That was the title of the fangraph article that came out today. Clearly this piece just confirms what we in Pittsburgh have known for years now; McCutchen is an absolute beast/stud. Also, it seems as though nobody outside Pirate Nation seems to care/notice. I will say however, it was cool last night during the HR Derby for the booth to have McCutchen come on and talk to them about the Bucs. I'd say Cutch represented himself well, including answering questions about our recent success, and telling people why they should pay attention to the Pirates. The only negative I can draw from the HR Derby is that Cutch was sitting next to Cryin' Braun and Rickie Weeks, I really hope he isn't friendly with those losers.

Article HERE

With all of the upcoming roster crunch issues the Bucs will face when players return from injury, I feel as though the Moskos situation has been on the backburner. Some people are saying when Beimel comes back maybe Moskos will be the guy sent back down, which is fine he's been so-so with us since coming up I get that. My question is, why not try and develop him as a starter again? Watching him pitch in relief he gets low to mid-90's and throws a decent breaking ball. Does his velocity magically drop to 88 once he pitches more than 2 innings? It just seems to me like even if he becomes a solid lefty bullpen guy, LOOGY types are out there all the time. He doesn't have much value to us as a reliever so why not try to get him to the Bucs in the rotation? We seem to have lots of SP options right now in AAA, as well as the aces in the low minors so we have pitching to come. If he ends up expendable, fine. Am I totally wrong here, is this not an option anymore? 

For the record, I think converting Moskos back to a starter is much more reasonable than saying that for Hanrahan, so I'm at least more informed than the idiot national columnist that suggested that in his recent column!

I know we all probably have been thinking the same thing with regards to Karstens; He's pitched reasonably well for us to this point filling in for Ohlendorf but hey, I'd much rather see Lincoln or Owens or (insert young, promising pitcher here). I have been firmly in that camp for quite some time. The thinking being, ok yeah Karstens can give us 5 or 6 competitive innings every 5th day but it's not helping us see what we have with these young guys, we're not gonna win in 2011 so why waste the spot on a guy who won't be around in the future when the bucs are competing. But at what point does Karstens have to continue to pitch downright adequate for us to consider him a longterm option? Maholm throws slower than him FYI, so did Duke, and lots of other guys. Sure, he's prone to a gopher ball once or twice a game but aside from that he's been pretty darn consistent this year. I think you could do a lot worse w/a 5th starter, and I'd love to keep him around in the bullpen in the future even if we call up a guy like Lincoln or Ohlendorf comes back or whatever. How much stock do you put in Karstens today based on how well he's pitched all year?

I was driving around today and had the misfortune to land my FM scanner on 93.7 the fan so I could listen to the Vinnie & Cook show. Blaugh. However, the topic of discussion was Pete Rose and it really got a lot of listeners calling in with different opinions. Rose recently made the news with some comments about his desire to get back into managing if a team will let him. Crotchety old Cook and Vinnie swear Rose off no matter what, claiming baseball is a game of integrity and honor and Rose should be nowhere near the Hall of Fame, managing, etc. Plenty of callers dissented however, saying they felt their sons should see all the best players in the Hall of Fame when they take him to Cooperstown and to not have the all-time hits leader in there is a travesty. Personally, if you let in steroid users and all kinds of men of questionable character, why not let in a gambler? If murderer's get pardoned and forgiven is baseball so glorious, so high and mighty that Rose can't get in the HOF? Lawrence Taylor's in the NFL Hall of Fame and he solicites teenage prostitutes! Rose was one of the greatest players of all-time gambler or not so I think he should be in all these old guys need to LET IT GO.

What's your opinion of the entire Pete Rose saga?

Andrew McCutchen's oft-maligned defense in center-field (at least here on BD) doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves IMHO. I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to baseball statistics, and I definitely am on board with Moneyball tactics, Bill James, etc. and many of the advanced statistics we talk about here on BD ad nauseum. However, UZR is the one stat that no matter how much factual proof and reason is behind it, I'll still feel like a 70-yr old scout when I look at Cutch and say, "Man, he passes the eye test out there in CF he looks good to me!" 

Can I be crazy? We often discredit UZR's negative rating of McCutchen defensively because when you see him make plays like he did in the 2nd inning of the Giants game tonight, you simply CANNOT BELIEVE he's anything but a gold glover...Here's a link to the replay: 

HERE

Which begs the question...Why the heck does UZR say he's so mediocre in the first place? How many guys could've made that catch he made tonight? If you wanna say he doesn't have Raul Mondesi's arm in the outfield and he's airmailed a few cutoff men, fine...But that doesn't mean the dude doesn't fly out there and have range for days. Heck everyone seems to just LOVE tony plush's D in CF and he looks x50 worse than Cutch running routes!

