Shorstop, Ronny Cedeno

Is downright awful. His major league OPS this year is .504 (OPS+ 34). Does he make up for his disastrous hitting gwith the glove? Well, his lifetime UZR at shortstop is -4.1. For those of you who aren't familiar with UZR, a negative number is like crossing the streams, which is to say, it's bad. He's 25, so his upside is that maybe in the next two years he'll have one season that isn't completely embarrassing.

Catcher, Jeff Clement

He's a rookie. His major league OPS is .701. But he's 26. He's a passable hitter for a catcher. And major league catchers don't grow on trees. He's a worthwhile addition.

Pitcher, Aaron Pribanic

Third round draft pick from last year. In A-ball, he has 54 Ks in 87 innings. His WHIP is 1.17. He could have a future.

Pitcher, Brett Lorin

Drafted last year in the fifth round. In A-ball this year he has 87 Ks in 88 innings. His WHIP is .970. Not bad. Throws righty but bats lefty. I like his stats, and he's young. Maybe he could be a major league starter one day.

Nathan Adcock

Drafted in 2006. He's 22. This year in high-A he has 71 Ks in 102 innings. His WHIP is 1.539. I don't see a lot to be excited about, but you never know.

So, we got a passable, young major league catcher, a horrible shortstop, two of their best draft picks from last year, and another young minor league pitcher. I'm most excited about Aaron Pribanic and especially Brett Lorin. It's like we got an extra mini-draft -- not a bad return for an aging shortstop and a pitcher who says that he doesn't want to pitch in the major leagues.

Pirates ask Wilson, Sanchez to take sizable cuts

Sanchez's offer also seeks forfeiture of 2010 option worth $8 million

The Pirates yesterday made their initial financial offers toward keeping shortstop Jack Wilson and second baseman Freddy Sanchez, and they drew decidedly mixed reactions.

The offer to Wilson, according to two sources, covers two years plus a club option. No money terms were divulged, but it was seen as competitive even though it represented a significant cut from his current $7.4 million salary. Wilson would prefer three guaranteed years.

But the initial offer to Sanchez, also made yesterday, was for two years and a total believed to be in the range of $10 million. That would represent a cut from his current salary of $6.25 million and, more striking, the total is $2 million more than the $8 million Sanchez is set to make in 2010 alone under the vesting option in his current contract, one that would be annulled under the Pirates' proposal.

Now that's more like it. There was some hand-wringing and conspiracy theorizing yesterday about rumors that the Pirates were trying to sign Jack and Freddy to some crazy long-term contracts with no-trade clauses, but this new story makes a lot more sense.

Their skills will be declining in the next few years, so their salaries should too. If the Pirates can keep them for cheap, then that's great. And if they leave then the Pirates can find replacements and that's fine too. And it's not as if the Pirates have to find two new middle-infielders in a hurry. They're going to lose next year whether they have a great double-play duo or not.

Concerns that the Pirates will overpay for aging middle-infielders while the team is supposed to be rebuilding are now allayed. Neal's head is apparently screwed on properly after all.

Freddy says:

"Me and Jack are pretty genuine people, and we've made our feelings known about how much we want to stay. We have to see how genuine everybody is about this."

Genuine Fred and Genuine Jack have shared their genuine feelings with us about keeping their genuine friendship together. Well, now they can do it. I have a hunch which option they'll pick. I predict that Freddy and Jack will be selling their services to the highest bidder starting this September.

Unless of course, they really are in love, in which case I'm genuinely happy for them, and they'll be in Pirates uniforms together forever.

The Dejan thread blows my mind. The guy makes an idle comment in his column and people are treating it like his idle comments are better than other people's idle comments because maybe Dejan has the map to the holy grail.

I've never met Dejan and I bet he's probably a nice guy. And I read his writing and I like it. But I'm not going to thank him for showing up in the comments because I don't thank anyone else for showing up in the comments. And if you thank him and you don't thank other people then you're giving him special treatment.

