SB Nation - Ronny Cedeno

Pirates Close to Signing Bobby Crosby

Charlie — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:06:49 -0000

More photos » by Tony Gutierrez - AP

Oakland Athletics third baseman Bobby Crosby leaps for a grounder hit by Texas Rangers' Ian Kinsler in the first inning of a game in Arlington, Texas, Thursday, April 30, 2009. Kinsler was thrown out at first by Crosby. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Browse more photos »

I'm not impressed, and I hope the deal is just a minor league contract. Crosby can't hit for average and gets hurt constantly. He does have a bit of power, and I suppose I'm glad the Pirates are at least a little bit concerned about having Ronny Cedeno as their only shortstop, but Crosby hasn't put up an OBP above .300 since 2005, when he was only a second-year player in the first place. Anything can happen, but as of now he looks more like a AAA player than a major leaguer.

UPDATE: ...I do get it, though. The market for shortstops wasn't great, and the Bucs had a dubious starting shortstop and no real backup plan. And, although Crosby makes Khalil Greene look like Honus Wagner, I suppose it's theoretically possible to see some upside in there. I'm just not going to get excited about it.

FOX Sports: Pirates, Brewers Discussed Ryan Doumit, J.J. Hardy

Charlie — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:09:25 -0000

More photos » by David Zalubowski - AP

4 months ago: Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Ryan Doumit, back, turns to apply a late tag as Colorado Rockies' Clint Barmes scores on double by Seth Smith in the seventh inning of a baseball game in Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Browse more photos »

First things first: treat this with a grain of salt for now. The fact that the Post-Gazette reported that the Bucs offered Matt Capps for J.J. Hardy but didn't mention that the Pirates and Brewers also discussed a Ryan Doumit-for-Hardy swap makes this report from FOXSports.com seem a bit strange to me. Nonetheless, it's interesting:

It's becoming very clear that Ryan Doumit is available on the trade market.

The Pirates were engaged in talks with the Brewers earlier this offseason about a trade that would have sent Doumit to Milwaukee for shortstop J.J. Hardy, major league sources said Friday.

But Milwaukee preferred to use Hardy as the trade chip to acquire a starting center fielder, Carlos Gomez, from the Twins.

Hardy and Doumit have comparable contracts, which would have aided a deal.

The Brewers have a couple of decent catching prospects in Jon Lucroy and Angel Salome who are both fairly near the majors, but their current starter is Jason Kendall, who has nothing left offensively. Dealing for Doumit might have made some sense for them.

I'd certainly be open to trading Doumit if I were in charge, but it wouldn't be my top priority. Doumit had a dismal season overall in 2009 but hit very well in September after seemingly recovering from the wrist injury that probably dragged down his numbers before that. Dealing Doumit for Hardy would have been fine, but it would have been a lateral move--both are very talented players coming off poor seasons. Hardy might be the more talented of the two, and he's certainly the more likely of the two to stay healthy, but that's a double-edged sword--Hardy doesn't have an injury to explain why he hit so badly last year.

If the Pirates had traded Doumit for Hardy, they would have essentially been trading out Ronny Cedeno (who would move to the bench if Hardy became a Pirate) for Jason Jaramillo. Again, I think that's a lateral move--Cedeno and Jaramillo are both credible second-division starters and nothing more, and neither have a ton of upside. Actually, if I had to pick which of the two had the best chance to break out, I'd probably pick Cedeno, because of the power he flashed at times last year and because he, unlike Jaramillo, has a few lines on his stat sheet that suggest he can be somewhat better than a glove-first player. (There's also Jeff Clement, who's still trying to stick around as a catcher, but the idea that he can catch will be hard to take seriously until he actually does it for a month or so; given his knee problems, I think it's much more likely he sees time at the corners. If Doumit is traded and Clement can catch, great, but I frankly doubt that will happen.)

The Doumit-Hardy rumors are interesting, though, and they may be a blueprint for the sorts of Doumit rumors we hear the rest of the offseason. Doumit's 2009 season was bad enough that the Pirates probably aren't going to get much value for him if they pursue a standard veteran-for-prospects deal, but they could acquire a similarly talented but problematic player who isn't a catcher, so that Jaramillo can get some more playing time. An outfielder might be a possibility.

I think the more likely scenario, though, is for the Pirates to wait until after the season starts and hope Doumit shows he's healthy and productive, then deal him for younger players. That's essentially what they did with Jason Bay--there were rumors about Bay throughout the 2007-2008 offseason, but Bay had just had a terrible year, so the Pirates waited and dealt him after he hit well for a few months in 2008.