Basically, I'm asking one of the BD experts who are (admittedly) much more informed than I. Watch the replay of the catch he made in tonight's game, then explain to me why "UZR" justifies Cutch being anything other than a fantastic center fielder! And if you can prove it to me, I'll stand corrected. But until then, as long as he's out there making plays I'm gonna consider him top-flight UZR BE DAMNED!

Go Bucs!

Benny Benack III

I just saw today that the Reds sent Dontrelle WIllis and Jeremy Hermida down to AAA basically cutting ties with the both of them. I know Willis is a lost cause, but Hermida still has some intrigue, doesn't he? I remember at the time we were trying to trade Bay we almost pulled the trigger on a Marlins deal with Hermida as the centerpiece. Instead we went with the deal giving us Brandon Moss (yuck). I know we already some clutter with the end of our bench and 1B/OF types like pearce and bowker, but Hermida has the highly-touted top-prospect potential that neither of those guys do. Maybe we should take a flyer on him?

HURDLE ARTICLE

CUTCH ARTICLE

What's this? Could it possibly be front page ESPN.com coverage about the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates!? A treasure trove of two articles were found on ESPN's main page this morning with the page titled "Promise in Pitt". Now we here at BD have been way ahead of the national baseball audience in our assessment of the Pirates and their young talent, but it IS nice to see everyone else finally acknowledging we've been doing (some) things right! Never mind that both articles are basically fluff material that's often forgotten once the season starts, but I'll take what I can get when it comes to national coverage.

The McCutchen article basically just outlines how he's a young stud, plays the game the right way, prepares, etc.

The Hurdle article is similar to some of the other stuff we've seen; Different guy with different coaching style will try to galvanize the Pittsburgh fan base and instill the Pirates with some hoo-rah inspiration on the way to (hopefully) the promised land!

After seeing this article on fangraphs, I wanted to bring up the Buccos/Slowey debate again. The article applauds Slowey as a steady, reliable, downright productive MLB starter and doesn't get why he's about to be made the Twins long reliever. Truth be told, I don't get it either! Maybe I'm biased because I'm from Upper St. Clair like Slowey, but he's better than some of the guys we've got and it seems like the Twins are asking for someone to take him off their hands!

Now I know the point of contention before was that we didn't want to give up Doumit who still seems to hold some kind of value on the trade market for him, but in light of recent events could Slowey be had for even less? He's still relatively young and could be around when the cavalry arrives in a couple years and we're ready for some pennants...I say let's go get him!

ARTICLE LINK HERE

article here

You can imagine my chagrin when perusing ESPN's MLB page I saw another Keith Law article about a top prospect losing his fastball...I grumbled to myself, "C'mon Keith, isn't the Aldersen story played out? Is there really nothing else going on in Spring Training to report on?"

However, I was pleasantly surprised to see not only was the article not about a Pirate, but it would appear as though the Pirates actually lucked out in a situation for the first time in a long time. You never want to derive joy from someone else's struggles, but it (guiltily) felt good to see the name "Tanner Scheppers" on the title of the article. I'm not an ESPN insider so I can't read the whole thing, but in a nutshell it seems like Scheppers lost his stuff and has consequently lost his way (not unlike Aldersen). Of course it was disappointing to see the Bucs not sign Scheppers when we had the chance, but imagine if we did actually sign him and this happened to us! People would be wondering what the heck the Pirates farm system pitching coaches were doing to ruin talented young arms. I sincerely hope Scheppers figures out his problem (same for Aldersen), but for once it's nice to know somebody ELSE has these things happen to them every once in awhile.

It's spring training...This time creates cause for optimism across all clubs in Major League Baseball. For me, it's no different with the Pirates! I've seen some of BD's most knowledgeable, respected members posting/commenting with tepid, tempered expectations. Many are considering 2011 a "lost season" where our youth developing positively is really the only silver lining we'll have. Why does this have to be the case? Granted, I was probably the same way this time last year thinking GFJ would hit 40 HRs, Clement would be a solid 1B, and Morton would build on his success from the end of the previous year. But hey, maybe GFJ/Diaz will hit 30 HRs, Overbay will provide stability at 1B, and Morton will build on his success from the end of last year!

Anyways, my point is that if I squint hard enough, I can see a Pirates team this year that will surprise a lot of people and compete all year long (what "compete" means I don't know; We have a tough division to win but I could see a push for .500 at the VERY LEAST). 

