NL East
Quick roster update at the PG today. I'm incredibly rushed for time right now, but the bullpen is set with Jonah Bayliss, John Wasdin, and Juan Perez joining Torres, Capps, Marte, and Chacon.
Meanwhile on the actual roster side of things, Jose K(!) and and Luis Matos were sent packing leaving McLouth, Cota, Kelly, Eldred, Doumit, and Castillo to fight over the five spots on the bench. Then I read something that made me choke:
The only certainty of the group was that Kelly, a Mt. Lebanon and Point Park College, will make the team.Assuming Cota makes the team (and I think he will), Don Kelly will be taking a roster spot from Nate McLouth, Brad Eldred, Ryan Doumit, or Jose Castillo. Kill me.
AL East
David Schoenfeld is attempting to tell me that there are 16 teams with more miserable fans than the Pirates? Are you serious? Dave, come to a game with me and tell me that again.
I can't believe the Pirates didn't ask me to be in their new commercials. We will support our Bucs? We will create memories? Ugh. We will vomit all over our monitors.
Freddy Sanchez played in the field today. I guess that's good.
So it's almost baseball time and I'm incredibly excited. Not about the Pirates chances, particularly, but just about baseball in general. Sorry that I missed so much time earlier in the week, but there wasn't much I can do about it. Anyways, start today off by reading Dejan's 5 reasons to believe or not to believe in the Pirates in 2007. It's a good read and though I've got a couple points I'd like to pick at, but I'm not going to offer a critique just yet because I need some time write up my own final preview for the season. Also, I posted a Freddy Sanchez update at the FanHouse, so check that out too, while you're at it.
So we've got four days left before baseball season starts. Here's what to look for on this blog. I'm going to do an AL Preview today and an NL Preview tomorrow to go along with posting news updates as the final roster gets set, etc. I unfortunately won't be able to post at all on Saturday, but I'm probably going to have a million word (estimated) final preview for the season on Sunday. And on Monday I'll probably liveblog the opener. So be excited because the season is starting and I'm ready to kick things into high gear around here.
Sorry for not getting anything posted while I was gone. Internet was $10 a day at the hotel and we all said "Eff that, that's drinkin' money," so there was no chance to use the computer while I was gone.
So let's comb some headlines and see what happened:
Andrew McCutchen finally got cut and the Bucs set the rotation. After much speculation as to who would be in it, it's exactly who we thought it would be before spring started. This is why I hate spring training.
Javier Guzman was dropped off the 40-man roster. Who's it gonna be? Matos? Jose K? Probably not Danny Kolb, but maybe him too, I guess.
Sharpless, Diaz, Ryan, all cut. I'm only surprised by Sharpless, I thought he'd be in the pen this year. He will be eventually.
Freddy Sanchez is playing in minor league games, but may not be ready to start for the opener. That second link has lots of good stuff, Ronny Paulino's torrid spring, Brad Lincoln's rehab, etc.
I think that's all the substantial stuff I missed. Am I forgetting anything?
I hate to do this so close to the start of the season, but I'm going to be in Chicago attending the ACS Spring Meeting (chemistry nerd alert!) from today through Wednesday and since I don't have a laptop, it's pretty unlikely I'm going to be doing much posting while I'm there. Anyways, I'm going to put a long and at least somewhat fun post below and what I'm going to do is leave this thread for Pirate news, discussion, whatever. I'll try to log on once or twice (though I can't promise I'll get the chance) while I'm gone and check the comments. If there's something good in there I'll bump it up to the front page.
So... something fun. The music-related posts seem to get people talking and since that's kind of the goal because I'll be gone for so long, let's do a losing streak retrospective. Using the tried and true iTunes shuffle method (that is, put my entire playlist on shuffle and use the first songs that come up), I'm going to assign a song to each of our fourteen losing seasons and put my favorite memory or two from each year. Remember, the songs are picked totally randomly. If something like a stand up comedy bit or a Christmas song comes up, I'll skip it, but other than that it's first come first serve. I'm not doing this to dredge up bad memories or anything- most of these obervations are off the top of my head and I've already repressed the really depressing stuff. Instead I think we're mostly at the "Someday we'll be able to laugh about this" stage for most of this stuff. If you're the masochistic type, I included a link to the Baseball Reference page for each team. They aren't for the squeamish.
1993- My dad went to Opening Day and I asked him if the Pirates would finish in first again (lay off me, I was 8). He said probably not. The Bucs won the opener behind Tim Wakefield and I couldn't see how things were going to change. I was right, things haven't changed.
Song: Bargain- The Who. What would you give for another winning season?
1994- The '94 All Star Game, Fred McGriff's homer, Moises Alou's double, Jim Leyland waving the winning run home in the 10th like a madman. Also, the strike. The Pirates second losing season is a mere footnote on this one.
Song: Time Is On My Side- Rolling Stones. Ahh, 1994 was so long ago. I think we probably assumed back then we'd bring up a new crop of young players and be good within a couple years.
1995- A bunch of replacement players destroy Spring Training for the Buccos before the owners cave and let the players back in. Denny Neagle was good. Beyond him we should've kept the replacement players.
Song: Echo- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Even after three years things seemed repetitive.
1996- Jim Leyland's last year. I remember him crying on the field as he walked off Three Rivers for the last time, only to accept the Marlins job a short while later. Also, the McClatchy era begins.
Song: She Said, She Said- The Beatles. Actually fits the Leyland/McClatchy falling out pretty well.
1997- FREAK SHOW! Kevin Polcovich, Francisco Cordova's no-no, Rich Loiselle, the good Kevin Young and Jason Kendall, and of course, second place. When this team is the high water mark... damn.
Song: Love in Plaster- The Hives. Actual lyric from the song that my computer randomly chose to represent 1997: I really thought that we had something growing stronger, but it grew no longer. Yep, that about sums it up.
1998- Probably the most disappointing year of the whole stretch given the promise of 1997. Only 69 wins in this one. Random thought, do you remember how studly Francisco Cordova was? Check out his 1998 line: 13-14, 220 IP, 3.31 ERA, 1.24 WHIP. Too bad he was probably 100 years old and not 27 like he said.
Song: Wild Honey Pie- The Beatles. One minute of goofy guitar and singsong voices repeating, "Honey Pie! Honey Pie!" Then it's over before you know what happened. I suppose the "over before you know what happened" part is kind of like the beginning of 1998: 1997 was over before it happened. I'm reaching, I know.
1999- Brian Giles and Ed Sprague arrive. We hope that perhaps these two with the remnants of the 1997 team can bring contention. We are wrong. Actually, the team was .500 on the 4th of July when Jason Kendall exploded his ankle in the middle of what looked like a career year. He was never the same.
Song: Instant Club Hit- The Dead Milkmen. Ahh, I knew the Milkmen would show up sooner or later. Giles was an instant club hit in Pittsburgh. His first season he went .315/.418/.614 with 39 homers.
2000- Three Rivers closes, somehow John Wehner reappears with the Pirates and hits the last homer. Pirates lose 93 games including something like 25 of their final 30. Peace out, Gene Lamont.
