By Jake, on December 18, 2009, at 4:22 pm |
Interesting post from Dejan on the Pirates making value judgments and acting in a conservative manner. For those of us who read Jake’s Blog this is not new info. — New Bucs reader TonyPenaforHOF, December 18, 2009.
I built my own valuation model years ago and have been adjusting it ever since. The difference between my system and some of those out there like at FanGraphs is that mine is specifically built to value players based on all the factors that surround the Pirates.. coaches we have and face, parks we play in, opposition hitters, pitchers and defensive schemes faced, types of pitches thrown by us and to us, types of swings we have and face, and on and on and on.
Another difference is that I chart every pitch of every game we play and then correlate my own charts to those done by one of the larger stat houses during the year while using pitchf/x material as a supplemental look. Then I toss in an issue not found in most clubs – the ‘cultural problem factor’ which has been around for decades in Pittsburgh. My system isn’t all that unique in baseball circles but it is a bit extreme for the average fan. But I enjoy the work.. it’s a fun hobby.
That being said, my values rarely match WAR values at other public sites or match fan or media opinions, for that matter. But one thing readers like TonyPenaforHOF are starting to notice is that my values, and moves, are getting closer and closer to our front office model.
After Capps was non-tendered I was the only blogger/writer covering the club full-time that didn’t question the move and openly stated I placed his value at less than $2M for 2010. A few days later Huntington basically said the club felt Capps had a value of about $2.5M which was significantly less than he would have received in an arbitration award. The same was true with Wilson and Sanchez as I was probably the only party on planet Earth outside of our front office executives who wanted to see those two dealt.
So why didn’t I find the same value in Capps or Wilson or Sanchez that the majority of fans and beat writers seemed to agree on?
Culture. Makeup. Attitude. Call it anything you want.
While I won’t deny I felt Huntington waited too long to trade Capps, I wasn’t overly concerned like everyone else was that he was allowed to just walk away. As Huntington said, at the end of the day Capps had little trade value and he was right for several reasons – for one, Capps played the ‘I’m injured’ cultural difference game in 2008 which killed his value over the winter, and again for a couple of months early in the 2009 season which essentially killed his trade value going into July (not to mention how he magically ‘lost’ velocity and break on his pitches before July); and two, his stuff has always been too hittable anyway.
In my book I could see where Huntington and Coonelly felt the value they would receive by putting players in their system with crappy attitudes on notice by releasing Capps was worth more than any fringe reliever they might get in return for him. In other words, we were at the point where we had zero choice – Capps had already played them out much like we had seen Wilson and Sanchez play out the Bucs. It was simply time for Capps to go and hence part of the reason for my lower valuation of him to this organization.
Interestingly, Freddy Sanchez signed a multi-year deal with the Giants at exactly the same price I valued him at with the Bucs, and Jack Wilson got almost the exact same value I had him at too. Capps will probably get a tick more than the $2M I feel he is worth to the Bucs but at the end of the contract I’m guessing his true production value will be more in line with my $2M per, or even lower, than what he actually signs for. And the reason I say that is because of his demonstrated makeup in Pittsburgh.. he had a chance to renew his faith but took his first step too late. That’s my opinion, of course.
Looking to 2010 we still have some ‘cultural’ problems on the roster. The most obvious is Ryan Doumit, the not so obvious are Zach Duke and Paul Maholm, although Maholm is at least professional in his makeup, albeit questions arise on his desire to remain a Buc long-term. There are others but since they aren’t widely known I think this is one of those times that I just need to keep my mouth shut so I don’t potentially lower player value as a writer.
All of those players need to be dealt and the sooner the better, especially with Doumit and Maholm.
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Silva for Bradley? Someone tell me that’s a joke.
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Bay to the Mets because he has no other option? I don’t buy the ‘no other option’ angle, but it does start to show where the market is heading.
* Jake flushes the toilet *
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If we were to pony up for anything, man I wish we had Eddie Bane (Angels scouting director) and his network working for us.
