Coaching staff is complete

Jeff Cox is the new third base coach, sealing the deal that none of next year's coaches will have come from Mac's old staff (which isn't a bad thing). Cox has been on McKeon's staff in Florida the past few years and was an assistant with Montreal from 2000-2001 and KC in '95. He also has quite an extensive past managing in the minors including a stint in, you guessed it, Montreal's farm system. I don't know when exactly, but I'd be willing to be it coincided with the time that Dave Littlefield and Jim Tracy were there. On a lighter note, it means that our staff next year will be named Jim, Jim, Jeff, Jeff, John, with the one outlier being Bobby Cuellar (who may be considering a name change to John to complete the symmetry).

The return of Dejan

Our very own Pirates beat writer (the only reliably objective one left in the city since the Trib has gone over to the Dark Side and Perrotto technically isn't in the city) has returned from vacation in Romania to answer some questions. He says that Hank Blalock is pretty much off the table since we aren't giving up Ollie. I agree with him in that this is the right move. We can adequately fill third base enough that it simply isn't worth the risk of trading the mountain of potential we have in Perez for Blalock (who has good numbers for such a young guy but suspicious splits away from that comfy park in Arlington). I say we give Perez some time with the new coaching staff before we give up on him. And if I was hired to manage the Pirates and they traded a guy like Perez before I ever managed a game, I'd be pretty pissed.

He also gives a pretty good explanation for why DeCaster was put on the 40-man and Boeve was left off, namely that DeCaster is much closer to the majors (Boeve is 25 and started last year in A ball) and mauling the ball in Venezuela.

The rest of the stuff is normal Q&A fare, what are the odds of Giles coming back (slimmer than an Olsen twin) and why Jumpin' Jack got jobbed for the Gold Glove (black and orange is much more attractive to voters than black and gold). Dejan also promises his first Pirates' Hot Stove Report on Sunday and says that the phone calls that he's made give him evidence the team actually is serious about increasing the payroll to the $45-50M range.

What next?

So... anyone know anything about this Nunez guy the Phillies signed? I mean, $1.7M or so a year is a pretty good haul for a utility player, no? Honestly, I don't understand. How did this happen? What's next, Tike Redman hitting .330 in center for the Mets next year and pulling in a 2 year $5M deal next offseason?

Meanwhile, the closer market continues to spiral out of control with Billy Wagner signing the second ridiculous contract of the last week. With the way things are going, even Jose Mesa might be worth something this offseason...*shudder*. Meanwhile, us Pirates fans are eagerly anticipating hearing our name falsely included in big trade rumors when the winter meetings happen next week, then the big washed up free agent spending spree around New Years. It's gonna be a good offseason.

Typo?

So let me get this straight... the Mets took Tike Redman and THEY gave US money for him? Like actual American dollars? Or is this like the time Cam Bonifay traded Alex Ramirez to Japan for yen? I mean, if I was the GM of the Pirates I'd be saying things like "I'll give you $500,000 to make sure I never see Tike Redman again." I mean I complain about Dave Littlefield a lot, I'll give you that. But this seriously might be on a different level, we DFA'd Tike Redman and someone is offering us money for him? This is too good to believe.

Littlefield's ego

After seeing Perrotto's article today, after detailing Nate McLouth's food poisoning and Ryan Doumit's sore shoulder, which cut their winter seasons' short, about how Littlefield had "interest" in Josh Beckett I have to wonder just how big DL's ego has gotten. First, shortly after the team denies they will be selling to Mark Cuban, resulting in a mostly insulted public, a rumor about him as a candidate for the Red Sox GM position magically appears. Now today, after several huge deals go down in a week and all the Pirates can muster is signing Scott Strickland and hiring a career .220 hitter as a hitting coach, Littlefield casually mentions that he was interested in Beckett, but didn't want to take on Lowell's salary. WHAT? The Red Sox gave up Hanley Ramirez, their top prospect period, and one of their top pitching prospects. What do we possibly have that could equal their package? Unless Littlefield was offering Duke, Maholm, and probably someone like Walker he wasn't in the conversation for Beckett, end of story. Has Littlefield's ego really gotten so big that everytime something negative happens to the Pirates, he thinks he can just make a story up and smooth everything over? Because it seems to me that it's much more likely that the "rumor" about Littlefield being considered in Boston originated from Littlefield himself saying to someone "Well, I'm smart, I'm from New England, and I've done a fantastic job here in Pittsburgh" than the Red Sox *actually* considering hiring the moron. And there's no way his "involvement" in the Beckett deal was anything more than him saying to Florida "Hey, I'd like Beckett" and getting told to shove his head where the sun don't shine unless he was actually considering trading away a considerable amount of what is thought to be the future of this franchise. I mean these aren't even credible rumors that are surfacing. He was clearly feeling very full of himself after the Bay deal (did anyone else see his shit-eating grin on TV or hear him on the radio?). I wonder if it's possible to even get one extra person into his office with that enormous head of his right now.

