Jack Splat...Going, Going, Gone?

OK, we've known since last season that the Pirates have been floating Jack Wilson's name around MLB trade circles. There's even been some smoke wisping over his fire. What is the shortstop market now, and how does Jack Splat fit in?

Here's the guys on the market: Raphael Furcal (Dodgers), Orlando Cabrera (White Sox), Edgar Renteria (Tigers), Omar Vizquel (Giants), Juan Castro (Orioles), Juan Uribe (White Sox), Alex Cintron (Orioles), Alex Cora (Red Sox), Craig Counsell (Brewers), David Eckstein (Diamondbacks), Adam Everett (Twins), Jerry Hairston (Reds), Cesar Izturis (Cardinals), and Nick Punto (Twins).

You can add Julio Lugo (Red Sox) to the list; Boston would love to unload his remaining 2 years and $18M obligation and let Jed Lowrie play everyday. Khalil Greene (Padres), JJ Hardy (Brewers), Yunel Escobar (Braves) and Brent Lillibridge (Braves) are also said to be on the market, but their price tags will probably prove prohibitive.

Here's the teams that are looking: Los Angeles, Detroit, Baltimore, Toronto, St. Louis, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Oakland, Minnesota, and San Diego.

LA and Detroit want short-term help; both have hotties (Ivan DeJesus Jr., Chin-Lung Hu & Angel Berroa in Los Angeles, Cale Iorg and Danny Worth in Motown) in their system that should be ready to join the fray in 2010-11. Cincy is in the same boat, but they have Alex Gonzalez and Jeff Keppinger coming back, so they're not looking to add much but insurance.

Toronto's looking for a stick. The Giants, Twins, O's and Cards are empty in the hole, while the A's are looking for an upgrade over Bobby Crosby. The Padres are hoping to dump Khalil Greene's salary, but it looks like they may just end up keeping him.

There's a lot of SS's out there, but except for Furcal, Renteria and Cabrera, the guys are ham-and-eggers or senior citizens.

The hot stove gossip has Furcal going to Oakland or maybe SF, and his signing will start the rush. The Giants, Twins, and Cards are rumored to be tied into either/or Renteria and Cabrera, so that leaves the Pirates with a handful of suitors for Wilson.

Detroit and LA would top the list. Both are looking for a good glove guy with a set price tag and no long commitments to block their up-and-comers. That's Jack Splat to a tee.

The Tiger's needs dovetail neatly into the Buc's strengths. Besides needing a shortstop, they're looking for a catcher and bullpen arm. The Pirates do have five backstops stashed on the 40-man, and Tyler Yates and John Grabow are both reputedly of interest to Motown's decision makers.

It seems the Tigers aren't too enamored with Ronny Paulino, or otherwise the Matt Treanor rumors wouldn't have popped up. Now there's been some whispers that they might up the ante and try to land Ryan Doumit, changing a relatively minor deal into a blockbuster.

Detroit would have to put some combination of SS Danny Worth, RHP's Rick Porcello, Cody Satterwhite, or Zach Miner into play, we'd assume, and maybe one of their highly touted first base prospects, Jeff Larish or Ryan Streibly.

Jack Splat is Jimmy Leyland's kinda down and dirty player, and they did offer Jair Jurrjens for him last year. Still, GW thinks it's more likely that Wilson will end up in Motown with either Paulino or a reliever for Worth and another prospect. But it could get interesting.

Wilson, though, isn't the only guy on their radar. The Tigers just ended contract-swap talks with Boston about Lugo, and the Motown papers report that they're looking at veteran stop-gaps at a minimal wage, like Alex Cora.

LA is another possible landing spot, but owner Frank McCourt has been making noises about cutting payroll, and quite frankly, we don't consider Hu to be superior to Brian Bixler.

Now what Neal Huntington thinks may be another matter entirely, but our take is that Pittsburgh wants a high-level return above Hu and extra OFer Delwyn Young, who look more like throw-ins than centerpieces, and that will make or break any potential deal.