Points Of Contention: Jack Wilson's Offense

Jeff — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:53:06 -0000

When the Mariners traded for Jack Wilson, we knew it a move fueled by defense. The front office and coaching staff made no secret of that. Wilson brought a glove, an excellent glove capable of making up for a lackluster bat, and this was okay, because we knew that he'd be able to field while remaining something above a black hole at the plate.

However, over the span of the next six weeks, Wilson would collect 116 plate appearances as a Mariner, and over those 116 plate appearances, he would hit just .224 with a .562 OPS. While no one expected Wilson to light it up, this was beyond terrible. This was a Ronny Cedeno level of bad, and in part because the whole Cedeno experience was still fresh in our minds, there developed this sentiment that Wilson's an "NL hitter," that he's a guy who can sort of hold his own on the other side but who becomes completely overmatched against the superior AL competition. Cedeno was awful here and successful with Pittsburgh. Wilson, some people have claimed, is a player in the same kind of mold.

I find this claim to be dubious for three reasons:

(1) There's no such thing as an "AL hitter" or an "NL hitter." While the AL is the better league and has the better pitchers overall, it's not so lopsided that NL hitters come over and lose tons of points off their production. I identified 42 hitters who switched leagues either last offseason or during the year and who accumulated at least 100 PAs on both sides. Those 42 players averaged a .315 wOBA in the AL (not park-adjusted) and a .323 wOBA in the NL. Over a full season, that's a difference of about four runs. It seems significant, but it's not colossal. Jack Wilson may have struggled over here, but what about, I dunno, Jeremy Reed? What about Endy Chavez or Alex Cora? It's not an idea that makes a lot of sense when you think about it, and it's not an idea that holds up to much scrutiny.

(2) Jack Wilson has collected 470 PAs during interleague play over his career. In those 470 PAs, he's hit .301/.334/.420, and he's been good in each of the last three seasons.

(3) 116 plate appearances. That's all we saw from Wilson in the AL, and for many of them he was playing hurt. 116 plate appearances barely tell you anything. If Wilson had come over and sucked that bad for a whole year, that would be one thing. But he sucked for a handful of weeks. A 3/4/5 weighting of his most recent seasons yields an un-adjusted wOBA of .301, which isn't that bad for a defense-first shortstop.

Jack Wilson may be a baseball player in the National League style, but there's no good reason to believe that his bat will continue to be this bad as long as he plays for an AL team. There is an AL adjustment that docks him a few points, but what we saw from him was extreme, a performance towards the lower bound of his probability distribution. It isn't realistic to expect him to keep that up. He's proven over the years that, while he's not a great hitter, or a good one, or an average one, he's a below-average one, and not a disaster. That's the player we traded for, and that's the player we almost certainly still have.

How Seattle will affect Wilson's offense is, of course, a legitimate question. Not only did he switch leagues, but he also moved to a park that doesn't treat righties very kindly. That's going to be an adjustment. However, for one thing, Wilson's power, like Jose Lopez's, is down the line to left, so he won't get killed by that power alley, and for another, the bulk of Wilson's production comes from line drives instead of fly balls anyway, so Safeco shouldn't hurt him as bad as it has guys like Mike Cameron. Wilson sprays singles. A single is a single in any ballpark.

Jack Wilson isn't a sexy, impact type of player, and at 32 this December, he's not on the way up. However, as a regular shortstop who can turn a lot of balls into outs and make a lot of low-to-the-ground contact, we could do a lot worse. Assuming his offense hasn't completely collapsed and that he's something like a +10 defender, we should see him end up in the neighborhood of a 1.5 - 2.0 WAR, and that's going to help. That's going to help quite a bit.

Pirates Offered Matt Capps for J.J. Hardy

Charlie — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:08:38 -0000

More photos » by Pat Sullivan - AP

7 months ago: Milwaukee Brewers' J.J. Hardy connects for a fielder's choice single in the sixth inning against the Houston Astros in a baseball game Saturday, April 25, 2009 in Houston. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Browse more photos »

The Post-Gazette reports. This probably wouldn't have been a very appealing offer to the Brewers--they have Trevor Hoffman signed through 2010, with an option for 2011, and Capps was a complete mess all year. (It's theoretically possible the Bucs offered the deal before Hoffman signed his extension in October.) Also, Carlos Gomez, the outfielder they got for Hardy from the Twins, is still a high-upside player, even if there's a much better chance of him busting out completely than breaking out.