This Year in Baseball

There's several Pirates nominated for "This Year in Baseball" Awards at MLB.com, some we should be proud of and some we probably shouldn't. Jack Wilson is nominated for best defensive player (yet somehow doesn't have a Gold Glove) and play of the year for his flip to Castillo. Mike Gonzalez is nominated for best set-up man, despite his injury (and some of his numbers really are impressive). Zach Duke finds himself nominated for "Best Rookie." Jose Castillo is also nominated for being a moron and walking to first base on a ball three, thus causing Daryle Ward (who wasn't included in the nomination, but should have been) to trot to second and be tagged out. They call the category "Best Blooper" but that play wasn't a blooper, it was flat out stupid. Apparently just missing the cut were Kip Wells for "Best Starter", Lloyd McClendon for "Best Manager" and of course, Jose Mesa for "Best Closer." And they don't even have a "Biggest Ego and Most Perfectly Coiffed Hair" so sadly, Dave Littlefield also went un-nominated.

Anyways, click the link and vote for Wilson, Duke, and Gonzalez, then vote like hell for Frankie Rodriguez dropping the ball on the mound and letting Jason Kendall score. Let's be honest with ourselves, the odds of any Pirate winning Best Defensive Player, Best Set-up Man, Best Play, or Best Rookie are nil, but the odds of a Pirate winning blooper of the year for a play that a semi-retarded caveman would have known better than to make are much, much better. And frankly, I'd rather forget that it ever happened.

Hey, looky

We finally hired a hitting coach. Jeff Manto is the new man for the job, or maybe more accurately, the only man that would actually take the job. I can't say anything about how we aren't exactly the organization I would be promoting from within for the position of hitting coach that hasn't already been said. Third base coach is the only remaining vacancy left on Tracy's staff.

The Top 10

John Perrotto writes for BA about our farm system, naming the top 10 and then ranking the players with the best tools, etc. Our top two prospects happen to be our last two top draft picks (Walker first), which I suppose can be taken for a good sign. It's kind of depressing to read how BA's top prospects of ours for the last decade have panned out, they mostly play for other teams (including WVU football) or are named Chad Hermansen except for the last couple years. The rest of the article talks about pitching and how McCutchen and Walker are the first two real hitting prospects to come along in a while, which is true. It's also interesting to note that the Littlefield/Graham farm system has finished above .500 in each of the last four years, something that only happened once in the prior 33 years of Pirates history. That seems like a pretty positive stat, but how much of that is due to players playing in levels too low for their age, I can't say (though it's something Littlefield is pretty notorious for I think).

The Hot Stove

The Red Sox trade for Josh Beckett even though they don't have a GM. The Mets trade for Carlos Delgado. The White Sox are replacing the Big Hurt with the big guy that gets hurt a lot. And in Pittsburgh we fan the flames of the Hot Stove by signing the one, the only Scott Strickland to a minor league deal. He's not exactly an old, washed up right handed reliever like Terry Adams because he's only 29, but he's only pitched 5 games in the last two years after reconstructive elbow surgery. He didn't have terrible numbers before the injury though, so if he's healthy he'll probably be useful in the bullpen.

Something's better than nothing I guess

After the changes to the 40-man were announced my dad commented to me that it was a shame that we mismanaged Bobby Hill into the point where we got nothing for him. Looks like that isn't entirely true, since he was DFA'd we had a little bit of time to trade him before he was released outright and we managed to send Bobby Hill to San Diego for a player to be named later. Upon the learning of the player's name, we will then transfer the expectation that he will completely replace Aramis Ramirez in our lineup.

There are the crazy Cuban rumors and then there's this

Apparently, the Pirates have had to go public to quell rumors that the Red Sox are interested in Dave Littlefield. Wow, where do these rumors come from?. It already seemed like the Red Sox were bound and determined to interview the least qualified people available for the job, between Jim "I love outfielders" Bowden and Jim "I was the worst half of a terrible two-headed GM monster" Beattie. I guess Littlefield doesn't look too bad compared to those two, but then again it's not like he has a sparkling resume here either. You know what, if they want him, they can have him.

At the bottom of the article in a completely unrelated note, the Pirates have signed Terry Adams to a minor league contract. Apparently the Terry Mulholland and Rick White eras didn't provide us with enough old relievers with goatees so we're coming back for more.

40-man is set

The Pirates set their 40-man roster for the winter, dropping reliever Jeff Miller, Tike Redman, Bobby Hill, and, somewhat surprisingly, Michael Restovich to make room for reliever Josh Sharpless, middle infielders Craig Stansbury and Javier Guzman, and Rob Mackowiak-in-training Yurendell DeCaster.

Not really any surprises either way if I'm not mistaken. Tike pretty much had to go with both Duffy and McLouth likely to be in the big leagues next year. By dropping him they leave room for Rajai Davis, a younger version of him. Jeff Miller had a rough year and I know was a name I had heard as a candidate to be dropped. As much as I like Bobby Hill (and it pains me to say this) I'm not really sure there was much room for him with Sanchez emerging. Wigginton at least offers some power against lefties, something Hill doesn't bring to the table. By adding Stansbury and Guzman, that would've left like 7 middle infielders on the 40-man, which would be pretty ridiculous. The biggest surprise was dropping Restovich, who was kept on the 25-man all year with promises from Littlefield that he'd be here in 2006, then was sent to Venezuela where he's killing the ball. Instead, he's dropped off the roster, probably for DeCaster.