Song: Get What You Need- Jet. Kevin McClatchy got what he said he needed, Three Rivers finally closed.
2001- Enter McClendon, Derek Bell, PNC opens, the Pirates lose 100 games for the first time since '85 and only the second time since '55. Dave Littlefield was hired and traded Jason Schmidt for Gimpy McGimperson the First (Armando Rios) and The White Flag. Also, Willie Stargell died. What a shitty, shitty year.
Song: Crazy Train- Ozzy Osbourne. No kidding. This could apply to a lot of 2001, but personally this song always plays in my head when I see a clip of Lloyd stealing first base.
2002- You know, I honestly remember very little in particular about this year besides Operation Shutdown. Somehow this wasn't the worst team in baseball history. Besides Giles at .622, only Rob Mackowiak, Craig Wilson, and Adam Hyzdu slugged above .425 (and none above Hyzdu's .484) and none of them were every day players (Mackowiak had the most plate appearences with 439, CWills had 424, and Hyzdu had 179).
Song: Not To Touch the Earth- The Doors. I dunno, maybe "Not To Touch First Base." Team OBP in 2002- .319.
2003- Can we not talk about 2003? Jeff Reboulet played second base most of the year and the Aramis Ramirez trade went down. Also, Reggie Sanders, Jeff Suppan, Kenny Lofton, and Matt Stairs actually paid off for DL, paving the way for Chris Stynes, Raul Mondesi, Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa, and co. This year kind of had the same effect for DL that '97 did for Cam Bonifay in that it made him think he was good at his job.
Song: Drowned-The Ramirez trade may have absolutely drowned most of my optimism forever.
2004- Let's see, there was Garrett Mackowiak Day. That was good. There was also the Kris Benson trade in which Dave Littlefield was offered Ryan Howard, held out for David Wright, and ended up with Ty Wigginton and a player he lost in the Rule 5 earlier in the year. That was pretty bad. Oh yeah, and Jack Wilson had his career year and Jason Bay won Rookie of the Year. And there was Mondesi.
Song: Let's Spend the Night Together- The Rolling Stones. For our one night (year) stand with Jack Wilson as a productive shortstop.
2005- We enter the post-Kendall era. We fire McClendon. We still suck.
Song: Good For You- Third Eye Blind. Man, I loved Third Eye Blind in sixth grade. That's off topic though. The McClendon era, was it good for you?
2006- Still fresh in the mind. Jim Tracy. Worst first half in a looooong time (30-60). Thirteen game losing streak. Swept by the Royals. Decent second half (37-35! 37-35!) that managed to convince the front office that we were contenders. Oops.
Song: Don't Leave Me- Blink 182. This is what the Pirates should be begging us right now.
If you're curious, the next song on shuffle is Baba O'Reilly by The Who. If you aren't a Who fan you probably call the song "Teenage Wasteland. " I would say that doesn't bode well for 2007.
As promised, I've got the audio feed from my interview with Steeltown Mike on Steeltown Sports Live earlier today. We talked some WHYGAVS history and of course we talked about the Pirates, namely the rotation and the Bautista/Castillo stuff. Anyways, you can listen below or download it straight to your computer at Steeltown Mike's site.
Big thanks to Mike for having me on the show, as you guys have probably guessed I'm happy to talk about the Bucs to anyone that will listen and it was great to get some time over the airwaves. I was especially happy when Mike mentioned the big negative run differential over the 37-35 second half last year.
Three more cuts today, Youman, Burnett, and Gryboski. Burnett needs more time in AAA no matter how good he's looked this spring (he's got to prove he's past the point he was at last year) and Gryboski is just a roster filler. Youman is a bit more surprising. I thought between the way he pitched in September and the way he's pitched this spring, he'd be a lock for the team assuming Grabow starts the season on the DL. If that situation does play out, will Jim Tracy really open the season with Damaso Marte as his only lefty in the pen? Or will we have to endure Juan Perez?
I probably should've posted this last night because it's a little late now, but if you've got nothing to do between 12 and 12:30 (that's of the noon variety) today I'm going to be on Steeltown Mike's radio show, Steeltown Sports: Live on WMBS Uniontown: 590 AM to talk some Buccos. If you miss it, Mike usually posts the audio on his site, which I will certainly relay along.
Before we all make a huge deal about Jose Bautista being named the starting third baseman, maybe we should consider whether or not Freddy Sanchez will even be playing on Opening Day, no? It's certainly starting to become an issue.
Here's a pretty surprising move, the Pirates have actually gone ahead and made a rather significant move this spring by benching Jose Castillo and putting Jose Bautista into the starting lineup as the third baseman. I had assumed the Bucs were going through the motions with the pre-season "competition" at the spot, but apparently they really are going to start Bautista. This really throws a wrench into filling the past few spots, Tracy may have kept Jose K off the team in favor of Bautista but I doubt he'll keep Castillo as his primary utility guy. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
I don't know how many of you guys still get/read Sports Illustrated, but this year with each team preview they have a little blurb about the best blogs and a link to go vote for them. And so I was kind of blown away to open SI this week, turn to the Pirate preview like I do every year, and see "Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke" in freaking print. Also, Bucco Blog, Honest Wagner, and OnlyBucs.net got mentioned, so congrats to them as well because I'm fairly certain the guys in charge of those sites probably reacted in a similar manner to me. Anyways, the link to vote for the thing is here, and I of course encourage you click on over and vote if you're into that kind of thing and you like my blog because, well, if you guys didn't read it cool stuff like this would never happen (read: thank you). And if you've only found your way here because of the SI article, then by all means click around and hopefully you'll like what you see.
Tony Armas Jr. had another solid outing against the Blue Jays today, giving up 2 runs in five innings, though he did walk three batters. Still, it was against mostly Blue Jay starters, so I'd say that it's a pretty solid effort for a fifth starter. Brad Eldred provided all of the offense with a three run homer, his first since early in the month. The box score says Brian Bixler played. That's weird. I thought he got cut.
This article makes me angry in so many different ways that I honestly don't even know where to start with it.
Instead, I think I'll just focus on the thought of Tony LaRussa being arrested for a DUI by undercover cops and just smile a little about it. I'm probably lucky that happened before I woke up this morning so that I wouldn't have to try and be at least somewhat partial about it for the Fanhouse because I'm not certain that's possible. I hate that jackass.
Freddy Sanchez must equal or at least approximate his 2006 season.
This is the eighth part of a running season preview in which I look at things that I think have to happen in order for the Pirates to be a decent baseball team in 2007 and decide how likely I think they are to happen. Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, and Part 7 here.
Freddy Sanchez had what most people would probably call a career year in 2006, winning the NL Batting Title and hitting .344/.378/.473. Unfortunately, the Pirates' offense this year isn't good enough for Freddy's 2006 to be a career year. He's going to bat third and chances are pretty damn good that for at least a month or so he's going to be the only person in front of Adam LaRoche and Jason Bay that can get on base with any kind of regularity at all, so he's going to have to do it.