Still, this is interesting stuff. It still appears very likely that the Bucs' Opening Day shortstop will be Ronny Cedeno, simply because it won't be easy to upgrade on him in a cost-effective way, but it's not certain.

Community Projection Review: Shortstop

Charlie — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:23:35 -0000

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

3 months ago: Seattle Mariners' Jack Wilson swings for an RBI two-run single off Oakland Athletics' Clayton Mortensen in the second inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 4, 2009, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Browse more photos »

Next up in the list of community projections is Jack Wilson.

Community: .271/.313/.360

ZiPS: .267/.317/.358

Actual: .255/.292/.362 (includes 31 games with the Mariners)

Bonus: We predicted Wilson's last game with the Pirates would be August 13; actually his last game was July 27.

The closest guesser was Bolton, who had Wilson at .249/.294/.350.

Wilson actually hit relatively well for him during the portion of the year when he was a Pirate--his .691 OPS with the Bucs was a bit above his career average. After being dealt to Seattle with Ian Snell for Ronny Cedeno, Jeff Clement and minor league pitchers Brett Lorin, Nathan Adcock and Aaron Pribanic, though, Wilson completely fell apart, missing time with a hamstring injury, the flu, and then a heel bruise that shut him down for good in mid-September. He also failed to hit when he did play.

The Mariners have an $8.4 million option on Wilson for 2010, with a $600,000 buyout. Back when the Pirates had Wilson, that option looked somewhat reasonable, especially in light of the mediocre shortstop free agent class and the Pirates' absence of credible shortstop options in the minors. Given the way Wilson finished the season, $8.4 million (or, subtracting the sunk cost of the buyout, $7.8 million) seems like way too much to pay. The Pirates also dodged a bullet by not signing Wilson to an extension while they still had him.

Given all that, Neal Huntington did very well to buy low on Cedeno, ridding themselves of the problem of what to do with Wilson while acquiring a credible alternative. Cedeno isn't Wilson on defense, but he isn't bad, and offensively he did a good impression of a decent Jack Wilson season, hitting .258/.307/.394 with the Bucs. He's also five years younger than Wilson, so he has at least some chance of improving in the next couple of years. Obviously, he hasn't yet proven himself to be a long-term answer at shortstop, but it's equally unclear that Wilson would have been. It is, of course, possible that Cedeno will fall apart next year, but it's also possible he takes a step forward, and anyway the Pirates really just need someone to get through the next year or two until a real big-league shortstop (possibly Chase D'Arnaud) finally emerges from the minors.

Meanwhile, Snell showed few genuine signs of improvement in Seattle--he somehow posted a 4.20 ERA there, but he walked more batters than he struck out. Clement struggled after a quick start in the Pirates organization, but that may have had something to do with an oblique strain that may have cost him a chance at a September callup. Lorin pitched very well down the stretch at West Virginia, and Adcock and Pribanic still look like at least marginal prospects. (Pribanic had a terrific ERA for West Virginia, but he still isn't striking anyone out.) Unless Snell improves, it may turn out that the Mariners get almost nothing from the Wilson trade. Cedeno alone could make it a good one for the Pirates.

Could the Pirates Lose 110 Games in 2010?

Charlie — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:50:23 -0000

More photos » by Alan Diaz - AP

A thought experiment: Brandon Moss may be bad, but if he starts the season hitting .100, is he really a .100 hitter?

Browse more photos »

That this post even needs to be written speaks volumes about where the Pirates are right now. But despite the Bucs' spectacular collapse since the trades, I think it's far too early to worry, as many of you have, about losing 110 games next year. It's true that the Pirates' play over the last month would put them on pace for far worse than a 110-loss season. But that doesn't mean a 110-loss season will actually happen. A 110-loss team would be among the worst teams in modern baseball history. In the last 40 years, only two teams, the 2003 Tigers and the 2004 Diamondbacks, have lost as many as 110 games in a season, which means that if the Pirates lost 110, they would have to be considered one of the worst teams in modern baseball history. I think there is plenty of evidence that shows that they are bad. I don't think there is nearly enough to show that they are historically bad.

