-- Tomorrow's lineup against the Manatee College nine for the Bucs' traditional spring kick-off exhibition at Bradenton: 2B Corey Wimberly, SS Chase d’Arnaud, 1B Steve Pearce, LF John Bowker, DH Josh Fields, 3B Andy Marte, RF Andrew Lambo, CF Gorkys Hernandez, and C Wyatt Toregas.
-- Saturday's pitchers for the Grapefruit League opener: Charlie Morton and Brad Lincoln will get two innings apiece, then Chris Resop, Daniel Moskos, Daniel McCutchen, Justin Thomas and Cesar Valdez will each work a frame.
-- Steve Pearce continues to reinvent himself, ala Neil Walker. He's taken some balls in the outfield, and yesterday he played some third base, a position he last played in college.
-- Baseball America rated Pittsburgh's draft class of 1997 as the eleventh best since BA has started picking Top 100 Prospects back in 1989, led by Kris Benson, Jose Guillen and Aramis Ramirez.
-- JJ Cooper and Jim Callis had a Top 100 Prospect chat on BA. They defended Jameson Taillon's high selection (#11), consider Stetson Allie a starter until proven otherwise, and say that a hard slotting system in the draft works against the small-revenue KC's and Pittsburgh's of the baseball world by taking away the one marketplace they can compete in.
-- Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated tweeted that the Pirates offered Carl Pavano 2 years and $13M; the Yankees offered him 1 year at $9.75M. He later re-signed with the Twins for two years/$16.5M and has already been named the Twins' Opening Day starter.
Minnesota felt like they got a bargain; they thought he'd get 2-3 years at $10-11M per pop. It does kinda make one wonder about the Pirates' determination of "value."
-- Matt Stairs, who played for Pittsburgh in 2003, is tied for the most franchises played for (with Mike Morgan and Ron Villone), suiting up for eleven different teams in 18 seasons. He's got a minor league deal with the Nats this year; if he wins a bench spot with them, he'll become the new leader with an even dozen clubs.
2 comments:
Ya gotta love Matt Stairs. I'm quite certain he'll move immediately to the local softball league the moment he is no longer employed by any major league organization. He carved out quite a respectable career for himself. I'm glad part of it was with the Pirates.
So, I guess we now know who we're going into battle with, eh? Pavano would have been a nice addition for two years, though not for three. If he is healthy, the money he got from the Twins is not totally insane by baseball's "standards", but it was still more than I would have wanted the Pirates to pay him. If they were going to go $8 - $10 million per on anyone, I would rather have seen them throw that money at a younger guy like Jorge de la Rosa. But yes, it does seem like the Pirates rarely make the right call when it comes to current major league talent. Either they overpay for faded vets or they get cheap with younger guy who would be better risks or they don't do their due diligence and end up trading for players who are already hurt, etc, etc, etc. That's why I say to the Neal Huntington Apologists, "It's good that he's loaded up the minors and all, but there's more to a good GM's job description than 'farm director'".
lol, Will, I'm sure that's where Stairs will end up - and lovin' it, too!
As far as the FO, the have shown a talent for building a minor league system. The question is whether that ability will ever translate into a competitive MLB product. The time is fast approaching for us to find out.
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