I've looked at Freddy's 2006 in the context of his minor league numbers before, so I'm not going ot waste too much time on that this time around. Instead, I want to look at little closer at what he did last year and how much can be classified as luck vs. how much we can expect to to carry through. I'll start by saying that these two Beyond the Box Score pieces that ran at mid-season last year are the basis for what I'm looking at right now, just to give credit where credit is due. Let us continue.
To start with, Freddy lead the NL with a line-drive percentage of 27.5% last year. Those BtBS pieces place the league average around 15%, so it's pretty clear that Freddy was above average last year. The two guys right behind him were Miguel Cabrera and Todd Helton. If you look at their career numbers at their links, their LD% is pretty consistent throughout their careers. Freddy's was a still very good 23.3% in 2005. So there you go, Freddy is a line drive machine and that probably won't change. That's good. But LD% is certainly not a predictor of batting average and it's not even a predictor of a good hitter- Adam Dunn and Jack Wilson (!) were the next two hitters behind Helton.
So let's move along, Freddy had a BABIP of .370, good for second in the NL behind Cabrera. That's an obscenely high BABIP (average is generally around .290), but Cabrera, who as we just said has always had a high line drive percentage, hasn't had a BABIP below .340 in the past three years. Helton, who we said the same thing about, had a BABIP of .321 last year (still above average) and was above .350 the two years before that.
Still, it's not a fair conclusion to draw that because Helton and Cabrera hit lots of line drives and have a high batting average on balls put in play that Sanchez will have to repeat his past season. That's because I think we all would agree that we're kidding ourselves if we think Freddy Sanchez is on the same level as a hitter as Miguel Cabrera or even an aging Todd Helton. Both of those guys have a lot more power than Sanchez (remember that despite his fairly gaudy .474 SLG, Freddy only slugged .423 after the break) does and they both are much more patient at the plate. Really, the only thing they have in common are line drive percentages, BABIP, and high batting averages.
So what does it mean for Freddy in 2007? ZiPS puts him at .306/.348/.432 and PECOTA at .298/.344/.425. I think those are both a bit low, I think he could easily come in around .320/.350/.440, though I wouldn't count on a whole lot more than that. The problem with that is that even at those levels he's not the third dynamic hitter the Pirates need, he's just a good hitting second baseman
So... that Matsuzaka guy... pretty impressive. Gorzy started for us and from the boxscore he seems like he was pretty good through four before losing it in the fifth. Then again, five walks in less than five innings is never, ever good. Anyone that saw the game care to comment on Gorzo?
Season Preview Part 8 will be up tonight. For reals.
Buried under a fluffy story about Daisuke Matsuzaka pitching at McKechnie in Paul Meyer's notebook today is this:
Paul Maholm, who was to start the game at McKechnie Field, instead pitched in a minor-league game at the Pirates' minor-league complex. Sean Burnett started against the Tigers, primarily because the coaching staff wanted to evaluate him more closely.I dunno if I'm buying that. As azibuck notes in the comments below, Maholm has only pitched 7 and 2/3 innings this spring and that's worrisome. Also worrisome is this note, also in the bottom of the notebook:
Freddy Sanchez, continuing his rehab from a sprained right knee, took at-bats in a minor-league game for the first time. "I'm hoping to get as many at-bats as I can," he said before leaving for the minor-league complex. "I need these." Sanchez still hasn't been cleared to run or play in the field.Sanchez's "minor" knee injury was 16 days ago.
You guys are already all over it in the comments, but it certainly seemed like Paul Maholm was slated to start a spring training game today and ended up not taking the mound. Sean Burnett pitched rather ably in his absence, but it's a rather strange thing since none of the game recaps mention anything about it at all. Perhaps I'm misremembering that Maholm was scheduled to start today, but since a couple people have already pointed it out in the comments, I don't think so. I'll have more when I figure it out.
Neil Walker and Brian Bixler were both sent back to minor league camp this morning. They're expected to begin at AA and AAA respectively. They actually both had pretty good springs with the big club. Andrew McCutchen is still in camp. If that lasts much longer, people are going to start mentioning him as a darkhorse to make the team, even though Dave Littlefield has said otherwise. That's the first time I've heard him mentioned in conjunction with AAA though.
Also, the Pirates have banned smoking completely from PNC Park this season.
The Stats Geek writes again this week and even drops a blogger mention into his column, mentioning the Bucs Dugout for being "meticulously fricasseed" by Charlie. Of course, that's what we're here for. His column this week goes further into what the Bucs have to do if they're planning on winning this year.
I know I promised more today, but that was before I knew that today was NL Central preview day at the Fanhouse. I've already done the Brewers, Cardinals, Astros, and Cubs with the Pirates and Reds yet to come and I'm rather happy with how they've turned out. I'll give you the last two links as I write them.
UPDATE: The Pirates and Reds season previews are live at the Fanhouse as well. The Pirates one is depressing, but you were probably already expecting that.
Let's see, we've also got a Pittsburgh Pirate Roundtable that I actually remembered to turn in a response to, so you can check that out.
You can also keep an eye on the Sportsocracy blogger NCAA pool, in which I have shot up through the ranks in the second round of the tourney and am within four points of first place on.
Ian Snell threw five scoreless innings today. That's good. Snell doesn't do half speed. I'm ready for the season to start and so is he, apparently.
Oh, and here's something incredibly important: Tom Gorzelanny gave up beer for Lent. Glad I know that now.
I need to click the little "Save As Draft" button at the bottom of this stupid blogging program more often. I was 2/3rds of the way through a Season Preview post when my Firefox crashed, as it has been wont to do lately. I am unsure why it's doing this, though I suspect it has something to do with having very little free memory on my computer, though I'm too lazy at the moment to find out. Anyways, I'll rewrite the season preview post because I really liked it and felt like it was getting somewhere, but can't do it tonight because I'm a bit worn out after a full weekend of celebrating St. Patty's Day and the NCAA Tournament. Still, I hate leaving a full day without a post when there's no exceedingly good reason for me to do so, so instead I'm going to rip into some Paul Meyer drivel. Why? Because it's easy and because crap like this freaking drives me up the wall. And maybe because I'm tired and just a little ill-tempered after losing a post in the manner that I did ten minutes ago.
The premise of the offending article is that the Pirates will win this year because potentially 14 of the 25 men on the active roster will have played together in the minors. Read these three paragraphs:
The fact so many players came up relatively together through Bradenton in the Gulf Coast Rookie League and the New York-Penn League and the South Atlantic League and the Carolina League and the Eastern League and the International League has produced a bond that will foster winning.That sharing dorm rooms and bus rides and, uh, reasonably priced motel rooms and trials and tribulations will have forged special alliances that will triumph over all other National League teams.
And that winning some championships together in the minor leagues ultimately will bring home a National League Central Division title to PNC Park.
