The saga of Alex Rodriguez

So normally I try not to waste space here talking about FanHouse stuff because I figure that the people that want to read the site will read it and everything I do there pops up in the RSS over in the corner there, so if you only want to read what I write, you'll do it that way. The thing is, today a bunch of us over there did something that I think is so cool and awesome that I would be a negligent baseball blogger if I didn't post a link. Working with the vision of PostmanE, I bring you "Choose Your Own Rodventure: The Saga of Alex Rodriguez." If you couldn't guess, it's a take-off on all the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. I've read the whole thing, and it's awesome. I hope you've got some time this afternoon, because you're going to need it.

Links that may interest you

Shawn Chacon is filing for free agency. Apparently he'd like to come back to Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, I would like the Pirates to be good. I don't think either of us will get what we want, but if he does, I almost certainly will not. Fun aside for everyone that misses Josh Fogg: aside from win/loss record (which is terribly arbitrary), Chacon's career numbers are pretty similar to Fogg's. And he's younger!

Tony Armas is gone. Our nightmare is over.

Someone named Luis Munoz just got put on the 40-man. According to WTM's profile, he used to go by an alias. That's pretty cool, if you ask me.

Ugh, all of that reading at the dot-com gave me a headache. I wish the PG weren't in "we're not budging until Neal's budging" mode.

There's a good interview with Charlie, author of the Bucs Dugout, here.

Via BBTF, ex-Pirates' GM Ted Simmons (the man who preceded Cam Bonifay but retired due to heart trouble after a year, thanks a million, Ted) will be the Brewers' bench coach next year. He's had a bunch of small scouting jobs since he left Pittsburgh, but he's been out of the spotlight for me to be really surprised to read that he's still in baseball.

2007 Review: Tom Gorzelanny

I am going to get through these things come hell or highwater. I swear.

2006: 2.34 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 94 K, 27 BB in 100 innings at AAA Indy, 3.79 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 40 K, 31 BB in 61 and 2/3 innings in Pittsburgh
2006 rate stats: 8.46 K/9, 2.43 BB/9, 0.36 HR/9 in AAA, 5.83 K/9, 4.52 BB/9, 0.44 HR/9 in Pittsburgh
2007: 3.88 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 135 K, 68 BB, 18 HR in 201 and 2/3 innings
2007 rate stats: 6.02 K/9, 3.03 BB/9, 0.80 HR/9

It's pretty obvious that we can't use Gorzelanny's numbers from AAA last year for analytical purposes because he was just waaay too good for AAA in 2006. That being said, I think it's pretty clear that his numbers were pretty good with the Pirates in 2007. His basic line (ERA and WHIP) were pretty good from his short 2006 stint with the Pirates, but his periphals (walks and strikeouts especially) weren't great. That kind of thing is what's pretty much doomed Zach Duke to this point in his career, but Gorzelanny overcame it nicely this year. He got his K/BB ratio up to just about 2:1 this year after it sat around 5:4 with his short stint with us last year. That's a nice improvement in one year for a 24-year old.

I do have a couple concerns about him, however. Keep in mind that I'm really happy overall with his season this year and it went much better than I expected it to after his rough spring training and as I said, his peripherals were pretty good this year. Still, you can see he was pretty much a K an inning guy in the minors and a lot of his gaudy minor league stats stem from that, I think. I know that strikeouts generally come last to pitchers like him, but I don't see much in his stuff that tells me he can ramp his strikeouts up much higher than he had them this year, right around 6 K/9. It's still too early to worry about that, I think, but it is something to keep an eye on. The second thing I'm concerned about is the big one. He's got a bit of an injury history in the minors and even with his two years with the big clubs. Despite that, he put up a lot of high pitch count games this year (Wilbur Miller tracked him at 10 games with 110 or more), which is even a bigger deal because he exceeded 2006's inning total by about 40 innings this year. I guess what I'm saying is I won't be surprised at all to see him have some kind of serious arm trouble next year, and I hate saying stuff like that about players.

Tigers Get Renteria

Well, apparently a lot of us wasted a lot of internet space with all of the "Jack Wilson to the Tigers" talk because the Tigers went out and got a much better shortstop in Edgar Renteria. I don't know how much truth there really could've been to the whole "Jurrgens for Wilson" rumors because that was basically what the Braves got for Renteria.

That leaves the Neal with another choice to make. Wilson's not a terrible shortstop and he's certainly better than any other option we have in the organization, which means that trading him will leave a pretty big hole in the infield. Off-hand I can't think of any team that desperately needs a shortstop this winter (Toronto, maybe?), so this might be the end of the rumors. Probably not, though, if the roster turnover that I think is coming is actually coming.

I told you not to waste your time with Girardi

After last night's A-Rod fiasco, the Yankees have offered their manager's job to Joe Girardi. I imagine that the dictatorial, strong headed Girardi working with the dictatorial, strong headed Steinbrenners while managing a clubhouse full of overpaid prima donnas, some of whom he played with, will go very poorly, but I could be wrong. Meanwhile, Neal Huntington is almost ready to talk about thinking about talking to people he's thinking about interviewing.

Series finale?

Is tonight the end of the magical road for the Rockies? I would guess, "yes." Sorry for the lack of posting again today. We'll get back to the season review and probably manager talk tomorrow, especially if the World Series ends tonight.

The biggest night of Josh Fogg's life

The Colorado Rockies' World Series life is most certainly on the line tonight and the Rockies are turning to the one, the only, JOSH FOGG. Sweet merciful crap, they're in trouble.

Holding pattern

More about Huntington waiting for the Series to be over to start interviews. I understand wanting to talk to Farrell, but I don't understand why he hasn't talked to anyone yet. He hasn't filled any of the positions he's vacated yet and I don't even know if he's interviewed anyone to this point. This is becoming worrisome in very short fashion, if you ask me (and I know you didn't).

What Huntington has been doing is picking up Phil Dumatrait. He got lit up pretty good in his first big-league stint with the Reds' last year, though he'll only be 26 in 2008 and he's got an almost decent minor league record, so he might be better than the typical cannon fodder we're used to seeing. I know, that was a sparkling recommendation, wasn't it?

More Farrell talk

In the PG today, John Henry says nice things about purported managerial candidate John Farrell. As far as I can tell, all signs point to Farrell.

Still, keep in mind that for months before we hired Coonelly, names like Duquette were all over the place, then Coonelly came out of nowhere. And after DL was fired everyone talked about LaCava, Zduriencik, Antonetti, and the like, and Huntington came out of nowhere. Now, everyone is focused on Farrell. I won't be terribly surprised if the job ends up going to someone else, that's all I'm saying.

More World Series

Sorry for the lack of posting this week. The whole "school" thing is keeping me pretty busy and with the Pirates just kind of sitting on their hands right now, there's just not a whole lot to talk about. There is the World Series, which is trudging on even in the wake of last night's massacre. Tonight is a huge game for the Rockies, I think. I know a lot of people are talking about the Coors Field advantage, but I honestly just don't see it because I think the way the Red Sox play would fit right into Coors. Obviously the Series isn't over if the Rockies lose tonight, but I would not want to find myself down 2-0 to this Red Sox team.

The World Series

So it's finally here. Rox and Sox. The World Series. I won't lie, I remain unconvinced by the Rockies run and I'm going to be surprised if they make a series out of this. 87% of you disagree with me on this one. Tonight's game one is a bit different than usual. I'm generally of the opinion that Game 1 is the biggest game in the series, to set the tone and whatnot. In fact, every team that's won Game 1 this year has gone on to win their series, if I'm not mistaken. But tonight with Beckett on the mound, the Rockies certainly can't be disappointed if they lose. After all, no one beats the mighty Josh Beckett in the playoffs. But if they win, man, that sends a message to all the people like me out there. Similarly, the Red Sox almost have to feel like they have to win this game with Beckett on the mound. It's very bizarre to call Game 1 a must-win game for the better team in the series, but I kind of think it is. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.

