Happy New Year!

Before I head out of town for New Year's I just wanted to wish everyone a happy 2008. You can make a resolution to not be a Pirate fan next year, but it probably won't work.

Nate McLouth was really good last year

In today's PG, Dejan takes a nice look at Nate McLouth's 2007 season through the eyes of the Bill James Handbook (as an aside, I didn't get the handbook until Christmas this year, but am planning on some posts from it to start off the new year). What really shines through is this: Nate McLouth was pretty freaking good last year. If the Pirates don't give him an extended look somewhere in the outfield in 2008, I'm going to be really, really disappointed.

In the same article, it's mentioned that the gold "P" is replacing the Pirate head in a lot of marketing. That move is pretty evident on the team website, which you've probably noticed has been seriously redesigned. I think it's a nice look- I've always been a much bigger fan of logos like the Penguins logo rather than ones that are clearly designed by marketing departments like the Pirates' is. I wonder if another change is in the offing for the red-bandana'd mascot.

2007

I know last year I did a big blog review of everything that happened during the year, but the honest truth is that I think the 2007 review would read kind of like the 2006 one. There were some high points, but they were actually only relatively high when compared to the depths the Pirates typically plunge to during the season (a .500 record in April!!! WOOHOO!!!). When the seasonal highlights contain the firing of most of the people charged with making your team a good team, it's probably an indication that the actual year itself was no good.

All in all, 2007 will blend right in with 2006, 2005, and the other years that have made up this abysmal streak. In 2012, you'll be browsing Baseball Reference and you'll say to yourself, "Who was Brian Rogers? Cesar Izturis played for us? Remember when we thought Zach Duke was going to be good?" and those names aren't any different than Don Wengert or Lou Collier or Kris Benson when you really get down to it. When you really think about it, it's probably too much to ask for 2008 to be a good year for the Pirates, but I'd definitely settle for different.

Zzzzz

Does anyone remember a period of time with less Pirate news? I mean, NOTHING has happened since before Christmas.
Anyways, I'm working on some stuff that is Pirate-but-not-blog related right now (you'll see what it is soon). Until then I'll just point out a couple changes I've made to the blogroll in the sidebar- Vlad (who you may recognize from the comments here, at Bucs Dugout, or at BBTF) has started his own blog called The Black (and Gold) Spot. Check it out. I'd also be a terrible Duquesne alum if I didn't point you towards The Duke's Court, an actual Duquesne basketball blog. It figures that now that I'm all graduated and moved, the Dukes are worth watching for once. I'm secretly hoping for a second round upset over UNC in the tourney this year, but don't tell anyone in Chapel Hill.

Jose Castillo finds a home

Looks like Jose Castillo won't be teamless for too long as it appears he's signed a one year deal with the Marlins to compete for their starting third base job. According to Cot's, he signed for slightly less than $2 million for the one year, which makes him the Marlins highest paid player. That's craziness. I would make a joke, but the Fish may win more games than we do next year.

Merry Christmas and such

I'm just going to leave a Christmas open thread up here, probably until the 26th, as baseball blog traffic is basically at it's lowest over the holidays and really, there's nothing new to talk about as it is. Personally, if the Pirates can just ditch the red uniforms and assemble a team that will win the 2008 World Series, I'll be happy. On a more serious note: Merry Christmas to all of you out there. Try not to think about the Pirates for a couple days. It'll make you happier, I promise.

Some true Christmas cheer

Buried on today's Hot Stove notebook in the PG is the true good news of the season:

With the "We Will" slogan gone and an apparent return to the franchise emphasizing its traditions, could those red softball uniforms show up next on the R.I.P. list?

OK, seriously, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ditch the red uniforms. I'd love a winning season, but if we can't get that losing with some semblance of dignity would be fantastic. It's not possible in McDonald's uniforms.

And today, we celebrate!

It's the holiday season and everyone has something to celebrate: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, whatever. Well, thanks to apk and Fitzcarraldo, today is officially WHYGAVS Day because it is, of course, Andy Van Slyke's birthday. This post is up a bit late because I spent eight hours in the car today, but WHYGAVS Day isn't over until midnight. Clearly, we will need to iron out some customs this year to have a proper celebration next year (assuming the Pirates haven't driven me insane by then and let's be honest, if it hasn't happened yet, it's not terribly likely). Happy WHYGAVS Day, everyone!!!

It's a Miserable Life Part 2

If you missed it, Part 1 is here.

Robert: Is that ... No ... it can't be!

Crossing the bridge, Robert has noticed something at the end that he failed to notice while conversing with Murtaugh. What he knows as PNC Park is shell of a stadium, a long abandoned construction site that looks as if it hasn't been touched in years.

Robert: Where's the park? What's going on here?

Murtaught: thinks for a second and spits a long string of tobacco juice into the standing snow on the bridge before finally responding. I'm not sure you're ready for that kind of news kid. You want a drink?

Robert: Yeah, there should be a couple of bars on Federal street. Then again...

Federal Street is full of run-down buildings and shady people. Robert notices that a massive football stadium lurks in the distance. It's not Heinz Field, but it's not Three Rivers either. The light still calls to them. It's a cracked plastic sign that simply reads 222 Bar. Robert and his celestial companion enter. The bar is run-down smells awful. The people inside look worn down and the bartender is not friendly. The signs behind the bar indicate that drinks are very cheap.

Robert: Well, I'm glad something is the same.

Bartender: What'll you have?

Robert: A flaming rum punch?

Murtaugh: (whispers) What the hell is wrong with you?

Robert: (whispers back) I dunno, it just came out.

Bartender: Hey look, mister - we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast, and we don't need any characters around to give the joint "atmosphere." Is that clear, or do I have to slip you my left for a convincer?

Robert: Uhhhh ... can I have an Iron?

Bartender: You're in Pittsburgh, what do you think?

Robert: In Pittsburgh ... that's a relief. Hey, where's PNC Park?

Bartender: What's PNC Park?

Robert: It's where the Pirates play? Right across the street?

Bartender: The Pirates ?!?

Murtaugh: Oh geez.

Bartender: Kid, I dunno where you're from, but the Pirates ain't been in town for five years now.

Robert: Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!!! You've got to be kidding.

Bartender: Do I look like a kidder?

Robert: looks the bartender up and down, noticing his thinning gray hair, and his vaguely familiar gaunt, smoker's face that's been worn by time, then shakes his head. Sorry I'm from an alternate ti--- eh, I'm from Canada. What happened to the Pirates?

Bartender: You really don't know.

Robert: No, I don't.

Bartender: Dammit, kid, that wasn't a question. Back in the early 1990s, the Pirates were somethin' real special. Just had that real fire in the belly, you know? 1992 was the best group of players I'd ever seen. We won the whole damn thing. Barry Bonds, Andy Van Slyke, Doug Drabek, what a crew. After the series, the Pirates' ownership surprised the world by offering Bonds an 8 year deal worth almost $60 million. Crazy money at the time. Bonds had to take it with the way the city embraced him for his big throw from left field to keep Game 7 of the NLCS alive, followed by his game winning homer and World Series MVP award. He was really bigger than life. Trouble was, they couldn't afford to keep anyone else. The team was OK in '93 and '94, but things kept sliding downhill from there. By '97 the team was for sale and practically bankrupt. No one wanted to buy it and that made the owners do something stupid- they left Bonds exposed in the expansion draft. Of course, he got drafted by the new team in Tampa and shortly after the Pirates were sold for fifty cents on the dollar to John Rigas, who'd been trying to buy the club for a coupla years. Things went OK until he went to jail in 2002. The league bought the team and sold it to the highest bidder. The city tried to rally together to keep them and even broke ground and got the beginnin's of a real nice stadium up before the league sold them to someone else. They're in Washington now. The Washington Grays.

Robert: I need some fresh air.

Robert is clearly shaken and it's not just from the skunked Iron City. He and Murtaugh step outside and back on to Federal Street. They being walking down towards the Sixth Street Bridge because it was never re-named for Roberto Clemente Bridge.

Robert: So, the Pirates are gone?

Murtaugh: Yep, the league moved 'em quick. Gone by the start of the 2003 season.

Robert: You really want me to believe that by throwing Sid Bream out, winning the World Series, and re-signing with the Pirates, Barry Bonds destroyed baseball in Pittsburgh forever. You do realize that by extension that means that by NOT throwing Bream out, spurring the city for San Francisco, and becoming a giant, steroid addled monster, Bonds saved the Pirates. You know how insane that sounds, right?

Murtaugh: Look, to be honest, there are 100 of these I coulda shown you. Spits. There's one where the Pirates and Bonds won three more World Series in the '90s. There's one that leads to exactly where you were when I found you earlier today with nothing changed except the outcome of the '92 playoffs. There's one that's actually worse than this one. There's one where Bonds throws Bream out and the Pirates lose in the 10th. There's several that see the Pirates beat the Braves and lose to the Blue Jays in the World Series.

Robert: I don't get it.

