SB Nation User Blog: Trogluddite

Last Chance to Be Smarter than Dave Littlefield

Trogluddite — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:41:10 -0000

So, there was some discussion on these and I have one more left, so here it is - you are the GM for the 2003 Pirates. On the 2002 quiz, most of you wanted to add one FA bat or one big name FA pitcher. You should have picked "None of the Above" if you wanted to be as smart as Dave L.

By building from within from 2001 to 2002, the Pirates picked up 11 games in the win column. Going into the 2003 season, they again tried to build around the core of Kendall, Wilson, Ramirez ( a new report stated that Aramis Ramirez reported to Spring Training 20 pounds lighter ... determined to put a disappointing, injury-plagued 2002 season behind him...), Giles, and the three Musketeers (Wells, Fogg, and Benson) in the starting rotation. They added a slew of mid-level free agent veterans to try to get over the hump. Offensively, this included Randall “the Wiener Whacker” Simon, who actually had a pulse at first, hitting .275. Unfortunately, his power skills were limited to bashing bratwursts, as he only had 10 HR and 14 2Bs in 321 plate appearances. At least he and Matt Stairs pushed Kevin Young into some other career – if pretending to be a ballplayer was a crime, Young would be locked up for life. Jeff Reboulet, Abraham Nunez, and Pokey Reese all started games at 2B – quick, now how many second basemen has Jack Wilson dealt with in three years? Kenny Lofton and Reggie Sanders were added to the outfield, finally giving us some respectable hitting and power – they hit .277 and .285 respectively and Sanders had 31 HRs, double that of A-Ram (12 HRs) and Giles (16 HRs). Craig Wilson, again playing part-time, had more home runs (18) than Giles and A-Ram. We actually had a fairly solid bench, with C. Wilson, Stairs, Nunez, Mack-o-Wack, and Adam Hyzdu. Humberto Cota got promoted to full-time back-up, but saw very little playing time. Some guy named Bay also got called up, but he only hit 3 home runs. Overall, the team’s offense sky-rocketed, with 753 runs (7th in the NL), 45 triples (2nd), 1492 hits (3rd), and 86 stolen bases (4th). Yes, I double-checked – those are not the numbers for the pitching staff.

The Pirates added veterans to the starting rotation, with mixed success. Jeff D’Amico (who?) was our #2 starter. He won 9 and lost 16. But Jeff Suppan, going in the 4 slot, won 10 and lost only 7. Wells and Fogg were both 10 and 9, but Kris Benson fell to 5 and 9 as the 5th starter. Their combined ERA was 4.37, or only slightly above the 2002 team ERA.

Was there a weak link on this team, you ask? It’s the Pirates – of course there was. Even though the starting pitching maintained roughly the same stats, the pitching staff had an overall ERA of 4.65 (12th among NL teams), gave up 746 earned and 801 total runs (11th and 12th), and 178 HRs (10th). The staff’s WHIP was relatively high (1.405) and K/9 IP relatively low (5.8). Our bullpen had to get worn out, as the last three pitchers in the rotation – Fogg, Suppan, and Benson – threw 140, 140, and 105 total innings in 2003, respectively. Our “closer,” Mike Williams, had an ERA of 6.27, and set-up men Beimel and Boehringer both had ERAs of 5.00+. Someone should have told them they were supposed to be setting up the closer, not the other teams’ batters. The spot starters – Salomon Torres, Brian Meadows, and Ollie P – all had ERAs over 4.70. Shockingly, the three of them combined to break even, with 9 wins and 9 losses. We had three pitchers – they shall remain nameless – who had ERAs over 10.00; between them, they somehow won 1 game without being tagged for any losses. I admittedly cherry-picked these quotes from the Pirates news archive, but they do seem to capture the year:

“But in the end, it was the clubs' bullpens that would prove to be the difference in the Cubs' 6-1, 10-inning win.”

“Four Pirates pitchers allowed seven runs on 13 hits to the Mets in a 7-2 defeat Thursday...”

“The Pittsburgh Pirates didn't expect the bullpen to be perfect for 162 games. The relievers' timing just could be a little better...”