Is it really THAT much of a stretch to see these things happening:

*McCutchen plays All-Star level all year long posting great numbers and proving his -UZR in CF last year was a fluke

*Walker/Tabata/Alvarez all continue to improve, think a McCutchen-like sophomore season w/not much if any regression

*With all of the back end starter types we have competing out of camp to make the rotation, 1 or 2 of those guys (olsen, lincoln, hart, veal, karstens, owens, etc.) end up pitching well for us! (or more likely, whatever combination of these guys end up pitching out of the 4/5 slot all year, their cumulative stats are solid)

*Hurdle provides the much-needed KITP (Kick In The Pants) the yinzer fanbase has been longing for during the Russell Administration, galvanizing fans from across the land and getting the most production out of his talent possible.

*The bullpen looks solid, Maholm/Ohlendorf/Correaia could combine to be a decent front line of our staff

I dunno, call me crazy...but I think we can compete THIS YEAR!

go bucs!

ESPN insider article HERE

After perusing other divisions to ESPN.com since going to their NFL/NHL pages is depressing these days (articles on Steelers losing/Malkin going down), I stumbled across an article w/NL Central team grades for the offseason...This article was maybe enough to merit a fanpost of its own as the Pirates were given a "C+" which wasn't the worst! Although the Overbay signing was lauded as an upgrade, so some people here may dismiss the article all together, haha.

The real interesting article was linked as "Pirates have shot..." and goes on to outline a scenario where the Bucs win the division on the final day of the season with an 85-77 record! Unfortunately it's an "ESPN Insider" article so I couldn't read the whole thing. Is anyone here an "insider" subscriber that could explain the rest of the article?

Even if it's a little bit here or there, or a long shot prognostication, it's nice to see national press write something other than "Pirates futility" as a headline...

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/hotstove10/insider/news/story?id=6101416&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fmlb%2fhotstove10%2finsider%2fnews%2fstory%3fid%3d6101416

HERE

ESPN's article about Hurdle's opening statements as the Pirates new manager is above. Personally, I like his attitude and fire and think he's as good a guy as any to spearhead our return to relevance in baseball. And he's right...We do have some nice young talent!

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Similarly to my recent post about Andrew McCutchen, in light of El Toro's recent hot streak, the perception of his overall season may change if he keeps this up for the rest of the year. All the people that freaked out when he went 0-1000 to start his career seem so foolish now that he's stroking the ball every night...All the experts that said he'd never hit LH pitching seem stupid now that his splits are beginning to reflect that of his minor league splits (disconcerting perhaps, but not platoon worthy). Now that Pedro's got his average creeping up to .250 +, and he's going to have an outside shot at 20 HRs, shouldn't we gauge his debut season as a resounding success? He's shown he needs time to adjust at every level, and it's perfectly reasonable to expect a longer adjustment period for the majors than at any minor league level. My guess is he's finally figuring it out at the major league level, and the hitter we've seen over the last couple weeks is the hitter we'll see for the next couple decades!

Basically the point of these two posts I've made, are that even though our cornerstone stars have struggled, (Cutch, Pedro) they're once again showing us why we should all be super excited for the upcoming seasons...

Personally I think if we sign 1-2 solid rotation worthy veteran starters, get 1-2 of our hodge-podge starters to have good seasons (Ollie, McDonald, Maholm, Morton (yes morton!), etc.) we can have a much more respectable record than this year (70+ wins).

After his torrid start to the year when his average was comfortably above .300, we all thought the moon was possible for Andrew. When he went into an extended slump during the lazy midsummer days (along with the rest of the team), there was lots of speculation as to why McCutchen was struggling.

"All this losing has taken it's toll, he's just going through the motions now..." 

"He doesn't look like he's trying out there anymore!"

"This is his sophomore slump, it's to be expected he'd regress some from last year's brilliant rookie debut."

"We should've tapered our expectations for McCutchen all along, Tabata is the real potential All-Star outfielder!"

"He's not driving the ball, he's too pull happy!"

I could go on, but you get the gist. My point is, now that McCutchen's average is creeping back up towards .290, and he hit a few HRs this month to give him an outside shot at 20, has his strong finish to the year restored his perception in the eyes of Pirate fans? Or will you call this fanpost stupid and claim even when he was struggling you still had all the faith in the world in McCutchen (because there were a lot of posts on here that said otherwise)...

