11/11 From 1950: Expansion Draft; Torres, Mesa, Martin Signed; HBD Grilled Cheese, Kyle, JR, Roberto, Rey, Bob & Scott

• 1954 - RHP Bob Long was born in Jasper, Tennessee. Bob didn’t have much of a big league career, but he still did pretty well for himself as a 24th round draft pick in 1976 by working 12 pro seasons. He got a brief look with the Bucs in 1981 with a 1-2/5.95 line in five outings (three starts) and then had a solid season at Seattle in 1985, appearing in 28 games and posting a 3.76 ERA. He couldn’t break the AAA barrier after that and pitched through the 1987 campaign before retiring from active duty. 

Bob Long & company - 1982 Topps Future Stars

• 1956 - OF Scott Loucks was born in Anchorage, Alaska. Loucks finished his five-year, 73-game MLB career in Pittsburgh, going 2-for-7 with two walks in four 1985 contests after being signed as a free agent from the Houston organization. He spent most of the year at AAA Hawaii, the last of his nine minor league campaigns, and retired at age 28. 
• 1963 - SS Rey Quinones was born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Rey got parts of four MLB seasons under his belt, closing it out in 1989 with the Pirates, hitting .209 in 71 games. The Pirates got him & Bill Wilkinson from Seattle in late April for Mike Dunne, Mike Walker, and Mark Merchant. Quinones was released in July; no one in the deal ever made much noise in the show. 
• 1964 - RHP Roberto Hernandez was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He tossed for 17 seasons and appeared in over 1,000 games. He made a 2006 pit stop in the Steel City as an FA in his next-to-last campaign and was pretty strong for a 42-year-old, going 0-3-2/2.93 in 46 outings. The Bucs flipped him to the Mets at the deadline with Ollie Perez to pick up Xavier Nady. 
• 1976 - RHP Jason Grilli was born in Royal Oak, Michigan. After signing with Pittsburgh as a minor league FA in 2011 out of the Phil’s system, the vet known as “Grilled Cheese” reinvented himself as a back-end reliever, serving as Joel Hanrahan’s set-up man before taking the closer reins in 2013 and winning an All-Star berth. In 2014, he was sent to Angels after putting up a 3-11-47 record during his stint with the Bucs with a 3.01 ERA and 12.4 K per nine innings. He’s since been with Atlanta, Toronto & Texas, and sat out 2018. His moniker is based on his name, a fondness for the sandwiches and probably a little bit because of his favorite pitch, the cheese (a fastball). At any rate, he's adopted the persona well with his twitter handle of @grilledcheese49, a ballpark grilled cheese sandwich named "The Closer" and several community/fun events built around the gooey snack. 
• 1979 - C JR (James Rodger) House was born in Charleston, West Virginia. A fifth round pick from Seabreeze HS in 1999, JR was in the Bucco system for six years, catching three games from 2003-04 and going 2-for-10. He went on to play in Houston and Baltimore, was a minor-league manager/coordinator for Arizona and is now the Reds' third-base coach. 

Kyle McPherson - 2013 Topps

• 1987 - RHP Kyle McPherson was born in Creola, Alabama. Kyle, who was a 14th-round draft pick in 2007, was the Pirates Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2011, and made his MLB debut in 2012, going 0-2 but with a solid 2.73 ERA and 1.177 WHIP. He underwent TJ surgery the following season and never regained his form, being released by the Pirates after the 2014 season and by Tampa Bay in 2016.  
• 1991 - OF Al Martin was signed as a minor-league free agent after serving six years in the Atlanta system. He was called up from AAA Buffalo for a cup of coffee in 1992 and remained a Bucco through the 1999 season, batting .280 mainly as a left fielder during that time. Martin played for three more years for San Diego, Seattle and Tampa Bay before spending a season in Korea and calling it quits. 
• 1997 - The Pirates announced their 15-man protected list for the following week’s expansion draft by Tampa Bay and Arizona. The players taken off the board were P’s Francisco Cordova, Jon Lieber, Esteban Loaiza, Rich Loiselle, Ricardo Rincon, Jason Schmidt, Jose Silva & Jeff Wallace; C Jason Kendall; OFs Jose Guillen, Al Martin; IF Abraham Nunez, Tony Womack, Ron Wright & Kevin Young. The Bucs risked Joe Randa, Lou Collier & Marc Wilkins and a bevy of young outfielders. They did lose Randa and P Clint Sodowsky to the D-Backs along with P Jason Johnson to the Devil Rays. 
• 2004 - The Bucs came to terms with RHP Salomon Torres on a two-year deal worth $2.625M. Salomon tossed 172 games in those two campaigns, slashing 8-11-15/3.02 in 188 innings of work. The Pirates then got one more year out of Torres before they flipped him to Milwaukee after the 2007 season for pitchers Jose Ascanio and Kevin Hart. Jose Mesa was also getting his physical; he later signed a two-year deal worth $6M ($2M in ‘05, $4M on a club option for ‘06). He tossed in 2005 and the Pirates bought out his 2006 option for $500K. In FO action, Ass’t GM Roy Smith, who had been with Pittsburgh for 11 seasons and was in charge of scouting/player development, switched coasts and joined the Dodgers.