Something else that jumps out about the MLB roster is the average age of 28 years old. I don’t know what the typical roster averages, but we had a 39-year old second baseman (Reboullet), an all 30+ outfield, and a 30+ bullpen (excepting Beimel). Only seven players on the MLB roster were 24 years old or younger – Bay, J.J. Davis, Cota, J.R. House, Ollie P, John Grabow, and Duaner Sanchez. The AAA Nashville team’s average age was over 27 years old – if an AAA affiliate is supposed to get players to the “bigs” in their “prime” years of 27-29, it doesn’t seem like our system was working. Again, without regressing this to the mean applying an age-standardized rate to a collection of asymptotically unbiased binary variables that have a Bernoulli distribution for unreplicated factors, we can’t tell if the Bayesian inference = -2 [ln Lc - ln Ls] or D = -2 ln [Lc / Ls], which is obviously what the Stochastic Model would project for average team age.

So getting back to the main point, how did the Pirates do when we built around the core of Ramirez, Giles, Wilson, and Kendall? They ended up 4th in the NL Central, with a 75 and 87 record – an improvement of only 3 wins ... how do we improve now, particularly when all those old free agents we signed to get us over the top were signed for only one year? There are potential holes at first, second (again), center field, and right field as Simon, Sanders, Stairs, Lofton, and “what’s his name at second” all leave. In addition, the pitching staff will lose Suppan. The help for next year – excluding the AAAA-type players – from the Nashville Sounds includes J.J. Davis (.284, 26 HR), Tike Redman (.294, 42 stolen bases), Tony Alvarez, and “old reliables” like Rob Mack-o-Wack, Humberto Cota, and Adam Hyzdu. Arbitrarily and capriciously setting a cut-off line based on age and inning pitched, the only “young” pitching help available is Ryan Vogelsong (4.29 ERA) and Matt Guerrier (4.50 ERA). Just like the batters, it looks like a lot of innings went to older players.

Assuming that the appropriate age for players at AA should be a little younger, the Pirates are in real trouble here. The average age of players who spent purgatory in Altoona (I grew up within 20 miles of Altoona, so I can say that) was 25. But that seems to be dragged down by pitchers and a lot of players who look like they were late call-ups. Chris Duffy (.273 BA, 34 SB, 23 2B, 6 3B) and Jose Castillo (.287 BA, 24 2B, 6 3B) led the team in plate appearances and hit decently. But after them, you go a long way down the list of position players before you see any recognizable names. (And then when you get there, its Ronny Paulino.) Our pitching prospects at Altoona looked respectable, with Mike Gonzalez, Ian Snell, Sean Burnett, and John Grabow all pitching reasonably well.

Sorry for the weird formatting; not sure what's up with that....

Poll

So what’s the best option to fight forward and get those six additional wins next year? So close...we’re so close.... It just has to be:

Not to Keep Pushing MLBTR, but

Trogluddite — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:32:20 -0000

They are a fairly good aggregator of baseball info, IMO. Sort of like the Drudge Report or RealClearPolitics for baseball. One new series they have, which they are doing in collaboration with other bloggers apparently, is the "GM Trade History Series" which produces an excel spreadsheet showing the trades, signings, and draft picks made by each team's GM. Neal Huntington's list just got posted. It was apparently put together by a Pirates fans website named http://theburghblues.mlblogs.com/ . Everyone should save a copy so, two years from now when we are screaming, "What idiot got us Erick Hacker and who did we give up for him?" we all have our handy-dandy references. Maybe someone should go back in time and compile a similar spreadsheet for Dave Littlefield, but I suspect that pulling that together would push weaker soles to the brink of insanity......

Pirates Boring at Winter Meetings

Trogluddite — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:25:56 -0000

and I'm okay with that. I'm looking at MLBTradeRumors.com summary of the Winter Meetings and I would argue (if for no other reason than to pass time until spring training) that boring was good for the Pirates. Why? Let me count the ways....