Anyways, it looks like they did a fairly decent job here. There's not a Chris Shelton that we failed to protect and I don't think any of the guys we're dropping are going to come back and haunt us. It does bring an end to the Michael Restovich era (which I'm going to have to pretend never happened, just like other things that I don't understand) and leaves us with squat just a little over two years after the Aramis Ramirez trade but those moves were kind of unavoidable and hey, we did get rid of Tike.

Spin! Spin! SPIN!!!

The PG has eaten up McClatchy's assurance that:

We're serious about keeping our young players here. That's one thing we said we have to do. We have to develop players and we have to keep the right ones.

That's all well and good, except that it's not really true. Like I said yesterday, like Charlie said earlier today, all this deal does is keep Bay in Pittsburgh for the same amount of time that he HAS to be here, only for a bit less money than we would pay him were we to go to arbitration. The Bucs take on the risk that he won't get injured seriously. This is a move that was a common sense move and there's no real need for celebration because this is nothing extraordinary.

It's analogy time.

Say you have a dog, he's like 5 years old and housebroken. Then all of a sudden he starts pissing in your living room. He pees all over the carpet, all over the couch, behind the chairs. At first you think it's an accident, but it keeps happening for a week or so. You're getting exasperated; he was a good dog. You're thinking about taking him to the vet when he walks up to you, whines, and goes to the front door. You put him out and he goes in the front yard. You're incredibly excited, but you really shouldn't be. I mean, the dog was already housebroken, him going in the front yard is nothing extraordinary. You were just so tired of having the couch pissed on that this seems like a miracle. You tell him he's a good boy and you probably even give him a treat. Still, it's not like he walked into the bathroom, peed in the toilet, wiped the rim, flushed, and put the seat down because he knew your girlfriend was over. That would be extraordinary. That's not what the Pirates did. The Pirates just stopped pissing on the couch and went in the front yard for once. While it was nice to see, all they really did was use common sense, something they should've been doing for a long time now.

Pirates and Bay come to an agreement

Jason Bay has officially signed for the next four years, that's next year in which we control his rights and his three arbitration years, for $18.25 million, with $750,000 possible in incentives. The fifth team option year was left on the table, apparently at Bay's request (and who can blame him for not wanting to lose his first year of free agency). This is a solid move for the Pirates as it saves us the trouble of worrying about a Bay extension and it saves us a bunch of money by not having to go to arbitration with Bay. They'll probably try to spin this as a new commitment to winning. Just remember that Bay was ours for the next four years no matter what and all this does is make us pay him less money assuming he stays healthy for all four. Keep in mind that I'm not complaining here, this is a great move for the Pirates and it's exactly what they needed to do here. Just don't believe them when they tell you that it's something that it really isn't. It's a nice sign of loyalty to Bay to negotiate with him before he's arbitration eligible but it's not a special commitment to winning. It's just something that makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, it's nice to actually see the Pirates do something that makes a lot of sense. If they'd do that more often, we'd probably have to wonder less about their "commitment to winning."

A major announcement?

I got an e-mail from Pirates.com this morning saying the Bucs have a "major annoucement" to make today at 3 PM ET. I'm not sure what it is, but either they're doing a good job keeping it under wraps or it's not really that major because no one else(not the PG, not any of the other Pirates blogs, not ESPN or Deadspin... though those last two would only be involved if it was something REALLY major, Rotoworld won't load so I can't check it) has anything about it. Judging by the comments on the post directly below this one, the Bucs aren't close enough with Bay to have a deal done. Still, if they call this "major" and it ends up being the hiring of the rest of their coaching staff or something like that I'm not going to be very pleased.

UPDATE: Apparently it is Bay. Just a couple minutes after I hit publish on the above post the top baseball story on ESPN.com changed. No word on length or terms, which I suppose will come out later.

Some more non-news

Looks like we're moving from Cuban non-news to Jason Bay non-news in the Pirates news-cycle today. Littlefield said the same thing today that he said last time, the talks were "on-going." This is, of course, good news because "on-going" is better than "non-existent." The fact is, there's no hurry on the Pirates side to get things done because they control Bay's rights for one more year before arbitration. According to Meyer's article today talks seem to be centering around a 5 year deal similar to the ones the D-Rays recently signed Baldelli and Crawford to, that is guaranteed through arbitration years with the team holding options (worth a lot of money, in the $8-10 million range in Crawford's case) on the next year or two after that. That would seem, at least to be, to be a great situation for the Pirates to be in, but I don't know if Bay would want to tie himself to a team option like that. He's a bit older than most guys coming off their second season and I'd guess he'd want to cash in ASAP. I say as long as we can sign him without completely crippling our future we do it (after all, there's not much of a future without him). Hopefully by the time this contract is up we'll have an owner that can pay Bay what he wants, no questions asked. Until then, let's get this thing done and done right. I mean the guy is one of the five most valuable players in the National League, at least by my count (unfortunately some people disagree and most of them seem to have MVP ballots).

