Deadline links

As you would expect, I'm not the only Pirate blogger churning out post after post today. I have one link that is news-related, then some other deadline takes.

The news link is Chris Duffy's reaction to being called back up to Pittsburgh.

"I don't like it there," he told Pirates officials. "I did all this hoping to get traded."

That's from Will Carroll's final deadline rumor mill at BP. Most of it's behind a paywall, but that part is in the free intro. I seriously cannot even process a comment like that from a player like Chris Duffy

The Bucs Dugout has a hilarious fake interview with Dave Littlefield. Charlie also kept up with the action all afternoon, but there's too many permalinks to put up here, so you can just go to the main page there and keep reading.

Billy at Romo Phone Home is making Watergate comparisons.

A final look at the deadline

I'm going to do my best to be objective here. It's probably pretty hard for me to do so, what with my mind being clouded by rage and anger, but I'm going to try. We'll look at each trade today individually, then on the day as a whole.

Trade: Sean Casey to Detroit for Brian Rogers
Analysis: The bottom line is that Sean Casey is injury prone and not very good, beyond all the singles hitting that he does. Brian Rogers has put up some good numbers in AA this year but is 24 in his first year of AA ball. Rogers probably won't help us much, but Casey probably won't help the Tigers much. We get the rest of what we owe Casey off the books, and this is an indication that he won't be signed to play first base next year so I don't think this is really an awful trade. Still, that doesn't mean that we should've had traded Casey to San Fran 2 weeks ago before Hillenbrand was on the market and before Casey got hurt again. Typical DL to miss the peak value window. Also, the Tigers demoting Shelton to AAA is probably a sign that they were desperate for help at first base and Sean Casey is only our second best first baseman.

Trade: Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez to the Mets for Xavier Nady
Analysis: With Duaner Sanchez's season ending in a car wreck (separated shoulder) earlier today, Hernandez alone should've brought Nady, which would've made for a decent deal. Throwing Perez into this one was senseless, mainly because DL was apparently at the mercy of Minaya to get this deal done when it should've been vice versa, and because a mere 5 months ago Littlefield was unwilling to trade Perez for Hank Blalock. If Perez goes up in flames, this is a decent deal. If he doesn't, well, we just made our Scott Kazmir trade. Nady is essentially a Craig Wilson that gets on base less and hits for less power, which pretty much makes him Ty Wigginton. I hate myself for writing that last sentence. I have a bad feeling about this.

Trade: Kip Wells to Texas for a guy that looks like Gumby (6'2" 153 lb Jesse Chavez)
Analysis: It's doubtful that Kip and all of his problems could've brought more than this in a trade so it's hard to fault Littlefield for that. What I would've liked to see (and I'm probably alone in this respect) is the Pirates sign Kip to a one or two year deal on good faith (read: lower than market value) since his numbers won't be that great this year. He seems to like Colborn, he seems to be turning a corner, we know he's got a good arm, his injury wasn't a pitching injury, and the team showed reasonable respect by paying his contract for this year after his injury no questions asked. That being said, it's likely Kip will struggle mightily in Texas. Their park is essentially the Coors Field of the AL and NL pitchers traditionally get shelled when they move to the AL. This means Kip Wells will remain a mystery until next year.

Trade: Craig Wilson to the Yankees for Shawn Chacon
Analysis: This one makes me want to vomit. Knowing that he was not going to bring Craig back, CWills should've been shipped out of Pittsburgh at the beginning of this year after Burnitz and Casey were brought in to play his position. When that didn't happen he should've been traded to the Yankees immediately after Matsui and Sheffield went down a couple months ago, for what would've likely been a much better return. If DL wasn't such a jackass, he should've swallowed his pride and signed Craig to an extension when his agent asked for it prior to this season. Instead, as is his MO, he held on to Craig until the last second, leaving him languishing on the bench while his value diminishes until all we can get is Shawn Chacon who, except for the second half with the Yankees last year, pitches like Kip Wells' first two comeback starts all the time. Simply put, we should never accept Shawn Chacon in a trade. Ever. For anything. There has likely never been a player more improperly handled by any organization ever than Craig Wilson has since 2001 by the Pittsburgh Pirates. End of story.

Final Tally
Coming: Xavier Nady, Shawn Chacon, Brian Rogers, Jesse Chavez. Sharpless and Duffy are called up to fill out the Major League roster
Leaving: Sean Casey, Craig Wilson, Kip Wells, Oliver Perez, my sanity, Dave Littlefield's dignity
Analysis: This was not a good day for Dave Littlefield. Sure, some of the trades make sense in the context of the fact that today is the deadline and these guys are probably gone if we don't trade them. Wilson and Wells are established as damaged goods and simply not that valuable at this point. Casey is just not that good of a baseball player any more. Unfortunately, you have to look at the big picture. This is the least valuable Craig Wilson has ever been in his career. Since we knew he wasn't coming back, waiting until today to trade him made no sense. Accepting Shawn Chacon is a trade is insanity. Surely the Yankees would've given us someone else if we asked. That trade reeks of Littlefield simply desperately wanting to get rid of his least favorite person on the planet (does that make him Dave "Loki"field to Craig's Thor?). The Kip Wells trade is the same thing, we probably could've convinced him come back here, then traded him when his value was back up. Kip was only traded today because Littlefield doesn't like him. The Mets needed Hernandez so badly that throwing Perez into the deal makes no sense, surely a similar accord could've been reached without Ollie involved. Still, we can certainly thank Dave Littlefield for being consistent. As is always the case, he held on to everything he had until the last minute (3 of the four deals he made today came after 3 PM with a 4 PM deadline) when none of his chips held any value, then sold everything off in a panic. Even knowing that Casey, Wilson, Wells, and Hernandez would be gone next year, Littlefield did nothing to make the 2007 Pirates any better by trading them today.

Shealy to the Royals

The guys at ESPN are reporting that Ryan Shealy and Scott Dohmann went to the Royals for Jeremy Affeldt and Denny Bautista.

I'm going to go think about something else for a while, possibly puke, and maybe make a Dave Littlefield voodoo doll. I will be back later with a final analysis on what's happened today. Thanks to everyone in the comments for all the help in keeping up to date on what was going on today, the flurry of Littlefield bed-shitting between 3 and 4 was certainly tough for one person to keep track of.

Another rumor

The guys on ESPN are saying that Shawn Chacon has been traded to us for someone, presumably Craig Wilson.

UPDATE: It's a straight up deal, Chacon for Craig Wilson.

Kip to Texas

KipWells is going to Texas for... someone. Thanks to Brian and JB in the comments for the heads up.

UPDATE (4:19 PM)- We get Jesse Chavez, whom no one has heard of. Courtesey of Handsome Sam and Brian in the comments, you can find stats here and here. Courtesy of bern1, we can all laugh as he has this to say about Chavez:

The baseballcube stats on Chavez's height and weight can't be right ... 6'2" and 153 pounds? What position does he play? Batboy?

Holy eff

Jayson Stark just reported on ESPN that the Mets and Pirates are closing in on a huge deal for Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez. I know Perez has been awful, but he best not go to NY cheaply.

UPDATE (3:17 PM)- ESPN just said it's a done deal, Dave Littlefield will finally get Xavier Nady for Perez and Hernandez. Obviously if this is true the deal hinges on what Perez does in New York. John Kruk just guaranteed that he'll be a great pitcher there, so that makes me feel a bit better.

UPDATE (3:23 PM)- SI confirms the deal. I really hope a name is missing somewhere.

Boston Kipper

Gordon Edes at the Boston Globe reports that the Red Sox are talking to the Pirates about Kip Wells (via Rotoworld). The ESPN trade chat has just suggested that the Padres are going to trade for Aaron Boone to play third base. He has been much worse than Randa this year, given Randa's hot streak since returning from injury.

UPDATE (3:04): Buster Olney just showed up on my TV and told me that Kip heading to Boston is almost a done deal. Steve Phillips thinks this is a bad deal for the Red Sox, which means Theo is probably pressing the "Go" button on this one as we speak.

Both Wilsons want out?

Via Rowdy (and now Charlie as well, information travels quickly on these here interwebs) Will Carrol at BP says that Jack Wilson may have demanded a trade this weekend. Like the other two, I can only speculate what would cause that, maybe the soul crushing realization that he signed his soul over to losing seasons for the rest of his career when he signed that extension? I can't say for sure, but like the Bucs Dugout, I couldn't help but pass this along. We'll know shortly if anything will come of it.

Casey to Detroit: Color me surprised

Littlefield will make at least one move before 4 today: he's traded Sean Casey to Detroit as the Tigers have- get this- demoted Chris Shelton to AAA. Meanwhile, we get Brian Rogers, who is described by Rotoworld thusly:

Rogers has had an excellent season in Double-A, but the 2003 11th-round pick is a 24-year-old reliever with less-than-exceptional stuff. He's not very likely to be a successful setup man in the majors.

I'll try to find out more about Johnson and the salary figures in this deal, meanwhile you can check out trade deadline stuff from Dejan and Rob Rossi, while keeping in mind that neither predicted this deal (not to fault them... no one did).

UPDATE (12:34 PM): This Rob Rossi article on Casey's time in Pittsburgh, which was posted to the Trib's site last night, is written in the past tense and now seems strangely prescient.

UPDATE (1:16 PM): David Pinto at Baseball Musings says Rodgers is a nice pick-up for us. This is true, if we're planning on moving a serious volume of relievers in the next two and a half hours. He also says that Casey is an upgrade over Shelton at first... I'm not sure I agree there, even knowing Shelton's recent numbers. You have to actually play to be an upgrade and there's no guarantee Casey will do that.