Dejan explained his column and his explanation was that it's not based on any special insider knowledge, and yet fans continue to defend their elevated opinion of his comments because he might have special insider knowledge, even though Dejan himself has said that his speculation was based on no such thing. Fans are giving Dejan credit for things that he's telling you plainly that he isn't doing. This is what you call fan-splooge.

I've you've ever enjoyed any sort of celebrity yourself, you know what I mean. Once you're a celebrity, people start thanking you for showing up at their parties when they never thanked you before. People notice what you drink and find it suddenly fascinating, even though you drink the same old stuff you always drank before. In my life, I've been on both sides of fandom, and from experience I can tell you, it's pathetic both coming and going.

Have a little self-respect guys. Dejan isn't a magical wizard. Sometimes he writes good columns. Sometimes his columns are just so-so. Sometimes he has insider knowledge, and sometimes he's just speculating and theorizing like the rest of us. Unless everybody deserves a special thank you note for commenting on blogs, then Dejan doesn't deserve one. And when Dejan says he's just analyzing based on no insider knowledge, then you should believe him and treat his comments like any other comments.

I'm glad, you're all here. Thanks for being a part of the community.

In 2007 at the age of 23 he had an ERA+ of 191. His WHIP was 1.15. This year his WHIP is 1.69.

Last year his K/BB was 7.80. This year it's 1.54. This year he has allowed 13 walks. Last year, for the entire season, he walked five batters. It's not even the All-Star Break yet and he's already walked almost three times as many batters as he did last year.

His fastball used to be consistently 95 MPH and he could gas it up to 98, but this year he's lucky to hit 92.

Practically every pitcher on the staff has said thankful words about Joe Kerrigan, so I can't blame it on him. I wonder if Matt Capps is injured and in denial. It would hardly be the first time that a pitcher was seriously hurt and told people that he was just feeling a little tight. At the end of last season he was out for seven weeks with "arm soreness." I don't think he ever got better.

Dave Regan was the high school baseball coach in Fort Scott, Kansas where his sister's kids Adam and Andy LaRoche went to school. His sister was married to Dave LaRoche, major league pitcher who was on the A.L. All-Star team in 1976. Dave was known to use the famous eephus pitch, but he called it "La Lob." Dave LaRoche was born David Garcia. He adopted the surname LaRoche from his stepfather when he was seven. Andy says it's a French name, but that his grandfather was 100% Mexican.

Andy and Adam's dad is currently the pitching coach for the AAA Las Vegas 51s, as in Area 51.

In high school, Adam was diagnosed with ADD. He went to Fort Scott Community College where his dad was the coach. He was drafted by the Marlins, and refused to sign, twice, in 1998 and 1999. In 2000 in the 29th round, he was drafted by the Atlanta Braves, and he accepted. I don't think he ever graduated so I wonder what he was waiting for. Maybe he just hates the Marlins. It took him four years in the minors to break into the big show. He spent his rookie year platooning with 46-year-old Julio Franco, the oldest player in the majors.

The Braves traded him and a prospect to the Pirates for Mike Gonzalez and a prospect. This year, Adam has 1 Win Above Replacement. Mike has .7 Wins Above Replacement. I guess Adam wins.

He didn't steal a single base in his first three seasons in the majors. But on August 4th, 2007, in the bottom of the ninth of a 8-8 tie game against the Reds (known at the time as the other worst team in baseball), he was walked by Jared Burton and then stole second base. He was stranded when Ronny Paulino flied out to right. Matt Capps blew the game in the 10th. Pirates lost 9-8.

He's famous for his second-half surge. Historically he has hit much better in the second-half of the season than in the first. Over the the past three years, the only month in which he has had an OPS over 1.000 is July. But so far in this current July, he has an OPS of .410. Maybe he's skipping the surge this year.

Adam never made the All-Star team like his dad did. He's 29 years old now, and if he hasn't done it already, he probably never will. According to Baseball Reference, the player he most closely resembles is Tino Martinez, who did make the All-Star team twice and finished second in MVP voting in 1997 despite having a very nice but historically unremarkable season. But then, Adam LaRoche doesn't have the benefit of Yankee Mistique. Like Tino Martinez, Adam LaRoche has never lead the league in anything.* But he is in the history books. He's the first player to have a home run taken away by instant replay.

