By Jake, on February 27, 2010, at 10:36 pm | 25 comments
Eight days left in the Pledge Drive to keep the paywall down. You can read about it here and here. So far $428 has been pledged toward our $1,000 goal. Pledges can be made here.
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Traveling tonight so short post.
Q: I usually keep my hopes for the Pirates in check. I fully expect them to lose 100 games this year, if not their usual mid-90s. But I will be paying close attention to their minor- league clubs. .. Truthfully, I think its extremely difficult to build an entire team from within.
Bob Smizik: I think you have the right approach, Nate. Low expectations for this season but increasingly higher ones in the years ahead. The Pirates have placed their bets on the amateur draft. It’s not a perfect way to build a team but it seems the only way they can do it. ..
The picture Smizik paints above shows, imo, one of the main problems the fans have in proper evaluation of the current regime. Simply put, he’s content waiting for higher expectations in the years ahead as we build via the draft. No matter where you go to read about the Bucs and ‘the plan’ that’s the message you are hit with.
The problem with that mindset is that there is no accountability for the last two years. For instance, the Nutting family has refused to infuse any of their own cash since 2007 to prop up our draft position during a full rebuild that Bob Nutting said he is the co-architect of.
One way the Nuttings could have done that is by keeping Jason Bay through his contract years which would have resulted in two additional draft picks in 2010 from Bay walking out the door as a free agent. All things being equal, that would have provided us with the 36th and 57th picks in 2010 for an additional $10M or so paid to Bay.
Obviously that $10M infusion would have ultimately been reduced some from Bay’s market value (ie: suite sales, corporate sponsorships, ticket sales, etc, etc, etc) and then wiped out totally from future value received if just one of the two draft prospects contributed as expected – if the second one was a hit as well, then Nutting would have actually banked a considerable profit. That assumes, of course, that Greg Smith and Neal Huntington properly identified, selected, and signed two solid players.
And perhaps that’s exactly the issue – maybe the Nuttings didn’t trust Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington and his staff enough to ultimately bring them that future profit? Instead of risking those personal funds (which we now know would have been at least been covered from the profit they stated the organization made in 2008 and 2009), they instead chose to dump Bay’s salary off the books.
Now going back to Smizik’s assessment and fan perceptions.. are we really committed to rebuilding through the draft if we haven’t leveraged our draft position opportunities considering 12% of the 2009 Type A free agents (three in Gonzalez, Grabow, and Bay), and two of the Type B (Nady and LaRoche), had been under our control when the new regime took over? By my count, that’s a potential for three additional first round picks or no less than three additional second round picks, plus no less than three first round sandwich picks but could be as high as five.
Imagine that a second.. we could have had no less than eight selections before the 82cd pick overall this year and possibly as many as ten of the first 82. Now THAT’s rebuilding through the draft folks. And we could be supplementing that while rebuilding by bringing in ’better bets’ over the next few years in signing free agents with high Elias ranks and giving them stupid money one-year deals. We couldn’t lose because the value of free agent compensation far exceeds any stupid money paid out unless it’s $10M over true value received.
We’re not rebuilding by the draft – all we’re doing is spending as little as possible to get by.
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Iwamura is evidently not 100% yet. Not that we believe he ever will be during his stay with us, but that’s a story for another day.
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Hilariously posted at Pirateball.com as if mocking Pirates ownership.
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Joe Blanton will pitch against the Bucs in Bradenton when the Phillies come in March 6th. They aren’t wasting any time, although it will be interesting to see how many pitches Blanton actually throws. How ironic is it that Coonelly’s old buds send a right-handed soft tosser over to get lit up. Make sure you place your bets on that game.
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“I feel like the most complete player I’ve ever been. I feel like I can be a threat on both sides of the ball. I’m excited to see what I can do.” — Lastings Milledge as said to MLB.com
I, I, I, I, I, I.. well, at least the I’s have it.
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Nyjer Morgan, the good corporate guy – he learned fast in Pittsburgh. Now he’ saying in Washington that there’s a “vibe” in the clubhouse that he didn’t feel in 2009. You know, like we’re hearing about the Bucs in 2010, and we heard in 2009, and 2008, and 2007, and 2006, and..
You get the idea.
Now I wonder if that vibe he’s feeling is a good vibe, or a bad one because they only have three starters?
By Jake, on February 26, 2010, at 10:02 pm | 9 comments
Nine days left in the Pledge Drive. You can read about it here and here. So far $428 has been pledged toward our $1,000 goal. Pledges can be made here.
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One of the more basic stats in the game is average run production per at bat. In the National League, I only look at position player productivity believing that additional run production by pitching is just gravy on top. Last year the Pirates position players racked up an average of 0.1227 runs over their 5,118 at bats generating 628 runs scored.
Since everyone seems to love Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections, I decided to use them for my baseline projection here and they are predicting a 7% increase over 2009 to 0.1320 runs. If we assume 5,150 at bats, that would be 679 runs scored resulting in the second worst projected offensive output in the National League and, obviously with the AL DH rule, the second worst in the game. Other projection systems like Marcel and ZIPS also project a low scoring Bucs offense.
Personally, I think the 0.1320 PECOTA projection is too high and have the Pirates regressing 2% from 2009 productivity to a 0.12025 which, over 5,150 at bats, would generate only 619 runs scored. But understand, my projection isn’t as tight as PECOTA because I included projected trades as well like Doumit and Aki.
