By Jake, on November 7, 2009, at 12:25 am |
I was approached by a well-known company to bring my blog under their brand two weeks ago and today I finally told them no thank you. It was a great opportunity but I would have had to tighten the ship considerably and that’s not something I’m wanting to do. It’s not about the money – it’s about the freedom to opinionize as I wish. But I do want to thank a few writers and some folks around the game who lobbied to bring me on. I’m very humbled.
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So, are we going to open the year with Cedeno at short, or are we going to get into a bidding war with the Mariners for Wilson’s services? That seems to be the question Dejan is throwing out with his post today that the Mariners are currently in talks with Wilson. All of this assumes, of course, that the M’s eventually decline his option and Wilson declares free agency. For that to happen, word would have to leak to Wilson or his agent that another club might have interest and Wilson also rejects any extension the M’s offer.
Normally I wouldn’t cover anything Jack Wilson does since I’m not his best fan but this does beg looking at because, imo, we’ve already made one bonehead financial decision for Aki which, as I mentioned in the previous post, seemed to be a slap in the face to Perry Hill not returning. Remember now, Hill is one of the few who fought dearly to keep Wilson and Sanchez, along with Dejan I’m guessing based on his previous posts on the matter.
So let’s consider a few things. Let’s assume we have to up tyhe ante a bit to say 2/$9M. There are those who believe Wilson is worth at least $4M per year if for no other reason than his glove, and I’ll agree – even though his playing time and range has declined the last two years, even I would put him in the +1 win category and worth $4M per year. But certainly not more than that.
Now this is where it gets a bit sticky. You see, Wilson offers the Pirates something the M’s get very little in return from and that is gate draw. How much? Let your imagination run wild but I’d put the value somewhere in the half-million dollar mark over the M’s myself. He’s still a fan favorite here. But I assume the Pirates considered that when they offered him $4M per on a two-year.
Then there is the Joe Kerrigan value. I assume Kerrigan would prefer to have Wilson over Cedeno behind his pitchers just like Hill wanted the stronger middle defense. What value is this worth? Plenty in Kerrigan’s mind I’d guess since the swing between Cedeno and Wilson’s glove is about a win or two.
So that leads us back to the start – do we open with Cedeno or go after Wilson? I really don’t want to see Jack Wilson back in Pittsburgh myself but I can understand why others would feel the opposite way. Knowing this is a Nutting club run by Coonelly/Huntington, I doubt we see any rush to get Wilson and instead focus on picking up some offensive talent and bullpen arms after the dust settles in December.
We’ll know more after the GM meetings that are coming up.
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Ah, excuse me but, did anyone stop to wonder who will be our Japanese interpreter for Akinori Iwamura? I can just see Joe Kerrigan going to the mound and telling the infield what to do with Aki being fed sign language from the dugout.
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Veal continues his domination over the young kids in the AFL. Obviously that’s never been his problem – it’s when he takes the mound facing ML hitters he gets soft that has killed him. We’ll see if any of this translates but I’m not holding my breath.
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Bob Nutting: attending a Steelers or Penguins game can be a ‘bank busting‘ experience. Hilarious.
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Virgil Vasquez, Eric Hacker, and Steve Lerud were designated for assignment today. Not much to say about those moves.
By Jake, on July 25, 2009, at 10:46 pm |
wow – wow – wow. It started becoming evident in the Brewers series and continued forward in the D’backs series – Ryan Doumit is a horrible game caller. Horrible. It was nice to see that he had worked on his blocking skills while on the DL, but what Kerrigan – trade ‘em both Neal – should have been doing with the young man is schooling him on batter mechanics, pitch counts, and body language of batters in the box.
I was so sick of watching doubled up pitches in Friday night’s game I was hoping Kerrigan took him aside and straightened him out, but obviously that didn’t happen. I also didn’t like Doumit yanking his glove from the zone after receiving front-door breaking balls against left handers by Duke. Clearly some where on the black but every time Doumit shot out of his squat removing the potential call from Duke.
