which wouldn't have been nearly enough to get the Pirates to the playoffs.

My point is that the losses of these players should not be used as excuses for the Pirates' poor play. Sanders, Suppan and Tavarez are all fun players to have around, but they're supporting players. Those guys help the Cardinals, but St. Louis be nothing without their core of Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds.

The Pirates are a small-market team, and their owners are cheapskates. That's not good. But the Pirates' recent failures have much more to do with their inability to (and apparent disinterest in) develop(ing) Pujols-type talents than with money. Until they develop a real core of excellent players (the Perez/Bay/Wilsons core they have now is okay, but it's not enough), we shouldn't hear excuses about how little money they have. And we shouldn't hear such excuses when the Pirates spend what little money they do have on buckets of Grade C free agents who block prospects who might become part of the Pirates' core if given the chance.

More on Baseball on TV

2004-10-24T15:28:00.000-04:00

Did anyone see the part of the game last night in which FOX did a montage of shots of Manny Ramirez hugging his teammates? Dionne Warwick's "That's What Friends are For" accompanied the montage, and then continued for a while after the montage ended and the game continued. It was very disturbing. Manny must have found it disturbing, too, judging from the loss of concentration he apparently suffered after it happened.

Baseball on TV

2004-10-23T16:33:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post wants FOX to tone down the graphics and commercials (registration required).

I agree. I'm not sure whether baseball broadcasts have gotten more commercial and ostentatious in the last five years or whether it's me, but it's too much. There are too many unnecessary graphics, too much overheated announcing, too many loud commercials, and way too many instant replays.

Thanks, Ryan.

Way to Go, Sox!

2004-10-21T01:26:00.000-04:00

Hello? Is anyone paying attention?

I just finished watching the most exciting postseason series since... well, last year's Red Sox - Yankees ALCS matchup. I'm very excited for the Red Sox who, along with the A's, have become the teams I root for after the Pirates' season reaches its inevitable early ending.

But this isn't a post about the Red Sox so much as it's about my sadness that Pirates' fans can't feel what Boston fans are now feeling, and that the pathetic Pirates organization has a press corps with surface-level analysis and boring defeatist attitudes to match. To be sure, there are a few smart Pirates fans who write like they actually care and want things to improve. The most visible is the Post-Gazette's excellent Stats Geek, but there's also the superb WTM, Honest Wagner, and a number of folks at Baseball Primer. I'm sure there are some others, and I don't intend to diss anyone by omission, but most discussion of the Pirates, especially in the mainstream press, is unbearably unintelligent and sad.

Of course, mainstream sports analysis in general isn't known for being penetrating and brilliant. But geez, the Pirates have had a dozen losing seasons in a row. The management is horrible. It sure seems like the Pirates' ownership isn't being honest with the fans. If Pirates reporters and columnists can't be smart, they should at least be angry. As a group, Boston sports writers have more than their share of problems, but at least they appear passionate and attempt to hold the Red Sox accountable when things go wrong.

Value Over Replacement Blog is often what some people would describe as a third-order publication. I don't actually do the stuff that gets written about; the players do that. Then there's a group of writers, mostly for mainstream publications, that reports things that the players do. Then there's me. When the Pirates are playing or making transactions, I can sometimes report those things and analyze them, making VORB a second-order publication. But since the Pirates aren't doing much of anything right now, I can often only report things that other people say and comment on them. So it's:

actual baseball -> reporting -> reporting on reporting

Sadly, there aren't even many articles being written about the Pirates right now, and most of the ones that are being written are dreary as can be. Let's take, for example, this week's Q+A by Paul Meyer. Now, I've held back a bit on Meyer in the past, in part because he's published my comments, even comments that were critical of his analysis. He gets my compliments for that. But forget it, I'm not holding back anymore. Here's a Meyer paragraph about Josh Fogg:

Something to remember about Fogg, Dan, is that his 11-10 record and 4.64 earned run average look really good as a fifth starter. Put those numbers in the third spot, particularly, and they begin to pale. Fogg at this point is more valuable to the Pirates as a fifth starter - how many teams' fifth starter finished over .500? - so it would behoove the Pirates to leave him there and fill in above him. One could certainly argue that Fogg would look solid in the fourth spot and a young starter could take over the fifth spot, which is likely. Fogg did pitch much better in the second half of the 2004 season (5-3, 3.32 in 15 starts). If he continues to improve, Fogg could work his way up in the rotation, which would be fine and dandy. And he'll probably have to do that if he's to stay with the Pirates. They won't want to pay a fifth starter, say, $2.5 or $3.5 million a year in the near future. Fogg could command that kind of money if he's in the third spot.