Regardless which system you like, or what your personal projection might suggest, the goal of the Pirates front office this year needs to be production in the 0.1400 range generating 721 runs scored (assuming 5,150 position player at bats) in order to be competitive in the division. The reason for that is this – there isn’t much punch in the division this year and our pitching staff is going to leak runs allowed like a sieve. PECOTA projects them at 800 runs allowed (5th highest in MLB) and I have them even higher (4th highest at 825).
Now the million dollar question is, how can the front office generate more run production? The simplest route lies in the batting order.
Iwamura is in a contract year coming off an injury, he has league average speed (which means not much), he has the best eye and contact rate of all our players, and thrives in the leadoff spot. He’s not a natural #1 hitter for the NL, but he’ll be about as solid as you’ll see.
Behind him I’d like to see a good bat handler who puts the ball in play. I think Lastings Milledge would be a good choice here because he typically chokes in high leverage situations like whiffing at the worst time, he doesn’t have that great of an eye, he has some speed to get down the line, and while he isn’t exactly the best bat handler on the roster, he stings the ball enough to force the opposition to play on the balls of their feet. No, he won’t be a trusted hit-and-run batter, and yes, he’ll still whiff a lot, but I think with McCutchen behind him he’ll see more pitches to square up on.
The third hole has to be McCutchen. The toss-up is do you want him on the base paths when other batters without high contact rates coming to the plate, or do you want him driving runners home? That’s a no-brainer.
I’d put Jones in the four-hole and follow him with Doumit and then let Clement sting the ball next followed by LaRoche and then Cedeno. So it would look like this:
Aki, Milledge, McCutchen, Jones, Doumit, Clement, LaRoche, and Cedeno.
When Alvarez comes up, and assuming LaRoche is traded, he could hit in Clement’s spot while he gets his feet wet, and a decision could be made about whether to swap Clement and Milledge who would bat behind Alvarez.
My model runs project a modest increase in runs scored using this lineup card a majority of the season. And, surprising to me, more production than a McCutchen, Aki, Milledge, Doumit type of card. Oddly, the best lineup for run production had a lineup of Aki, McCutchen, Church, Moss, Doumit, Clement, LaRoche, and Cedeno (not Crosby). That would be a very poor defensive lineup card except in some of the smaller parks, but there you go – lefties must rule this year. Surprisingly for his age, my models runs just don’t like Milledge this year.
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I’m starting to get a few tidbits out of camp and I’m hearing there are a few more minor injuries than we’ve already heard about. I’m not going to discuss them in the hopes they just go away but one in particular is a major concern to me. We’ll see over the next few days what is reported.
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The Red Sox bench players are being paid just $1M less than our projected 25-man roster, a Comcast report states.
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The Bradenton Herald covered the Pirates pep rally held in Bradenton with a nice article and some good pictures.
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Fan note of the day: Bob Smizik writes absolutely nothing and gets like 100 kiddie comments, Mondesi’s House puts up their Friday at the Polls and gets 5 comments, and recently Deadspin wrote about the depressing Pirates story of the day and generated 9 comments.
If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the current state of the Pirate Nation, nothing ever could.
Anybody else notice that all of a sudden blogs and discussion forums are becoming littered with posts suggesting why the Pirates should take a position player and not a pitcher in the first round? The exact same thing happened last year during spring training then died off and came back again about a month before the draft.
By Jake, on February 20, 2010, at 11:12 pm | 6 comments
“Pirates could open with four-man rotation”
That was the headline at pirateball.com today. We’ll talk about that in a second but for now, the article continued:
“[I]f the club wants to keep its starters pitching every fifth day, the Pirates could use just a four-man rotation and have one spot start made during the first few weeks of the season. Doing so would give them the luxury of keeping 14 position players on the team to open the year.”
One spot start during the first few weeks is really, really stretching it in my mind, but to be fair, let’s take a look at the schedule over the first 25 games to May second.
First we have to make a wild assumption.. who will be the opening day starter at PNC and who will be the opening day starter away? The obvious choice to start game one against the Dodgers at PNC is Maholm based on his performance in 2009 and his stature with the club. Assuming that happens, I layed out the rest of the rotation just plugging in names to plug-in names. You’ll find those in the column labeled ‘Rotation’ below.
Then I plugged in my ‘first-look’ rotation schedule using Ohlendorf as the opening day guy at home and Maholm on the road in the column labled ‘Exp Rotation’ above. As you can see, unless our staff starts throwing every fourth day, which is highly improbable, we’ll need at least three starts by the fifth starter over the first month.
So carrying 14 position players is so way out there, I don’t even know how anyone could even dream it up.
Just a side note.. look at the series matchups closely and you’ll see two of our starters who pitch against the Dodgers in the first series, will end up throwing against them a few weeks later. In between, the same thing happens against the Brewers. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.
Also notice that 16 of the first 25 games are on the road. We expect some of that knowing how cold it is in Pittsburgh, but man, 64% is unforgiving to a really young club. And these aren’t just parks on the road, mind you, but tough parks. Sure, we play the Astros tough on the road, but all of those stadiums are going to be jacked with 30k+ fans. Plus, other than the D’Backs, those are all potential .500 clubs we’re facing right out of the shoot. And going from Milwaukee to Dodger Stadium? Man, the schedule makers must want to see our kids crying or something.
Now that’s a brutal schedule which is obviously going to demand five starters the second time through the rotation.
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The Pirates were said to have approached Zach Duke about a multi-year deal last year but were rebuffed in their attempts. Over the winter, Neal Huntington fielded quite a few calls on Duke but was never able to put a deal together. One reason that didn’t get done I’m told is because Coonelly and Huntington didn’t accept that Duke’s true value only included reasonable arb value during the years they have him under control. That obviously wasn’t enough. They are said to approached Duke again this winter but, once again, it hasn’t gotten done.