Pirates 2 Giants 1

After seeing the other four starters in the rotation all string together good starts, Zach Duke had no choice but to come to the park with his best stuff today and he did just that. That's not quite right, he could've kept sucking, but he would've felt pretty lonesome with Maholm, Wells, and Gorzo all making good starts. Duke skipped lightly through 6 and 1/3 innings, shutting out the Giants on four hits and only 63 pitches. I would say somehting like "then the rain came" but I don't think that would accurately describe the situation. There was some serious Old Testament rains in Pittsburgh this afternoon, unlike anything I've seen in the city since probably the Hurrican Ivan induced floods in late '04. That stopped the game for a good 2 hours, effectively ending Duke's night early. Seeing as how Craig Wilson was again on the bench while an ancient and inferior player took the field and that Craig still hasn't been traded and with Abreu going to the Yankees, it seems unlikely that he'll be traded at all, there was only one place the rain could've come from, and apk nails it in the comments:

Verily, the God of Thunder is infuriated with his lack of playing time and the General of the Managers' inability to trade him to a team that appreciates his immense power! Thus, he shall smite the contest between the Pirates and Giants with the unbrilded ferocity of Mjolnir! Today, none shall be victorious, but all shall kneel before the fury of THE MIGHTY THOR.

Of course, after the rain ended and right field at PNC was de-flooded Matt Capps served up a go ahead homer to Todd Linden which kind of seemed like it would be enough for the Giants to pull out a win until Jose Castillo lead off the 9th with his first homer in something like 100 years. That was all until the bottom of the 10th when the unthinkable happened... Jose K singled in Jack Wilson and the Pirates won a 1 run game for the second day in a row. The Pirates unfathomably have a winning record at home this year, though going 13-40 on the road pretty much ruins things for everyone. I would like to tell you that this is going to be the last time the Pirates will take the field with this composition and that something big is going to happen to change the way the team looks, but I don't really see it happening. Tomorrow should be an interesting day.

Giant finale

The Bucs and Giants wrap this three game series up this afternoon at PNC. As I guessed last night, there's no Bonds in the lineup for San Fran today. There's also no Craig Wilson in the lineup for us, but that clearly is meaningless. As Dave Littlefield doesn't believe in silly things like "showcasing his players" because there wasn't anything like 12 scouts in attendance last night. Duke and Morris take the mound with the Giants needing a win to avoid falling even further behind in both of their respective races (4 back in both their division and the Wild Card).

Pirates 4 Giants 3

I decided late in the afternoon today to head down to the game and see Bonds in what very well may be his last game in the 'Burgh (I kinda doubt he'll play tomorrow in the afternoon game), even though that meant a SRO ticket. Despite the lack of seats, I'd say it turned out to be well worth it. Tom Gorzellany turned out to be much better than last time I saw him pitch. In fact, Gorzo turned out to be very good tonight. He went 7 strong with 6 hits and only 1 walk and ramping his fastball up to 96 on the gun. He gave up two runs, but the first one was fairly cheap as Jim Tracy insisted on playing the outfielders in Oakland with Barry Bonds at the plate, even though he's clearly only a shadow of his former self right now, allowing him to loop a routine flyout between Jack Wilson and Bautista that got by Jose for an RBI double. Beyond that, Bonds was a non-factor walking once and whiffing twice (once at Gorzo's hand and once at the hand of JOHN GRABOW who managed to not blow the game tonight... more on that later). After that run in the first, the Pirates answered with one in the second (on a Gorzellany grounder that scored Burntiz from third), two in the third (Paulino RBI single, Castillo RBI ground rule double), and answered the Giants run in the fifth with a Burnitz opposite field homer. The biggest threat from there came with Bonds up in the eighth representing the tying run and Grabow on the mound (a terrifying moment for all involved), but somehow Grabow got the K.

Just a quick note on the crowd tonight. They weren't there for Casey bobbleheads, just like I suspect the crowd last night wasn't there for fireworks. They were all there to see Bonds. The whole place lit up everytime he did something, mostly because everytime he did something it was something not good with the two K's and misplaying an easy Jack Wilson flyball into a ground rule double. It's more proof in the "If they were good, PNC would be packed every night" theory. Give the baseball fans a reason to be there, and they will. It might've been the biggest crowd I've ever seen in person at PNC (minus the Stones concert) as they had well over 38,000 and most home openers only get to about 36-37,000 and it was a great baseball crowd from beginning to end.

One final note, I'm sure you all noticed that Joe Randa played first base tonight. Casey is reportedly injured with some rib thing (I say reportedly because would you doubt that the Pirates would lie about an injury to make people think Casey wasn't traded on Casey bobblehead night?) but there was no sign of Craig Wilson in tonight's game. My dad had the pregame on the radio on his way to the park tonight and he said that Tracy didn't mention Wilson's name at all when talking about the first base situation tonight, which would kind of maybe indicate that Craig Wilson wasn't available to play. Or maybe, you know, the organziation just hates Craig Wilson for no particular reason with the burning passion of a 1,000 firey suns. Either or.

Sean Casey farewell bobbleheads?

Gorzo takes the mound against Jamey Wright tonight looking for his first big league win. The giveaway may well be the reason that Sean Casey is still a Pirate, this is an organization that would not shy away from not dealing a guy to keep the giveaway intact. The plan is working as I think tonight is another sellout, though that's likely more of a function of Pirate fans trying to get their last glimpse of Barry Bonds before he fades off into the American League.

It sucks to watch this

David Bell, traded. Joe Randa, not

Danys Baez, traded. Mike Stanton, traded. Roberto Hernandez, Salomon Torres not.

Ben Broussard, traded. Craig Wilson, not.

Littlefield insists he's not difficult to deal with. Reality suggests otherwise. Still, in Jayson Stark's latest "Stark Market" (Insider only), he indicates that other teams are saying that Littlefield is finally becoming reasonable. It may be too late.

Pirates 3 Giants 0

Now there was a pretty enjoyable baseball game. The highlights were, in no particular order, Kip Wells increasingly making me not look like a moron for sticking up for him in his last push to get the hell out of town, Barry Bonds not even making a throw to homeplate with Nate McLouth barely rounding third so as to not embarass himself (and maybe, just maybe, flashing back to 1992 and hating himself for it), the Pirates getting three straight hits followed by 2 walks after Jason Schmidt set down 17 in a row, and Damaso Marte getting over his bed-shitting antics and getting Bonds to fly out with the bases loaded and 2 down in the 8th.

Beating Barry Bonds will never get old.

Bonds is back

I think everyone knows the drill tonight. A particular former left fielder of ours who you may or may not remember will be taking the field to a likely shower of boos for the Giants tonight against the Pirates. Another former Pirate and reminder of DL's failings as a GM will take the mound for the Giants against Kip Wells, who hopes that a similar fate awaits him when he gets his ticket out of town. Tickets are hard to come by from this one from what I've heard, and no matter what happens it will probably be fun.

The ball is rolling

Though there have been some small moves in the past couple weeks, mostly Dayton Moore shuffling around loose parts in KC, trade season officially opened up today with the shipping of Carlos Lee to Texas for Laynce Nix, Kevin Mench, and Francisco Cordero. This kind of seems like a deal that could work out for both teams. Obviously, the Rangers get Lee, but the Brewers needed a guy like Cordero after Turnbow's recent implosion and Mench should be able to be decently productive, though he's not playing very well this year. Of course Cordero has been struggling lately as well and Mench is certainly not Lee, so maybe it won't work out. This is somewhat interesting to Pirate fans because Mench's bulbous melon is a perennial DL trade target (which is amusing because as much as the org seems to hate guys like Craig Wilson, they keep trying to trade for clones of him).

Meanwhile, DL is still just sitting there. The rumors haven't changed recently, Torres here, Hernandez there, Wilson here, Casey there, maybe some interest in Kip Wells. The longer DL goes without making a deal, the more likely he is to get swindled or to not make a deal at all, as far as I'm concerned. It's just kind of painful to watch the same tired act over and over again.

Off day links

Sorry for the lack of posts today, but tomorrow is poster day where I have to present some of my research, so I've been running around like mad all day trying to find a printer at this damn school that I can print my poster out on. Still, I've got some links to share with everyone.

Beyond the Boxscore assigns fielding rankings to most of baseball, the infield here and the outfield here. If you haven't seen them yet, they aren't pretty. At all. (Via Bucs Dugout).

Yes, I'm aware of the whole Van Slyke/Ozzie Guillen thing that's going on. The fact is, you've got two guys with big mouths going after each other. It also depends on how you take Van Slyke's "atypical" comment. If you take it at his word, The Mighty MJD has a good take on things. If you think he meant "typical" then he's pretty stupid. Either way, I don't think this thing is bad enough to force a name change on the blog here.

Meanwhile, both Rowdy and Charlie weigh in on trade deadline stuff while Billy at Romo laments how the Royals and their competent GM are about to leave us in the cellar alone.

That's all I got, I'll have more tomorrow when I have more time.

Trade Deadline Blues

I'm not much of a country music fan, but I recently watched the Johnny Cash movie and have been unable to get certain songs out of my head. Then I realized why, because there were certain parallels that struck me. Sung to Folsom Prison Blues, of course.

I see the deadline comin'
Right after the weekend
And I ain't seen a good trade
Since I don't know when
I'm stuck watchin' Dave L-field
And time keeps draggin' on
He traded our third-baseman
On down to Chi-ca-go

When I was just a baby
My daddy told me "Son,
Just watch that man Van Slyke
And never play with guns."
But Dave traded Schmidt to San Fran
And he got White Flag
When I see the deadline comin'
My spirit starts to lag

There's other teams a-dealin'
And making themselves good
They're prob'ly tradin prospects
Or a has-been-never-was
But I know I had it comin'
I know I can't be free
But Dave just can't get fired
And that's what tortures me.