I feel like the AFLAC duck walking out of the barber shop after reading that! Somewhere in Meyer's mind is the notion that "third starter" and "fifth starter" are markedly different positions with markedly different functions. Whether Fogg is the third or fifth starter is irrelevant; what matters is whether he's the third-best starter or the fifth best. The reason why a 4.64 ERA looks good for a fifth starter is because we presume that the first through fourth starters are all doing better than that.

Meyer then reviews a ficticious team consisting of former Pirates now on playoff teams. That team has the following bullpen:

Julian Tavarez
Dan Miceli
Elmer Dessens
Duaner Sanchez

Meyer says the Pirates 'pen is superior, in part because "There isn't a real closer" on the fictional team. What, and Jose Mesa is a "real closer"? And aren't there any bigger questions to consider than this one?

Meyer's analysis is often loopy, but the bigger problem is that it's frivolous. Sure, it's mildly amusing to compare Jose Mesa to Duaner Sanchez, or to speculate about whether Ty Wigginton would be better if he tried to hit the ball to the opposite field. But these things miss the forest for the trees. It would be much more accurate to simply say that Mesa stinks, Wigginton stinks and the Pirates gave up on Sanchez for no good reason. Meyer can only answer the questions he's sent, but do we really need to know whether he thinks Wigginton will hit twelve homers next year, or fifteen? The correct answer to that question is, "Who cares? Our third baseman is Ty Wigginton. He can't hit very well, he can't field at all, and we traded our best trading chit last year to get him."

Not to pick on Wigginton specifically, but as I said when we got him, he is the status quo. He's cheap and just good enough for casual fans to fail to realize he's part of the problem. The same goes for Tike Redman, and Josh Fogg, and Jose Mesa, and Daryle Ward and any number of other players who've passed through the Pirates' ranks over the past few years. (Then there are the disasters, like Chris Stynes and Randall Simon.) Amazingly, Meyer actually thinks that Redman's performance was a highlight of the Pirates' 2004 season.

Does Meyer have any idea why the Pirates keep losing? I don't think he does, and that's a big problem. But if he does, he needs to dismiss the frivolous questions:

"Dear so and so, I could write about whether Josh Fogg will be the third starter or the fifth starter next year, but that would be boring. The fact is, Josh Fogg is boring and he's not very good, and the Pirates have much bigger problems to worry about than what position Fogg should occupy in the rotation, if he's even taken to arbitration this year. In fact, rather than spending millions on mediocrities like Fogg and Ward, the Pirates should give their spots to players who might conceivably help the Pirates get to the World Series in the future, and pool the money saved and sign Carlos Beltran or Adrian Beltre. Sure, they'll be expensive, but Kevin McClatchy and company should have plenty of money left over from the last couple of years of salary dumping and revenue-sharing. It sure seems like the Pirates' ownership is lying to all of us! Thanks for writing, so and so!"

Again, Meyer's not the only problem. Many other the other Pirates writers also often seem like apologists for the team who would rather deal with little questions than big ones. Pirates writers should take stock and try to figure out why the Pirates keep losing. Is it the Pirates' small-market status? (Hint: Nope!) Or is it the management? Is it the ownership? Is it all the semi-okay players these writers seem to tolerate?

Baseball and Sweatshops

2004-10-16T14:40:00.000-04:00

It's good that someone is writing about this.

Part of the reason I like baseball so much is that it creates a self-contained world. The world of players, coaches and umpires is basically circumscribed, and the relationships between individuals are clear and, for the most part, measurable. To some degree, I am able to separate baseball from the real world.

It is easy to forget that baseball is actually just a part of the real world, a big business that can be just as nasty as many other big businesses.

