Jack Wilson

2005 key stats: .257/.295/.363 with 39 XBH (24 2B, 7 3B, 8 HR) in 639 PAs (587 ABs)
2006 ZiPS: .272/.314/.395 with 49 XBH (31, 8, 10) in 628 ABs.

It's time for the prediction on maybe the toughest guy on the team to get a read on, Jack Wilson. After his breakout 2004 (.308/.335/.459) he heavily slumped for almost all of last year until a hot September brought his numbers up to the level they've been at almost his entire career. He had an appendectomy in the offseason and it's hard to say how long it affected him for. One argument is through April, because May was statistically his second best month last season. On the other hand, he still stunk in May last year, putting up a .306/.413 month for a .719 OPS. A .719 OPS would've been worse than every month he had in 2004 except two. Still, we'll use April as the cutoff for the injury because he was truly awful in April and just pretty bad from May-August. Let's take a look at his key stats without April included. It gives us a .272/.312/.389 line for 2005. That's also almost exactly what his ZiPS look like for the upcoming year. I didn't project his other numbers (like doubles, triples, homers) out for a healthy April, but I'd bet they're very similar as well. That's not really incredibly encouraging, especially given the fact that Tracy will probably use him as his two hitter next year.

The key for Jack, which is unmeasurable (which I suppose would lead some to tell me it doesn't exists, but what the hell, this is my site) is what an incredible streak hitter he is. When he gets on a roll like he did last year in September or at the beginning of '04, he can hit just about anything. He's a great baserunner, and thusly he ends up with more doubles and triples than you'd expect out of a guy with his speed and hitting ability. The problem is that it's a two way door, and when he slumps he looks like he did from April through August last year (minus May), overthinking, spending waaaay too much time in the cage (he was swinging last year until his hands bled when he was in the worst parts of his slump), swinging at a ton of first pitches, and weakly grounding out a LOT. Since he's such a free swinger, he gets really really hot and really really cold, and he also has trouble breaking out of either phase. Of course, this is a good thing if he's on a hot streak.

What I think all this means is that April will be the most important month for Jack next year. The confidence he built up in the first month of '04 carried him into the break, while the awful start he got off to in '05 took until September to shake off (again, just because May was his second best month didn't make it a good month for him). If he doesn't get out to a great start look for him to finish out right around his ZiPS (which are pretty much on par for the rest. If he's above average in April, we might be be able to expect a little better. I do think that 2004 wasn't entirely a fluke and that he's a better hitter than he's shown from 2001-2003, and 2004, but that's based on nothing but the fact that I like the guy (well, that and his minor league numbers, which brought some pretty good OPS, though we're way beyond that point in his career now and they probably don't mean that much). I've been saying all offseason I think we can expect about a .280 batting average for him. I'd also guess some of his doubles power will return this year, bringing his SLG back up a little. That brings us to about a .280/.320/.420 line, which seems just about right to me.

Just what we needed

According to this article from the official Pirates mouthpiece, the Pirates are planning to add another mascot next year. You know what? I don't even want to know what this is. The Parrot is one thing, kids love it (is it a he or a she? I can never tell), it's a classic, it reminds everyone of '79, it sold coke in the 80s, it's a part of the team. I don't even want to have to think about putting up with some shit like this next year, it's just going to make me angry.

Joe Randa

2005 key stats: .276/.335/.452 with 62 XBH (17 HR, 43 2B, 2 3B) in 609 PAs (555 ABs)
2006 ZiPS: .277/.332/.440 with 57 XBH (14, 41, 2) in 534 ABs

Now that it's Monday it's time to continue with predictions. After Castillo on Friday that brings us to Randa today.

Randa is, to say the least, an intriguing guy to make a prediction for. Last year he set career highs in homers (previous high, 16) and doubles (previous high, 36) with his highest OBP since 1999 and a SLG that he'd only put up once since 1999. He did all of this at the age of 35. Since players don't just get better at the age of 35, this means one of two things, either he juiced up (we'll call that unlikely, though admittedly, just about anything is possible) or something drastically changed from 2004. A quick look shows that about 60% of his PAs last year came with the Reds, so we can assume about 30% of his season ABs came at the Great American Ballpark. His numbers showed a pretty drastic decline after he got traded to the pitcher's haven of Petco Park in San Diego, so we can safely assume that his numbers last year are at least somewhat inflated by the GAB. I think it's fair to say that when it comes to righties, PNC Park is more like Petco than it is like Great American (though not quite as bad, PNC really is a good middle ground), which means that for our purposes his 2005 numbers are a bit inflated. That means that we might be best served looking at his 2004 numbers in KC, .287/.343/.408.

So what can we expect from Randa next year? Well, we shouldn't really expect him to get hurt and for Freddy to see a lot of action at third. Even at 36 he's been extremely durable in his career, with the lowest total of games he's played in any season since leaving Pittsburgh in '97 being 128 in 2004 (KFFL says he had a knee injury and I'll admit that that could account for his low SLG that year). Also, using his range numbers from BR and his fielding percentage, we're getting a guy that's slightly above average in the field, though these predictions are purely offensive (in more ways that one for some of you, I'm sure). I'll also openly admit that though I think signing Randa was a stupid move, I like the guy a lot and I do think he'll be a little better than Sanchez will next year (not $4 million better, mind you, but hey, I'm not in charge).

That being said, I'm looking for about .270/.335/.430 out of Randa this year, with a stronger first half than second half. If we assume that his poor second half last year can be at least somewhat attributed to Petco and his poor 2004 SLG can be chalked up to his knee, that seems like a pretty safe guess to me. I'd guess his average, and thus his OBP since he doesn't walk a ton, will drop a little based on his age and I'd be shocked to see more than about 12 homers out of him with him hitting into PNC's cavernous left field. He'll also average 21.3 smiles per game, the highest out of any Pittsburgh athlete without a first name thats a homonym for a ketchup company. Bill James be damned, you just can't put a price on a stat like that.

Prospects... kind of

I meant to talk about this column yesterday about the Pirates farm system because it reminded me of some things Littlefield said at Piratefest, but it slipped my mind. Anyways, Dejan's Sunday Hot Stove report dealt mostly with prospects after a conversation with Brian Graham, the scouting director. As has already been pointed out by Charlie in a post yesterday, not many of these guys are actually prospects. Rajai Davis and Ray Sadler certainly are not (mostly because of lack of talent and being too old), Matt Peterson and Shane Youman are awful, Adam Boeve is way too old for his level (though maybe I shouldn't be too hard on him, Wilbur Miller compares him to Chris Shelton and we really are starved for power in Pittsburgh).

This all goes hand in hand with a question that was asked to Littlefield at the "Ask Management" session on Saturday. He was asked to name the next wave of prospects we could expect to see here in Pittsburgh, and the first two names he reeled off were Matt Capps and Josh Sharpless. Now I saw Capps a couple times last year and thought his stuff looked good (his numbers after his callup weren't great, but he got unlucky in a couple spots and seemed to be throwing the ball real well, especially for a guy that started the year in Hickory) and I'm as happy as anyone to see a guy with the season Sharpless had last year make the 40-man, but when the first two names that come off your GM's lips when asked about prospects are RELIEF PITCHERS, well, let's just say things could be better. Keeping that in mind, reading stuff like this shouldn't really surprise anyone at all.

Thoughts on the ownership

After seeing McClatchy at Piratefest yesterday, I've been doing some thinking about the Pirates ownership. I know I said I was impressed with some of the stuff McClatchy said and I realize that that could be misconstrued to seem like I actually agree with the way the team is being run. That really wasn't my point yesterday, pretty much everything this ownership group DOES, I disagree with. McClatchy's point was just that not every billionaire is George Steinbrenner. Lots of people (McClatchy's example was Huizuenga) think they can pump money into a franchise without the care of losing money, but once they win a championship they get bored with it. It's a good point, I wouldn't trade the team for a championship and I think most fans would agree.

Actually, yesterday made me more certain than ever that McClatchy is nothing more than a public puppet of the Nuttings. They own something like twice as much of the team as he does, but this guy can't be the public face of a baseball team. McClatchy looks good for the camera and for as long as he's been in Pittsburgh he's said all the right things. He's much younger than Ogden Nutting and he has an incredibly idealistic view of the world. That view managed to get him a new stadium in Pittsburgh when he probably shouldn't have been able to. It won't be able to fix a baseball system in which teams like the Yankees and Red Sox make a ton of money. That doesn't matter, because McClatchy saying things like he says keeps fans impressed. I know if he impressed me, he definitely impressed a lot of other fans at Piratefest. As far as the Nuttings go that's Mission:Accomplished at Piratefest.

More Piratefest

According to Dejan yesterday was the biggest day in Piratefest history, bringing in 6,900 people over the course of the day. I'd believe it, it was mostly elbow to elbow in the convention center yesterday and I think the room was bigger than it was last year. That could be because Friday's opening was smaller than usual due to the Steelers pep rally. Again, I'd believe it because I was also at Heinz on Friday (faced with the same conflict as the kid in the beginning of Dejan's column, going to a mostly empty Piratefest to meet Sean Casey or going to Heinz for the Steelers rally, I chose the pep rally on the basis that I might not ever live in Pittsburgh again when the Steelers are having a free Super Bowl pep rally and Piratefest would be happening two more days in the same weekend) and almost the entire bottom bowl of the stadium was full (it wasn't the 30,000 that was being reported, more like 22-25,000, still impressive).

