11/20 From 1986: JR's Staff; Roster Redd Up; Tanner's Travels; Creech Hired; HBD Redstone Rocket

• 1987 - LHP Jeff Locke was born in North Conway, New Hampshire. He joined the Bucs in 2009 as part of Nate McLouth’s trade, and the Redstone Rocket (nicknamed by a local paper, Redstone is his home 'hood, Jeff had a mean HS fastball, and that was added to the association of NASA’s moon-launch from a Redstone Rocket) made his MLB debut in 2011, joining the rotation full time in 2013 and earning an All-Star berth. He was DFA’ed in 2016, tossed for Miami, sat out nearly two seasons after a shoulder injury and never returned to MLB. 
• 1995 - The Pirates lost OF Micah Franklin and reliever Jeff McCurry to the Tigers via waiver claims and DFA’ed pitchers Rick White, Dennis Konuszewski and Gary Wilson to AAA Calgary. They added C Jason Kendall, OF’s Jermaine Allenworth, Trey Beamon and Charles Peterson to the 40-man. Later, they re-signed White, but he had arm surgery and missed the year. As it ended up, Kendall was the only true keeper; he debuted in April, got into 130 games and batted .300. 
• 1996 - The Bucs made a flurry of moves to set their 40-man roster. They added nine guys: OFs Adrian Brown, Jose Guillen & TJ Staton; IFs Jeff Cromer & Lou Collier and Ps Kane Davis, John Dillinger, Jeff Kelly & Jose Pett, none of whom ever stood out for Pittsburgh although Guillen would later blossom. There was also some addition by subtraction: IF Nelson Liriano was taken by the Dodgers (which had also snagged John Wehner a month earlier) and P Marc Pisciotta, who was lost to the Cubs after being waived. Also in the air: rumors were flying that Jeff King and Jay Bell were being dangled (the Indians and O’s were early frontrunners), and though the teams involved were off, the rumors weren’t as they were both dealt to KC in December. 

Jose Guillen - 199 Sky Box Premium

• 2001 - The Pirates hired Ed Creech away from the Dodgers (he also worked for the Expos and Cards) and made him their new scouting director, taking over for Mickey White. He held that role until October of 2007, when the Pirates under Neil Huntington began to make their housekeeping changes (he was replaced by Greg Smith) and Ed moved on to the Giants. 
• 2003 - Pittsburgh added pitchers Sean Burnett, Mike Johnston, John Van Benschoten and Ian Oquendo (Ian Snell), their minor league Pitcher of the Year, to their 40-man roster after losing pitchers Duaner Sanchez and Matt Guerrier, along w/OF Walter Young, on waivers. The shuffling left the roster at 37 players.
• 2007 - Newly hired manager John Russell started to put together his staff, naming Tony Beasley third base coach, Gary Varsho bench coach and Luis Dorante bullpen coach. He later added Jeff Andrews as pitching coach, Don Long as batting coach and Lou Frazier as the first base coach to complete his first staff. 
• 2018 - The Pirates sent RHP Tanner Anderson to Oakland for a PTBNL (RHP Wilkin Ramos). Anderson, 25, was a Harvard grad and had a six-game audition with the Pirates in 2018, going 1-0/6.35, with solid farm stats and a 60% ground ball rate. He was considered a potential mid-inning arm for the pen, but was caught in a 40-man roster churn and moved to the A’s. He didn’t impress in Oakland and was DFA’ed in late 2019; he pitched some indie ball in 2020 and returned to the A’s system in ‘21. He then rejoined the Pittsburgh fold briefly before being DFA’ed at the end of the year. Ramos was a teen lotto ticket, having pitched in the Dominican but not yet stateside. He tossed very little in 2019, trying to work through a bum elbow, was a non-camp minor leaguer in 2020 and saw action in the Rookie GCL in ‘21 as a 20-year-old.

Oneil Cruz - 2019 Topps Pro Debut

• 2019 - The Pirates added 3B Ke'Bryan Hayes, SS Oneil Cruz, 1B/OF Will Craig, and RHP's Blake Cederlind & Cody Ponce to the 40-man roster. They DFA'ed pitchers Dario Agrazal, Montana DuRapau, Luis Escobar and Williams Jerez to reach the 40-man limit. There was a lot of churn; the Pirates had eight players on the 60-day IL to restore (RHP Chris Archer, RHP Nick Burdi, RHP Kyle Crick, RHP Chad Kuhl, OF Jason Martin, OF Gregory Polanco, RHP Edgar Santana, RHP Jameson Taillon), and so prior to these moves, they let LHP Frankie Liriano, OF Melky Cabrera & OF/3B Lonnie Chisenhall walk, outrighted RHP James Marvel, RHP Alex McRae, RHP Yefry Ramirez, LHP Wei-Chung Wang, C Steven Baron, IF/OF Jake Elmore, IF Corban Joseph and sold RHP Parker Markel to the Angels.