He's the subject of trade rumors, but he probably doesn't want to be traded to the Mets. He says that Carlos Beltran has no class. And he might be right.

*That's not technically true. Tino Martinez did lead the league in sacrifice flies in 1997, which apparently justifies him getting more MVP votes than Frank Thomas, Edgar Martinez, David Justice and ten other players who outhit him that year.

Last year, he was the #10 prospect in the Phillies farm system. This year, while Ryan Doumit is injured, he's the starting catcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He's from Racine, Wisconsin. From what I can tell on their Website, the biggest attraction in Racine is the Laurel Clark Memorial Fountain. Other notables from Racine include suffragist Olympia Brown and adult film star Max Hardcore, who is currently in prison for distributing obscene materials.

According to Baseball Prospectus' seven-year forecast, he'll hit six home runs per year until he hits age 30 in 2013 and he starts to slow down. Right now, in his rookie season, he ranks 23rd among all major league catchers, better than 28th place Ronny Paulino, for whom he was traded last December. Ronny Paulino has been traded twice since then, from the Phillies to the Giants, and then to the Marlins. Consider that Jaramillo costs, $0.40 million this year and Paulino costs $0.44 million. In that trade, the Pirates seem to have gotten a better player for less money.

"He’s filling in great," left-handed pitcher Donald Veal said. "We haven’t missed a beat with the pitchers. He’s getting hits, driving in runs, helping the staff and just doing a tremendous job behind the plate. We have no complaints." -- The Journal Times, Jason's hometown paper

By the end of July, Ryan Doumit should be back from rehabilitation. What happens to Jason then? Rob Neyer says it might make sense for the Pirates to trade Doumit now and let Jaramillo have the job for a while until Tony Sanchez is ready.

Jorge Arangure's Twitter has been interesting lately. He points out that the Twins seem to have spent their Sano money on other players, and that the Orioles view him as late first-round talent. He seems to be a higher priority for the Pirates since the Pirates took the initiative of testing his age early and that the Pirates seem to have gone cheap in this year's draft, as if they were waiting for something.

Anguire also believes that the Pirates won't have to pay a record signing bonus for Sano. He says that the bidding isn't so hot for the guy, possibly because the Chapman defection has diluted the market.

We know that the Twins have alleged irregularities in the documentation of his age, which may be the product of fever-dreams, or perhaps a bizarre conspiracy. The Pirates seem convinced based on a bone-graft test that he truly is sixteen years old. What good is a bone-graft test? No one seems to know.

So, what's Sano worth? I've searched these tubes high and low and the only actual hard data I can find on Sano is that he's a 6-foot-3, 190-pound teenager from San Pedro de Macrois in the Dominican Republic who plays shortstop. And then there's stuff like this:

"Right now the number one guy for me is Sano," said an international scouting director. "The bat, the swing he's got—I've never seen in a young kid that kind of swing. And he repeats it all the time. The ball leaves the bat the same way all the time, in BP and in the games, too. It's a special bat and a special body."

Sano has a plus arm, though his release isn't very quick. With his size he projects to move to third base or right field, but for teams that believe in his ability to hit in games, that isn't an issue.

Who is "an international scouting director?" Why should I believe some anonymous source? What exactly is a "special body?"

If anybody out there knows anything about this kid, I would love to hear about it. Or alternately, feel free to fill up the comments with idle speculation and strange personal fantasies. Either way works!

Edit: Somehow, a post I made on August 26, 2003 has been kicking around in the system and only got published today. Weird. Who can understand these computers?

He's the best player on this team! How could the Pirates let him go?! And for what? KDKA says it's for A Player To Be Named Later and some "prospect" named Jason Day or something. I don't know who this Jason Day thinks he is but I hate him already. And he comes from the Padres who suck and will probably finish in last place so how could anybody they trade away be any good? Yeah. Exactly.