Anyways, the column is filled with more Piratefest observations from Dejan, so if you couldn't make it to the Dave this weekend, check it out.

Piratefest

Some quick random observations about Piratefest as a whole:

• There were more people with Steelers stuff on than there were with Pirates stuff. In fact, might've been 2:1
• I love seeing random people with authentic Warren Morris and John Smiley jerseys on.
• There was a stand selling Terrible Towels.
• Pirates fans are inexplicably, incredibly excited about this team this year. It probably has something to do with the guy on the cover of the pocket schedules, Mr. Pittsburgh himself, Sean Casey.
• Speaking of Sean Casey, he looks a hell of a lot like John Wehner. It's actually almost terrifying how much they look alike.

We got there in time for the last 2/3rds of the Q&A with the Pirates players (Duke, Bay, JWilson, Freddy, Gonzo, Chris Duffy, Eldred, Kip, and Vogelsong), Tracy, and Colbourn. It was mostly "What other position would you play if you could" or "Boxers or briefs" type fare. There were some highlights though.

• It was absolutely packed. The question lines were huge (they just let people walk up to two different mikes and ask questions). All of the seats in the little theater area were filled, plus a huge crowd around it. Pittsburgh really seems to like these guys.
• Brad Eldred was asked twice about Sean Casey being traded for and what that means for him next year. Seeing as how this wasn't Indianapolis Indiansfest, I'm not entirely sure why they even brought the poor guy along to subject him to this.
• One out of every three questioners mentioned the Steelers.
• Jack Wilson probably has ADD. For the most part the players managed to pay attention, except Jack who seemed to constantly get distracted by the balloon structures behind where the crowd was sitting.
• Kip Wells is sad Josh Fogg is gone.
• Despite the fact that he lost 18 games last year and I make fun of him a lot, Kip Wells actually has a fantastic sense of humor. I'm still holding out hope for him.
  
• With about 20 minutes left, a young looking guy with jeans and a button down shirt on walked along the left hand side of the crowd and up onto the stage. Not one person in the crowd stopped him or recognized the fact that he was ZACH FREAKING DUKE. Only at Piratefest.
• When each player was asked about their nicknames, Freddy Sanchez said that Jack Wilson liked to call him "club" since he was born with a club foot and Jack won't let him forget about it. This caused much hilarity among the guys on stage. Apparently birth defects= comedy gold on the locker room. Actually, I was surprised by how well all the players on stage seemed to get along. They were constantly whispering to each other between questions and laughing. Maybe it's their youth, but the way they interacted with each other seemed like what you'd expect from a high school team rather than a big league team. I know a lot of people don't believe in chemistry, but it was actually pretty encouraging to see.
  
• There is absolutely nothing interesting about Chris Duffy. He's fast. Somehow someone made that into a question.
• Not one person thought to ask Ryan Vogelsong what it was like to be a fringe major leaguer and how he slipped past security and got on stage.
• Jim Colborn is very smart and quite funny. I'm guessing he's the brains behind the operation because...

When the players were done, it was time for "Ask Pirates Management." Much of the crowd cleared out. Most of the seats by the stage were full, but there were very few people standing aroudn to talk to Tracy, McClatchy, and Littlefield, and the question lines never had more than 2 or 3 people in them at a time (there were enough questions for a full hour, though that may be because it's incredibly difficult to get Jim Tracy to shut up, more on that below). Greg Brown introduced Dave Littlefield as "having one of the best offseasons of any GM anywhere in recent memory"and you could actually hear the crowd chuckle. Greg Brown wasn't kidding, nor did anyone ask him if his job made him want to kill himself sometimes (I considered it, though I wanted to get more out of my 10 bucks and decided it was probably too soon to get kicked out).

• Before the Steelers/Bengals game I watched the CBS pregame show. When Shannon Sharpe made his pick he rambled on for like 5 minutes. When he finished I realized he had no idea who he picked to win the game until the little Bengals logo appeared underneath his name. Add a little bit of a better grasp of the English language, and that's Jim Tracy. Every single question that was directed to him was met with a long, rambling answer that involved him talking about how great he was. By the time he finished, not one answer resembled the original question in any way, shape, or form. The man is a complete moron and I would be terrified to even cross the street with him, let alone have him manage my baseball team.
• Parts of what McClatchy said actually impressed me. When asked if he was "thinking about taking on more investors to the team" (an indirect way of asking about Cuban) he said that there have been owners that buy teams, plug tons of money into them, and get bored with the team and when that happens you find yourself in a situation like the one the Marlins were in back in 1998, one they haven't fully recovered from and will probably result in them moving. He finished up by saying that both the Pirates and baseball would be better off by working to fix the problems with the system than to look for a quick fix ownership. Sure, it's very idealistic, but that's an A+ answer right there. When he was repeatedly asked about where the payroll was headed in future years, he said that the team was in better shape financially than they ever had been and as long as the fans kept coming to the games, the payroll would keep going up (though he couldn't name numbers beacuse that gets him in trouble). I don't like much of what McClatchy does, but he was actually very impressive today.
  
• Dave Littlefield was not so impressive. My friend wanted to grab a seat in the front row after the people from the players Q&A cleared out and I joked that DL's ego might kill us if we sat that close. When an 8 year old with balls the size of the sun got up to the mic and point blank asked Dave Littlefield what the hell the deal was with signing Jeromy Burnitz for the price we did at the age of 37 (seriously, I wasn't even going to do that, mostly because I knew the answer, but still, that's incredibly ballsy) Littlefield chuckled and patronizingly said "Wow, you've really been reading up, haven't you?" then rambled on some non-answer about CWilson and Gerut's health and outfield depth and blah, blah, blah. When I asked him about Neil Walker's injury and the club's plans for him in the future (hey, the 8 year old took my question, plus it was something I was curious about that I figured I could actually get a straight answer on), he kept pointing to the bottom of his hand like I was some kind of moron and saying that it hurt Neil there and he needed surgery (note to self, people do not take you seriously in the real world when you have a 5 week old, patchy, hobo, playoff beard). He then admitted that any switch Walker would undergo would eventually come down to him (I was surprised to see him taking accountability for something like that, though he kept referring to himself in the third person as "the general manager", which was very bizarre) and he didn't see any need to hurry something like that (which I disagree with, but whatever, it's not like I actually agree with anything Littlefield says).

So to summarize, Tracy was much (much, much, much, much, much, much) worse in person than I expected, McClatchy was much better, and Littlefield was exactly what I expected.

After the management Q&A we wandered around for a little bit, just seeing what kind of crap they were giving away, what old jerseys they were selling in the "Buried Treasure" stand (my favorite of all the little alcoves at Piratefest, they sell great stuff like Pete Schourek, Tommy Sandt, and John Smiley jerseys, just plain awesome). There were a ton of people there (as usual) and the general vibe was very positive, though I think a lot of that stems from the Steelers more than anythin (judging by the more people in Steelers gear than Pirates gear, as I mentioned).

The Seahawks and Jose Hernandez

Apparently, Jason Bay is a Seahawks fan. It's kind of hard to hold that against him (if I played for the Mariners I'd still be a Steeler fan, that's for sure), but it seems like Sean Casey is, like a good Steeler fan should.

The real point of interest in that column has nothing to do with football though, it's the fact that we re-signed Jose Hernandez. After jettisoning utility man after utility this offseason, we signed a bad one to a minor league contract that strikes out a ton. Very uncharacteristic here, though it might be a sign that either Freddy Sanchez or Jack Wilson is on their way out (don't count on Castillo though, the organization loves him).

I'm off to Piratefest. I'll be back later with a report on the festivitites.

Funny water

Dejan has a good article today about the Pirates offseason spending spree. His point is that no matter how much the Pirates spent, their payroll still comes in under everyone in the NL Central, Brewers and Reds included. He reports that between the revenue sharing money and the central league fund (national TV money, etc) the Bucs pulled in $45 million or so last year, which (you guessed it) is just about enough to cover the payroll. Still, a team like Cincy managed to spend $60 million on payroll for next year, while the Brewers are at $50 million.

McClatchy also decided to keep his mouth shut at the team luncheon after the "funny water" comment debacle of last year. When asked about the overall huge spending spree that baseball went on this winter, McClatchy said,

Teams do what they have to do. Teams like Kansas City and Toronto and Pittsburgh spent more money this offseason. Were there some bad signings out there? You know what? We've done bad signings in the past, so I probably shouldn't point fingers.

Yeah, Kevin, pointing fingers is a bad idea at this point, I'll give you that much. Mostly because this offseason you gave two of the biggest free agent contracts in team history to guys older than Jerome Bettis who are for the most part over the hill and not better than anyone you already had on the team. You trumpeted a giant payroll raise that was really only modest, and it was mostly poorly spent because there was very little you did with the money made the team better for 2006 in terms of actual competitiveness. You made the best argument possible against a salary cap in baseball, because one isn't needed in a world where the Pittsburgh Pirates can afford to pay Jeromy Burnitz $6 million and Joe Randa $4 million. So yeah, just keep smiling to yourself about how stupid everyone else is. Maybe if you think it hard enough it'll actually be true.

