Baseball!

Gosh, I love Spring Training. Even though Chris Aguila is batting cleanup. Even though the Reds announcers are unbearable homers and MLB.com can't find the Pirates feed. It's baseball.

Fun things from today's game:

Bot 1st

Andrew McCutchen takes Eric Milton deep, three pitches into the inning. I know, I know. Anyone can take Eric Milton deep, but Andrew McCutchen is younger than me. I feel like I could go deep against Milton.

The Reds announcers are idiots. "Eric Milton needs to have a huge bounce-back season if the Reds are going to contend for the playoffs."

Uh, guys. Eric Milton was NEVER good. What is he going to bounce back to? That single-season low ERA of 4.32? "Only" serving up 30 long balls? Your team made a stupid fucking move to give this guy all that money. Live with it.


Top 2nd

Big Donkey blasts a round tripper against Zach Duke. I'm not worried, since Dejan published some pretty comforting stats in the P-G this morning:

The statistics back Duke's case about fluky hits: He gave up 0.71 home runs per nine innings, third-lowest in the league and a clear sign that he was not getting hit hard. He also saw 33.6 percent of the balls put in play against him result in hits, seventh-highest in Major League Baseball.

Bot 2nd

Luis Matos' turn to touch 'em all against Milton. According to the Reds announcers, both of the Pirates' home runs were wind-aided cheap shots. Yeah, keep making excuses for Eric Milton. Poor guy is just a victim of sheer bad luck. He only gives up 35 home runs a season because God hates him.

McCutchen doubles with two outs. He's 2-for-2. I am getting really, really excited about this kid.


Top 3rd

I finally managed to get the Pirates feed, thank God. Lanny and Steve Blass are talking about colonoscopies, which isn't entirely surprising in itself given some of the things I've heard over the airwaves over the past decade or so. I'd still rather hear about colonoscopies than unceasing drivel about how Edwin Encarnacion is the second coming.


Bot 3rd

Paul Wilson comeback sighting!

Man, remember "Generation K?"


Where is Bill Pulsipher these days, anyway

Top 4th

Ah, the Josh Hamilton saga. He's a Rule V pick, so he has to stick, or he might just be done with baseball, period. Should be interesting. It'll be especially interesting if he does make it, to see what the over/under is for the date of his first cocaine binge.

Bot 4th

Luis Matos hits his second home run of the afternoon. He's got a serious shot to make the team as our right-handed backup outfielder. I wouldn't really mind, as long as the Pirates aren't also wasting a roster spot on a backup catcher who can't do anything. There are worse 5th outfielders than Matos. He can pick it a little bit in center, and he wasn't a terrible hitter when healthy.


Top 5th

Salomon Torres is making his first of what probably will be 25 appearances this spring. Historically, Sal has tended to pitch better later in the season. The more tired his arm gets, the more his splitter dives, and the more unhittable he becomes. Since some geniuses decided it would be a good idea to make Sal a closer, it's pretty imperative that his arm gets tired sooner rather than later. If he's closing, he'll also be pitching far less often than the 94 appearances he made last season. So the plan is to just work the hell out of him in March, and hope he's ready for the real thing.


Bot 5th

Why is Jose Hernandez still in this baseball game? Steve Blass is ragging on Josh Hamilton's arm. Good stuff.


Top 6th

Hooray, John Wehner makes his triumphant arrival in the booth.


Few things bring me such unbridled joy as hearing this man's voice, in all its yinzer glory.

Jim Tracy has replaced stepson Jose Hernandez at first base with son-in-law Mike Edwards. Ugh.


Bot 6th

Yes, Eddy Garabito sighting. The Pirates have a nice little clusterfuck at the middle infield position between AA and AAA. The problem is, only one of them, Brian Bixler is actually a prospect, and he'll probably be the regular shortstop in Indianapolis. Then there's Pittsburgh native and Neil Walker's brother-in-law Don Kelly, Canadian Nick Green, Javier Guzman, who was recently fired as a prospect (by way of removal from the 40-man roster), Garabito, and probably some other guys I'm forgetting. If Garabito winds up as a starter in Altoona, I would enjoy that immensely.

Top 7th

Allan Simpson is pitching for the Pirates. Allan Simpson had lupus. That's about all I know about him.

Josh Hamilton takes him deep. That's eight total home runs on the afternoon, the announcers haven't been exaggerating about the wind apparently.

Bot 7th

Rheal Cormier, Major League Baseball's resident French Canadian, is on to pitch for the Reds.