Murtaugh: Spits between Robert's feet. Would ya let me finish? There's a 100 different outcomes to Bonds throwing Bream out at the plate because that never happened. But there's only one outcome to Bonds not throwing Bream out, and that's because that's what DID happen. You can spend all your life wondering what mighta happened, but the truth is that it didn't.

Robert: I might trade no baseball in Pittsburgh and one World Series win in my lifetime for the shit hand we got dealt.

Murtaugh: Would you? Remember, in this world, there's no '97 freak show. There's no Francisco Cordova no-hitter. There's no Jason Kendall busting his ass down the line to beat out a bunt single in July, destroying his ankle and maybe his career in the process. There's no Garrett Mackowiak game. There's no Brian Giles grand slam off Billy Wagner, no Kevin Polcovich, no Turner Ward running through a wall, no nuthin'. All those things that you define your fanhood, and in some cases your life, by are gone. And maybe other things like that woulda happened before the team moved and maybe they wouldn't have. Maybe you'd be a big Penguin fan instead. Maybe you'd be a brainless Steeler fan chanting for Charlie Batch every time Ben Roethlisberger throws an interception. You don't know because you can't change what happened. But the fact is, those shitty Pirates that you bitch about are the reason you love baseball. Think about that. Murtaugh spits on Robert's shoes and the snow starts again. Now go tell your dame you're sorry and stop playing "what if."

Robert: Is there going to be a big intervention where maybe the police come in and rip up my parking tickets and my family members throw money at me?

Murtaugh: Now why would there be a dumb thing like that? I gotta go, but remember, it's going to get better. I promise.

Murtaugh walks off in the opposite direction, leaving Robert alone on the bridge. He stares at the lit up PNC Park for a moment before beginning to walk back down town. As he walks, he hears the sound of a saxophone playing "Auld Lang Syne." He smiles to himself. Things could certainly be worse. Maybe not much worse, but definitely a little worse.

The quest for veteran right-handed pitching continues

Apparently the holiday season isn't slowing down Neal Huntington and his quest for right-handed relief pitching. As the PG notes today, we missed out on Chad Durbin (who I suppose may have been a fifth starter if we dump Morris off on someone) but continue the search with names like Shawn Chacon, Octavio Dotel, and Akinori Otsuka. Here's what I think: I'd be terrified of using Salomon Torres in the bullpen if I were the Brewers, because Huntington dumped off a guy that fills what he views as a need position on the team for two guys that probably don't qualify as prospects. Clearly, he did not think highly of the possibility that Torres will regain his form in 2008.

It's a Miserable Life Part 1

Remember back when I said I had more to say about Bill Simmons' assertion that the Cabrera play was the worst thing to happen to any sports fans anywhere in the last 25 years? Well, I wasn't kidding. It's the Christmas season again, which means it's time to have some WHYGAVS fun. There's between one and two more parts to this and I promise it'll be finished before Christmas.

It's a snowy December night in Pittsburgh. Robert Oliver Wagner stands on the Roberto Clemente Bridge watching the snow fall, contemplating life. The winter meetings have just ended and the Pirates were once again a non-factor. In his despondent malaise, his girlfriend dumped him for caring more about a 'stupid baseball team' than her. Finally, Robert O. Wagner speaks the the magical words...

Robert: I wish Barry Bonds had thrown Sid Bream out. My life would be entirely different today.

A figure approaches him on the bridge.

Mysterious man: Is that so, kid?

Robert takes stock of the man. He's grizzled looking and there's a large dip under his bottom lip. Finally, it dawns on him ...

Robert: Danny Murtaugh? What are you doing here? You're dead? Shouldn't you be in Pirate Heaven?

Murtaugh: Damn straight I'm Danny Murtaugh. Baseball legend, second class. Big man upstairs tells me I gotta earn my pass into the Hall of Fame.

Robert: Big guy? So, there's really ...

Murtaugh: Nah, Barney Dreyfuss is just being a dick since they let him in to the Hall. Anyways, they tell me I gotta do something to earn my pass, so I'm here to convince you your life is better because the Braves won the '92 NLCS.

Robert: That's a shit job.

Murtaugh: Yeah, I know. Dreyfuss is pissed because I spit tobacco juice all over his white shoes.

Murtaugh spits tobacco juice on Robert's white shoes. The snow stops

Murtaugh: That should do it.

Robert: Do what?

Murtaugh: Bonds threw Bream out at the plate, then hit a homer in the top of the tenth. Tim Wakefield shut down the top of the Braves order and won NLCS MVP. The Pirates beat the Blue Jays in seven games with Doug Drabek throwing a complete game shutout in Game 7 and the Pirates won the world championship. You were never born.

Robert: I was never born? But I was born seven years before all that stuff happened. How does that make sense?

Murtaugh: I'm just f&*$!$# with ya.

Robert: Can we at least go back to 1992 and watch the games?

Murtaugh: What do I look like? A friggin' magician?

Robert: Well you just spit tobacco juice on me and changed the space/time continuum, so yes.

Murtaugh: Shut up. Come with me.

Danny and Robert walk over the Clemente bridge. Even on a cold, snowy night, there's a light on Federal Street beckoning them forward. Suddenly Robert notices something very different outside of the Pirates' stadium.

Robert: Is that ... No ... it can't be!

Don't you hate it when they say... TO BE CONTINUED!!!

Merry Christmas!

Cubs hire Dave Littlefield.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH

breath

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

Actually, with my luck this means that 2008 will end with a the Cubs winning the World Series and DL getting a ring.

Where have you gone ...

... Carlos Garcia?!?

Ronny Paulino is not popular

Looks like we can add Johnny Estrada to the list of mediocre to bad catchers that the Pirates appear to be interested in having behind the dish next year instead of Ronny Paulino. Off the top of my head, that makes Estrada, Michael Barrett, and Kelly Shoppach that the Pirates have at least expressed and interest in this winter, with the PG also reporting they may target Miguel Olivo or Damian Miller as well. Clearly, Paulino is pretty low on someone's list in the new front office because no team targets this many crappy/semi-crappy catchers without a reason. On one hand, I know how awful Paulino was last year. On the other, would any of these guys be a real improvement?

Finally

A list of the three best things that have happened to the Pirates this off-season:

1. Fired Dave Littlefield, Brian Graham, and Ed Creech.
2. Fired Jim Tracy
3. Ditched "We Will..."
   

Great article by Dejan about the ditching of "We Will" as the promotional campaign. I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like the new management team hates that slogan almost as much as we do.

While we're at it, the Bucs also signed TJ Beam yesterday. You can probably guess the profile by now, big guy, hard thrower, serious control issues, etc. etc. Admittedly, this is better than DL's reliever profile which was generally, "Name ends in -less, sucks."

Perception problems

To continue on the "It's too early for judgment" theme that both Charlie (if you haven't checked his "Five Principles" post out yet, I recommend you do) and I have been hitting on repeatedly this winter, I think that the next important thing to talk about is the difference between what we see in the Pirates and what everybody else sees.

Being objective as a sports fan is not easy. I like to think I do a pretty decent job of it when writing this blog, but there are still certain subjects that I have irrational opinions on thigs including, but certainly not limited to, Andy Van Slyke and Matt Morris. Still, subjective opinions are what I think have created a lot of the anger that's coming from the fans and is directed at Huntington, who's been on the job a whopping three months.

One of the things I keep seeing repeated over and over is how we have to deal Snell and Gorzelanny based on the market for Santana (who will likely bring three top prospects) and Danny Haren (who netted Oakland six minor leaguers from Arizona yesterday). I'm not here to doubt the value of Gorzo or Snell, who are probably the two most talented and valuable Pirates right now. But comparing them to Haren in a hypothetical trade isn't a productive line of thought. Haren's pitched three straight years in Oakland in which he's gone over 200 innings, had a WHIP of 1.22 or lower, an above average ERA, a K/9 rate between 6.7 and 7.6 (raising each year), and between 3 and 4 strikeouts per walk. Oh, and he's only 26. He's not only a viable second option to Santana, he might end up giving the D'Backs more than the Yankees or Red Sox will get out of Santana. On the other hand, Snell has had one mediocre year and one good year in which he tailed off in the second half. He gets pounded by lefties, he often seems to hit a wall around the sixth inning, and his control isn't always great. And yeah, he's crazy. Gorzelanny only has one season in the majors to his credit and he's got some health issues. Again, don't get me wrong, they're both good, young pitchers and I have a lot of hope for both of them. I just don't know how much immediate value they have to a contender right now because of the lingering questions about them.