Jose Castillo

2005 stats: .268/.307/.416 with 11 homers and 30 XBH in 393 PA
2006 ZiPS: .277/.325/.394 with 10 homers and 28 SBH in 468 PA

Time for one of the most intriguing Pirates of 2006, Jose Castillo. Since he's only going to be 25 next year and he's shown pretty good power both last year and in the minors and has long been considered to be one of those "high ceiling guys." He was hitting the ball well last year and was greatly improved over 2004 before his knee injury. He needs to walk more, but he cut his strikeouts by 33 year in a similar amount of at-bats he had in '04, showing an improvement in plate discipline. The mystifying thing is the drop in his ZiPS for next year. It would seem hard to believe that a 25 year old who is supposed to be completely healthy (the ZiPS don't take injury into account, I don't think) would drop off in performance like they predict Castillo too.

I'll be the first to admit, I was not a huge Castillo fan in 2004. He shows flashes of brillance both at the plate and in the field, but he also has more than his share of mental lapses in both spots too. He's kind of like a milder, less talented version of Aramis Ramirez v. 2001. I'm not positive, but I think his BB/PA ration was very similar to Sausage Boy Randall Simon himself (the least disciplined hitter I think I've ever seen). That being said, I was pretty impressed with the improvements he made last year. His fielding (range and reaction time specifically) improved vastly, as did his offensive numbers and as long as he can keep his head in the game (his injury seemed to me to be a direct result of his not paying attention and thus not getting off second base fast enough, allowing Luna to slide right into him, though the resulting stupidity between the Bucs and the Cardinals that culminated in Lloyd and Perry attacking Dave Duncan in the bullpen was probably the final straw that got Lloyd fired, so maybe I should be thankful for it) I think that's going to continue. I can't imagine he's going to dip off like the ZiPS predict him to, I'm going to say .275/.315/.430. I doubt he'll get to that 20 homer plateau the Bucs are looking for, but I'd say 15-18 might not be out of the question. I'd be more looking for the number of doubles he hits to increase somewhat significantly from 16 to somewhere in the mid 20s.

Piratefest

Dejan says go to Piratefest. Sean Casey says go to Piratefest. I'll be at Piratefest (tomorrow at least, can't make it today) to do the usual, pull some ducks out of a pond, throw some darts, try to win some bobbleheads, hopefully get to hear DL and Jim Tracy talk, and of course get my full late winter serving of optimism and false hope, something no Piratefest would be complete without.

Sean Casey

I was going to do this around 7 or so but I forgot about Blogger's scheduled maintenance at the time (which is why if you tried to get to the site around then you probably got an error message). Anyways, after my Doumit predictions yesterday, we'll start moving around the horn to Sean Casey today.

2005 key stats: .312/.371/.423 with 32 doubles and 9 homers
2006 ZiPS: .313/.373/.441 with 34 doubles, 1 triple, and 11 homers

Casey is a much tougher task to predict on because of his health. As this great post from a month back by Rowdy at HW indicates, Casey is like two different people when he's healthy and when he's hurt. Last year he puttered along with an OPS of under .800, in 2004 he tore the cover off the ball to the tune of .915. The problem, of course, is that at the age of 31 (32 in July), he's had three fairly poor, injury filled years in the last four seasons. As Rowdy's post illustrates, Casey is the type of guy that won't complain about being hurt, he'll just grit his teeth and go about his business, even if it hurts the team. While this is admirable, it doesn't help his stats and it doesn't help us get better. It's also the type of atitude that Jim Tracy will eat up. This means that even if Casey's hurt, don't look for Craig Wilson to spell him much unless amputation is necessary.

So, the question is whether Casey can stay healthy and whether he can have a bounceback year if he is healthy. People cite the short porch at PNC as reason to think he'll hit more homers. Others dismiss that pretty quickly, saying that his power is to the opposite field. I played around with his hitting charts on MLB.com and found out that that isn't entirely true. While his XBH are sprayed around pretty well, most of his homers do in fact go to right field (I looked at both PNC and the GABP). So yes, it is possible the short porch will be beneficial to Casey, though PNC is only about 5 feet deeper than Great American to dead right and the wall is a bit higher, so the benefit probably won't be anything incredibly drastic. Other people seem to think that some mystical quality of Pittsburgh water will make Casey happy to be home and will see him hit better this year. They forget that Casey was incredibly unhappy when he found out he was traded to the Buccos. Then again, I don't put a whole lot of stock in the mystical "happy to be home factor."

The bottom line is that even if Casey is healthy, he's only slugged over .450 twice since 2001. He's almost 32 years old with a slew of health problems in the past four years, so even if he's healthy I really doubt he'll be getting better. Chances are good he'll hit for a decent average, because that's what he does. That means he'll get on base at a decent clip. The problem is that if he doesn't (aka he's hurt), not only will he not get on base a ton, his SLG will come down (like it did last year) and Tracy will keep playing him, even with a more capable Craig Wilson on the bench. Most fans will fail to notice this, mostly because of his award winning smile and charity work.

That being said, with all skepticism aside, I do think Casey is due for a healthy season this year. I really do like the guy and I hope things go well. For my prediction, I'm going to say that the ZiPS are pretty on target here, I'll go with .315/.375/.445 for Casey and keep my fingers crossed that he stays healthy, because if not we could be looking at a .290/.350/.420 type season.

Ex-Pirate alert!

Former Bucco Denny Neagle pleaded guilty to patronizing the ugliest prostitute in the history of the world back in December of '04. Watching Barry Bonds, Aramis Ramirez, Jon Lieber, Abraham Nunez, and others leave Pittsburgh, it's nice to know that not EVERYone succeeds in their after Pirate life.

I won't lie, it's Tuesday and I don't think I've seen any new Pirates news since about Saturday. I'm stretching just a bit. I have a Sean Casey prediction post to write up which I'll do sometime after class and my all day lab end tonight.

New Pirates blog

It's time to welcome a new blog to the Pirates blog family, the Bucco Blog (not the crapfest put out by the Trib, this is an entirely different entity). It's only a couple days old, but he's done a lot of posting and it's very good. Check it out.

Sad

Apparently, the Astros think Jeff Bagwell's career is over and are making an insurance claim saying so. Jeff Bagwell doesn't seem to agree, as he's going to report to camp anyways. However that situation ends, it's going to messy. I've always liked Bagwell (read: grudgingly respected him as he bashed the Pirates heads in for over a decade) and was happy to see him and Biggio get to the Series last year after everything they'd done for the Astros. It's sad to think he's going to go out in a messy situation like this (I realize he's owed a ton of money by the 'Stros who don't want to pay it to a guy that's probably best suited to play DH) and I hope they can get everything together to avoid it.

Ryan Doumit

2005 key stats: .255/.324/.398, 6 HR 35 RBI in 75 games/257 PAs
2006 ZiPS: .264/.327/.424, 13 HR 54 RBI in 118 games/414 PAs
Random fact: Hit by 13 pitches in 257 PAs, good for 7th in the NL

Doumit goes first based on the assumption Jim Tracy will realize he should be our every day catcher, which is a big assumption, given his (somewhat unfair) reputation as a poor defensive catcher. He's certainly going to be a much better hitter than Humberto Cota next year. My gut feeling with Doumit is that he's going to exceed the ZiPS projections by a bit if he's given a chance to play every day. He battled injuries for a lot of his minor league career, but since 2002 his lowest SLG in the minors was .434 and his lowest OBP was .343. He's similar to Craig Wilson in that he doesn't walk a ton, but he's not afraid to put himself in front of a pitch, which accomplishes the same thing.

He's a switch hitter, but played primarily against righties last year (177 ABs vs. righties compared to 54 vs. lefties) which is curious because his numbers were much better from the right side of the plate (.361 OBP/.426 SLG/.787 OPS vs. lefties compared to .313/.390/.703 vs, righties last year, though 5 of his 6 homers came against righties while batting lefty), though it could just be a small sample size. I don't have his minor league splits, but WTM's site has him as a very poor right handed hitter up until AA, which indicates that he's done a lot of work from the right side of the plate to avoid Orlando Merced syndrome.

Those are the numbers, now for the bias. I like Doumit. I like him a lot more than I like Cota, that's for sure. I thought he should've got more playing time last year (he split time with Cota until almost August, which is unacceptable given that Cota's best quality is his "magical clutchness") and I liked what I saw. Obviously his .345/.415/.630 line from AAA last year is something similar to Duke's line in the major's last year, fantastic but not realistic to happen again. Still, if he's allowed to settle in I certainly think he's capable of a .275/.345/.430 type season. The real question is whether he'll be given the chance.

2006 Position Player Predictions

With Spring Training approaching and there not being a ton of Pirates news as pitchers and catchers make their way towards reporting I'm going to start off on my season predictions. I'm going to start with a position player a day (unless there's something like a "Super Bowl" on that day, in which case I won't be thinking about baseball). Position players will go first because we learn a lot more about pitchers when they report to camp (a la Oliver Perez last year). I'll be using their major and minor league numbers (from WTM's site), ZiPS projections, Baseball Reference's similar player comparisons, and of course my good old fashioned bias.

C- Ryan Doumit
1B- Sean Casey
2B- Jose Castillo
3B- Joe Randa
SS- Jack Wilson
LF- Jason Bay
CF- Chris Duffy
RF- Jeromy Burnitz

Community projections

Charlie is starting up a series of "community projections." All that means is that everyone predicts BA/OBP/SLG and he averages them together, then we see how we did at the end of the year. He's starting today with Chris Duffy, so if this is the kind of thing you're into, head over now and then check back for future updates.