They're written not as a theory, but as a foregone conclusion. This is a load of crap and it is so for several reasons. Minor league success does not translate into major league success. Adam Hyzdu may be the Mayor of Altoona, but he'll never be more than a middling major leaguer. Perhaps he just didn't have enough people he'd shared McDonalds and Comfort Inn rooms with to cut it in the bigs, but I'd imagine it cuts deeper than that. Second off, everyone knows that the Pirates system is NOTORIOUS for stacking teams with career minor leaguers to pump up team numbers. Behind Tom Gorzelanny and Sean Burnett, the playoff bound Indiapolis Indians trotted out guys like Marty McLeary, Britt Rheames, Brandon Duckworth, Ryan Vogelsong, Jason Roach, and Nerio Rodriguez in the rotation last year. Yurendell DeCaster and someone named Raul Gonzalez lead the team in at-bats. Altoona went to the playoffs, too. Only one of the top ten players in PAs on the team was under 24 (Javier Guzman was a victim of VISAgate, leaving only Bixler).
You get the point. Everyone knows that both Altoona and Indiapolis were older than the freaking Marlins last year. This isn't a recent occurance. Josh effing Bonifay played on the Curve for three years, from the ages of 25-27. This is a minor league system so thin that when we traded Brent Lillibridge away most informed Pirate fans were up in arms because he was one of our best prospects. Not to rain on Lillibridge's parade, but Cal Ripken Jr. he is not.
I made a guest appearance on the Sportsocracy podcast. We open up talking some Pirates, shift to Pete Rose, and then move on to some other subjects I didn't talk about as much because I didn't want to sound like an idiot. It was a bunch of fun and I think it's a pretty good listen if you've got an hour to kill.
Speaking of Pete Rose, yours truly talks about him here at the Fanhouse. And while we're at it, I talk about Andrew McCutchen's impressive spring here.
I'm helping bring up the rear of the Sportsocracy Pittsburgh Celebrity Blogger NCAA Tournament Pool. But it's still early. Or something.
Oh wait, that's all I got. Go watch basketball and drink some beer, green or otherwise. I won't judge you, I promise.
If I didn't know better, I'd think that Dave Littlefield personally insulted the Castro family over the winter and has promised them to trot out the majors first all-Cuban rotation in 2008 or 2009 as penance. Now it appears the Pirates have their sights set on Alay Soler, a Cuban defector who spent part of last season with the Mets. According to the Cube, Soler started last season in the NY-Penn League and dominated up through AA before struggling a bit in AAA Norfolk and with the Mets (though one of his eight starts with the Mets was a complete game shutout). You can read a little more about Soler at the FanHouse (gratuitous self-promotion: I wrote about Brian Bixler over there earlier in the week and neglected to link here... I am rather proud of bringing Brian Bixler to America). From what I read there, I'm not terribly excited.
Also in the NY-Daily News link (the first one), there is some talk of a rather impressive Oliver Perez exhibition start in which he struck out 9 Red Sox in five innings and had what he called "his 2004 slider." Excuse me while I go puke.
Hat tip to Cory for the link in the comments. He's also already posted about this at the Lumber Company.
I don't know if the sports photo editor or whoever does the pictures for the Pirates articles has a sense of humor, but I have to assume that he or she does. In today's Pirate Notebook, Paul Meyer (could you tell Paul Meyer was back?) writes about Jack Wilson's day in the field yesterday with typically glowing intangible descriptions:
Wilson had eight assists, most of them of the highlight reel variety, in the six innings he played in the Pirates' 13-1 win against Cincinnati in the first half of a day/night doubleheader against the Reds, who won the second game, 3-2, in Sarasota.Of course since very few people saw the game, we'll just have to take Paulie's word for it. But that's not what amuses me. What amuses me is the picture right next to the article of Jack "batting." It looks like he's about to get hit in the face with the pitch. Flowing subjective praise, poor objective results. Jack Wilson in a nutshell.
One of the Joses must be a useful baseball player.
This is the fourth part of a running season preview in which I look at things that I think have to happen in order for the Pirates to be a decent baseball team in 2007 and decide how likely I think they are to happen. Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, and Part 6 here.
I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. One of the spots in the Pirates line-up will be filled by a player named Jose. Both of them could be good and actually were good at various points last year. Both of them could also be bad and were quite bad at most points last year. The Pirates need one of them to step up and be some kind of consistent offensive performer if they're hoping to have some kind of offense that approaches average this year. The question is, is it possible?
Let's look at 2006 first. Jose Castillo was literally one of the worst regular players in all of baseball from June through the end of the season. No joke. He was also 23 runs below average in the field. Simply put, I have no idea why Castillo comes into the season as the incumbent for the last spot in the starting lineup. He has not earned it. Bautista got off to a good start with the Pirates, but also tailed off badly from mid-July onwards. Clearly, relying on either of these players to be any kind of offensive contributor is a poor strategy.
So let's look at the projections. PECOTA puts Castillo at .264/.314/.403 and Bautista at .259/.338/.436. Those are pretty similar to the ZiPS projections I used in January to analyze the lineup, though PECOTA is a bit more bullish on Castillo. When I used Baseball Musings' lineup tool to break things down with the ZiPS, the difference between the two was 20 runs over the course of the season. That's pretty significant. Still, maybe we can assume that there was some kind of outside factor affecting Castillo's play last year. He was certainly overweight and is claiming personal problems had him down. To the naked eye, he does look slimmer this spring, but it's mostly impossible to judge if he's fixed the fatal flaw in his swing (screw it, his whole swing was the fatal flaw last year) in only 20 ABs.
There are several problems here. First off, a good team simply shouldn't have to rely on either one of these two as a power source. Unfortunately, a team that employs Chris Duffy, Jack Wilson, Ronny Paulino, and (to a lesser extent) Freddy Sanchez has to get power from somewhere and Bautista and Castillo are both more likely to provide home runs than any of the guys in the above group. It's also insane that someone that had the second half that Castillo did comes into camp as the incumbent (and I do think he did no matter what Tracy or Littlefield said). That either happened because the team holds Castillo too highly in regard (quite possible) or they thought something happened last year that kept him from performing (less likely, I think). I think Bautista is the better hitter of the two. They seem to have similar power but Bautista actually knows how to take a pitch. They're also of similar age, Bautista is exactly 5 months older than Castillo.
The Pirates like to pretend that defense is a huge divider between the two (in favor of Castillo), but I don't think it is. Bautista was about average at third and in center last year while Castillo was awful at second (though he can be expected to be about average this year, I think). Freddy Sanchez will be good at second or third, I don't think he's the issue here.
So what to do? I think Bautista is the best option for the team, but I think the Pirates disagree. Even Bautista is not a great option for the type of player the Pirates need. As I said before, counting on either to be consistent is probably a poor choice because there's really little proof that either can be consistent at all.
Since I know everyone's mind will be on basketball this afternoon, here are two quick links for this morning.
I can tell by the comments that this article put Don Kelly in everyone's mind. Even with his great spring, I'm not really convinced Kelly is a terribly useful player for the Pirates this year. In order to make the team he's going to have to really leave an impression on Tracy because he's got beat out Tracy's man-crush Jose K.