* The Pirates did relatively little, but so did most other teams. The Astros, Brewers, Yankees, and Mariners were very active, a few other teams made limited moves. One of the more active teams was the Mets, who have been signing stopgap players - much like the Pirates did back in '03 when signing Joe Randa and Sean Casey because we literally had no one to play 3B or 1B. No one signed Jason Bay. No one traded (yet) for Doc Holiday or Dan Uggla or Roy Halladay.

* What the Pirates did is consistent with what other teams did. This tells me that our front office is not getting snookered as in the past. The Bobby Crosby uber-utility man signing is consistent with the Tigers signing Adam Everett or the Mariners signing Corey Patterson to a minor league deal or the Phillies signing Ross Gload. Signing Vinnie Chulk is roughly equivalent to the Astros signing Gary Majewski or the Red Sox signing Fabio Castro or Scott Atchison.

* The Pirates transactions met real needs, not PR (public relations) needs. We need bullpen depth. We need better bench players. We addressed these needs and did so in a prudent manner.

* The Pirates didn't do anything stupid. Want to re-sign Brian Giles for old-times sake? Check out his stats with the Padres last year. Want to trade some prospects for Ollie Perez? Didn't do it, wouldn't be prudent. Want to pick up a "name player" with baggage - Milton Bradley, Pat Burrell, or Luis Castillo - just to show that you're serious about spending money? Nope. None of that either.

Did we pull out a "magic wand" and solve all of our problems for next year? No, but there is no magic wand. Let's say the Pirates offered Andy Pettitte or Brad Penny or Randy Wolfe a contract equivalent to those signed. Do we realistically expect that any of those players would sign with the Pirates? Unfortunately, money is not everything for some players and I would argue that these players would not sign with the Pirates (this year) even if we did mortage the future.

Thoughts? Comments? Beer?

It's 2002. It's Pittsburgh. And You are There...

Trogluddite — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:40:46 -0000

...as the GM. You haven't been fired, even though a plurality (41%) of you traded a popular player and almost no one (3%) went out and hired a free agent. About 1/4 of you untraded Jason Schmidt - I was not able to follow the Pirates in the late 90's, so I was surprised that this many people saw promise in him given his age and numbers. Another 25% thought it best to build from within.

If you were among the 25% who chose to build from within by promoting Mackowiak, Wilson, Fogg, etc., - you could be smarter than a Pirates GM.

The Pirates’ management did very little during the 2001 off-season, We again had a core of Jason Kendall, Jack Wilson (who improved his BA to .250), Aramis Ramirez (whose BA dropped to .234 and HRs dropped to 18) and Brian Giles, who had a monster year with a .298 BA and 38 HR; he also drew 135 walks. Free agent “Pokey” Reese looked like a definite upgrade over Pat Meares at 2B; for fun, try counting how many second basemen Jack Wilson gets teamed with before Freddy Sanchez arrives. Adrian Brown started the year in CF and was awful. Craig Wilson got the majority of ABs as our RF and was serviceable – a .264 BA, 16 HR, and 16 2B. Rob Mackowiak got a lot of playing time for a utility player (385 AB), and hit only .244, but had 16 HR and 22 2B. Humberto Cota, who hit .294 in limited playing time, looked like a capable back-up for Jason Kendall. But 33-year old Keith Osik was blocking him. Even with some improvement, our offensive totals ranged from 14th to 16th among the National League. Incredibly, we scored fewer runs.

The pitching staff’s ERA, like a drunk on a high-wire, had nowhere to go but down and it did, falling to 4.24 (10/16 in the NL) and the bullpen was 3rd best with 47 saves. Most of the improvement came from a trio of new pitchers – Wells, Fogg, and Kris Benson. Between them, they had 33 wins and only 32 losses. Eight other pitchers started for the Pirates, trying to fill the 3 and 5 spots in the rotation; most came and went unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. There are a lot of familiar names among our spot starters and middle relieves, but except for Bronson Arroyo and Ron Villone, none appear to have done much after leaving the Pirates. Bronson is another pitcher who makes me wonder if Spin Williams was part of the problem. He spent most of the 2002 season in AAA. In 3 years in Pittsburgh, Arroyo was 9 and 14, with a 5.44 ERA. His HR, SO, and K/9 innings stayed roughly the same when he pitched for the Reds and Red Sox, but his ERA fell to 4.00 and 4.19, respectively. Was that from our defense or Spin Williams’ coaching?