Take off your Pirate cap for a minute and think about the players we have to offer a contender this year (and it has to be a contender because if any of these guys were useful for rebuilding, we wouldn't be trading them). Jason Bay had a monster 2005, a pretty good 2006 (that was helped out by a huge month of May), and a terrible 2007. He's got health questions, swing questions, and a bunch of other lingering questions. On top of that, he just MIGHT be a great addition to some team and the Pirates know that, which means he's not coming cheaply. I wouldn't touch him if I were a GM. Nady's a platoon player hamstring issues. No one has any idea what Nate McLouth is actually capable of. Jack Wilson is an awful hitter with a good first half of 2004 and a good second half of 2007 to his resume. No one on this team had the ability to help the freaking Pirates win games in 2007 so why should someone assume that these players will help a contender in any significant fashion in 2008? The team was so bland and bad that Freddy Sanchez, hollow .300 average and all, was our All-Star.

I'm not saying Huntington shouldn't be trying to remake the team. He should be and by all indications, that's exactly what he's trying to do. I'm just saying that not only is rebuilding a team difficult, the Pirates are in an especially dire place and it's probably worse than we think. We know all of the good sides of these players because we have see them as Pirate fans to have any shred of hope for the team. But if they were really as good as we imagine, wouldn't the Pirates be a whole lot better?

Kevin Young was a good dude

There was one name that jumped out at me (and I'm sure at you) in the Mitchell Report when it was released this afternoon: Kevin Young. I was honestly never a big fan of Young, he had a few good years, signed a cripplingly ginormous contract, and was never really good again. What I do seem to remember about him is that he just seemed like a really good guy to me. If I'm remembering right, he was genuinely crushed when the Pirates released him in 2003 because he actually liked being a Pirate. You just don't see that happen very often.

Anyways, coupled with his all around good guy aura and his general badness at baseball, Young's name surprised me today. Here's the key excerpts from the report on old KY (can you believe we actually called a player that?): Radomski first met Young in New York City during the 2000-01 off-season. Young later called Radomski. While Radomski could not remember who introduced him to Young, he did remember that he was asked to bring two kits of human growth hormone to this first meeting. Radomski said that he went to lunch with Young and afterward went up to Young’s hotel room where Radomski sold him one or two kits of human growth hormone.

Young did not call Radomski again until 2003, during the final season of his career. Radomski said that he sold Young five or six kits of human growth hormone on this second occasion. He noted that he did not view this amount as unusual because Young needed the human growth hormone to recover from lingering injuries, and Radomski believed a five or six-month supply of human growth hormone was necessary to complete such a recovery.

You know what jumps out at me there? Young met Radomski after he signed his giant contract.
He signed his 4-year/$24 million extension after his career year in 1999. Things went in the tank in 2000, and he went out and tried to do something about it. This was a guy on a painfully small market team (remember, this was before PNC Park and revenue sharing) that was very obviously going nowhere (they had just fired Gene Lamont), and he was still meeting with shady clubhouse attendants in hotel rooms to try and get some magic stuff and get back on the top of the mountain. So raise your glass for a second to Kevin Young, one of the few Pirates of the last 15 years that cared enough to cheat. Thanks, Kevin. We could use a few more guys like you.

Mitchell Report open thread

Today is baseball's D-Day with the Mitchell Report coming out at 2 PM. You've probably heard that names are leaking out already. I'll be doing FanHouse stuff all day and I have a final tomorrow, but feel free to talk all about it in comments here.

Non-tenders

It's hard to find links for these things as they just kind of pop-up, but there's already a couple interesting non-tenders.

First off, the Tigers didn't give Chad Durbin a contract. This greatly differs from the Shawn Chacon siutation in which Brian Cashman was about to DFA old BP before DL swooped in and took him off his hands. Durbin may not sign here, but apparently Huntington knew better than to trade for a guy that wasn't getting a contract. Which is nice.

Meanwhile, Dallas McPherson was also non-tendered. Get on that, Neal. Seriously. I'm not kiding.

UPDATE: Add Mark Prior and Morgan Ensberg to the list of mildly interesting non-tenders.

Pirates/Padres update

Despite what ESPN had to say this afternoon, both the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Post Gazette are reporting that if a trade goes down between the Pirates and Padres, it probably won't be a big one. From the UT:

The Padres and Pirates have done a lot of talking to one another this offseason. And there is mutual interest on some fronts, which I wrote about this morning. But as this afternoon, things don't appear quite as hot as today's ESPN report may have led some to believe. The big point the Padres are making is that they aren't going to trade Double-A third baseman Chase Headley Not to Pittsburgh. Not to anybody, unless something really kooky happens.

If the Padres aren't trading Headley, that pretty much compliments the PG report that we're not talking to them about Bay.

Rumor o' the day

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

A deal with the Pirates is a possibility, and talks could evolve into a major swap. The Pirates, if the price is small, are interested in taking on Padres No. 2 catcher Michael Barrett, whose salary of at least $3 million is larger than the Padres usually pay to a backup.

Pittsburgh wants to move pitcher Matt Morris, a No. 5 starter whose $12 million salary far exceeds his market value. If Towers must assume a bad contract to make a deal, he is willing to take on a pitcher – such as Chan Ho Park – because Petco Park plays big.

The Padres asked about Pirates left fielder Jason Bay and also have interest in Pirates outfielders Xavier Nady and Nate McLouth. The Pirates want Padres Double-A third baseman Chase Headley.

If the Pirates can get Headley in a manner that doesn't cost them Bay, I think it would be a solid trade. The Padres do need outfield help pretty badly right now- check out their depth chart. Still, I don't imagine Headley will come cheaply. Of course, he's the type of player we should be after as opposed to, say, Chad Durbin. I guess it's that "wait and see" time of year again.

SD Union-Trib link from Rotoworld.

Two ominous links

The Detroit Free-Press confirms that the Pirates and Tigers have talked about Brandon Inge, though there's no indication of how serious things are at this point.

The PG today tells us that now that Doogie is considering keeping Marte and Grabow now that he's dealt Torres off for scraps. That's so amazingly short-sighted that I don't even know what to say. The same story says the Pirates are interested in trading for Michael Barrett from San Diego.

Despite everything the new front office has said, if we keep Marte and Grabow and pick up Barrett and Inge, it'll be pretty clear to me that the drive for 75 is alive and they're hoping to get lucky and win the NL Central with 83 wins this year. I'm not passing judgment on anyone until the off-season is over, but I don't like the way things are shaping up.

Brandon Inge is the best we can do for a rumor?

There's lots of talk in the thread of the post below and all over these here internets about Brandon Inge coming to Pittsburgh. Charlie writes up a good post on his blog about the actual possible benefits of adding a guy like Inge to the mix here. I'll use his post as a jumping off point: instead of taking the negative stance that Inge is an awful acquisition, we'll start at "intriguing." And even if we start there, I don't like it very much.

Here's the thing: if you view each of Dave Littlefield's trades in a vacuum, he wasn't a bad general manager. As late as like June of last year my uncle (who is a devoted Pirate fan) was telling my dad that I was being way too hard on DL here on WHYGAVS and that he'd made a lot of good moves. The thing was, Littlefield's moves never got us anywhere. Oliver Perez and Roberto Hernandez for Xavier Nady and Mike Gonzalez for Adam LaRoche aren't necessarily bad trades, but they are redundant. Kris Benson probably wasn't worth more than Ty Wigginton, but the DL had a chance to get more and the Pirates had no idea how to use Wigginton once they had him. Strictly speaking, Dave Williams for Sean Casey is a good trade, but it's not a good move when you're expecting Casey to be a power hitting left-handed bat. As I wrote in my One Craig Wilson post, Littlefield was constantly shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Instead of consciously trying to build something, Littlefield was always attempting to maintain a status quo that never existed. It was the annual "Drive for 75," if you will.

If we trade for Inge, I don't see it being much different than any of the moves Littlefield made that ultimately ended up being so infuriating. Inge is a guy that might be able to step in and be better at third base than Jose Bautista, but he also might not (quantifying the differences between offense and defense and coupling them with projections are never terribly easy). Inge would probably come cheap because of his contract, Miguel Cabrera, and the fact that he's not a very good hitter. He would probably make the Pirates a little better and we could probably swing a trade for him that would go down in our favor. But the fact of the matter is that he'll only serve to make the Pirates a little better right now. What's Brandon Inge at third base next year? A jump from 68 wins to 70 wins? Maybe. It's not that it would be a bad move to trade for Inge, strictly speaking, it's just that it would be a classic Dave Littlefield move. I hate to say this, but the front office should be much more concerned with the team that will be taking the field in two or three years than the team that will be taking the field in 2008. It was lack of vision for things like that that doomed Littlefield and I'd hate for Huntington's first major move to be in the same vein.

Non-tenders and the like

If you're wondering if we're going to do any dumpster diving, Rotoworld's got a list of likely and possible non-tenders as we come up to the non-tender deadline here. There's not really many interesting names on either list. I would guess Morgan Ensberg's name will come up if he's non-tendered, but I think he's pretty much toast at this point in his career. Craig Monroe was a DL target in the past, but I don't see a whole lot of use for him with the team as configured right now. Any other ideas?

Salomon Torres may retire

If you want proof that the Salomon Torres trade may not have been a complete waste, word from the PG today says that Torres is considering retirement rather than moving his family or having to move away from his family.