Well if they freed me from this prison
If that baseball team was mine
I bet I'd trade a little
And build for down the line
Far from Mr. L-field
That's where I want to stay
And I'd let that lonesome deadline
Blow my blues away

Pirates 8 Brewers 4

Holy freakin' crap the Pirates won a road series. The last time that happened, we promptly lost lots and lots of games all in a row. We managed to win today because Paul Maholm kept his head after his characteristic terrible start and the offense managed to catch up. The offensive help came from all over (six Pirates had ribbies), and the Pirates never looked back after Jason Bay's game tying homer in the 5th, rallying for two more runs that inning and two in the top of the ninth. The best part about it was that it came against Capuano, who said some vaguely mean things about the Pirates when we steamrolled them in May that were certainly true, but still mean. I don't remember what they were and I can't find them anywhere, but it was almost certainly along the lines of "They aren't that good." He was right, but I still get some perverse satisfaction out of beating the Brewers. I know they're better than us and they're on the right path while we're still wandering around the woods.

Next up: trying to avoid losing 15 of our next 17 games like we did last time we won a road series. We don't have the damn American League waiting for us, so it's probably doable.

Argh

Apparently the Pirates and Brewers have been playing since 2. I lose track of all these damn afternoon games and things are hectic at work, hence my forgetting to post a gamethread. Plus, Blogger losing my e-mail posts doesn't help matters at all. But here it is now, Maholm and Capuano, in progress, with the game tied at 4 after a very recent Jay Bay dinger in the top of the fifth.

Pirates 6 Brewers 1

There's pretty much only one story from tonight's game... Ian Snell was out of his mind tonight. Remember Ian Snell= L insane L. I don't know what to do with those L's, they kind of throw a wrench into things. Snell matched Ben Sheets and one upped him in just about every way possible in Sheets' big return to Milwaukee's rotation with a 7 inning, four hit, 1 run, 9 K line, with the only run he allowed being a Prince Fielder home run. On the offensive side of things, the only run the Pirates mustered off of Sheets in his six innings was an opposite field Jeromy Burnitz home run, after which pigs flew and the temperature in Ogden Nutting's den dropped precipitously. Luckily for the Pirates, Sheets was done after seven and was followed by Dave Bush, who proceeded to give up five runs in the top of the eighth, capped off by a second Burnitz homer. I would hope that somewhere a GM would be thinking, "Man, he's really started to hit the ball. We could use his veteran-osity and his nose-to-the-grindstone-acity," but unfortunately Dave Littlefield can only be employed by one team at a time.

There was also lots of WHYGAVS commentor favorite Trenni Kusnierek on the telecast tonight, as she's a Milwaukee native and apparently has done some embarassing things at Miller Park over the years before staring at FSP, like filming an interview with the bright camera light shining on the field during an inning and taking part in, but not winning, the famed Sausage Race. There was also talk of something even worse than those two cataclysmic events, but either the guys in the booth never figured out what it was or I somehow missed it.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee fans failed to notice the game as they were enraptured by the thought of a new Sausage in the big race. You laugh (mostly because I used the words "new sausage" and "big race" in the same sentence, I'm sure), but imagine what would happen in Pittsburgh if they ever introduced a "Melinda Meat" pierogie, then multiply it by a million, that's what the frenzy in Milwaukee must be like with the introduction of the Chorzio.

I'm proud of myself for avoiding the obvious Randall Simon joke. I also think that a "Carl Cabbage" pierogie might be a funnier name, but I'm not entirely sure.

Bark twice if you're in Milwaukee

Snell and Sheets tonight. Hopefully those two can spearhead a game in which the Pirates and Brewers don't play as if they spent all afternoon before the game at a bar. Also it would be nice if the Pirates won.

More Stats Geek

The Stats Geek did his bi-weekly chat today and it's hilarious. I don't want to ruin any of it, just check it out.

Links

The Stats Geek makes a case for Ryan Shealy.

Joe Rutter's notebook at the Trib says the Angels are still interested in Craig Wilson.

John Perrotto gets in on the fun and throws a bunch of names around in the BCT today.

My "One Craig Wilson" piece from last week is now cross-posted at Irate Fans. It's the same there as it was here. If you'd like to submit something to Irate Fans make sure you check this page out.

Baseball Tonight fired Harld Reynolds today for no apparent reason, yet saw fit to leave John Kruk and Steve Phillips employed.

Brewers 12 Pirates 8

As previously noted, this was an uuuuuuuuugly one. Duke had about as little as I've ever seen him take the mound with and the Brewers made him pay for it. He also committed an error AND balked the same runner over. This is one of those nights that I'm sure he'd prefer to forget about just as much as we would. Victor Santos then came in and did an admirable Ryan Vogelsong impersonation, which unfortunately doesn't help much if the ultimate goal is winning games. We managed to make three errors besides Duke's (2 by Castillo) but only one actually resulted in a Brewers run.

The Brewers themselves didn't play particularly well either. Their poor pitching and defense through the game almost allowed the Pirates to crawl back into the game, though us being the Pirates meant we couldn't really take advantage of it. Bay appears close to re-tracking himself after a 4-for-4 night that just missed the cycle by a single. His monstrous two-run homer in the top of the first provided the only brief flash of hope in the game before everything went into the fan. Casey also had a couple hits and Paulino had three with a pair of ribbies, but most of that was all buried by the ugliness of this game.

Brew Crew

Tonight we return to the site of where this nightmare of a season began, Milwaukee. The Brewers have been falling apart lately, losing 7 of their last 10, to fall to 5 games behind the Reds in the Wild Card race. We've played the Brewers twice this year, they swept us in Milwaukee and we swept them in Pittsburgh. They're 29-20 at home while we're 11-39 on the road. This three game set opens up with Doug Davis and Zach Duke on the mound. They've faced off once before this season with Duke getting the win and Davis getting smashed all around the park in his three innings. It would be nice to recreate that experience, but the road/home splits likely indicate otherwise.

IN GAME MUSING (10:16)- I have never seen a team play as badly as the Brewers have and still have a 6 run lead in the 6th inning. I know I'm prone to exaggeration and hyperbole from time to time, but I'm being dead serious right now. If I watch much more of this I think my eyes will start bleeding.

Dejan's chat

There's some very interesting stuff from Dejan's chat today. First off, he makes it sound as if John Grabow will bring Shealy from Colorado:

If they were to offer a young, ready-to-step-in reliever, from what I understand, they could have Shealy. If that were to be someone left-handed -- who does not necessarily have to be Mike Gonzalez -- that might be welcome, too, especially if Colorado moves forward in trading Ray King. Not to name names or anything.

I've cooled in Shealy a bit because part of the reason I felt like the trade had to be made was to strengthen the market for Casey, especially where the Giants were concerned. This is likely no longer the case, though there have been rumblings that Oakland would be interested in him. Still, Shealy represents an upgrade over Sean Casey, who would seem at the moment to be the most likely candidate to play first next season. If it's true that Grabow will get the deal done, we'd be absolutely stupid not to do it.

Dejan also mentions that he doesn't expect anything to come of the previous Jack Wilson trade talk, which is kind of a shame. That doesn't exactly mesh with the reports that the Pirates were interested in Cesar Izturis from the Dodgers as one would logically (emphasis on that word) think the only reason we'd be interested in Izturis was if Jack was on his way out the door. Of course, Izturis is likely one of Tracy's favorite guys from LA, so that might explain the whole thing.

There's also this:

JPeezy: Do you expect any of the "old guys" to be traded sometime in the next week?

Dejan Kovacevic: If the Pirates have their way, that might be everyone except Salomon Torres. But they might not have their way.

First off, I don't know why Torres would be off limits. If not wanting to trade Capps is stupid, not wanting to trade Torres is... I can't even think of a word to describe how stupid it is. Secondly, I think it goes unsaid here that Littlefield has never once had his way at the trade deadline. The one good deal he's pulled off, he settled for Jason Bay when he really wanted Xavier Nady (well, kind of at the deadline since that one was at the waiver deadline). Littlefield will trade some guys in the next week, but only because he has to, I doubt he'll actually be getting much of what he's asking for right now.

The deadline

What Dave Littlefield says:

The people we have out there in the trade market basically are viewed as extra pieces, quite frankly, as they are with our team right now. They're pieces that maybe can help as a bat off the bench or somewhere else.

What he means: I am going to attempt to try to trade a paperclip for a house, but I know I am not likely to end up with more than a handful of paperclips. This would seem to indicate that I don't think there's anything wrong with the Pittsburgh Pirates, which is insane.

Also, Paul Maholm has taken over for Jason Bay as the Pirates' player rep. This would normally not mean much, but rookie Maholm is going to have a quick wake up to the process, as a new CBA will be negotiated this offseason.

Marlins 5 Pirates 4

There were some positives in today's game, so we can start there. Tom Gorzellany finally got his head together and had a pretty good major league start. He still walked a ton of people (4 in six innings), but he was greatly improved over last Tuesday in his 6 inning, 5 hit, 2 run performance today. I think we'd all love to see him get on track in Pittsburgh before this season ends. Jose Bautista also set out today to make up for his terrible game in center yesterday and did a pretty decent job of it by picking up two outfield assists and getting on base 4 out of 5 times today (2 hits, a walk, and reached on an error). Unfortunately, he dozed off on third base during a Dontrelle Willis wild pitch and failed to score what would've been a crucial run in the fourth inning. Why is it that we seem to have so many young players that struggle with focusing so often? Also in the positive column was Freddy breaking out of his mini-slump with a 3 hit afternoon. Unfortunately our 4-5-6 guys (Bay, Randa, and CWilson, why Randa protecting Bay is a good idea is beyond me) managed to leave 5, 6, and 7 guys on base, respectively making for a team total of 12, which really kind of sucks when you lose by 1 run. The one run loss was made possible by poor outings by Capps and Gonzo, who combined to give up 5 runs in the 1 and 1/3 innings. I'm struggling to make some kind of analogy to their poor outing today and Littlefield declaring that they are both all but off limits earlier today, but that's not really fair to anyone so I'll let it go.

