Lots of exciting prospects begin their season tonight. I thought I'd throw up a thread in case anyone wants to post info or observations.

As I type the Curve appear to have opened the game with four straight hits. Robbie Grossman and Brock Holt singled, Jarek Cunningham doubled, and Tony Sanchez tripled.

Gift Ngoepe led off with a hit in Bradenton.

West Virginia has just begun. Very curious to see how Kingham, Bell, Garcia, Osuna, Hanson, and Polanco look.

There's been some ongoing discussion about the Pirates inability develop an above average homegrown shortstop, or to acquire one via trade/free agency. This is a point Dejan Kovacevic has hit numerous times, during his tenure at the PG and now in his current employment at the Trib. The criticism has been directed at the current front office but then in some cases has been extended to previous administrations. Generally, I feel like including the efforts of a previous ownership, front office, or scouting department in such an evaluation is irrelevant - it serves the narrative of the story, because it extends the years of 'ineptitude,' so you can say these guys aren't just 'bad,' they're 'really bad.' But it doesn't say anything about the acumen of current GM, scouting, etc.

My reaction up reading these articles has been, in a sense, a series of questions I've considered:

Continue reading this post »

Luis Heredia not only makes Kevin's list but does so by a healthy margin. The entire Top 101 is available to view here (whether you're a subscriber or a nonsubscriber):

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16020

Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon both rank about where you might except them to, however take a look at who precedes Cole on the list by three spots.

If you live on the West Coast or just up late you can hop over to twitter and throw questions you might have about the list his way:

twitter.com/kevin_goldstein

The bulk of information is behind a pay wall but the highlights, including the Pirates 10, Pittsburgh's prospects who made the Top 100, and the Pirates prospect who just missed the Top 100 are summarized nicely over at Pirates Prospects.

I thought I'd throw up a FanPost over here for additional discussion. There are certainly a few surprised on the list relative the general perceptions of Keith's feeling about the Pirates system.

Dave Cameron wrote a post over on USS Mariner which was critical of Seattle's inaction this off-season. It seems to me that if you substitute some of the particulars you have a fairly apt critique of the Pirates work thus far this winter.

The Pirates project to be about a 72 win team, the Mariners about 75. As Cameron points out there's generally team that outplays such projections as result of luck or a number players exceeding expectations, etc. Were the Pirates to exceed the 72 win projection by say 5 games so that their current squad projected to win 77 games, the addition of Edwin Jackson (and his 3.8 WAR) might mean that they then would have a reasonable chance of finishing around 500.

This shouldn't be the goal because it would finally erase the losing streak but because as Cameron points out there's real value to striving for relevancy and at least remaining on the fringes of contention deep into the season. In terms of increased attendance and revenue but also because I think it's important for the Pirates to build on the improvement they made from 2010 to 2011. This shouldn't of course be at the expense of what they're building towards in 2013 and onward. But they seem to have little interest, at least from the information available to the public, in making cost effective improvements to the 2012 team, which wouldn't at all undermine the rebuilding process.

When it comes to baseball in general and prospects specifically I spend a disproportionate amount of my time reading about the Pirates. While I've probably ingested a novellas worth of writing about Starling Marte I imagine I've barely read enough about Gary Brown to fill a few pages. I try to keep that in mind when comparing the Pirates prospects and their system as a whole to other teams as I obviously have a bias.

While I share some of the concerns about the Pirates system that others have expressed on this site, I also like a quite a few things, particularly relative to where it was four years ago. It's difficult for me to objectively assess its status as relates to the other 29 teams however.  To compensate for the bias I know I have I tend to feel like wherever I think it should rank, it's probably at least a little lower. So perhaps when is said and done maybe 15 or so? 

However I was reading Jason Parks most recent article on Baseball Prospectus this afternoon (I believe it's subscriber only):

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15028

The article is primarily dedicated to naming the players with the best tools. Who has the best speed, power, hit tool, arm, etc. But at the end of the article he lists ten teams who are candidates for the Best Farm System Award and what do you know the Pirates were among those ten. 

Later in the day I was sure there must have been some sort of qualification I'd missed. I was fairly surprised that an objective writer would consider them to potentially be Top Ten system, perhaps because I was being cautious in my own evaluation to compensate for that aforementioned bias. So I sent him a tweet, just to make sure I'd read it currently, here's the tweet and his response:

Yes. RT @brendanmcfadden: @ProfessorParks Did I read your BP article correctly, the Pirates merit consideration for a Top 10 MiLB system?