The irony here is that, way back in 2007, I myself was pointing out that the 2010 Pirates were going to be spectacularly bad. I even suggested what some of you are now saying--that they could lose 110 games. Most of the core players on that 2007 team--Jason Bay, Adam LaRoche, Freddy Sanchez, Jose Castillo, Xavier Nady, Salomon Torres--were scheduled to become free agents after 2009, and Jack Wilson had an expensive 2010 option. In addition, they had one of the worst general managers in the history of baseball at the helm and next to nothing in the farm system. That the Bucs would be quite awful in 2010 has been obvious for a long time now, and frankly Neal Huntington bears very little responsibility for it. In 2007, it looked like a perfect storm of a terrible big-league team, no prospects and inept management was brewing, and I think it was maybe only a little hyperbolic to write that a 110-loss campaign in 2010 was likely.

The reason I don't think it's likely now is that Huntington has taken enough steps to improve the 2010 situation that I think we can remove "historically bad" from the set of likely possibilities for now.

I realize that's a counterintuitive conclusion, since clearly Huntington's eyes are set at a point well beyond 2010 and the Bucs aren't playing very well right now. But without Huntington there would be no Ross Ohlendorf or Daniel McCutchen, who were acquired in the Nady deal. There would be no Charlie Morton, since the Pirates under Littlefield would not allow Nate McLouth to start and therefore to acquire value on the trade market. It's quite possible Littlefield would have started Nyjer Morgan in 2009, but back in mid-2007 his breakout would have been extremely hard to foresee (since Morgan hadn't even made his major league debut at that point), and trading him for Lastings Milledge and Joel Hanrahan would have been even harder to foresee. Without Huntington the Pirates probably still would have had Ian Snell, but they wouldn't have Ronny Cedeno or Jeff Clement. Those guys--Ohlendorf, Morton, Milledge, Hanrahan, Cedeno, Clement--are all major league players. Maybe not great ones, in some cases, but certainly useful ones, and one characteristic of 110-loss teams is that they have very few useful players.

Also, a number of decent prospects--Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata, Brad Lincoln, Chase D'Arnaud, Rudy Owens, Ron Uviedo, Jeff Locke, Tim Alderson--will be either in the high minors or on the verge of arriving there. That may sound like a trivial point, but actually it isn't. 110-loss seasons can be avoided simply by having a storehouse of players who might be able to fill in competently.

Now, maybe Littlefield would have traded Bay and some of the other core players, too. I doubted that at the time, though, because doing so would have meant admitting that he basically had nothing after five or six years on the job, and because he was basically acting like 2010 did not exist, as if the Pirates would be contracted before the season started. That was my reason for thinking 110 losses was possible then. Now it appears that Huntington is at least aware that the Pirates will be playing baseball next season. That might not mean much, but it's something.

The most critical point here, though, is that losing 110 games is spectacularly difficult to do. It requires either extreme negligence or a combination of negligence and bad luck. Merely being a very poor team, which I agree the Pirates probably will be, simply does not get the job done. Let's take the two teams that lost 110, for example.

The 2004 Diamondbacks reached 110 losses through both negligence and luck. Not only did they have the worst offense in the league--an outcome that is surely also a possibility for the 2010 Pirates--but they really had no starting rotation after Randy Johnson (who was brilliant) and Brandon Webb. The five pitchers who had the most starts for them were Casey Fossum, Steve Sparks, Casey Daigle, Edgar Gonzalez, and Lance Cormier, and all of those guys had ERAs over six. Arizona finished 27th in the majors in ERA, and one of the three teams that fared worse was the Rockies. And the Diamondbacks still only got to 110 through bad luck--their Pythagorean record was "only" 54-108.

The 2010 Bucs really don't even belong in the same conversation with the '03 Tigers, who lost 119 games. The Tigers only had one pitcher throw more than 20 innings with an ERA below 4.50; the '09 Pirates, by comparison, have seven pitchers currently in their organization who have done that this year. The Tigers basically had one good hitter (Dmitri Young), and the lower part of their lineup and their bench were filled with guys (Brandon Inge, Warren Morris, Ramon Santiago, Shane Halter, Gene Kingsale, Omar Infante, Matt Walbeck, Andres Torres) who just didn't belong in the majors. It wasn't a case of a team merely being bad; it was a case of a team simply not taking the steps necessary to ensure that there was a real team on the field.

When I say that the Pirates are unlikely to lose 110 games next year, I'm not paying the Pirates a compliment. I'm just saying these 110-loss prognostications are the result of either over-the-top despair about the Bucs' recent play, or a misunderstanding about how incredibly hard it actually is to lose 110.

Another possibility is that people think you can extrapolate the Bucs' play the last couple months over the course of an entire season. You can't. By way of example, let's look at Brandon Moss. Let's say he's the Bucs' fourth outfielder next year and he starts the season 6-for-60, for a batting average of .100.