Neil Walker apparently has been playing third base for the last couple of innings, but I haven't really been paying attention to see whether he's gotten any opportunities in the field. Michael Ryan is in the game too, and it's struck me how many Western Pennsylvanians are in camp. Walker, Ryan, Don Kelly, Josh Sharpless. Let's bring back Mike Gulan.

Vic Buttler gets an at-bat. He's sort of been lost in the Creechling shuffle.


Top 8th

I just learned that the Pirates signed Randy Ruiz to a minor league contract. This is a guy who was busted for steroids last season, and claimed it was because he was on Viagra. But whatever, man can rake at the AA level. His presence in Altoona will make going to those games a whole lot more fun.

Rraaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

Bot 8th

Ho ho, Greg Brown just made a funny (probably unintentionally) about Javier Guzman's status as a prospect. "Javier Guzman...still a prospect in the Pirates organization...?" he says, raising his voice at the end as if it's a question. The sooner they get rid of him, the better. We need to be completely rid of that disgraceful Craig Stansberry/Guzman era.

Sweet, Yurendell de Caster is still hanging around the Pirates system. Last I'd heard, the team released him this winter and were considering resigning him, but I didn't know that we actually had.

Top 9th

Man, the news just keeps rolling in. Apparently Mark Corey is back in the Pirates camp. This instinctively reminds me of the time I was shouting "BLUNTMAN!" at a Pirates game that Corey was pitching in, and some 8-year-old kid decided to follow suit.

But Kevin Gryboski is pitching now, and he has a pretty impressive strikeout to walk ratio in the Major Leagues. He's walked 105 guys and struck out 103. That's Chacon-esque right there.

Bot 9th

Well, it's taken eight and a half innings, but this game has finally seen someone that I have honestly never heard of before. Some guy named Brad Salmon is pitching for the Reds now.

Greg Brown is such a dork. "WELL THE PIRATES COULD REALLY USE A LEFTY SLUGGER OFF THE BENCH I THINK MICHAEL RYAN FITS THAT PROFILE AND IT WOULD BE AN AWESOME STORY BECAUSE HE'S FROM THE PITTSBURGH AREA AND ALL."

The situation right now: Michael Ryan at third, Mike Edwards at second, Humberto Cota at first. Vic Buttler at the plate. Yep, it's the Grapefruit League opener, all right.

Fun fact that I would never have known if it weren't for spring training broadcasts: Jason Kendall's brother is employed by the Pirates as a scout.

Rajai Davis strokes one into the right-center field gap, but Javier Guzman is thrown out at the plate to end the game. Final score is...not important. I <3>

Now THAT's a trade. No really, Dave Littlefield made a trade. Seriously.

There was some pretty fantastic karma going around today, let me tell you.

It all started when I went to Bodega with Jonny Raymond, bought some pretty swell kicks while Jonny purchased the Orioles "Fuck Face" t-shirt (which for some reason is blue). We then stopped at our friendly neighborhood Boloco for some burritos that, according to Jonny, are bland and tasteless and will never live up to the standards that California has set. Jonny himself has a hard time living up to the standards that California weather has set, and he would not stop bitching about the single-digit degree temperature outside.

While enjoying our hot wraps, Jon received a telephone call from a friend back home, who broke him the news about the aforementioned Mike Dunleavy trade. Jonny went into an ecstatic giggling fit, similar to the one he went into on Saturday night upon showing a bunch of inebriated people the Reading Rainbow theme song at five in the morning. I laughed at the concept of the NBA, told him I was happy for him, and glumly said I wished Dave Littlefield would do something.

Well, I got home at about 4:30, sat down at my computer, and opened Internet Explorer. My homepage on I.E. is the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website, and lo and behold, the leading story was: PIRATES ON THE VERGE OF LANDING LAROCHE.

Over the next few hours, I anxiously clung to my computer, waiting to hear further details. Who were the other players to be involved, if any? What new and creative way would Dave Littlefield find to screw up this seemingly done deal? It became an event almost worthy of liveblogging.

As it turned out, the full trade ended up with the Pirates receiving Adam LaRoche and minor leaguer Jamie Romak, with Mike Gonzalez and stud Brent Lillibridge heading to Atlanta. I had intended to do some sort of blog outlining the pros and cons of each aspect of the deal for the Pirates, and I signed on to Blogger to see that Jonny had basically done the same thing for his team's trade. We've got the mojo working, or something.

We'll start with the PROS.