So I can understand why fans think this way:

For Miller's efforts on the sidewalks outside PNC Park, there is no evidence Pirates fans have rallied to the workers' cause.

He conceded that when he tells fans that, for instance, Chuck Tanner figurine dolls were made by Chinese workers forced to work 20-plus hour shifts, fans say, "Why are you trying to interrupt our nice day at the ballpark?"

...Even though they probably know in their hearts they should want to know about the conditions of workers who make the MLB products they buy.

More On McClendon

2004-10-13T23:11:00.000-04:00

There's a discussion of Lloyd McClendon's managerial tendencies over at Honest Wagner. My position, as I stated over there, is this:

I see him make moves every day that reduce the Pirates' odds of winning - bizarre sacrificing decisions, strange uses of pinch hitters, strange lineups. Abe Nunez is his favorite pinch hitter, for pete's sake, and it seems like the Pirates kill rallies every day with sacrifices, even though their attempts at sacrifices often don't work in advancing the runners they're supposed to advance.

It's kind of like watching a poker player who constantly puts in his money when the odds are against him - and loses. Yes, there are some factors that we don't know about in both situations - both guys might be thinking about things I'm not aware of when making their decisions. But they still both bet against the odds, and they both lose, which makes me think they don't know what they're doing.

McClendon ignores the odds when his players sacrifice. The sacrifice is almost never a good percentage play unless a pitcher is doing it, and yet McClendon orders it constantly. As the Stats Geek shows, the sacrifice is rarely a good play even when it's successful, and the Pirates also often attempt to sacrifice and fail.

McClendon has used Abraham Nunez as a pinch hitter nearly 150 times in the past three years, even though there were better options available (read: anyone). During that time, Nunez has posted an incredible .429 OPS as a pinch hitter, as well as a meager .637 OPS overall.

McClendon constantly embraces righty-lefty platoon matchups on both sides of the ball, even when the resulting talent matchups have placed his team at a disadvantage.

McClendon has kept promising young talents like Craig Wilson on the bench in favor of mediocre veterans who haven't helped the team win in the short term or the long term.

McClendon's decisions have directly hurt the Pirates' chances of winning games. Here's one example. Here's another. And another. And another.

There are more: there's this game that the Pirates somehow actually won, in which McClendon ordered sacrifices with no outs in the tops of the 9th, 10th and 11th innings in a tie game... at Coors Field. The Pirates didn't score in any of those innings, and Jason Bay and Rob Mackowiak laid down two of the sacrifices. And then there's this game, in which McClendon ordered Kris Benson to sacrifice in the sixth inning of a game they were losing 4-0 (why not just pinch hit for Benson?). McClendon then (justifiably) removed Benson from the game in the bottom of the inning.

McClendon is not the only reason why the Pirates lose. They simply don't have the talent to win 90 games. But he's not helping them win all the games they can, either, and is probably just as responsible for the Pirates' poor performance as any single player. He constantly stacks the deck against himself, and has no track record of winning to reassure us that there's something about the game that he sees and we don't. And if some miracle happens and the Pirates are able to cobble together a good team in McClendon's tenure, my guess is that fans are going to start noticing what an awful tactician he is.

Keep Kendall

2004-10-10T14:40:00.000-04:00

This article should scare the pants off any Pirates fan.

I don't think the Pirates have any players they should consider untouchable, including Kendall. But once money is out of the picture, Kendall is a very, very valuable commodity - a catcher who puts up .400 OBPs and is one of the two or three best leadoff hitters in baseball.

Why am I taking money out of the picture? Well, because as a fan, it doesn't matter to me that Kendall is overpaid. If the Pirates are able to trade him and get his salary off the books, that money probably won't be used to improve the team. Given the recent patterns of Pirates management, the payroll will probably just shrink that much more if Kendall leaves.

This would be a different matter if the Pirates were getting great talent - especially great young talent - in return for Kendall. But they're not.

The Pirates wanted a promising pitcher, Yhency Brazoban, in return, but the Dodgers balked. Speculation is that another player -- Craig Wilson, for example, if he gets re-signed -- could be included with the Pirates receiving a catcher, Brent Mayne, perhaps, along with the pitcher they want.