This isn't really surprising given Torres' age (36), his numbers from last year, and his repeated statements about how much he likes playing in Pittsburgh. It is, however, a reminder that even in trades that look bad on the surface, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than we know about.

Bye bye, Sully

Word out of Milwaukee is that the Bucs have swapped Salomon Torres to Milwaukee for minor league relievers Marino Salas and Kevin Roberts. Color me... uninspired... by this trade. More relievers? Really? I mean, I get grabbing guys like Meek in the Rule 5 or off waivers, but trading for them? I can see Roberts has nice strikeout numbers and everything, but he was also a 23-year old in A ball. Salas is 26 and hasn't cracked the bigs yet, struggling last year in his only journey about AAA. I suppose something's better than nothing, but justifying trades with that kind of reasoning starts down a dangerous road. Then again, Torres really can't be worth much at his age after the season he had last year. At the very least, these two guys could have more value in another trade down the road than Torres might if he struggles at the start of this year.

People say I'm crazy

Fun link from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Dan O'Neill's column today(passed along by J in the comments):

A crazed Pittsburgh Pirates fan has created a blog called "Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke," or www.whereisvanslyke.com.

Under that banner, serving as his mantra, is a Van Slyke quote: "Every season has its peaks and valleys. What you have to try to do is eliminate the Grand Canyon."

The blogger also explains his reason for starting the site: "I used to talk to my family and friends about the Pirates non-stop. They kind of got sick of that so I started a blog."

With that in mind, my son has suggested I start a blog and call it www.cleanyourroom.com.

You know, I won't even argue the fact that he calls me crazy. Still, I wish he would've spent more time writing my URL down and less time making lame jokes about his kid's messy room.

Rule 5 Draft

The Bucs released Jose Castillo this morning right before the Rule 5 and my friend who's in Nashville and at the draft tells me we just picked up Evan Meek from Tampa Bay, who he describes as a "decent prospect, situational reliever at the big league level." That's all I got for now and I have to get back to work, but feel free to discuss how this portends armageddon in the comments.

UPDATE: Meek's minor league numbers. Awesome strikeout numbers, decent hit and walk numbers, horrifying walk rates.

Someone notices us!

Today in his ESPN Magazine column (which more than a couple people have forwarded my way), Bill Simmons has this to say about losing sports franchises:

Consider these two indisputable sports truths:
Truth No. 1: The most agonizing baseball moment since Bill Buckner's gaffe was Francisco Cabrera's series-winning single for Atlanta that killed Pittsburgh in the 1992 playoffs. Not only did the Pirates blow a ninth-inning lead, not only did Cabrera, a no-name, deliver the final blow, not only did comically slow Sid Bream somehow beat a Barry Bonds throw home, not only was it the Pirates' third straight October defeat ... but Bonds signed with the Giants a couple of months later, banishing the Pirates to small-market hell. They haven't been heard from since. The franchise was effectively murdered by one play.

And here we are, 15 years later, fighting about Chris Gomez. Ugh. I swear to you I have a lot more to say about this, but dammit, it's going to be long and well thought out and heartfelt and all those good things and I don't have the time to be any of them right now. But I will soon, I promise.

Links

Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera for Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin. Now THAT is a trade. Holy freaking crap. Sure, this put the Tigers in "Win Now" mode, but it does it EMPHATICALLY. And their lineup is now scarier than just about anything I can think of. The Marlins don't come off too poorly in the deal, either, because Miller and Maybin are both very good prospects.

Winter Meetings update from Dejan: Doogie is entertaining offers for Marte, as he should be. Also, the Pirates may have been targeting Franklin Gutierrez in the Bay talks with the Indians. That means it's probably a good thing Bay's staying put for now, because there's nothing about Guiterrez that jumps out at me, either.

This happened a couple days ago, but Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the Pirates at the turn of the last century and creator of the World Series, was elected into the Hall of Fame. Somehow, I don't think the owners at the turn of this century will be similarly honored 100 years from now.

The Bucs also may have signed Chris Gomez (I say may have because while the Trib is reporting it's done, the PG is reporting it's not in the article I linked to above) to a one year deal. I had no idea Gomez was still playing until we showed interest in him late last week. How much do you wanna bet he's going to join the illustrious list of players in the past five years that wore black and gold as their final uniform before hanging it up for good?

You may have noticed that earlier today the Nationals traded Jonathan Albaladejo to the Yankees for Tyler Clippard. If you're like me, Albaladejo's name may have rang some kind of bell in the depths of your memory, though you probably couldn't place it (I know I couldn't). Lucky for us, Charlie connects the dots. Dave Littlefield, screwing us from beyond the grave.

Reality check

There is a ton of panicking going on right now among Pirate fans right now with respect to our new GM and his off-season thus far. I am far from sold on Huntington, but there are some things I think everyone needs to keep in mind:

• Trading anyone just for the sake of making a move is bad idea. When that "anyone" is Jason Bay, it's a worse idea. Having him tank again in May and June and not getting anyone for him is not a whole lot worse than getting Lee and Shoppach for him right now. The reward for keeping him and maximizing his value is way greater than the risk of holding on to him.
• Just because we think Ronny Paulino and Nate McLouth/Xavier Nady are equal to Brian Schneider and Ryan Church doesn't mean Omar Minaya sees it that way. There's no way of knowing if Huntington was in on any types of talks for Milledge. The trade to the Nats came out of the blue.
  
• Elijah Dukes is a certifiable crazy person. Not in a Milton Bradley way, but in a, "He threatened to kill his whole family," kind of way. Personally, I would've taken a risk on him. Still, it's entirely justifiable that the Pirates' didn't.
  
• Please remember that Jim Bowden has a reputation as a bad GM for a reason. If he's making a move that seems too good to be true, there's likely something behind the scenes that we're missing. Holding his moves up as ones we should be making isn't a great idea.
  
• Huntington is not dealing from a stacked deck here. It's hard to convince people that crap is chocolate.
  
• Remaking a bad organization cannot happen overnight. Accordingly, there is no hurry to deal at these meetings.
  

I'm not suggesting that we blindly accept everything the Pirates do right now, but to start roasting Huntington already is just plain over-reactionary.

Ty Taubenheim and Josh Wilson, you guys!!!

You've probably already heard about yesterday's roster move, but I'd feel kind of remiss not talking about it at all. The Bucs DFA'd Brad Eldred and Brian Rogers and claimed Josh Wilson and Ty Taubenheim off of waivers from Tampa and Toronto, respectively.

Everything I read about Taubenheim makes it sound like he's a pretty interesting pick-up. At the very least, he's got to be more interesting than Brian Rogers. He's got some pretty solid strikeout/walk numbers in the minors, which means, what the hell, why not. Wilson is a different story. He sucks a lot. His major league numbers are really bad and his minor league numbers aren't really a whole lot better. I don't really know why we'd want him, but then again, it's not like there's really much of a point to keeping Brad Eldred around either.

If you want more reading, Vlad's got a post up about the two of them on Bucs Dugout and as usual WTM's already got pages up for both Taubenheim and Wilson. I agree with Vlad on these moves Huntington's making- they don't seem to amount to much, but at least he's trying. Every Jack Cust comes from somewhere and even if none of these guys are it, well, dropping the guys he's dropped from the roster isn't going to hurt us.

Some humor

So, I've been torn on my opinion of Neal Huntington so far. We get awful rumors of terrible things that might happen, then he comes back and denies the rumors and says all the right things. Then the terrible rumors start back up. So I keep coming back to one thought, which I think is rather brilliantly illustrated by this cartoon that my brother Dennis drew for the Carroll News.

Don't screw it up, Neal.

This better not be true

ESPN is keeping a blog going of the winter meetings with live updates from all their baseball people. This afternoon, Steve Phillips posted this update about the Pirates/Indians talk:

The Pirates and Indians are talking about a potential Jason Bay trade. Pittsburgh would get catcher Kelly Shoppach and left-hander Cliff Lee for the two-time All-Star.

I am not kidding when I say that if this trade goes down, there is at least a 75% chance that I'm turning in my Pirate-fan card for good. This is such an unfathomably stupid idea that Dave Littlefield is sitting at home thinking to himself, "I wouldn't make that trade in a million years." It's only Steve Phillips reporting it, and he's a moron of near legendary proportions, but man, I am now terrified.

And now for something completely different

As a fun reminder of how little we know at this time of year, Neal Huntington completely denies reports of cutting Nady and selling low on Bay. If that wasn't enough, there's also this interview with him at BP (sent by reader Mark) that includes quotes I swear were lifted from my subconscious like this one:

DL: It happened prior to you joining the organization, but can you comment on last season’s acquisition of Matt Morris, primarily your philosophy regarding similar moves?

NH: Our philosophy is that every move we make will be logical, rational, and well-researched. They will also be for the long-term benefit of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The quick fixes that have been taken in the past--that you see happen around the league with some teams--are not something we’ll be interested in here.