Acquiring Adam LaRoche:

• First and foremost, Adam LaRoche gives the Pirates something they have not had in a long time, that being a left-handed hitter who can hit the baseball over the fence on a consistent basis. Since Brian Giles, the team has had absolutely nothing in the way of left-handed bats, which quickly became the team's most painful and glaring need (and there are a lot of those on a team that hasn't had a winning season since I was six years old). LaRoche hits home runs, draws his fair share of walks, and still hits for a decent average. There is nothing not to like about his offensive profile apart from the fact that he whiffs a ton.
• LaRoche is still relatively young, entering his age-27 season, and relatively cheap, entering his first year of arbitration. We'll be getting him just coming into his prime, and it's not hard to envision signing him to a long-term deal if all goes well this season.
• PNC Park is built for Adam LaRoche, whose hit chart shows him to be a pull hitter, though not quite a dead-pull hitter. The Clemente porch will do him some favors. It'll also turn some homers into doubles, but those aren't exactly bad, either.
• The trickle-down effect: just having a hitter of LaRoche's caliber in the lineup automatically strengthens the rest of an offense that has been among the worst in baseball over the past few years. For one thing, it gives the team at least a little bit of lefty-righty alternation so opposing managers will have to burn more relievers. For another thing, it gives Jason Bay some semblance of protection, which he has never had since coming over to the Pirates. It bumps a hitter who's not so good from the lineup. At this point, the leading victim appears to be Jose Castillo. Logically, this strengthens the whole lineup, although Jim Tracy will still attempt to sabotage it by inexplicably batting Jack Wilson second all year long. Finally, it also gives Tracy a lot more options as far as the bench is concerned, if guys like Castillo and Ryan Doumit are available to pinch-hit instead of Pointless and Stepson.
• By all accounts, Adam LaRoche is capable of playing first base like he isn't physically handicapped, something Pirates fans have not been able to witness since the Kevin Young era.

Trading Mike Gonzalez:

• Gonzalez is turning 29 this season, and has yet to prove he can be reliable, health-wise. He still hasn't been able to get very far over the 50-inning hump in the Major Leagues due to various maladies.
• The Pirates have so many relief pitchers it's absurd. Relief pitching is far and away the deepest part of the organization. A closer is worthless without leads to protect, and you won't have leads to protect if you don't score runs. Thus, a closer is the last thing a team like the Pirates should be worrying about, especially when they have four potential closers lined up to replace him, and Adam LaRoche figures to help a lot with the whole run-scoring thing.
• Really, the 9th inning was getting kind of boring. Let's see some Mike Williams-esque life-shortening techniques again.

Trading Brent Lillibridge:

• To be honest there really is nothing good about losing Lillibridge, except for the fact that, like most minor league players, he's far from a sure thing, and middle infield is one of the few positions where the Pirates do have at least a little depth. The Bucs still have Brian Bixler, and although I like Lillibridge a lot better, they have a very similar profile.

Acquiring Jamie Romak:

• Romak is exactly the kind of player the Pirates have shunned during the Dave Littlefield administration, especially with Ed Creech at the helm of the scouting department. He can hit home runs and draw a walk, two aspects at which the Pirates suck at throughout the organization, but he's probably average at best defensively and strikes out a ton, two things that tend to deter the Pirates brain trust.
• He'll be 21 this season, and most likely playing at high-A Lynchburg. That's not a bad timetable to be on, especially when you take into account the fact that Nyjer Morgan is turning 27 this summer and has yet to play above AA yet is still considered a prospect by people within the organization.
• He's Canadian.

Now, the CONS

Acquiring Adam LaRoche:

• He's a little older than some people would like, mostly proponents of the Oakland A's train of thought where established Major Leaguers are traded for high ceiling AAA and AA guys who are just about to make it to the bigs. As I'll explain later, though, this strategy would not work well given the Pirates' current situation.
• We'd like to see him do it again before we proclaim him the savior of baseball in Pittsburgh. His .915 OPS with the Braves last year was his second-highest EVER in professional baseball, his .561 slugging percentage his career best by nearly fifty points. Hitters do mature as they get older and more experienced, but there's a chance (albeit slight) that LaRoche's outstanding 2006 was a fluke, and he'll be merely pretty good. Which would still be a huge improvement, but somewhat of a disappointment considering what the Pirates have had to give up.
• The lefty-righty thing I mentioned earlier does mean games against Tony La Russa will be that much more unbearable to watch.