Steroid Testing Update

The union, surprisingly, caved and finally accepted Selig's new steroid penalties. That means 50 games for failing once, 100 for twice, and for ever for thrice. I stand by my statement from earlier today that the problem won't go away until they start taking blood instead of piss, but this is certainly a start as players will be less willing to gamble knowing 50 games are on the line instead of just 10. The tougher penalties are something that simply had to happen. Ten games for one failed test was a joke.

It continues

The post-season fleecing of the Pittsburgh Pirates continues. First Jack Wilson got screwed out of a Gold Glove. Then Carlos Lee inexplicably won a Silver Slugger over Jason Bay. After that, Garret Atkins, Jeff Francouer, and Willy Taveras all recieved more votes for Rookie of the Year than Zach Duke. Now, MVP voters placed Jason Bay 12th. Just like I wasn't pretending I thought Duke would win the Rookie of the Year award, I don't think Bay should have won the MVP. I just can't figure out how he finished behind a pitcher that barely deserved the Cy Young that he won (Carpenter), Pat Burrell, Brian Giles, and JIMMY ROLLINS. Yeah, Jimmy Rollins, he of the .770 OPS who almost got his team in the playoffs (but didn't) and had a pretty long hitting streak to end the year.

I'm not asking for a lot, just credit where credit is due. Somehow I think that .302/.402/.559 with 32 homers (playing in a park that is not remotely friendly to righties) and 101 RBIs (on a team where no one got on base in front of him most of the year), plus playing a very good left field, stealing 20 bases in 21 attempts, and scoring 110 times, ALL WHILE BEING THE ONLY THING RESEMBLING AN OFFENSIVE THREAT IN HIS LINEUP (and hell, he played every day too, it counted for Willy Taveras, why not Jason Bay?) is worth a little more than 12th in the MVP balloting.

Of course he's a Pirate, so that's minus at least 100 points right off the bat.

UPDATE (6:37 PM)- SI.com has the entire table here.

Testing

Funny how the week after ESPN's huge feature on baseball's pervasive drug problem MLB and the union get closer to a deal to toughen testing. Supposedly they will actually test for amphetamines (yeah, right) and they will toughen penalties. Still, the players are pissing in a cup and not getting blood drawn which means that it isn't enough.

Steve Phillips is an idiot

Steve Phillips has had a list up on ESPN insider for a few days now of the top 50 free agents this year. I was going to do a full post about it, but I read it and decided it was barely worth it. I will mention it since I know a lot of people don't have Insider. Suffice to say, among the top 50, Brian Meadows, Jose Mesa, Rick White, and Daryle Ward don't crack the list. Phillips also doesn't predict any of the top 50 to sign with us. This isn't a big deal, because Phillips predicts the only three third basemen on the list, Nomar, Mueller, and Randa (if you count Nomar as a third baseman) to sign with the Dodgers. As if his time as the Mets GM, his ramblings on Baseball Tonight, and those God-awful fake press conferences weren't enough, this probably proves it once and for all (say it with me now), Steve Phillips is an idiot.

Monday, Monday

Eric Bowser at Pirates Ownership Must Go says that an anonymous Pirates official has said that the leak that the Pirates are for sale (which started the Cuban rumors) came straight from the Comissioner's Office. He goes on to say that the league wants the team sold after the All-Star break next year. As per Cuban's "interview" with Smizik yesterday (it pains me to link to Smizik, but since this is actually relevant I'll break my long standing boycott of him and Cook just this once) Cuban is interested in buying the Pittsburgh Pirates, not just any baseball team, and would still be around if the For Sale sign went up some time next year. Of course, as Bowser says on his blog, Mean Old Bud and his cronies will probably want nothing to do with Mark Cuban.

Steroids

ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com have an amazingly thorough (especially for them) report on the proliferation of steroids in baseball. Despite the assertions given to us by Selig and the MLB, reading something like this really gives you the impression that Canseco and Caminiti weren't exaggerating when they approximated that 50-85% of the players in the league were on some kind of steroid way back when the steroids first hit the fan in what I think was 2002 in the Sports Illustrated cover story where Caminiti admitted his using.

Anyways, the whole thing is definitely worth a read if you have time. It would appear that baseball has a problem that isn't going away, no matter what they want you to believe.

Restovich Update

If anyone is curious, Michael Restovich's stats in Venezuela can be found here. It took some digging and some Spanish, but I found it. He's still absolutely tearing the cover off the ball down there at a .337/.440/.651 clip in what I think is 83 at-bats. I think he has 23 RBIs, but I'm not positive what the Spanish abbreviation for "RBI" is. I'm not entirely positive what other Pirates are still playing right now. I think Doumit is somewhere, but I'll have to do a little more digging on that. Perez was supposed to pitch in Mexico but I haven't heard anything about that in a while. If I find anything else, I'll post it. Alternatively, if you can think of any other Pirates playing right now put 'em in the comments and I'll see what I can dig up on their stats.