Short links and stuff

Just a quick post to let you know I'm still here.

Dear Neal,

Please do something so I have something to talk about. All this talk about being ready to act bores me. Let's get on with it.

Love,
Pat

The Pirate prospects in the AFL are in Phoenix this year and you can find their stats here. McCutchen seems to be hitting pretty well and Chavez is pitching pretty well. Everyone else is kind of "eh" or worse. And once again the Bucs' prospects are sharing a team with my high school teammate, Nolan Reimold, who's in the Orioles system. But that probably only interests me.

More before the game tonight, I promise.

A WHYGAVS Quick-Poll

Despite winning 21 of 22 games, there are lots of people that don't give the Rockies much of a chance in the World Series for various reasons (long layoff, Red Sox are too good, inferior league, flash in the pan, etc.). Are the naysayers crazy? Do the Rockies have a chance? I'm only leaving this poll up until the series starts (I swear!), so vote quick and defend your vote in the comments.

2007 Review: Ian Snell

2006: 14-11, 4.74 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 169 K, 74 BB, 186 IP
2006 rate stats: 8.18 K/9, 3.58 BB/9, 1.40 HR/9
2007: 9-12, 3.76 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 177 K, 68 BB, 208 IP
2007 rate stats: 7.66 K/9, 2.94 BB/9, 0.95 HR/9

I'm not going to bother with the projections for pitchers because they're hit or miss at best and with young pitchers, I'm mostly interested in how they improved (or failed to improve) from last year to this year.

I feel like Snell got a lot better in 2007. He seemed to pitch more and throw less, if you will. But then again, he got off to a pretty bad start last year, which I think skewed his stats skyward a bit. Let's look at some time-based splits (if you haven't realized it yet, I've been using Baseball-Reference for everything I do here, the site just keeps getting better and better, it's seriously invaluable) and see how he measures up.

May 31- Sep. 26, 2006: 4.25 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 8.43 K/9, 3.44 BB/9, 1.35 HR/9
Those numbers there are actually pretty close to what he did in the full season this year, but they're not quite as good because the rate stats on the whole don't quite match-up. That means that for the full-season this year he kept the ball in the park much better and improved his K/BB ratio slightly (from 2.45 from June on last year to 2.60 this year). So when you compare his entire 2007 to the end of 2006 (which eliminates most of his really bad starts from that year), he still improved this year. Very encouraging stuff.

Pre All-Star Break 2007: 2.93 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 7.17 K/9, 2.54 BB/9, 0.69 HR/9
Now there's an impressive stretch. You put up these numbers with a contender over a full season and you've probably got yourself 16-18 wins and a top 3 Cy Young finish. I mean, that's some seriously dominant stuff there. And yet the Pirates only managed to get him a 7-5 record at the break.

Post All-Star Break 2007: 4.83 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 8.28 K/9, 3.44 BB/9, 1.28 HR/9
Besides the slightly higher WHIP and ERA (both of which can fluctuate on things the pitcher can't control, namely the defense behind him), this line is almost identical to his June-September stats in 2006. The question, I suppose, is why the sudden regression? Was he frustrated by his mediocre record in the first half and went the Kip Wells route of trying for more strikeouts at the cost of more walks and more homers? Or did hitters simply adjust to whatever he did in the first half?

A couple things are pretty clear to me through all these numbers (I don't think the other pitcher's breakdowns will be this dense, this is just how Snell worked out). Snell is the best when he's keeping the ball in the park and keeping his walks down, even if that means a slight dip in strikeouts. You'll notice that his K/BB rates were actually better in the stretches when his strikeouts dropped. The other thing he did in 2007 that he didn't do so well in 2006 that I haven't mentioned yet is get lefties out. In 2006 they hit .305/.386/.526(!) against him, while in 2007 he held them to a .284/.353/.447 line. I don't have the time splits available for righty vs. lefty and I wish I did, because I'm almost positive Snell was nearly as effective against lefties as he was against righties before the break. So that's the bottom line for Snell: keep the ball in the park, don't walk people, and get lefties out. Easy, right?

Game 7

You don't need me to tell you how big this game is tonight. Dice-K and Jake Westbrook take the mound for the right to go to the World Series. I will once again be liveblogging at least the first three innings and maybe more at FanHouse tonight (with Postman E taking over in relief so that I can keep an eye on the rare Steelers game that's on TV here as well, which is nigh impossible while liveblogging), so check that out if you've got the chance.

Sox and Indians: Game 6

We finally get a "big" playoff game tonight with Schilling and Carmona taking the mound in Game 6 of the ALCS. I'll be liveblogging this one over at FanHouse, so if you've got a chance feel free to bounce over there during the game and check it out.

Innings 1-3
Innings 4-6
Innings 7-9

Huntington is ready to look for a manager

If anyone doubted that Neal Huntington was looking at someone involved in the ALCS to fill the vacant manager's spot, today's story in the PG should pretty much take care of that.

"We're through the 'gathering' [information] process," the Pirate general manager said yesterday. "We're into the 'action' process."

Thing is, the American League Championship Series didn't end Thursday evening. And won't end until tonight at the earliest.

That impacts Huntington being able to take action.

"It sure does," he said. "Our hands are a little tied."

Everyone assumes that this probably means John Farrell is going to get an interview and it may mean Joel Skinner is getting a look. I found this passage interesting:

A team can ask for permission to interview a job candidate with another team and be granted a window of two to seven days to do that. Huntington, however, has an ethical aversion to interviewing a person who's with a team that's still playing.

What a bizarre choice of words, "an ethical aversion" to interviewing guys still in the playoffs.
If that means he's after a guy on the Indians, that also means that Huntington's priorities are misplaced. He's the GM of the Pirates now and accordingly, his loyalties should lie with the Pirates and the Pirates alone. Being the nice guy and not talking to guys that are in the playoffs seems harmless enough, but while he's stalling to talk to his favorite candidates, other managers and coaches are being taken off of the market. So what if talking to Farrell or Skinner screws with the Indians or Red Sox in the playoffs? Huntington works for neither of those organizations now.

Where have you gone, Jeff King?

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much. There's no rhyme or reason to who I pick, the only rule is that I have to remember them. I'm not actually trying to find them.

I think we can probably classify the Kinger as the very first Pirate uber-bust of the 1990s. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in making that assertion. Jeff King was picked with the very first pick in the 1986 draft. Taken behind him in the top 10 were Matt Williams, and Gary Sheffield. It's not that King was a bad player, it's just that he only had a year or two as a really good one at a time when the Pirates needed him to "the man." If you will. After Bonds and Bonilla left and Van Slyke got hurt, they needed someone to fill the void. King just couldn't do it. He'd fit in quite well with the current Pirates I think: a solid major leaguer that would make a great utility guy, but is a starter because of circumstances.

That's not to say King didn't have his bright spots. In 1993, he somehow drove in 98 runs with only 8 homers and a .403 slugging percentage. No single stat line offers more proof to people like me that RBIs are meaningless than Jeff King's 1993 season does. He did eventually turn into a decent player for the Pirates. In 1995 he hit .265/.342/.456 with 18 homers, then in 1996 he whacked 30 homers with a .271/.346/.497 line that got him traded to Kansas City with Jay Bell for Joe Randa and others. He was average there for a couple years and retired pretty young (at 34) for some reason that I don't recall, though it may have had something to do with migrane headaches (which I know bothered him throughout his career).