Trading Mike Gonzalez

• Gonzo is lights out, period. The guy has a 2.37 ERA and 183 strikeouts in 155 2/3 career innings. By definition, he was the best closer in baseball last year, as his save conversion rate was a perfect 100%.
• The Pirates are certainly not lacking in candidates to replace Gonzalez as the 9th-inning guy, but it seems the most likely will be Salomon Torres, which in my opinion would be a horrible underutilization of the guy. Over the last three seasons, Sal has proven to be the most durable, consistent reliever in baseball. He and his rubber arm thrive when asked to pitch nearly every day. To limit him to 60-70 appearances would be a huge waste. One of the kids - Bayliss, Sharpless, Capps - could probably get the job done just as efficiently, and Bayliss and Sharpless have more prototypical closer "stuff" and K rates.

Trading Brent Lillibridge

• Where do I begin? Lillibridge has surpassed even local hero and first-round draft pick Neil Walker to move into the top 3 on some Pirates top 10 prospects lists. He's steadily risen through the ranks of the system, primed to make his AA debut next year after just a season and a half in the pros. He does pretty much everything well: he hits (.289/.391/.467 in 644 minor league at-bats, despite an extremely mediocre short-season debut in 2005) he walks (.400+ OBP in 200+ AB stints with Hickory and Lynchburg in 2006), he steals at a reasonable clip (53/66 between Hickory and Lynchburg), and he plays solid defense. He even started flashing the power a little bit this season. Profiles very similarly to another Braves middle infielder, Rafael Furcal. PECOTA creamed itself over this guy, and I can't blame them.
• On a personal note, I road tripped to State College/Altoona in early September for games 3 and 4 of the Eastern League semifinals between the Altoona Curve and the Akron Aeros. Since Blair County Ballpark was about to shut down for the winter, there was a crazy clearance sale on all Curve murchandise, and I bought a generic Curve t-shirt and had it customised with Lillibridge's name and number. At the time, Lillibridge had technically been added to the Curve roster, but he was there primarily just to get an up close and personal look at the level of competition in AA. As such, he didn't even get into a game, but I purchased the shirt in preparation for the 2007 season. After game 4, my companions and I decided on a whim to check out the players' parking lot. I was wearing the Lillibridge shirt, and who should be one of the few players to bother stopping to chat with us than the kid himself. His eyes lit up when I turned around and showed him his name on the shirt, and he signed my scorebook. I don't exactly feel stupid for buying the shirt now, especially since absolutely no one saw this coming, but it is certainly very disheartening. Every time I really, really get behind a Pirates prospect, something bad always seems to happen.

Acquiring Jamie Romak

• The main downside to Romak is that he's right-handed, and the Pirates could still use a few lefty-hitting prospects sprinkled throughout the system here and there. He also strikes out a ton. It's a little early to be writing him off as the next Brad Eldred, but he's the type of player who could struggle as pitching becomes more advanced in the higher levels of the minors.
• He's not Brent Lillibridge.

OVERALL

As much as I despise the man, I do have to say that in all honestly, Dave Littlefield did a pretty nice job to pull this one out. Going into the season without having acquired Brian O'Neill's mythical "Lefty McThump" would have been an unmitigated disaster. Going into the season having had to settle for another aging stopgap like Geoff Jenkins would have been pretty close, given the sour taste still in the fan base's mouth from the Jeromy Burnitz experience. Getting a hitter like LaRoche was absolutely imperative for just about all aspects of the Pittsburgh Pirates, both on the field and off.

I also have to admit that I'm impressed with DL's ability to compromise in this situation. It seemed like the trade would never get consummated because of the haggling over what extra player the Bucs should throw in, with the names of Paul Maholm, Chris Duffy, and Jose Castillo all being bandied about. Littlefield was hesitant to give up two Major Leaguers for one Major Leaguer, and rightly so, I think (although Castillo would not have been such a great loss).

People have complained about Littlefield's hesitancy to part with players with significant Major League playing time, but I do think that in this situation, he was absolutely right, misguided though his intentions may be. At this point, the Pirates farm system is just about completely barren apart from Andrew McCutchen and Brad Lincoln (who, as a Pirates pitching prospect, is still liable to have his arm fall off any day now) and maybe Neil Walker if he can get his shit together. This is more indicative of the horrendous drafting under Ed Creech than anything, but the fact remains that the Mickey White draftees (White was demoted, then resigned in 2002) are all just reaching the bigs now, namely the starting pitchers, and there is nothing coming down the line behind them.

If the Pirates are going to win again any time soon, what they're going to do it with is, for the most part, already there. The Pirates roster is loaded with 23-29 year olds currently in or just about to enter their prime. With next to nothing in the way of internal help for the forseeable future, the Bucs essentially have about a three year window in which to do something positive. This why I firmly believe that having players who can contribute at the Major League level right now is of the utmost importance, and why it was worth Dave Littlefield playing hardball, even with players as mediocre as Paul Maholm or Chris Duffy.

