Van Benschoten

John Van Benschoten (remember him?) has been asked by famous arm orthopedist Dr. James "Seriously, why don't the Pirates just put me on the payroll?" Andrews to stop throwing for a couple weeks. So, who didn't see this one coming? Of all of the draft mistakes Littlefield has made, I think this one might be the worst. I mean, they took one of the top NCAA hitters and made him a pitcher for no particular reason. Did they think he wouldn't hit because he was from the MAC? Nolan Reimold, MAC player of the year last year (and former high school teammate of mine, which is the only reason I'm familiar with the situation) was drafted by the Orioles in the 2nd round last year (two picks after we took Brad Corely) and is tearing up the Carolina League this year. He's from the MAC and he can hit (OK, I'll be honest, that exercise was mostly for anyone from back home that was wondering how Nolan was doing this year, but it does prove a point about DL as well). Anyways, back to the subject at hand, I'll be surprised if Van Benschoten ever pitches in the majors again.

Popular posts from this blog

WHYGAVS has moved

It's official. WHYGAVS now has a new official home. It's actually at WHYGAVS.com , which means that it's the same as the old home, but I'm off Blogger now, which means that this old link won't redirect. You'll have to subscribe to a new feed if that's how you read WHYGAVS, but beyond that things are going to be mostly the same.
Read more

Links

For reasons that will become shortly apparent, I've been working on cleaning/updating the sidebar links. That means that I've got some new links to add to the sidebar, as well as some other things for your general perusal. Cory Humes, Geeves, and Alan from Bucco Wire are all blogging again at MVN under the header Pirate Revolution . There's also The Green Weenie and The 'Burgh Blues , two blogs I should've added some time ago. Meanwhile, Dejan's series about the Pirates' presence in the Dominican is awesome. I'm sure most of you have been checking it out as it's been published, but if you haven't I can't recommend parts one , two , and three , Renee Gayo's list of the top 5 prospects yet to play in America , and everything else that DK's put on his blog on the subject enough. It's an awesome look in to the Bucs' international operation and how things have changed since Bob Nutting took the lack of Pirate presence in the reg...
Read more

The Pirates are talking to Mark Loretta

There are a couple of possible reactions when reading that the Pirates are talking to Mark Loretta . The easy reaction is, "Well, so long as he's replacing Chris Gomez, I'm fine with that." That's true. Loretta's a useful utility infielder that can still handle a bat fairly well and can play just about every position in the infield in a short-term capacity. In fact, he's probably a better hitter than Gomez and he can't really be a worse fielder. That may make him more the successor to Doug Mientkiewicz, which is fine by me as well. But then I started thinking. Aren't we trying to trade our shortstop away? Isn't "successor to Jack Wilson" a position that needs filled on the depth chart at the moment? I mean, I know Huntington's not looking at Loretta as a starting shortstop next year ... but what if he is? This is how the offseason drives people crazy. You can go months and months without hearing any rumors, then as soon as rumor...
Read more