Also, Tracy announced that Zach Duke will be the opening day starter this year, though he made no indication who will start the home opener the next week.
Time for a new poll. As we get closer to opening day, I'm going to try something different on the poll front. Instead of your typical "I ask a question, you pick an answer" type thing, I'm giving you the eight guys most likely to end up on the Pirates bench this season and asking you to play Jim Tracy and pick five for the Opening Day roster. If you don't want to pick five, you don't have to, but you're not getting your money's worth that way.
Andrew McCutchen poll results are here.
In a game that was a pretty decent match-up of potential starting lineups, both Ian Snell and Zach Duke had good outings against the Red Sox today. Duke pitched four innings and only allowed 2 runs on 3 hits, while Snell went for 3 hitless innings later in the game with 4 K's and only one walk. It's nice to see Duke pitch well this spring after a tough spring last year that he kind of carried into the season. On the downside, Brad Eldred whiffed four times against a Boston Red Sox pitching staff that was decidedly not as "opening day-esque" as the lineups in this one were. The Bucs did win 3-2, buoyed by a go-ahead Neil Walker homer in the seventh. You can find the boxscore here.
I've done my share of complaining about the stupid spring training caps and uniforms, but now that I've seen Matt Capps in them, I want to scratch my eyes out. I know every team has to wear this shit, but come on, how can anyone take us seriously looking like that?
The Stats Geek writes today about the Pirates in comparison to the rest of the NL Central and how they don't appear to stack up too badly when considering the team records after April 30th. I'm not really a huge fan of this comparison, to be honest because I think the talk about the weak division probably severely underrates the Cardinals. I do realize this is a bit of a departure from what I've said about the Cardinals in the past, but watching the NFL playoffs this winter made me think about things a little differently. Everyone has already made the Colts/Cardinals parallel, but it's really there. The Colts have been a fantastic team the past couple years that couldn't get over the hump for one reason or another. Faced with a weak division this year, they rested players and coasted into the playoffs to be prepared for what was really important, the playoffs themselves.
After the games on September 19th, the Cardinals stood at 80-69, seven games up on the division and with the second best record in the National League. That record put the Cards on pace for about 87 wins, not a ton of wins but enough that no one would've batted an eye if they won a World Series with that total. The Cards then dropped 9 of their last 12 and when coupled with a huge rush from Houston, almost lost the division. But they didn't lose it and we all know what happened next. But in those 12 games, what happened? Edmonds was being rested (he didn't play at all), other starters were being rotated around, LaRussa was being careful with the pitching staff, and of the nine losses, four came by one run. My point? The Cards clearly had another goal in mind and coasted into the finish. They miscalculated and it nearly cost them everything, but I think they were better than an 83 win team last year.
So where is this headed? Well, I think the Cards are pretty close to the same 87 win team they were last year. We can laugh all we want about their rotation, but Suppan and Weaver were not impressive at all during the regular season last year and there's no reason to think that the rotation won't be better next year even though it may include Kip Wells and Braden Looper. As the Geek notes, the Astros and Reds may not have gotten much better, but the Brewers and Cubs have, either by addition or maturation. The Pirates have improved, but I still think that last year's second half represents a best case scenario for the team, playing lucky and over their head to finish around .500. I don't think 83 wins takes the division this year.
The last time the Central was as bad as it was last year was the freakshow year of 1997 when the Astros won the division with 84 wins and the Pirates finished second with 79. In 1998 the Astros won 102 games and the Cubs and Cards both finished over .500. In 2005 the Padres won the NL West with 82 wins, in 2006 they tied with the Dodgers for the division lead (they won on a tiebreaker, the Dodgers were the Wild Card) with 88 wins and every other team in the division won 76 games. Just because things were bad one year doesn't mean they will be the next.
Tony Armas Jr. continued in his quest to make me sound like a blathering idiot (admittedly, not all that hard to do) by turning in his third solid outing of the spring, today going 4 strong innings against the Indians in which he only allowed one hit, a home run to Ryan Garko. If there's only one rotation spot open this spring, I've got to think Armas has it pretty much locked up at this point, though I suppose there's still a lot that can happen. The Buccos won today 6-1 against the Tribe and you can see the full box score here.
I think it's a fair question after yesterday's outing. Both he and the team have said his elbow is not an issue (remember he went on the DL with some stiffness or something at the end of the year last year, then the team strangely brought him back for a start or two in September) this year, but Jim Sullivan is hearing whispers that say otherwise in Bradenton. I haven't heard anything from either of the papers or the Pirates yet, but my ears are open.
Combine those whispers with his performance so far this spring and yeah, I'm a little nervous about Gorzo in 2007. He got rocked in the first inning yesterday, though he did throw much better in his second two innings. There's no report on his velocity in the PG, but needless to say I'm just a little on edge about Gorzelanny at the moment, especially with the quiet and slow way that Paul Maholm is being brought along this spring.
Jeromy Burnitz has learned what Joe Randa already knew: if the Pirates don't want you, you're career is probably over. Burnitz took a lot of crap last year, but the truth is that he played pretty much exactly like we should've expected him to. We simply should've never signed him in the first place. Add him to Randa, Chris Stynes, and the numerous other players who have come to the Pirates in the past 10 odd years and never played anywhere else ever again.
I've got a couple links from earlier in the week I've been meaning to share but kind of forgot.
First up is Deadspin's Pirates' Season Preview, written by Mondesi's House. It's a rather painful read for Pirate fans, but you'll get a chuckle or two out of it.
And in a very cool story, the Devil Rays (as in team president Matthew Silverman) put in the highest bid on "free agent blogger" Manny Stiles, who was auctioning off his blogging services for a donation to pediatric AIDS research.
The Bucs play twice today, the first game is at nowish with Zach Duke facing off against the Braves. This lineup features Xavier Nady, Brad Eldred, and Andrew McCutchen.
Today's thesis statement: For the love of God, could we just be average on defense?
This is the fourth part of a running season preview in which I look at things that I think have to happen in order for the Pirates to be a decent baseball team in 2007 and decide how likely I think they are to happen. Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, and Part 5 here.
We all know the Pirates defense was bad last year. Perhaps the best way to quantify it is to remember that the three Pirate starters who pitched all year (Snell, Duke, and Maholm) all among the ten worst BABIP rates in the majors last year. According to BP 2007 (which I finally got my hands on, it should've come last Friday but the mail at Duquesne is always a day slow and I left for break before it got delivered, but I have it now so it's all good), the Pirates were the first team to do that since the 1995 Astros. So let's continue with the BP 2007 thought process and look at the starting defensive players and their Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) for last year and their PECOTAs for next year.