Duke’s agent is Mark Pieper with SFX, the powerhouse agency that also happened to handle Tom Gorzelanny that Huntington called out in the press as being lazy, having no command, and not liking his attitude as he demoted him to the minors. You can be sure that didn’t go over well with SFX. And we’ve all seen Coonelly and the Pirates throw quite a few players out the door who are represented by high-powered agencies, and in the last two years of drafts they have made very few picks who were represented by those same bigger agencies.
To me it’s just another showing of their anti-labor stance; to you it might all be a coincidence.
Anyway, out of nowhere today Chuck Finder posted this in one of his blog posts:
“While discussing Zach Duke and his All-Star season that ended with a 2-7 finish and a second-half ERA of 5.17, Kerrigan mentioned as how he, Duke and the Pirates staff are taking a look at ways to alleviate this starter’s workload/fatigue. .. Kerrigan’s concern seemed to be focused on such questions as: whether to limit Duke’s side throwing, alter his other routines (he already worked out differently this past offseason), or simply remove him in the seventh, eighth or ninth innings — particularly early in the season — so he doesn’t tire later in the year. .. “[We] cut back his side throwing a lot in the second half of last year, to keep him strong, [Kerrigan said].”
Forget for a second that Duke was +62 innings from 2007 to 2008 and we have historically tracked the second-year-after effect here in the blog from too many innings of work causing fatigue and potential health problems the second year after this high inning workload. And also forget that Duke went another +28 innings from 2008 to 2009, albeit that’s a lot better managed but still of concern knowing Duke’s abuse 2007 to 2008. And forget too that this kid went through tweaks by three pitching coaches over three years. Hell, he deserved to be fatigued.
Problem is, the stats and PITCHf/x suggest he wasn’t fatigued. In fact, we all remember Russell skipping to the mound like a good corporate boy with two outs in the 9th inning with the Pirates up by 10 runs in Duke’s second to last start against the Dodgers where he was throwing a four-hitter only to pull him out so he couldn’t record a complete game. Remember now, management couldn’t afford that because they were ‘nursing him’ because of fatigue. Hilarious.
Now answer this question: what possible good does it do anybody for Kerrigan to put that ridiculous nonsense out in the wild for public consumption?
There’s only one possible answer to me – the Pirates are attempting to devalue Duke. Perhaps they are back talking a multi-year and want their way, perhaps they are just pissed off SFX and Duke won’t return their calls to get a multi-year done, or perhaps Duke won’t give them what they want which is sure to be one or two years of free agency?
But Kerrigan throwing out org PR in the press like that is yet another example of management’s anti-labor stance to me.
The entire planet knows why Duke’s ERA climbed in the second half – it was because Ryan Doumit was back pretending to be a catcher combined with the fact that Duke had the 14th worst pen support the game of the 126 pitchers with 100 innings or more last year (7th worst in the NL).
Not because of fatigue.
Now I’m far from a Zach Duke fan but I can’t stand it when I see our players get hammered in the press like this from this club’s management. It’s deceitful, it’s immature, and it continues to set us back with labor (current players, agents, the union, and also those in the future). More importantly to me as a fan, its disrespectful. Somethings should remain in the clubhouse.
I say Pieper and Duke need to get some balls and call out the Bucs management.
Huntington got calls on Duke over the winter but couldn’t put a deal together because they probably didn’t want to value him at only the arb years they have him under control for. Perhaps now the Bucs are going to offer him multi-year hoping to get a free agent year or two.. but if you’re Pieper and Duke, what are you going to say? Right, are you crazy after what you just did?
This stuff has to stop. Has to stop. Next thing you know we’ll be hearing this stuff about Morton, Ohlendorf, McCutchen, and others.. but the end result will always be the same with the way we’re playing the game — screw you.. you’re not getting one second of free agency unless you pony up big time for me to hang around.
And we’re supposed to believe he has the heart to withstand all this and then want to win for Russell and Kerrigan, much less Nutting? What a joke.
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I’ve wondered since the AS break last year if our management didn’t have a grand plan in this game. How ironic that Capps is then just allowed to walk away as if he was given a huge favor to leave or something? Sure, a coincidence but I’m telling you, it’s too weird.
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My intital reaction to Bloomberg’s new fantasy baseball product is that it’s a joke. They spent lots of time developing a wonderful flash product only to fill it with useless data. Heck, I plugged in the Pirates rotation and it spit out a 3.5 runs per game average while our hitters where banging out something like 4.5 runs per game. Yet in the end they had us losing 90.
Go figure that one out. Don’t waste your money.. maybe next year it will be better.
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From 1490’s news blog who are covering the Bucs ST better than anyone so far by only posting the Pirates press releases:
“Today was the second bullpen session for the following pitchers (Ross Ohlendorf, Paul Maholm, Kevin Hart, D.J. Carrasco, Jeff Karstens, Jack Taschner, Steven Jackson, Bryan Morris, Brad Lincoln, Donnie Veal, Chris Jakubauskas, Justin Thomas, Anthony Claggett and Virgil Vasquez). Those 14 pitchers threw between 40-45 pitches during their session.”
Wow. Can I buy stock in Doc Andrews surgery practice? Man.
Cedeno, McCutchen, and Milledge are still no shows.
“So, is this bullpen built to be less of a liability in 2010? Statistics, even though they can be misleading when it comes to projecting reliever performance, would suggest that yes, the ‘pen will be better.