Saturday night was much the same thing – just worse. You would have thought Doumit learned what batters like by watching them in Friday’s game but he kept calling for pitches opposing batters feed off (ie: fastballs to youngins), he kept asking for poor location which aided batters (ie: wanting low and away two-seamers to left hand batters), and he kept doubling and tripling up on pitches so much my head swam.
Continue reading » Pull the triggers Neal.. no extensions; Ugly loss
By Jake, on July 21, 2009, at 10:52 pm |
Bottom of the fifth, two outs, Young is at third and Vazquez is intentionally walked to get Vasquez to the plate. I’m screaming my head off – pull him, pull him! Russell left Vasquez in and he flied out on the first pitch to end the threat. Russell made the right call but it’s not the one I would have made and the fact Vasquez was around to record just five outs thereafter solidifies my thought on the matter.
Still, the Bucs played a good game and it all started with Vasquez who kept the ball down in the zone for the first time in quite awhile. Our outfield defense cost us one run in this game (Young slow to the ball, even slower releasing it, on Fielder’s line drive in the 7th), and you can’t help wondering, if Young had not taken five steps and a hop to throw, if he had gunned Counsell down, would that have provided the spark we needed to come back? Yeah, pretty doubtful with all the turmoil and uncertainty in the clubhouse right now but you can’t help wondering.
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“Done deal. Wilson’s gone.” – anonymous e-mail
Continue reading » My PC can beat up your PC! Brew Crew sink to new low
By Jake, on July 19, 2009, at 10:18 pm |
After bitching and moaning on Pirates discussion forums and this blog about piss-poor management and ownership near daily since 2002, I can finally say I feel like we have turned the corner. Really, I mean that.
I told you that this front office was under intense heat to make a deal with Sanchez and Wilson and they backed down and attempted to open the door to the players. As we heard Sunday, both players refused to communicate a counter-offer back to the Pirates for whatever reason and that now leaves Huntington in the position to try and seriously move them.
Thank God.. it’s about time.
I give a tinker’s dang how low the offers might have been or whatever other motivations or labels anyone might want to stick on the attempts; all I care about is that neither player responded and that tells me everything I needed to know. And everything I suspected – their only motivation was another huge payday. They had manipulated the press and quite a few others along the way like spoiled rotten brats and that was too much for me to digest.
Screw that.
Continue reading » Re: Wilson & Sanchez: Damn good job Neal. Damn good.
By Jake, on July 17, 2009, at 4:25 pm |
Should the Pirates have offered Sanchez and Wilson extensions? How much should they pay? What are the other clubs doing defensively based on how much they pay?
Here’s your chance to look over a few stats to help you make a decision along the way.
The first chart (click to enlarge it) shows each teams primary second baseman and shortstop this year, the percentage of games they have started in (% of G), the year of major league service they have (ML Svc), how much they are being paid in 2009 (09 $), and their current fielding runs above average (FLD) and wins above replacement (WAR) both as recorded at Fangraphs, The bottom line shows column medians.
Continue reading » You make the call on Sanchez and Wilson
By Jake, on July 14, 2009, at 9:42 pm |
“Pirates ‘pushing’ trade of All-Star Sanchez” — Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette, July 9, 2009
“No urgency to Sanchez trade” — Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette, July 13, 2009
What happened over that weekend to cause Kovacevic to appear bi-polar, you ask? If you read Bucco Blog, then you already had a feel for the potential answer to that question having read this post:
“The pressure mounts within” — Bucco Blog, July 10, 2009
While researching the Pirates financial position before my post on the 10th, I stumbled across a strong willed group within/around the Pirates wanting to see Sanchez and Wilson kept around. At the time I thought I was the only one who had a handle on it but, looking back now, I’m guessing Kovacevic also ran into some of this group along the way too.
Now it wasn’t as if there was a mounting revolt or anything, it was just there were some within the organization who seemed to be making it very clear that they would be very disappointed if these two players were to be traded. Perhaps disappointed is too mild? In any case, it was a curious find for anyone (blogger or beat writer) because these types of communications always remain behind organizational closed doors. After all, GM’s cherry pick their own people all the way through the system so they are always loyal to him to no end as long as the commitments made which brought the parties together are honored in good faith. When those loyalties start falling by the wayside, that’s when you typically start hearing rumors about a general manager possibly getting fired unable to control his rank and file.