Yhency Brazoban? Brent Mayne? From a baseball perspective, that's suicide, especially if they throw in Craig Wilson to make the deal. If anything resembling that deal occurs, I'll probably be able to stop rooting for the Pirates for good, and so will most of the rest of the fans that are still around. Here's the explanation:

That way, Humberto Cota could get more playing time and the Pirates would have a veteran backup to share the load. But then they'd have to make up Wilson's production somewhere else.

More playing time for Humberto Cota is not going to help the Pirates now or in the future. I hope that Robert Dvorchak didn't get that from a Pirates official.

Fire McClendon

2004-10-07T13:23:00.000-04:00

Chris Kucharski has some suggestions for the 2005 Pirates. His ideas about free agents are, well, terrible. He suggests the Pirates sign Tino Martinez or Brad Fullmer to a two year contract if necessary. Martinez was fairly good this season, but I wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole - he's old, and he was mediocre in 2003. I like Fullmer more than most people probably do at this point, but he's injury-prone, and a two year contract would be absurd. Also, the Pirates have lots of guys they could try at first or whatever corner position Craig Wilson doesn't occupy. For example, J.R. House is out of options in the spring, and he's not even on Kucharski's projected 25 man roster. Why not? Let him play first, or let J.J. Davis play right. Both players have significant upside, and neither can be sent to Indianapolis next year except on rehab/"rehab" assignments. Both guys - yep, even Davis, and please don't tell me you only need 30 at bats to determine he's a bust - would have a good chance to play as well as Fullmer or Martinez next year anyway.

Kucharski also lists some free agent pitchers the Bucs might sign, including Esteban Loaiza, Aaron Sele, and Glendon Rusch. Ugh. These guys stink, and the Pirates can easily do better by handing that rotation spot to any of a number of the Pirates' young arms.

Kucharski's comments about Loaiza are kind of funny:

He had a terrible 2004 but maybe playing the second half in New York had something to do with it.

The fact that Loaiza is mediocre might also have something to do with it! He had one good season in 2003. In every other season he's played, his ERA has been near or above the league average. Let it go.

The Pirates don't need a new first baseman or starting pitcher next year. If they're going to sign a free agent or two, it should be at a position where the free agent won't block a promising youngster or a good player. For the Pirates, that position is third base.

Kucharski does get one thing right: he suggests the Pirates fire Lloyd McClendon. Kucharski points out that McClendon is a slave to lefty-righty matchups, that he's obsessed with Abraham Nunez, and that he's a poor tactical manager. He also points out that the Pirates have been consistent losers under McClendon.

While McClendon obviously isn't responsible for all that losing, the Pirates would be better with a manager who knew what he was doing. A general manager should always try to figure out where his team's weaknesses are and to replace them with strengths. McClendon isn't the only reason the Pirates are bad, but he's part of the reason. He should go.

Pirate Scouting Report

2004-10-06T01:45:00.000-04:00

Wilbur Miller's outstanding Pirate Scouting Report has updated player bios for every, or nearly every, player in the Pirates system. Many of the bios, especially at the majors and higher levels of the minors, are extensive, and Miller's analyses are wise and fun to read. Go there now - you'll learn some things no matter how closely you follow the Pirates.

From Paul Meyer's Q+A today:

One thing the Pirates could do, Brian, is move Jason Bay from left field to center field. Manager Lloyd McClendon has said often that center field is Bay's best position. He can run. He has a good arm. I could see that happening if the Pirates determine that Redman isn't a regular. The Pirates have a lot of "nice" players, but they need more good players. Putting Bay in center field probably would make the Pirates stronger up the middle, where they're already pretty decent -- Jason Kendall at catcher, Jack Wilson at shortstop and Jose Castillo at second base. Thing is, if the Pirates move Bay to center field, who will play left field?

Uh, not Tike Redman? But let's back up a second:

Putting Bay in center field probably would make the Pirates stronger up the middle...

If that's the case, it is mind-boggling that the Pirates didn't just move Bay there earlier this year and let J.J. Davis or Tony Alvarez play left.