Taken purely out of context, I would say that Gonzalez and Maholm or Duffy for LaRoche would be pretty fair. But the Pirates don't have immediate adequate replacements for either of those guys, and can't afford to wait until they do come along (although the case could be made that the team could have made do in center field with some wacky combination of Nate McLouth and Jose Bautista or whoever else for a year and a half until McCutchen is ready).

So, as much as I hate giving up Brent Lillibridge, it seems like a noble sacrifice on the part of Dave Littlefield. Granted, the Pirates, being the stupendous talent evaluators that they are, probably value Lillibridge a whole lot less than the rest of everyone else who's ever watched a baseball game. But I think Littlefield really did do an admirable job to draw John Schuerzholtz's attention away from the big league guys and to dangle someone as tantalizing as Lillibridge in order to get it done. Not only that, but he made sure the Pirates came away with something else, and not the typical crappy, short-lived middle reliver that the Pirates almost always get as a "throw-in." The deal as a whole represents the sort of outside-the-box thinking that Littlefield has never, ever shown himself to be able to do throughout his tenure.

My final evaluation of this trade is that the Pirates are now set up better for the long run, since the "long run" in their case is only the next two or three years. This is the first time people have legitimate cause for optimism going into the season in a long time, and you need to look no further than the fact that there will be practically no veteran stopgaps on this team. For the first time in just about forever, almost every major contributor is going to be here for the long haul.

And of course, since I can't make a post involving Dave Littlefield without some sort of negativity, I discovered a pretty amazing blurb about Jamie Romak while doing some research when I first heard his name this afternoon.

From the London (Ontario) Free Press story about Romak getting drafted in 2003:

I was afraid Pittsburgh would step up because they'd shown the most interest. I was so happy to go to Atlanta.

Yeah, yeah, it's funny that he didn't want to go to the Pirates because the Pirates suck, and he was probably just spinning his own situation positively anyway like any player would, blah blah blah. That's all well and good, but I want to point out the part where it says the Pirates had shown the most interest in him prior to the draft.

For those of you unfamiliar with Dave Littlefield's tactics, if he sets his eye on a player, he is not going to rest until he gets him. Littlefield originally wanted Xavier Nady instead of Jason Bay in the Brian Giles deal, but Kevin Towers wouldn't budge (thank God). Three years later, Dave finally ended up with his man. Another example is when Littlefield was saved from himself by the Cubs outbidding the Pirates for Jeromy Burnitz prior to the 2005 season. One offseason later, Littlefield was hellbent on getting Jeromy to play for his team, and did not stop until he had done so. Dave apparently never forgot about Jamie Romak, either.

And now, I bid you farewell and good night.

Pirates Winter Ball Review: Part I - Arizona Fall League

This is something I've been wanting to do ever since I first started listening to Hawaii Winter Baseball games at 2 a.m. when I should have been sleeping.

See, when your team sucks as much as the Pirates, you get excited about things like fringe prospects spending their winter in some South American country rife with crime and political tension.

Fortunately for you all though I've learned the error of my ways; getting "gleeman length" assigned as a label for your post is a jarring experience. Thus, I'll be breaking these down into one post for each winter league in which the Pirates have players participating. This way, I can start now to prevent Jonny from completely taking over the blog, and also because not all of the leagues are done playing.

This first installment will cover...

Arizona Fall League

The AFL is the most successful of the U.S.-based winter leagues in recent years. Experiments in California and Maryland both fizzled, and Hawaii Winter Baseball was going strong but went dormant for the better part of a decade before its reinstatement this year.

The AFL has produced several very notable alumni, including Mike Piazza, Derek Jeter, Todd Helton, Roy Halladay, and Albert Pujols, among others. It was once a place for the cream of an organization to test their mettle against other highly-ranked prospects, but with the growing popularity of winter leagues in the Carribean, Central America, and South America among players who are not natives of those countries, the players selected to participate have become a little watered down.

This year, more than most years, it seemed the AFL was becoming dotted primarily by older players, many of whom had significant experience at AAA, and some of whom had even logged extended time in the Major Leagues. A large number were not even considered true prospects by the teams they represented. This could have been partially due to the fact that the newly re-formed Hawaii Winter Baseball catered mainly to the younger, A and AA-level players.

Let's take a look at the players the Pirates sent to Arizona, all of whom played for the Grand Canyon Rafters, and whether their winter performance was a step forward or backward for them in terms of their development.



