Feelin' warm and fuzzy?

“It does bear mentioning, obviously, that [Morgan] batted .347 from Aug. 19 until the end of last season, the 10^th highest average in the National League in that span.” — Post-Gazette, March 26, 2009

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?  

But the reality is, the Pirates won just 8 of the 27 games Morgan started in despite all that feel good stuff, were negative -0.3 pythagorean wins with him in the starting lineup (8-19), and scored 3.2 runs per game on average.  With him out of the lineup from August 19th on (10 games), the Pirates scored 3.4 runs per game and between August 1st and the end of the year were +1.2 pythagorean wins in games he didn’t start in.  Small sample size alert across the board, but that’s a +1.5 win shift all the same.

Yes, Morgan hit the ball well from August 19th on.. no question about that. 

But he was only allowed to start three games against a southpaw and hit just .200 in those (4-20), he wiped himself off the base in one of those four hits, and against right hand pitchers where he fared the best, two of the five pitchers he went 12-24 against are either no longer in the game or moved to the AL (Sabathia and Torres). Of the other three, Joel Pineiro, Adam Wainright, and Dave Bush, only Wainright has a job locked up although all three may well be in their club’s rotation.

Throw in a 2-6 against Jeff Suppan, a 2-4 game against Brian Moehler, and a 2-3 against Hiroki Kuroda at PNC, and it appears Morgan can wail right-hand soft tossers or guys like Kuroda who don’t pitch worth a can of corn away from their home park.  If you’re keeping track, that’s an 18-37 run (.486) against the eight named pitchers – the rest of the time he hit .284 (23-81) with 22% of those hits against 2A/3A pitchers with names you’ve never heard of - many late in games.  And I bet you didn’t know that Andy LaRoche hit .308 in 8 of those same games?

Plus, of the 48 times he reached base in games he started, he removed himself from the basepaths almost half as many times (8, which includes caught stealing) as he scored (20).

Still, Morgan proved to be a monster against six pitchers, five of which he’d probably see a game or two against in 2009, but he’s proven he can’t hit southpaws in the league, and the Pirates scored more runs per game and realized a better pythagorean winning percentage with him not in the lineup than with him to boot.  Throw in his below average arm and average to below-average route running on defense, plus being totally useless as a pinch hitter, and you have a right to ask – why is there so much love being spread around the media for such a limited player?

If it was me, I’d option Morgan to 3A (can he be designated for assignment with an option year left? I’d guess so) and let the rest of the game know he’s available for a low level C/B arm, then  take a harder look at Salazar and Jones.  It’s time to move on even though we’ll take a tick of hit defensively.

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Another interesting quote from that same Post-Gazette article:

“[Burnett] held all batters to a .188 average in the last month.”

They are talking about 38 plate appearances pitching against almost equal amounts of left and right hand batters over 13 games and every team well out of the hunt, except the Dodgers where he faced one batter in the first game and allowed one inherited runner to score (he allowed 13 of 44 to score all year.. ouch), then faced Repko and Hu in the next game- not exactly huge threats there either. 

Still, I can’t help wondering myself if Chavez catching 34% of those at bats had anything at all to do with Burnett’s limited success?

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Pirates’ talks with Ohman heat up, huh?   You say that has a familiar ring to it?  You’re right, it does. 

Remember when we reported that the Tigers and Pirates were deep in talks regarding Wilson this winter?  And do you remember the Post-Gazette’s off the wall idea that Wilson would restructure his contract so he’d be more affordable to the Dodgers, but it turned out they weren’t even interested in Wilson to begin with?  Yup, we all wondered why Mr. Wilson wouldn’t restructure his deal for his current team instead – remember?

Well you see, all three of those players (Ohman, Lawrence, and Wilson) have one common thread – agent Page Odle.

Now back to today’s headline – why in the world would the Pittsburgh Pirates pony up $2MM on a situational reliever when they have so many 7th inning guys that need to be sorted out?  Consider Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, and Virgil Vasquez, they have Jason Davis and Daniel McCutchen in camp, and Hansen, Chavez, Davidson, and Burnett all hanging around. 

Now I’m not suggesting any one of those guys will be a Will Ohman, but does it matter in ’09?  Are we still in acquistion mode (trading for youthful players) or are we starting to get some kind of warm fuzzy feeling looking at spring training numbers?  I hope we’re still dealing because I still can’t get our runs scored projection up to 700 and I’m still looking at over 800 runs allowed. 

And besides, if they did spend $2MM for Ohman, and considering the $4MM they gave Ramon Vasquez with Neil Walker and Brian Bixler both available, we might have been able to give stupid money to Bobby Abreu, Jason Varitek, or added a few dollars to get Jon Garland. 

Who would you rather have around?

This doesn’t make any sense unless Grabow is about to go on the DL  – or out the door in a trade, which very well might be possible. Ohman is solid in the divison but an arm we don’t need to be spending money on.

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Speaking of warm and fuzzy stories, here’s one at ESPN on Pedro Alvarez.  I’m sorry but as a Pirates’ fan who would have loved to see this guy well on his way to Pittsburgh by now instead of being an agent’s punk boy, I don’t have anything for Pedro.  I wish him well but I won’t waste my time thinking he’ll ever really be a Pirate.  More like a scab of sorts who runs in six years.

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So what’s with Brad Lincoln?  We haven’t heard a peep out of anyone about him this spring other than he’s slated for 2A. 

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Three guesses where Sandy Alderson ends up.

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We take on the Blue Jays Friday night and Roy Halliday will start followed by BJ Ryan against Virgil Vasquez.  Now that should be an interesting game.  Maholm is throwing a “B” game at Pirate City against the Yankees 3A club. 

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Brian Friday is having himself quite a spring – he went 4-4 Thursday against the Vegas 51′s and the Tribe won again.  Good for Friday – he’s starting to separate himself which he badly needs to do.

Related posts:

1. Jake says, take Salazar – send Morgan down
2. Morgan, Burnett, Hinske out; Milledge & garbage in
3. The Ohlendorf excuse: I'm off to watch some softball – updated
4. BUZZZZZ .. Duke throws five scoreless
5. Live game blog; Gorzy gets rocked