Mario

Hockey isn't baseball, but it's impossible to be a Pittsburgh sports fan without having #66 impact your life in one way or another. People may debate whether another baseball player should ever wear #21 again, but I can almost guarantee you no hockey player will ever put on 66 again. Everyone has their favorite Mario story, I'm no different. I still remember the last goal he scored of his first career on Garth Snow at home in the playoffs against Philly like it was yesterday, nor will I ever forget the absolute chills I got when he came back on a cold December night 3 years later and scored the first goal of that amazing comeback and we all got to hear "THE PITTSBURGH GOAL, SCORED BY NUMBER SIXTY-SIX, MARIOOOO LEMEIUUUUUUUUUUUUX" again. Three years off and he still had it. Sure, he probably should've hung his skates back up after that first amazing comeback year. Then again, if anyone earned the right to hang around a little too long, it was Mario. Thanks for everything Mario.

And if you're worried, I promise this is the only hockey post you'll ever see on this baseball blog. It's just that some people transcend convention.

The "21" controversy

Apparently, someone somewhere is still discussing retiring Roberto's #21 across baseball (I had forgotten that the conversation was taking place at all) and Jackie Robinson's daughter is not pleased about it. I can understand the arguments on both sides, but it appears to me that by dragging their feet on the issue (as far as I can tell the MLB hasn't really addressed it yet, they'll have to say something eventually, this isn't going to go away if it hasn't at this point), baseball has gotten itself into a tricky situation that now won't be able to end without someone being upset.

Surprise

Now here's a shocker, Barry Bonds has begged out of the WBC saying he doesn't want to take an actual drug test with impartial observers risk any injury that could threaten his shot at the all-time home run record last season with the Giants. Apparently, appearing in celebrity golf tournaments outside of the States are on the approved list of activities, however. That article describes him as fit, but some of the pictures I saw of him at the outing (on ESPN, I can't find a link to them on the net) were more Casey Hampton-like than they were fit (doesn't that picture just make you smile?).

Calling Mr. Cuban

Please take note on how quickly a new ownership can invigorate a fan base by firing an incompetent GM. No word on who Castelleni (the Reds new owner) plans on hiring, but the reaction to O'Brien's firing in the Reds blogosphere was immediate and positive. This is the type of difference Mark Cuban would make here. Unfortunately, the only difference Cuban has made so far is creating a threating, shadowy presence that scared the Nuttings and McClatchy enough to do something stupid like give Dave Littlefield $15 million to spend as he pleased, resulting in a team of old, overpriced almost stars.

They DO exist

I checked, the Pirates actually do still exist on this Monday afternoon when pitchers and catchers are closer than ever to reporting, but about as far from anyone's minds as they've ever been.

Not much news on the Pirate front either. The Bucs have decided to invite Andrew McCutchen to camp this spring. I don't see much wrong with that, espcially now that the old coaches are gone. We've also signed Jorge Vasquez to a minor league deal. I won't pretend to know much about him, but Charlie seems to think this could be an encouraging move.

More as I get back into baseball mode.

Benson the Oriole

Kris Benson got traded to the Orioles today. Usually a middling starting pitcher traded for a middling reliever and a prospect would be of no real interest to anyone except the two teams involved, but when Anna Benson is involved that means everyone is interested. Consider my ears peeled for anything that comes out of that psycho bitch's mouth.

The catcher thing again

Today on Pirates.com we now have a full article about the Ryan Doumit/Humberto Cota "competition" after seeing a question about the two in Ed Eagle's mailbag 10 days ago. Like I said when I saw the mailbag a week and a half ago, there is absolutely no place for a competition anywhere at catcher, unless you want to make Cota and Paulino battle for a spot on the big league team (and truthfully, that might not be much of a competition either). Cota can't hit, he can't get on base, and his defense isn't good enough to make up for the giant gap in bats between him and Doumit. That's all there is to it, end of story. We heard a lot about Tracy blindly playing guys in LA because they played better defense, will this be the first place it happens in Pittsburgh?

The WBC

Sixteen Buccos (well 7 Buccos and 9 minor leaguers from the system) are on the World Baseball Classic 60-man rosters (60 men? this thing is going to be ridiculously huge), including Jose Castillo who's playing for Venezuela now that he's healthy. See, this is why I'm not jumping around with excitement about this WBC thing. If they have use for 16 people from the Pirates system, including Simon Pond, Vince Rooi, Brett Roneberg, and Jonathan Albaladejo (who the hell are they?), then this thing can't be anything except a chance to show off a clash of the titans between the US and the Dominican and prove that all of the stars can pass drug tests.

Q&A, or is it A&Q?

Today's Q&A is flipped, Dejan asked the questions last week and the readers answered today. I won't nitpick any of the fans answers, mostly because it looks like Dejan tried to choose a wide spectrum for all of the questions with answers ranging from rational to completely insane. It's massive, but it's worth a read if you've got the time.

I like Kip Wells but...

I like Kip Wells, you all know that. I understand how the first six years of the baseball payroll system works, with players making more money the more years they play and how arbitration is based on more than just the previous year, but on a player's career as a whole. That being said, I think all of us are dreaming of a day when we can get a job, be as bad at it as Kip Wells was last year, and still see a million dollar raise to $4.15 million.

Finally, some closure

When I started this blog it was primarily to write about how I see things as a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I realize I'm not a baseballexpert by any means, I analyze things to death on this blog because that's how I think about things. But I have noticed that with few exceptions, I haven't talked much on here about being a fan, so that's what I'm going to do now. In this post I'm saying to hell with things like OPS and VORP. Let's talk about things that matter to fans. Let's talk about karma.

I write about baseball because I played baseball, because I know baseball, because I love baseball, because something about the sport of baseball lends itself to writing and something about writing about baseball clears my head. I'm certainly a baseball fan before I'm anything else, that's for sure. It doesn't mean I don't pay attention to any other sports. I certainly take advantage of the Pens' "Student Rush" tickets (I was actually there last night to see them lose to Vancouver) and like everyone else in this city, I'm a Steeler fan. Maybe not on the same level that I'm a Pirate fan, but let's just say that I haven't shaved since New Year's Eve because it's bad luck to shave during the playoffs (and because I shaved during last year's playoffs, I'm completely convinced I may have inadvertantly cost us the AFC Championship game, have I mentioned that I may be insane and I actually fear for my health if the Pirates ever make the playoffs?).

Anyways, the reason that I'm finally dipping into football on this blog is because of what Sunday's game means to Pittsburgh fandom, Pirates fans inclusive. Since October 14, 1992 this has been a cursed city in terms of sports. The Sid Bream incident set off an unprecedented run of bad karma for Pittsburgh professional sports. Before that play, the Pirates where 3-time division champs with World Series aspirations (if the other two years couldn't be the year, certainly 1992 would), the Pens were 2-time defending Cup champs with the best player in the world hitting his prime, and the Steelers had just hired a new coach named Bill Cowher. In other words, things couldn't get much better. Just take a quick look at some of the thing's that've happened since that crushing night (the years might not be perfect, but I am only one man and it is late at night, or early in the morning, whatever):

• January 1993, Mario is diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.
  
• Spring 1993, the Pens are upset by the Islanders in the NHL playoffs, derailing their quest for a third concsecutive cup.
• Summer 1993, Andy Van Slyke crashes into a center field fence trying to save a home run, breaking his collarbone. He is never the same.
  
• October 1993, the Pirates wrap up their first losing season.
• August 1994, the baseball strike, Pirates finish with their second losing season.
• October 1994, the first NHL lockout begins.
• January 1995, after recording a Super Bowl rap video, the Steelers somehow manage to lose at home to an awful San Diego Chargers team quarterbacked by Stan Humphries. The Chargers will go on to lose to the 49ers by a million points in Super Bowl XXIX. Also, the shortened NHL season begins without Mario Lemeiux.
  
• October 1995, make it three for the Buccos.
• January 1996, the Steelers lose to the Dallas F-ing Cowboys in Super Bowl XXX in what was a very winnable game except that Neil O'Donnell went colorblind in the fourth quarter, costing us an upset on the level of Rams over Patriots.
• Late Spring 1996, the Pens lose to a hockey team from Florida whose fans are obnoxioius as hell and throw rubber rats on the ice whenever they score. The Pens lose this series in 7 games and, as the obvious theme goes, were better than the team they lost to (who got swept in the finals if my memory serves me).
  
• October 1996, you got it, the Pirates finish with their fourth losing season in a row.
  
• Spring 1997, Mario Lemeiux retires at the age of 32 due to his chronic back problems, battle with cancer, etc.
  
• August 1997, Kordell Stewart becomes the Steelers starting quarterback
  
• October 1997, not only do the Pirates finish with their fifth losing season in a row, but they were close enough to a division title that they kept Cam Bonifay's job safe until halfway through 2001, a truly catastrophic turn of events.
• January 1998, the Steelers lose to the Broncos, a team they beat during the season, in Pittsburgh to propel John Elway to his first Super Bowl title.
  
• October 1998, Pirates continue sucking.
• Late 1998, the Steelers have their first ever losing record under Bill Cowher.
• October 1999, Pirates wrap up 7 years of futility and looking back we should've seen the 6 more years of shenanigans coming.
• October 2000, make it 8.
• Late 2000, Lloyd McClendon is hired. In the words of Douglas Adams, "This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered to be a bad move."
  