Unfortunately, in trying how to build on this success and get to .500 (or the NL Central title), our minor league system does not have much in the pipeline for the future. The AAA affiliate in Nashville is full of 27-30+ year old players. The only youngsters are Duaner Sanchez (who we traded for in 2002), Tike Redman, Tony McKnight, Chad Hermansen (who we traded away in 2002), and (for part of the year) Humberto Cota. John Grabow is the only familiar name in AA, but Ian Snell, Jose Bautista, and Ryan Doumit were all at Hickory. Sean Burnett made his first appearance as part of the Pirates organization, as did some guys named Matt Capps and Zach Duke (8-1 in rookie league). Skimming the Pirates minor league roster, you don’t see a lot of names that jump out at you as having left the Pirates and then making a name for themselves with other organizations.

The 2002 draft brought Bryan “where is he now?” Bullington, Brad “Big Country” Eldred, the “Mad Capper”, and – in the 33rd round – Nyjer “Nate the Grate” Morgan. Seriously, does anyone know whatever happened to Bullington? Shockingly, Nate the Grate was not called up immediately to play CF, as he was clearly the keystone for this organization. During the season, the Pirates only made two moves – Mike Fetters was traded for Duaner Sanchez and Chad Hermansen (oops, there goes our already-thin depth in AAA) was traded for Darren Lewis.

This in-house rebuilding resulted in the Pirates having a 72-81 record (10 more wins and 11 fewer losses but I don’t know how) than the 2001 season. The team appears to have the core of a competent pitching staff and appears to be headed in the right direction – that is quite a turnaround in only one year.

Poll

What moves do you make, that the Pirates didn’t think off, to get the 9 more wins needed to break even in 2003?

I haven't even read your options and once again, I’ve got a better idea you missed – see comments below. Where you drinking when you typed these up?

0 votes

Spend $3-5 million on one big free agent to get someone to play 1B (we need it), 3B (Ramirez did nothing last year), or to shore up the outfield.

5 votes

Bite the bullet and trade Ramirez. Maybe we can get some value for him, even though we’re selling low.

1 votes

Spend your free agent money on a top-of-the-rotation pitcher. Using your crystal ball, you just know that Ramirez will snap out of it, you have internal options at 1B and in the outfield; heck, if need be, you can get someone off the street who will hit b

22 votes

Trade one of the starting pitchers who just showed up – Fogg, Wells, or Benson – and try to get some offense.

15 votes

43 votes | Poll has closed

What Would You Have Done as GM? (2001 Season)

Trogluddite — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:50:36 -0000

As a long-suffering Pirates fan, I have to constantly defend my loyalty to the team – usually, I claim insanity and let it go at that. I’m currently trapped in New York. When I point out that the Yankees buy championships, the locals respond, “The Pirates have had good players – if they had just built around Aramis Ramirez ... or Brian Giles ... or Barry Bonds ... or Jason Bay ... or Doug Mientkewicz, they could’a been a contenduh....” Obviously, many Pirates fans feel much the same way.

I say, “It just ain’t so.”

It’s not like the Pirates have fielded good teams since 1992, lacking just one more player to nudge us into contention. More often, the Pirates have fielded lousy teams with just one or two players who provide a ray of hope to keep us all in a certain psychotic stage of denial. When that one player is traded, whether from good (build for the future) or bad (shed salary) intentions, we forget that the train wreck was there before, not after, the trade.

So, I’ve decided to painfully revisit part of our sordid history. What I intend to do for each year is lay out – in broad terms – how the Pirates’ year went and their strengths and weaknesses. Then, you get to be the General Manager and make a decision. Fairly or unfairly, the options are roughly the same as the Pirates had that year. I don’t believe in “magic wands,” so I don’t have an option where the Pirates sign Pedro Martinez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Albert Pujols in one swell foop (whatever that phrase means).