So basically what we have in King is a prototype for Xavier Nady, without the serious platoon splits. A guy that was a high draft pick and could play several positions that never really panned out, though people rode those draft expectations for far too long. You know what they say, time moves on but history repeats itself. Especially when the Pittsburgh Pirates are involved.

The off-season is boring

This is killing me. The stupid LCS schedule leaves us with no games again while Huntington and the front office seem to be waiting on someone from the ALCS (or the Rockies, or both) to get freed up before they start moving on the whole "rebuilding the franchise" thing. There's going to be no shortage of stuff to talk about this off-season, but none of it is going to get moving for at least two weeks and I'm an impatient person, dammit. The reviews will resume on Monday with the pitching staff and I won't forget about the "Where Have You Gone, ..." flashbacks anymore either. In fact, I'll try and get one up this afternoon if I have time since I missed it on Wednesday.

The end of the road for the Sox?

CC and Josh Beckett face off in Game 5 of the ALCS with the series on the line. As much as I'd like to see the Indians win the series, a win tonight means no baseball for five full days, which is ridiculous. Thank you, Bud Selig, for plotting my desire to watch baseball against my fan's conscience. Fun side story in this one tonight, apparently the Indians "unknowingly" brought in Josh Beckett's ex-girlfriend to sing the National Anthem.

Oh, and while we're at it, the Yankees are officially looking for a manager after Joe Torre turned them down. Wow, no one saw that coming. I wonder if the Yanks know that Jim Tracy is available...

Two links

Paul Meyer makes it sound like this whole "front office" thing is coming together. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens when the Red Sox and Indians get eliminated from the playoffs.

The 2008 ZiPS for the Bucs are up at BBTF. Umm, Josh Phelps is projected to have the second highest slugging percentage on the team, and he plays the same position as the guy projected to have the highest. More projections of interest: Steve Pearce > Xavier Nady, everyone with a glove and a pulse > Jack Wilson, Nate McLouth >> Nyjer Morgan, and Zach Duke = Ian Snell. Feel free to discuss these in the comments, just remember that these are projections and no one is setting these numbers in stone.

2007 Review: Positional Odds and Ends

Time to round up the position players on the team that don't deserve a full post for one reason or another.

Jose Castillo: The giant cloud of potential that used to make up Jose Castillo completely dispersed this year as he lost his every day job and never once resembled a good hitter. Stick a fork in this guy, I'm not even sure he's useful as a utility player right now.

Cesar Izturis: Only ever on the team because Jim Tracy has a giant man-crush on him. Just a terrible, terrible hitter. If we pick up his $5 million option for next year I will demand Huntington's resignation on the spot.

Steve Pearce: Awesome year in the minor leagues where he established himself as a legitimate prospect. Didn't fare too poorly in his short stint with the Buccos, though he didn't show much of the power that zoomed him through the minors this year (from Lynchburg to Pittsburgh). He'll probably start the year at Indy next year, though I hope they give him a fair shot at making the club and just seeing what he can do because I think he's got some considerable upside.

Don Kelly and Matt Kata: The fact that these two were on the Pirates at all and managed to get 100 PAs between them embarrasses me.

Josh Phelps: Killed the ball in limited duty as backup first baseman/third string catcher. If he had the ability to play outfield, I think he'd be really useful. As it stands, he's mostly just good for spelling LaRoche against lefties, which means he's not really useful at all. I guess he'd be a good pinch-hitter to keep on the bench or something because no one is going to want him in a trade.

Carlos Maldanado: As near as I can tell he is a real person and not a figment of my imagination.

Tim Wakefield

Ahh, the endless parade of non-Pirates... well it just won't end this postseason. Tonight Tim Wakefield takes the mound for the Red Sox against the Indians, which means that everyone gets a one night dispensation from rooting against the Red Sox to root for Wake. Anyways, I wrote a long post about Wakefield's checkered post-season history for FanHouse this evening and when it really comes down to it, Wakefield's had a remarkable run of pitching in huuuuge games in his career. That's exactly what tonight is for the Red Sox, because I don't think they can afford to fall behind 3-1 in this series against this Indians team.

2007 Review: Jose Bautista

2006: .235/.335/.420 with 16 HR, 20 2B, and 3 3B
2007 PECOTA: .259/.338/.436 with 16 HR, 27 2B, and 2 3B in 510 PAs
2007: .254/.339/.414 with 15 HR, 36 2B, AND 2 3B in 614 PAs

Seeing as Jose will turn 27 at the end of this week, I think we're at the "What you see is what you get" stage of his career. If you're not sure what that is, that's a guy that can play a few positions pretty ably, provide some decent pop, get on base, but isn't a particularly great hitter. He drew 68 walks this year, which topped the team, but his OBP was only .339. That tells me two things: he needs to hit better (he's like a bizarro Pirate with the whole on-base percentage being good but batting average really dragging it down thing), and we suck at drawing walks. Essentially, he'd be a great utility guy but since we suck, he has to start.

To further that thought a little more, he seems like a reverse Nate McLouth to me. McLouth seems to play a lot better when he starts every day and settles into the lineup. Bautista seems to take a nosedive the longer he stays in the lineup. You can read his 2006 review for the details on last year's tailspin. This year, with more playing time, he stood on June 19th with a pretty strong start and an .800 OPS. From there on out he went .229/.324/.387 over more than half of his seasonal PAs. He's just not an every day player.

In terms of trade value, I don't think he has much. I think we need to get an every day third baseman to take his place and get him on to the bench ASAP. Can you imagine how much better you'd feel with him as a late inning pinch hitter or spot starter as compared to, say, Matt Kata? That's the difference between the Pirates and everyone else. Their bench players are our starters.

Managerial rumors: John Farrell

Yes, I saw the John Farrell rumors going around yesterday and I'm sorry I didn't have time to post about them, but I'll take a little time now to discuss it.

First thought: Wonder if he's related to our early 90s first round pick Jon Farrell.
Second thought: Why the hell do I remember Jon Farrell?

On a more serious note, pitching coaches are hardly ever hired as managers. I always kind of wondered why because some pitching coaches would make good managers I think. Maybe Ray Miller ruined it for everybody. Farrell, however, is not your typical pitching coach because he worked as Indians' farm director in the past. As Charlie notes, a guy with that type of past may not be a bad choice to manage a team like the Pirates, even though it's a pretty unconventional one for a big league manager. I don't honestly know all that much about the guy, though as I noted before, I think Huntingon's inactivity on the managerial front indicates that he's got some guys still in the playoffs in his sights.

The Colorado Rockies are your 2007 NL Champs

Are you serious? I can't believe any in history has been this hot at this time of year. Waiting until next Wednesday to kick off the World Series will be absolute torture for them. Quibbling with Selig's schedule aside: holy hell this team is fun to watch. They just keep winning and winning and winning. If I was the Indians or Red Sox, I wouldn't want to play them. I'm probably going to do a bunch of Rockies FanHouse posting this week, so keep an eye out for that.

Finally, congrats to Josh Fogg and Todd Helton, among the other Rockies. Fogg has always seemed like one of those genuinely good guys that could take anything in stride, even being waived by the Pittsburgh Pirates. We can trade hundreds of posts wondering how valuable he is as a pitcher, but there's no doubting how valuable he's been to the Rockies down the stretch and there's no doubting he's a good guy. As for Helton, I'm just happy to see him get his shot in the limelight. Having watched good players like Brian Giles, Jason Kendall, and now Jason Bay squander their best years in Pittsburgh it's hard not to feel good for a guy like Helton, who's stuck with his team and is finally being rewarded for it. And of course, good luck to them in the Series, I know I'll be rooting for them.