C Neil Walker
2006 AFL line: .290/.306/.391 (69 ABs)
Walker, the hometown hero from suburban Pine-Richland High School taken in the first round of the draft a couple years back, found himself splitting time at catcher for the Rafters three ways with Kevin Richardson and Adam Donachie, with Walker getting the majority of the at-bats. He's struggled with a multitude of things since becoming a pro, namely injuries, a tendency to look pretty lost behind the plate at times, and a frustrating lack of power (the first and last things are believed to be related).

All in all, his performance in the AFL has to be encouraging, at least from an offensive standpoint; while the power still wasn't there, and his plate discipline was rather shoddy, he was easily one of the youngest players in the league, just having turned 21, and found himself going up against pitchers up to seven years his senior, often with big league experience.

2007 will be a big year for young Neil, although even if he doesn't live up to expectations it will be easy to point out that a lot of players tend to struggle at 21 in AA. There is still talk of moving him to another position, however, which would drastically reduce his worth as a hitter and make him much more of a first-round bust than a boon. People also continue to worry about his low on-base percentages, but his strikeout rates have always been low, and those who have watched him first-hand corroborate the evidence by claiming he doesn't walk because he hits his pitch so often, an aspect common with many high-average hitters.

Even if the power never develops, he still projects as an above-average Major League catcher offensively, and his defense behind the plate has reportedly improved as he's progressed through the lower minors to go along with a solid arm.
Overall Winter Performance: POSITIVE


1B Brad Eldred
2006 AFL line: .231/.311/.354 (65 ABs)
The Pirates have been so starved for hitters who can make the ball go over the fence every once in a while over the past five years that when stories of his mammoth blasts in Altoona started reaching the fans, we couldn't help but get excited despite his painfully obvious drawbacks, i.e. inability to draw a walk, mind-boggling strikeout numbers, being labeled a defensive liability, etc.

"Big Country," as he is very unoriginally nicknamed, reached the bigs at age 25 in 2005 after slugging about .580 in his minor league career. With nothing to lose, the Pirates handed him the bulk of the playing time at first base after his callup, and he performed about as expected; low batting average and on-base percentage, outstanding isolated power (.458 slugging despite a .221 BA), swatting 12 homers and 9 doubles in 190 at-bats.

Since then, it's been all downhill for Eldred. Dave Littlefield traded for GIDP machine Sean Casey and said Eldred needed more time at AAA to work on the shortcomings in his game, as if the plate discipline fairies would suddenly visit him with a few hundred more at-bats at a level he's already pretty much had his way with. He got off to a slow start, then badly dislocated his thumb about a month into the season, forcing him to sit out the rest of the year.

Things didn't get much better in the AFL, where he was expected to be a major contributor but ended up behind Joe Koshansky on the Rafters depth chart. Not satisfied with his playing time, the Pirates brass sent him to Escogido of the Dominican League, where he went 1-for-18 with 10 strikeouts before the Leones actually fired him and told him to go home.

2007 is most certainly Eldred's make-or-break year. It's a shame, too, because he's pretty much "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't." If he tears up AAA, well, he's going to be 27 in July and it'll be his third go-round there. If he is even slightly mediocre, it'll probably be the end of his career as a Pirate. Like so many of their prospects prospects, the Pirates focused too much on his negative attributes and not enough on what he does well, unlike proven winning organizations such as the Twins and A's.

The only real chance for him is if the offseason keeps going the way it has, it really doesn't appear as if the Pirates will get their lefty masher at first base. It could be a huge blessing for Eldred. I'd personally like to see the big guy succeed, because there are so few players in baseball with the capability to hit the ball as far as he can as regularly as he does.
Overall Winter Performance: NEGATIVE


2B Craig Stansberry
2006 AFL line: .128/.263/.192 (78 ABs)
Stansberry looked like an intriguing prospect for a few years. Throughout his minor league career, he showed that he possessed both good power and a decent eye at the plate, two things that are rare among both middle infielders and Pirates players in general. He rose quickly, finding himself in Altoona just two years after being drafted in 2003. Once he reached AA, he began sacrificing average for power, probably more because he couldn't hit advanced pitching consistently than by choice. Still, a .470 slugging percentage at AA playing his home games at such a murderous park for righties is nothing to scoff at.

In 2006, he returned to AA to start his age-24 season, and improved both his average and plate discipline without losing much power. Unfortunately, he hit a brick wall when he reached AAA, lending credence to the theory that he just can't hit higher-level pitching. His plate discipline was still outstanding, walking exactly as many times as he struck out. It would have been interesting to see how he would have adapted to another stint in AAA, but his performance in the AFL was so dismal he literally played himself off the 40-man roster, and into the waiting arms of the San Diego Padres, who claimed him when he was cut. While the move wasn't quite something to get worked up about, it certainly is a puzzling one for a team that is letting Humberto "What exactly would you say it is you do here?" Cota occupy a space on the 40-man roster despite just having handed Einar Diaz and Carlos Maldonado Minor League contracts.
Overall Winter Performance: NEGATIVE, but perhaps positive for his career since it's assumed the Padres are one of 29 franchises that value things like power and walks more than the Pirates.