C- Ronny Paulino- 1 FRAA in 2006, 3 FRAA projected in 2007
1B- Adam LaRoche- 8 in 2006, 2 projected in 2007
2B- Jose Castillo- (-23) in 2006, (-5) projected in 2007
3B- Freddy Sanchez- 15 in 2006, 7 projected in 2007
SS- Jack Wilson- 8 in 2006, 8 projected in 2007
LF- Jason Bay- 12 in 2006, 5 projected in 2007
CF- Chris Duffy- (-6) in 2006, (-1) projected in 2007
RF- Xavier Nady- 1 in 2006, (-4) projected in 2007
So yeah, that looks like a pretty average defense to me, at least using FRAA. That seems about right, Wilbur Miller posted a study of the Bucs' defense at OBN a while back and concluded that it was actually downright decent down the stretch without Sean Casey (-2 last year), Jeromy Burnitz (-7), Nate McLouth (-4 in about half as many games as Duffy in center, though Duffy was statistically no huge improvement and then again Jose Bautista came in at 3 runs above average in center for the Duffy-less total to clock in a -1 in about an equal amount of games), and Craig Wilson (-3 at first base) in the field. The biggest improvement has to come from Jose Castillo though. If he can improve as much as BP expects, that's almost two wins right there.
The problem lies in the pitching staff combined with the defense. The Pirates, save Snell, just don't strike that many people out. Duke, Maholm, and even Gorzelanny allow a lot of balls to be put into play. That type of pitching staff requires a good defense behind it, not just an average one. Still, the young pitchers managed to do fairly well last year even with an awful defense behind them. If the defense can just dial things up to "average" in 2007, the results might be fairly noticeable.
Most of you are discussing this already in the comments, but better to post it late than never: the Pirates have released Jody Gerut today and announced they'll give Brad Eldred a shot in the outfield. As bad as the 2006 trading deadline was, Jody Gerut is pretty much Dave Littlefield's ineptitude in a nutshell. At the 2005 deadline, Matt Lawton was by far the biggest name available. Despite his lunacy in the field, he was hitting .274/.380/.433 at the time of his trade from the Buccos. All Dave Littlefield could get in return was an outfielder that was well-known to be damaged goods. Gerut played in four (4!) games for us before deciding his knee hurt and that he was going to sit out until 2006. Then in 2006 he decided he'd rather suit up for Hitler than a team with Dave Littlefield at the helm. Now he's gone. Just another stellar Pittsburgh Pirate career.
As for Eldred in the outfield, well, I'm happy that the Pirates are thinking a little outside the box on the this one, but forgive me if I fail to see how this will be an incredibly useful move. We actually need an outfielder like Gerut, a lefty with a little bit of pop in his bat, more than we need Eldred, who matches Xavier Nady's skill set pretty closely: a righty with pop but questionable on-base skills and not particularly great at hitting right handed pitching. I suppose if it gets him on the team in a pinch hitting role, I should be greatful. Watching him play outfield should be priceless though. I imagine it will be kind of like watching Adam Dunn play outfield blindfolded and with his shoe laces tied together.
The Pirates actually won a spring training game today, beating the Twins 5-2. Tony Armas Jr. and Marty McLeary each threw three solid innings and gave up a run apiece and the stars at the plate were not people that will particularly impact the Pirates this season with Mike Ryan homering and driving in three runs and Don Kelly and Mike Edwards picking up the other ribbies. Jason Bay was 0-for-3, but it was his first appearance of the spring. I'd hope we can keep the "Bayrod" comments to a minimum (kidding, guys). And now that we've got a win, I can go back to paying attention to these games at my own leisure.
I generally don't like Spring Training, if you haven't guessed that yet. It's long and the only things I ever read are "depends on the severity" and "twinge in the elbow" and things of that nature. Management rarely lets spring performances change their minds in any real manner, so the whole month just kind of feels like a waste. But there's one thing that could keep me going: the thought of Brad Eldred playing outfield. Now that I would pay to see. I can't imagine that the organization that despised Craig Wilson's outfield play will let it happen, but a man can dream.
Today: Tony Armas Jr. takes the mound again and the Bucs again look for their first win of the spring. And judging from the line-up, Jason Bay will take his first cuts in a game as DH today, which is good news. I know these games don't count, but can we win one or two, please? It would really make everyone feel better about this whole thing.
The Bucs made their first cuts today, though no one surprising has been sent down. John Van Benschoten, Brian Bullington and Yoslan Herrera are probably the biggest names on the list, but due to injuries or general inexperience, everyone expected these guys to start in the minors anyways.
Meanwhile, Freddy Sanchez left today's exhibition game with a knee injury that doesn't appear to be severe. And yeah, I'm shamelessly using this as a reminder to check out the stuff going on at the MLB FanHouse, both my stuff and the stuff the other writers are doing over there.
One of the fun parts of spring is trying to guess who the last couple roster spots will go to. Every year a couple guys really shine in Bradenton and give the Pirates no choice but to bring them along for the ride, even when no one saw it coming. Last year it was Nate McLouth. This year, Brad Eldred is shaping up to be that guy. So let's break down the roster as it looks right now and try to figure out who's definitely coming north, who should be coming north, and who actually will be making the trek to PNC.
Definitely in: Jason Bay, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, Jose Bautista, Jose Castillo, Chris Duffy, Ronny Paulino, Adam LaRoche, Xavier Nady (we'll assume he's healthy enough by the end of March given his fairly quick return), Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, Salomon Torres, John Grabow, Damaso Marte, Matt Capps, Tony Armas Jr.
That's eighteen guys right there, leaving seven roster spots, probably three for the bullpen and four for the field (assuming a 12 man pitching staff).
The bullpen- I think we can fill this one in first, because it's less likely to leave controversy. I would guess the team will keep one of two between Shane Youman and Marty McLeary to fill the White Flag role on the team. I'd guess Youman if I was forced to hazard a guess. If BP Chacon doesn't make the rotation (and he won't), I'm guessing he'll be cut to save his salary and because he was a rather bad reliever in Colorado when they tried him in that role. From there, I'd imagine Sharpless, Bayliss, Kolb, and maybe Rogers and Juan Perez will fight it out for the last spot or two, we'll assume two for these purposes. I would guess Sharpless and probably Kolb. Sharpless because he's the local guy and Kolb because he's got good veteran-osity, though someone will have to be removed from the 40-man for Kolb.
The bench- We've already got Bautista assured of a spot on the bench. That's because Castillo will start, no matter what happens this spring. Next up is back-up catcher. Jim Tracy will carry someone other than Ryan Doumit. I can almost promise you this. So you can pick your poison from Diaz, Cota, and Maldanado. They're the same player under three different names. If we carry a back-up catcher not named Doumit, Doumit is going to have to fight for a spot. That means we've got three spots left and Doumit, McLouth, Matos, Hernandez, and Eldred to take them. We know Tracy will want to take Jose K and it's a good bet that he'll take Matos for his right handed grittiness. If that happens, either Doumit or McLouth starts the year in AAA and I murder someone. I'm hoping for more along the lines of what Dejan and Charlie want to see, Bautista in Jose K's role, Doumit as the sole back-up catcher, then Matos, McLouth, and Eldred all on the bench. Eldred can get some ABs against left-handed pitching, Matos and McLouth can spell people in the outfield, and Bautista and Doumit can play supersub, with Doumit mostly held for pinch hitting since he's the back-up catcher and has hamstrings made of glass. Will common sense prevail? I don't want to think about it.