And:

We’re in a unique situation. We have lost 90-plus games each of the past three years, but we have an interesting core of guys with two years left on their contracts. We have a good young pitching staff, and an outstanding young closer in Matt Capps. We feel that we have some talent here and have an opportunity to win, but we want to be in a position to be consistently competitive every year. What we don’t want to do is win 82 games next year and then go backwards because we weren’t thinking long-term. If you look at teams like Colorado, Milwaukee, Arizona, and Cleveland, it has been the depth of their systems--the players they’ve developed--that has helped them to take a step forward. It hasn’t been players they’ve brought in from outside the organization. They’ve filled needs from within, and we need to get to where we can do the same thing. Improving our scouting and player development systems is a big part of what we’re looking to do.

Read the whole interview. It's long but worth your time. Once again, maybe we (myself certainly included) should all remember to wait for Huntington to actually, you know, do something before he rushing to judgment on the guy.

Fire up the hot stove

I'll start this post off by saying that I have a sudden, unshakable feeling of doom about this off-season. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for a fire sale that results in a 120 loss season if we can get quality minor leaguers for the guys we sell off. I've said before that I would take 110 losses in 2008 if it meant that we could have a good team in 2010 rather than 67 wins in 2008 and 67 wins in 2010. But the more I read about Huntington and his plans for the off-season and the direction things seem to be headed, the more nervous I'm getting.

Let's start with the article that will be appearing in this morning's Post-Gazette. Apparently Huntington is hell-bent on trading Xavier Nady, which is fine, and if he can't do that, he's considering non-tendering him. That's effing crazy. Nady won't cost more than $4 million next year and with Jason Bay's slump, Nady was probably the most productive Pirate at the plate last year. I understand wanting to trade him at peak value (which he may be at right now), but not only does even SUGGESTING that kill his trade value, he's not even close to prohibitively expensive. Yeah, I'd love to live in a world where Xavier Nady and Adam LaRoche platoon at first base for the Pirates because we have a right fielder than can hit. But we don't live in that world right now and until then, Nady in right field isn't the worst option. Seriously, this idea makes me so sick I spent 20 minutes trying to decide if I was upset enough to break my "no f-bomb" policy here at WHYGAVS. Ugh.

Now we move along to Jason Bay. The Boston Herald (via Rotoworld, which is indispensable at this time of year) is reporting that the Pirates and Indians are talking about a Bay swap that would involve Kelly Shoppach and some other players. That seems harmless on the surface. I actually watched Shoppach hit in the playoffs this year and thought to myself that he would be the type of player I wanted the Pirates to pick up he's a good hitter and a pretty good catcher who's completely blocked by Victor Martinez. But we're talking about a guy who's going to be 28 years old with 313 plate appearances. That's the name that's coming up in Bay talks? Clearly other players would be involved and if Doogie could work a trade for, say, Shoppach, Andy Marte (who's lost top prospect status faster than you can say 'Lastings Milledge'), and a good pitching prospect, I'd be all for that. But Jason Bay isn't worth that right now and this quote from the Nady article in the PG illustrates that:

"Right now, nobody wants Bay," another American League executive said. "That will change if he shows he's right again. But not now. He's got to get out there and be Jason Bay again."

Somehow I don't see a guy that people talk about like that coming off of the season that Bay just had fetching any kind of serious bounty this off-season. Right now I'd imagine the final trade being Bay for Shoppach and a middling pitching prospect or Bay for Marte straight up right now. Of course, I'm just speculating right now, but you've all watched enough hot stove shenanigans to know how this stuff works.

What's really scary to me is the motivation behind all of it. Honestly, I don't think there's some sinister mandate coming down from the front office to cut payroll. If that was really the motivation behind everything, why go through all the trouble of breaking down most of the front office and coaching staff and hiring new people to fill the roles? All of this talk strikes me as Huntington wanting to change things for the sake of changing things. That's stupid and that's dangerous. The only way a team in the situation the Pirates are in (meaning a small market) can be a good baseball team is for the people running the team to have a vision. They can change the path to the ultimate goals, but never the vision. Dumping everyone because the Pirates suck and the "culture of losing" needs changing, even if you can't get good value for those players, doesn't sound like much of a vision to me.

Mets trade Milledge to Nats for crap

I'm pretty sure this is how this went down:

Jim Bowden: So, uh, Omar. You looking to trade Lastings Milledge? You know toolsy outfielders with big upside turn me on more than a prospective threesome with Jessica Biel and Scarlett Johnanson.

Omar Minaya: Well, we do need a catcher and maybe an outfielder to take Lastings' place ...

Bowden: You mean like Brian Schneider and Ryan Church?

Minaya: Done and done.

Bowden: Holy f$%#&%$* s#!t are you kidding me? I was just... places his hand over the receiver, yells to Assistant GM Mike Rizzo Hey Mike, you were wrong! I'm not the dumbest GM in baseball, Omar's going to send us Milledge for Schneider and Church! takes hand off of receiver. You know what Omar?

Minaya: Dude, I could totally hear you talking to Mike Rizzo. Is that what you really think of me?

Bowden: If I say yes, is the trade off?

Minaya: Maybe.

Bowden: Well then, no. I think you're a genius. Ryan Church is solidly average and that will be a big deal, especially when Moises Alou breaks his hip or gets the shingles and your outfield is Endy Chavez, Ryan Church, and a borderline suicidal Carlos Beltran. Wait, I meant, " when Moises Alou is totally awesome next year and not old at all."

Minaya: So we have a deal?

Bowden: across the room, not even bothering to cover the receiver this time. Mike! Come slap me! I want to make sure I'm not dreaming! What's that Omar? Oh yeah, we have a deal. hangs up.

Omar Minaya's phone rings again immediately.

Minaya: Hello?

Neal Huntington: Hi, Omar, it's Neal, the new GM of the Pirates. Just curious if you're willing to part with Lastings Milledge. I hear you need a catcher and Ronny Paulino sure is a gamer ...

Minaya: Sorry, Neal, I just sent Milledge to Washington for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.

Huntington: Really?

Minaya: Yes, really! Why do people keep asking that.

Huntington: F%$#. hangs up.

Izturis finds a home

The Cardinals signed Cesar Izturis to a one year deal today. I would say that relegates a Jack Wilson trade from "unlikely" to "really, really unlikely." Meanwhile, the Astros signed Kaz Matsui and only the Cubs and Brewers appear remotely interested in winning the division.

Cardinal rumors

Interesting news from the PG this morning: the Pirates are shaping Matt Morris around, possibly to the Cardinals, and the same Cardinals are possibly interested in Jack Wilson. And maybe it's a bit late in the day, but man, what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't weigh in with my two cents here?

Here's the deal- Neal Huntington should do whatever he can to get rid of as much of Matt Morris's contract as he possibly can. If the Cardinals are interested in Jack Wilson (and really, they should be because he's better than Eckstein and most of the other free agent/easily obtainable options left on the market) than Doogie should do everything he can to tack Morris on to that deal. That shouldn't be terribly hard because the Cardinals are looking for veteran pitching. Since there was some kind of legitimate interest in Wilson back in July, that package might actually elicit a decent offer. Anthony Reyes was mentioned in the article and I think he'd be an intriguing pick-up, though I'd be asking for more if I was Huntington because Reyes is a clear "buy low" candidate here and the Cardinals might actually kind of need Wilson. Maybe we don't have anyone to play shortstop if we deal Wilson, but what's the honest difference between Bixler and Wilson in 2008? 72 wins and 65 wins (I doubt it's even that much)? I can handle that, especially if it helps us win games down the road.

Regardless, Huntington needs to get this deal done for a different reason. It would be nice to dump two high priced players that are average at best from a small market team that can afford them, but can't afford them and players that they need at the same time. It would be nice to get rid of them and restock with younger players. The reason that this deal has to happen is that Matt Morris has to not be a Pirate anymore. Seriously, he's the living monument of DL's inefficiency and crappiness. If the Cards want Wilson, I hope Doogie's pushing Morris on them, too. Maybe it's petty, but geez, I can't be logical all the time.

Links

Humberto Cota and Yurendell DeCaster are officially the Nationals' problem now, while Shane Youman is now the Phillies problem. How much dreck can come from one system?

Buried in a Johan Santana Hot Stove story at CBS is a mentioned of Neal Huntington discussing trading Nate McLouth and Xavier Nady to San Diego for Chase Headley. Don't know how much there is to it, but it's an interesting rumor.

Also, Delmon Young for Matt Garza? Wow. Just wow.

Some midday reading

In case you missed it, Jeff Passan at Yahoo wrote up the Pirates in Yahoo's Hot Stove Daily earlier this week. Here's a fun excerpt: I

t's not so much that the Pirates are in a bad situation. Their new ballpark is beautiful, their fans still devoted, their history rich. It's just that the systemic losing has worn thinner than the enamel on the loyalists' teeth, ground down by the frustration of bad management and worse ownership.