Fish Finale

The Marlins sure like to play games at screwy times, as they've started their Sunday game at 1:00 instead of 1:30 a day after a 6 PM game. Gorzo and Dontrelle Willis take the mound in the final of this four game set in Miami today. Willis hasn't been great this year, but he's been very good in his last 7 starts and he struck out the side in the top of the first after loading the bases today. The Pirates are probably just hoping for any runs at all after the last two games while Gorzellany will be looking to shore things up after Tuesday's debacle.

Roundup

Rob Rossi notes in his notebook today that the Pirates have told three teams that Matt Capps is off limits. This is why we suck, because we place a FREAKING RELIEVER as off limits. Gotta make sure our bullpen is strong to hold those leads that our invisible offense and disappointing pitching staff get so often.

Meanwhile in Dejan's notebook the Pirates stunning lack of speed on the basepaths is discussed, as well as the Astros' not so serious interest in Damaso Marte and the Pirates intense desire to replace their least favorite player with a clone, in this case Kevin Mench. At the end is a mention of Chris Duffy in AAA, and his 10 stolen bases in 13 attempts in 18 games, which is pretty damn impressive.

Marlins 5 Pirates 0

Getting shutout on four hits is never fun, but giving up four runs because your centerfielder... I dunno I don't really have any words to describe Bautista yesterday. Kip didn't pitch particularly well, but only one of the runs he gave up was really his fault as Bautista and McLouth botched a flyball into a triple leading to two runs in the first. Beyond that, Nolasco dominated us with 7 Ks through 7 and 1/3 and we never seemed to really stand much of a chance against him. I hate the Marlins and their young pitchers that are actually producing up to expectations.

The Legion

Kip Wells takes the mound tonight, hoping to keep building on his comeback, which has started to turn around in the last two starts. He'll face off against Ricky Nolasco, yet another one of Florida's legion of young and impressive pitchers. It was just three years ago that Florida won a World Series on the young arms of Beckett, Penny, and Willis (with Burnett on the DL that year), and they've already reloaded with a young staff that has the potential to be just as impressive. It amazes me how fast some teams seem to reload and how some teams just keep on being the Pirates. This one is supposed to kick off an hour early, assuming the weather holds out.

Littlefield is complacent

Dave Littlefield's hemming and hawing has likely screwed the Pirates once again. A week ago the Giants would've made a deal for Sean Casey, but Littlefield waited and held out for more while the Giants signed Shea Hillenbrand. That all but assures Casey will be a Pirate for the rest of 2006. According to the Trib, the Pirates have also fallen out of contention for Ryan Shealy because they are unwilling to pay the price of Matt Capps, according to today's PG notebook. If no one else makes a better offer some combination of Torres, Marte, and Hernandez may get the deal done, but I wouldn't count on it. Also in the Trib notebook comes the not new information that no one seems willing to pay the price for Craig Wilson. The Dodgers are the latest team to pull out, with the Pirates strangely interested in Cesar Izturis, who's pretty much Jack Wilson in blue. The assumption would be that the Pirates have a trade for JWilson as well, but that would be pretty shocking. In the PG today Dejan reports that the Yankees are again becoming serious about Roberto Hernandez, while Casey may be extended or traded sometime in August, and Randa might be untradable becausee of his stupidly large salary. At this point, the only thing that I'm sure about is that whatever Littlefield does before the deadline will probably make me sick.

Marlins 4 Pirates 1

Scott Olsen is exactly the type of pitcher that has owned the Pirates this year. He doesn't throw especially hard, but he throws good off speed stuff and uses it to place the fastball, which makes our Buccos look like a bunch of morons. He struck out 11 tonight, including six straight at one point. Paul Maholm took the hard luck loss as he actually pitched quite well, only really being hurt by a Cody Ross homer and Jose Castillo missing a ball that a nine year old would've turned into a double play. Speaking of which, Cody Ross has six homer and 23 RBIs this year and three of those homers and 11 of those RBIs are against the Buccos. I honestly don't even know how that happens.

More Bucs and Marlins

Tonight is Paul Maholm and Scott Olsen. Maholm's been nice and OK in two of his last three starts, but he was mostly not very good at all before then. Olsen is another of the Marlins' youngsters that's been pitching very well this year, though he's run up big pitch counts early in his last two starts and hasn't gone more than 5 and 1/3 in either of them.

If you're looking for some in-game reading, I would recommend checking out The Onion's fantastic "PNC Park Threatens to Leave Pittsburgh Unless Better Team Is Built" (sent in by reader Matt) if you haven't yet (I'd imagine most internet savvy Pirate fans have). There's also Mondesi's House's Pittsburgh Sport Power Rankings, which I'd recommend checking out if you've got the time.

More on Shealy

Today in the Pirate Notebook, Dejan tells us that the Rockies want a "young middle reliever" for Ryan Shealy. That probably closes the book on Torres or Marte getting the job done. Grabow isn't particularly young or particularly good, so I'd imagine he's out of the question as well. In the majors that leaves Capps, who almost 23. Gonzo is 28, so even though he's only in his third year, he's not particularly young. In the minors we have two guys have good years but who aren't really all that young, Bayliss (almost 26) and Sharpless (25 and a half), but I doubt the Rockies want a minor leaguer for Shealy. Since Dejan usually goes out of his way to mention that he doesn't write about unfounded rumors (and reiterates in this week's Q&A) there's not really any reason to doubt that the Rockies have asked about a young middle reliever. From above reasoning, my best guess is that they've asked about Capps. So the question is, should we trade Capps for Shealy? Capps has been damn good for a 22 year old this year who started last year in Hickory, but he's still only a reliever. Try and think of a time that a team has really, really regretted dealing a reliever. Bucs Dugout makes a good point on this one, Capps may be good, but he's worth trying to find an answer at first base that isn't named Sean Casey. As good as Capps has been, remember what Gonzo's K/BB numbers were in his first full year with us (55/6) and think of what they are now (45/26). Thinking Capps may be a pretty good closer or set-up guy is simply not a valid reason to not make this deal.

Pirates 5 Marlins 3

Tonight's game was played in an on and off deluge that almost ended the game early with the Marlins ahead. Instead, it lightened up just enough to let two unlikely heroes came through to help the Pirates to a come from behind win. First up we had a Mighty Mouse McLouth (I can't help it, I'm a big alitteration fan) homer to tie the game up in the eighth, then the Bucs rallied again in the ninth with the go ahead hit coming off of the bat of pinch hitter Jeromy Burnitz (who was only 5-for-14 with runners on third and less than two outs coming into the AB), before a Jack Wilson RBI double put things away.

Beyond the comeback thing, Ian Snell had a pretty decent start only giving up 6 hits and a walk in six innings, though he did give up three runs. Oh, and Jason Bay destroyed a ball to account for the rest of the Bucco runs that I haven't described yet. It probably went at least a million feet. Well, maybe 440 feet, but since numbers are infinite, a million and 440 are practically the same. But anyways, the Pirates continued with their stretch of pretty good baseball (albiet against bad teams) since the All-Star break, which is always nice to see. It was a really bizarre game to watch on TV because I think there were less 10,000 people in the stands. It really reminded me of some of the early April games at Three Rivers in the late '90s.

The Marlins

Snell and someone named Josh Johnson, about whom I know nothing, go at it tonight. Both Paul Meyer and Joe Starkey note how good the Marlins are at rebuilding. Maybe they're good at it because DL ditched them to come here.

That sinking feeling

The longer Littlefield sits without having done anything, the more convinced I become that this trade deadline will be another Littlefield failure. When you're chips aren't worth as much as what other teams have, you have to move early. Craig Wilson and Jeromy Burnitz only hold value when other teams are unsure if Alfonso Soriano or Bobby Abreu are going to be available. The Shealy trade would seem to be such a no-brainer from both sides that I'm incredibly nervous it hasn't happened yet. Most likely the Rockies are asking for an Oliver Perez or a Mike Gonzalez to complete the deal and Littlefield is still clutching to his idea that Salomon Torres alone can make it happen. Over at Honest Wagner, Rowdy has posted about this New York Daily News article, which would confirm something similar. According to Bill Madden the Yankees are unwilling to deal with Littlefield, even if it's for a guy that will help their team out.

Pirates 6 Rockies 5

The Pirates won in a pleasantly surprising manner this afternoon, with Zach Duke putting together a good start save for the three consecutive doubles he allowed in the top of the sixth (again, one inning got him, besides that he was very good). Joe Randa kept driving his trade stock up with another good performance at the plate, going 2-for-4 with 3 ribbies this afternoon. Torres (in an audition?) pitched a solid inning in relief, as did Capps, before Mike Gonzalez took the mound and proved to Jose Mesa that he learned all he knows about closing from him (36 pitches, one run allowed with a 2 run lead, getting the third out on a strike out with the bases load, I'm sure Joey Table was a proud papa today).

We also got a personal audition from Ryan Shealy, who was just called up yesterday as if DL called O'Dowd and said "Hey, can we see him in person before we ship half our pen over there?" Shealy didn't disappoint, going 2-for-5 with 2 doubles, scoring 2 runs and knocking one in. He did whiff for the third out in the ninth with the tying run on third, but I think that probably makes him an even better fit. I tried to post about this earlier (Blogger made my post disappear), but after reading the PG account, as well as Charlie and Rowdy's write-ups about said article discussing our pursuit of Casey, I've come to the conclusion that we have to trade for him. I'm not necessarily saying I think he'll be another Bay or Hafner style late bloomer, but the reason we have to get him is twofold. First off, he's better than our other current option at first next year, which is Sean Casey. Secondly, by taking him we keep the Giants from getting him and we take that possibility off the table and away from them. That means that not only do they have to take Casey, but his value in any trade goes up. The same may or may not go for Craig Wilson. This goes hand in hand with all the paperclip and snowglobe talk yesterday. The Rockies need relief pitching so badly that the Pirates should be able to get Shealy to Pittsburgh for Torres and maybe Marte (that is to say that we should be able to hang on to Gonzo). The Giants need a first baseman, so by narrowing the market for first basemen the price of everything on the market goes up. This is the type of deal that DL has to have enough sense to make if we're going to get better.