• Spring 2001, the Pens lose to a team from New Jersey in the Eastern Conference Finals. This is the last they will see of the playoffs.
• Late Summer 2001, Dave Littlefield is hired. See "Late 2000, Lloyd McClendon is hired"
  
• October 2001, nine is not fine for the Pirates, in fact they lose 100 games.
• January 2002, the Steelers lose an incredibly painful game at home to the Patriots in which the Pats score points in ways previously inconcievable to man (I hate you, Troy Brown).
• March 2002, Operation Shutdown.
• October 2002, the Pirates hit double digits.
• January 2003, Joe Nedney takes a dive after a missed field goal in overtime of a Steelers/Titans playoff game, gets the roughing the kicker call, and is given another field goal attempt, which he hits to end the Steelers season, then bragged about his acting skills (*this entry is disputed as all of Pittsburgh put a curse on Nedney for this and he literally tore his ACL during the next season's opener and hasn't kicked since then.. karma's a bitch, Joe, that's why this post is being written).
• Summer 2003, Bill Cowher and Mike Mularkey decide a passing offense is where it's at with catastrophic results.
• October 2003, HOLY SHIT! PIRATES FINISH WITH LOSING RECORD (that's 11)
• Spring 2004, Pirates sign Raul Mondesi.
• October 2004, Pirates finish with their 12th straigh losing year. Also, the NHL begins it's year long vacation.
  
• January 2005, the 15-1 Steelers lose to the Patriots, a team they manhandled during the regular season, at home for their 4th home AFC Championship loss in 5 tries at home under Bill Cowher.
• October 2005, the Pirates finish with an almost unfathomable 13th straight losing season
• December 2005, Dave Littlefield is given $15 million to spend. Also, the Cincinatti Bengals win the AFC North and the world begins spinning in reverse.
  

That's a shitload of bad karma since the Sid Bream Game. The Steelers lost 4 AFC Championship Games to teams they should've beaten. The Pens saw their star get cancer, their best team (the 92-93 Pens) get knocked out of the playoffs, lost two conference championships (at least one of which to a team they should've beaten and the other of which they lost to the Devils, which no one likes to do), and had a number of bad ownership things happen that I didn't even bother to try and chronicle here. The Pirates lost and lost and lost and lost and lost. Sure, the Steelers got to the Super Bowl on a dropped Hail Mary, but it was in a game where they were big favorites at home and still nearly bit it. And yeah, the Steelers and Pens had good records for most of the time frame and sure, some very good things happened (PNC Park, the Rob Mackowiak game, the fact that Cowher's teams spent so much time in the playoffs, the first year of Mario's return, the early part of Kendall's career, Brian Giles, Jason Bay, winning the draft lottery to get Crosby), but the fact remains that after Barry Bond's terrible throw to the plate on that fateful night, Pittsburgh teams were either chokers or flat out awful. Every good Steelers and Pens season was like a clear summer night when something in your bones tells you that rain is coming. Every Pirates season involved getting hopes up, only to have them crushed back down to the size of an M&M, then having to watch the M&M get eaten. The city's sports teams were helplessly surrounded by the bad karma of the Sid Bream play, the play which ended one of the all-time worst stomach punch games ever.

Enter Sunday, January 15, 2005. The Steelers, as big underdogs, raced out to a big lead. As things fell against them over and over again in the second half, they held on. They kept things together after one of the all-time bad karma plays ever (Bettis' fumble) and pulled out a huge, improbable win, the biggest win of Cowher's career (please, let's not even argue this, this is way bigger than the AFC Championship win over the Colts because of what's transpired in the last 10 years), a big win in a big game they were supposed to lose. Before that game, Pittsburgh teams couldn't win big games they were supposed to win, let alone ones they were supposed to lose. It was like a pall hanging over the city. And I know what you're thinking now, "Stop this, we haven't won anything yet, there's more games to play," but the truth is, it doesn't matter because I'm not even talking about winning a Super Bowl this year. The karma's been reversed. We didn't win a Super Bowl in the year Franco made the Immaculate Reception, but that big playoff win, in a game the Steelers were supposed to lose, springboarded the Steelers to many more playoff wins in the six seasons after Franco plucked that ball off the turf. In that same vein, the Steelers may not win a Super Bowl this year, the Pirates may not finish with a winning record next year, and the Pens are still in deep trouble. But win the Super Bowl or not, no one can take Sunday's game away. Winning that game Sunday was like stepping outside of a smoke-filled room and taking a huge breath of fresh air. We finally have a bookend for Sid Bream.

Quick Notes

It's not often that you'll read about a Pirate player headlining anything except the Pirates, but on ESPN.com's main baseball page there is a link that reads "Bay to headline Team Canada." It's small and not entirely unexpected, but it's still nice to see.

Also, the Buccos and Ollie have come to terms for a one year, $1.9 million deal which could be either be a fantastic deal or a complete rip-off, depending on which Ollie appears at PNC this year. Here's hoping for the former.

Monday

I didn't post yesterday, mostly because I spent about 10 hours from noon on watching the Steelers, then basking in the glow of their amazing win. At this point it's hard for even me to think about baseball.

Still, Dejan gets paid to do it, and on Sunday the Hot Stove Report had a nice write-up about Josh Sharpless, who used a huge season last year to sneak on to the 40-man this season and is probably one of the better relief prospects we have. The same article says that signs are pointing to Sean Burnett's comeback going smoothely. We can only hope.

There's also two more Minicamp reports, one on Tracyball (yaaaawn) and one on the bullpen which is looking quite good this year. Of course having guys like Gonzalez, Torres, probably Hernandez, maybe Marte (if he isn't dealt) is a good reason to have confidence in your pen, but the best reason to is the absence of Jose Mesa.

Charlie also has a post on Zach Duke's views on Lloyd McClendon. As he points out, this puts Kip's comments from the other day in a different light. It's interesting that all this stuff is coming out now and I'm not going to beat a dead horse (you all know that I didn't like McClendon) but this is the kind of stuff I kind of suspected of going on behind the scenes that no one ever talked about. It's the stuff like watching an "Inside Pirates Baseball" in June and hearing Matt Lawton tell you that he hasn't actually spoken to McClendon once yet (I know I know, Matt Lawton, but that really happened and stuff like that is ridiculous) that makes this not so surprising.

Anyways, I'll try and shift my mind back into baseball gear and maybe I'll eventually be able to put a post up that's more than a bunch of links, but it might take a while.

Saturday roundup

Two points of interest on this Saturday on which no one is really thinking about the Pirates, Craig Wilson and Oliver Perez.

First off, Craig Wilson signed a $3.5 million deal to avoid arbitration. That's about what everyone thought he was worth. I think that a system where a player can get a half million dollar raise after an injury riddled season like Craig's was last year is stupid, but I do also think it's the system's fault and not the Pirates', at least this time around.

Second is day 2 of Dejan's two day "Flaky Starters of the North Side" series, a minicamp profile of Oliver Perez. Apparently his 0-4, 6.16 ERA performance in Mexico this winter and his word that he feels good are enough to declare that the zip is back on his fastball and the bite is back on his slider. I could be wrong though, Littlefield (who went to Mexico) also seems to be encouraged and Ollie apparently had a very good bullpen session yesterday. I'm not sure there's anything I want to see next year more than the return of the '04 Oliver Perez. I'm also not sure I'll believe it's happening until I see it.

A couple other quick notes from the Perez article, Castillo finally made it to minicamp and was declared healthy, which is good news for him and bad news for Freddy Sanchez. Still, fingers are crossed that maybe this year will be the breakout year from him we've all been hoping for. Mike Gonzalez is wearing a knee brace, supposedly as a preventative measure because of his injury last year. It's still kind of scary, knowing how the Pirates are with truthfullness when it comes to injuries. Also, Yuri DeCaster may join Andruw Jones and co. on the Netherlands for the WBC, assuming that the whole thing happens at all. Oh, and Sean Burnett and JVB threw off the mound again today with huge smiles on their faces again, I'd assume.

Round Tripper Kipper

I always kind of felt like Kip Wells hated McClendon and his staff more than the average player on the team. Today, despite his assurances otherwise, Dejan's minicamp article today has some quotes that illustrates it.

"I don't want to take anything away from what the other staff did. Spin tried to get everything out of me that he could," Wells said. "But I think that, without a better foundation for what was going to be our fail-safe plan when things don't go well ..."

He paused.

"Since we really didn't have that, we didn't establish what was going to make us successful as a staff. From a preparation standpoint, there should be a regimented program you stick by through thick and thin."

He's also excited to be working with Colborn.

"You should be able to say, 'This is what's made people successful from a Jim Colborn standpoint. This is what I've come away with by working with Jim Colborn.' He's had good results from Eric Gagne to Jeff Weaver to other guys who have made considerable improvement. There's a consistent trend there."

I don't know how much of that success is attributable to Dodger Stadium, but it is true that guys like Gagne and Weaver who were supposedly done had some great seasons under Colborn. Of course, Colborn's main goal should be Kip's consistency, something pointed out by Dejan in the column. I suppose you could argue that Kip was consistent last year, just consistently bad, and that Colborn's real job is to make him stop sucking. My hope is that McClendon's legendary inability to communicate with his players alienated Kip beyond hope with his staff, and that a new staff means a new start for Kip, because he really is one of the more talented pitchers we've had here if he could just find a way to harness it.