Waay behind

Sorry for the negligent posting today.

The Bucs signed Kevin Thompson from the Yankees system today and DFA'd Matt Kata. You can say "same old, same old" if you want, but at least from his minor league stats, but to me at least, it appears that he's got some discernible on-base skills. You'll note that any type of discernible skill was lacking from the Matt Kata/Don Kelly merry-go-round last year. UPDATE: Thompson was claimed from the A's, though he was in the Yankees system before then. My bad.

Meanwhile in the playoff world the Indians are looking to take a 2-1 series lead and they hold a 2-0 lead tonight on geriatric ex-Pirate Kenny Lofton's two run homer while the Rockies are looking for a nine-day vacation with a win against the D'Backs tonight.

Josh Fogg is starting Game 3 of the NLCS

Yep, Josh Fogg is the Rockies starter for Game 3 tonight, facing off against Livan Hernandez. Just because he's starting tonight doesn't mean he's good and we should've kept him. He's still the same. I can't believe these two are starting Game 3 of an LCS.

Slow news weekend

With Dejan on vacation, football and the MLB playoffs in full swing, and the Huntington/Coonelly regime buttoned up tighter than a papal conclave, the PG didn't publish anything about the Pirates all weekend. Instead, let's go over some of the general baseball news from the past couple days that I've been slacking on.

Reds hire Dusty Baker. Homer Bailey's elbow just exploded. How anyone could hire a guy that ruined two of the best pitching prospects of the decade and says things like "Walks clog the bases" is baffling to me. I feel bad for Pete Mackanin, who did a great job with the Reds in the second half.

Leo Mazzone, fired. Anyone know a team looking for a pitching coach?

John Schuerholz steps down as Braves GM and Frank Wren takes over. That inspired this Dugout, which made me laugh out loud.

Playoff update and open thread

Anyone else get the same sinking feeling that I have after two games in the NLCS and one game in the ALCS? That both of these series are big mismatches and going to end in sweeps, making for what will have to be one of the most anticlimatic post-seasons in memory? A lot is going to be riding on Fausto Carmona's arm in game 2 of the ALCS tonight. He's got to pitch a good game to keep things interesting in at least one of the series, he's got to be a rock for the Tribe because CC looks gassed, and it would probably be a good idea if he gets David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez out a couple times (they got on base 10 times in 10 chances last night). Anyways, Carmona takes the mound at 8 tonight against Curt Schilling while the hopes of the country for an interesting series and to not have to watch a sanctimonious Curt Schilling victory press conference ride on his shoulders.

2007 Review: the Centerfielders

Chris Duffy: .249/.313/.357 with 11 2B, 3 3B, and 2 HR in 270 PAs
Nate McLouth: .258/.351/.459 with 21 2B, 3 3B, and 13 HR in 382 PAs
Nyjer Morgan: .299/.359/.430 with 3 2B, 4 3B, and 1 HR in 118 PAs

One of the most baffling "position controversies" in recent memory. Here we've got three guys that all play the same position, approximately. One (Chris Duffy) is mostly worthless. Still, the organization gave him chance after chance to play centerfield, despite a ton of evidence that he wasn't up to it. Another of the three (Nyjer Morgan) was mostly a 28-year old AAAA guy that was giftwrapped the job because he fit the bill of what the team thought a centerfielder should play like (fast, flashy glove, way way way subpar hitting skills). The third and youngest of the group (Nate McLouth) actually has some pop in his bat and really excelled in his one chance to start, but was pushed aside when a team that couldn't score runs decided it wanted more defense in center field.

Here's some food for thought: Nate McLouth lead the team in OPS for players with 350 or more plate appearances. And he did it despite the fact that on June 28th, he was hitting .218/.284/.295. From that point on, he hit .273/.373/.519 with 12 of his 13 homers in 286 PAs. He drew 36 walks (two intentional... Nate McLouth got intentionally walked twice this year, think about that) and got hit by six pitches. Basically, he found ways to get on base, he hit the ball with some pop, and he was about average in the field (BP measured him at 1 run below average). More specifically, he's got some skills that are likely to be more reproducible than the batting average heavy mirages that Chris Duffy and, more recently, Nyjer Morgan put up, especially because he got on base in the minors and did show some pop from time to time.

I suppose the handling of these three will give us a good indication of what kind of ship Neal Huntington is going to be running. Duffy will likely be gone and if Huntington can't find somewhere to ship Bay, center field will be left to McLouth and Morgan. There's really no reason not to give McLouth an extended look there, especially because he hit so much better as a starter this year than he did as a bench player. Even though he's been around for parts of three years, he won't turn 26 until the end of this month, which means there's still time for him to grow as a player. Morgan is really exciting to watch in the outfield (managing to be 8 runs above average in 28 games is a pretty difficult trick, I would imagine), but I just don't see him being useful at the plate at all over a long stretch. Still, we know he would be Tracy and Littlfield's choice every day and if that isn't a signal to play McLouth every day, I don't know what is.

Shameless plugs and name related links

Below are links to what are quite possibly my two favorite FanHouse posts:

Gritty! Scrappy! Hard-Nosed! Your Guide to NLCS Hyperbole
Dirty! Scrappy! Hustle! Grit! Your Guide to ALCS Hyperbole

Sorry to shamelessly plug myself, but I think you guys will enjoy those.

To make up for my self promotion, here's a link from the comments (thanks, J update: I'm an idiot and forgot the link before, but it's there now) about Andy Van Slyke managing the Pirates, or someone else.

Andy Van Slyke loves his job as the Detroit first base coach. He said in a Wednesday telephone interview that he is “having more fun than I ever thought I could have as a coach.” But he also has interest in managing.

Van Slyke, who made three All-Star teams during his eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, said he would be interested in talking with the Pirates about their managerial vacancy.

“I would love to manage for the Pirates, but only if they were committed to winning, like they were when I played for them,” he said.

OOOO! BURN!

2007 Review: Ryan Doumit

What's the point in quoting stats here? Doumit was having the best season of his short career (.274/.341/.472 with 9 homers and 19 doubles) when the injury bug bit him again, keeping him out of action from August 13th to the end of the season, save one game in which he managed to injure himself. After hamstring problems last year, it was wrist and ankle problems that got to him this year.

Doumit has yet to hit even 300 plate appearances in Pittsburgh in a season, which is a bit discouraging. 2007 was positive for him in that he finally hit over an extended period of time with the big club, letting him set career highs in almost every significant offensive category. He was also a bit of a revelation in right field. That's not to suggest that he was a Gold Glover out there, just that he wasn't totally awful. In fact, he probably had the best arm of anyone to play right field for us all year. Doumit's bat would play best behind the plate (even with his good year this year, his OPS was .813... it's easy to find a right fielder that can do that but it's not so easy to find a right fielder that can) but it's really hard to think that a guy that gets hurt like he does belongs back there.

There is a bit of a silver lining, however. None of his injuries are of the chronic, nagging type. That hammy did bother him a little this year, but not a whole lot given the problems he had with it in 2006. He hurt his wrist making a diving play in the field and he hurt his ankle... I don't know how he did it but it must've been trying to do something on the field. What I'm saying is that if you're optimistic, you could just say that Doumit's been really unlucky with injuries and there's a chance he'll stay healthy next year. He and Nady would make a great right field platoon because Doumit crushes righties (.282/.347/.518) the way Nady crushes lefties.