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Speaking of needing talented instructors, I can’t wait to see who we have hired as our pitching coordinator to work with all our youthful arms. It better be an A++ hire considering how much stock we have placed in our future on those arms. It’s expected that the coordinators will be announced next week.
I see the club just announced that Mike Treanor was moved as far away from those youthful arms as possible to Indy (hehe) and Tom Filer (a John Russell bud, no doubt) and Mike Lum (remember him with the Reds years ago?) were hired as coaches in the system. I don’t know much about either but from previous talks I’ve had with scouts and others around the minors, Lum is considered a plus guy.
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And look who Jose Castillo just signed a deal with.
By Jake, on November 21, 2009, at 11:30 pm |
Neal Huntington is said to be fielding quite a few calls on either Duke or Maholm but he obviously hasn’t been hit over the head with an offer than knocked him out yet. That’s almost certain to change after Lackey, Lowe, and a few others are off the market one source around the game told me today. But which one will fly off the shelf? I’m told Maholm is more likely to get moved.
Why?
One obvious reason is that it clears more than $10 million off the books but perhaps more importantly, Maholm and his agent Bo McKinnis refused to give the Bucs one second of his free agent time which Huntington fought hard for. Toss in:
– three consecutive years of improving stats despite three different pitching coaches
– combined with a measly $0.75 million buyout versus almost $10 million in salary in 2012
Clubs know that and see Maholm’s $6.7 million per-over-three price tag during his ’premium’ years (28-30) and start drooling as they look for a solid back-of-the-order innings eater. That’s not the case with Duke and his prior left elbow concerns, one person said. Still, Maholm is exactly the kind of player this club should be keeping around but I’m not so sure that’s going to happen.
Adding fuel to that is the bizarre waiver pickup of thirty-year-old Chris ‘I have options left’ Jakubauskas who was told that he’s entering camp with a chance to start after we released the much heralded twenty-six-year-old Jeff Karstens who happened to hit that magical super-two-and-you’re-out-the-door-in-Nuttingland status. You know the recent front office rhetoric, we just ‘picked up several years of control’ baby, but to hell with improving the talent. Karstens was eaten alive by off-speed hitting teams (ie: see the Astros) but held his own against other lineups. I have to believe there is an attitude issue floating around Kerrigan didn’t care for and why he’s being tossed out the door, but that’s a guess.
So with Jakubauskas around and Dumatriat, Hart, McCutchen, and Veal all able to throw the ball over the plate (remember now we’re not worrying about talent, just innings while reducing payroll and increasing years of control), it only makes Nutting-sense that Maholm and Duke are pushed out the door ..
.. along with Doumit, and Capps, and (is anyone else making more than minimum wage ?? ) ..
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Robinzon Diaz was also pushed off the roster like Karstens was. That also makes sense since he had the best batting average and lowest CERA (not a stat I’m found of, btw) of all our catchers. I suppose it was a toss-up between Diaz and Doumit for the worst catcher on our roster so it really didn’t shock me that he was released. I’ll be very surprised if anyone picks him up but I don’t expect Karstens to be around long. I’m guessing Huntington already has a deal in place.
One shocker to me was the refusal to add Shelby Ford to the roster over Sues or Cruz. I never did find out if he was 100% last year but I’m guessing not. I assume Huntington thinks this young man won’t get plucked in Rule 5 but I’m not so sure, if he’s indeed 100% healthy. Toss out his injury periods and his MLE’s suggest he’ll hit for average or better in the league so I wouldn’t discount a club scooping him up and using him as utility for 2010 (remember now, a Rule 5 guy can be on the DL too) since he has three options and solid upside.
Added to the roster was Morris, Lincoln, Aguero, and Hernandez — all as expected.
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Jeff Clement catching? I’m hearing the internal debate ended with a resounding no. Clement will be at first probably a month or two after camp breaks which should finally end the Steven Pearce lifeline.
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It was nice to see Huntington give Moss one final year. There are some scouts I talked to last year that think he’s close to figuring things out. Whether he ever does in Pittsburgh, I don’t know.