Ryan Shealy and Bucs and Rockies

I had a post about why we should trade for Ryan Shealy finished, but Blogger ate it and I have to get back to work. The Bucs and Rockies are playing an afternoon game today with Duke and Jason Jennings facing off. Shealy is at first, so we get a first hand look at him.

Rockies 13 Pirates 4

I can honestly say tonight was one of the worst Pirate games I've ever attended in person. Gorzo started out alright, but completely fell apart after his throwing error in the second. He kept throwing hard (94ish) but lost all control. After he fell apart, the team just kind of quit on the field. Bautista played a Jose Castillo-ish center field and the whole team was just plain lethargic. The game didn't actually go longer than 3 hours so it can't be considered that long, but it felt like a lifetime out in the bleachers in center. Ugh, I don't really want to talk about it anymore.

Gorzo

I'm heading down to the park tonight to check out Gorzo in person, who I haven't even seen pitch on TV yet. He faces off against Jeff Francis, the rare pitcher that is better at Coors Field than away from it.

Rumors and links and things

More rumors and such, nothing particularly new, but since we're sitting on July 18th, 'tis the season:

Bern in the comments points us towards the McCovey Chronicles' take on the purported Pirates/Giants talks involving Sean Casey, humorous Littlefield/Sabean conversation included. The basic sentiment here is that the Pirates would be almost retarded not to deal. Umm, guys...

Meanwhile the Pirates/Yankees talks appear to be heating up involving a certain over 40 relief pitcher. The Staten Island Advance (via HW) has a story and I was going to link to a Jersey paper that Rotoworld used as a source, but it turned out to be the same column.

Burnitz, meanwhile, acknowledges that while common sense dictates that he be traded, he really hasn't played well enough to merit much of a move.

The New York Islanders fired their GM after only two months, in which no games were played. Meanwhile, we are still stuck with DL, five years later.

And finally, Peter Gammons is out of the hospital and things are looking pretty good.

One Craig Wilson

By now, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the exploits of the most recent internet celebrity du jour, Kyle MacDonald. About a year ago he set out to obtain a house by starting with one red paperclip and an ad on Craigslist hoping to trade the paperclip for something else. The goal was to continue obtaining items with slightly more value than what he already had until he got his house. If you missed it, you can find all of his exploits at his website, the aptly named "One Red Paper Clip" (click above paperclip for a link). Last week, his goal finally came to fruition. He had turned his paperclip into a pen, which became a doorknob, a portable stove, a generator, an "instant party" (beer keg and Budweiser sign), a snowmobile, a trip to Yahk, BC, a cube van (UHaul), a recording contract, a year's rent in Phoenix, an afternoon with Alice Cooper, a KISS snowglobe, a speaking part in Corbin Bernsen's next movie, and finally a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan. Generally, a couple people a year come up with an idea like this and are bright enough to know how to work the internet to make it work, the Million Dollar Homepage also comes to mind. What Kyle MacDonald has done, however, is given us another window to view Dave Littlefield's wheelings and dealings.

When MacDonald set out on his quest a little over a year ago, his goal wasn't to trade a paperclip for a house straight up. That would've been crazy, and it would've got him about as far as your typical "My girlfriend says if this page gets 1,000,000 hits I'll get laid" page that pops up on College Humor in the hotlinks twice a week. Instead, he knew his market. He had a unique angle and knew that in general the Craigslist community would be happy to get him on his way until he had something of value, so that the real dealing could begin. Once that happened, he kept an eye out for things that have more value to particular people. A good case is when he had traded down from the year's rent in Phoenix to a KISS snowglobe. To most people, a KISS snowglobe is just that, but to Corbin Bernsen, one of the world's largest snowglobe collectors, it's worth a speaking role in a movie he's directing. On each trade he either moved up, or made a move that lead to another, better move. This is in direct contrast with Dave Littlefield.

Let's just look at some of the move's DL has made in the past. It's hard to compare made deals with rumored deals or what he supposedly asked for, but there are some cases where we have a pretty good idea. First up, we can take a look at the Kris Benson deal. Littlefield's entire plan in the deal was to trade Benson for David Wright. He had no contingency plan that could be ascertained. He essentially wanted to jump from the snowmobile straight to the house with no other plan (that's why I'm doing this, Benson for Wright sounded stupid, but a house for a snowmobile sounds ludicrous). When he was made other offers, and all signs point to Ryan Howard (say, a year's rent in Phoenix) being offered. Littlefield's problem was that he already had Brad Eldred, a similar prospect at the time. Instead of taking Howard, the elusive lefty power prospect we're always after, and trading Eldred (a decent prospect at the time) for something useful, Littlefield held firm. Instead of ending up with a house or the week in Phoenix, we got Ty Wigginton (a blue paperclip, instead of the red one), and Jose Bautista (which was like trading the snowmobile to get the pen back, in terms of trade value at the time). It was a stupid strategy and Littlefield got typically burned on it. The same thing happened last year with Matt Lawton. He initially insisted on both a good prospect and a major league ready player. Again, he held firm until he ended up with Jody Gerut. That's like trading a paperclip for a bent paperclip. When the Cubs flipped Lawton to the Yankees a month later for a Class A pitcher, they at least managed to get the doorknob's equivalent to Lawton's steroid addled paperclip.

Littlefield is also unable to tell when he's holding the elusive KISS snowglobe, aka something that is far more useful to someone else than it is to him. Just a week ago the Reds traded Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for Gary Majewski and Royce Clatyon (with the deal being mostly for Majewski) while the Pirates sat on Roberto Hernandez and Salomon Torres. It is likely that he'll eventually get rid of Torres or Hernandez, but when he does it he'll be trading them for exactly what they are, KISS snowglobes. He failed to properly diagnose the situation; just like Corbin Bernsen collects snowglobes, Wayne Krivsky is a first year GM who's getting caught up in a Wild Card race and feels like he has to do something.

The thing that's maddening about Littlefield is that he hasn't learned after five years. He's still asking for a major league ready player and a top prospect for guys like Craig Wilson. While he's holding out, the team most likely to overpay for his guys (the Yankees) will likely move on and go after a guy like Bobby Abreu. He'll hold on until he realizes he's overplayed his hand, and when the trading deadline ends he's again going to end up holding nothing but a handful of paperclips.

Catching up on rumors

Two little tidbits from the PG earlier today (actually yesterday), that I didn't have time to post about. I've also got something a little more current.

Apparently, there's still no movement between the Pirates and Casey on an extension, which is good. Of course, DK has to throw in that it doesn't mean there WON'T be an offer, and hell, we might even extend Bobby Ancient as well. And the Trib from yesterday would seem to confirm that they will at least try to extend him.

In discussion the locker room chemistry in his chat today, Dejan casually mentions that "the veterans want out." As usual, there's lots of other good stuff in the chat that's worth checking out.

And while we're at it, there is apparently some speculation about the Pirates trading to get 2B/utility guy Jeff Keppinger (part of the Benson deal) back from the Mets, possibly for Roberto Hernandez. I first ran into this rumor at the Bucs Dugout, where Charlie muses that if such a deal is to go down, it would probably mean a Jack Wilson trade is imminent. Jack is still up on the homepage, however. FWIW, I think the blog that is mentioned as the source of this rumor is probably this one.

UPDATE: It's also worth mentioning that Steve Phillips has mentioned Gonzo as a trade target to an NL West team like a bazillion times this week. Steve Phillips is an idiot, but trading Gonzo might not be an awful idea and Capps closed the game out tonight. As usual, the barometer for this one is the Pirates' homepage, on which Mike Gonzalez is still prominently featured.

Pirates 3 Rockies 1

And the Pirates' second straight effective start comes from... Kip Wells?!? Kip delievered a quality start tonight, his first since, I dunno, 8 BC (before clot) and the Pirates offense coupled that with juuuust enough (lead by Freddy Sanchez's 2-for-3, 1 RBI, 1 R night) to eek out a win. The game wasn't on tonight, and since I'm smack dab in the middle of Pittsburgh, not even my Extra Innings Free Preview week had the game on, so I can't directly comment on what Kip did because I didn't see it. Still, the line looks pretty good, 7 innings, 7 hits, 2 walks, 1 run, 4 Ks. He threw 67 of 100 pitches for strikes, which is pretty good on any night. Out of his 7 hits, one was a homer to Barmes (oops, Barmes has been awful this year) and one was a double to Atkins, beyond that he scattered 5 singles. Probably the most impressive thing is that he did it on an oppresively hot and humid night, which is exactly the kind of night you would think a guy that's been rushed back from injury and isn't fully conditioned would struggle on. Still, one night does not a comeback make, and in fact all this may do is keep me from eating Kip Wells novella flavored crow for five more days. Still, it's at least something to be encouraged about, especially coupled with the last five innings of the start he made before this one, and there was nothing encouraging at all about his first three starts, so at least we're making progress.

The Rockies

The Rockies come into town tonight hoping that a visit to PNC is what the doctor ordered to keep their season from falling off the face of the earth. They've lost their last 7 and fallen to last place in the hotly contested NL West (they're still only 4 games off the pace). They'll have to hope that Kip Wells can be their slumpbuster tonight because they're trotting Byung-Hyun Kim out, and I don't think he inspires confidence in anyone. Also, it's approximately a million degrees (that's Celsius, of course) out in Pittsburgh today, which will likely have some kind of effect on this one.

UPDATE (7:15)- This one is nowhere to be found on the TV... that's strange for a Monday night game.

Nats 8 Pirates 4

After a full weekend of the Pirates pitching staff playing bend but don't break with the Nats, they finally broke in the 11th inning today, surrendering four runs to the Nats and costing themselves only their second sweep of the season. Paul Maholm got off to a good start today and mowed down the Nats through six, but he hit trouble in the 7th and let the Nats get back into the game by giving up a 2 run homer to Alex Escobar. Still, it's not entirely the fault of the pitching as the offense, which had been so hot coming out of the break, managed only one run after the first inning against such stalwarts as Livian Hernandez, Saul Rivera, Kevin Gryboski, and Mike Stanton. I suppose every once in a while we need that reminder that we are in fact the Pittsburgh Pirates.