The Fifth Starter and Beyond
Once upon a time I started writing a drawn out season preview. This is the fifth part of it and hopefully more will be coming in a timely fashion. Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here.
The Pittsburgh Pirates had rotation problems in 2006. This is not a shocking statement by any means at all. The biggest rotation problem did not arise from having Victor Santos or Shawn Chacon as the fifth starter for most of the season, because almost everyone has a Santos or Chacon filling that role for the better part of the season. The problem came in that for the better part of the season the fourth starter was Oliver Perez, Kip Wells, Santos, or someone of the same ilk. There was only a short part of the season in which the Pirates could trot out Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Ian Snell, and Tom Gorzelanny as their top four starters, as they hope to do this year. If they are successful in that endeavor, it doesn't much matter who the fifth starter is. The problem is that I don't think it's incredibly likely that those four will be able to go the whole year without getting hurt. So let's look at the guys we'll be rotating through the fifth spot and hopefully nowhere else in 2006. Linked to their names are pertinent stats that I may randomly cite, either Baseball Cube or Baseball Reference depending on level of experience.
Tony Armas Jr.- Tony goes first because he's pretty much a lock for the five slot in the rotation. He's also probably the best pitcher out of the group I'm about to look at, so there's that. I don't think Armas is as good as people like to make him out to be, but he'll probably give us an ERA+ of 80 or better over 100-150 innings. Maybe if he's healthy he can exceed that level, but counting on it isn't too wise.
Shawn Chacon- BP is a little more complex. Insanely, I think his ceiling might be a little higher than Armas' (I can't believe I said that), but his floor is much lower. Just two years ago he had an ERA+ of over 100 for a full season between Colorado and the Yankees, though I think his knee issues will probably prevent him from ever reaching that level again. I'm interested to see how he performs in the bullpen, he saved 35 games one year in Colorado but had an ERA+ of 71. I don't know how well his, umm, skills translate to the pen. I guess we'll see.
Sean Burnett- The first "former top prospect" on this list, Burnett flew through the minors, pitched fairly well with the Pirates, blew out his arm, missed all of 2005, and pitched pretty poorly in 2006 with Indianapolis. He might be an option in 2007, but I think he's really got to prove himself over an extended period of time in Indy before he's considered for the rotation in Pittsburgh.
Shane Youman- I've written about Youman in the past, he doesn't seem to have much on the ball and he's got fairly poor peripherals, but he's got a good minor league record and is surprisingly good at getting people out without striking them out. I don't think he'll be a very good long-term starter, but I think he'd be acceptable as a spot starter and long relief guy.
John Van Benschoten- Ahh, former top prospect #2. Also flew through the minors, though less impressively than Burnett did. He pitched very little last year, but he did make some good starts in Indy and Altoona on his way back last year before being shut down again at the end of the year. I'd say he's a longshot at best to spend any time in Pittsburgh this year and if he does, well, things probably aren't going well.
Brian Bullington- He's an odd case. He kind of slogged through the minors without putting up any kind of impressive numbers at all, then suddenly threw things together in 2005 with Indianapolis and looked quite impressive at AAA. Then he came to Pittsburgh, made one appearence, got hurt, and hasn't really pitched at all from then until this spring. He's even less likely than Van Benschoten to pitch in Pittsburgh next year. If you find him in our rotation in August, we're probably on pace for about 53 wins.
Marty McLeary- The feel-good story of the end of 2006 was definitely McLeary, the career minor leaguer who used a September call-up from Indy to make two good starts and get his first two big-league wins. He was actually very good in AAA last year though his minor league track record is not great. He can probably fill the Ryan Vogelsong void in Pittsburgh if necessary this year, but hopefully won't have to be more than a spot starter.
The final verdict? I wouldn't want two of these guys in my rotation for any extended stretch of time. Armas, Chacon, and maybe Burnett or Youman can be serviceable fifth starters while Youman and McLeary would make decent spot starters, but counting on any of these guys for a significant contribution to the rotation is not incredibly smart. We've gotta hope the big four stay healthy because if they don't, things are going to get ugly fast.
I like to think at most points I'm a pretty self-aware kind of guy. I've got a pretty good idea of what being a Pirate fan to the extent of writing like 1000 pages on a blog about them says about me. And yet despite that self-awareness, I still manage to surprise myself from time to time. Yesterday was one of the days I managed to do that.
I came home Saturday afternoon for Spring Break. I don't have any elaborate plans for this break: I spent several weekends this semester traveling to grad school visits already and I've got some other time booked for traveling to conferences and other things, so a week at home on the couch sounds pretty good to me right now. Yesterday afternoon my dad, one of my brothers, and I decided to go see Ghost Rider. This is pretty much an annual thing at my house. Every year around this time Marvel puts out a crappy comic book movie about some fringe character that my dad, being a comic geek, gets psyched about, which in turn gets me and my brothers, being the sons of comic geeks and thus comic geeks ourselves (you can ridicule me for this in the comments but it's pretty unlikely to phase me at this point), psyched as well. Of course no one else is psyched about Ghost Rider. My mom won't go see it with my dad, my brothers are I aren't likely to convince girlfriends or even regular friends to go see it with us, and so we always end up seeing it together with no complaints because let's face it, those other people wouldn't get it anyways.
Anyways, about an hour into Ghost Rider yesterday, I had a double revelation. Those are pretty rare, I think. Watching the movie, it slowly dawned on me that I was watching the Pittsburgh Pirates of comic book movies. The premise of the whole thing is essentially sound: anyone familiar with Ghost Rider knows the potential is there for a kick-ass modern western just like building a baseball team on a base of solid young pitching. The movie has its highlights just like Jason Bay can hit 10 homers in 10 games or Freddy Sanchez can win the NL batting title. Ultimately, however, the movie and the Pirates fail for the same reason: the law of diminishing returns. You could spend, say, an extra $50 million on Ghost Rider to hire a good director, flesh out the cast with decent actors, and improve the special effects, but how much more money will that bring in the box office? As I've already mentioned, only so many people will go see Ghost Rider and that's not going to change if the movie is critically acclaimed. Batman, Spiderman, the X-Men, Superman, they're all a part of the American mythology. You can get a wife or a girlfriend or most generally uninterested people to go see that movie with you. Ghost Rider? Not so much. The Pirates are the same: they can pay for a good GM, a strong farm system, and the missing pieces, but what's the difference between 25,000 fans a night and 30,000 fans a night in terms of revenue? Not enough. In the long run, both ventures fix their problems with big name veterans likely to mail things in (Jeromy Burnitz, Nicolas Cage), flashy promotions (fireworks, Eva Mendes), and cash in on the people that were going to be there anyways.