Replacing Capps at the back end will be Dotel, who hasn’t closed for a full season since 2004..
The 38-year-old Brendan Donnelly.. brings eight seasons of experience with him.. though the fact that he is less than three years removed from Tommy John surgery remains a slight concern..
Lopez represents the left-handed option that the Pirates lacked and is looking to emulate the success that he had with the Red Sox from 2006-08..”
Better statistically even though the author sees huge red flags. Ok, now we have something to go on. Let’s see if the ‘better statistically’ premise is even close to accurate.
Let’s take all the relief pitchers from the NLCD in 2009 who appeared in at least 30 games and throw them together. Then let’s add the three new additions and rank them by OPS allowed just for fun:
Donnelly and Carrasco look to be a nice addition based on that one stat (if you don’t also peek at Carrasco’s leverage index of .62) while Dotel and Lopez finish well out of the money.
How about if we rank by percentage of inherited runners who scored? Once again, Donnelly ranked well as only 3 of 15 scored for a 20% ranking while Lopez wasn’t trusted enough to be put in a position to find out what he could do. Dotel choked with 52% scoring which, granted, was a tick better than Capps, but significantly higher than league average as well as Chavez we lost. Carasco choked there too.
Where our new additions look really good is in the one stat our GM tells us is worthless with relievers – ERA. When I look closer at Dotel and Donnelly’s ERA using xERA as a comparative tool, Dotel’s ERA looks legitimate despite a ridiculous number of walks, but Donnelly’s was somewhat lucky (mainly from lots of walks) although still very good.
Considering Donnelly barely made our cutoff since he only appeared in 30 games, I’m not so sure we’re looking at a true representative sample for him. Also, the NLED isn’t exactly known for having the best advance scouting departments. That being said, this is a young club which is more likely to need his services at home so I suspect we’ll see him rack up considerably more innings at the friendly confines of PNC Park where he should shine — as long as he stays healthy.
As for Dotel and Lopez? Dotel pitched in some pretty big parks except at home but his position is now somewhat reversed where his home park is larger and his road parks are going to give him fits. I think that’s problematic for Dotel because he’s going to have to rely heavily on Kerrigan for batters to walk to get to batters he can handle (his MO) because he doesn’t know NL batters. Throw in small away parks and I think we’re looking at a road implosion candidate who very well might put up nasty numbers at home.
And are we supposed to think D.J Carrasco hasn’t forgotten that he was forced to throw +26 innings in 1999 from 1998 and then never given a chance in Pittsburgh which resulted in a somewhat dysfunctional career including pitching in Japan? And what about the fact that Neal Huntington was director of player development with the Indians in 1998 when Carrasco was handed his release papers? Am I the only one who thinks there is a huge cultural red flag there?
Anyway, was the premise accurate? A couple of statistics are better, most statistics are worse, and some statistics are questionable and/or unreliable. I happen to be a big believer in the percentage of inherited runners which score stat when combined with opportunity leverage and in that regard we’re worse off as a whole with the new additions I used above.
There might be some merit to the argument that Dotel and Carrasco pitched in the AL, in a short-perch park no less, which on the surface seems like they should have a tick better advantage. But I don’t buy into that argument because the batting average and OPS difference between the NLCD and ALCD is statistically insignificant plus they are now having to pitch more often in less pitching friendly parks. Add in the age of all these additions, but add some love because of their experience level, then subtract for their health risks and I think we’re looking at a weaker pen, not an improved pen.
“I think the bullpen this year is really going to surprise a lot of people,” Meek said. “I don’t think [manager John Russell] is going to hesitate to use us.”
Aside from Meek issuing the standard 2010 corporate-love player PR statement, let’s hope he’s wrong and that our starters are able to go deeper into the game than ever because I’m not personally comfortable that we have any better tools in the pen to hold leads than last year.
By Jake, on February 10, 2010, at 8:59 pm | 10 comments
One game I like to play each year before spring training starts is called the “What If” game where I sit down and try to find all the holes our GM has left to be exploited.
I’ll add a few of my own to get you going and you can add your own in the comments section:
– what if Cutch goes down for an extended period of time (say two months or more). Who takes over CF?
– what if we lose two starters like Maholm and Duke?
– what if Cedeno is out three months?
– what if Donnelly hits the DL? And what happens if Dotel is ineffective closing while Donnelly’s on the DL?
The answer to some of these questions may appear easy on the surface but I want you to also consider indirect issues too. For instance, the Donnelly/Dotel issue.. we had a closer on the roster in Hanrahan who Huntington obviously didn’t feel comfortable with in the role. What message did that send to Hanrahan? Now considering that message, what do you think will happen if he’s thrust into the position based on need? Do you think there is a significantly higher probability that he will fail than if he had opened the year as the closer? Don’t be too fast with your answer.
Or how about Cedeno.. surely he heard the winter rumors that Huntington was seeking his replacement. What does that do to a player’s motivation? If you think it might cause leaders to step it up, think again. History tells us it causes average players to tank under the pressure because they try too hard. Let’s say he does fail and in comes Crosby to take his place but he doesn’t hit a lick and his range is shown to be totally inadequate. Do you throw in Vazquez knowing his range is putrid too? Or do you toss Cedeno back in which gives him a new comfort zone because he knows Huntington doesn’t have anyone else to replace him?