All the info I’ve using is from www.baseball-reference.com. I’m not a stats guru, so I try not to bog down figuring out what UZR/BA*OPS – ∫(k/IP +whip)3 equals. I’ve grabbed players and stats that catch my eye in a quick review, but I haven’t intentionally cherry-picked the stats (meaning, I haven’t presented selected stats specifically to spin the outcome). If I recognize a player’s name, even if for an obscure reason, I may mention that player. Also, I had a difficult time finding the free agent class for each year, so feel free to help fill in those blanks. All in all, I’m just trying to pass the dull (i.e., hockey) months until spring training begins.

I’ve really only become deeply involved in the Pirates again in the last few years and since I have to start somewhere, I picked 2001. I was almost back home (living in central PA), could watch the Bucs regularly, and even went to a couple of games. Enjoy, or let me know that this is just sucking the life out of the page, and we’ll go from there.

2001 was a great year – it was the closest to home I’ve lived since 1984 and I got to see a few Pirates games, and Cal Ripken’s last game, with my son. Looking at the roster, I’m surprised to see that the Pirates’ core group of position players included Jason Kendall, Jack Wilson (only 23 years old in his first Pirates year, but only hitting .223), Aramis Ramirez (34 HR, 40 2B), and Brian Giles (37 HR, 37 2B, and 7 3B). Unfortunately, the rest of our line-up included nobodies such as Kevin Young (blocking Craig Wilson, who hit .310/13 HR in 158 AB) at 1st, Pat Meares at 2nd, and Gary Matthews and John Vander Wal in the outfield. I’m gonna’ go out on a limb and say there was nobody of note on our bench.

Our starting rotation had Bronson Arroyo and a 28-year old Jason Schmidt (both spent time at Nashville, then our AAA affiliate) as – wait for it – the fourth and fifth starters.

If you wanted to build from within, Nashville had future stars such as Ryan Secrist’s brother, Reed (well, maybe not), Humberto Cota, Tike Redman, Craig Wilson, and Rob Mack-o-wack. At Altoona, we had Ryan Doumit (for two games), John Grabow, and Mike Gonzalez. Among our rookies, 22-year old J.J. Davis had a .882 slugging percentage in A ball. We drafted John Van Benschoten (to go with Vander Wal) eighth overall in the draft and Chris Duffy (8th round), Zach Duke (20th round), and Rajai Davis (38th round). We also drafted future Arizona Diamondback Stephen Drew, but he did not sign with the Pirates (or anyone else for 3 more years while he played college ball). So, where we were just one free agent away from a dynasty?

The Pirates ended 2001 with a 62-100 record. How? It appears that we had a pretty lousy pitching staff. Our first three starters – Todd Ritchie, Jimmy Anderson, and Dave Williams – had a 23-39 win/loss record and an average ERA of 4.42. I’m not sure who Arroyo (5 wins, 7 losses, 5.09 ERA) and the 28-year old Jason Schmidt (6&6, 4.61 ERA) replaced. Our bullpen looks atrocious – Joe Beimal (7 wins, 11 losses, 5.23 ERA) and Omar Olivares (6 wins, 9 losses, 6.55 ERA) set up for Mike Williams, who had a 3.67 ERA and 1.440 WHIP. (Or they pitched middle relief, as they have more IP than Arroyo and Schmidt.) The rest of our pitchers toiled – badly – in obscurity. Too bad they weren’t more obscure. This sure seems to be the cause of our 100-loss season, as we scored about 660 runs (4/game) and allowed about 860 runs (5.3/game). I bet a lot of frustrated batters watched leads melt away after a key home run.

Before the 2001 season, the Pirates made a move that has haunted us to this day, sending A. Ramirez to the Yakult Swallows of the Japan Central league. (Alex, not Aramis – this is the trade everyone complains about, right? During the season, we traded Enrique Wilson (who I don’t remember, save for a recent post) to the Yankees for Damaso Marte, who we traded to the White Sox after the season ended. Marte appeared in 23 games for us and had a 4.71 ERA. We also traded the 28-year old, 4.61 ERA Jason Schmidt to San Francisco for Armando Rios (a middle-aged outfielder) and Ryan Vogelsong (a young pitcher). Interestingly, Schmidt’s ERA went to 3.39 pitching for the Giants – I’ve always wondered if we relied on pitching coach “Spin” Williams too much. There were, of course, a host of other moves – feel free to tell me if you think I missed a key move, like granting Rich Loiselle free agency.