So I said it was a double revelation. You are undoubtedly asking yourself what the second one revelation was. Well, as soon as I made the "Pirate-Ghost Rider" connection, I realized that I could be watching Citizen Kane and I'd probably be able to equate it to the Bucs. I am hopelessly doomed to a life of Pirate watching and analysis. I suppose the sooner I realize this, the easier it will be for me to accept.
Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects list is out. The Pirates have McCutchen (#13), Lincoln (#69), and Walker (#74) all on the list.
The Trib has given their much maligned Bucco Blog (not the one you're probably thinking about: this one was last actually used by Chris Kucharski for the Trib over a year ago I think) to the new Pirate beat writer, Rob Biertempfel. I don't like much that the Trib does, but I think this is a good idea (both Reds beat writers in Cincy have blogs and they're very popular). If nothing else, it gives Biertempfel a space to share an amusing story about a run-in with the Japanese media.
This was a couple days ago, but I really enjoyed Rowdy's post at HW about how much we "deserve" to see a winner.
ETA: I forgot one. Forbes has ranked all of the general manager in every sport. Dave Littlefield ranks in at 84 out of 98 with Bill Bavasi as the only MLB GM coming in below him. They used some crazy math to figure out who the best is, but I'd say it's an unreliable list since Kevin McHale came in first (via Deadspin).
I'm going to do some real stuff tomorrow, I promise.
Let's catch up on some of the recent news out of Florida and what it means for the Pirates.
The most important thing that we got to hear today was that both Xavier Nady and Jose Castillo are going to be OK. Nady's intestinal thingy was just a virus and Castillo's foot is fine. The most amusing part of the Nady injury storyline? The Cincy Post Reds' beat writer C. Trent Rosecrans somehow misinterpreted Nady's injury as "testicular" and not "intestinal." Oops.
Meanwhile, Masumi Kuwata passed Physical Challenge #1 today by pitching a perfect inning in the Bucs' 10-4 loss to the Reds. Yo Herrera got shelled in his first outing against real batters, giving up four earned runs (and five total) over two innings. This is why it's a good reason to not get excited about much that happens this spring.
Remember when Brad Eldred played in 55 games and crushed 12 homers in 208 PAs? It was only 2005, but I recall that it was a pretty good time (though there was that whole .279 OBP to consider to go with those homers). Anyways Breldred homered for the second day in a row, this time off of Mike Mussina. The Pirates still lost and Jose Castillo went down with a foot injury that needs to be x-rayed tomorrow.
The good news from the article is that Xavier Nady is back in camp and working out and seems pretty optimistic that whatever's wrong with him isn't Crohn's disease. At this point in the year, that's the most important thing to come out of today.
Writing about baseball games is why I started this blog. Being a science major and all, I can crunch numbers pretty well and being a smartass and all, I can synthesize news reports and make snarky comments about them. But the real reason I write this blog is to talk about baseball that is played on the field. That means that today is a good day: the Pirates and Braves are on ESPN. I'm not going to liveblog it because it's an exhibition game. There's only so much of it that I care about. What follows is kind of a stream of consciousness of the things that I cared about during the game.
John Kruk thinks we have a legitimate shot at the division. Steve Phillips is also here. Seriously, how do I not have their jobs by now?
John Smoltz vs. Chris Duffy. I take Smoltz every time.
Don Kelly, aka Neil Walker's brother-in-law, can't be over 13 years old.
Somehow Ian Snell still looks like a badass in those stupid spring uniforms and caps. I think Ian Snell might be my favorite Pirate. It doesn't hurt that he looks pretty good for his first start of the spring today. He did a nice job with Andruw Jones in the first.
Adam LaRoche forgot his jersey today. He's wearing a nameless #96. John Smoltz gave him a hard time about it.
Holy shit, Jose Castillo really does look thin. I think I would be able to tell him and Ronny Paulino apart just from waist size now.
Either Smoltz was in mid-season form or we were in Pirate form at the plate. He only gave up one hit in his two innings, a misplayed triple off the bat of Mike Ryan.
I've never heard of our second baseman today. Garabito? Whatever. Did I mention Jose Castillo is at third? Don't read too much into it though. Whoever Garabito is, he's cut. Andruw Jones gunned him out at the plate.
Tony Armas Jr. looks a little... how do I put this tastefully? Ronny Paulino-ish. He looks like he's throwing 89 mph grapefruits at the plate. I do not know how the Braves failed to score on him. This is not encouraging.
If Luis Matos makes the team over Nate McLouth, I will be angry. Just throwing that out there.
John Kruk makes me stupider.
Holy crap. In the fourth inning with a runner on second, Jose Castillo reached out and blooped a low and away 2 strike pitch down the right field line for an RBI double. I'm not even kidding when I say the sun just clouded over and I fear for my life (even though I'm watching the game on delay). He does manage to get doubled off second though. The sun is out again.
ESPN is showing the Sid Bream play. I hate ESPN. Gary Thorne: "And the Pirates have not had a winning season since then. That is a loooong time." I don't usually pretend to speak for all Pirate fans, but I think I do when I say, "Go f&$# yourself Gary Thorne. We know how long it is."
By some bizarre happening, my DVR just kind of skipped 40 minutes of the game between Franquelis Osoria giving up a homer to Jeff Francouer and Bryan Bullington showing up on the mound in the 7th. I'm surprised to see Bullington pitching anywhere. Also, I'm angry because it means I missed Brad Eldred taking Mike Gonzalez deep. Stupid Comcast. I am not pleased.
JOSE K! JOSE K!
Romulo! is huge. I mean, I knew the guy was tall, but he's also huge. Like Brad Eldred size. On the mound. He takes the loss in this one on a bad throw from shortstop in the 10th. Not that it matters.
I think my baseball fever is back, my friends.
Although I have no way of knowing the exact demographics of my readership here, I've got a sneaking suspicion that there are a large number of people like myself that are reading this blog. That is lazy college students with nothing better to do on a Friday afternoon than sit around their apartment and watch TV. If you do happen to fall into that category, or really any category that lets you have access to a television this afternoon, then I just want to remind you that the Pirates and Braves will be on ESPN at 1 today. My cynical nature prevents me from getting too pumped up about spring training games, but, um, I've already got the DVR set so I don't miss any of it while I'm at class (lay off, I've got a quiz). Anyways, I'll weigh back in later with some first hand observations and you can use this thread as a kind of game thread while the game is going on.
The Bucs and Reds played a game at McKechnie today with the wind blowing out and the Reds won 9-7. Here are the highlights for the Pirates:
So as we've all repeatedly noted, we know practically nothing about Yoslan Herrera except that despite all of the rave reviews we've heard about him, he seems unlikely to start the year above Altoona because of legitimate concerns about his durability. But now we know something else, he's intimidating as hell on the mound. I mean look at that picture. Do you want to bat against that guy? I don't.
Also, the Pirates and Reds are kicking off the non-manatee related exhibition games this afternoon and the game is probably on the radio, assuming you get whatever radio station they're moved to right now (I would find out, but I'm going to be running fluorescence titrations all afternoon so it's pretty inconsequential to me because no one I work with is a Pirate fan).
Posts