Then there is the more obvious Doumit dilemma. He knows Huntington shopped him hard all winter and his days are numbered in Pittsburgh. But wait a minute.. what happens if Doumit comes out playing hard and racking up outstanding offensive numbers — will Huntington choose to keep him instead? Trust me on this one, it’s something Doumit and his agent are thinking hard about. I’m not suggesting Doumit or his agent will suggest not playing 100% — what I am saying is that they are probably talking about the “what if’s” too and that can handicap a person mentally. Ryan Doumit has proven to the fans he has no desire to be around a young, inept, rebuilding team. End of story.
How about this – how does a player show that his gross value to an organization is significantly higher than what the organization is willing to admit it is? He falls out to the DL with some freaky ‘no-big-deal’ injury and watches what happens when he’s not around. If they go on a sustained losing streak and when he comes back the streak ends, he’s accomplished his goal, right? Enter stage left, Andrew McCutchen who is almost certain to be approached to extend long-term in 2010. And you thought only Bob Nutting thought about cash cows? Wake up people.. this is Pittsburgh.
I’m sure you have some ideas of your own. Play the “what if” game and see what holes you see in our foundation. I’ve just mentioned a few possibilities at the top of the slab. As for the “what if” game on Doumit going on the DL for months which was mentioned in yesterday’s comments, we have Clement who could backup if needed, albeit it would stunt his first base development.
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Yusmeiro Petit cleared waivers and was shot down to 3A. I don’t get it.. why didn’t we grab the guy and then throw him back on the wire to get him down to 3A???? We’re missing a crap load of waiver claims.
How about offering a split contract (majors/minors) to Willy Taveras?? I wouldn’t hesitate on that one, God forbid Cutch goes down.
Nor would I hesitate to offer a one-year deal to Kiki Calero considering how shabby our pen is.
But don’t forget that there is going to be an explosion of talent run through the wire during ST this year because so many players are out of options. I hope to heck we’re busy as bees since we’re not spending any money on real talent still available which can upgrade us.
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So where do you believe the Pirates strength is this year? Pitching, right?
From Bill James:
“Which major league team has the most young talent in their organization? Two years ago, in the 2008 Bill James Handbook, we introduced a method to study that issue. We repeated the study in the 2009 Handbook, and then this year, to give us more time to study the issue and improve the methodology, we moved the study from the Handbook to the Gold Mine. We begin by assigning to every player in major league baseball an “Inventory Value”, based on his age and major league performance.”
The scoring was based on the last three years performance and he uses a ton of adjustments to come to his conclusions.
With Capps still listed on our staff and no Morton, Pirates pitching was ranked 5th worst in the game. I assume with the roster additions and subtractions, we’d move just a tick higher since Capps would be replaced by Morton but Dotel and Doonelly are too old for inclusion. Still, 5th worst is telling.
But more interesting to me in this study was the fact all NLCD teams were ranked in the bottom half in total points and four of the NLCD teams were ranked in the bottom seven (Cards, Pirates, Astros, and Reds). Also, the Pirates had a higher hitting ranking than every NLCD club other than the Cards.
Still think pitching is our strength? Sure, it probably is for 2010 but considering how poorly we ranked overall in the youth talent inventory which, by the way, included Pedro Alvarez, tells me a lot more about the direction we are heading in our rebuild.
Nowhere, as I’ve been saying over and over.
The top teams? Rays, Rockies, Twins, D”backs, and Red Sox. Bottom five were Astros (last), Padres, Tigers, Reds, and Indians.. then the Pirates.
Ouch.
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One tuned-in reader caught another labor issue I missed in yesterday’s post – the fact Coonelly and Huntington refused to allow Perry Hill to be released from his option. You could debate that all day long since the Pirates held what appears to be a valid contract for Hill’s services, but I did hear through the grapevine that the Pirates were offered compensation to release Hill and still denied him that opportunity. If correct, then I agree that would be another case of anti-labor.
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How in the world did I miss a member of one of the Pirates corporate partners suggesting to the fans not to buy the product? Man, if that doesn’t say it all I don’t know what else could.
Hat tip to Jason in Pittsburgh for the link.
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Want to play fantasy baseball? Bucco Blog has a few MLB.com leagues available for those who don’t have the time to handle intensive fantasy leagues. This league requires you set your roster for the week so it’s not labor intensive. Leave your name in the comment section using a valid e-mail addy and I’ll add you to the list. If you placed your name in the previous thread, you don’t have to list it here again.
By Jake, on February 1, 2010, at 9:06 pm | 15 comments
One of the most bizarre statements of the winter that I heard came from one Pirates exec when he said something to the effect of:
Our young players tasted success in the second half that we believe will serve to be their catalyst in 2010.
The ‘taste’ the exec was talking about was the August 17th – 27th homestand where we ran off a 7-2 spurt by pounding out 5 runs per game while holding the Reds, Phillies, and Brewers to under 3 runs per game. Unquestionably, it was the roster’s finest hour over a very poor season.
I’ve talked numerous times this winter about the internal debate on Federal Street regarding this very issue – some believe they have enough pitching to compete even with below average offense. But how realistic is that thinking?
No matter what side of that argument you stand on, the fact remains that our roster limped down the stretch in their last 2300 at bats. Simply put, it’s hard to win games when you can’t crack .700 OPS over an extended period of time. I think the last 36 games is a good example of how this roster will play in 2010 before Alvarez comes up.. they went 9-27 (.300) and were outscored by 2.1 runs per game on average.