Saint Louis is next in line if they're left out in the cold when the Big Three sign. They have a couple of young shortstops in the system, AA Jose Martinez and high A Peter Kozma, though the Pirates would probably look at some StL minor-league pitching first if they talk turkey with the Redbirds.

San Francisco and the Twin Cities have shown no love for Wilson at all so far, and Baltimore is talking to our our ol' bud, Cesar Izturis. But if they're interested, well, it's a tough match. Their minors are slowly rebuilding, but by and large their better prospects are still in the lower levels of the organization, with some nice OF/1B bats.

The Pirates would likely want some upper level players for a deal to click, though they may be tempted by a couple of young thunder sticks, something that's sorely lacking in the Pittsburgh organization.

The market has played out in the Pirates favor this year. There's a lot of demand and not much talent, so Wilson's injury plagued year may not devalue him as much as feared. It does look like the iron's hot, and the market's dominoes will fall into place once Furcal signs. We'll be surprised if Jack Splat lasts through the winter meetings.

So hey, there's the grist for today's rumor mill. Caveat emptor!

Friday Pre Game Notes

Dirt Dog Doug is back with the team, and the Steve Pearce (.218, 0, 7) era has ended, at least until September, as he went back to Indy today. Gorzo isn't, as widely speculated, pitching tonight, but he will take the hill tomorrow. We'll see how Zach Duke does under the gun.

>Matt Capps should rejoin the Pirates today in Milwaukee and be activated from the DL on Saturday. The much-anticipated bullpen meltdown after his injury and the later departure of Damaso Marte didn't happen, though, thanks to a DFA deal and a couple of guys thriving under game-on-the-line pressure.

Five different pitchers recorded saves after Capps went down. Before he was hurt, the Pirates relievers had a 4.64 ERA. Since July 2, when Capps went on the DL, the bullpen has posted a 3.83 ERA.

Sean Burnett, TJ Beam, and Denny Bautista (thank you, Tigers) stepped up to fill the gap, along with the lone remaining late inning guy, John Grabow. And the starting pitchers getting on the far side of the sixth inning helped the cause, too.

It looks like one of the team's biggest question marks heading into 2008 should be a squad strength in 2009. Every cloud...

> The Pirates will have to move two guys back to Indy tomorrow when Gorzo and Capps rejoin the roster. Our guess is that it'll be Romulo Sanchez and Jason Davis, although Nyjer Morgan could go, too.

> Nate McLouth is still under the weather - Morgan will make another start in center tonight. He has an unidentified virus, and may be out for a while longer.

>Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors writes on Jack Splat:

Pirates GM Neal Huntington was diplomatic when asked about Jack Wilson's future with the Pirates. But it seems pretty clear the 30 year-old shortstop will be shopped this winter.

Wilson makes a fine trade chip for the Bucs, especially given the free agent market for shortstops. Orlando Cabrera may require three or four years, and he'll be 34 in November. Rafael Furcal wants to stay with the Dodgers. All the other free agents are question marks. Teams such as the Blue Jays, Tigers, Twins, Reds, Cardinals, and Giants may be looking for a shortstop. The Jays would probably only enter the mix for Wilson if J.P. Ricciardi is fired.

Wilson will earn $7.25MM in '09 and may see his $8.4MM option for '10 exercised. He can block trades to six teams. He's hitting .279/.322/.355 this year in 288 plate appearances, down from last year but near his career marks. His defense is highly regarded.

And you wonder why, as Dejan reported today, Jack Splat is feeling the heat.

> The Oakland A's, according to ESPN's Buster Olney, had a chance to make a big splash before the trade deadline with a swap for Jason Bay. Pittsburgh wanted a package that included RHP Vin Mazzaro, the 21-year-old who went 12-3 with a 1.90 ERA in Double-A this year, and Oakland wouldn't part with him.

> The Padre's Jody Gerut has emerged as a candidate for comeback player of the year, according to MLB.com:

Gerut, 30, did not play in the majors in 2006 or '07 while recovering from a series of surgeries on his right knee. But in 328 plate appearances with the Padres, his batting/on-base/slugging line is .299-.357-.492, and general manager Kevin Towers says Gerut is playing above-average in center field.