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The ultimate Neal Huntington f**k? LaCava and the Jays trading Halladay to an NLCD club. Funny thing though, the Reds and Astros look to be heading toward rebuilding this year, the Cardinals have some major roster problems that need to be resolved, and that leaves the Brewers and Cubs to load up and make a run for it all.
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Chase d’Arnaud missed out winning the Dernell Stenson Sportsmanship Award in the AFL.
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Still no word about a Neal Huntington extension. Those things typically happen in January or February though.
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Over the last two years I’ve taken a lot of heat in communications from many of you regarding the financial position of the Pirates. I stood firm using $75 million as our revenue-before-ticket-sales benchmark and now that it’s all coming to light in the press, we’re learning I was dead-on. Maybe even too low.
Fans in future generations are going to look back at our era and wonder why in the world we didn’t stand up to these clowns, I wonder all the time why business in the area doesn’t stand up and shout, and how can the taxpayers in the area be happy losing all the services they are knowing these owners failed to repay millions and millions to the city? But as the 1.6 million fans who paid to see a 99-loss product last year seem to indicate, nobody seems to care what the Nuttings do.
I. Don’t. Get. It.
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So I’m adding a news feed to the site today (see the ‘NEWS’ link in the nav bar above – it’s evolving but be careful with the video links as there are lots of viruses in videos these days) and decided to throw in Tweets from Twitter when I noticed many of the writers all trying to beat each other posting the same contents of a team press release.
How bizarre.
It’s no wonder newspapers are dying because the last place I’d want my paid reporters spending time is sending out a 140 word tweet that quenches the thirst of the general public. So why are media outlets/writers even using Twitter? And, will newspapers be stupid enough to spend money while tweeting? Better yet, will users be stupid enough to pay to use Twitter?
I. Don’t. Get. It.
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I’ll be taking some time off during this week so posting will be lite over the holiday period. I’ll be back to full strength next Sunday night. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed their support .. funerals are a drag.
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 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 3, 2009, at 8:33 pm |
Obviously this was a pure salary dump in order to give Frank Coonelly some money to use for the draft.. by all accounts we cleared about $10MM off the books, all things considered. Since we are in rebuilding mode, that’s exactly what we had to do – clear payroll off the books for projectable youth for our system. Now, did we do that or did we simply hand Bob Nutting his 2009 draft check?
To be quite blunt, we didn’t receive much in the return. I won’t even bother talking about Morton’s arm abuse or the injury histories of all three players and why the Braves probably made them available in a package. I’ll simply say we just didn’t get as much as the fans seem to think they got. And truth be told, I never liked McLouth and always felt he was tremendously overrated.
So I’m in the ‘this was a win-win deal’ camp.
But let’s face it, this deal doesn’t go down a week before the draft unless Nutting needed red ink off the books because we were in the driver’s seat with McLouth for a July or winter trade. So if we would have had to draft crap because ownership refused to infuse additional cash instead of paying off newspaper bills or Seven Springs renovation bills, then I’d rather McLouth be gone for three ’so-so’ players who add a little depth to our system.
The real negative to all this becomes the timing of Andrew McCutchen’s promotion now. I’ve talked about this since February.. I don’t believe the current clubhouse mix is healthy for McCutchen. And what 85 to 90 loss club in their right mind promotes their best prospect when getting ready to play 13 of their next 17 games on the road, much less to venues like Houston and Atlanta with their huge crowds, and then on to play ten days of interleague games? That’s ridiculous and setting him up for early failure.
The return is fine to me, the timing was horrid and could result in a significant beating to a young, fragile Andrew McCutchen. Perhaps that’s exactly what Huntington wants to see?
More Thursday after I sleep on this. (edit June 5th: here is the second post on the trade.)
By Jake, on February 5, 2009, at 11:07 pm |
After careful consideration, here are 2009’s Sleepers and Foolers.
Sleepers
1. Jimmy Barthmaier. While communicating with one of the Pirates brass last year after Barthmaier got mauled against the Rays in Pittsburgh, I said: “he’s a keeper.” His mound presence was below average, his stuff was about the same, and his command even worse, but the way batters tended to back out on him means there’s more in the tank than anyone thinks. Will it shine in 2009?