The end of the fall (league)

Brad Eldred: .289/.330/.588 with 7 homers, 28 RBIs, 22 Ks, and 4 BBs in 101 PAs.

If these were talking his stats from the first month plus of 2006 I'd say we were on to something with this guy. Unfortunately it's only his final line from the AFL. Nothing bad, but nothing spectacular either, though the RBI total is quite gaudy (next highest on the Saguaros was 16). It was clear that despite Eldred's power surge at the end of the summer in Pittsburgh, Littlefield wanted to see something from him in Arizona to prove to him he should be the starting first baseman next year. I'm not sure these numbers are enough to sway Littlefield because, well, the pitching in the AFL isn't exactly first class (though I suppose it's going to far to say that an OPS of .918 isn't at least a little impressive). The rest of the Saguaro's stats (including Bucco prospects Neil Walker, Adam Boeve, Matt Peterson, and Shane Youman) are here.

A couple other quick hits, the Rangers inquired about Ollie and got nowhere, and Michael Restovich is tearing things up in the Venezuelan Winter League (was hitting .382/.482/.721 in 68 at-bats as of last Monday, the 7th, if I get more current stats I'll post them). Both courtesy Rotoworld.

McClatchy and Cuban

Ever since the Cuban rumors have restarted I've been getting some comments and reading some things questioning why Cuban would be better for the team than McClatchy. I do understand the aversion to having a guy with Cuban's personality running the team, after all he gets a ton of bad press for his behavior with the Mavs and really does seem like nothing but a jerk. But beyond that, him buying the team could mean nothing but good things for the Pirates. The difference between him and the current ownership is a pretty simple one. Currently, the Nuttings, McClatchy, and the rest of the people on the board that own the team have one primary concern, not losing money. Things are working out fairly well for them, as that article over the summer by Dejan suggested. Still, they haven't had a single winning year, either pre-Nuttings or post. The Clippers are a great example of how you don't have to win to make money and the Pirates seem to be following their model, keep the fans excited about young talent and bring in some marginal veterans, but never actually get serious about winning. I'm not saying that winning is impossible in a small market (in fact, I know it isn't) but it's a lot harder to do if winning isn't among the concerns of the owners (this is where the rant about how they know nothing about baseball nor do they care to and it's evident from how they stuck with Bonifay blindly and now they're probably doing the same thing with DL would go if I wanted this to be a novel instead of a blog post). If Cuban buys the team he also only has one concern and it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with winning. I'm not here to detail every little move he made in Dallas since buying the team and I do realize that the NBA and MLB are quite different in how a team can be rebuilt, but go ahead, look at the team's results from 1991-2000 (he bought the team in January of the 2000 season, in which they closed 31-19 after a 9-23 start) and then from 2001-now. And remember that the bulk of those results were achieved by using his beautiful, state of the art arena (anyone know where we can find one of those?) and three franchise players he had inherited (Finley, Nash, and Dirk, know a baseball team with any equivalents?) to turn Dallas into a destination for free agents instead of a laughingstock, and thus into a successful (in more ways than just profit margin) franchise.

I'll finish up by saying that I absolutely do realize that at this point it's only a pipe dream of a snowball's chance in hell that the current ownership sells this team at any point before the All-Star game, if ever. And I know that myself and other people publicly bitching for McClatchy to sell the team will probably accomplish nothing (though as long as the ownership thinks the public supports them, or more accurately doesn't hate them, they will continue to think they can get away with anything). And I know that if Cuban were to buy the team, things I like would change (like our uniforms, of which I am currently a big fan, even with the hideous Sunday pinstripes, would probably return to something more like this) and that he'd be in the news every day for his antics as owner, some of which I would probably find outrageous. The only point I'm trying to make is that I don't think everyone sees the whole picture of what would happen if Cuban did buy the team. We're not just talking about an owner that will sink money into the team without thinking, assuming that that's the solution (like a McCourt). We're talking about a very shrewd businessman that revived one moribund franchise and WANTS to do it again. So here's hoping he doesn't give up just yet.

(On that note, I realize I've said A LOT about Cuban over the last three days and I'm done with Cuban until something more substantial actually happens, if it ever does. It's just that nothing else interesting has really happened with the Bucs the past few days (Zach Duke made the TOPS AAA All-Star team, woo-hoo) and this intrigues me much, much more. But now that I've said my entire piece, I'm done. It is Hot Stove Season, afterall, and we can find better Pirate-related topics to talk about. You know, like the ineptness of Dave Littlefield, which I have a feeling he will give us ample opportunity to discuss.)

Decisions, Decisions

Wilbur Miller has a post at OnlyBucs about the roster decisions facing the Pirates. I suppose a lot of what happens will depend on what goes on at the Winter Meetings, but most of the things he says make sense. I'll even say that despite my own personal preference towards both players, keeping Wigginton over Mackowiak makes sense from a purely statistical point of view. Fortunately for me, the Pirates tend to not value things like "splits" and "statistics" unless they back up their cause, so I'll probably never have to worry about the clashing of my common sense and my favorite players that would take place.