Now, we would be perfectly justified to say that Moss is terrible. We already would have been thinking that Moss is pretty terrible, given the way he hit in 2009. And then he went and started 2010 6-for-60. Ugh! Terrible.

But would be justified to say that he will continue to bat .100? Well, no. True, he already batted .100 in his first 60 at bats, but hitting .100 over the long haul is especially hard to do. First of all, we have to consider that Brandon Moss has, at various points, done things that suggest he can be much better than a .100 hitter. For example, in 2009 he's batting .241. Not very good, but way better than .100. Also, he made his way through the minors and got all the way to the big leagues, even briefly joining a good team, the Boston Red Sox. He has some skill, and players with some skill can usually hit better than .100. Even Mario Mendoza hit .215 for his career.

So we'd be justified to be annoyed at Moss' poor start. We'd also be justified to factor that poor start into our guesses about what he might do going forward. But it wouldn't make much sense to predict he'll be a .100 hitter.

Guessing the 2010 Bucs will lose 110 games is like that. Yes, they've been extremely bad since the trades. But they have three downright functional starting pitchers in Ohlendorf, Zach Duke and Paul Maholm, plus Morton, who easily could make his way into that category next year. They have Andrew McCutchen, who's a plain old good player. They have Garrett Jones who, while due for some serious regression next year, has probably staked a pretty reasonable claim that he's at least going to be useful. They have Ryan Doumit, who in 2008 was a force as an offensively-minded catcher. They have Milledge and Hanrahan, who have shown promise since arriving. They have guys like Ronny Cedeno, Andy LaRoche and Jason Jaramillo who, while they're not exactly inspiring, have shown they at least belong in the majors. There's also at least a reasonable chance that Pedro Alvarez is going to burst onto the scene at some point next season and go nuts.

I'm not saying that's much. It isn't. I'm saying it doesn't take much to avoid 110 losses, and that while anything's possible, I think the Pirates have what it takes. Don't take that as wild-eyed optimism, because again, it isn't. I'm only saying that I think the Pirates can avoid a complete disaster season, and the fact that they've actually been a disaster since the trades doesn't really change that.

Pirates Finding New Ways To Lose; Also, No More "Scholarship"

Charlie — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:44:26 -0000

More photos » by John Heller - AP

Browse more photos »

Typical--the Bucs didn't get blown out by San Diego tonight, and they weren't even unambiguously bad, but they still ended up on the wrong side when the game ended. The Pirates rallied from a 6-2 deficit to tie the game against Heath Bell in the ninth, and that inning featured an awesome plate appearance by Steve Pearce, who laid off a number of tough breaking balls to draw a walk and keep the inning going. But their lack of a real bullpen ultimately undid them as they headed to extra innings--any team with bullpen troubles will be exposed in an 11-inning game, and in this case the Pirates were in a doubly tough spot because Joel Hanrahan, their best reliever by a mile right now, is on the shelf with elbow trouble. Anyway, if you have to rely on the likes of Jeff Karstens in a tough situation, there's a very good chance you're going to lose.

In the meantime, the Bucs' offense did the team no favors by leaving a ridiculous number of batters on base--the Bucs wrangled eleven hits and nine walks, but only scored six times. Garrett Jones hit his 20th home run of the season but, as has so often been the case for him (and I'm not bashing him for this because I don't think it represents a skill, just pointing out a fact), it was a solo job.

Whatever! I'm tired of this. Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about the word "scholarship." I come to bury that word, to attempt to remove it from Pirates-related discourse, except as it applies to draftees. For example, "Colton Cain passed up a scholarship to the University of Texas" is an acceptable use of the word. But "I don't know why Andy LaRoche is still starting, since Neal Huntington promised there would be no scholarships" is not. The attempted removal of a word sounds pretty fascist of me, I admit, but I'm not forcing anyone to stop using it, and if the tactic is good enough for an institution of higher learning, it's good enough for me.

I believe Huntington introduced the concept of a "scholarship." Unfortunately, I can't find its point of origin, because if you Google "neal huntington" and "scholarship" on the Post-Gazette's website, you get an amazing 124 results. What I took Huntington to mean or, at least, what most Pirate fans currently interpret Huntington to mean, is that under-performing players would not be given "scholarships"; that is, they would not receive playing time they did not earn on the field.