After the season was over, we traded our No. 1 starter, Todd Ritchie, to the Chicago White Sox for Josh Fogg and Kip Wells, and signed Salomon Torres, Pokey Reese, Ron Villone.

Poll

So, to improve on a 62 win, 100 loss season, what do you, the General Manager, do? Clearly, you need a bunch of pitching and some oomph in the bottom half of the line-up. How do the Pirates improve for 2002? Questions that have choices will, hopefully, g

Bite the bullet and trade (select either Ramirez, Kendall, or Giles) to (which team?) for (pick your poison).

27 votes

We should have signed (Name the free agent), who went to the (some other team) for only ($ for years). As GM, you probably only have 2-4 million to spend on free agents.

2 votes

Build with what we have – get Craig Wilson and Rob Mackowiak in as starters, rely on the new pitchers (Fogg, Wells, and Torres) we brought in, and jump to first place in the NL Central.

14 votes

Wave the magic wand and undo the Jason Schmidt trade – a blind parrot could see that his ERA was about to drop and that he’d be a #1 starter.

18 votes

Hey, I’ve got a great idea you missed – see comment below.

2 votes

63 votes | Poll has closed

Let's say we didn't trade Freddy...

Trogluddite — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:24:56 -0000

...and he had been injured so his option did not vest. Now he can be a free agent. Iwamura is available. The Germans won the war and Spock has grown a beard and I have to get to 75 words so I'm desparately trying to come up with other absurd juxtapositions to show that we are in a bizarre parallel universe that does not bear any rational relationship to our own. If you choose option D, explain your work in a comment below.

Poll

Who would you rather have at 2B for the Pirates in 2010?

Freddy for 2 years at 6 million/year

21 votes

Iwamura for 1 year at the price we just got

131 votes

An internal option - DY or L'il Luigi

12 votes

Hey Dufus, you forgot about this option

5 votes

169 votes | Poll has closed

The Deer Invade the Mid-Hudson Valley...

Trogluddite — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:55:05 -0000

Only to be gunned down like so much venison by a bunch of Renegades (the New York-Penn League affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays). It was a beautiful night up here, so I went to see the Spikes. Nice stadium with 4,400 in attendance and a good game by the young Pirates.

Kyle McPherson pitched a good game through six even though he took the loss. Lots of first-pitch strikes, lots of balls beat into the ground, very few balls hit hard. Unfortunately, the Renegades hit balls hard when it counted. He got some good defense from Brock Holt at short and Pat Irvine at 3B, both of whom showed good range and made strong, off-balance throws to first. One concern is that the Renegades ran a lot and although the catcher, Craig Parry, had a very strong arm, it seemed like McPherson was not getting the ball to the plate quickly enough. The steals were on him.

Another fact not shown by the box score shows how good McPherson (and the relievers) were whilst simultaneously raising another concern. Hudson Valley had six hits – four of them were bunts. One double was a bloop that fell into no-man’s land down the first base line, one double was ripped down the third base line, and four batters got on by bunting. I’m not sure if this is a Renegades strategy to take advantage of their team speed or something they saw in our infield, but as a team they bunted very well. They picked up their insurance run in the bottom of the eighth on a bunt, a stolen base with the runner advancing to third on an error (someone should been backing up; bad break for Parry), and a squeeze play.

I picked the wrong night to try to gain insight into our future hitters. They were patient as the Renegades’ starter was working hard. Holt had an honest double and Irvine had a booming triple, but not much hitting beyond that.

And I found one glimmer of hope. I chatted with an Irish family vacationing in the mid-Hudson valley. After explaining how the Spikes feed players up to the Major League Pirates, I asked if he knew why the Pirates were currently notorious. He had no clue – so the unfortunate story of the Pirates’ tribulations have not – contrary to what ESPN would have you believe – reached every corner of the globe.

