Danny Moskos- SP

The big news out of spring training today is that the Pirates are switching last year's top pick Danny Moskos from the bullpen back into the starting rotation. All I can really say is that it's about time. There's not really any point left in complaining about drafting Moskos because he's here and rooting against Pirates is a pretty counterproductive thing to do, especially rooting against young Pirates that were talented enough to be drafted in the first round of the draft (which Moskos would've been, even if Littlefield didn't take him).

The part about picking Moskos that seemed so insane to me was that DL and Creech assured us over and over and over that they got the guy they wanted and they got the guy that was going to help the team the most. Really, it's not that insane to think a pitcher can help the team out the most. Certainly, I didn't agree with that logic, but it's at least defensible. Or it was, until he switched Moskos to the pen. A reliever is never going to be more valuable than a position player and that's really all there is to it. There's only so much of the game that a reliever can affect. Why you would ever pick a guy at #4 and move him straight to the pen was (and still is) completely beyond me. If you put a guy in the rotation and he can't hack it, there's usually an indication that he'll succeed as a reliever (this worked out alright for Matt Capps), but if you start a guy out in the pen, there's no turning back. Not trying Moskos out as a starter was actually one of the more nonsensical things Littlefield ever did. Seeing that Huntington wants to try Moskos in the rotation is a nice breath of common sense.