Almost a good day

I was going to say that today was one of the better days of the offseason. As the report goes, Burnett and Van Benschoten threw well yesterday and felt great, Duffy is showing no remaining ill effects from his torn hammy, Jody Gerut took BP without his knee brace, and Castillo said he felt good, though he didn't actually show up at minicamp like he said he would. Of course Bautista was hurt, but it doesn't appear to be that bad (though things are usually worse than first glance when it comes to the Pirates).

Then I took a look at Rotoworld and saw that we were negotiating with Jose Lima. I can't even put into words what a bad idea this is. Sheesh, we can't even have one good day, can we?

Crasnick's column on ESPN

I saw the Jerry Crasnick column about the Bucs and Royals on the front page of ESPN.com's baseball page (Insider only) and figured it would give me something to write about on here (plus I know most people don't have Insider and are probably wondering the same thing, thus I feel like it's my public duty to share). Wrong. It's mostly just drivel about how the Pirates and Royals have to overpay to get anyone to play here. No deep insight or anything there, though I did love these paragraphs here:

The Pirates will ultimately succeed or fail with their next wave of talent. They're counting on Chris Duffy in center field, Ryan Doumit at catcher and Jose Castillo at second base. And they're hoping that 6-foot-5, 270-pound first baseman Brad Eldred will do more than just blot out the sun and hit tape-measure jobs in the minors. He'll wait his turn this season while Casey plays out the final, $8.5 million installment of his contract.

Pittsburgh's pitching staff is certainly intriguing. Zach Duke looks like the real thing. And if Paul Maholm continues to progress, Kip Wells puts up some numbers in his free-agent "walk" year, Oliver Perez rediscovers his pre-laundry-cart-kicking form and Sean Burnett rebounds from Tommy John surgery, Tracy and pitching coach Jim Colborn might be on to something.

Quite a lot of ifs... if you ask me. Though he is quite right about "succeed or fail with the next wave of talent" thing.

Indecision

First I was going to write about ESPN's updated Misery Index, and what an outrage it is that a team like the Astros that's been to the playoffs 7 times since '97 (with a World Series appearence, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, and Roger Clemens to boot) can somehow be construed as more miserable than the Pittsburgh Pirates. I was also going to write about how I took offense to the comment they made that the reason for our misery was the choice of Van Slyke over Bonds, how no one could've seen Van Slyke's career ending with the injury that it did, how he sparked those early 90s teams with the way he played and his attitude towards life, how Bonds would have never played here even if we payed him what he wanted. But I didn't feel like it was enough for a full post, so I moved on.

Next up was going to be Bruce Sutter, not that he didn't deserve to be in the Hall (I think to some extent closers do get a bad rap, but then again I hope Lee Smith never gets near the Hall so who really knows) but that while people were crediting him for making the splitter a popular pitch, he probably would've never been throwing a splitter if it hadn't been for Roy Face and his forkball. I was going to keep going about how unfair it is that a guy like Face gets ignored when it comes to Hall of Fame voting, mostly because he was a closer before there were closers. Then I decided that it's an argument that's been made before and that most people probably don't want to hear me compare split finger pitches thrown by two retired relievers, so I moved on again.

I then remembered today was Wednesday, meaning a new Q&A would be up. I read it, didn't find anything particularly interesting, and decided that Charlie's post about it was generally about how I felt, that Dejan's (and the Pirates) continued harping on strikeouts and batting average can get pretty old at times.

Looks like this school stuff has sapped my motivation.

Wiggy lives!

Here's the surprising news of the day, the D-Rays signed Ty Wigginton to a one year MAJOR LEAGUE contract, presumably to play first base. Hope they have fun with that, Wigginton was literally the worst defensive first basemen I have ever seen in my life. I do think he'd have some use as DH, though I suppose that's Aubrey Huff's position.

In news of the same vein, the Giants are interested in Josh Fogg, according to ESPN.com's rumor mill.

Dr. James Andrews

According to Deadspin, Dr. James Andrews, the guy who does most of the Tommy John surgeries, had a heart attack today and is supposedly in intensive care, but is stable. This begs one very important question; who will fix Zach Duke's elbow when he blows it out this year?

All kidding aside, Andrews is probably one of, if not the most, important non-baseball person in the MLB. Just about every pitcher who's had Tommy John surgery has gone to him and thusly had their careers extended. He may not have invented the surgery (Frank Jobe did), but he's certainly perfected it. Hopefully he'll be OK.

Vogelsong, Burnett, and the five spot

Dejan reports from minicamp in Bradenton today on the fifth spot in the rotation, namely to add Sean Burnett and Ryan Vogelsong's name to the mix with Victor Santos and Ian Snell. Immediately when I read it last night (as it was posted at midnight) I had a double reaction:

1. Wow Burnett might be ready earlier than they thought, that's awesome.
2. Ryan Vogelsong? In the rotation? WHYYYYYYY? (I then went to Charlie's blog and saw the same reaction).
   

Then I went to sleep. I woke up. I went to Art History class (stupid required electives) and thought about it (because what the hell else am I supposed to do in Art History?). Now I'm thinking this might not be the stupidest thing in the world. There's a couple reasons why, first off, Victor Santos sucks. Last year he put up his career lowest ERA, 4.57, but he still had a WHIP over 1.50. There's nothing in his past to suggest this year could be better (so he's not a Kip Wells). He's just all around pretty bad. Then there's Snell. I like Snell more than a lot of people, but I'll admit there's still enough questions about him that handing him the job (which is what would most likely be happening in a competition with only Santos) probably isn't the best idea. That leads us to Vogelsong. Everyone knows I like Vogelsong more than a Pirate fan rationally should, I'll admit it. But I do think that Santos and Snell need another name thrown in there with them, if only to make it feel like more of a competition (because while Vogelsong isn't perfect, Santos and Snell are also far from it). The thing to keep in mind is that whoever breaks camp as the 5th starter is probably going to be a placeholder for Burnett for the first 6 weeks of the season or so. I doubt he'll be ready for the bigs in early April, but the fact they're even considering him is probably a sign he's fairly healthy. As today's article points out, he's somehow only 23 years old and if he's healthy I have a feeling that by July we'll have forgotten this debate ever took place.

Cota and Doumit

I usually don't venture to Pirates.com much, but out of extreme boredom (back at school, syllabus week, nothing at all to do) I checked out the mailbag today. Good thing I did because apparently Ryan Doumit and Humberto Cota are going to be splitting time until Doumit "emerges" as a reliable major league hitter. Quick, who had an OPS of .672 last year? Cota (Doumit- .722). Who struck out 80 times in 320PAs? Cota (Doumit struck out 48 in 257). Who got on base at a .285 clip last year? Cota (Doumit- .324). Who needs to establish himself as a major league hitter? Cota. Hell, we'd probably better off with Paulino and Doumit next year. Cota may have been "clutch" but he just isn't a very good hitter. If he takes significant ABs away from Doumit next year we're going to have a problem.

At the end of the mailbag, Ed Eagle also discusses a question that I was wondering how long it would take Pirate spin control would get to. Spin control also assures fans that Craig is going nowhere and we definitely aren't going to be trading any of these prime free agents if we get off to a slow start this year.

Now I remember why I stay away from Pirates.com.

Jim Colborn

Today's PG features a nice column about arguably the most important member of the Pirates new coaching staff, Jim Colborn. All cynicism aside, the Pirates will most likely go as Kip Wells and Oliver Perez go this year. This is a team that's been built on pitching, and if those two guys have years like they did last year the Buccos won't be much better. I'm not sure Tracy's examples of the differences in Sanchez, Quantril, Carrera, and Mota between under Colborn and not under Colborn apply here, but I hope he's as good as everyone says.

Bringing it all together

Part four of the "Dave Littlefield is the smartest GM in the National League" series, or perhaps more accurately, "Why I think Dave Littlefield is an evil genius." The introduction can be found here, part one here, part two here, and part three here.

This is the final part here where I wrap up everything up and bounce some crazy ideas about Littlefield's plan off of the wall to see if anything sticks.

As CP from New Jersey said in the comments of first installment, Littlefield's strength is risk aversion. The moves he makes are moves made to keep his job. If the Pirates were to win 75 games next year with Brad Eldred, Freddy Sanchez, and Craig Wilson getting big chunks of playing time but the $15 million left largely unspent, Littlefield is publicly hanged for not spending the money that could've put us over the top and he's fired. If he makes the moves that could have potentially helped us out (trade for Glaus, Bradley, maybe make Nomar a ridiculous offer to play third here) they could all easily backfire, leaving us at the same point, with Eldred, Sanchez, and Wilson playing large roles and 70-75 wins, with Littlefield getting fired. By signing Burnitz and Randa and trading for Casey, Littlefield has now made enough high profile moves that if the Pirates win 75 games next year, people will claim those moves were the reason for the 8 win improvement (because even if guys like Casey and Randa fail, no one will be upset at him for acquiring them, they're nice guys that smile a lot with good local history), not the natural progression of guys like Duke, Castillo, Doumit, Duffy, Maholm, etc., bounceback years from Perez and Wells, and the trimming of deadweight like the Redmans, Fogg, Ward, Mesa, etc. In effect, he's spending money to claim credit for something he didn't really do (or something that won't be noticed like getting rid of the deadweight) so that he can keep his job.