If Doumit could stay healthy for a few months in a row, he'd be a great utility/platoon guy. Kind of like Rob Mackowiak, only a little bit better in every aspect of hitting and a little less flexible in the field. Instead, he's almost never healthy and when he is, he's one of our best hitters. Not a great recipe for success.

Links

Sorry, didn't have time to write a review up last night, maybe I'll get to it later today.

The Yankees are coming to Pittsburgh next year, with or without A-Rod and Joe Torre.

If you hate yourself, check out the top 50 LCS moments of all time. Don't say I didn't warn you, though.

Someone linked this USS Mariner post in the comments yesterday. Neal Huntington is coming from an impressive line of GMs.

It's been almost a week and Huntington hasn't even started the interview process for our new manager. Chalk that one up in Joel Skinner's column (or at least someone from the Indians).

Where have you gone, Orlando Merced?

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much. I'm not actually trying to find them.

If this blog was run by my brother Dennis instead of me, it would be Where have you gone, Orlando Merced? instead of the WHYGAVS that exists today (does WHYGOM work?). I really like writing these things because I have certain perceptions of these guys that played in my youth and while writing them I always look them up at BBREF and see if what I rememberactually matches reality. Most of the time it doesn't because, but that's OK. When I started thinking about Merced last night, here's what I remembered: a first baseman/outfielder from Puerto Rico that was incredibly honored to be a Pirate because he idolized Roberto Clemente. I remember that he was switch hitter but that he was the worst right-handed hitter in history so he rarely played against lefties, defeating the purpose of switch hitting. Eventually he just hit lefty all the time. I seem to recall that he wasn't a great hitter and that he wasn't exactly your prototypical first baseman, a position he held on the '91 and '92 NLCS teams because he certainly didn't have much pop. Oh, and after bouncing around the league for a while and being a pinch-hitter for the Astros, he tried to come back with us a few years ago and failed, thus ending his baseball career.

So what was Orlando Merced? Looking at his career numbers, it turns out he wasn't a bad hitter. He was actually pretty good at getting on base early in his career (.373 OBP in '91 and a whopping .414 in '93) and he gained some decent pop later in his career. He was an above average hitter in both '91 and '92 on the LCS teams, meaning that he actually gave us more offense from first base than I remember. After the Pirates traded him for Craig Wilson, Abraham Nunez, Jose Silva, and others he did bounce around a lot before trying to come back to the Pirates in 2004 and failing. He was, in fact, terrible as a right-handed hitter. As for the Clemente connection, he didn't just idolize Clemente, one of his best childhood friends was Roberto's son Luis.

So why does any of this matter? Why Orlando Merced today? Because with all of the talk about Tracy's firing and how disinterested the Pirates are in playing baseball and things like that, Orlando Merced is one of the last Pirates I remember (maybe Salomon Torres is an exception, but not many other people) that was just plain happy to be a Pirate. Not happy in the Adam LaRoche "I'm happy for the chance to shine in my own light and maybe help turn this team around" sense (not that there's anything wrong with that), but happy in the, "All my life all I ever wanted to do was wear black and gold and now that I'm doing it, nothing else matters to me" sense. And what can I say? I miss that.

2007 Review: Ronny Paulino

2006 stats: .310/.360.394
2007 PECOTA: .289/.344/.440
2007 stats: .263/.314/.389

In a word, disastrous. To be fair, from July 1st onwards, he looked a lot more like what we expected (.293/.348/.427) at the plate. We all knew that .310 average was a bit of a sham based on his minor league numbers, but man, I didn't think he'd look as bad as he did for most of 2007 after the way he killed the ball in spring training. I also thought he'd hit for a bit more pop, but he didn't at all. Just a bad year for Ronny Ballgame in all phases.

Speaking of all phases of the game, he's painful to watch behind the plate. I know I've told this story before, but dammit if watching Ronny play doesn't remind me of this particular memory every single time he misses a throw. When I was 13 years old I was on the local all-star team and we were practicing for the district tournament. I had been a catcher my whole life up to that point because I wanted to be in the heart of the action and in on every play and the whole "field general" thing appealed to me (I know, me being vocal, shocking). The thing was, I wasn't particularly great at blocking balls in the dirt (a lot of it had to do with taking a smoked line drive off of my eyebrow when I was 11, I think). So one day during practice, I was doing particularly poorly at blocking balls in the dirt and I then proceeded to muff a throw from the outfield.
"Pat," came my coach's gruff voice, "What position are you playing?"

I was in full catcher's gear, and a bit confused, "Uhhh, catcher?"

"And so what does a CATCHer do with the ball?"

The voice inside my head sounded the alarm, "Catch the ball, coach?"

"Exactly. And what aren't you doing?"

"Catching the ball."

"Correct. Go sit on the bench. You'll never catch for me again."

Don't feel sorry for me, like five minutes later the same scene played itself out with our first baseman and I had a new position (isn't youth baseball fun?). But my self-indulgence isn't the point, here. The point is that someone needed to have a similar conversation with Ronny about five years ago. He doesn't catch pitches, he doesn't catch throws from the field, he doesn't catch anything. Admittedly, after the Tracy article all of this makes a little more sense, but it doesn't make Ronny a good catcher. He was even awful at throwing runners out.

I guess the bottom line is that I'm pretty sure he'll hit better next year (probably close to his PECOTA projection for this year) and that's not a bad stick for a catcher. But it's not a great one, either, and it certainly doesn't justify his poor play behind the plate. Still, his job is safe because Ryan Doumit is about a durable as origami in a rain storm and there's no one close behind them in the minors at the moment. Oh, and I don't think anyone would want to trade for him either (though I'd be listening if anyone wanted to take him off my hands if I were NH). So we're probably stuck with one more year of Paulino at least. Somewhere, Jim Tracy will be smiling.

2007 Review: Freddy Sanchez

2006: .344/.378/.473 with 6 HR, 53 2B, and 2 3B
2007 PECOTA: .298/.344/.425 with 9 HR, 38 2B, and 4 3B
2007: .304/.343/.442 with 11 HR, 42 2B, and 4 3B

Wow. After Freddy Sanchez destroyed every single projection system known to man in 2006, PECOTA almost nailed his 2007 on the head, missing on just a few doubles and homers that account for small gap in slugging percentage. What does that mean for the future going on from here? Well, probably that the Freddy we saw this year is going to be a lot closer to what we can expect out of Freddy Sanchez than what we saw in 2006. Or, that he's going to be about the player we all hoped Jack Wilson would be.

The first thing we need to decide is what to make of his various injuries this year. He started the year with some nagging injuries and he finished the year with a shoulder problem, but from May 27th through September 6th he hit.332/.379/.521 with all 11 of his homers and 33 of his doubles in 89 games, which seems impressive. And I'm sorry, but that's cherry-picking. Freddy's got a pretty extensive injury history and to throw out almost half the season because he had nagging injuries and say "look at how he would've hit if he was healthy!" just kind of seems like cheating. Freddy may well be a guy that's always dealing with a pull here or a twinge there. That's just the way things work. He also adjusted well to second base this year. From a subjective perspective (mine) he seemed to start a bit slowly and finish strong. From a more objective perspective (Baseball Prospectus), he was 15 runs above average in the field. Combined with Jack Wilson's 19, that means that Jack and Freddy saved us 34 runs (or, about three wins) with their gloves over average (not replacement) fielding middle infielders. I didn't cross check the entire league, but I feel like that's got to be just about as good as it gets up the middle. This is all crap as it turns out I can't read. Freddy was 15 runs below average at second base this year and by that metric, one of the worst fielders in the league at any position.