Brian Giles has 85 RBI this year and it's only August 26th. Last year he had 105 RBI! I can't believe management could be so stupid as to let him go. I quit. I can't be a fan anymore of a team that would trade its best player for some unproven prospect. This is an insult to me and to Pirates fans everywhere. NOW IS THE TIME TO REVOLT AND BOYCOTT THE PIRATES. I'm burning my Kevin Young jersey as we speak. Ha ha!

P.S. When are the Penguins ever gonna win the cup again? Probably never. THEY SUCK TOO!

P.P.S. Does anybody know how to put out a burning baseball jersey? My apartment is filling up with smoke and it's hard to breathe.

Jack Wilson on the Tony Plush trade.

"The bottom line is, even if this trade does work out, it's not going to matter to 80 percent of the people in here," Wilson said. "And over the years, these trades haven't worked. Show me the ones that have worked."

I guess Jack doesn't care that the players acquired in these trades are most of his teammates in the starting lineup.

Adam LaRoche

January 19, 2007: Traded by the Atlanta Braves with Jamie Romak (minors) to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Mike Gonzalez and Brent Lillibridge.

Freddy Sanchez

July 31, 2003: Traded by the Boston Red Sox with Mike Gonzalez and cash to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Brandon Lyon, Anastacio Martinez and Jeff Suppan.

Andy LaRoche and Brandon Moss

July 31, 2008: 3-team trade. Andy Laroche was traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers with Bryan Morris (minors) to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Boston Red Sox sent Manny Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Boston Red Sox sent Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pittsburgh Pirates sent Jason Bay to the Boston Red Sox.

Jason Jaramillo

December 10, 2008: Traded by the Philadelphia Phillies to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Ronny Paulino

Delwyn Young

April 15, 2009: Traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Pittsburgh Pirates for two Players To Be Named Later

Lastings Milledge

June 30, 2009: Traded by the Washington Nationals with Joel Hanrahan to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett. (Milledge isn't a starter now, but he probably will be soon.)

Andrew McCutchen is the only starter who wasn't acquired via trade. So isn't Jack Wilson basically saying that most of his teammates are losers? And if Jack Wilson thinks that it sucks when the Pirates bring a young player in a trade, remember:

Jack Wilson

July 29, 2000: Traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Jason Christiansen.

There appears to be a little excitement over the idea of trading Adam LaRoche. But here's a question for you: If you're so excited to ditch him, what makes you think that anybody actually wants to get him?

The fact is, Adam LaRoche is the 21st best first baseman in the major leagues right now. For perspective, consider that Nick Johnson, the Washington Nationals' first baseman is having a better season than Adam LaRoche is. And if you think that Adam LaRoche's second-half surge is so valuable, consider that the end-of-year stats from 2008, with LaRoche's famous second-half surge included, show that he was still only the 19th best first baseman. And he's one year older this year. What team has a burning desire to acquire a 29-year-old below-average first baseman?

I know it seems that since Adam LaRoche is one of the best hitters on the team, that he's a good player, but he's really not. Most first basemen are better. Way better.

Here's a list of how our other players compare, based on their performance this year:

• Jason Jaramillo: 18th best catcher
• Freddy Sanchez: 8th best second baseman
• Jack Wilson: 8th best shortstop
• Andy LaRoche: 13th best third baseman
• Brandon Moss: 18th best rightfielder
• Andrew McCutchen: McCutchen has not played enough games to give a fair comparison, but we all know he's good.
• Nyjer Morgan: 11th best leftfielder
• Zach Duke: 16th best ERA, which is nice, but on the DIPS chart he doesn't even show up in the top 40.
• All our other pitchers: Completely suck.

Given that information, among positional players, Adam LaRoche is the Pirate who has the least real value. Only a team with a first baseman who's worse than the 21th best, and who also can't trade for one of the 20 players who are a better first baseman than Adam LaRoche would want him.

I'm sorry everybody, but if you want to get quality, you have to trade quality. This isn't saying that we might not get lucky and find some schmuck G.M. who is willing to overpay for a bad player, but it's unlikely. Our best trade-bait right now is Freddy, Jack, Nyjer, and Andy LaRoche, probably in that order. Our other players simply aren't good enough.