Remarkably, they went 3-3 in their last road trip despite being outscored by almost a 1/2 run per game. The Pirates execs might argue they generated luck because of good pitching (sub 4 ERA) and that’s what they hope to accomplish in 2010. I’d argue that we won the doubleheader in Chicago playing in low 50’s, high 40’s weather with wind blowing off the lake, and then got our butts kicked two of three by a mentally defeated Reds squad. It wasn’t a pretty end of the season by any stretch of the imagination and, if anything, we had the wind knocked out of our sails when we couldn’t muster but 2 runs per game against the Dodgers and Astros September 11th – 16th while our pitching posted a sub 4 ERA.
Look closely at those batting averages from July 23rd on — that’s about as ugly as it gets folks with four of the nine groups (24 games) at .225 or less and ERA’s above 5 in five of the nine groups.
How realistic is it to think we have enough pitching to contend with the less-than-impact bats we have? Should we expect 5 runs per game in offense? I think that’s possible, but certainly unsustainable. So let’s assume 4 runs per game is more probable with 3.5 runs average per game most likely. What will be required of our pitching to keep us close every game at 3.5 runs produced on offense? For every 100 games (810 innings pitched) where we allow only 3.5 runs per game on average would require a collective ERA of 3.78 ERA just to keep the opposition at 3.5.
Do you know how improbable it is for a pitching staff to throw a collective 3.78 ERA across 160 games anymore? It’s happened just 12 times since the 2005 season led by such incredible staffs like the Padres with Young and Peavy, the Red Sox in Beckett and Schilling, the Blue Jays with Halladay and Burnett, the Dodgers in Lowe, Kershaw, Wolf, and Billingsley, and the Giants with Lincecum and Cain. I’m sorry to say we don’t have one pitcher – in Pittsburgh or in our minor league system – who resembles any of those men. Not even close.
So something has to give.. either we have to score more than 3.5 runs per game on average or we’re going to lose an obscene number of games again in 2010. Which will it be?
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I’m very, very bummed out about the upcoming year. I realize it’s yet another development year in Pittsburgh, and I realize the fans think they have a possibility of seeing 70+ wins, but I’m here to tell you I can’t get any model run to come out with more than 62 wins. Where PECOTA is finding the other 8 wins is beyond me because this is a 100 loss team no matter how aggressive you get with Alvarez, Clement, and Morton. (Update at 11:08 PM Monday.. PECOTA projection remains at 70 wins despite the fact they just shaved 83 runs scored off from the initial projection. Oh, and they also shaved 80 runs off runs allowed for some reason plus the Cards score the most runs in the division at only 724! Unbelievable stuff.)
We have too little power, a significantly unbalanced defense, and rookies waiting in the wings to add more unstableness. Hammer me all you want but it’s just not going to be a pretty year.
Except for laying down a few bucks on our Bucs, that is. I think Vegas and the rest of the world are going to be fooled by our roster this year leaving a wide open door for some outrageous opportunities for fans like us to make a small fortune from side bets.
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Preliminary Sleepers and Foolers for 2010
Sleepers
Dotel – think Mike Gonzalez on steriods and that’s how much fun Dotel is going to have.
Crosby — someone is going to have to step up and take charge in the Bucs inexperienced infield and Crosby is just the guy to handle the job. Look for a breakout type year from him as a utility man who plays too much.
Veal — the guy nobody believed in goes to 3A and uncoils a ridiculous sub 2 ERA in his first 10 starts and then comes up to Pittsburgh to replace Duke and ends up winning more games than any starter.
Doumit – he smells his exit from Pittsburgh and runs off a .320/.385/.490 line in his first 50 games and is then dealt to the Rangers. If he isn’t dealt, he’ll be on the DL the rest of the year.
McCutchen - April and early May won’t be his best months but by mid-August will be causing a ticket selling frenzy everywhere he plays. It’s the year of the Cutch.
Foolers
LaRoche - he knows if he tanks early he’s going to be dealt away from the land of suits and misery.
Duke – how do you spell ERA above 9?
Jones – he just can’t get around high and tight heat and the league finally adjusts.
Milledge - will he last 40 games before going on the DL? I don’t think so.
Ohlendorf – his head is still in Washington dreaming about all the heifers he met.
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A very special interview with a very special person, he says. Almost has a Pee Wee Herman ring to it, huh? Man I miss Joe Rutter. If you want to skip the interview I’ll give you a quick transcript of what was said that was meaningful:
nothing
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The Reds signed Orlando Cabrera for $4M. Wow. That’s a deal that will come back to haunt the Bucs. Mark it down.
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I forgot to mention that the other day I saw where Huntington was talking about competing and mentioned the 2012 – 2013 seasons. That’s typical for a GM to talk one year further out than he is inked for so I suspect we’re about to see him get a two-year extension.
By Jake, on January 21, 2010, at 11:43 pm | 27 comments
Since Neal Huntington seems to favor power arms, and since our pitching staff now seems complete, let’s take a look at how each of our pitchers did in 2009 with their fastballs. The only players missing below are Lopez, Veal, and Jakubauskas.
First some trivia.
Including our new additions, which roster pitcher had the highest swing and miss rate on fastballs in 2009?
Including our new additions, which roster pitcher induced the highest groundball rate?
The answers to those questions are in the 2009 fastball production table below:
Glossary – the chart has four groups, potential starters at the top, then projected relievers although Ascanio is a maybe, then players in the system, and lastly some of the players no longer with the club.
These types of unique stats, and hundreds more including things like daily updated hit charts, fantasy matchups and notes, and production trends (heading up, staying the same, or moving down), will be available in the New Bucs Insider (NBI) membership area in a couple of weeks. My publication license limits what, and how much, of these stats I can post in the public blog here, but I’ll do my best to try to keep everyone informed. I’ll ink the contract next week and be able to tell you which stat house is involved, but you can be assured they are A++ as they work closely with most of the teams. Where this all gets very exciting is when you compare these types of stats to the Pirates opposition, or against division foes, because you immediately see glaring weaknesses in matchups.