The Sports Guy and Cuban

I saw on ESPN's homepage today that the Sports Guy had a new "Curious Guy" column up with Mark Cuban (the "Curious Guy" is when he takes someone he finds interesting and trades e-mails with them into a column, it's usually not sports related) so I figured I'd check it out and see if Simmons asks any questions to Cuban about baseball. Much to my chagrin (but not to my surprise) most of the talk centers on bland NBA topics, Cuban's "salary embargo" (he won't let his announcers publicly talk about any of his players salaries) and the dress code. One statement by Simmons got me wistfully thinking of a Cuban ownership here in the 'Burgh though:

Nobody was really thinking outside the box with stuff like, "If we built state-of-the-art locker rooms, flew everyone around on a luxury charter and treated these guys first-class in every respect, would that lure more free agents here?" and "Who says we only need to have two assistants, what if we have eight, wouldn't that make us more competitive?" I don't agree with some of the personnel decisions that you've made -- and I've written as much -- but it's been impressive to watch you turn the demeanor of that franchise around in Dallas. Guys want to play there, which is a complete 180 from the way it was 10 years ago. Ahhhh.

Too bad we're not for sale, the Pirates problem isn't that no one can think outside of the box, it's that no one that runs the team even knows they're in a box to begin with.

AL Cy Young

Surprisingly the voters looked past Bartolo Colons's "image problem" (he's huge) and actually gave him the AL Cy. I'm glad it was him and not Rivera (unless it's an Eric Gagne year it's hard to convince me that a closer is the best pitcher in either league) and though you can make a strong case for Santana (AL ERA leader, WHIP under 1, MLB strikeout leader) the 21 wins is probably what did it for Colon. You can argue whether it should've or not, but his other numbers were good enough to justify it, I think, especially with his team winning their division.

Cuban update

McClatchy denies that the team is for sale. I don't think that's really the point. Guys like Mark Cuban buy things that aren't for sale, especially things like the Pirates that guys like Kevin McClatchy can't really afford. Cuban knows what he's doing though. If he's serious, look for him to keep the story in the news and rally the public behind him (because he knows we will be).

And really, I didn't put much stock into a story from "TheDeal.com". No one else picked it up, not the PG, not ESPN, not CBS, not CnnSI, not even Deadspin, just TheDeal. McClatchy commenting on it is a little like Mike Piazza's "I'm definitely not gay" press conference. Not sure anyone thought you were, but now that you mention it...

UPDATE (12:06 PM)- And now we have this coming off the wire.

In an e-mail response to The Associated Press, Cuban said Monday he looked into buying the team recently, but "they told me they have no interest in selling."

Well, at least we know he's interested.

Might as well weigh in

Looks like everyone is chipping in their opinions on the Perrotto article about possible targets at the winter meetings, so I figure I better put my two cents into the ring as well. The candidates, as listed by Perrotto:

• Wily Mo Pena, CIN
  
• Lyle Overbay, MIL
  
• Aubrey Huff, TB
  
• Hank Blalock, TEX
  
• Kevin Mench, TEX

Of the group, I like Pena and Blalock. Blalock will only be 25 next year with two very good seasons and another pretty good one under his belt (though I suppose there is some concern that he's gone a bit downhill the last two years). Still, I think he's the best hitter of the bunch and a decent glove at third, filling a need that we have on the team. Of course he'd probably require quite a ransom to pull from Texas, one I'm not sure we'd be willing to give up. Pena, meanwhile, will be 24 in January and has, to use Bill Simmons' term for NBA players, "tremendous upside potential." As in, he's young and he hits the ball real far. He's also a decent outfielder. Still, he's got pretty low OBP rates and strikes out a lot, so we'd be taking a big risk of putting another Eldred into the lineup. With his youth though, I'd say he'd be worth a shot, especially if the price is right from Cincy.

I don't like the other guys, mostly because I don't see Overbay bringing a whole lot more to the table than Wilson and/or Eldred and I don't see that trade being worth a young pitcher (plus he's almost 29). Huff's slide over the last two years has been pretty scary (OPS from .922 in '03 to .853 in '04 and .749 last year) and again, he's almost 29. As for Mench, well, I don't think he's enough better than our potential right fielders to justify a trade for him.

This again?

According to TheDeal.com, the Mark Cuban rumblings are starting up again. I thought this rumor had completely died over the summer, but apparently it's not dead yet. I'd be surprised if these owners backed out before the All-Star Game this summer, their moment in the sun. After that it's anybody's guess as to what will happen.

I do have to question the reliability of the article, as it names McClatchy as the principal owner of the team several times and doesn't say one word about the Nuttings at all. Cuban's personal blog also has nothing at the moment. I guess it's something to keep in mind, but it's still not exactly something I'd be expecting to happen in the near future either.