Now what does this actually mean? These things are fluid so maybe when he makes his list in a few months the Pirates drop a little. Obviously the system is no better or worse based on how one person evaluates it. I'll be curious to see if he feels similarly come 2012 and other if other prospects writers feel the same. Even if  the Pirates have a consensus Top Ten system, a positive step forward from where they've come, there are obviously no guarantees but it's still exciting to read and gives me a small bit of additional hope for the years to come.

I posted this in the game thread, but this might be a more appropriate place for it.

10 for his last 14, as I type this. I don’t want to make too much of a small sample size, but obviously like everyone else I’m inclined to hope he’s made some sort of adjustment. I’d be curious to see his recent string of at bats or hear from anyone who has, any difference in his approach at the plate that you can identify?

And has done so repeatedly. But from what I can tell, has yet to go into specifics about what sort of bat they should acquire, how he proposes they should acquire said bat,  and how they'd fit into the Pirates roster. The defense for this vagueness, often cited by posters on message boards, is "I'm not a GM", thus how should I know who they might be able to  acquire, etc. And I can accept that I suppose from fans who aren't being paid to write about the subject at hand, although in this day in age if you access to the internet you also have access to tons of information that might at least allow you to make an informed suggestion. However, if you're a writer who's on the payroll of major newspaper I think there's no excuse for continually calling for such an acquisition but never being more specific than 'the Pirates should add a bat' or something to that effect. 

I don't know enough about what's ailing him (i.e. how much of  his struggles are  mechanical/psychological  vs. a declining skill set),as to have a sense as to whether or not it might be worth grabbing him as a reclamation project. But I thought some other folks might havemore insight into whether it would be worth considering. Is he simply shot physically or might he worth a look? Mike DiGiovanna of the LA Times offers this appraisal of Kazmir:

But Kazmir, who has lost considerable velocity on his fastball and command of all three of his pitches, has made no progress - he has a 17.02 earned-run average for Salt Lake, allowing 29 earned runs, 22 hits and 20 walks and striking out 14 in 151/3 innings.

One of the especially irrational posters on Smizik's blog offered the 'theory' that McCutchen was not included on last years All Star roster at the Pirates behest, so to make him less expensive in his arbitration years. I'm disappointed that with all of the satirical Nutting Conspiracy posts no one here thought of that one first.

http://communityvoices.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/sports/bob-smiziks-blog/29104-hurdles-gamble-pays-off#comments

A topic of significant concern on this blog over the last year or so is whether or not players like McCutchen, Alvarez, Tabata, and Walker will still be on the roster when some of the highly touted pitching prospects reach the majors in 2013 and onward. The sense I think is that there is a fairly narrow window in which the current group and the prospects in question will all be on the roster, in a best case scenario (assuming everyone develops as we hope). I certainly wouldn't dismiss this concern, I think it's legitimate to be sure. There aren't a ton of potentially high end high end position players in the system at this point and as has been written before small market teams like the Pirates, even when well run tend to have a few years where they're in the best position to contend before they have to some degree or another reload. This may mean taking a small step back or a giant step back, depending on how strong your system is and what kind of players you have in the fold to replace those who leave. However my thought is if the Pirates draft Cole and he headlines a rotation with Taillon and Heredia, etc (which is the hope obviously, of course we don't know with certainty how they'll progress) and the result is something comparable to the 2010 Giants perhaps the Pirates won't need a roster full of well above average position players to be successful. If you use the Giants as your point of reference they managed to win the World Series with Buster Posey and a number of journeyman elsewhere on the field. True they barely managed to gain entry to the playoffs and the offense happened to get hot and perform significantly better than it did in the regular season, obviously not something you could count on. Of course there are also a number of different formulas for success and the Giant's roster with it's disparity between pitching and positional talent is just one of them. Just to be clear I'm simply tossing this out as thought. The timetables of the guys currently in the majors versus those in the low minors may indeed turn out to be a big issue, we'll see. Just simply positing the though, 'what if it's not'.

A couple of points in regard to JimiL comments on the previous draft related fanpost. I made them there but realized I'd missed the boat on that thread:

1) The Average Fan - Well, I think it depends on what your definition of the ‘average fan’ is. How do you yourself define that? The connotation for me is a casual fan. I think it’s fair to say that someone who dedicates less time to following the organization would be in possesion of less information on the ‘topics of the day’, no?