They call him Livian

The Pirates look to start off the second half by breaking out the brooms against the Nats today. Paul Maholm and Livian Hernandez will take the mound which means that the precendent set by the first two games of this series, lots of hits, lots of walks, looooooong baseball games, will likely be followed.

A lack of urgency

Let's move past all of the Craig Wilson and Jeromy Burnitz talk to the back burner for a second (if you missed it, rumors were popping up that the Pirates had offered those two to the Yankees for Melky Cabrera, but that the offer was rejected... both links from Pinstripe Alley) and talk about a subject brought up in the PG today; trading Jack Wilson. This would be a very, very good idea and yet it's likely impossible because of Littlefield's own stupidity. First off, between Freddy Sanchez, Jose Castillo, and Jose Bautista the Bucs can fill second, third, and short with cheaper players that are more productive than Jack at the plate and younger (except in Freddy's case), while not really losing much defensively at all. Jack Wilson is an above average defensive shortstop who also happens to be one of the worse hitting regular players at his position and possibly one of the worse hitting regular players in the league. He's also a great guy who always plays hard, which makes writing a post like this hard from a fan's perspective because I like Jack a lot. Still, his .681 OPS ranks him 83rd out of 91 qualified National Leaguers and near the bottom among regular shortstops in both leagues, clocking in a 20th out of 27 SS's with enough at-bats. His hitting is not a Kip Wells mystery, this year's .681 OPS would be the second highest of his career. At the age of 28, this is not likely something that's going to change. His defense is good, but it's slipping a bit this year. That being said, he still compares pretty favorably to a 2004 version of Orlando Cabrera, albiet a bit older. Carbrera, you'll remember, was at the time a mostly light-hitting shortstop for the Expos brought in by the Red Sox, who already had plenty of pop in their lineup, to shore up their defense. The problem is that while the Red Sox looked to Cabrera as a short-term solution in 2004, Jack Wilson can't be viewed as one in 2006. After this year, his 3 year $20 million extension kicks in. Maybe I'm viewing this through the small market lens of Pittsburgh, but that seems like an awful lot of money to be paying one of the more inept offensive players in either league at an age where that isn't likely to change. That's what makes the description of their efforts to trade him comical, the subheading in Dejan's article today is "But team not eager to trade shortstop." They should be eager, there should absolutely be a sense of urgency to get a deal done NOW while there's still a shred of hope that it can get done at all. If there's a decent deal for Jack Wilson on the table right now and Littlefield isn't pulling the trigger, it's going to be something we all regret down the road.

Pirates 7 Nats 6

For the second night in a row, a funny thing happened with the Pirates. Placed in a situation where they had typically failed in the first half of the year, the Pirates managed to squeeze out another win tonight. Tonight the situation was bottom of the ninth, tie game, bases loaded, no outs. With the fateful D'Backs game of mid-June fresh in mind and Jose Bautista's strikeout causing Pirate fans to again fear the worst, Ronnie Paulino stepped up and delievered a game winning single (which was actually a ground rule double, but the game ends once the first run crosses) and got the Buccos off to their first two game winning skein in over a month (since that fateful series in San Francisco that had all of our hopes so high). Sure, it's only the Nationals, but last time I checked, we're only the Pirates.

The whole game was a see-saw affair, starting with Soriano's depositing Snell's first pitch into the stands and the Pirates responding with 2 in the bottom of the first on a 2 run Jason Bay single. The Bucs stranded 12 guys, the Nats stranded 14 (bringing their 2 day total to 26). Again, the pitching staff struggled with the strike zone with 8 walks tonight, six by Snell in his 5 innings. The offense, however, racked up 14 more hits lead by 3 from Casey and 2 apiece from JWilson, Sanchez, Paulino, and Randa. Playing this way may not beat many teams, but it is beating the Nationals, at least for now.

More Bucs and Nats

Tonight Ian Snell and Pedro Astacio go at it as the Pirates try to lock up something that they managed to avoid pretty often in the first half, a series win. Interestingly, there's no Craig Wilson or Jeromy Burnitz in the lineup for a second night in a row. It's getting to be that time of year where something like that is rather suspicious.

Links

This is a couple days late, but Billy and Zeke of Romo Phone Home saw a particular Mr. G. Ogden Nutting at the All-Star Game, as apparently MoleMan decided to come out of his layer and actually see what this new fangled "base ball" is all about.

Also, via Romo, is a thread at OnlyBucs.net in which a Kevin McClatchy interview in the Pittsburgh Business Times is discussed. This one isn't for the faint of heart.

ESPN.com lists their top 10 big contract busts of 2006 and Jeromy Burnitz is #8. But, you know, we can't afford the compete with bigger market teams.

Regular commenter Murphy was also at the game last night, and sitting in rather nice seats to boot. They were, in fact, prime "Jeff Cox heckling seats."

In today's Pirate Notebook (PG version), there is discussion of presenting Freddy Sanchez with a extension for his upcoming arbitration years and it sounds like Freddy probably wouldn't hang the Pirates out to dry over the contract. Dejan also talks about the lineup switch from last night, moving Freddy to the 3 slot and dropping Casey to five. It makes sense to not have Casey on the bases in front of Bay and Sanchez, but it's still insane to have Jack Wilson batting 2nd, even with last night's three hits. When McLouth and Wilson bat 1 and 2, we essentially start our lineup in the three hole.

Pirates 7 Nats 4

The paid attendance tonight was somewhere around 26,000 for a Pirates/Nationals game on one of the hottest, muggiest nights of the year. I can't even imagine what a baseball game would be like if this team was coming into the game at 45-45 instead of 30-60.

That being said, it was a rather strange game tonight. I don't know if it was the 4 day layoff or the 4000% humidity, but not one Pirate pitcher could find the plate tonight. Duke looked like he had no idea where the ball was going whenever it left his hand (4 walks in 5 and 2/3rds) and none of the relievers were much better (except Capps, who walks no one ever). Still, I thought Tracy and co. did a good job managing the pitching staff tonight. Colborn came out to talk to Duke after he walked the bases loaded in the fourth, and the little change of pace seemed to help Duke get out of the inning. Tracy also managed to do something I'd been hoping he'd do for months, get the starters out of games when they can be the winners, but not the losers. He hooked Duke at exactly the right time in the fourth.

As adversely affected by the layoff the pitchers seemed to be, the hitters seemed to be rejuvenated by it. They rapped out 15 hits, with 3 by Bay, Bautista (who CRUSHED a homer) and Jack Wilson. In a nice little turn of events, when the Nats got to within 1 in the top of the 8th the offense actually responded with 2 more runs to put the game back out of reach in the bottom of the inning. The fielding play of the night might've actually been turned by Sean Casey. With Duke struggling in the 5th and a runner on first for Nick Johnson, the following conversation took place between my and my dad in the right field stands:

Dad: We need a double play.
Me: Well, it's hard to turn a double play on a line drive, Johnson's killing the ball and Duke looks like he's got nothing left.
Johnson rips a liner to Casey, who makes a nice play and turns the unassisted double play at first.
Dad: Looks like we got 'em both.

All in all it was a pretty good win tonight. It seems like the Pirates have lost games like this way to often this year, so winning one was nice. It was also nice to see our pitchers manage to strand a load of runners on base on a night when no one had their best stuff which again made it feel like the tables were turned tonight. We should try that more often.

PNC minus the stars

I'm heading down to PNC to watch the opposite of what was seen there on Tuesday, the Pirates and the Nationals. Actually, that's incredibly unfair to the Nationals, who are only 8.5 games back in the Wild Card race and just pulled off a hell of a trade. Tonight is Zach Duke takes on Ramon Ortiz as the Pirates try to avoid losing 39 of their next 72 games. And of course it's XTREME Cap Night (they spelled it with an X, so you know it's good).

Relaunch

I love how everyone (including myself) refers to the first game after the All-Star break as the first game of the second half. The Pirates will play 162 games, they've played 90. The second half started like a week ago, but there wasn't a big long break announcing it was halftime (who's idea is it to not have the break in the middle of the season? I guess the 4th gets in the way or something). The Pirates will need to go 33-39 in the 72 games after the interim to avoid 100 losses. I'd say it's rather unlikely this will happen, given the fact that they've lost 60 of their first 90 games. This is why I haven't really done a second half preview, there's not much to look forward too. After thinking about it, and here's what is going to keep my watching in the second half:

• Can Duke and Maholm make any progress? Can Snell become more consistent? These things are going to have to happen if 2007 is going to look different.
• Finally getting an answer to the conundrum that is Kip Wells.
  
• Jim freaking Bowden traded Royce Clayton, Gary Majewski, and some minor leaguers for Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez. Some Canadian guy traded one regular red paperclip for a house. Yet somehow, Dave Littlefield will manage to get dick for Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa (both of whom haven't been awful of late), Craig Wilson, Sean Casey (whom the Giants are interested in), Salomon Torres, Damaso Marte, and Roberto Hernandez. Despite already knowing this, people (myself included), will act surprised when this happens. Somehow, Dave Littlefield will remain employed.
• In all likelihood, we will sign Sean Casey to an expensive extension instead of trading him. As Charlie has said already, this is a bad, bad idea.
  
• Can FredEx keep his stunning performance up?
• Can Jason Bay get hot again? When he isn't hot, can he at least pretend to be half of the "on fire" Jason Bay.
• What is it that causes Jose Castillo's lethargy, Twinkies, Ho-Ho's, or possible Mary Jane? Can he hit well enough over a long period of time that we just write off his stupidity in the field and on the bases as "Jose being Jose?"
  
• If Ryan Doumit ever comes off the DL, can he stay healthy long enough to hit and earn a spot somewhere on the team.
  