An overhaul of the front office ought to help in the first respect; the second is a horse pill without water to ease it down. The Pirates might increase their payroll, but not to the level needed to compete when the big league club is so downtrodden. New general manager Neal Huntington has already recused the Pirates from bidding on any of the high-profile free agents, so instead the focus turns to how Pittsburgh can improve itself with spare parts and trades.

I love being reminded how hopeless my fandom is!!! It seems pretty fair to say that Passan comes off as dubious that Huntington is going to turn things around here, though that's with some reading between the lines on my part.

Don Long, hitting coach

John Russell continues to round out his staff and this time it's with another name from the Phillies organization: new hitting coach Don Long. He's been the Phillies minor league hitting instructor since 1999, which means he's worked with a lot of the guys who made up one of the best offenses in baseball this year in Philadelphia. Of course, Gerald Perry was thought of as one of the best hitting coaches in baseball before he came to work for Lloyd McClendon's staff. After all the talk of remodeling the team after the Indians, Long is the third member of the coaching staff (after Russell and Varsho) to have spent significant time in the Phillies organization. That might be meaningless coincidence, but I kind of doubt it.

I suppose this is good news

When you're a Pirate fan, you take what you can get. For example, the following might be one of the most positive quotes I can ever remember reading during any off-season:

Reliever John Grabow and several other Pirates who ended the 2007 season with injuries all appear to be mending in plenty of time to be ready for spring training.

And none of them, so far, has gone under the scalpel.

An off-season where no Pirates are having surgery?!? How will the surgeons of the world survive?!? Think of their children!!!

Some real baseball news

The return of Dejan from his winter vacation coincides with two pieces in the PG today that actually have something to do with Neal Huntington's off-season plans. Imagine that.

First up, we learn that the Pirates have inquired about Matt Clement. I've never been a big Clement fan, but it's probably true that he'd be a cheap option to fill the back end of the rotation since he's coming off of shoulder surgery. A sure thing? No. Cheap and possibly worth something in a trade if he comes around? Yes. Then again, the back end of our rotation is already plugged with a massively expensive option. Maybe Neal has something in mind for Matt Morris. I sure hope so.

Next up is Dejan's first Hot Stove report. It's about Jason Bay and Jack Wilson and whether or not they're going to be dealt this off-season. The money quote:

"No, none of our players is being actively shopped," he said.

In the same breath, though ...

"If a club calls and inquires about one of our players, we have to listen. That's just where we are."

Huntington often has repeated that the Pirates must improve their organizational depth, especially in Class AAA, even if that means making moves he feels will be "not popular."

So, none of the players are being actively shopped, Doogie's just trying to trade all of them. Got it. If I'm not mistaken, he's also got some bad grammar. He does say that Maholm, Snell, and Gorzelanny are pretty off-limits right now. Of course, there's also his speech to the other GMs about his off-season plans at the GM Meetings:

"We stood up and said that we're interested in making good baseball trades and that we need to add depth to our system."

And the meaning of "good baseball trades" was that other teams should not expect outright salary dumps?

"Exactly. For certain players, our asking price is outrageous, and we acknowledge that. We feel there are guys on this club who are a big part of our core."

DAVE LITTLEFIELD ALERT! DAVE LITTLEFIELD ALERT!

Let's keep talking about Zach Duke!

You guys have no idea how happy I am to have kicked off a violent reaction to something I wrote that doesn't involve Nyjer Morgan, even if all of you are violently opposed to what I wrote. Of course, I think a lot of the reason you're violently opposed to what I wrote is that I did a terrible job of explaining what was really on my mind. Accordingly, let's look a little further into Zach Duke and see if I can make myself a little clearer.

First off, I would suggest going back and reading my review of Duke's 2007. I used it to try and figure out how to explain Duke's struggles and whether injury or general ineptitude were more to blame. Obviously that's something that we'll probably never know for sure, though if you read my post you can tell I'm leaning towards injury not being Duke's biggest problem last year. The one thing that I didn't believe then and don't believe now and won't believe even when I'm sitting at Milliways for the last meal in the recorded history of creation is that Jim Colborn's "tweak" caused Duke's problems. There's just too many signs to the contrary for me to simply chalk Duke's struggles up to that and move on.

That was what bugged me about the Andrews story. Clearly, he's the pitching coach and it's his job to try and make Zach Duke a respectable pitcher and if he didn't work with Duke, that would be irresponsible and stupid, especially because the back end of the rotation is so freaking empty behind Snell and Gorzelanny. What irked me was that "fixing Duke" was the first thing he brought up in regards to the Pirates' job. Admittedly, I may have been reading way too far into things, but the article read to me like Andrews was going, "Yeah, well, Colborn was a dumbass and screwed up a fantastic pitcher and now that I'm here, I'm going to fix what he did wrong and Zach Duke is going to be just like he was back in 2005 again."

In reality, Andrews is saying exactly what Colborn said when he was hired. Read this quote from the article:

"Mechanics isn't a real fun issue to talk about," Andrews said, "but we need him to become consistent. I think it's going to work. I think he's going to believe in it. It's pretty basic stuff -- but he's a pretty basic pitcher.

Now read this article from April 2006 where Colborn talks about the changes made with Duke:

Colborn's work with Duke in the spring, as he reiterated, did not involve a mechanical switch. Rather, it was aimed at developing a consistent delivery. When Duke reported for spring training, Colborn detected inconsistencies.

"I watched tapes of Zach Duke from last year, and that was exactly the kind of pitcher I want him to be," Colborn said. "This was about timing, about having a sense for where certain body parts need to be at certain points in the delivery."

See, that's what bothered me about the Andrews article; that he and Meyer both seem to think he's going to be able to do something amazing and revolutionary with Duke and I don't think he's going to do anything that different than what Colborn tried to do.

Jeff Andrews is already annoying me

From today's PG:

How Andrews works with one pitcher, however, will draw a lot of attention over the next several months.

Specifically, can Andrews "untweak" Zach Duke and turn him back into the wunderkind left-hander he was as a rookie in 2005?

"He can pitch," said Andrews, announced by the Pirates as their pitching coach yesterday. "I think he's going to come out of it."

"It" is the funk Duke fell into in 2006-07 beginning with former pitching coach Jim Colborn's decision to tweak his delivery in spring training 2006.

The quotes around the word "untweak" suggest that it was Andrews' word and not Meyer's. So, the way he's going to fix Duke is by MAKING MORE CHANGES.

The name of the article is "Andrews' No.1 priority-- Duke." The problem is that Duke is, at the absolute best (and I think this is up for debate) the third most talented starter on the team. Andrews' #1 priority should be figuring out why Ian Snell went from "Roger Clemens level" back to "2006 Ian Snell level" in the second half. Or maybe how to get Tom Gorzelanny to last a full year. The reward from working with those two would be much greater than attempting to getting Duke back to his 2005 level, which is about as likely as me sprouting wings. I can just feel myself getting more and more cynical with this new staff and front office as each day goes by.

Links

Jason Kendall is continuing his tour of the NL Central by signing with the Brewers for a year or two. And now you can pencil the Cubs in for an NL Central repeat.

Blue Jays' pitcher Joe Kennedy died this morning of a possible brain aneurysm. Awful, awful news for the day after Thanksgiving (or any day, for that matter). RIP, Joe.

So, let's get this straight. Last year, the Angels signed the terribly overrated Gary Matthews Jr. to a 5 year/$50 million contract. Apparently, they weren't happy with that bit of ridiculous overspending, so they went out and inked Torii Hunter to a 5 year/$90 million deal this week. Mark my words, they will regret that deal. Hunter is overrated at the plate (he's slugged over .500 twice in his career and NEVER had an OBP of .340) and already declining in the field at the age of 31. Still, the Angels are paying him like a super-star. Bad idea.

Worse idea? 4 years and $19 million for Scott Linebrink. Umm, Doogie? TRADE RELIEVERS NOW!!!

The Indians and Mariners are signing or close to signing Japanese pitchers. The Pirates may or may not be trying something similar (and no, I don't mean Masumi Kuwata).

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, guys. Today, I am thankful that Dave Littlefield is fired. Seriously, how amazing is that?

New coaches and the 40-man shuffle

As anticipated, Gary Varsho and Tony Beasley were hired to be the Pirates' new bench coach and third base coach. Jim Leyland is cursing himself for letting a Pirate from the early 90s evade his staff. We also hired a bullpen coach. I used to think I knew what a bullpen coach did, until Lloyd McClendon was hired to do it for a year in Detroit. Now I'm clueless
Today we added one more coach to the mix by promoting Jeff Andrews from the pitching coach slot at Indy to the same job on John Russell's staff. I don't know how I feel about promoting from within, but I guess that's not fair to Andrews because he can only work with the talent that the former front office gave him.