NL Rookie of the Year

Just saw on ESPNnews that Ryan Howard is the NL Rookie of the Year. That's fine with me, of all the NL rookies his stats were arguably the best (I still say Duke was better, but Howard was very very good). What I don't like is Willy Taveras finishing second and Jeff Francouer finishing third. As previously discussed, Taveras sucks, he just happened to play a lot, and Francouer made a big splash, but couldn't keep it up for his whole stint (which was just as long as Duke's was). In the AL Huston Street won, putting my predictions at 1-for-2.

UPDATE (2:50PM)- ESPN.com has a story up now. Duke actually finished FOURTH, behind Garrett Atkins, the guy everyone dismissed because he played in Coors Field. FOR SHAME, VOTERS, FOR SHAME!

Not so hot in the fall

You know things aren't going well in the AFL for the Pirates prospects when there's actually an article on Pirates.com about how poorly they're playing. Eldred's average has dropped to .250 and his strikeouts are rising, though they aren't nearly as high as they were during the season. (17 in 84 PAs). Boeve is still hitting well, and Walker is doing very well in limited action, especially considering his age. All of the pitchers we have down there are pitching pretty terribly, which is pretty typical for the league, I think. Complete team stats for the Saguaros are here.

While I haven't been following the AFL especially closely, I will say that I do at least glance at the Baseball America Prospect Report every day and seeing players with a PIT next to their name is depressingly rare.

Some Friday stuff

Not much going on on this Friday, just some quick stuff to round up.

• Glenn Hoffman is going to the Padres to coach third base, meaning he definitely will not be our bench coach next year. Not that everyone didn't assume this already, as Tracy brought in Lett to coach third, which was Hoffman's spot in LA.
• Kevin Towers is staying in San Diego and he kicked off the hot-stove season with an awful trade, bringing the prototypical Coors Field player, Vinny Castilla, into Petco, the anti-Coors.
  
• Sean McAdam ranks the top free agents at every position. Don't worry, they're mostly out of our league. The only third basemen are Mueller, Jose Valentin, and Randa, unless you count Nomar at third as well. Somewhere, Freddy Sanchez is smiling.
• McAdam also has an article about why this free agent class is so weak,which more or less doesn't apply to us because, hey, we only sign weak free agents as it is.

That's all I got for now. Everyone in Pittsburgh is all fired up about some guy who's named after a clock and has a bad knee, whatever that means.

Thoughts on Matt Lawton and the NL ROY Award

So it appears that Matt Lawton tested positive for his horse steroid (no kidding) while in pinstripes, which of course leads to more questions, like why he played for 3 teams in a month, or more specifically, who knew? It's tempting to think that the Pirates knew he was on the juice, thus they shipped him out even though all they could get for him was Jody Gerut, though with him not coming back they might have done it anyways. And how about the Cubs? Once they traded him to the Yankees for the NY-Penn League player, they essentially had turned Jason Dubois, a pretty decent outfield prospect, into a young 20-something maybe prospect. Of course it's possible that they realized they mistake they had made in trading for Lawton and shipped him off to anyone that would take him so as to not lose Gerut for nothing (though Gerut himself may be nothing special). Truthfully, I might prefer a young, low Class A pitcher that may pan out or may not to Jody Gerut, he with the knees of an 80-year-old. Still, it certainly looks awfully suspicious that a guy got traded twice in the same month he failed a steroid test.

Meanwhile, the NL Rookie of the Year is going to be announced on Monday. With Jack Wilson already being screwed out of the Gold Glove and Jason Bay being screwed out of a Silver Slugger (to Carlos Lee of all people, you've gotta be kidding me, RBIs aren't everything people) I was thinking about getting a post ready to talk about how Zach Duke would be screwed out of the ROY when he doesn't win it (which he almost certainly won't). Instead, I'd strongly recommend reading Charlie's post on the subject, as it's more thorough than anything I could put together on the subject. Some of the highlights:

Francoeur:
July: 1326 OPS (2004-era Barry Bonds)
August: 878 OPS (Mike Sweeney)
September and October: 700 OPS (Darin Erstad)

Duke:
July: 0.87 ERA (Walter Johnson coming back from the dead to kill you ALL)
August: 2.83 ERA (Johan Santana)
September and October: 1.80 ERA (Roger Clemens)

and

Many major league regulars had around 700 (plate appearences), so Francoeur played about 39% of the time he could have and Howard played about 50%. Among starting pitchers, only a handful pitched as many as 220 innings. Duke pitched 84.7, or 39% of what he might have if he'd pitched the whole season under, say, Dusty Baker. That's the same as Francoeur, even before considering that rookies rarely pitch 220 big league innings in a year anymore. If you're going to dismiss Duke because he didn't play enough, you've got to dismiss Francoeur too.