I'm going to re-iterate what I said a little over a month ago: the Pirates need to trade Freddy Sanchez. The reason, quite simply, is perception. Freddy and Jack were damn near identical statistically this year. They both were about average at the plate (Freddy's OPS+ was 101, Jack's was 103) and they were both pretty slick in the field. Still, Freddy is "Two-time All-Star and former batting champ Freddy Sanchez! He's a .300 hitter! He can play two positions!" while everyone pretty much knows that what you see is what you get with Jack, a good glove and a potentially average hitter, with the emphasis on potentially. Admit it, as a Pirate fan that watched the two all year, you're shocked that Freddy and Jack were almost identical at the plate this year, aren't you? It seems hard to believe that Freddy's OPS+ was only 101, doesn't it? I know it was surprising to me. That's the exact reason that we should be shopping Freddy harder than Jack. Because people perceive Freddy to be a better player and perception is everything.

One series left

Tonight we get Game 4 of the only non-sweep series, the Indians and Yankees. As Eric Wedge left a struggling Jake Westbrook on the mound last night I couldn't help but feel like the series was slipping away from the Indians. I know they've got a 2-1 lead still, but they're going with Paul Byrd tonight, meaning the CC/Fausto two-headed monster is only getting one more start in the series. I can't explain it, but I don't like their odds. I hope I'm wrong.

2007 Review: Jack Wilson

2006: .272/.317/.367 with 8 HR, 27 2B, and 1 3B
2007 PECOTA: .273/.320/.392 with 8 HR, 29 2B, and 5 3B
2007: .296/.350/.440 with 12 HR, 29 2B, and 2 3B

What a weird year for Jack. As he has the past couple years, he got off to a pretty good start (.288/.323/.400 on May 8th) and swooned from there out (.233/.299/.314 from May 10th through August 28th). In his swoon, he did the one thing that Jack Wilson never seems to do, which is take plays off. During our ugly sweep at Yankee Stadium in July he looked downright disinterested and that got him benched for close to a week. In fact, there was a decent stretch in June and July where it seemed like Jose Castillo was going to take the starter's job away from Wilson, which was every bit insane then as it sounds now. Things culminated in late July when the Pirates acquired Tracy favorite Cesar Izturis and tried their hardest to deal Jack to Detroit. The deal fell through on deadline day, and somehow that lit a fire under Jack's ass that he rode to the end of the year, hitting an insane .412/.469/.691 from July 31st through the end of the season (that's over 158 plate appearances) to bring us to the season line you see above, which was good for an OPS+ of 103, Jack's second best season.

So what do we make of this? It's always been clear that Jack can hit. Every season he goes through stretches where he tears the cover off the ball. Because he does tend to be such a good fielder (BP had him as 19 runs above average this year, almost as good as his 22 in 2005, his career year with the glove) he generally only has to be an average hitter to be a valuable player. The problem is that in his bad years, his May-July heavily outweighes his April, August, and September. Really, only the incredible tear he went on this year saved his numbers. The amount of his offense this year tied up in those last 158 PAs is ridiculous. He hit eight of his 12 homers and 14 of his 29 doubles in that stretch. How can we possibly expect that to be reproducible?

As much as I'd like it to be, I think 2004 and 2007 are going to go down as blips on the radar of the Jack Wilson we hoped he would become rather than the player he ends up being remembered as. There's just too much of his offense tied up in batting average and in that final tear to make me think it's anything other than that. My gut feeling is that his 2008 is going to be much closer to his 2005 and 2006 than it is to his 2004 or 2007. That leaves the question of whether to trade him or not. That all depends on what kind of rebuilding Coonelly and Huntington are looking to do here. If they're going for a wholesale "sacrifice the now to save the future" rebuilding, then they very well may deal Wilson without a care that Brian Bixler is the only person that can take his at-bats because he's at the peak of his value right now and this is the only time in his career that his value will actually approach what we're paying him. If they're more interested in trying to cobble together a contender on top of the scraps left to them by the previous front office, Wilson is a very valuable player to have around. In fact, what Huntington decides to do with Wilson will give us a very good idea of what his plans for the future of the Pirates are.

Halfway to the NLCS

In what has to be TBS's nightmare, the D'Backs and Rockies both completed their sweeps last night and the Red Sox and Indians could do the same today. That would mean like four days with no playoff baseball. I can't shake the feeling that the NL Clubs are much, much, much worse than the AL clubs, but I suppose it's technically hard to compare them since they aren't playing against each other.

Today Curt Schilling's insufferable mouth takes the mound for the Red Sox against Jered Weaver at 3 and Jake Westbrook faces off against Roger Clemens at 6. Both the Yankees and Angels are trying to stave off elimination at home, but I don't think it looks good for either of them today, especially since Clemens isn't good for much more than 5 innings these days.

More playoffs

Cubs and Phillies looking to avoid sweeps tonight. To be honest, I don't like either of their chances. The Cubs are already down 2-0 and Aramis Ramirez stared at two strikes with the bases loaded in the bottom of the first. Meanwhile, the Phillies playoff life rests on Jamie Moyer's million year old back.

Dejan's Tracy post-mortem

If you haven't read it, read it now (EDIT: I had the wrong article linked before but it's fixed now).

Pretty much everything that we joked or guessed about looks like it was true: that Tracy loved his old Dodger veterans, that the players didn't care about much of anything, that Tracy only took credit for the things that went right while ignoring things that went wrong, and on and on. One thing that I always have to keep in mind while writing this blog is that there are things that go on behind the scenes that I will never know about, and that makes it incredibly difficult to point fingers or place blame. Unfortunately, Tracy was about as transparent as Saran-Wrap.

Playoffs, Day 3

The Yankees will try to keep their heads above the water against the Indians at 5ish while the Angels will try to stay alive against the Red Sox at 8:30 or so. I have to admit, watching the Indians beat the snot out of the Yankees last night made me feel all warm and tingly inside. Something about watching them lose just makes me happy.

As for me, I won't be watching either game, because I got tickets to see the Pens and 'Canes play in Raleigh tonight. You know you're jealous.

PG: Tracy will get the axe

The Pirates have scheduled a press conference for 3:30 PM today to announce the firing of Jim Tracy.

UPDATE (2:54 PM): And Creech! And Graham! Oh, happy day!

The ex-Pirate playoff update!

Through two days of the playoffs:

• Jose Mesa: 1/3 of an inning pitched, 1 H, 2 BB, 3 ER. Bringing Mesa into a game in which he was down 2 runs and attempting to not fall behind 2-0 in the series may be the stupidest thing Charlie Manuel has every done. Think about that statement.
  
• Josh Fogg: 2 IP, 1 H, 1 K. His solid relief of Franklin Morales on a scant two days rest after starting Monday's one game playoff earned him his first career playoff victory.
  
• Aramis Ramirez: 0-for-9 with four strikeouts. Ouch. He, Soriano, and Lee are the ones mostly responsible for the Cubs' deficit as they have four hits among them in four games.
  
• Daryle Ward: 1-for-1 with a walk and 2 RBI. Amazingly, giving the Cubbies hope in every game he gets his. His walk in the ninth inning of game 1 pulled them to within a homer of tying the game and his two-run double last night pulled the Cubs to within four runs of the D'Backs in the sixth inning.
  
• Kenny Lofton: 3-for-4, 1 run scored, 4 RBIs in the Indians Game 1 thumping of the Yankees. The man is ageless.
  

Gary Matthews Jr. and Tim Wakefield were both left off of their respective rosters for the division series. Wake will likely be back on, should the Red Sox advance to the ALCS. Matthews, well, it won't matter if the Angels don't wake up soon.

