Baseball America has named Pittsburgh Pirates' outfielder Andrew McCutchen it's 2009 Major League Rookie Of The Year.  McCutchen is on the cover of the magazine and is joined on the All-Rookie team by first baseman Garrett Jones.  It's nice to see these two get some national recognition.  I'm excited to see what these two can do over a full season in 2010.  

UPDATE by Charlie: Pedro Alvarez was recently on BA's cover as well.

The Post-Gazette reports that the Pirates have signed 10th-round pick Joey Schoenfeld.  Pittsburgh now has their top 12 picks from the draft signed and 13 of their top 14.  The Pirates have signed 22 draft picks overall.  Baseball America reports that Schoenfeld signed for $195,000.

Although there are still some upside guys left unsigned, at this point I think you have to say that the Pirates' draft plan has worked fairly well.  Outfielder Matt Den Dekker and pitcher Josh Urban would be really good guys to get nailed down to make this a very good overall draft class.

The current 40 man roster checks in at less than 30 million dollars total.  The most amazing thing is that a number of our 10 most expensive players are also not guys who are going to be big parts of this team going forward.  Once you get past the top 10, everyone else is within 52,000 (Milledge $452,000) or less of the league minimum 400,000.

According to ESPN, here are the Top 10 Pirates as far as salary:

1. Paul Maholm	2,500,000
2. Matt Capps	2,425,000
3. John Grabow	2,300,000
4. Zach Duke	2,200,000
5. Ryan Doumit	2,150,000
6. Ramon Vazquez	1,875,000
7. Tyler Yates	1,300,000
8. Craig Hansen	825,000
9. Ronny Cedeno	822,500
10. Jeff Salazar	550,000

Ok, so the Pirates pulled off two more trades today and brought in another group of young players into our system.  Suddenly we have a lot of young talent.  The question is, who are the best talents?  I would love to see some folks post their top 10 Pirate prospects as of today.  lots of talent to look at: Alderson, Alvarez, Clements, A.Diaz, Grossman, Hernandez, Lincoln, Locke, S.Marte, D.McCutchen, Milledge, Morris, Moskos, Owens, T.Sanchez, Tabata and dare I list N.Walker (remember him?).

 

I'm not quite sure how to rank 'em yet myself.

 

Have at it.  I'm looking forward to seeing what other people think.

 

Should the Pirates recall Ian Snell?

 

Since being demoted (or requesting it) Ian has been dominate at AAA.  He is 2-1 with an 0.56 ERA.  In 32.1 IP, he has allowed just 19 hits, 2 earned runs, walked 12, struck out 43 and not allowed a single home run.  Ian's last start was on Tuesday, so he should be ready to pitch again on Saturday.  If the Pirates would recall Ian for a start on Saturday, he would also get a second start before the trade deadline to try and prove he is worthy of a major league job.  This would help the Pirates to be able to trade him and still get some value out of the guy.  I would think if he comes up and tosses two above average (or even just average games) that some contender would gamble on him for the stretch drive.

 

Thoughts? 

Poll

Should the Pirates recall Ian Snell before his next start?

71%

Yes, it could boost his trade value

102 votes

28%

No, he should have been careful what he wished for

41 votes

143 votes | Poll has closed

It seems more and more obvious that the PIrates are going to make every attempt to deal a number of players by the end of the month.  John Grabow, Jack Wilson, Adam LaRoche and Freddy Sanchez are all being discussed and Even players like Ryan Doumit and Matt Capps could also wind up on new teams if the price is right.  The big question is who is going to replace these guys.  You may not like some of the internal options, but guys like Brian Bixler, Steve Pearce and Garrett Jones may all find themselves filling the void.  But, what about second base?  Luis Cruz?  Ramon Vazquez?  We;, Ken Rosenthal at Fox Sports says Neal, Frank and the front office gang has their eye on someone.  How about speedster Eric Young Jr.?   http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9778206/Vazquez-has-too-much-value-for-Braves-to-move

Depending on what it would cost, I kinda like the idea.  Although he has no pop, he has as much if not more speed than McCutchen.  So, whadda ya think?  Anyone else hearing anything else?

According to the PG, the Pirates have traded outfielder Eric Hinske to the New York Yankees for catcher/outfielder Eric Fryer and pitcher Casey Erickson.  Erickson was a 10th round pick in 2006 and is a reliever in A with average numbers.  He has started a couple games and was a starter the previous year.  Fryer was also a 10th round pick (by Milwaukee) in 2007.  He was traded to NY for Chase Wright back in February.  He's been at high A Tampa.  Not much of a year this year, but last season posted good numbers for West Virginia (.914 OPS).  Nothing much to get too excited about, but not a bad haul for Hinske.   We can probably thank Xavier Nady for this.  lol   I guess we will get to see a little more of Steve Pearce now.