Bottom line, Duke had an out of this world rookie season. If you're going to penalize him for not playing enough you should penalize Francouer and probably Howard as well. But the award is "Rookie of the Year" not "Rookie that played the most during the year" so Willie Taveras, he of almost 600 ABs and a .291 batting average, but only a .325 OBP, .341 SLG (that's not a typo) and 29 RBIs shouldn't come anywhere near the award. I've heard some arguments made that Duke played for a last place team so he shouldn't win the award. When it comes down to it, that should only boost his case. We were an awful baseball team this year that didn't score a ton of runs. At times it seemed like we'd go Duke, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Duke, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Duke. If anything, an 8-2 record while pitching for the 2005 Pittsburgh Pirates should be bonus points in Duke's column. But it won't so I'd still look for the award to go to the media darling, Francoeur, despite his Shane Spencer like start and finish to the season.

More Pirates news

On the Pirates news that just won't stop giving, we now add the disappointingly unsurprising to the hilarious and disappointing news we already had today. Mark Redman has picked up his player option for next year. We turned down the team option, which means he'll make $4.5 million instead of $4.9 million. And now we have to sit around and hope that he doesn't completely suck in April, May, and June so we can get rid of the worst pitcher in the National League not calling Coors Field home after June 12th (as appointed by me).

Well, here's a load of crap

Looks like Omar Vizquel won the NL Gold Glove at shortstop over Jack Wilson. Shockingly, I'd say Jack got hosed. I could go into it, but here's a quick reason why: Vizquel made 8 errors to go with 234 POs and 426 assists. Jack made 14 errors to go with 246 Ps and 521 assists. That makes the fielding percentage .988 to .982, almost the same. Jack figured in on ONE HUNDERD AND TWENTY-SIX DOUBLE PLAYS, while Vizquel chipped in on 80. And the clincher, Jack's range factor per 9 innings was 5.08, compared to the league average of 4.51. Vizquel's was 4.60. So quick comparison, Vizquel made fewer errors and (in the only category that actually counts) has more career Gold Gloves, which are the only stats in his favor. But when you consider that Wilson covered much more ground than Vizquel, played 11 more games, and turned FORTY SIX more double plays, well, Jack got hosed (fielding stats for Vizquel and Wilson from Baseball-Reference).

Matt Lawton on steroids?

This is interesting; according to Deadspin.com (only slightly more reliable than me just completely making something up and telling someone on the corner of Forbes and Grant) the outfielder on a playoff team that was rumored to have failed a steroid test is rumored to be Matt Lawton. So, to make sure you're following, an outfielder on a playoff team is rumored to have failed a steroid test, and now that outfielder is rumored to be Matt Lawton. This is officially a rumor about a rumor. This, of course, doesn’t make it any less awesome. Everyone's favorite brain dead right fielder is a 'roid-head too? Frankly, I'm surprised. I would've thought he would've tested positive for something more... recreational.

If in fact it is true (which is a big IF) the next question will be when he tested positive. Was he with us when he did it? Did Freddy Sanchez and Nate McLouth find a black bag in his locker after he left, then magically start hitting home runs? Is this all really Jason Giambi's fault? Honestly, can't you do better than .260 if you're on the juice? Just what was A-Rod doing with Phil Hellmuth in illegal poker clubs? Oh wait, that's an entirely different, yet equally amusing, story.

UPDATE (5:42 PM): Yep, it's true. Remove all "ifs", "ands", or "buts" above and insert a large grin on to my face. This is toooooo good.

Top 10 Plays of the year

For anyone that's interested, SportsCenter just did their "Top 10 Defensive Plays of the Year" for the 2005 MLB season. Jack Wilson and Jose Castillo's amazing collaboration up the middle back in late July (you remember, the one where Jack dove up the middle and in one motion flipped it to Castillo who made it look like the ball didn't even stop to throw to Ward at first to complete the rare 6-4-3 ground out) clocked in at #3 behind Ichiro's wall-climbing antics in April and David Wright's mind bending, diving, bare handed catch of a blooper. I think I can live with that. Wright's play was without a doubt the play of the year, and Ichiro's catch was amazing too.

This is news?

I saw earlier today that Tracy and the Bucs were going to announce his new coaching staff today, so I was curious as to who we were getting to fill some of the slots filled by people that would be staying in Cali rather than following Tracy cross-country (Hoffman as bench coach, Wallach as hitting coach, etc). Instead, we got this:

Jim Colborn and Jim Lett have been named to Pirates Manager Jim Tracy's coaching staff, General Manager Dave Littlefield announced today.

Gee whiz, really? Colborn and Lett, what a surprise! This doesn't seem at all like a desperate attempt to keep the Pirates in the news in the middle of Steelers season. Good work guys. Come back when you actually have something to tell me.

Also, in the notes of the second non-news article above Littlefield talks about the Pirates/Jason Bay talks, which are "ongoing." Very few non-politicians can use as many words to say as few things as Dave Littlefield does. For actual news on the Bay talks, Charlie had a post a couple days back (that I believed linked to a BCT article by Perrotto) that placed the talks hovering around $16 million for next year plus his three arbitration years, which would be an incredible steal. I'd imagine that $16 million is the number leaked by the Pirates that they're asking for, while Bay is asking for something in the $20-25 million range, but I could be wrong.