2. Robinson Diaz. My longshot sleeper for two reasons.. one, I believe Doumit will be out of action within 90 days of breaking camp and somebody will need to step up, and two, his glove is good enough to handle our staff now that Kerrigan is around to help him along instead of Andrews. His bat won’t be the exciting factor, his glove might be the sleeper.
3. Freddy Sanchez. Smell that in the air? That’s bacon cooking and Sanchez knows he has to come out of the gate on fire to get some or he’s likely to be eating only canned hash the rest of his career. That does something to competitive good guys.
4. Nate McLouth. He wasn’t on my beta sleeper list and if he avoids his arb hearing by agreeing with the Bucs on a multiyear, then scratch him here. However, if his case is heard keep him here because he’s going to be one pissed off dude (as if hot head Nate can get hotter) and he’ll be playing hard thinking the Bucs will likely spin him off in July, if not earlier.
5. Adam LaRoche. Early slump? Naw, he’s got the same bug Freddy Sanchez has knowing if it doesn’t come together early for him he’s likely to be sitting on the sideline next winter looking for a gig until July. If it’s in him to hit the ball early, this will be the year he does it.
6. Jeff Karstens. Kerrigan’s poster boy, to be sure. If he stays healthy and can get a couple of his pitches to cooperate, he could suprise everyone including himself.
Foolers
1. Brandon Moss. Also not on my initial list, but my hunch is that he won’t perform until McCutchen comes up to take all the pressure off him, then he’ll relax. Look for him to come around in 2010, although “coming around” may still not be good enough.
2. Andrew McCutchen. He has no business being in Pittsburgh in 2009 but Nutting needs to sell tickets so look for him early on. His bat might play until video gets around but then he’ll be eaten alive by MLB pitching coaches who find “the problem.” Throw in that McCutchen is fueled by the attention he seeks and gets and with Sanchez and Wilson dominating the clubhouse for their own need for attention, McCutchen’s tank runs empty real fast. If Wilson is gone quick enough, he might settle in faster but will still have trouble.
3. Tom Gorzelanny. Starts out strong but then the abuse that he absorbed last year from being made to throw with a bad back, no legs, and lingering arm problems will be too much to overcome. Plus, 2010 will be his first year of arb so he’ll be pushing too hard adding another layer of frustration when his arm won’t cooperate. If his arm doesn’t break, he’ll be one of the league’s premier pitchers from 2010 on.
4. Ian Snell. Like Gorzelanny, this will be his second consecutive year on the Fooler list. Look for him to bust out early, tame off in May, crash and burn in June or July, and end up in the pen in September with the Pirates trying to keep his arm, and head, attached. If somehow he decides he wants to pitch instead of throwing again, he has the ability to put up startling strikeout numbers although his BABIP and HR/9 might go through the roof.
5. Jack Freaking Wilson. He went to Vegas thinking he was Manny and left with his head tucked under his tail then blew off the fans all winter. His first step was his best asset but that’s long gone leaving the Pirates having to pay for nothing but mouth. Hey Jack, just when do you plan on retiring again?
6. Ryan Doumit. He got the big money and all year long he’ll be thinking harder about where to spend it than caring about the game he’s in just like Ian Snell, Kris Benson, Jack Wilson, and Freddy Sanchez who all took the ”year after” A-train. I expect he’ll be on the DL early but if he doesn’t go, watch the other NLCD clubs finally figure out he has a hitch in his swing on the left side. Don’t expect too much from this party boy unless he really has matured. Riiighhht.
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Here are previous years: 2006 Sleepers and Foolers, 2007 Sleepers and Foolers, and 2008 Sleepers and Foolers.
By Jake, on January 30, 2009, at 6:15 am |
(Edited on March 8, 2009, to show how ridiculously high the Maholm contract really is.)
I’m starting to seriously wonder if the Pirates new regime has a long-term plan in place. The short-term one is easy to see - sign any first-year arbitration eligible player of value to a three year contract. Beyond that, everything else is fuzzy. Let me show you what I mean.