2) Sabermetrics - I think each stat is part of the piece to the  larger puzzle. It’s not about completely dismissing average, at least as far as I’m concerned, but looking at average as well other stats to gain a better understanding of a player's value. I don’t think it has to be one or the other. As far as the value of a walk, Joe Posnaski wrote this a while back, the position he cites is that 50 walks have equal value to 33 singles:

http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/01/21/trading-walks-for-hits/

I think we get too caught in defending certain stats as antiquated or as esoteric from an ideological point of view. When really additional means of quantifying a players performance just provide additional means to understand their value. It doesn’t mean dismissing average or ‘eye test’, etc.

To each his own. I found it too time consuming to keep track of Class A players, especially when many of them will be weeded out at the next level. --- Bob Smizik

http://communityvoices.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/sports/bob-smiziks-blog/28693-pirates-awash-in-class-a-power-arms

This from the guy who's profession it is to 'write' about baseball. Likely he's busy pushing refresh to see if Murray Chass as posted any new contact in the last five minutes.

Hey guys, I'm normally very reluctant to indulge in self promotion. But I know that at least a few of you still make your home in Pittsburgh, so I wanted to let you know that my movie COLD WEATHER will be opening there tonight. It's being released by IFC Films and opened in New York and LA over the past two weekends.  I (Brendan) produced the film and wrote it with Aaron Katz who directed it.  It will be at the Melwood Screening Room in Oakland. We'll be there to do a Q + A after the 7 30 show tonight and a reception will follow. You can buy advance tickets for by calling Pittsburgh Filmmakers at 412-681-5449 (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Am. Express, etc).

PITTSBURGH SHOWTIMES

Fri 2/18 7:30 - Opening Night with reception

Sat 4:00, 6:00 & 8:00

Sun 2:00 & 4:00

Mon - Thurs 8:00

We were on the Baseball Prospectus Podcast recently to discuss it and managed to sneak an Anthony Rendon question in at the end of the interview. You can hear that here:

https://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=12846

Here's an article from today's Post Gazette:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11049/1126185-60.stm

Anyway below you'll find a link to the trailer and some recent press.  It is also available on demand will be opening in other markets over the course of the next month or so including: Portland, Chicago, Columbus, San Diego, Denver, Dallas, Seattle, Winston Salem, Boston, and Nashville with more to come:

TRAILER

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/coldweather/

PRESS

1) New York Times - Review by Manohla Dargis
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/movies/04cold-weather.html

2) Ebert Presents At The Movies - Two Thumbs Up
http://www.ebertpresents.com/movies/cold-weather

3) Art Forum - Review by Amy Taubin
http://www.artforum.com/film/id=27502

4) Time Out New York - Feature by David Fear
http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/film/734751/cold-weather's-aaron-katz

5) New York Times - Feature by Dennis Lim
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/movies/30katz.html

There's been some occasional discussion on the board about the possibility of acquiring Jason Bartlett, as there's speculation that the Ray might move him.  He made 4,000,000.00 in 2010, and is eligible for arbitration this year I believe. I remembee some discussion that suggested he'd be a defensive upgrade, but when I checked out his UZR over the past two years on Fangraphs I was suprised to see it was -5.6 in 2009 and -10.4 in 2010. He fared much better in in previous seasons 2.0 in 2008 and 8.5 in 2007 over a similar number of games. I'm hesitant to put too much stock in those numbers having seen him playing sparingly, but certainly it suggests a pattern of decline. Has anyone had a chance to see him play on a regular enough basis to confirm his defense has indeed declined?  If so it strikes me that he wouldn't present much of an upgrade over Cedeno, he'd maybe net you an extra win or two (his WAR in 2010 was 0.7 although he's been about 2-3 player over his career while Cedeno has tended to be slightly below replacement), and likely make twice as much. Thoughts?

