Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

There's a nice article in the PG today about Josh Phelps' hot streak since he joined the Pirates. Yeah, he's killed the ball and that's a nice thing for us, but where is he supposed to play? This is one of Dave Littlefield's biggest problems. He recognizes one singular weakness, then assaults it with as many players as he can find while ignoring the rest of the team. Last year, he did this with the bullpen (that worked out so swimmingly). This year, he's done it with corner outfielder/first basemen. My dad likes to compare it to a Rubik's cube. Instead of working all of the sides at the same time, Littlefield solves the red side, then works on the blue side, then gets pissed off when the red side got messed up in the process.

Shocking news in the PG's Pirate Notebook today: Dave Littlefield is hard to deal with ! I know, I know, I was as shocked as you were to read that. The returns that he's allegedly been asking for Jack Wilson are ludicrous an insulting to the intelligence of Dave Dombrowski and JP Ricciardi, who are both more intelligent than DL. I don't even like reading stuff like that. It just makes me mad.

Perhaps it is ill-form to write another post about the offense the day after a 13-2 win, but in my own defense I had it formed in my head yesterday and didn't have time to post it on Mothers' Day. Plus more people read on Monday, so I wanted an extra day to go over it and fix things up. In yesterday's Inside the Pirates bit at the PG, Dejan took a look into the Pirates' system to figure out what's going on with the hitting. The whole piece was topped with this caveat: With the Pirates off to a historically poor offensive start, this public complaint might be more common than any: What are they teaching these guys? Well, before attempting to answer that, know this: Of the eight regulars in the major-league lineup of late, only Ryan Doumit, Jose Bautista, Chris Duffy and Ronny Paulino came up through the Pirates' system. The rest were taught somewhere else. I don't know where this came from. It could've been Dejan, but I'd bet on someone else quot...

Reader Charles Star just sent along this link from the New York Sun: Perez Trade Ranks as One of Mets' Best . A quick excerpt: With two outs in the sixth, Perez gave up two singles and a walk to load the bases, and then surrendered a hard liner to give up two runs and end his day. David Wright probably could have snared the liner, and Perez's small collapse came after a long half inning in which he'd run the bases as the Mets sent eight batters to the plate, but a pitcher so incapable of a basic regularity in his delivery gets little benefit of the doubt. His inconsistency from season to season, game to game, and inning to inning is all of connected with his inconsistency from pitch to pitch. Mets fans should be happy about this for two reasons, though. The first is that a less disciplined player can become a more disciplined one; the second is that a pitcher of Perez's immense gifts would never have been traded if not for this flaw. Perez either will or won't le...

From Dejan's chat at the PG site today: STricky_Kidean: Why is Don Kelly still on this team? Dejan Kovacevic: I get the idea that the Pirates would like to groom a utilityman from within, and they feel that Kelly could be that guy for a long time. What might be the better question is why he is taking so many significant at-bats. You look at his ABs and place them against, Nate McLouth's, and they seem a little too close for comfort. Holy freaking crap, this is insane. Why the hell are the Pirates worried about grooming a utilityman from within ? Because of the severe Jose K blogger fallout last year? Utilityman is the one position that it's probably best to grab some old guy for $800K in March and toss at-bats too. We're grooming utilitymen now? I don't know what to say.

The Pittsburgh Pirate Drafting Philosophy. A (Probably Fictional) Play The Scene: It is 1999. Mickey White and Cam Bonifay are in the Pittsburgh Pirate War Room discussing strategy. A heated argument breaks out. Bonifay: I think sticking a needle in my eye is a good idea. White: I want to eat ice cream. Bonifay: Ice cream will make me fat. I could have a heart attack and die. White: Yeah but sticking a needle in your eye will hurt like hell. Bonifay: Sticks a needle in his eye. White: That's it. I'm finishing the draft. It is now 2000. The setting and characters are the same White: Cam, didn't sticking that needle in your eye hurt like crazy? Bonifay: Why yes it did, Mickey. Thanks for asking. White: So why not try the ice cream this year? Bonifay: That sounds like a good idea. I think I'll... sticks a needle in his eye. White: F%$&! I'm finishing the draft again. I hate you. It's now 2001. Bonifay is gone but White remains. White: Finally, I can...

Turns out there may have been a little more motivating factor behind DL trading for LaRoche. From The Sporting News Inside Dish: Pirates G.M. Dave Littlefield completed a quest of sorts when he acquired 1B Adam LaRoche from the Braves. Back in 1999, when Littlefield was an assistant G.M. with the Marlins, Florida drafted LaRoche out of a community college in the 42nd round but failed to sign him. I wonder if DL actually forms new opinions on a players or if he's just working from notes that he made out in like 2002. Not that it's a bad thing to keep after a player you like, but damn, every single guy DL goes after is someone he's tried to get in the past and failed to get (if you missed the stories, he wanted to draft Romak in 2003). It's not that I think that this makes the LaRoche trade a bad trade or anything, it's just that something about DL being unable to trade for anyone that hasn't been on his radar for three years seems disconcerting to me. Perhaps I...

The race to the bottom of the National League Central is going to be fun this year. In the last couple of days we've received two reminders as to why Dave Littlefield and Wayne Krivsky are who they are. First, Roberto Hernandez signed with the Indians (OK, this happened Friday, I know, this has been in the queue since then and I haven't gotten it posted, sorry). This seems innocuous at first, but then realize that the Mets offered Hernandez arbitration before he signed. And that Roberto Hernandez is a Type A free agent (link via BBTF ), which means that compensation for him is steep ( Rotoworld says that because their first rounder is protected and because they owe a pick for Dellucci that it becomes a supplementary first rounder and a second rounder). Which means that had we offered him arbitration, we'd have those picks. Which means that in reality, we traded a supplementary first round pick, a second round pick, and Oliver Perez for Xavier Nady, a guy that can't h...

This article from Sportsline.com has been getting passed around the internet a lot lately as it's the rare national article that repeats all of the "FIRE LITTLEFIELD" sentiment that gets heard around these parts so much. Littlefield is terrible at his job, but when he gets axed I get the feeling that he's just going to be the fall guy for an entire organization that is rife with problems. This headline at the new Pirates blog Buccowire made me imagine what's going to happen this spring when the Pirates start 4-20... ( note- I've tweaked this slightly since I posted it, mostly to make it rhyme better and help the flow ) Robert Nutting : Times have changed The fans are getting pissed. They don't obey the spin. And they scream and yell and hiss. Jim Tracy : Should we blame McClatchy? Kevin McClatchy : Or blame that Jim Tracy? Ogden Nutting : Or should we blame those guys on the TV? Robert Nutting : No, blame Littlefield! Blame Littlefield! With his beady l...

Dave Littlefield has been notably quiet this off-season. Granted, most GMs save their big moves for the Winter Meetings in early December, not the GM meetings in November, but everyone likes to make a little bit of noise before then. DL gave an interview to Pirates.com yesterday, which I will attempt to translate into common English. Dave says: We're just getting started with the whole process and you know it's something you've got to keep a handle on what's going on in a lot of different areas. We're probably more in the trade market than we are the free-agent market, but there's a couple of areas we'd like to fill whether it be trade or free agent. Dave means: Even if the owners had given me money to spend this winter I'd have to pay at least 3 times market value to get anyone of any worth to come play for a team run by me and Jim Tracy. Accordingly, we will aim for the trade market where the players can't get away. Dave says: We'd like to get...