Charles Schulz must have been a Pirates Fan...

Trogluddite — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:36:10 -0000

...although last night's game makes this strip a little less on-point for our long sufferin' Buccos. Accordingt to the website, this strip originally ran July 29, 1962. The Pirates, managed by Danny Murtaugh, lost to the Phillies, led by Gene Mauch. This has to be the father of the Gene Mauch who managed the Expos and others in the 70s and 80s. The pitching match-up was McBean v. McLish - damn Irishmen.... The Pirates lone run in an 8-1 loss came when Roberto Clemente homered with 2 out in the 4th inning. For this, he got replaced by "H.Goss," which seems a little like replacing McClutch with Eric Hinske. The Pirates pitcher, McBean, lasted only 3.1 innings and gave up 10 hits. I wonder if Dave Littlefield tried to recall him for the 2007 pitching staff. The point of all this? None, just had to get to 75 words.

If the 2007 Pirates had only built around....

Trogluddite — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:36:18 -0000

Fairly or unfairly, one of the criticisms of the Pirates is that, "they could be contenders if they would have built around Bay, Nady, and other players they traded away." This is often tied to the off-hand remark that we’ve traded away our entire 2007 (or 2006 or 2008) starting line-up. I’m sure I’ll hear both of these lines from Mets and Yankees fans when I report back to the salt mines on Monday. So I wanted to jump into the "way-back" machine and see if this criticism holds up.

I looked at the 2007 Pittsburgh Pirates[1], who finished in 6th place with 68 wins and 94 losses under Jim Tracy. This was the season that ended with the firing (choirs singing allelujah) of Dave Littlefield and subsequent hiring of Neal Huntington in September of that year.

Here are our starting position players and an abbreviated depth chart:

1 C Ronny Paulino Ryan Doumit [2]

2 1B Adam LaRoche Josh Phelps/Brad Eldred/Matt Kata

3 2B Freddy Sanchez Jose Castillo

4 SS Jack Wilson Cesar Izturis (?)/Don Kelly

5 3B Jose Bautista Jose Castillo

6 LF Jason Bay

7 CF Nate McLouth/Chris Duffy [3] Nyjer Morgan/Rajai Davis

8 RF Xavier Nady

Our team offense ranked:

* 10/16 in batting average (.266 v. a .267 NL average)

* 12/16 in home runs (148 v. a 169 NL average)

* 12/16 in runs/game (4.47 v. a 4.71 NL average)

* 12/16 in total runs (724 v. the Phillies’ league-leading 892)

* 12/16 in stolen bases (68?! The league average was 98, the Mets had 200!)

* 7th in strikeouts (that is, we had the seventh most strikeouts...)

* 8th in grounding into double plays

* Last in drawing intentional walks

Here are our starting pitchers:

1 Ian Snell 9-12 3.76 ERA 1.33 WHIP 6.5 innings/start

2 Tom Gorzelanny 14-10 3.88 ERA 1.39 WHIP 6.3 innings/start

3 Paul Maholm 10-15 5.02 ERA 1.42 WHIP 6.1 innings/start

4 Zach Duke 3-8 5.53 ERA 1.73 WHIP 5.6 innings/start

5 (Yaarrrgghhh) Matt Morris or Shawn Chacon or Tony Armas or Shane Youman and don’t forget (Double Yaarrrgghhh) John Van Benschoten. Some other sadist will have to calculate the average ERA, WHIP, and innings/start for this motley crew. I’m betting a beer that they averaged less than 5 innings per start. Our #5 choir was 15 and 24, although some wins and losses came when they were middle relievers. This group is clearly topped by JvB’s 10.15 ERA and impressive 2.15 WHIP. I’m not saying that we had to write off every 5th game, but ... the stats above reinforce my faint memories (or nightmares?) that 2007 was the year the starting pitching died. I believe the 2008 season was the year the offense died....