I keep telling myself the year he's having is fluky, and he's gonna get ice cold and slump any day now...But after spotting him on the ESPN ticker tonight with a 2 HR game bringing his season total to 30 already, I have to say enough is enough! I'm pleading ignorance because I haven't watched him play at all this season, but anybody that has, can you tell me what he's doing differently? I don't blame the Pirates for giving him up when they did...There was absolutely no reason to think he was going to do what he's doing now. And for a couple years after we traded him, he was doing about as mediocre as he was with the Bucs. What happened, why is he all of a sudden mashing the dejesus of the ball?It can't be for real, he couldn't of just "figured it out"...This is a fluke, right?

Or is it?

It seems like Jones' name hasn't been mentioned before along with the likes of Duke, Doumit, Dotel, etc. the players we're assuming/hoping will get moved at the deadline. I'm not saying I don't like having him around for awhile, but especially now when he's red hot, could he bring back any type of worthwhile prospects? If Garrett Jones can't bring back anything, why are we thinking Duke or Doumit or Dotel would? Jones had an unforgettable breakout last year, and he's heating up now, but there really is no track record there, could it all be a mirage? Are we assuming Jones will still be raking in 2-3 years when the team is ready to compete? What position will he be playing for us in 2 years if he's still around?

I'm not saying I'm advocating us to trade him, I just think it's curious that his name hasn't been tossed around along with the other guys...

On a side note, I can't wait for interleague to be over so JR doesn't have an excuse to trot out Church every night...Although watching Milledge botch flyballs in RF is becoming increasingly irritating, I'd still rather have him running around out there than Church! We oughtta DFA him right now, not like he has any trade value, what with his .185 batting average...

I can honestly say that tonight, while mired in a lengthy losing streak with the major league ballclub, while can't miss-all-star-HOFer-prospect Pedro Alvarez can't get a hit, while our pitching staff will be seemingly mediocre for the time being, while our manager has the personality of a piece of wood, while some of our FO's buy-low prospects have kinda failed, while ALL THIS is going on, I have never been more excited to be a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates! Our future is brighter now than it has ever been in our record-setting streak of losing years...NH has done IMO an admirable job considering the team he inherited...We, the few knowledgeable ones left regarding the Pirates, can see the light at the end of the tunnel far earlier than most of our yinzer citymates. We accept the fact that we will not receive credit from said yinzers when the Bucs soon turn it around and compete. We realize those same yinzers calling for Jack Wilson and the Steelers preseason will be the same ones yelling at US in the bars in 2013 trying to convince us they know more about Rudy Owens BABIP than we do (!?). We accept all these things, because we know soon things will get better. In order to truly purge oneself of ones sins, one must hit rock bottom. If in the standings and the losing streak this is rock bottom, I've never been happier to be in LAST PLACE :) :) :) :) :)

GO BUCS!

Who's with me! woooo

Nyjer link

Above is the link to an article Nyjer did with yahoosports. It's a Q&A segment and Nyjer takes on his joking alter-ego Tony Plush (or T-Plush) midway through the article...That being said, he has some pretty scathing remarks for the Pirates organization in the same vein as McClouth in his interview at the beginning of the year. A couple questions about the Pirates are given to Nyjer, and my favorite response was the one that starts: "Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha! The Pirates are basically a minor league team for the majors!" 

Especially with how great the fans in Pittsburgh were for Nyjer, it's kinda sad to see him talk as poorly about the team...I expect these kind of comments from uneducated yinzers but not from actual MLB players...

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Answer-Man-Nyjer-Morgan-talks-alter-egos-hocke?urn=mlb,237924 (in case link doesn't work)

No Relation looks like he has no relation to the man who pitched solidly for the Pirates at the end of last year. Brian Burres is an absolute joke as a MLB starter. Why hasn't Brad Lincoln come up already!? Hell even give me Jeff Karstens to get through 5 innings. I'm not worried about Charlie Morton, I think he'll figure stuff out. But the damn 5th spot right now is an instant blowout every 5 games. I'm absolutely sick and tired of it it's time to let Lincoln pitch! OR HART! OR VEAL!

By the way everyone that praised the front office when they awarded D. McCutchen with the #5 spot over Hart in ST has gotta admit Hart could've pitched better than this...YUCK

For those of us that aren't in the Pittsburgh area (I go to college in NYC), does anyone know of a free way to watch/listen to Bucco games online? I know some of you use MLB.tv, but I don't want to pay that much money. Even a radio feed would be cool.