Bay Vs. Greene, with Geoff Young of Ducksnorts

2004-10-03T23:57:00.000-04:00

Now that the regular season's over, it's time to decide who should win the National League Rookie of the Year Award, Jason Bay of the Pirates or Khalil Greene of the San Diego Padres. Rather than conduct an analysis on my own, I contacted Geoff Young of the excellent Padres blog Ducksnorts, and we talked about both players.

Geoff Young, Ducksnorts: I like the idea of an e-mail conversation about Jason Bay versus Khalil Greene. I'll begin by pointing out that Greene (as you've mentioned in your blog) has had the best offensive season of all NL shortstops in a tough park for hitters. He plays a demanding position and has been spectacular on defense. But I honestly think a real compelling case could be made for either of our guys.

Charlie Wilmoth, VORB: I agree that the race for the Rookie of the Year is a close one, and that this isn’t a Pirates fan arguing for Bay versus a Padres fan backing Greene. I want to give readers a clear picture of what the issues in this debate should be, and you certainly know more than I do about Greene and the factors that might affect his performance, whereas maybe I know some things about Bay and the Pirates that you might not. I agree that a compelling case can be made for either player.

Here are the raw numbers:
Bay 116/410 41 BB 24 2B 4 3B 26 HR 4 SB 6 CS .283/.355/.551/.910
Greene 132/484 53 BB 31 2B 4 3B 15 HR 4 SB 2 CS .273/.349/.446/.795

These numbers, especially the power numbers, seem to favor Bay. But Greene plays shortstop, which is much more demanding than Bay’s position, left field (even though left field is huge at PNC Park). Also, Petco is a tough park for hitters. It seems to have been especially tough on Greene: he has posted a .683 OPS at home versus an impressive .895 OPS on the road. (It should also be noted that PNC is reputed to be a tough park for right-handed power hitters, although Bay has hit 15 homers and had a .952 OPS there this year.)

What can you tell me about the hitting environment at Petco? Are you aware of any reason why Greene seems to be affected more by Petco than most other Padres, or do you think it’s just a sample size issue? Also, can you comment more specifically on Greene’s defense? His Zone Rating is impressive but his Range Factor is rather low; I think we can agree, however, that he looks very good out there and that those stats don’t always tell the whole story.

Ducksnorts: A few thoughts... First, in addition the raw numbers you cited, I'll add Win Shares. Thanks to this great site that I found via David Pinto's Baseball Musings.

We can see the following:

Greene - Bat: 15.0 Fld: 5.5 WS: 20
Bay - Bat: 14.3 Fld: 1.8 WS: 16

This is through 9/23, and Bay probably has bumped up his hitting portion a bit, but Win Shares gives Greene pretty significant extra credit for his defense. Win Shares also gives Jay Payton more credit for his defense than Steve Finley, so who knows how reliable that measure is. I'm pretty comfortable in saying that Greene's defense has been more important to the Padres than Bay's has been to the Pirates, but I'm not at all comfortable in attempting to quantify the difference.

As for park factors, ESPN has Petco as the second most difficult place in the big leagues to score runs (just ahead of Safeco). Here are ESPN's numbers for Petco and PNC (where 1.000 represents average, above is more favorable to hitters, below more favorable to pitchers):

Petco - Runs: 0.834 (29) HR: 0.694 (30) H: 0.892 (29)
PNC - Runs: 0.898 (26) HR: 0.883 (23) H: 0.977 (20)

Numbers in parentheses are MLB rank.

Obviously neither park benefits hitters, but Petco Park was arguably the most pitcher-friendly park in MLB this year. Anecdotally, I can tell you that Greene hit a lot of balls to the warning track in the power alleys that probably would have been homers in most parks. By the way, this is the first time I've really looked at PNC's factors, and they certainly do make Bay's already impressive numbers look that much better.

As for Greene's home/road splits, wow! I hadn't realized they were so extreme. I'm not sure why this is the case. The best I can do is the anectodal evidence above. Only Brian Giles and Phil Nevin hit more homers than Greene on the road this year, and if you double Greene's road output he ends up with 24 bombs. Again, going back to my own observations, I think he would have hit 20-25 homers in a neutral park this year. We're dealing in pretty speculative areas here, I realize, but there you go.