This was a stupid thing for Huntington to have said (and not only because the "scholarship" students I knew in college were often the hardest working and most talented ones, the ones who didn't need their parents to pay their way, but I digress). The goal of a baseball team should not be to mete out rewards and punishments for its players based on how they do; it should be to win games. It's true that the former often goes hand in hand with the latter, but not always. When deciding who gets major league playing time, there shouldn't be moral considerations about the perceived quality of someone's previous play; instead, it should be one factor that should be weighed along with others. When I hear most fans dismissively use the word "scholarship," I feel like what they really want is some sort of vigilante justice based on how the fans feel someone is playing. Justice has little to do with it.

The fact is that top prospects, like Andrew McCutchen or Pedro Alvarez, should get scholarships, while journeymen should have to do more to prove themselves. If Alvarez comes up after tearing it up for three months at Indianapolis next year, he should play every day in the big leagues, even if he starts 5-for-50. If Ronny Cedeno gets hurt and Argenis Diaz comes up and hits 12-for-30 in his absence, the Pirates should probably send Diaz back to Indianapolis once Cedeno is healthy.

Yesterday in the comments, someone mentioned the concept of a "scholarship" in reference to the possibility that Jeff Clement could end up starting next year. Now, one can certainly express the hope that Clement will not start next year, but invoking the "scholarship" concept attempts to find a very uncomplicated kind of justice in what is actually a very complicated situation. The Pirates will have two outfield positions set with McCutchen and Lastings Milledge, while Jones has shown he should get more playing time in either the other outfield position or at first.

That leaves either an outfield spot or first base unaccounted for. There is, of course, a chance that the Pirates could seek a free agent like Rick Ankiel, but many free agents do not want to play for the Bucs, and the Pirates shouldn't want to give a free agent so much money or so many years that he interferes with the team's long term plans. If they can't find a suitable free agent, and I'd actually bet against them finding one, that leaves them looking for a trade or an internal option. Alvarez or Jose Tabata could be possibilities, but both could probably use at least a couple more months in the minors--the Alex Gordon Problem applies in Alvarez's case, and Tabata hasn't really dominated in the high minors yet.

That leaves guys like Brandon Moss, Pearce and Clement, and of that bunch, why not Clement? Moss is a fourth outfielder, and while Pearce might be a reasonable bench option, he's had an up-and-down career since 2007 and could probably be considered as much of a "scholarship" case as Clement is. (So could Moss, actually.) Clement has a first-round pedigree and a reasonably good minor-league track record. He tailed off badly after a hot start at Indianapolis this year, but that may have had something to do with the oblique strain that finally shelved him. It's not at all unreasonable to think he's a better, higher-upside choice than either Moss or Pearce. Alternately, the Bucs could platoon the lefty Clement with the righty Pearce.

Choosing Clement need not have anything to do with "scholarships." That's irrelevant. It has to do with sorting through a number of possibilities, all with pros and cons, and finding the best one for the present and future of the organization. Sometimes that means playing the guy who played best last month, or for some short span in the majors last year, or for some longer span in the minors this year. Sometimes it doesn't. Anyway, I usually get the sense that when someone is using the word "scholarship," it usually just means "The Pirates are playing a guy I don't like." Instead of using that word, make an argument. There's no doubt that the Bucs sometimes make personnel decisions I don't agree with, but that doesn't mean there's some moral dimension to it, and it simply doesn't follow that the Pirates should always use the guy who played best in whatever arbitrary timeframe or context you care to pick. So please, no more "scholarship." Let's just leave that word alone.

By the way, this post is dedicated to Neil Walker, who earlier this year complained that players like him and the great Brian Bixler were getting the shaft while players acquired by Neal Huntington coasted through. Walker didn't use the word "scholarship," but that's the concept he was invoking.

Well, it's extremely early, and of course it's still possible that Walker turns a corner, but he has begun his major league career 4-for-26. And, with his inning-ending double play with two men on in the bottom of the tenth, he's as responsible as anyone or the loss tonight. Cheers to you, Neil! May your teammates in Indianapolis next year enjoy your grousing as much as I have.

Pirates May Pursue John Grabow, Rick Ankiel in Free Agency

Charlie — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:14:05 -0000

More photos » by Jeff Roberson - AP

Browse more photos »

The Post-Gazette reports that the Pirates could pursue a number of "familiar faces" this offseason, the most likely of these being John Grabow, who would be the sort of reliable lefty that who could be useful for the Bucs. One thing to keep in mind here is Grabow's free agency status; Elias, who does the rankings that determine compensatory picks, could make Grabow a Class A free agent, which essentially means that the Bucs would have to give up their second-round pick if they signed him after the Cubs took him to arbitration. The Pirates don't have any business giving up their second-round pick at this point, so if Grabow is a Type A, I can't imagine the Pirates would sign him. A Tigers blogger reverse-engineered the Elias formula and found a couple months ago that Grabow was on track to be a Type A, and he's pitched well since then. For that reason, I think he probably won't end up back with the Bucs.