And why's that? After all, by doing this for '06 he makes his job tougher for '07, because it's likely that if $50 or so million doesn't bring a winning season, it'll bring a tightening of the purse strings under the theory that we can lose 87 games at $50 million or 90 games at $35 million. So what would make Littlefield waste the first real spending spree of his career on guys like Randa, Burnitz, Casey, and Hernandez? My guess is because of the opportunity afforded by the All-Star Game. My very first impression of Littlefield was that he took this job to use as a stepping stone. This offseason I think he was the basis of the "Littlefield to Boston" rumor (remember that no one in Boston or Pittsburgh had heard anything of the sort until McClatchy came out to squash the rumor), just to see how people reacted to him getting a high profile job. What I think Littlefield has done is put together a team with a little bit of a higher ceiling for 2006 (admittedly, Randa at his best is probably better than Sanchez at his best, ditto for Burnitz and CWilson, and if Casey stays healthy all year he could probably be an All-Star again, the problem is that Randa and Burnitz are much less likely to reach that ceiling than Sanchez and CWilson are this year and I'd be shocked if Casey stayed healthy all year) as a job audition. If all of his signings pan out, they pan out in the spotlight of the All-Star Game. Everyone will notice that the Pirates are (or at least seem) competitive. He can point to both 2006 and 2003 as years when he snagged free agents that exceeded expectations, and if the Central has a down year and our pitching (because that's the key to this team) springs us to say 80 wins (and thus into contention well into August and maybe September), I think he's hoping to use that as his ticket out of town. With the focus on us that the All-Star Game brings, he'll be the talk of the national media with how his great minor league system and shrewd offseason moves breathed life into the most moribund of franchises. At least one owner will be stupid enough to buy it.

And if it all fails, if Burnitz and Randa get hurt and implode, if Wells and Perez don't get better, if we win 67 games again and Littlefield gets fired (because that's at least as likely if not more likely than the other scenario), then what happens? Well DL's old boss in Detroit (Dombrowski) certainly has a nice little crony system going there, I'm sure it'll all work out for him (I mean even Cam Bonifay found another job somewhere), it'll be the fans that pay the price. Then again, we've been paying the price for a while now, what's a few more years?

Craiggers

According to Rotoworld, you can add the Blue Jays to the list of teams interested in Craig Wilson, joining the A's, Red Sox, and Indians. That's funny, I've always (well, not actually always, but you get the point) considered Beane, Ricciardi, Shapiro, and Epstein (who I'm still convinced is running things behind the scenes in Boston) to be some of the smarter GMs in the game. And yes, I'm still convinced Wilson will be traded before the season starts.

Sunday's Hot Stove Report

Actually, the title of Dejan's Hot Stove Report today gave me such a headache I think I'm just going to pass on it this week.

Hot Stove: McClatchy satisfied with Littlefield's offseason

The guy that kept Cam Bonifay employed from when he bought the team in 1996 until halfway through 2001 approves of Littlefield's money burning session this offseason. Now that's the the ultimate seal of approval.

Meanwhile, Charlie has a good piece up about why we keep failing while the Brewers are moving forward. Even though I was against trading for Koskie when it seemed like a possibility, he does make a good case.

The End

Just an FYI for anyone that's curious, the end of the Dave Littlefield is an evil genius series is probably coming Monday as I have Pens tickets tonight and there's this football game tomorrow. That doesn't mean no posting till Monday, it just means I won't have time to finishp up the Littlefield stuff till Monday.

Minicamp

Despite the recent return to winter weather here in Western PA, it's time for voluntary Pirates mini-camp in Bradenton. There's not much of a story here really, 18 of 20 pitchers on the 40-man are showing up, with Torres and Hernandez being the only exceptions. Oliver Perez is going to show up, despite earlier reports that he might not. And it makes sense that the new coaching staff would want to get an early look at their biggest project and probably one of the guys most important to turning this team around.

There's also a bunch of non-roster invitees, and it's a group to salivate over, let me tell you what. Terry Adams, Brandon Duckworth, Marty McLeary, Ron Chiavacci, C.J. Nitkowski, Matt Peterson, Britt Reames, Joe Roa, Scott Strickland and Matt Whiteside will all be there, with Strickland being the one to keep an eye on, as he was very good before his arm surgery and if he's recovered he might have a chance at being good again. All three catchers (Doumit, Cota, Paulino) will also be there (for obvious reasons), as well as Duffy, Gerut, and Castillo (to check their injury progress I'd assume), and Craig Stansberry ( I don't know why).

The Pickle

Everyone needs to check out this week's Sports Pickle (for anyone that doesn't know, it's kind of like a sports version of the Onion written by DJ Gallo). On the right hand side in the "Stuff You May Have Heard" column about halfway down (and it's actually a column with no direct link) there's the headline: "Pirates front office refusing to let increased payroll keep team out of last place."

There's also some fantastic fake quotes such as:

“Our owner, Kevin McClatchy, has loosened the purse strings in hopes of making this franchise a winner,” said Littlefied, “but it’s my job to look at the big picture and what I want to do is bring this team a record 16 consecutive losing seasons. Sure, I could try to make smart moves and push the team towards wild card contention, but an 82 or 85-win season isn’t memorable. Sucking for two decades though? That’s the stuff of legend.”

and

“This franchise is flush with young talent, and it’s so close to blossoming I was worried it would push us over that dreaded 80-win plateau,” said Littlefield. “That’s why I brought in a bunch of veterans whose mediocrity is established and therefore have no threat of improving while they’re with us. Plus, we’re overpaying all of them so there’s no way they’ll not be in the lineup. All that guarantees us another season of 70-something wins. And then we’re that much closer to immortality and popping the champagne.”

And you guys thought I was cynical. If you've got the time, make sure to read the whole thing.

The All-Star Aura

Part three of the "Dave Littlefield is the Smartest GM in the National League" series, or perhaps more accurately "Why I think Dave Littlefield is an evil genius." The Introduction can be found here, part one here, part two here, and part four here.

Quick summary to this point: Dave Littlefield has decided to build a baseball team in Pittsburgh that will appear to the fans to be competitive while not actually competing, thus keeping his job security higher than it would be if he took the necessary risks to build a winning team in a small market. This is best illustrated by the Wilsons, while Craig is probably an all around better player, Jack's flashy glovework and hustle are immediately obvious to the fans while no one gives two shits about a guy that hits doubles and gets hit by a lot of pitches. As I said in this post yesterday (and in the comments of the same post), I get the impression that Littlefield knows the value of Craig Wilson, but feels that the fans won't understand it, thus he just decided to sign a lefty that will bash some balls towards the river because idiots will love that and the fans are mostly idiots. The question is why all of this effort all of a sudden to create an illusion towards a winning team. I have a couple of thoughts as to why and I'll hit one today (the obvious one) and one tomorrow (the not quite as obvious).

Of course, any Pirate fan knows why 2006 is different from 2001-2005 at PNC Park. The All-Star game. That fact alone will probably bring more people to PNC in 2006 than there's been in any year since it opened. In fact, screw the "probably," more people came to PNC Park in 2005 than in any year except 2001 and a big part of it was the All-Star Game (it wasn't the baseball being played there, that's for sure) so you know they're counting on a big gate in '06. But that's not all their counting on this year, the ASG also brings publicity. For the whole first half of the season, when people talk about the All-Star Game they'll mention Pittsburgh, PNC Park, and by association, the Pirates. If the Pirates are playing well, that will get mentioned everytime the All-Star Game does. Tune into Sunday Night Baseball and you'll hear Miller and Morgan saying

Miller: And fans, don't forget to log-on to MLB.com and vote for your favorite players for the 2006 All-Star Game. This year's game will be held in beautiful PNC Park in Pittsburgh, and you know Joe, those Pirates are really playing some good baseball. Dave Littlefield and Jim Tracy are really starting to turn that team around.

Morgan: Blah blah blah "old school." Blah blah blah "blue collar." Blah blah blah "hustle."

You get the idea. The key idea here is that only the first half of the season matters. Once the festivities are over, Pittsburgh goes back to being the armpit of the NL Central in most people's eyes. If they go 10-30 after the break, no one will notice or care because they don't have to think about Pittsburgh anymore, all they'll remember is that the Pirates were turning things around at the All-Star break.

Look at the signings Littlefield has made, they're all more likely to produce before the All-Star break. First off, they're all old or at least on the downslope of their career. That means they're likely to wear down during the season. After the All-Star break. Look at Burnitz at the break last year. He was hitting .276/.342/.475 (which we'd certainly take for a full season). He had 14 homers and 48 RBIs. He finished the year at .258/.323/.436 with 24 homers and 87 RBIs. He put up a lovely .536 OPS (not SLG) in the month of September. Joe Randa went into the break at .300/.370/.502, enough to shut even me up. Sure, some of it was Great American, but by the end of July (which he played most of with Cincy) he had fallen to .282/.349/.475. He finished at .276/.335/.452.