Regarding Greene's defense, I touched on range factor a little bit in the last month at Ducksnorts.

In a nutshell, I suspect there are park effects at work here as well. Anyone who has watched the Padres for any appreciable stretch of time this season will tell you that their strength on defense has been the infield. Or they might tell you that the outfield defense has stunk. Both are true, at least to the human eye. But if you check range factors at ESPN, the Padres have the best CF range factor in the NL and fourth best overall OF range factor. Conversely, only the Astros and Cubs have lower team range factors on the infield. I know we're talking about Greene and Bay here, but just to use Payton again as an example, his range factor in CF is 3.01, tops in the NL. The difference between him and the #2 guy (Mike Cameron at 2.77) is greater than that between Cameron and the #6 guy (Tike Redman at 2.56). Steve Finley, Jim Edmonds? Not even on the map. Again, without having done any real research on the subject, my guess is that Payton's range factor is more a reflection of (a) the hugeness of Petco's outfield, (b) the fact that he is flanked by Giles and Ryan Klesko out there, and (c) the fact that many of the Padres pitchers serve up a fair amount of fly balls. And to bring this back (finally) to Greene, I suspect the opposite is true with infielders and that their range numbers are abnormally skewed in the other direction due to those same reasons.

Bottom line: Range factor will tell you that Payton is one of the best CFers in all of baseball and Greene one of the worst shortstops. My own eyes tell me the opposite is true, which leads my mind to believe that maybe range factor isn't the best determinant of defensive value. And my answer to the inevitable follow-up question is, I don't know what is.

To conclude (for now), although it's tough to say for sure based on one season's worth of data, I believe that Greene's offensive and defensive numbers are both negatively impacted by his home park.

What about Bay? Other than how he managed to stay in a Lloyd McClendon lineup despite the high strikeout totals, what can you tell me about one of the guys we gave up to get Brian Giles? As an outsider, one of the things that jumps out at me is his remarkable consistency. His OPS ranged from 866 to 1000 in any given month. That tells me he's making the adjustments, a very good quality in a young player. Also, regardless of whether or not it is a "skill", you've got to respect his numbers with RISP: .323/.415/.677. Very nice. Okay, those are some numbers. What more can you tell me about the guy?

VORB: It seems like we agree that it’s difficult to evaluate defense with confidence. It takes more than a good Range Factor, or even Zone Rating, to convince me that someone is a good defender. The fact that Tike Redman, who is as hard to watch on defense as any Pirate in recent memory, is ranked in the middle of the pack in range factor among NL center fielders tells me there’s something weird going on there. UZR is the defensive statistic I trust the most, but 2004 UZRs have not been published, so we can't see how Bay or Greene rates there.

As far as defense is concerned, then, the best we can do is agree that they’re both good at their positions but that we don’t know how good, and that Greene deserves pretty substantial extra credit for playing shortstop. One interesting thing about Bay, though, is that left field is tough to play in PNC because it’s so large, so defensive statistics probably don’t do Bay any favors. I can say for sure that Bay looks very good in the field – he runs well, gets good reads on balls and catches most of the ones he gets to.

Also, I’m not sure anyone should give Bay credit for this as far as the ROY debate is concerned, but the Pirates' organization is apparently very confident in Bay’s abilities in center field – in fact, Lloyd McClendon has said that center may be Bay’s best position! If he really can play there and the Pirates had let him play there, his case would be even stronger (and the Pirates might have had another ROY candidate in J.J. Davis), but instead they let Redman play there the entire season.

In any case, I suspect that Bay’s defense is more valuable than his Win Shares totals gives him credit for, but I doubt it would be enough to make up the rest of the difference.

I looked at the ESPN park factors you linked and was amazed at how low PNC was ranked. The number listed there (a Park Factor of .898, which would make it the fifth-most pitcher-friendly park in baseball) is way out of line with what I see with my eyes and with previous park factors I’ve seen for PNC. (Baseball Prospectus 2004, for example, rates PNC as a neutral park, although I believe BP’s park factors are based on the total hitting environment the Pirates play in, whereas ESPN’s numbers are just based on games at PNC.) There may be some weather-related reason so few runs have been scored at PNC this year, but I suspect this is just a sample-size issue, and PNC is actually just a neutral park.