(If you're curious about why the Bucs would trade Grabow if he were on track to be a Type A, by the way, consider that teams are valuing draft choices more and more highly, and might not sign Grabow at all if it means giving up a second- or first-round pick. The likely outcome in that scenario might be Grabow accepting an arbitration offer from the Pirates, and their trying to trade him again next year. In fact, if he does turn out to be a Type A, the Cubs offering arbitration and Grabow accepting are pretty strong possibilities.)

The P-G also reports that the Bucs could have interest in Jack Wilson or Freddy Sanchez. Sanchez would seem to be the more likely of the two, given that Ronny Cedeno has done a pretty fair Wilson impression in Jack's absence. I'd be surprised to see Sanchez return if his best friend Wilson doesn't come back, though; I was watching the Giants play the other day and saw Sanchez leaning over the dugout railing wildly cheering on his teammates. That might not mean anything, but when you see something like that it's hard not to wonder about Sanchez's willingness to play for a team that assuredly won't be in playoff contention next year.

Rick Ankiel is, to me, the most interesting player in the article--he'd be a good fit in left field for the Bucs, since he's a very good defensive outfielder, and he's coming off a very poor season, so he might be in the Pirates' price range. It's possible to see him rebound a bit, hit 20 or so homers, and be the sort of player a lot of people think Nate McLouth was--a slightly-above-average hitter who plays good defense. Unfortunately, he's represented by Scott Boras, who's tough to work with, and he's 30 and controls the strike zone very poorly. He'd be a gamble, and given his agent, he might not be a gamble worth taking.

Pirates Lose Again, 4-0

Charlie — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:26:08 -0000

More photos » by Keith Srakocic - AP

Browse more photos »

The Pirates today lost yet another game that no one saw; again, it wasn't on TV, meaning that if you're in the Pittsburgh area, you didn't see it unless you had access to Extra Innings or were physically at the game. MLB.tv, which carries every game for me when I'm in San Diego, won't show the games to folks who are in market.Paradoxically, I'm excited to get out of the Pittsburgh area and back to California, so that I can watch my Pittsburgh-based team.

There's been something deeply strange about the couple of weeks I've spent in Morgantown, prevented from watching the games, while checking box score after box score in which the Bucs score one run at most. Today, the Bucs were missing Garrett Jones, Andy LaRoche and Delwyn Young, making their already-awful lineup even more awful. And even in that last sentence, there would probably be more than a few knowledgeable fans of other teams who would probably find it odd that the Pirates' lineup is so bad that it yearns for guys like Jones, LaRoche and Young. Those same people might also be surprised by a trip to ESPN.com's Pirates stats page, where you see LaRoche's face three times because he's leading the team in average, RBI and OBP... largely because he's the only Pirate this year with more than 400 at bats.

It's all very sad, this team that no one sees, fielding a lineup where no one hits, and playing game after game where no one scores. I probably feel the Pirates' complete invisibility more than most; it's very hard to blog games I can't watch and that no one writes about, and I actually wonder if indifference to the Bucs right now might be higher than at any point since I started blogging about them. It affects Bucs Dugout's traffic and just generally makes the whole enterprise less fun until something interesting happens. Also, I'm not a football fan, and I miss having minor league box scores to check each day.

Mostly, though, I see this streak of awful baseball as a price that needs to be paid for the years in which the Pirates could have undergone a complete rebuilding, and didn't. And actually, despite losing game after game, I think these Bucs could be whipped into a good team quicker than you might think. The starting pitching, actually, has not been bad; several hitters, including Jones, Andrew McCutchen and Ronny Cedeno, have been better than expected; and Lastings Milledge has showed a fair amount of potential. One of the most problematic areas--the first base / right field position that isn't being played by Jones--should soon be resolved by the arrival of Pedro Alvarez (or Jose Tabata), and Brandon Moss will move into a reserve role for which he'll be better suited. The bullpen has been dreadful recently, but bullpens experience a lot of fluctuation year to year, and a good GM can fix a bullpen quickly if he prioritizes it. The Pirates have been bad since the trades they made in June and July, but there's more there than you'd guess from their record.