Now that Cutch's line 288/369/454/823 is commensurate to last years 286/365/471/823 I hope that Smizik et al will rethink their 'what's wrong with Andrew McCutchen pieces' and take a step back from the ledge. I think that his spring training and fast start set the bar high for our 2010 expectations. Certainly we'd all like to see him hit 20 homeruns and and steal 50 bases and improve his defense in CF (although how reflective his UZR is of his performance is obviously another matter), but he's twenty-three and in his first full major league season, and that he was able to maintain his performance from last year over a full season is in and of itself cause for enthusiasm. I mean look at Justin Upton, who while a few years younger, regressed significantly this year. The development curve isn't without dips and valleys (as has been discussed many times on this site). What's particularly encouraging to me is that McCutchen has improved his BB/SO ratio from .65 to .81, and since the All Star Break he's walked 30 times and struck out only 28. He's also improved his slugging and ops in the second half (to be fair this is helped by his recent hot streak, but the point I suppose is that he should assessed at years end, not just during a window of time in which he's struggling). I would say that I'm satisfied and enthusiastic about his development as a hitter. The only item of concern for me is his defense. Given his athleticism I think we've expected that he'd be an elite defender. I've not had a chance to watch a ton of games in the second half, but from what I've read it seems like while he'll never have a great arm  but there's work to be done on route running, etc.

The draft is in the books, and the speculation as to who will and won't sign and how for much is over.  So the biggest off the field story is  now Luis Heredia. I thought I'd put up a fanpost so there's a place to post all Heredia related information over the next few days. Any thoughts you have on him, links to any articles about the signing process, news, you name it.

What sort of numbers and general development do you feel like you need to see from the four next season, to indicate they're progressing at an acceptable rate? What sort of numbers do you think are realistic?  Looking a season or to further down the road, what would be their ideal role on the team and place in the lineup? Would it be some combination of Tabata and McCutchen batting one and two, or would you prefer to see McCutchen batting third (does he need to develop more power to bat third on a theoretically more competitive team?).  What about Walker, second, or sixth/seventh?  Assuming you do bat McCutchen and Tabata one and two, and drop Walker down, and Pedro eventually becomes the cleanup hitter where does the number three hitter come from?

http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/08/01/ozzie-guillen-rips-major-league-baseball-for-treatment-of-latino/

I'm not sure that Ozzie Guillen is the ideal advocate for the rights of young Latino players, his reputation makes it easy to dismiss the substance of what he has to say as simply 'hot air', but the issues he raises, the exploitation of  young Latino men , or more accurately boys by the baseball establishment needs to be addressed.  Some of the issues he raises:

1.The use of PEDS

"It's somebody behind the scene making money out of those kids and telling them to take something they're not supposed to," he said. "If you tell me, you take this ... you're going to be Vladimir Guerrero, you're going to be Miguel Cabrera, you're going to be this guy ... I'll do it. Because I have seven brothers that sleep in the same room. I have to take care of my mother, my dad. ... Out of this I'm going to make money to make them better."

2. The lack of translator, and furthermore the lack of true support system for all the players who don't reach the major leagues who are left with nothing. This quote refers to his discovery upon visiting his son Olney in A ball that there was no interpreter for the Spanish speaking players.  I would add that'd he'd better served tofocus less on accommodations  afforded Asian players and more on those not afforded to Latin players, as the bottom line is that they should be in place for foreign born players of all backgrounds.

"Very bad. I say, why do we have Japanese interpreters and we don't have a Spanish one? I always say that. Why do they have that privilege and we don't?" Guillen said. "Don't take this wrong, but they take advantage of us. We bring a Japanese player and they are very good and they bring all these privileges to them. We bring a Dominican kid ... go to the minor leagues, good luck. Good luck. And it's always going to be like that. It's never going to change. But that's the way it is."

"And we had 17 Latinos and you know who the interpreter was? Oney. Why is that? Because we have Latino coaches? Because here he is? Why? I don't have the answer," Guillen said. "We're in the United States, we don't have to bring any coaches that speak Spanish to help anybody. You choose to come to this country and you better speak English.

I hope that a few other folks join the conversation otherwise it's in danger of being more about Ozzie Guillen than the very real issues at hand, especially when he makes self aggrandizing hyperbole like:

"I'm the only one to teach the Latinos about not to use," he told reporters Sunday. "I'm the only one and Major League Baseball doesn't [care]. All they care about -- how many times I argue with the umpires, what I say to the media. But I'm the only one in baseball to come up to the Latino kids and say not to use this and I don't get any credit for that."

The bottom line is that in a billion dollar industry like major league baseball there should be a better support system for these players, and all for all players who aren't on the receiving end of six and seven figure signing bonuses, but these Latin born players are in a particularly precarious position.