Continue reading » Bucco Blog: fans and media need to renew their faith
By Jake, on July 12, 2009, at 12:14 am |
The Bucs rolled over the Phillies for 8 innings and Matt Capps took center stage to close the game out with a 7-3 lead. Now this wasn’t just any ordinary game Capps was taking the hill in, this game featured the Vice President of the United States sitting in the first row, a sold out Citizens Bank Park that is one of the hardest parks to play in when the fans get loud, his name on trade rumors swirling around the circuit and more scouts pointing guns in his face this night than he’s probably ever seen before, and he came out rusty pitching on four days rest and having thrown only 39 pitches in the entire month.
In other words, even though he had a four-run lead, it was a very high leverage situation for Capps. Unfortunately for him, that’s when he’s been at his worst this year (1 run allowed every 4.5 at bats) and in his career ( 5.40 ERA on 4 days rest — some 30% higher than the ERA of the next best rest period).
The Phillies must have known this too as they came out in attack mode. Problem was, Capps couldn’t find the zone to the first two batters. First he got behind Matt Stairs 3-1 then drilled a fat fastball down the middle of the plate unwilling to walk him and Stairs went yard, then he went to 3-1 on Rollins who he walked. He did start Victorino off 0-2 but then he flied out to the center field warning track some 400′ away.
Continue reading » Bone-crushing loss leaves more questions than answers
By Jake, on June 6, 2009, at 11:42 pm |
Ole’ Charlie Reliford sure squuuueeeeeeeeeeeeeeezed the corners on pitchers through the first few innings. I don’t remember ever seeing that from him but I might be mistaken. That resulted in a lot of squarely hit balls in play and that resulted in quite a few runs and a few errors, although none were ever called against us.
So you could say when our streakiness got going we even had a few nice clutch hits. McCutchen’s two-out single just under Berkman’s glove in the second scoring two was huge, as was Wilson’s two-out double in the third. Of course, in the second inning three runs were set up with a one out walk on strike three, a second out fly out, and then Maholm’s hit off Oswalt’s glove which got Cutch to the plate and the ball under Berkman’s glove. The third inning wasn’t much friendlier to the Astros – a ball off Kepplinger’s glove, a single, an rbi double into the corner, an rbi ground out for what should have been the third out, and then Wilson’s double scoring the third run.
At least only one of our errors, er blunders, came back to haunt us. In the first inning Tejada ground one to Sanchez who played it off his side and it shot past him for a single. Pence then crushed the next Maholm pitch halfway to the moon it seemed. Lee then doubled on a catchable line drive to right center that went off McCutchen’s glove, but thankfully he was eventually stranded.
But the most bizarre play of the day occurred in the 8th.
Continue reading » Maholm FINALLY gets a win
By Jake, on June 1, 2009, at 10:35 pm |
Snell pitched, Bucs Lose. Again. That was the title of my initial post and I never expected to change it. But Snell held on after being scalded by his daddy Joe Kerrigan and the Bucs started to whittle their way back. When Vasquez struck out on ball four with the bases loaded in the 6th with us down 5-3, I went to work on my post for the night. After all, the Mets had only lost one game this year leading after 7 and they came in with the league’s best pen ERA.
But we never broke stride and in the 8th it all came together. Adam LaRoche – clearly starting to see the ball better – crushed a Feliciano heater into right field leading off that Sheffield misplayed into a double, Hinske then ground to second moving LaRoche to third, and then Feliciano was pulled for JJ Putz. Andy LaRoche ground to second but it went off Castillo’s glove and Adam LaRoche scored. It was now 5-4 Mets. Jaramillo lined one softly into center for a single putting men at first and second with one out and guess who came to the plate?
Continue reading » WOW.. Bucs come back to beat Mets pen late
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