RHP Jesse Chavez
2006 AFL line: 0.64 ERA, 0.64 WHIP, 11/3 K/BB (14 IP)
The Rangers donated Chavez to Dave Littlefield's quest to acquire every relief pitching prospect in the world in exchange for 8 innings of Kip Wells. His Minor League career has been pretty unspectacular apart from getting his K rate to a good, if not impressive level since moving to the bullpen, which is to be expected from a guy who's considered a hard thrower.

His AFL campaign opened a lot of eyes, which is especially a plus considering he wasn't absurdly old to be pitching there, as he turned 24 in August. While he probably won't really be given a chance to win a bullpen spot out of spring training, especially since he's not yet on the 40-man roster, as long as he doesn't regress with Indy, he should be one of the first in line for a callup.
Overall Winter Performance: POSITIVE


LHP David Davidson
2006 AFL line: 5.17 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 14/6 K/BB (15 2/3 IP)
Davidson is a "stuff" lefty that the Pirates are very high on, evidenced by the fact that they added him to the 40-man roster this winter to avoid losing him in the Rule V draft. He has rarely been healthy during his pro career, but when he has, he's always posted very good strikeout numbers. 2006 was his first complete season as a pro, and he made the most of it, whirling through three levels and posting a sub-2.40 ERA at each one.

His 2006 AFL campaign was a bit of a mixed bag, as the Rafters had him starting games early on, in which he was bombed (11.57 ERA, 3/4 K/BB), but after moving to his more familiar relief role, he pitched much like he had throughout the season (2.45 ERA, 11/2 K/BB). That could have just been coincidence because he simply needed a few games to shake off rust from the brief layoff between Altoona's dismissal from the playoffs and the start of the AFL. Regardless, his stint in the AFL was overall pretty solid considering he was also one of the younger guys there at 22. He'll probably start 2007 at AA with the strong likelihood of a promotion if he doesn't fall apart or get injured.
Overall Winter Performance: POSITIVE


RHP Brian Rogers
2006 AFL line: 0.00 ERA, 0.65 WHIP, 6/3 K/BB (7 2/3 IP)
The Tigers donated Rogers to Dave Littlefield's quest to acquire every relief pitching prospect in the world in exchange for having given Sean Casey the knowledge and experience required to be able to hit the Cardinals pitchers (I figure that had to be it since no one else on the Tigers seemed to know how to do it). Since moving to the bullpen full-time in 2005, he has been very hard to hit, allowing fewer than seven hits per nine innings. His strikeout rates have also been very impressive for someone who has never been considered a hard thrower.

He was lights-out in his AAA debut after coming over from the Tigers in July, and received a cup of coffee with the Pirates but was torched there, surrendering 8 runs in 8 2/3 innings pitched. In the AFL, though, he picked up where he had left off with Indy, and was virtually unhittable. He's never been much of a ground ball pitcher, which for someone who throws in the high 80s, does not bode well for the Major Leagues. Still, he'll most likely be one of the twenty-eight candidates for the last two spots in the Pirates bullpen, but his ceiling isn't very high.
Overall Winter Performance: POSITIVE


LHP Josh Shortslef
2006 AFL line: 2.65 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 7/10 K/BB (17 IP)
Shortslef has been in the Pirates organization for seven years and still only made his AA debut this year, mainly because he is constantly struggling with injuries of some sort. This year, a strained forearm cut short what was turning out to be a promising season for this lefty. The Pirates are still very high on him as a starter, and added him to the 40-man roster this offseason.

His AFL season was somewhat shaky, especially the walk and strikeout numbers, although he certainly didn't do himself any harm with the performance. Indy's rotation will probably pretty crowded with a bunch of ailing former first-round picks, an ancient Japanese guy, and a Cuban defector, so Shortslef will probably return to Altoona to start 2007, but will be on call when one of the aforementioned inevitably gets hurt.
Overall Winter Performance: POSITIVE


Conclusion
The Pirates representatives in the Arizona Fall League were pretty much a microcosm of the organization as a whole. Two of the hitters they sent completely bombed, one to the point of being kicked out liberated from the club. The third, who was by far the furthest away from the Major Leagues, didn't really do anything to answer the numerous questions about him. The majority of the good news came from the pitchers, three of whom were relievers, the fourth one a starter who is going to be 25 in about a month and has only 60-odd innings of experience above high-A.