Here are some selected bullpen guys:

The "big five" were Matt, Shawn Chacon, Salomon Torres, John Grabow, and Damaso Marte. Between them, they finished 111 games and pitched 320 innings. The fifteen other pitchers who appeared in the bullpen (or as a spot starter) that year pitched 365 innings. In a 162 game season, your pitchers pitch approximately 1,460 innings. That means our primary relievers pitched over 20% of our season’s innings, and our middle reliever scrubs pitched another 20+% of the innings for the season. I have absolutely no concrete evidence to support this, but my gut feeling is that this just can’t be a good thing. That means our five starters (counting only Matt Morris in the number 5 spot) pitched less than 60% of the innings for the season.

How did our team pitching stats rank?

* Our team ERA of 4.94 was 14 out of 16 NL teams.

* Our runs surrendered/per game was 5.22, over ½ a run over the NL average and again putting us 14 out of 16 teams.

* We were 15/16 in WHIP at 1.48; on average, our pitchers allowed 10 hits and 3 walks per 9 innings pitched.

* But, our pitchers "pitched to contact," as we were 13/16 in strikeouts.

* And we were 1st in hits allowed.

* And we were 6th in home runs allowed

So my question for all of the "experts" who think we were one player away from the World Series is, "what the H***" was Neal Huntington supposed to do that he hasn’t done?"

We had just traded for "Lefty McThump," aka Adam LaRoche, aka Adam LaWhiff to cure our offensive woes, give us a power threat, and protect Jay Bay and X-man.

We promoted Ryan Doumit and traded Joggin’ Ronnie, something that the past regime had been reluctant to do even though Joggin’ Ronnie was clearly mailing it in during the 2007 season.

Nate the Great earned the starting center field position even though Chris Duffy was "the veteran" at that position.

Clearly Nyjer, who was a competent back-up, should have been promoted to replace either Jason Bay or X-man because Nyjer was just so great....

We had a gaping sucking chest wound at 3rd base.... I don’t see anything in the pipeline to replace him, although I understand that Neal Walker was "just around the corner."

So what single free agent outfielder, catcher, or 3rd baseman was out there that would have moved our offense into the top half, let alone the top 1/3rd of NL teams????

Similarly, our pitching stats speak for themselves. So what three free agent starting pitchers were we going to sign (even our 1st and 2nd starting pitchers were not much to write home about) to make our pitching staff respectable?

And please don’t tell me that we should have traded from our deep farm system or our Major League roster to acquire the help we needed... What exactly do we expect the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees to give up for Joggin’ Ronnie, Jose Bautista, or Matt Morris (as I recall, after he retired, no one even invited him back for a Minor League contract).

So, when someone tells you that the current regime doesn’t know what they’re doing with these trades, please give them the above facts and ask them exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

[1] All info and stats are from www.baseball-reference.com

[2] "Joggin’ Ronnie" started 130 games, but Ryan got almost 400 plate appearances.

[3] McLouth got just under 60% of the plate appearances and hit .258.

One General Though About Our Recent Trades

Trogluddite — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:52:00 -0000

I'm not very enthused about the Gorzo/Grabow trade, but in analyzing the pitchers we are getting in return, I try to keep in mind two systemic improvements to the Pittsburgh Ball Club that make me a little more deferential (at least for now) to management's decisions.

First, Joe Kerrigan is the best pitching coach we've had in years. I think he greatly improves our ability to evaluate pitchers we are receiving in trades and drafting/trading to meet our needs. In other words, I have more confidence with an unknown pitcher drafted/traded with Kerrigan's input than I did when Dave Littlefield was conducting the analysis.

Second, the Pirates now have a single system of analysis/development to guide players at all levels. Having worked in a large bureaucratic organization for 20 years, it is simply breathtaking that before the current regime the low-level supervisors (scouts, A/AA managers) were apparently using different evaluation and reporting metrics than the higher level management. Could you imagine how screwed up a pitcher would be if his A manager tells him he needs to work on his fastball, his AA manager tells him to be more careful w/his pitches, his AAA manager tells him to start pounding the strike zone, and the big league manager asks if he's ever played second? (Okay, even Jim Tracy wouldn't do that.) But this rather simple change should increase the likelihood of prospects progressing rather than muddling about.

Of course, if we don't have a winning season soon, neither of these points will be more than an interesting historical footnote.