Still, the Bucs are a couple sticks shy of a load right now, and it'll be a bumpy ride toward contention, if the Pirates ever get there. But if I squint right now, I can begin to see something bright on the horizon, and if the Bucs have to be a little worse than usual in the meantime while they pursue it, that's fine. I do wish they'd score some runs, though, and a TV appearance now and then would be nice.

Sweep! Cubs Keep Faint Playoff Hopes Alive With 8-5 Win Over Pirates

Al — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:00:56 -0000

by Gene J. Puskar - AP

Write your own caption.

View full size photo »

SOMEWHERE IN OHIO -- On September 23, 1976, I attended this game at Wrigley Field between the Cubs and Pirates.

Turned around from 2009, the Cubs were bad that year, settling into fifth place (only because the Expos were far worse), and the Pirates were contenders, though they finished second to the Phillies.

The Cubs lost that game 5-4 in 10 innings and the attendance was 2,132, the smallest crowd of that season.

That's what today's 8-5 Cubs win over the Pirates at PNC Park felt like. The announced attendance was 10,899, but in the years since 1976 (in 1993, to be exact) the National League went from announcing the turnstile count to announcing tickets sold. There may have been 10,899 tickets sold for today's game, but there were far fewer than 10,899 people in PNC Park on a nice afternoon when the sun finally broke through in Pittsburgh for the first time since I had arrived late Sunday. There might have been 5,000 people in the park, including a large group that all sat together in the RF corner, one man who sat by himself in the last row of the second-to-last section of the upper deck in left field, and about half of the tiny assemblage was Cubs fans.

What they saw was the Cubs' 9th win in 11 games vs. Pittsburgh this year -- and there are still four games left with the Bucs at Wrigley Field. It was nearly effortless; you'll find out more about the "nearly" below the fold. The Cubs scored in each of the first three innings and Carlos Zambrano threw six solid innings, before apparently having words with Lou upon being removed after going out to warm up for the seventh. Z threw 98 pitches and I could have gone either way on leaving him in, but if you're going to take him out, Lou, take him out, don't make him warm up that way waiting for a pinch-hitter to be announced (Ramon Vazquez) so you could call on your lefty, John Grabow. I can't imagine it makes much difference who faces Vazquez, who is actually hitting better vs. LHP this year -- .308 -- than he is vs. RHP -- .233. Grabow got Vazquez to ground out.

More about the "nearly" -- I, for one, will be very glad when we Cubs fans, and the team, bid farewell to Kevin Gregg. I did predict this coming -- not the HR allowed (13, now leading all NL relievers), but the walks. Gregg issued 37 walks in 68 innings last year with the Marlins, and he's well on his way to matching that this year, with 27 in 64 innings. His lack of control has resulted in many blown saves and he nearly blew this game, issuing a pair of walks and then a three-run homer to our old pal Ronny Cedeno, which was the only time the few Pirates fans who remained until the bottom of the 8th cheered. It wasn't much of a cheer, either.

What it did do was force Lou to go to Carlos Marmol to save the game in the 9th, and credit to Marmol -- since he was officially anointed closer he has posted a 1.93 ERA in nine appearances, has seven saves and no blown saves, and most importantly, he has recovered his control. He's walked six in that time, but three of those were in a lost-cause game against the Nationals on August 26, and I think he's got back to the solid Marmol we knew last year and the second half of 2007. Part of it might have been in his head -- remember that he wasn't happy when Gregg was given the closer job during spring training? Sure, professionals shouldn't let that happen, but it's human nature. Gregg will say farewell when this year is over and the Cubs have their closer for 2010, which will allow them to spend money elsewhere next season.

Micah Hoffpauir, who had a tough go of it most of this year, has made his case in the last two days for a 2010 spot, also. He homered for the second straight day, walked twice and scored three runs. In the absence of Alfonso Soriano, why not platoon Hoffpauir and Jake Fox in LF for a while? Sam Fuld can spell them defensively after the 7th, as he did today. (Fox seems to have gotten into Lou's doghouse for some reason; why he didn't start vs. Zach Duke Tuesday night is a mystery.)

I'm heading back on the road shortly after I write this, having enjoyed the trip and the 4-2 record. I truly do feel sorry for Pirates fans, who have been jacked around for 17 years by three different ownership groups. They do have loyal longtime fans in Pittsburgh who support the team through thin and thin (and that's not a misprint), and with the winners already in town (the Steelers and Penguins), the city would just love to have a baseball winner too. However, right now I'm glad they're just fodder for Cubs victories. After the Bucs used to dispatch the Cubs regularly in the 1970's, they owe us a few.