So let’s answer the trivia questions first.
Including our new additions, which pitcher had the highest swing and miss rate on fastballs in 2009? The answer is Dotel – an incredible 24% which was 10% higher than the major league average. That’s an incredible number when you also realize he threw a very high 81% of all pitches as fastballs, 17% above the ML average.
Including our new additions, which pitcher induced the highest groundball rate on fastballs in 2009? That would be Evan Meek. Surprised? I certainly was even though I knew he had a semi-heavy fastball. And look at Meek’s swing and miss rate on fastballs – 20%. Wow. Let’s hope that stat remains constant – or even gets better – in 2010.
Have fun with the chart – discuss it in the comments section. Just remember you are only looking at one year. Think the Bucs are going to need solid middle infield D? Oh my.
Dotel is being paid $3.25M which means it’s a tick better than average signing by Huntington. At $3M I would have been a bit happier, at $4M I would have been a lot more concerned, but in any case it’s nice to see we didn’t significantly overpay to get him to play in Pittsburgh. That’s a good sign. Since he has a 2011 $4.5M club option with $250k buyout, I doubt he’ll be around in 2011 unless this roster surprises everyone including Huntington.
So someone tell me why Rizzo didn’t hand Dotel the closing job in Washington, or why Dotel didn’t want to go there if Rizzo did call him? Rizz isn’t stupid and has deeper pockets, so am I the only one wondering what’s up with that?
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Poll time:
The Pirates had the 5th worst reliever ERA in 2009 despite throwing the 4th fewest number of innings. One reason for the higher ERA was that it was fueled from the 4th highest on base average allowed in the game at .350.
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Barring any trades involving their priciest players, the Marlins will open the season with a total payroll of roughly $45 million — the most since ‘05 and more than either the San Diego Padres or Pittsburgh Pirates are projected to shell out. — Miami Herald
Stab, stab, stab.
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Something to think about in case you missed it, courtesy of a TonyPenaHOF comment yesterday:
If anyone is interested – here are the teams with multiple picks (number of picks in parenthesis) before the Pirates get their second pick:
This puts the Pirates second pick at 50 overall. The 3rd round pick is 82. The 4th round is 115. So by the time the Pirates pick four players, over 100 will be selected and 11 other teams will have more selections.
By Jake, on January 21, 2010, at 12:19 am | 16 comments
“And this is why I write, time and again, that the true test of this ownership is.. [when] those players are ready for arbitration years and beyond.. that is when it will be transparent to all whether or not there is a genuine financial commitment to back up the promise.” — Dejan Kovacevic; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 20, 2010. emphasis New Bucs
Dejan does an ok job covering the Pirates but, I have to tell you, I really cringe seeing any beat reporter write comments like that — even as a blog entry — because it smacks of no objectivity. I mean, those are the words of the man who is granted a media license by the Pirates allowing him to cover the team from the inside that the fans demand objectivity from all year round. So when I read his words — online or in print — I am expecting that he is covering the news of the Pirates.
Not creating news (ie: his “true test” fuzzy logic).
Now it’s your turn: at what point do sports writers cross the ethical divide? Or can they?
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Duke signed for $4.3M avoiding arbitration. Obviously he’s worth every penny of that as a solid MLB #4 type starter in our rotation. Will we, should we, see Neal Huntington approach Duke with a long-term offer? I think they waited too long for it to matter now. I’m guessing Huntington and Coonelly entered 2009 thinking Duke would regress back to 2007 type numbers and planning to offer him a long-term deal after the season.
If so, that backfired on them as Duke’s numbers improved across the board.
What would he command? If the Pirates wanted to buy out one arb year and two free agent years, I’m thinking they would value him around 1.75 WAR per year. That would be $22M over three, less the 35% third-year arb discount of $2.5M, and that leaves $19.5M over three distributed something like this: $5.5M in 2011, $6.5M in 2012, and $7.5M in 2012 (at age 30).
Would Duke sign that deal? Probably not. He’s going to want in the neighborhood of $25M – or more – over those three years and his agent is probably sitting back reading all the negative revenue sharing news and licking his chops even more. Plus, his agent is reading Pirate Nation media coverage like I posted above from Dejan knowing full good and well that the new regime has to start being held accountable at some point, and they probably believe Duke is that point. Do the Nuttings pony up for one of the organizations draft and developed players, or trade him off to reduce future costs in the name of getting younger?
On the flip side, I sit back and realize that Zach Duke’s name isn’t on my roster when we finally compete so it behoves Huntington to deal him for some youth while he still holds some value over contract. Huntington probably believes it’s best to wait out the first part of 2010 and see how things go before dealing him, but I think that’s a mistake.. we should have dealt him this winter at the latest. We’ll see what happens in the next 6 months.. a long-term contract or trade. Or nothing.
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Dotel inked. I went back and watched some film on him and walked away concerned that he tends to leave batters in the box too long, tends to be too repetitive in his pitch selection, and tends to throw upstairs too much.
For instance, reviewing PITCHf/x material on him shows he’s one of the few pitchers in the game who will almost always throw a fastball when behind in the count. Not 75% of the time, not 85% of the time, I’m talking like almost every single pitch. To his credit, he has enough movement on it that he doesn’t get hit hard which should play fine at PNC, but I wonder if that will be the case in some of the smaller NLCD parks? The same is true of pitching upstairs because we have some pretty solid hitters in this division who crush that pitch.