The chart below is a crude attempt to extract data from my project software to show you where the Pirates are in their long-term cycle. This is based on my own player value assumptions as of the end of the 2008 season so that’s why you don’t see Karstens, Ohlendorf, and several other players I personally don’t believe hold long-term value. Plus, I used my assumptions to fill in some slots to give you some sense of where and when players come and go. You can make the same chart at home and plug in the players and time frames you like, just be sure to carry forward the known contracts.
No matter which names you plug in, or where you plug them in, when you throw in the Pirates current short-term model you get a jumbled long-term mess (four years plus out).
Consider this.. what is the probability Sanchez and Wilson will still be here in 2011? Right, pretty close to zero. So plug in two middle infield rookies starting at least by 2011. And at some point McCutchen, Alvarez, and Tabata are going to come up so plug those rookies in too.
Starting to get a feel for it? That sure is one heck of a lot of rookies running around behind our “veteran” pitchers the next couple of years, and at critical positions too. So if the Pirates are going to start getting more competitive along the way, they either have to do it before the entire defense becomes rookie’ville, or before all the starters we have with any experience leave.
Take a minute and chart it out using your own players, then come back and read the rest of this.
Right, the long-term plan is becoming more fragmented with every three-year contract signed. The Pirates emphasis doesn’t appear to be in building a long-term plan, the emphasis is in signing arbitration eligible players at their lowest cost value in their first year of arb. In other words, all we are seeing in the short-term plan is the Pirates leveraging their position to keep payroll as low as possible every year.
Not in building a long-term competitive club.
The Pirates often mention the Brewers as a model they like but they rarely offer multiple year deals until the second year of arb and almost always lock up key youth for numerous years to include two free agent years plus like Ryan Braun (8 years, $45M) and Bill Hall (4 years, $24M plus one club option year), whereas other youth wait for a deal at least through their first arb year like Hardy, Bush, Coffey, and McClung. Fielder is the obvious exception to the rule.
Look around the game.. it’s not just the Brewers, almost all of the teams lock up key players long-term buying multiple free agent years. With position players it’s a bit easier than pitchers who break down more often, but clubs do offer multiple club option years to pitchers to keep them in-house, and rarely do they offer a multiple year deal until their second year of arb.
That’s just smart long-term business sense.
Not the Pirates. And the only one we did offer it to (or if we offered, the only one to accept) was Ryan Doumit who agreeed to the two club option years as long as the Pirates exercised them both in one year. How bizarre was that?
Our long-term model is taking a hit with these three-year, first arb year deals. I understand we can ask the player for additional years later down the road but that’s a risk we shouldn’t be assuming. Throw in Alvarez’s bizarre six-years-and-I-plan-to-run-so-fast-it-makes-your-head-spin MLB deal, and we’re not getting anywhere.
Until this organization starts thinking long-term, agents and players are going to continue to refuse to buy in resulting in first year draft picks gone in six years, key players signing away no more than one free agent year (which is when we deal them making it useless anyway), and player production tanking the year after they get their big money deals. It’s a dysfunctional cycle that has gone on too long and has to be broke.
That was what I expected as a fan from Frank Coonelly being hired. So far it’s not working for anyone but the Nutting family.
By Jake, on January 1, 2009, at 4:41 pm |
Pirate fans have very little tangible evidence they can use to evaluate the new front office on when you really get down to it because we can’t count wins and losses during rebuilding years. But one thing we can look at is the way they spend the few dollars they are willing to spend.
Take Ryan Doumit’s contract, for instance.
I’ve told Bucco Blog readers for years that Doumit is bad luck behind the plate. In fact, when Doumit started behind the plate the last three years, the Pirates have a .376 winning percentage over 141 games. When Doumit doesn’t start behind the plate, the Pirates have a .429 .432 (see comments below) winning percentage over 343 games.
