Maholm for Hawpe?

Holy freaking crap, there's some Pirate news to talk about. Rotoworld is relaying the rumor in from Denver that the Pirates and Rockies are discussing a Paul Maholm for Brad Hawpe trade (the Rocky Mountain News article is here). Hawpe put up a .293/.383/.515 line with 22 HR and 84 RBIs in 499 ABs last year, so we could likely suspect something similar in Pittsburgh since he's a lefty. He played some first base in the low minors but has been a right fielder for a few years now. He had two years in the minors in which he absolutely raked at the plate, 2002 in high class A Salem in which he OPS'd 1.034 and was named league MVP and 2004 in offense friendly AAA Colorado Springs where he slugged .652 in 92 games before a call-up to Colorado. I would guess that a guy like Hawpe is the ceiling for a straight-up Maholm deal, though Rotoworld relays that the Rockies want more and the Pirates may be willing to part with Gorzellany instead of Maholm to make this trade happen. I hope it doesn't come to that. Hawpe's Baseball Cube page is here.

Popular posts from this blog

WHYGAVS has moved

It's official. WHYGAVS now has a new official home. It's actually at WHYGAVS.com , which means that it's the same as the old home, but I'm off Blogger now, which means that this old link won't redirect. You'll have to subscribe to a new feed if that's how you read WHYGAVS, but beyond that things are going to be mostly the same.
Read more

Links

For reasons that will become shortly apparent, I've been working on cleaning/updating the sidebar links. That means that I've got some new links to add to the sidebar, as well as some other things for your general perusal. Cory Humes, Geeves, and Alan from Bucco Wire are all blogging again at MVN under the header Pirate Revolution . There's also The Green Weenie and The 'Burgh Blues , two blogs I should've added some time ago. Meanwhile, Dejan's series about the Pirates' presence in the Dominican is awesome. I'm sure most of you have been checking it out as it's been published, but if you haven't I can't recommend parts one , two , and three , Renee Gayo's list of the top 5 prospects yet to play in America , and everything else that DK's put on his blog on the subject enough. It's an awesome look in to the Bucs' international operation and how things have changed since Bob Nutting took the lack of Pirate presence in the reg
Read more

The Pirates are talking to Mark Loretta

There are a couple of possible reactions when reading that the Pirates are talking to Mark Loretta . The easy reaction is, "Well, so long as he's replacing Chris Gomez, I'm fine with that." That's true. Loretta's a useful utility infielder that can still handle a bat fairly well and can play just about every position in the infield in a short-term capacity. In fact, he's probably a better hitter than Gomez and he can't really be a worse fielder. That may make him more the successor to Doug Mientkiewicz, which is fine by me as well. But then I started thinking. Aren't we trying to trade our shortstop away? Isn't "successor to Jack Wilson" a position that needs filled on the depth chart at the moment? I mean, I know Huntington's not looking at Loretta as a starting shortstop next year ... but what if he is? This is how the offseason drives people crazy. You can go months and months without hearing any rumors, then as soon as rumor
Read more