• Tom Gorzelanny, reason enough to watch once every five days.
• Oliver Perez will likely be back sooner rather than later. If the goal in baseball wasn't to win, he'd be incredibly entertaining. Unfortunately, the goal is to win so he's just kind of sad and depressing like the rest of the team.
• Then again, if all else fails (and it probably will), Steelers camp isn't far down the road. They'll be defending the Super Bowl lead by Dwight, star of the Sin City stories A Dame to Kill For and The Big Fat Kill.
  

2006 Predictions revisited

With today being the last Pirates-less day after the All-Star I could talk about moves that DL will be looking to make before the deadline, but that is frankly rather depressing. Instead, I'm going to go back over my pre-season MLB predictions and re-evaluating for the second half.

AL East
My prediction: Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox, D-Rays, Orioles
Currently: Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays, Orioles, D-Rays
Comments: I said before the season I thought this would be the year that the Blue Jays would break up Yankees/Sox 1/2 punch at the top of this division, and I still think it might be. The big question is, of course, what the Yankees will do to shore up their rotation and fill in the holes in their outfield. They don't have much to deal in their system, though, and I could see them faltering down the stretch instead of picking up steam. The Red Sox are going to rely on some young pitchering with Lester now in the rotation and Delcarmen, Hansen, and Papelbon now in the 'pen, but they limited Lester's pitch count in the minors this year to save him for a stretch run in Boston. You know, because their goal is to win at the Major League level, (I'm looking at you, Dave). Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees, Orioles, D-Rays

AL Central
My prediction: Indians, White Sox (WC), Twins, Tigers, Royals
Currently: Tigers, White Sox (WC), Twins, Indians, Royals
Comments: Soooo... about those Indians. Instead, the Tigers are the surprise team to come out of this division and leapfrog the White Sox, for now. I don't know how well they'll hold up down the stretch, though I think they'll outlast the losers in the East race for the Wild Card. The Twins might have the best 1-2 punch in any rotation in baseball, but they're simply too far behind to catch up in this race. White Sox, Tigers (WC), Twins, Indians, Royals

AL West
My prediction: A's, Angels, Rangers, Mariners
Currently: Rangers, A's, Angels, Mariners
Comments: This division is the biggest crapshoot in baseball right now. Any of the top three teams could take this division, and hell, the Mariners are only three games back. Since I don't follow this division all that closely, I'll just stick with my prediction for now on the basis that the A's and Angels are used to stretch drives and I have no idea what kind of smoke and mirrors the Rangers pitching staff is using. A's, Angels, Rangers, Mariners

NL East
My prediction: Mets, Phillies (WC), Braves, Nats, Marlins
Currently: Mets, Phillies, Braves, Nats, Marlins
Comments: I really thought this division would be better than this. The Mets are good, but the Phillies and Braves are playing awful baseball and the Nats and Marlins are both playing good baseball, despite being bad teams. I think the Braves are going to pick it up and hop the Phils for second place, possibly making a run at the Wild Card, which they won't get. Mets, Braves, Phillies, Marlins, Nats

NL Central
My predicion: Cards, Brewers, Astros, Pirates, Cubs, Reds
Currently: Cards, Reds, Brewers, Astros, Cubs, Pirates
Comments: Like the rest of the world, I didn't see the Reds coming. I thought the Cards would drop off a bit, and they have, but I didn't think they'd drop off this much. Still, I don't see anyone else in this division catching them. I was ready to say that I think the Reds are for real and would win the Wild Card, but then they went out and traded Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for Gary Majewski and Royce Clayton. Sweet jebus, I don't think DL would've made that trade, the wheels are about to fall off on that team. Everyone else is picking the Astros to make another second half run and win the Wild Card, but I don't know where the offense is supposed to come from (Aubrey Huff?). Instead, I think I'll stick with the Brewers for second place and take the Wild Card (based on getting to play the Pirates and Cubs, as opposed to the West teams that are all equal and have to play each other). Cards, Brewers (WC), Astros, Reds, Cubs, Pirates

NL West
My Prediction: Dodgers, Padres, D'Backs, Giants, Rockies
Currently: Padres, Dodgers (WC), Giants, Rockies, D'Backs
Comments: Everyone's within five games here, so it's another crapshoot, especially because these are all very flawed teams. I think this race will end up being between the Padres and Dodgers because the Giants are ancient and the D'Backs and Rockies just aren't very good. I'll stick with my guns on this one. Dodgers, Padres, D'Backs, Rockies, Giants

AL Wild Card: Red Sox over Tigers, White Sox over A's
NL Wild Card: Mets over Brewers, Cards over Dodgers
The Real World Series (ALCS): White Sox over Red Sox
NLCS: Mets over Cards
World Series: White Sox over Mets
Comments: The Mets are a good team, but I don't see Wagner, Pedro, and Glavine holding up enough to win them a Series. Still, they're good enough to take on the rest of the NL, which they're head and shoulders above. The Red Sox and White Sox are clearly the cream of the crop this year, but having seen the White Sox play and been rather impressed, I'm sticking with the champs until someone beats them.

Happy Anniversary!

On this very date 5 years ago the Pittsburgh Pirates hired Dave Littlefield as their general manager. In five years, Dave Littlefield has done something that no one would've believed was possible on July 13, 2001, he's proven himself to be a worse GM than Cam Bonifay. Happy anniversary, Dave! Only under the close watch of Kevin McClatchy and the Nutting family could someone as totally inept as you keep your job for this long. God bless America.

Thanks to Bern in the comments for the tip.

Terror

Last night I was patronizing one of the fine alcohol serving establishments on the Southside when a vaguely familiar song came over the jukebox. After about thirty seconds I managed to place the song. I recognized it as Adrian Brown's at-bat music from his time with the Pirates. I am still unsure why Adrian Brown's at-bat music was buried somewhere deep in my brain and frankly, I am still afraid.

2006 Mid-season Report: Pitchers

Let's change gears here for the pitchers. The Buccos offense this year has been surprisingly almost average, but the pitching has been pretty bad. It's true that they're incredibly young, but I don't think anyone thought they'd be as bad as they've been. Instead of awards, I'll just try and measure my disappointment with each pitcher.

Actually exceeded expectations
As far as I can tell, only one person on the Buccos staff has done that, and it's Matt Capps. He's had his ups and downs, but he's been very effective for a 22 year old reliever with only one dominant pitch. He's probably got a future as a lights out closer. His middle name is Dicus, which I find pretty funny. Have I mentioned he has 7 times as many strikeouts as walks?

Expected to disappoint, but didn't
Roberto Hernandezand Victor Santos. Expectations were low for Hernandez because he's rather advanced in age, but he's actually been pretty good out of the pen this year (minus the Jim Thome incident). His high WHIP (1.47) kind of scares me for the second half, though. As for Santos, expectations were low because, well, he's Victor Santos. He started terribly but had a run of 5 good appearences (4 starts and the W in the 18 inning game) before going on the DL to bring his numbers right to where his career levels are, record under .500 record (4-7), a 1.51WHIP and 4.83 ERA (careerwise he's 21-40, 1.55, 4.97). At least we know what to expect.

Not disappointing this year, but something feels off
This is our de facto ace this year Ian Snell. Tell me if this rings a bell (or three), he's got a pretty electric fastball and some pretty decent offspeed stuff. When he's on he's untouchable, but if he turns it on 3 of every 5 starts, you're lucky. That's actually very good for Snell, who was a big question mark coming into the year, but that's pretty much how the three most maddening Pirates of recent memory started. Yes, I'm talking about Jason Schmidt, Kris Benson, and Kip Wells. Let's hope he can avoid that dark fate. Mike Gonzalez falls into this category as well. He hasn't blown a save, but he's been very Mike Williams/Jose Mesa like all year in the closer's role and he's had lots of control troubles. This could be a big concern sometime rather soon.

Disappointing
We all expected drop-offs from Zach Duke and Paul Maholm this year. To expect anything otherwise would've been foolish after the untouchable numbers they both put up at the end of last year. Still, to see them both operate at the approximate level of a left-handed Josh Fogg circa 2005 is distressing. Most of Duke's starts go well enough except for one disastrous inning, while most of Maholm's starts are just pretty bad (generally falling behind in the first). They've both shown flashes of their previous brilliance this year, so let's hope that they can find it in the second half.

Very, very disappointing
Salomon Torres and Damaso Marte were supposed to be anchors in what was supposed to be one of the better pens in the league. Instead, they've mostly been the people punching more holes into the deck of the sinking ship. Marte's numbers look OK, but he has a tendency to shit the bed when we need him to not shit the bed the most (in 47 ABs, the other team has an OPS of .855 against him in close and late situations). Torres, meanwhile, has just been abused by Tracy. He's 34 now and it's very likely he's on the downslope of his career, which means things won't get better.

Awful
You don't call a guy John GraBLOW if he's not flat out awful.

So bad and disappointing that he got cut, only no one else wanted him
Ryan Vogelsong was actually pitching very well until the best performance of his career in the 18 inning game against the Astros in late May. After that the wheels fell off and he became "The White Flag." There has been no turning back from there. After we DFA'd him no one wanted him so he's back in Indy now, which is unfortunate for him because I think he could succeed somewhere else. Probably not here, though.

Insanely frustrating, maddening, and most of all, disappointing
You know who I'm talking about here, the one and only Oliver Perez. He's like Kip Wells, Jason Schmidt, and Kris Benson only left-handed and infinitely more talented. He also actually put it together for a year, which was a pretty cruel joke on us, getting our hopes up like this. I have no idea if his problems are mental, physical, or what. I have no idea if the 2004 Ollie will ever be back. I do have a sinking feeling in my gut that every day we don't see the 2004 Ollie, it get's exponentially more likely that we won't see him again.