With Doumit: .376
Without Doumit: .429 .432
I realize some of the casual fans are going to immediately jump on Doumit’s .427 winning percentage record in 2008 thinking he’s getting better somehow. But that is very biased. His 26-24 first-half record came about from playing almost two-thirds (64%) of those games at home where you expect the Bucs to play .500 ball (we actually went .481 over the year at home). The rest of the year? He went .340.
He’s bad luck.. he’ll always be bad luck, and it’s not going to change over time no matter how bad we all might want it to. Why? Because he’s nothing more than a defensive complimentary piece in a position that requires leadership and brains.
Throw in a few other defensive basic stats like:
– a ridiculous 23.8% caught stealing rate the last two years,
– 64 balls that floated under, over, or through Doumit toward the backstop allowing 14 runners to score from third (the equivalent of one every 8 games caught; for comparison, Paulino was one every 15 games), and
– every single pitcher on the Pirates roster except Maholm, Grabow, and Duke regressed in 2008.
And when you dig deeper into passed balls and wild pitches over the last three years as against the other 31 catchers who had the highest combined total of passed balls and wild pitches, in other words the worst of the worst, you start to see the nightmare even better:
For reference, the median was one every 2.9 games among the 32 (not including Chavez) and while that difference doesn’t sound like much, when Doumit is in the result is an 11% higher rate and up to an extra 18 PB or WP per year. And in 2008 alone, nine of the fourteen runners who scored from third on WP/PB with him were go-ahead runs and six of the games were winning runs.
That’s called a disaster, and that’s why you see about two-thirds of the worst 10 or 12 in that chart above as backup catchers. There’s a reason for that.
I hear you, I hear you, Doumit is an offensive catcher. But there’s a huge problem with that analogy – he’s not a consistent offensive threat.
Did you know that in 70% of the innings Doumit had plate appearances during his career, he hit .258/.327/.421 (825 PA)? The rest of the time (354 PA) he hit .324/.374/.535.
That’s hardly a model of consistency.
Let’s look closer at his “career best” 2008 year as an example.
In 52 games that he started at PNC Park last year, he hit .349/.391/.567 with 8 home runs and 40 rbis. Pretty impressive, huh? But guess what, in 76% of those plate appearances (178 PA) his OPS was only 0.30 higher than Nyjer Morgan’s .720. That’s right.. in the other 55 PA against some extremely inferior pitching (ie: Rastner with the Yankees, the Rockies and Nats series, etc.), Doumit belted out a .560/.600/1.040 split and hit 63% of all his home runs at home during those PA.
That’s not consistent.
On the road the split is more obvious — against power pitching clubs or clubs with extreme advance scouting (ie: SDP, ARI, CHA, LAD, etc.) Doumit hit .181/.213/.276 in 122 PA. Ouch. Now there is a major hole that was exploited.
But in games against clubs that tossed junk throwers at us for the most part, had inferior pitching, or just didn’t have good seasons, he raked a .410/.445/.620 line in 110 PA.
That’s not consistency either.
Now throw in his .269/.316/.385 line the last 104 AB of 2008, a .228/.282/.455 split his last 101 AB in 2007, and a 200/.336/.360 line his last 100 AB in 2006, and you finally see some consistency but, unfortunately, it’s the wrong way.
Add in he was a 65% player (unhealthy 35% of the time) in 2008 and has been broken down eight of his ten years of professional baseball, and you have to ask yourself…
.. what in the world was the Pirates front office smoking when they signed Ryan Doumit to a three-year deal in his first arb year?
I don’t care if he wins a Gold Glove, beats Hank Aaron’s home run record, and/or hits better than Joe DiMaggio the next three years, my point is that there was no track record to justify an $11MM three-year deal at the time. The Pirates jumped too fast just as they did with Ian Snell and Freddy Sanchez for that matter.
As a fan, I don’t want to see a rebuilding club taking on risky player contracts, I want to see the risk shift to the trading forum. Because we’ve failed to do that, now we’re holding the bag on a lot of garbage like Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez that can only help us win a few marginal games.
We’re going the wrong way.
Still.
It’s time to wake up again fans.
(followup post)
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