Still no decision on Tracy

After being promised all week that a Tracy decision would come down on Friday, Neal Huntington is now all, "Did I say Friday? Because I meant Monday. Damn, I get those days confused sometimes." I don't really know what's going on behind the scenes right now (and I'm not sure that anyone does), but this all seems very fishy to me. On the other hand, every day that Tracy isn't fire gives Bones another excuse to give us some brilliant Tracy-isms at HW (currently the top three posts there are all fantastic), so, I mean, I can wait this out if they can.

Playoffs Day 2

Kyle Kendrick and Franklin Morales... worst game 2 pitching match-up ever or worstest game 2 pitching match-up ever?

Seriously though, I'm looking forward to the Yankees and Indians for reasons I can't even quantify.

And I've found myself selfish rooting for the Cubs so that I still have something to write about at FanHouse. Though Lou Piniella losing faith in his ace in Game 1 works nicely, too.

2007 Review: Adam LaRoche

2006: .285/.354/.561 with 32 HR, 38 2B, 1 3B in 557 PAs
2007 PECOTA: .283/.353/.526 with 27 HR, 34 2B, 1 3B in 537 PAs
2007 actual: .272/.345/.458 with 21 HR, 42 2B, 0 3B in 632 PAs

Charlie said a lot of what I said about LaRoche, but to be honest I put a bunch of these mostly done reviews in the queue over the weekend and felt like Charlie was reading my mind when I read his post on Monday. I really want to re-iterate it because I think it's very important, so if you feel like you're deja vu-ing on this post, I apologize.

LaRoche got off to a terrible start this year and there's no doubting that. But like so many Pirate-related things in our lives, that allowed us to lower our expectations for him to the point that we forgot just how good the guy was last year and how good we expected him to be this year. To illustrate, I'm going to use the fun BBREF gamelog tool to break down exactly what I mean.

From April 1st through May 31st this year, LaRoche hit .214/.319/.352. Putrid. From June 1st through the end of the year, he hit .299/.358/.509, or a little worse than we expected him to hit for the whole season. To compare to his breakout 2006, LaRoche hit .239/.335/.497 from season's start to the end of May and he walloped out a .306/.363/.591 pace from June 1st onwards. Translation from numbers to English: his valley was much deeper and his peak was much lower in 2007 than it was in 2006. If LaRoche were to have hit the way he did from June 1st on at a consistent pace from the start of April, we'd have nothing to complain about. But that's not what LaRoche does. All through his career he's spent the early months of the season hitting rather and turning into Harmon Killebrew when the weather gets hot. This year, he hit like a pitcher for two months, then turned into Adam LaRoche when the weather got hot.

To summarize: on the whole, LaRoche was another Pirate that regressed at an age (27 for Adam) that you simply don't expect that to happen. We all kind of failed to see it while it was happening because we were so happy to see him have a clue at the plate after the infuriating start to his season, but it happened nonetheless. In order for LaRoche to be a true middle of the order, Lefty McThumping first baseman, he's got to hit better in every month of 2008, not just April and May.

Playoff Open Thread

Playoffs start today with a TBS triple-header, Phillies and Rockies at 3, Angels and Red Sox at 6:30, and Cubs and D'Backs at 10:00. To say I'm excited is an understatement. If you're looking for a comprehensive list of ex-Pirates in the playoffs, Bugs and Cranks has it. Anyways, there's a new playoff poll over on the right, so pick your World Series winner now, tell us why in the comments, and crow about it in three weeks when you're right.

The results of the Neal Huntington poll can be found here. I would call the results "guardedly optimistic" because that sounds a lot better than "confused as hell as to who the guy is."

2007 Review: Xavier Nady

2006: .280/.337/.45, 17 HR, 28 2B, 1 3B
2007 PECOTA: .286/.340/471 with 18 HR, 31 2B, 2 3B
2007 actual: .278/.330/.47 with 20 HR, 23 2B, 1 3B

Before this season, Nady was thought of as a semi-injury prone guy that was basically Craig Wilson without the on-base percentage and maybe a little less power. In April, Weapon X spent a brief stint as "Scruffy Looking Savior of Pittsburgh Baseball that Makes All the Ladies Swoon." He then returned to the semi-injury prone guy that is basically Craig Wilson without the on-base percentage and a little less power. On the bright side, he did marginally figure out how to hit righties this year (.274/.322/.479 vs. his career line of .253/.302/.427). Unfortunately, he didn't mash lefties nearly as well (.295/.365/.463 vs. a career line of .320/.390/.477) and things pretty much balanced themselves out, as you can see from the stat line above.

If you read the Stats Geek yesterday, Nady is exactly who he's talking about when he mentions "a lineup of pretty good hitters but no very good ones." There's nothing technically wrong with what Nady does. He's a decent enough hitter that can plug a hole in the outfield and (usually) mash left-handed pitching pretty good. At the age of 28, this is about as good as it's going to get for X. Still, like I said, there's not anything wrong with that. Every good team needs and has guys like Xavier Nady on their roster. The difference here is that on the Pirates, Nady is an every day player and a 4/5 hitter whereas on a better team, he'd start 2 or 3 days a week and bat sixth or seventh when he did start.

Of course the dagger of the whole Nady situation this year is that Oliver Perez went 15-10 for the Mets with a 1.31 WHIP and 8.85 K/9 innings. And he's still only 25. Dave Littlefield is gone, but his legacy will live on for a long time. I don't know exactly where I'd place Nady's current trade value, but it's waaay below "Oliver Perez" right now.

Links

A decision on Tracy won't be made until Friday, probably. Because as you guys noted on the DL firing, we find it's always better to fire people on a Friday.

You know those fun "expert predictions" grids that all the major sports sites use at this time of year? I have fulfilled one of my life's goals by being included in one of them, at AOL of course. Next on the list? Making love while windsurfing. Yes, that was a How I Met Your Mother reference. Deal with it. Though now that I think about it, playoff predictions would be more fun if slap bets were involved.

You know what this time of year means... time to start telling people John Lackey is my second cousin twice removed again.

Where have you gone, John Smiley?

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much. I'm not actually trying to find them.

What a curious career. The big lefty essentially had one big year as a Pirate, but it was a big year. In 1991 he went 20-8 and finished 3rd in Cy Young voting with a 3.08 ERA and 1.15 WHIP. The reason he never really duplicated that year was because he only struck out 129 batters in 207 and 2/3 innings, or less than 6 per 9 innings. He was pretty consistent the whole year, but after August 1st the Pirates cranked up the offense in his presence and he went 8-1.

Of course you all remember what happened next. He crapped all over himself in the playoffs. He only made it two innings in his game 3 start, then only two-thirds of an inning in game 7. We lost both games and accordingly, the series. Smiley, likely unable to ever show his face in Pittsburgh ever again, was shipped off to the Twins that off-season for Denny Neagle and one of the first failed uber-prospects of this losing streak, the forgettable Midre Cummings. He went on to pitch with the Reds for about five years after that and retired 126 wins, a 3.80 ERA (good for a 102 ERA+) and a 1.22 WHIP, all of which were way better than I expected. Stunningly, this mediocre pitcher that ruined our 1991 post-season made $31,590,000 on his career according to BBREF. I should've been born a lefty.

Perhaps this all sounds harsh, but please know that this entire entry was written with the clip of the 1991 highlight tape playing in my head where Smiley has his head down with a towel over it in the Three Rivers Dugout while the narrator gravely intones, "But John Smiley would not make it out of the first inning, allowing the Braves three runs before his early exit. That was all Atlanta would need as the Pirates were held scoreless and came up short yet again," or something along those lines.