The idea that "Pedro Alvarez strikes out a lot but it's okay" is getting tossed around. But lets really examine the notion.

The two excuses I'm hearing for why it's okay that he strikes out a lot are:

1. He strikes out a lot because he's getting pitched around because he's so good.
2. He'll learn to not strike out later.

Excuse Number One we can discard on its face because good hitters do not strike out when they're getting pitched around. In case you're confused by this concept, allow me to repeat: good hitters do not strike out when they're getting pitched around. In fact, it's exactly the sort of a thing that you'd expect a bad hitter to do.

Excuse Number Two requires a little more examination.

In A-ball, Alvarez has struck out 70 times in 243 at-bats. That's 29% of the time. Since Pedro Alvarez is supposedly the new Albert Pujols, let's compare to Pujols' A-ball numbers. In A-ball, Pujols struck out 37 times in 395 at-bats or 9% of the time. If you're going to compare Alvarez to Pujols, there's a giant difference in their professional careers at the same point in development that you're going to have to account for.

Anyway, let's look at some other players. Craig Biggio, in A-ball, struck out 15% of the time -- Ken Griffey Jr.: 18%, Alex Rodriguez: 18%, David Ortiz: 22%, Adrian Gonzalez: 16%, Prince Fielder: 18%, Robin Yount: 10%, Raul Ibanez: 14%, Nomar Garciaparra 6%, Ben Zobrist: 17%. You get the point. My search is hardly exhaustive, or systematic. It's honestly just based off of me thinking of good players and looking up their A-ball stats. But I'm really having trouble finding a player who struck out as much as Alvarez did in A-ball who turned out to be really good. Although Jim Rice is closer: 25%.

I admit this isn't a very rigorous study, but it should at least suggest that it's hard to find a good player who struck out a lot in A-ball. In fact, it was tricky to find any major leaguer, good or bad, who struck out as much as Alvarez did. But because I care about you, the reader, I looked as hard as I could, and eventually I found one player who had struck out 28% of the time in A-ball, which is one percent better than Alvarez did. It's the closest comparison I found. His name was Jeff King.

Thanks a lot to Slick1 for putting together his chart. I based my chart on his and it was really helpful. Slick1 is the best.

Anyway, I think a small mistake of Slick1's chart was to based it on OPS instead of OPS+, which is park corrected. Comparing a player who played in Three Rivers and the ballparks of the 80s against a player who plays in PNC Park and the ballparks of the 21st century is really an unfair comparison. I think you have to correct for the eras and the parks, and OPS+ does that.

Here's my chart of Pirates' first basemen and their OPS+:

Year	Player		OPS+
===========================
1975	Willie Stargell	147
1976	Willie Stargell	125
1977	Willie Stargell	145
1978	Willie Stargell	158
1979	Willie Stargell	139
1980	Willie Stargell	129
1981	Willie Stargell	92
1982	Jason Thompson	147
1983	Jason Thompson	115
1984	Jason Thompson	109
1985	Jason Thompson	111
1986	Sid Bream	115
1987	Sid Bream	97
1988	Sid Bream	113
1989	Sid Bream	114
1990	Sid Bream	124
1991	Orlando Merced	119
1992	Orlando Merced	104
1993	Kevin Young	73
1994	Brian Hunter	81
1995	Mark Johnson	94
1996	Jeff King	116
1997	Kevin Young	120
1998	Kevin Young	108
1999	Kevin Young	127
2000	Kevin Young	86
2001	Kevin Young	80
2002	Kevin Young	90
2003	Randall Simon	85
2004	Daryle Ward	99
2005	Daryle Ward	89
2006	Sean Casey	104
2007	Adam Laroche	108
2008	Adam Laroche	123
2009	Adam Laroche	124

So, when you look at the park corrected stats, it looks to me like Adam Laroche is only the best Pirates' first baseman since Kevin Young, and is also comparable to Sid Bream.and Jason Thompson.