Kip Wells Frustrating
Since 2004 it's possible that Kip Wells has been battling injuries that have affected his pitching. It's possible that we rushed him back this year, which would account for all his difficulties. It's also possible that he forgot how to pitch in the second half of 2004 and that he'll never be back at his '03 level again. I just don't really know if there's any way to know the answer for sure this point, and that's kind of been the story of Kip Wells' career.

Haven't been around enough to disappoint, but seem kind of promising
Tom Gorzellany and Jonah Bayliss. I'll reserve judgement on these guys until later.

Post All-Star link dump

Rowdy posts about Jason Schmidt saying the Pirates aren't so bad and how he's probably right. I'll be honest, during the 13 game losing streak I kept looking at the team thinking to myself, "How is this actually happening? Look at these players, they aren't this bad. There's something here that isn't right."

Charlie does a "Pirates trade value" post.

Where have you gone... Chad Hermansen?

As pointed out to me below in the comments, apparently Kevin McClatchy's seat has been empty lately because he's afraid of getting booed at the park. With the All-Star Game over, I'd guess McClatchy will be getting out of town ASAP. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure about the Nuttings.

Not baseball related at all (sorry, I had to share), but hearing Zidane's mom talk goes a long way towards explaining the head-butt.

All Star Game musings

Meant to post this sooner, but here are some thoughts I had on last night's game:

• How does one city go from having Meatloaf sing the National Anthem at an All-Star Game to Carrie Underwood just 12 years later? I was only 9 when I was at the last game and I still remember the Loaf's anthem.
• The huge ovations for Freddy and Jay Bay were awesome to see during introductions. It obviously meant a ton to them to be there for this and they deserve it.
• Somehow the Pirate fans at the game got the memo that A-Rod and Jeter are supposed to be booed, but they missed the one about Tracy deserving the same treatment. For shame.
• I still enjoy looking out my window and seeing the Goodyear blimp circling the city.
• All of the Roberto tributes were great, from Ozzie Guilllen's "Chasing 3000" shirt, to the RCW sweatbands, to the award ceremony. One small complaint, I wish they had Lanny or Greg Brown MC the ceremony instead of Selig. They both take a lot of crap online, but a hometown feel would've made the award presentation that much better, I think (especially if they'd chosen Greg Brown, who grew up as a Pirate fan in Pittsburgh during the Clemente era). Selig stumbling over his words and saying "a relief mission to Nicawagwa" was just painful to watch. Still, if they don't retire #21 leaguewide (and despite all of my biases, I'm not really convinced that they should... which is a different topic) I thought last night was a fitting tribute to a great man.
• Given the immense pressure on them last night, I thought Bay and Freddy preformed pretty well. Freddy sparkled with the glove at short and second and Bay managed to get a hit on a night where they were pretty rare (for an All-Star Game).
• As for the game itself, well, it was pretty boring. I think Brad Penny probably liquified his elbow in the first two innings, and (though this joke has been made a million times today) who was surprised to see the NL blow a late lead to eventually lose by 1 run as the home team at PNC?

Midseason Awards: Hitters

I hate doing the whole "ABC" or "1-10" grading scale. I hate it. That usually means that I have to stretch the creativity 'round this time of year when people expect to see some midseason grading up. Personally, the most brilliant form of grading I've seen in some time was done by Page 2's World Cup Blogger, Michael Davies. He graded each of England's players after matches on a scale of "No Pants at all" (the best) to "Complete, utter Pants" (the worst). Instead, since it was so much fun with the pitchers last year, I will create utterly random and meaningless awards and hand them out.

The "Team MVP, biggest surprise, absolutely no pants WHATSOEVER, with a special side prize for making Dave Littlefield eat a giant shitburger" Award
This one can only go to Freddy Sanchez. We all knew he was a better man for the job at third base than anyone DL tried to sign, but no one saw .358/.396/.520 coming. He has been the lone pleasent surprise in the first half of this season and he didn't even have a starting job until mid-May. If that doesn't summarize the DL era, I don't know what does.

The "Pretty good, but still too streaky and unable to make anyone believe me when I say that his "non-clutchness" doesn't exist" Award
I think we all know who this one goes to. In 32 games between May 4th and June 10th (the Baseball Musings Day by Day Database is an amazing tool) Jason Bay went .310/.386/.705 with 15 homers and 29 RBIs. That's pretty damn fantastic. He's been rather pedestrian the rest of the season, but he's still rolling into the ASB with a .927 OPS and he's on pace for 38 homers and 119 RBIs. It's only going to take one hot streak like he had in May to rekindle everyone's confidence in him... I think.

The "Regression to the mean" Award
We've got our first Wilson sighting here as Jack Wilson makes an appearence. Jack started the season off well, finishing April at .326/.384/.562. Since then his numbers have plummetted to .257/.293/.368. Jack's career numbers? .263/.303/.368. The worst part about it is that all of his added bulk seems to have diminished his range in the field. That contract extension is looking brilliant right now.

The "The toilet is clogged because it is impossible to flush $17 million down it without reprecussions" Award
The first shared award of the 2006 mid-season goes to Sean Casey, Joe Randa, and Jeromy Burnitz. They've each contributed a little, Randa got hurt to allow Sanchez in the lineup, Casey invented a new baseball injury and let Craig Wilson play for a few weeks, and Burnitz has provided lots of humor for all. Actually, Randa and Burnitz haven't been THAT awful of late, and Casey has been what we probably should've expected. The problem is, that's not worth anywhere near $17 million.

The "If Kip Wells were dead and reincarnated as a position player, it might be you" Award
This one goes to the most talented but maddening Pirate position player, Jose Castillo. Right around the time Bay stopped being hot, Castillo tore the cover off the ball. Unfortunately he's been maddeningly inconsistent besides that week. He's mostly lazy or lethargic in the field and he generally swings for the fences and nothing else. He's got a metric shit-ton of talent, but he hardly ever uses any of it and it drives me INSANE.

The Bob Slydell Memorial "What would you say you do here?" Award
This one is another easy one, Humberto Cota and Mike Edwards. Cota is used rather sparingly for a backup catcher and doesn't do much when he does get to play. Sometimes it feels like weeks go by at a time without me remembering he's still on the team. And Edwards, well, weeks do go by without him actually on the team.

The Abraham Nunez Memorial "The manager has a strange fetish for putting me in the game and no one knows why" Award
Finally, Jose K gets his award. Somehow he's garnered 75 ABs in Tracy's lineups this year despite needing a recent hot streak to get him to his All-Star break marks of .240/.296/.360. Of course, that's actually only slightly worse than Jack Wilson. It's been a long first half.

The "Not bad for a rookie, but not entirely good either" Award
Ronnie Paulino's .308 batting average is impressive for a rookie, but it's a pretty empty .308 with only 14 of his 70 hits going for extra bases. He's shown a very good arm behind the plate, but he blocks balls like a 10 year old without a cup on. Still, we don't really have any other options behind the plate at this point, so we may as well let the kid learn on the job. Jose Bautista also gets a piece of this award, though technically not a rookie because of his Rule V year. He started hot, slumped very badly, and got hot again. He's been better than I expected (I mentally pegged him as a utility guy before the year started, now I think he may be more than that) and he's played a very good defensive centerfield, which is good in light of the implosion of Duffy and McLouth this year. He's gotta stay in the lineup every day in the second half.

The "What are your hamstrings made out of? Are they glass?" Award
I had hoped that this year would be Ryan Doumit's breakout year. Instead, the team turned him into Craig Wilson part deux before the season started, splitting his time with Humberto Cota and then Ronnie Paulino for mostly imaginary reasons. They then stuck Doumit and his sore hammy behind the plate three out of four nights and watched it get torn. He'll now have to spend all of the rest of this season and maybe early next year learning a new position. Stop me if this sounds familiar.

The "So... the whole bobble-head thing was a bit presumptious" Award
Chris Duffy, who disappointed no one that expected him to be the next Tike Redman, then went AWOL after being demoted to Indy with what sounds like all the signs of clinical depression (though I doubt we'll ever know the full story). He's back in Indy now and hopefully he can straighten things out.

The "I've seen your future and it looks terrifyingly like John Cangelosi" Award
Maybe John Cangelosi is a bit harsh, but I don't ever really see Nate McLouth being much more than a 4th or 5th outfielder. He's not fast enough or good enough with a glove to play center, he doesn't seem to have enough power to play a corner, and he walks at a rate that can only be described as "Randall Simon-esque." Like Duffy, I hope he straightens things out. Like Duffy, I'm not sure he will.

The "Living proof that the Pirates hate baseball ability, fun, and puppies" Award, brought to you by Pepsi
Another year, another position battle, another .800+ OPS for Craig Wilson. For a guy often derided by the organization as "streaky," his career numbers are very consisent. He also actually plays a decent first base and right field. I can't think of any baseball team that couldn't use a guy like Craig Wilson, and yet we seem to want nothing to do with the guy. I like Thor a lot, and judging by how the nickname Thor has proliferated across the Pirate corner of the internet, I think a lot of people like the guy (basic rule of life: a baseball player doesn't get a cool nickname like "Thor" to stick for any amount of time if people don't like him). Sadly, I doubt Thor will show up in my end of the year review, as his time in the Black and Gold is almost up. I can only imagine what the trade talks involving Craig Wilson between DL and someone with a brain must be like. I imagine that thus far they've gone like this.

DL: So, I see you need some first base/corner outfield help. Craig Wilson is a guy who will give you at least an average bat at those positions and can get hot enough to carry a team for weeks at a time. I would like Anthony Reyes (or other top prospect) for him, and I really think he's worth it. Craig can help you out a lot down the stretch.
GM with a Brain:Anthony Reyes (or other top prospect) is a m***erf***ing stud. Craig Wilson strikes out a lot, plays bad defense, and is streaky and unreliable. He also drinks lots of Pepsi, which apparently has made him hyperglycemic or something, because I can't imagine why this would be a problem otherwise. These are your words, Dave. Not my own. Would you like (insert name of Ty Wigginton-level player), instead?
DL: &^@#