He’s a straight fastball-slider guy who tosses a occaisonal changeup to left hand hitters and curve to righties. The fact he has two more pitches than Capps says it all; throw in movement on his fastball and he’s going to be an exciting difference over Capps. But it all comes down to money.. at $3M I’ll love it, at $4M I’ll still be happy but he better not waver. At $5M I’ll be laughing like hell because this roster doesn’t deserve a $5M closer.
That is, unless David Roderick’s internal division theory is correct – internally some believe we have enough pitching to contend despite having a below average offensive machine.
Do we? I think we’re about to see when Dotel’s contract amount is revealed.
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I want you to know that I placed my “Neil Walker possibly being traded” source into the unreliable drawer today on the advice of someone who intimately knows the source. I’m sorry to have led you astray. As for any other place that has suggested a Walker trade, I’m 100% positive it didn’t come from my source so they either got the idea here, or have their own source.
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Doug Davis back with the Brewers, huh? What a strange addition.
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Some are wondering if the Pirates are getting serious about Ben Sheets? My answer would be no since we sent an amateur scout to watch him instead of a pro scout.
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thcBA, thcERA, and thcOPS are new sabermetric stats that were copyrighted today by Kief Ganja. Interestingly, when you see the ”+” sign behind one of them like “thcERA+” it doesn’t mean park or league adjusted – it means known user.
Confused? Then that’s probably a good thing. For those that know exactly where this is going, I assume you were the ones called by ABC News in their recent poll. You see, 81% of those contacted:
“.. support legalizing marijuana for medical use and nearly half favor decriminalizing the drug more generally, both far higher than a decade ago.”
Dude, like, at least I’ll be able to laugh watching my 90+ loss team year-after-year-after-year-after-year-after..
By Jake, on January 19, 2010, at 9:15 pm | 42 comments
An ex-NL scout handed me his projection today for Andrew McCutchen in 2010: .285/.360/.465 .. 35 stolen bases, 110 runs scored, and 20 home runs – all from the #1 hole. I thought it interesting that he thought 2011 would be the earliest Huntington would consider moving him down the order.
Wow – so much for the sophomore year jinx, huh?
Let me tell you if McCutchen busts out with production like that, some of those optimist comments I’ve seen like “this team might surprise you next year” will be spot-on if our pitching holds together.
A couple of more observations from him –
– he likes Jones bat speed and ability to adjust and thinks he’ll maintain solid numbers in 2010. He agreed with me that Jones seemed to be vulnerable to getting busted in belt-high and above and said he’ll have to come out of spring training having to handle that pitch or he could flounder. If he does handle it, 30 home runs are not out of the question he said. Amazing.
– like me, he likes Clement but doesn’t think he’ll respond with the bat until late season, if at all in 2010. He suggested that if Clement gets 550 AB in 2010, he’ll be an offensive force to recon with in 2011 likely as the Pirates everyday catcher (that surprised me) – “not enough power, not enough defense, to stay at first.” He thinks Huntington will hold off dealing Doumit until July as he’ll be more valuable to a contender then since questions about his wrist injury linger. I’m still hearing Doumit’s name as a potential trade, however;
– said Maholm could blossom to a #2 type starter (another shocker) and several teams are high on him. I asked when he thought Huntington would deal him and he responded that he thought Huntington would hold him to the end of his contract unless handed a must-trade opportunity;
– unlike me, he likes Ohlendorf as a #3/#4 starter and thinks Kerrigan is the right guy to help him adjust to the league. If he isn’t able to, he thinks May and on could be rough for Ohlendorf;
– not high on Morton, not high on Cedeno, likes Hart over McCutchen to start the year in the rotation, questions if Aki is truly healthy, said Duke was a solid MLB #4 starter, and not high on Moss.
His “wild guess” is 75 wins.
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Brandon Jones, huh? He’s a Braves draft-and-follow failure the scouts were always mixed on. Some thought his defense would be his saving grace, others thought his bat would come around. Now at 26, he’s a marginal prospect with a tick of upside and good makeup put on the wire with an option, so Huntington grabbed him. Obviously he’ll be assigned to 3A because he’s a notoriously slow starter and by the end of the year he’ll put up incredible numbers making Huntington’s 3A club — and Huntington – look good. If Jones ever finds more plate discipline and learns how to run better outfield routes, he might be a candidate for a 4th OF role in 2011, but don’t count on it.
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A charge of family abuse was dropped against Tyler Yates who was arrested and later bonded out. A quick review of the statute linked above suggests that Yates’ victim must have had some obvious injury for him to be arrested in the first place, although that’s speculation on my part. Since I don’t know what happened, I won’t guesstimate on Yates’ makeup and why Huntington didn’t know better before dealing for him.
Congratulations are in order to the Garden Island newspaper for publishing the facts. Also, kudos are in order to Mary Junck of, get this, Ogden, Iowa, the CEO of Lee Enterprises who owns the Garden Island newspaper, for her belief in the public’s right to know. I can only assume the Pirates and/or Ogden Newspapers attempted to squash any release of the Yates arrest which tended to devalue one of Nutting’s commodities, but I don’t know that for sure.
For the record, I never liked the Yates trade. If Todd Redmond was still around, he would most likely be our (raw) 5th starter in 2010.
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I had heard Neil Walker was out the door but tonight I’m hearing that there may be more than one club in on him now (personally, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up in San Diego). We’ll see since it will probably happen in the next 24 – 48 hours if it gets done.