I’ve watched ten or so games played at Petco this year, though, and it’s very obviously an extreme pitchers park: very hard-hit balls frequently turn into flyouts there. Park factors are subject to so many variations in weather and sample-size problems that it’s impossible to rate them precisely. Still, there is a class of hitting environments that are obviously extreme in one direction or another – Colorado, Los Angeles, Texas, Seattle – and Petco is one of those. I think it’s very likely that Greene would have hit twenty jacks or more in a more normal hitting environment.

One other problem with park factors is that parks aren’t one-size-fits-all – they may affect different types of players differently, particularly players of different handedness. The conventional wisdom regarding PNC is that it’s much harder on right-handed power hitters than on lefties, since the wall in left is much deeper than the wall in right (although the wall in left is much lower). So I checked the home-road splits of every Pirate power hitter for each full year played since 2002. There haven’t been many, so it didn’t take long. In short, though, the lefties I checked (Brian Giles, Matt Stairs, Rob Mackowiak and Daryle Ward) did tend to get a bigger boost from PNC than the righties (Craig Wilson, Reggie Sanders, and Bay). That isn’t a lot of players, but the numbers do suggest that the conventional wisdom is right. So I think that while PNC is basically a neutral park, it’s harder on righty power hitters. I’m not sure whether Bay deserves some extra credit for that or not.

Whew! What was I talking about? Ah yes: Jason Bay and Khalil Greene. I do think, again, that this is a case where Bay’s play has been a bit better than his Win Shares totals suggest, since I’m sure Win Shares applies a one-size-fits-all park factor rather than one that’s tailored more specifically to the tendencies of the park.

So where does that leave us? I really have no idea, and I think Greene and Bay are so close in value and such different kinds of players that we’re not going to get a definitive answer here. It is fun to try, though.

While I’ve got your attention, though, I would be remiss not to ask for your opinions about Aki Otsuka, another very good Padres rookie who might deserve some consideration. You seem to like him, too. He lags far behind Bay and Greene in cumulative stats like Value Over Replacement Player, but as some folks at Baseball Primer have pointed out, he usually pitches very high-leverage innings, which makes him much more valuable than such statistics suggest. Do you think he should be a real contender here?

Ducksnorts: Regarding Bay's ability to play center field, that's where he was playing for the Padres before he broke his wrist last year. My recollection of him in his brief stint in San Diego is that he looked like a pretty good athlete.

I agree that this is going to be a very close call. In most years, either of those guys would win easily. Bay's production despite missing the a good chunk of the season has been amazing. And Greene has been the best offensive shortstop, qualitatively, in the National League despite playing in the toughest park for hitters.

One other thing we haven't mentioned is that Bay and Greene were actually roommates at Triple-A. This doesn't mean anything in terms of analysis but it's kind of cool. And whoever ends up winning the award, it's pretty clear that both clubs have a special player on their hands. This isn't a case of Todd Hollandsworth vs Edgar Renteria, or Pat Listach vs Kenny Lofton. These guys are legit and should be around for a long time to come.

As for Otsuka, I wrote about his chances the other day. Basically, Kaz Sasaki won the AL ROY in 2000 pitching fewer innings than Otsuka has this year and posting inferior qualitative numbers. I'm convinced that the only thing keeping Otsuka from being a serious contender in the race is the presence of Trevor Hoffman. There's also no doubt in my mind that Otsuka could close games on this side of the Pacific. But he works the eighth rather than the ninth, and nobody really cares if a guy finishes with 34 holds. So I guess my answer is that if Sasaki deserved consideration in 2000, then Otsuka deserves it now. But I seriously doubt he'll get more than a token vote.

Alex Gonzalez For Silver Slugger!

2004-09-30T01:41:00.000-04:00

So says Lloyd McClendon:

During the final homestand, McClendon and his coaching staff cast their ballots for the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards. They were not allowed to vote for players from their own team. McClendon thinks shortstop Jack Wilson should receive consideration for both awards. McClendon's vote for the Gold Glove went to Cesar Izturis of the Los Angeles Dodgers. His vote for the Silver Slugger went to Alex Gonzalez of the Florida Marlins.