More interestingly, we did some shuffling of the 40-man before setting it for the winter. We dropped Josh Sharpless and Shane Youman off the 40-man, which isn't terribly surprising or interesting. We also dropped Josh Phelps, which seems stupid to me as he's not actually a bad hitter, but at the same time he's not a good one and we do have other guys who can play first base and hit lefties better than he can, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised (especially because he never played after Huntington took over at the end of the year). Getting worked up over cutting Josh Phelps isn't a terribly productive exercise, I don't think. The guys we added to the roster are rather interesting. We claimed Jimmy Barthmaier from Houston, who's a starting pitcher that is probably best characterized as a "project" if I feel like being kind today. We also added Brian Bixler, Ronald Bellisario, and Olivo Astacio to the roster. Bellisario and Astacio are right-handed relievers. You can read about all three new guys that you haven't heard of before at WTM's site.

Remember Gary Varsho?

According to Paul Meyer, the Bucs are going to name some of their new coaches today. I think it's a bit strange that Doogie is announcing the hirings and not Russell, but what do I know, I'm just a blogger.

Meyer names three names and the one that jumps out at me is Gary Varsho, who was a backup outfielder/pinch hitter on the 1990 and 1991 teams. He's coming from the Indians system, though he's also worked with the Phillies in the past. That's only interesting to me because I'm trying to ascertain who's hiring who here. Anyways, there's no official announcement yet, but I've gotta hit the road back to Western PA for Thanksgiving, so if they do announce it, go wild in the comments until I can post.

The shortstop market heats up

This afternoon the Angels traded Orlando Cabrera to the White Sox for John Garland. If you're curious, Wilson and Cabrera are actually pretty comparable players. Wilson is usually a worse hitter, but his two best years and better than anything Cabrera's done recently. Cabrera is a few years older, more expensive, and, using David Pinto's PMR, not as good with the glove as Jack. Of course Cabrera has a couple Gold Gloves to his name and he's got a World Series ring, which puts his "intangibles" through the roof when trying to figure out his value in a trade, but I suppose if Huntington is trying to trade Jack, he should be looking for at least John Garland type value (which, actually, isn't terribly much).

Peace out, Cesar

So I missed this over the weekend, but the Pirates unsurprisingly declined Cesar Izturis's option for the 2008 season. Even if we had a deal with Jack Wilson set in stone, Cesar Izturis wouldn't be worth more than $5 million, so it's hard to quabble with this move. I know people are wondering if we'll try and bring him back cheaply if we do trade Wilson, but that's kind of unlikely in a world that David Eckstein is potentially worth $9 million. Oh, and plus he's terrible. I can't believe we actually traded someone for him. Damn you, Jim Tracy.

Meanwhile, the Pirates are expected to name John Russell's coaching staff this week. I know you're as excited as I am to see what kind of people will actually work for a guy that finished 30 games below .500 in AAA last year. Too harsh?

AFL Update

So, there's this whole Arizona Fall League going on that I've been kind of ignoring, mostly because the only player there I'm mildly interested in is Andrew McCutchen. Let's see how the Bucs are doing on the Phoenix Dirt Dogs (who've made it to the finals):

Andrew McCutchen: .286/.381/.378
You know what's a bad sign? A slugging percentage lower than an OBP in the Arizona Fall League. After showing some surprising pop in 2006, he's shown none of that in 2007. He's still very young so it's hard to hit a panic button on him as a prospect yet, especially because he's doing a good job of getting on base in Arizona, but let's just say it's not surprising when Pirate prospects don't live up to the hype.

Nyjer Morgan: .258/.355/.355, Super Speed Rating: 1,098,762
Somehow, Nyjer Morgan has become the most polarizing player in the Pirates system. That's sad. I wish we had someone better to argue over. Just remember that the AFL is always a pronounced hitter's league and this is the best that Nyjer, who I think is the oldest player on the team, could do.

Jesse Chavez: 20 hits and 8 earned runs in 12 innings. Ugly.

Dave Davidson and Patrick Bresnahan: Combined to pitch 13 and 1/3 innings, which means everything they did was more or less meaningless in terms of figuring how well they pitched.

Chris Hernandez: Pitched fairly well in 13 innings. Is 27 years old.

Barry Bonds Indicted

Barry Bonds was indicted today on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. There goes the Wild Things contract, his Major League career, 3,000 hits, and probably his records. That or Bud Selig is spineless.

More piling on Pirates.com

See, the reason someone needs to fix Pirates.com is right here. That's a nice article about how hard Doogie is working now that he's the GM and how excited he is to turn the team around and really I'd be pretty heartened by it if I wasn't such a cynical jackass. But I am and at least three other articles on the main page feature Nyjer Morgan's name in the title, which casts doubt on everything else on the site, in my eyes. Oh well.

A-Rod is still a Yankee

In news that shouldn't surprise anyone, it looks like A-Rod is going to re-sign with the Yankees. In news that should shock the hell out of you, it looks like he may have ditched Scott Boras and is taking a considerable cut from what his market value probably is (the rumored deal is 10 years, $275 million and crazy as it is, I'm certain he could get $300 million on an open market) to do so.

Why do I have to still read crap like this?

So I'm patrolling the Pirate internet looking for some Pirate news to talk about because it's painfully scarce right now and the fact that I've barely been writing makes me feel really bad because there are still lots of people reading and commenting (incidentally, we're only 98 comments away from the 10,000th comment in WHYGAVS history, I'll be monitoring the situation). So I click on over to the team page and what do I read? First, I get the following headline:

Morgan speeding through Bucs system

Now there is a statement which is technically true and intentionally misleading. Remember that a lot of you were surprised when I mentioned that Nyjer Morgan was 26-years old. Now, I can't speak for everyone, but I tend to assume that anyone that spends their day reading Pirate blogs and leaving comments in October (which was when I did the post about Morgan and McLouth and Duffy and talked about their performances relative to age, etc.) is a pretty freaking hardcore Pirate fan. I would imagine if you got a random sampling of Pirate fans at PNC Park on the last day of the year and asked them how old Nyjer Morgan was, 90% would guess 24 or under. And yet here we are in November reading headlines on the team website about how this guy who's played 28 major league games at the age of 26 is "speeding" through the minor league system. Of course he's fast, so the headline is technically right. But that's not the point and anyone that knows enough about the Pirates knows it.

Still, I read onwards. And the whole article is filled with sub-headlines and picture captions and things like that that imply that Nyjer Morgan is the left-fielder of the future in Pittsburgh and that the plan is to have both of them playing together in the outfield. Now, Nyjer Morgan seems like an awesome guy. I really do get that impression from everything I read about him and see from him. The problem is, he's just not that great at baseball. I promise you that any team with Nyjer Morgan as their starting left fielder for any significant amount of time will lose at least 90 games. I'm not kidding, even a little bit.

So here's my problem: we all knew that Pirates.com was a mouthpiece for Littlefield and McClatchy. Why are they still pumping out stories that would make Dave Littlefield smile? Now that he's gone and Doogie is GM, shouldn't I at least be reading about how Morgan's UZR or PMR (I wish he had played enough to make David Pinto's list, I'm always curious to see how we grade out there and will likely post about it later) could make him worth playing, even though he's likely going to be a stiff at the plate?

Barry Bonds ... a Wild Thing?

By know most of you have probably heard that the Washington Wild Things have offered Barry Bonds a contract as a PR stunt. As someone that spent a lot of time in WashPA last spring, I find this to be particularly hilarious. Imagining Barry at various spots around town- the Mexican restaurant, the VIP club/bar/dingy basement, on W&J's campus by the hilariously phallic statue of Washington and Jefferson (imagine the view of this from the side ... yeah) with Mayor Luke, staying with a "host family" somewhere in town- wow, it would all be too good to be true. I wish there was some way to make this all happen outside of my head.

Another front office hire

The Pirates announced today (or yesterday, or somewhere in there) the hiring of Larry Corrigan as another special assistant to Huntington. I like this hire much more than the Tanner hire, to be honest. He's been in Minnesota's system for a very long time and most recently worked as a special assistant to Terry Ryan. Since the Twins are one of the teams I hope the Pirates are modeling themselves after, it's hard not to like this news. He was the Twins scouting director for two years in the early 90s and worked with Russell when he was the minor league field coordinator (whatever that is) in the mid-90s. According to the same article, he's already at work helping John Russell fill out his coaching staff.

Catching up links

Chuck Tanner was hired as a special assistant to the GM. I'm sorry, but this seems like the same type of PR crap the old front office loved so much. It's nice to see him back with the club and all, but he's almost 80 years old and I can't imagine he's going to be much help to Huntington.

Neal Huntington apparently is shopping Jason Bay. So apparently we'll find out what kind of GM he's going to be pretty quickly (via Bucs Dugout and Honest Wagner).

Base coaches will wear helmets in light of the Mike Coolbaugh tragedy this summer.

Thor would like to come back. Unfortunately for him, we have about 8 guys that play his position(s) and they've sucked a lot less recently than he has.

