-- Jeff Karstens takes on Chris Narveson at 4:10 PM. Root Sports will televise the game.
-- The lineup: Andrew McCutchen CF, Jose Tabata LF, Neil Walker 2B, Ryan Doumit C, Matt Diaz RF, Lyle Overbay 1B, Pedro Alvarez 3B, Ronny Cedeno SS, Jeff Karstens P.
We're glad to see Dewey in the lineup. If the elephant-memoried Brewers act up against Karstens, old-school Doumit is the perfect man to have behind the dish. And he's batting clean up, yet - not many four hitters are platoon guys.
He's been working out OK in his split-time role; the break between starts seems to be keeping him fresh. If Dewey keeps on keepin' on, we're wondering if the Pirates, who are certain not to exercise their option on him (2 years, $15.5M), will try to work out a new deal for Doumit to stay in town past 2011.
-- Ohlie's back after a short setback in his rehab; he threw 25 pitches on flat ground yesterday.
-- Justin Wilson is quietly working on becoming the top starting prospect at Indy. He's 3-3 with a 2.36 ERA in 42 innings of work. The lefty's only red flag is his 30/19 K-to-W ratio. But even with that touch of wildness, he has a solid 1.190 WHIP. He's projected as a middle of the rotation guy when he reaches the bigs.
-- 19 year-old Jameson Taillon pitched last night, going four frames and allowing one run on four hits with a walk and three Ks. He has 1.80 ERA in four starts for West Virginia, with 14 whiffs in 15 innings of work.
I'm not surprised by Wilson's success. We've talked about him before, and he is, to my mind, the best prospect and likely to be the best major leaguer among the team's top 4 current minor league starters, ie, Wilson, Morris, Owens, and Locke. Locke, for me, is a notch below the other three and has a lot to prove, though he did---amazingly---lead all minor league pitchers in the Pirates' organization last year in strikeouts.
ReplyDeleteMorris is still probably the one with the highest ceiling, and he does have the best stuff. But he's already had Tommy John surgery and he's also a noted knucklehead. Owens, meanwhile, seems to have come unglued this year at Indianapolis. Ideally you'd like to see at least two of these four become better than average major league starting pitchers no later than 2013, but you'll note that that would still leave the Pirates short a couple of starter in their big league rotation. Believe it or not, after all the drafting and all the emphasis on developing their own talent, this organization is STILL short on pitching. Which brings us back, once more, to the truckload of prep arms the current regime seems to favor, as well as, perhaps, a college pitcher in this year's draft.
Seems to me, though, that the fate of the current prep arms will determine the fate of the current regime and of its "rebuild".
Yah, Will, we've discussed the overload of prep arms. Wilson shows that college guys can become contributors in a quicker, more predictable time frame. To emphasize the point, he's the only Pirate pitcher drafted by the current FO starting at Indy.
ReplyDeleteChase d'Arnaud and Matt Hague are the only Huntington drafted players on the Tribe roster, and they were both college guys. (And of course Pedro on the big club.)
I agree with you absolutely that college guys should be in the mix. Wait until all those prep players need to be protected. That's another consideration that I think the suits haven't really thought through.