Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Awards, Pirate Notes

Notes 'n' stuff...

  • Gerrit Cole made Baseball America's All-Rookie team.
  • Clint Hurdle is The Sporting News’ 2013 NL Manager of the Year.
  • Francisco Liriano was TSN NL Comeback Player of the Year. David Manel of Bucs Dugout has no issue with that selection, but uses WAR to determine who should really get the honor.
  • Jim Benedict, a special assistant with the Bucs, is being interviewed by the Phillies for their pitching coach job. He's known as the Bucs' back room pitching mechanic, so maybe the Pirate ways are beginning to get noticed by other teams around the league.
  • Frank Coonelly and a staffer accepted a City Council Proclamation sponsored by Corey O'Connor that recognized the achievements of this year’s Pirates team and declared Tuesday, October 22nd to be “Pittsburgh Pirates Day” in Pittsburgh.
  • Justin Morneau may not be on the Buc radar, but he's on Colorado's, writes Troy Renck of the Denver Post.
  • Brian Zarpentine of Rant Sports posts that the Mets are still trying to figure out what they have with RHP Vic Black, part of the Marlon Byrd return.
  • Jim Leyland hung 'em up Monday; baseball won't quite be the same without that leathery visage sneaking a smoke on the bench and scorching baby Bonds' ears.
  • The Reds hired pitching coach Bryan Price to replace Dusty Baker. He'll get a little further out of the box than the old-school Baker. Price was pushing to get Aroldis Chapman out of the pen and into the rotation.
  • About time. Buster Olney of ESPN reports that MLB is getting ready to ban plate collisions. They should have done in 1970 when Pete Rose steamrollered Ray Fosse out of a career during the All-Star game for no discernible reason other than product branding.

2 comments:

Portman said...

How many careers does Pete et al have to ruin before MLB catches on? If you collide trying to actually get to the base, that's one thing. If you hit the catcher hoping he'll drop the ball that's another.

Ron Ieraci said...

Portman - never could figure out how the neighborhood play at second and the collision at home were covered by the same rule, lol. It just makes sense to protect the players from preventable injuries, just as the other sports are doing.

Catchers wear the biggest target even without the risk of getting clocked on plays where the runner had no business even taking a turn. I'm old school most ways, but while the crash at the plate may be good drama, it's not good baseball.