The point is this, if Randa and Burnitz can come close to replicating their first halves and Casey can be healthy, we'll be a much improved team in the first half of the year. That's the half of the year the national spotlight will be on us and Dave Littlefield will be judged by different baseball people all over the country. Imagine the hoopla surrounding this team if the Cards get off to a slow start (which they might given this offseason) and we stay around .500 and are within 5 games at the All-Star break when the circus (I mean that more ways than one) comes to town. From that point on, Randa and Burnitz will drop off, Casey is more likely to get hurt, maybe a young pitcher or two will come up with a twinge because they're pitching more than they ever have before, and Roberto Hernandez may drop dead of old age. The thing is, none of that will matter. The tickets will already be sold and the impression will already be made.

Details

At the end of the article about Jeromy Burntiz's day yesterday (woke up, flew to Pittsburgh from California, took a physical, signed a contract, flew back to Cali in time for the Rose Bowl, incidentally if everything lived up to its hype the way that game did we'd have nothing to worry about for the Pirates next season) we've got a fantastically patronizing quote from Dave Littlefield.

(Littlefield) also said he did not intend to trade Craig Wilson, even though Burnitz and Casey would start in right field and first base, Wilson's two positions, and even though Wilson could make $4 million or more next season.

"Whether it's media or fans, everybody has to realize that, if we are going to get better, part of it is having better backups," Littlefield said. "Through ownership, we've been able to increase payroll, so you're going to have the opportunity to have quality backups. Craig brings things that we need. He has power, gets on base and has versatility in the field. To me, that piece makes a lot of sense for us."

Dave is of course forgetting two things. First off, he absolutely is thinking about trading Craig Wilson, he just said that to keep people from getting too angry. Secondly, it's not paying Craig Wilson $4 million to sit on the bench that we're angry about. It's paying someone worse than him $6 million to start over him. I love the second to last sentence, too. He justifies Craig Wilson as a bench player because he gets on base and has power, like there's something else to hitting besides getting on base and having power (which is the exact definition of OPS, On-base Plus Slugging). Maybe my "Evil Genius" series is misguided. Maybe DL is just an idiot.

UPDATE (8:03 PM)- Somehow, I forgot to add that comments like the one Littlefield made in the paper today are EXACTLY why I think he's an evil genius. Now that he's talked down Wilson and done his best to convince the fans that Craig Wilson is worthless, he hits the key talking points that a team like Oakland (where Craig would be the best fit) would want to hear. After a month full of not caring about things like OPS, it's the key point in his "why Craig Wilson is a backup) spiel. This is why I really think Littlefield can't be as stupid as he appears to be, whenever it suits him, things like OPS or on-base percentage come up. He knows that the average fan doesn't know or care what it is though, and so it's ignored when building a team.

The Wilson Conundrum

Part two of the "Dave Littlefield is the Smartest GM in the National League" series, or perhaps more accurately "Why I think Dave Littlefield is an evil genius." The Introduction can be found here, part one here, part three here, and part four here.

This is more or less an extension of yesterday's "Illusion of Competition" post, but the problem with how the Pirates evaluate talent is so plainly and clearly evident in two players with the same last name on the team that I couldn't stay away from it (and both these posts and mammoth on their own, thus the need for two of them). You've probably figured out who I'm talking about, the Wilson-not-quite-twins.

Let's get this out of the way first, I like both Jack and Craig Wilson. I find it hard to say bad things about either one of them, even though I know both of them have their faults. In the past, I've spent a lot of time defending Jack Wilson for last year and that won't change, but for the purpose of this post I need to accentuate the negatives that Jack Wilson brings to the field. So here we go...

2004 was a breakout year for both Wilsons. Craig had spent a ton of time on the bench and probably in McClendon's doghouse the couple years before, but had hit the crap out of the ball. Jack Wilson had been great with the glove but awful at the plate. I'm sure you remember how 2004 unfolded, but we'll do a quick recap. Craig got out to an absolutely insane start, batting .361 with a SLG of .649 an OPS of 1.086, 12 homers and 34 RBIs on June 4th. He had a terrible June (.178/.250/.337) but rebounded for respecable months in July (.255/.350/.426) and especially August (.242/.351/.526) , ending the month with an .880 OPS for the season to that point. He ran out of gas in September and finished up the season with only a .264 average (down almost 100 points from his torrid start that lasted into June) but still with very good OBP (.354) and SLG (.499) to finish up with an .853 OPS. Jack also got off to a hot start, but sustained it for a bit longer, going into the All-Star Break hitting .332/.354/.501. By the end of July, however, he'd dropped to .319/.341/.480 and he finished the season at .308/.335/.459 (.794 OPS). Two hot starts, two mostly cold second halves, but on the whole breakout seasons for both the Wilsons.

What I'm looking at is what happened after the season was over. Based on their 2004 performances and how they had performed prior to 2004 in their careers, Craig was clearly much more likely to replicate his 2004 season than Jack was. Still, Jack, with his flashy glove and 201 hits (remember, he was the first Bucco with 200 hits since Dave Parker in '77), got all the attention. Despite the fact that the only offensive advantage he held over Craig Wilson that year was batting average (which we know is a flawed way of looking at players, the fact is if you figure in Craig's 50 BBs and 30 HBPs, he reached base 228 times , compared to Jack's 229,despte Jack having nearly 50 more PAs) Jack was the one that got the public 2 year, $8 million contract (for his arbitration years) while Craig quietly signed a $3 million deal to avoid arbitration. Jack was allowed to speak his mind on the Jason Bay/Oliver Perez contract situation even though he was clearly wrong (remember, the team gave Bay and Perez low offers for 2005 since they were both still under 3 years of service, and despite this being how most teams typically operate, Jack was angry and chastised the Pirates for the move). Craig, meanwhile, was benched on Opening Day in favor of Daryle Ward.

Moving into 2005, neither Wilson had a good year. Jack had an offseason appendectomy that probably affected his early performance. Still, as I know Charlie has pointed out repeatedly, his second best month of the season was in May, while in June, July, and August he failed to put up an OPS over .700 (which is just downright miserable). He closed out with a scorching September, but looking at his final numbers they were more or less the same as they were in 2002 and 2003, and he finished up at .257/.299/.363. Craig meanwhile battled two hand injuries (he injuried a tendon sheath or something like that in his finger sliding into second and broke his hand getting hit by a pitch) that seemed to sap his power, but still put up a fairly productive season finishing with the same .264 average as he did in 2004 and going .387/.421 for a still respectable OPS of .808. The most telling stat may be a Bill James stat that Baseball Reference uses, runs created. They define it as

Runs Created - A runs estimator created by Bill James. A runs estimator attempts to quantify the entire contribution of a player's statistics to a team's total runs scored. It typically involves some positive value for things like hits, walks, steals, home runs, etc. and negative values for outs, caught stealing and GIDP. There are 24 different versions of RC depending on the stats you have and I am using the most basic here. (H + BB) * (TB)/ (PA)

By that formula Jack Wilson was responsible for creating 63 runs in 639 PAs in 2005. In only 238 PAs that year (or slightly more than 1/3), Craig Wilson created 30. To go a bit deeper, a team full of 2005 Craig Wilsons would've scored 5.33 runs a game while a team of 2005 Jack Wilsons would've scored 3.83 runs a game. The Pirates scored about 4.2 as a team.

To the naked eye or the casual obeserver, Jack Wilson hustles, makes amazing plays in the field, stretches singles into doubles and doubles into triples, and for a couple months every year can be Pete Rose. Craig Wilson makes a couple bad plays in the field, walks a lot, strikes out a lot, and is by no means anything special on the base paths. He also had long golden locks for a year and may or may not have spent 2004 truly believing he was the Norse God of Thunder. Looking deeper into things, Jack Wilson has been an incredibly unproductive offensive player for every year of his career except for one, his great plays on the base paths are probably nullified by his stupid ones, and yes, he still has a phenomenal glove. Craig Wilson, on the other hand, is a decievingly productive offensive player with a slightly below average range factor in right field (which may be affected by the fact that right field at PNC Park is smaller than most right fields) and who very rarely does stupid things on the bases. Still, this offseason we made two moves to put players in Craig Wilson's two positions, one of whom will only be more productive than Craig if he stays healthy all year, and one of whom is worse than Craig, relegating him to the bench. Meanwhile we'll probably see Jack Wilson batting second on Opening Day.

My point isn't that Craig Wilson should be an everyday right fielder, because 2004 and 2005 have showed that he just isn't durable enough to be an everyday player. It's not that Jack Wilson is a bad player, because he does things with his glove that shouldn't be possible and I do expect his 2006 to be somewhere in between his '04 and '05 numbers (of course, that's probably irrational, all signs point to '06 being more like '05 than '04, still, even I can be optimistic about some things). It's that a good baseball team is made up of both Craig Wilsons and Jack Wilsons (look at the White Sox last year as an example), but if given the choice between a team full of Jack Wilson type players, ones who looks good to the fans but deep down are surprisingly unproductive, and a team full of Craig Wilson type players, ones who doesn't always seem like the best player out there but are actually quite productive with a deeper look, this front office will choose 9 Jack Wilsons every time, and they'll do it with the approval of the fans (I know Craig is more popular in Pittsburgh than Littlefield thinks, but I'd guess if you asked 10 Pirate fans which Wilson they'd rather have, at least 9 would answer Jack). Why? Because we aren't creating a winning team, we're creating an illusion of one. And the more I hear people talk about the 2006 Pirates, the more I think we're succeeding.

All of the stats here came from ESPN.com's Game Logs or Baseball Reference.