"If there's a bright spot on our club this year, it's that Jody Gerut's back," Towers says. "We'll be very comfortable if he is our center fielder next year."

The Padres signed Gerut as a minor-league free agent last winter after he batted .390 in the Venezuelan winter league.

On July 31, 2005, the Pittsburgh Pirates got him and cash from the Cubs for Matt Lawton. Gerut batted 18 times for the Bucs before his knee, and seemingly his career, folded. They released him in March of 2007 after nearly two years of inactivity, and never seemed convinced that his injury was as bad as it apparently was.

Jack Splat versus the field

Jumpin' Jack Wilson from Wikipedia

We took a look at Gene Alley yesterday, and as we were tossing the BS around while gulping down the morning's first coffee at work, my hot stove buds debated how Jack Wilson would stack up against the other tenured Pirate shortstops. So we put together what we considered the top half dozen shortstops to wear the Buc uniform. They spent 63 years and 8,380 games representing this town. Here's a chart we came up with of some selected stats to see how these long time Bucco SS's compared:

             all
player  yrs games avg  obp rs rbi rp field l-avg dp

Wagner  18  2433 .328 .387 88 82  165 .946  +13  49
Vaughan 10  1411 .324 .409 94 76  162 .950   +2  79
Groat    9  1258 .290 .325 62 50  109 .962   +1  97
Alley   11  1195 .254 .310 40 31   65 .970   +6  64
Bell     8  1106 .269 .339 78 53  121 .976   +1  79
Wilson   7   997 .269 .312 65 48  105 .977   +4 102

(The stats are for years as a Pirate, broken down to season average. rp is runs produced = rs+rbi-hr. l-avg is how many percentage points above the league average the player fielded over his career. The fielding stats are for SS only. We didn't show home runs because of the different eras involved, but Jay Bell was the group's top slugger, averaging 10 dingers/year. No A-Rods in this bunch.)

So what's it tell us? Well, we can start with the obvious - Honus Wagner and Arky Vaughan were head and shoulders above the crowd when it came to hitting a baseball. Jay Bell was a pretty good run producer, and in fact fares better overall than we thought he might. Dick Groat was a good stick, but his run production wasn't that great.

The fielding was a surprise, though. The later the era, the better the fielding percentage, with Jack Wilson being the top gloveman and Wagner the worst. That probably has quite a bit to do with the conditions of the fields they played on, and in Wagner's case, the quality of second basemen he played with - he's also dead last in DP's, and it takes two to turn one.

To normalize that, we took the league average and compared it to the individual fielding percentage (l-avg comparison). When we compare apples to apples, Wagner vaults from dead last in fielding to first, finishing his career a whopping 13 points higher in fielding percentage than the league average during his years.

Wagner and Alley also have somewhat deceiving stats because they played for Pittsburgh as their baseball days wound down while everyone else was in their prime as a Pirate. So their numbers may be a bit devalued overall.

To make a long analysis short, we totaled the obp, rp, l-avg fielding comparison and dp's, 1 point for the best, 6 points for the worst. Hopefully this simple formula gives equal weight to glove and bat. Like golf, the lowest score wins. The best of the Bucco's shortstops according to the Green Weenie are *tada*:

Honus Wagner (9)
Arky Vaughan (10)
Jay Bell & Jack Wilson (14)
Dick Groat (15)
Gene Alley (17)

No matter how you slice it, Wagner and Vaughan are the best we've ever had at short. But Bell, Wilson and Groat are so tightly bunched that you can't separate them with a gnat's eyelash. Alley's glove was one of the Buc's better ones, but his bat drops him down to the bottom of the heap.

And to answer the original question, Wilson more than holds his own in some pretty fast company.

Of course, we'd be remiss if we didn't throw one Jumping Jack Flash factoid into the post. When he was a teenager and playing on a summer travel team, Wilson's roommate was his future Pirates teammate Freddy Sanchez. Sanchez played shortstop while Wilson manned second base. Funny how the more things change, the more they say the same. It just took a couple of decades to get them back together and in their right positions.