Thanks

go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs go bucs

http://www.sportspickle.com/article:693/pittsburgh-pirates-2010-preview

There's the link. They actually provide some key insight into some of the Pirates. This article obviously pre-dates the acquisition of Damaso Marte as they mention Hanrahan as the probable new closer. That being said, they did accurately point out how much Bobby Crosby sucks...and unlike some websites that claim to know how long the Pirates losing streak has been, this site gets it right!

In all seriousness though, this article in no way reflects my PERSONAL hopes for the team this year. I think we have a whole lot more going for us than Cutch and GFJ!

I know it possibly seems stupid to dedicate an entire post to such an insignificant piece of the Pirates puzzle as Vazquez, but for the life of me I just can't come up with a valid reason to having him on the team! Especially with the acquisition of Crosby, who may have a better chance of being a total blowup but also has a better chance of making good on at least some potential, right? If everything else the Pirates are doing currently leads us to believe the FO is gearing up for contention in 1-3 years, why bother to keep an old, ever-worsening utility IF on the roster when there are plenty of Bixler's to fill that void. (Allow me to extrapolate on that: I'm not advising using a young SS/IF to rot away on the bench when he could be getting more experience from AAA...By saying Bixler that would assume I still hold Bixler in moderately solid regard...At this point I'm saying Bixler is a lost cause, but even in that case he's better to have on the bench than an old guy anyway, right?) Why not put a AAAA 28 year old nobody in Vazquez's spot then a proven-mediocre upper 30's guy (Vazquez)? 

I realize arguing this point is probably not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, seeing as how Vazquez doesn't do much as is now anyway, but it just irks me off the Pirates are cool with just letting him chill on our team...

In light of the Jason Marquis signing by the Nationals today, I began to consider how interesting the Washington Nationals are to follow from an outside perspective. Aside from the fact that we're linked to them through trades and some of our former guys play for them now, it's also very intriguing when you look at how they're operated in the front office. The article about payroll that has drawn so much discussion is apparent when you look at the Nationals as well. The question now is, is it better to be the Pirates today, or the Nationals?

Consider:

*Off-season moves- No splash signings for the Pirates VS. Pudge Rodriguez, Marquis, trading for Bruney, etc.

-Now if we all agree neither of our two teams are going to be very good next year, are we really that evil because we don't want to waste money on guys like marquis and pudge that won't make a playoff-caliber difference? I think in this case we should be praising NH for resisting the urge to spend useless "Derek Bell" type money on FAs just to "show a little faith". I fully believe when the time comes (and I do believe it's coming), the Pirates will spend the $$$ needed to get the team over the hump, but right now I don't mind our frugality.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&page=rumblings091119

that's the link above to the ESPN article by Jason Stark referencing Scott Boras' comments about small market ownership not properly using the $$$ alotted them in revenue sharing. The Pirates actually come up a couple times in the span of the article, but to Bucco fans this thought isn't anything new as we've all accused Nutting of doing this for years.

Where are all the haters now?

Continue reading this post »

Simple question...Is he the real deal?

How much longer does GJ have to keep launching HRs and maintaining an AVG around .300 before he is universally accepted as the Pirates answer at 1B/corner OF? It's entirely possible that he's just a late bloomer. Just because players with starts like GJ has had that are comparable in game and minor league stats haven't been able to keep up their torrid pace, doesn't mean that Jones is going to automatically start to suck. It's safe to say he's seen pitchers adjust to him and he continues to hit in the middle of a major league roster (even if it is the current Pirates). Here's one vote for being a Garrett Jones believer.

(Andy)

In light of Andy's solid game and 6th HR of the year against the Brewers Monday night, I thought it an appropriate time to evaluate his season as he has remained one of the few position player constants all year long, and has provided us with a fairly large enough sample size (albeit in his first full major league season) to gauge his long-term potential.

How would you grade his performance this season overall?

Is he (should he be) firmly entrenched in the Pirates' plans for the future?

What concerns you about his game? What excites you about his game?

So if we can all agree that the current Pirates roster is pretty much stuck in baseball "purgatory"; That is, the major league team has much less talent than other teams and is stuck playing putrid offensive baseball and losing while they wait for the promise (and I do see a lot of promise in the players we've acquired) to blossom. While I'm a big proponent of the ends justify the means, and I realize things get worse before they get better when you blow up a team like we have, is this really all the Bucs can manage to do in the meantime while we wait? It almost feels as though NH wants us to tank and get the first pick because, there has to be better players we can bring up right? It is nitpicky for me to want a more competitive MLB team while the farm system develops? I guess its better than having a slightly more mediocre major league team and no prospects like before....but still.