Fire up the WHYGAVS Jukebox

There's a fairly good chance that I'm going to be out of blogging range until Sunday afternoon. That means I can leave you with two things to do. The first is jump in on my favorite thread of all time, here. You'll know what to do when you get there. Next up is something you'll be familiar with if you've been around a while. It's time for me to crack open the WHYGAVS Jukebox. That's where I write out a list of Pirates, fire up iTunes, hit shuffle, and apply the songs as they come up on the list. Then it's up to you guys to figure out how they apply. The thread in the post doubles as an open thread to plot world domination as well or discuss free agency or semi-obscure movies, or whatever until I can get posting again. Today, let's welcome the new members of the front office with some choice selections:

Frank Coonelly: One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces- Ben Folds (the live version, not the Five version, if you're curious). This is perfect. Coonelly is the exact type of guy I imagine being tortured in high school for being a dweeb, only to lord it over his tormentors now.

Neal Huntington: Rock and Roll- The Velvet Underground. How to describe the first couple months of Doogie's GM tenure? It was alright. Appropos of nothing, seeing a Velvet Underground song immediately reminds me of this exchange from Almost Famous:

Lester Bangs: You like Lou Reed?
William Miller: The early stuff. In his new stuff he's just trying to be Bowie. He should just try to be himself.
Lester Bangs: Yeah, but if Bowie's doing Lou and Lou's doing Bowie, Lou's still doing Lou.
William Miller: If you like Lou.

Message to Neal: you don't have to be Mark Shapiro. You just have to be good. Not even as good as Lou Reed or David Bowie. Just good.

Greg Smith: I'm Not Down-The Clash. Is this a message to us from the deposed scouting director of the Tigers somehow speaking through my computer? Probably not. If I have 3,000 songs on my computer, I could probably find a way to relate 1,000 of them to Greg Smith in one way or another.

Kyle Stark: Snow (Hey Oh)- Red Hot Chili Peppers. Umm, honestly, I didn't like Stadium Arcadium nearly as much as By the Way or Californication (both of which I would've listened to until the grooves wore out if CDs had grooves). I do already like Kyle Stark more than Brian Graham, though that's just because I prefer things I know nothing about to things that I know suck (now there is a dangerous blanket statement).

Sadly the shuffle gods didn't spit out any Zappa or Dead Milkmen, which always prompt my favorite music discussions. On that note, I guess all I can say is have a great weekend while I'm Smokin' Banana Peels and trudgin' across the tundra (mile after mile) right down to the parish of St. Alfonzo for his famous pancake breakfast.

2007 Review: all the pitchers that are left

Ugh. It's November 8th and that means it's time to wrap this meandering season review up. Beyond the four big starters, I don't care much about the pen and everyone so these are going to be mostly quick hits.

Matt Capps- In theory, Matt Capps should suck. He's a guy with a straight 94-mph fastball that is only exceptional because of his ability to put it over the place, and that's his out pitch. In actuality, Matt Capps was one of the few Pirates that didn't underperform in 2007. 1.01 WHIP and 64 K's to only 16 walks in 64 innings? That's just silly. I was happy to see him not get abused by Tracy again this year because really, he's our one bullpen stud. Not that you need a bullpen stud when you suck, but hey, they're nice to have.

Salomon Torres- This is what happens when you sign a 34-year old reliever to a big extension (the Pirates did this for Torres in '06). Now we're saddled with him for at least one more year. I'd trade him now if someone will take him, because I doubt he'll be worth much by the time this year is over.

Matt Morris- Matt Morris is probably a really nice guy in real life. I would probably enjoy having beers with him. But this is baseball and in the baseball world, my blood literally boils every single time he takes the mound in black and gold. When friends complain about their baseball teams, I will likely respond with "Yeah, but at least you didn't trade for Matt Morris" until at least 2032. I hope we trade him for anything, simply because he is a breathing, walking, living reminder of Dave Littlefield. If Lacuna, Inc. actually existed, I would probably have DL erased from my brain waaay before any ex-girlfriend.

Damaso Marte- Really nice bounceback year for Marte in '07. He was silly dominant against lefties (6-for-64 against him!) and effective against righties. He should have some real trade value because of the way he dominates lefties and because he's silly cheap in 2008, clocking in at $2 million.

John Grabow- Never bounced back from his early season injury. Will always be John Grablow to me. Would be terrifying as our primary LOOGY if Marte gets shipped out of town.

Josh/Jonah Sharpless/Bayliss- Suck

Tony Armas- Typical DL Pirate, gone five months too late.

Masumi Kuwata- Old, nice story, probably nice guy, peak of DL's knack for making moves with more PR value than baseball value, thankfully gone with his eephus pitch.

Shane Youman- Kind of like Josh Fogg, only left-handed. And worse at baseball.

Shawn Chacon- Surprisingly only mildly awful as a reliever (as opposed to the expected, "completely awful"). The Pirates might bring him back, but if they do it at a high price I'll be pissed.

Franquellis Osoria- Why was Franquellis Osoria a Pirate? Because he was a member of the greatest baseball team known to man, the 2005 Dodgers. He's probably OK as a middle-relief guy.

Brian Bullington and John Van Benschoten- It's official, they're busts. I do feel bad for these guys, though. Talk about a crippling organization to be drafted into.

Wayback Wasin, Marty McLeary, Dan Kolb- Thankfully nothing but distant memories.

Juan Perez and Brian Rogers- Possibly still in the organization, but not good enough for me to care.

Dave Davidson- Mildly promising.

Huntington keeps hiring

I said that I thought that the guys Doogie hired to fill out his front office would be more important than Russell. Today he hired a scouting director, a director of player development, and a director of baseball operations. These are the men that will shape the future of the Pirates. So who are they?

Kyle Stark, director of player development: He's coming from an assistant farm director position in Cleveland. He's 29, I think he's got a law degree, and three years ago he was a pitching coach for St. Bonaventure. So he's really young, which means he's either incredibly motivated or just incredibly unqualified for his job. I will choose to believe the first one until I have reason to think otherwise.

Greg Smith, director of scouting: Coming from Detroit. This one line from the PG terrifies me:

Smith, 41, worked the past three seasons as a special assignment scout for the Detroit Tigers. For the eight years before that, he was Detroit's scouting director ...

Ahhh, demotion. I want to say that he can learn and get better at his job. The thing is, Ed Creech never did. Still, I'm willing to give anyone not actually named Ed Creech a chance.

Bryan Minniti, director of baseball operations: I don't know what this job does, but I don't think it's a whole lot. He's only 27 and he's worked for us for the past seven years. My brain doesn't know how to process that information.

Get to know these names, guys. These are the go-to names to complain about when something goes wrong.

Q&As from the mothership

In the comments on the post below, Emma points out this link, which is a couple days old but worth sharing:

The Pirates upper management has widely ignored OBP (on base percentage) in the past. How important will OBP be in player evaluation under your leadership?
-- Eric S., Pennsboro, W.Va

We are going to utilize several objective measures of player performance to evaluate and develop players. We'll rely on the more traditional objective evaluations: OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) , WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched), Runs Created, ERC (Component ERA), GB/FB (ground ball to fly ball ratio), K/9 (strikeouts per nine innings), K/BB (strikeouts to walks ratio), BB%, etc., but we'll also look to rely on some of the more recent variations: VORP (value over replacement player), Relative Performance, EqAve (equivalent average), EqOBP (equivalent on base percentage), EqSLG (equivalent slugging percentage), BIP% (balls put into play percentage), wOBA (weighted on base average), Range Factor, PMR (probabilistic model of range) and Zone Rating.

Holy freaking hell, our new GM considers "Runs Created" to be a "traditional objective evaluation." Admittedly, it seems like he's just rolling buzzword stats out to make people like me happy, but since we've hired a guy with a scouting background who seems to know his way around the BP glossary, well, that makes me happy. Plus he looks like Richie Cunningham and Toby Flenderson's love child.

What kills me is that we go from that nice and encouraging interview with Huntington (does anyone know his middle name? Does it start with P? Because then we could call him NPH, which would become Doogie, which I now think is his new nickname no matter what his middle name is ... Doogie it is, then) to a Jennifer Langosch mailbag. Now, I don't make it a habit to aimlessly rip into writers who have much better jobs than me (unless they're Ron Cook, Bob Smizik, or they work for the Trib, in which case they deserve it), but reading things like this make my blood boil, especially when they're linked millimeters away from Huntington talking about VORP and PMR and such:

Based on his production the last two seasons, [Freddy] Sanchez has made many believe that he has the potential to be a cornerstone for this organization. A year removed from surprising the baseball world by winning the NL batting title, Sanchez proved in 2007 that the honor was not a fluke. Add in the fact that defensively, he's one of the best second baseman in the league, and former general manager Dave Littlefield appears to have made a steal in nabbing Sanchez from the Red Sox in 2003.

.785 OPS + 32 walks in 652 PAs + average defense at second base (saying he's the best doesn't just magically make it so) + 30 years old with an injury history= cornerstone? Really? Doogie, if you need someone to handle the Mailbags on the team site, my e-mail address is right in the corner. I'm only kind of kidding.