Some Bucco Updates

Looks like I'm a bit behind on Pirate related news here, sometimes being a student by day, Pirate-blogger by night doesn't always mesh well.

In terms of importance, we'll go with the Dave Williams first, as he signed a contract yesterdayish for next year to avoid arbitration in the spring. It's worth about a million and a half, which is fine with me, especially if he's our 4th or 5th starter next year instead of our 2nd or 3rd starter, as he was much of this year. With the signing of Williams though, one has to begin wondering what Littlefield and Tracy have planned for next year's rotation. Zach Duke is a lock and one would think Oliver Perez is as well, barring any setbacks this winter. Paul Maholm will get a long look, but some of his numbers (especially his K/BB ratio) weren't as good as his stellar ERA indicated. I wouldn't be surprised to see him start next year in AAA. Tracy has brought up Kip Wells repeatedly since his hiring, so unless he and Coburn have him slotted for Eric Gagne duty (promising starter with sometimes dominating stuff that simply couldn't put it all together) you have to think he's going to be in the rotation. Ditto for Redman if he picks up that option, Littlefield will want him in the rotation to try and duplicate that start from last year and sell high. So is that where we are right now? Duke, Perez, Wells, Williams, Redman? We can safely say that they're going to screw Snell, Bullington will be hurt, and Burnett and Van Benschoten will at least start in AAA next year, so I can't really see things starting any other way with the rotation, I guess. They may try to trade Kip, but there won't be many takers and like I said above, Tracy seems to have made fixing Kip his own personal crusade. Still, those five names together just don't look very promising, unless Perez and Wells can make a serious return to form. In April we'll still be half a season away from the Duke, Maholm, Burnett, Perez, Van Benschoten rotation that seems to hold so much promise but also seems to always be just out of reach.

We also seem to be having trouble hiring a hitting coach. It's not really that surprising, as soon as we hired Tracy I heard speculation that Wallach wouldn't want to come to Pittsburgh and I don't think anyone could really imagine Robin Ventura as our hitting coach. As Perrotto reports, the next two candidates are in-house, Jeff Manto (our minor league hitting instructor) and Hensley Meulens (Indy's hitting instructor that got a September call-up). If you follow the two links above, you'll see that both played in the majors and neither was known for their hitting. Meulens' nickname is "Bam-Bam" so, as far as I'm concerned, that makes him the favorite.

Also, in the release from Pirates.com that announced the Williams signing, it was also mentioned that Jose Mesa was informed his option will not be picked up for next year. OH HAPPY DAY!!! Coburn gets to test his reputation as a guy that develops closers, but that's besides the point because WE DON'T HAVE TO WATCH MESA NEXT YEAR.

For some other reading, Wilbur Miller grades the depths and ceilings of the minors and it isn't pretty below AAA(here's a hint, there's lots of Fs). Also (and this is really late, I know) Baseball America named its Top 20 prospects in each Minor League. Andrew McCutchen was named the top prospect from the GCL and for everyone back home, Nolan Reimold was named the top prospect from the New York- Penn League. The Eastern League and International League chats involve some talk about Pirate prospects, mostly about how they weren't good enough to make the lists (though there are some exceptions, Doumit, Duke, Bullington, and Maholm all make their respective lists... IL for the first three and EL for Maholm).