- 1869 - LF Jack McCarthy was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts. McCarthy started for the Pirates in 1898-99, and hit a robust .298. But the Pirates landed Fred Clarke, also a LF, when they absorbed the old Louisville team and sold McCarthy to the Chicago Orphans. He played until 1907 and had a lifetime .287 BA.
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| Jack McCarthy - 1904 Chicago Daily News photo |
- 1940 - After being released by the Pirates‚ Chuck Klein signed up for his third go-around with the Phils. Klein was a Hall-of-Fame OF who hit 300 homers, helped greatly by the Philadelphia Baker Bowl’s short porch. He played 85 games for Pittsburgh, hitting .300 with 11 HR, but was released at age 34 and became a bench player for Philly through the war years.
- 1988 - C Mackey Sasser and RHP Tim Drummond were traded to the NY Mets for minor leaguer Scott Henion and 1B Randy Milligan. Milligan hit .220 for the Bucs before having some solid seasons at Baltimore while Sasser caught the next six seasons for the Mets, batting .286 for NY.
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| Mackey Sasser 1988 Score series |
- 2003 - The Pirates released RHP Matt Herges, for whom they had traded RHP Chris Young to the Padres in December. SD reclaimed Herges on April 1st, keeping their reliever and getting a young front line pitcher for free from Pittsburgh’s GM Dave Littlefield.
- 2008 - The Pirates traded minor league RHP Todd Redmond to the Atlanta Braves for reliever Tyler Yates. Fastballer Yates went 6-5 in two seasons with Pirates, pitching to a 5.08 ERA before arm surgery derailed his career. Redmond finally got a shot at Toronto in 2013, and was effective in 2014 after being converted to the pen.
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| Tyler Yates - 2011 Getty Images photo |
I always liked Redmond as an "all-he-does-is-win" and chew up innings kinda guy. The quintessential back of the rotation starter. I;m a bit surprised that he's now become a reliever, but note that he is still in the big leagues. I guess you can't fault the front office for wanting the harder-throwing guy, but velocity isn't all there is to pitching, either.
ReplyDeleteYah, you have him pegged right, Will. I can understand NH's move tho; the Pirates he inherited featured a whole lot of soft tossers.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I get that, too, but it seems to me that not many of the "raw stuff" guys he has drafted or acquired in trades have done much of anything in the majors. Gerrit Cole and, I suppose, Joel Hanrahan are about the zenith of that approach. Both good pitchers, sure, but how many Stolmy Pimentel clones have we seen in the meantime? Too many, I think.
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