Next week's Where have you gone will feature someone that is directly linked with many fewers bad memories, I promise.

2007 Review: Jason Bay

2006: .286/.396/.532, 35 HR, 29 2B, 3 3B
2007 PECOTA: .283/.383/.544, 34 HR, 34 2B, 5 3B
2007 actual: .247/.327/.418, 21 HR, 25 2B, 2 3B

Jason Bay, Jason Bay... what do we make of this mess of a season? His numbers this year were terrible, and they're even worse if you consider that on June 1st he was hitting .314/.387/.536. So what happened? How does a guy go from a 30+ homer .900+ OPS stud to Jose Bautista at the prime age of 28? I suppose there are a couple of explanations.

Explanation #1- Jason Bay is toast
If you recall, there was a BP article that attempted to sell this point over the summer. The Reader's Digest version is that Bay had a spike in walks last year, which can often portend a slowing in bat speed (the theory is that he's taking more pitches he can't get to and thus walking a bit more), which bore itself out in his major power drain this year. It's not a bad argument, but I'm not sure I completely buy it. First off, he did hit in May. He tore the cover off the ball in May and wasn't so bad in April either. If his slump was a season-long thing, I might be more likely to buy the "he's done" thing, but the fact that he hit early in the year makes it just a little harder for me to buy. On top of that, he struck out 141 times this year, which is just about on par with his other years. If he really lost a ton of bat speed, I'd expect that number to go up a bit. I admit that that logic may be flawed (and if it is, tell me), but I'm really trying to say that I just don't buy a 28-year old forgetting how to hit in his prime.

Explanation #2- Jason Bay was hurt
We know that Bay had his knee scoped in the off-season. We know that he was late getting on the field in camp because of it. We know the same knee was really bugging him at the end of this year. Is it too much of a stretch to think a gimpy knee sapped his power all year? On one hand, Bay strikes me as the type of guy that would try to play through it until he absolutely couldn't. On the other hand, he's not having surgery again and he says it just needs rest. He didn't have major surgery on the knee last off-season, so maybe it is a stretch to think it bothered him all year.

This question is the type of thing that we can debate all winter if we like. It doesn't matter if we find the answer or not. It is, however, imperative for Neal Huntington to answer this question definitively. If Huntington is really trying to hit the reset button on this organization, Bay is one of the players he's got to think about trading. If Bay just had a gimpy knee, he's got Bay under contract through 2009 and there's no need to take the first trade that comes along. If he's got reason to think Bay's troubles run deeper than that, he's got to get him out of town quick, before everyone else realizes it. The easiest way to rebuild this team is going to be to take advantage of general managers that are just like the one we axed, guys that don't do their homework and react to reputation more than solid facts. Regardless of whether Bay was hurt in 2007 or just entering the decline of his career, there are teams that will pay a hefty price to get him in 2008. Accordingly, Huntington has to figure out what was wrong with Bay this year even if we can't, and he's got to act appropriately.

The Pirate Playoff Update

Holy cow, what a game tonight. The Rockies are going to the playoffs after coming back from a 2 run deficit in the 13th inning, and if you're not rooting for them I'm not sure you have a pulse.

For as long as ex-Pirates are in the playoffs, I'm going to update you on their performances. We had a slew of them tonight:

Josh Fogg: He did what Josh Fogg does. He wasn't spectacular (or even good, really), but he stemmed the damage to one bad inning and he kept the Rockies in the game against the probable NL CY Young winner. Kudos to Fogg, who's one of the good guys in baseball. Line: 4 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 5 Ks.

Brian Giles: 1-for-5 with a ribbie, but he did walk twice and score twice. That's not what people will remember about Giles from this game, though. He sold out to catch Holliday's flyball to the wall in the 13th (a la his amazing catch in PNC a few years back) and missed it, leading to a game tying triple. He then lollipopped a throw to the plate two batters later, making what should've been an easy out at the plate into a close play, allowing the home plate ump to blow the call (Barrett blocked Holliday's hand from ever touching the plate and it wasn't close). Tough way to end the season for Giles.

Matt Herges: Somehow managed a three inning smoke and mirrors act where he walked three batters and only struck out one, but didn't let a Padre score from the 10th-12th innings.

Final random observation from the Rockies' win: Troy Tulowitzki could be a real special player. 4-for-7, three runs scored, that HUGE double in the 13th, and great D at shortstop. What a game for a rookie.

The Rockies, the Padres, and the Fogg

In case you were unawares, the Rockies and Padres are playing off for the NL Wild Card tonight. The game is starting at around 7:30 and it's going to be on TBS and it won't be listed on your channel guides or anything like that, but trust me on this one. ESPN doesn't have the rights to the playoffs this year so the game is on TBS. And why should you care? Because JOSH FREAKING FOGG is starting for the Rockies against Jake Peavy in a do or die game. I work with a kid from Denver and asked him if Fogg was the best they could and he just shrugged and said, "Who else are we supposed to pitch?" Point taken, but this will certainly be worth watching.

Links

Tracy seems to be on his way out the door. Just posted about this at FanHouse, but my guess is Joel Skinner will be the one that gets Tracy's job. We can speculate more about then whenever Tracy is officially canned, though.

Did the Cardinals screw Kip Wells out of a $500,000 bonus with their pitcher shuffling yesterday? Sure seems like it.

Peace out, Shawn Chacon. I don't think you'll be terribly missed. I'll admit that you weren't nearly as terrible as I thought you would be, though.

Jack Wilson managed to get to the ballpark yesterday despite his concussion and wave to players after the season finale; something not a lot of other players did. Clearly he thinks he's on his way out of town. I'm not so sure, myself. I will say that as much as I complain about him and think he's overrated, obnoxious, and preachy, he is a class act. Deeper into that article, Josh Phelps and Jason Bay do some real digging at the Pirates.

You knew this already, but Freddy's surgery went OK and he should be more than fine for next year, be it with the Pirates or someone else.

2007: A season in review

You know, it's funny. Before the season started, I thought the Pirates would win about 73 games. Throughout the course of the season, I became so disgusted with the play of just about everyone on the team that I hardly even put the games on MLB.tv after I moved down to NC. Still, they managed to win 69 games, which was two more than last year or the year before. Were my expectations for the players too high in 2007? I suppose they actually were. I mean, I would venture to say that most of the readers here didn't expect the Pirates to win many more games than they did this year, but I would also assume that most of you would say that Jason Bay, Adam LaRoche, Ronny Paulino, Jason Bay, Zach Duke, Jason Bay, and most of the bullpen underachieved this year. Maybe they just stand out in my mind because they were so disappointing this year. I don't really know.

If 2007 did anything, it completely shattered Dave Littlefield's notion of "2008 and 2009 are our years." This team was light years away from competing in a very bad division in 2007 and it's going to take a major overhaul to get it there in 2008. That is the trick for Coonelly and Huntington this off-season: to get the team competitive in 2008, they may have to mortgage the future even further. And so the question now stands, what is more important: stopping the team losing streak at 15 or building a viable baseball franchise? I don't know if you can do both, and that's why 2007 was the most depressing Pirate season I can remember. It was like the curtain was blown off of the charade once and for all and the old management was proven to be everything we feared it would be. That's a very depressing thing to watch as a fan, but I guess it's something we'll eventually get used to.

Anyways, the season review is going to go like this- every day I'll look at a player or two or more on the team and review what they did in 2007. The important players will get their own posts. The less relevant players will get lumped together. This year, I'm going to focus a lot more on what we might be able to expect from these guys down the road and whether or not they're going to be a part of the future of the Pittsburgh Pirates.