I am ashamed to admit that until now I wasn't exactly sure what the Silver Slugger award was, so I looked it up:

In Major League Baseball, the Louisville Silver Slugger award is given annually to the best offensive player at each position in each league.

Wait... so Lloyd McClendon thinks that a guy with a .270 OBP has been the best offensive shortstop in the National League this year? Either McClendon doesn't care much about who the good players in the league are, or we've got the Pirates' talent evaluation problems summed up in a neat little paragraph up there. Lloyd? Dave? Click here. The best offensive shortstop in the National League has been - and apologies to Honest Wagner and Pirates fans everywhere for what I'm about to say - Khalil Greene, and once you consider home parks it frankly isn't close. And Alex Gonzalez is one of the worst offensive starting shortstops, not one of the best.

Geek Gives Grades

2004-09-28T01:31:00.000-04:00

...To Littlefield trades, and in the end gives him a C. Littlefield gets (and deserves) good marks for the Giles and Ritchie deals, and flunks on the Schmidt and Ramirez trades.

The trouble with this analysis (which I'm sure has more to do with Post-Gazette word limits than anything else) is that while it's dead-on for all the trades the Stats Geek actually evaluates, a GM's effect on his team cannot be accurately measured in blockbuster deals alone. Littlefield's dozens of smaller moves have done almost nothing to help the franchise and have often actively harmed it. His drafts have been overly conservative (although he did nab Brad Eldred in 2002); he's traded real prospects (including Chris Young, a Texas Rangers starter who we should think very hard about next time we watch Ryan Vogelsong pitch) for replaceable veterans; he's blocked cheap young talent like Craig Wilson in favor of more veterans; he gave a long-term contract to Brian Boehringer; he waived and Rule 5'd half the farm system last year; and so on. Once we see the small stuff start to accumulate - and GMs of small-market teams must sweat the small stuff - that C grade looks extremely generous.

And even if Littlefield really were worth a C, he'd be part of the problem, not the solution. Poor teams either need to have excellent luck, or they need to outsmart their richer competition. The Pirates haven't had much luck recently, and C students won't outsmart the Beanes - or even the Hendrys or Jockettys - of the class.

McClendon On The Bucs Offense

2004-09-27T01:58:00.000-04:00

From the Post-Gazette:

"We really have to pound it in spring training about taking pitches, working the count, improving our on-base percentage and cutting down on our strikeouts. Good things happen when you put the ball in play. McClendon indicated he'll give the "take" sign with the count 1-0 and 2-0.

Well, that's... a start, I guess, and an improvement on the slap-first-ask-questions-later approach that seems to dominate the Pirates' minor league system. Again, though, the problem isn't strikeouts, it's outs, and the Pirates who've been striking out a lot - Jason Bay, Craig Wilson - are among the Pirates' best hitters.

Enough, Please

2004-09-27T01:05:00.000-04:00

Please, Pittsburgh media, stop talking about the fact that Jack Wilson will probably get 200 hits this season. Not only does it seem to be distracting Jack himself, his hit totals actually say as much about his deficiencies as his strengths.

Wilson is tied for third in the National League in hits, with 196, but he's only ranked fifteenth in the league in batting average. We all know that batting average doesn't do a good job explaining anything about a player's value to his team, because batting average does not tell us about a player's power or his ability to get on base by means other than hits. "Hits," the statistic, has the same flaw, and it has the additional flaw of being a function of opportunity, much in the same way RBIs is. The reason Jack ranks better in hits than in batting average is because he gets a lot of opportunities as a result of hitting at the top of the order, and because he never walks. Jason Kendall, who also hits at the top of the Pirates' order, has a higher batting average than Wilson but almost twenty fewer hits, and the main reason for that is that Kendall walks much more.

Don't get me wrong, Wilson has been a productive player this season. But he's only having a decent season, not a great one, and there's no reason to go nuts about a milestone that says more about his less-than-optimal approach at the plate than his talents as a hitter.