Crud, it's still too long, isn't it.

Oh, well. Next up, the grand return of Hawaii Winter Baseball.

Pittsburgh Pirates Retrospective: Part I

This is shaping up to be the bleakest offseason that I can remember.

Never since I started seriously following the Pirates has the team been so close to fielding a consistently competitive team. I firmly believe that the team is just a year of positive development out of a stable of under-25 starting pitchers and the addition of two legitimate bats to the lineup away from reaching that goal.

The first one is fortunately capable of happening intrinsically. If Jim Colborn doesn't mess with people unecessarily, there's no reason we shouldn't see significant progress out of all, or at least most of Zach Duke, Ian Snell, Paul Maholm, and Tom Gorzelanny.

However, the second item is simply not going to happen, from the looks of things. Every Pirates supporter is mired in a post-LaRochegate funk, and for good reason. In the film "Dazed and Confused," the character Mike is tired of being pushed around and being "an ineffectual little nothing." He attempts to fight one of his antagonizers in an attempt to change the way he's viewed, but the plan backfires and he gets his ass kicked. No matter what he does, he can't escape from who he is.

Dave Littlefield is "Mike." Since assuming the role of general manager from Cam Bonifay five and a half years ago, he's been made a fool of, garnered a reputation of being difficult to deal with, and generally is regarded as a joke, as is the franchise he's responsible for running. This week, he's finally presented with what seems to be a genuine opportunity to at least partially redeem himself for everything he's done wrong. In the end, though, he's just been strung along and he gets made a fool of all over again. There's no way out. No way out for him, or for the team

So why do I keep doing this to myself? What kind of sick masochism forces me to keep pouring my effort and emotion into a team that might never be good again?

There are two factors that keep me coming back year after 90-loss year. The first is loyalty, pure and simple. I can't not root for the home team. That's the way I was raised, and it would take something absolutely abominable, i.e. the team moving, for me to stop being a Pirates fan. But home-town loyalty is something that I preach too much about as it is, so I'll focus on the other reason I'm still here.

In the seven years since I started regularly going to Pirates games, I've seen some downright incredible things happen. I've witnessed the impossible comeback, the unthinkable upset, and just some extremely satisfying triumphs over evil. True, there has been a ton of negativity dumped on the Pirates over the last fifteen years, and quite deservedly so. But I want to take a brief respite from that to accentuate the positive things the Pirates have given me.

Since 1997, It's safe to say that I've attended about 240 games, which is an average of 24 a year. I peaked in 2004, with 38, then still hit over 30 in 2005 despite missing an entire month of the season due to going to school in Boston. This season, I still managed to make it to exactly 25 games despite missing both April and September. Thus, I've been to more games than I could possibly keep track of, which is why I have a library of scorebooks from almost every game I've been to in the past decade, neatly catalogued in the bottom drawer of my dresser at home.

However, some of the games have provided such remarkable occurrences that I don't even need to look them up in my scorebooks. These games were so memorable that I can clearly visualize in my head a moment or multiple defining moments of each game. I can remember the score, the opposing team, and even the approximate date for each of them. With the help of Baseball Reference and Retrosheet, I'm able to fully recreate these games that have stood out in my mind for all these years.

Armed with this information, I am hereby paying tribute to the positive things I have been able to take away from the ten years I've watched the Pirates in person regularly. I will do so through a sort of retrospective, chronicling the very moments that defined each game that I have chosen.

Why exactly do these particular games remain lodged in my memory banks? A lot of it has to do with my general philosophy of what I enjoy in baseball games:

• Losing is no fun. Ever. I can not and will not ever take satisfaction from a game the Pirates have lost no matter what individual accomplishments have been achieved or how exciting the game was. Those things are slight consolation, but nothing more.
• Tight games are a must. I won't say I don't enjoy a good old-fashioned beatdown if my team is on the giving end, but those games tend not to stick out in my mind.
• I am a fan of pitching duels. Slugfests are perfectly fine, as long as they're close, but in a low-scoring game, I believe there's an added dramatic aspect because if it seems like neither team is going to score, there's a feeling that one play could decide the game, even if it's in the 5th inning. Whereas in an offensive battle, there's always the feeling that plenty more runs are going to come, so a 5th-inning home run seems far less game-breaking.
• Extra innings are fun. Lots of fun. It's like overtime in college football, each team keeps getting a shot until one team scores and the other doesn't. Plus, if you're the home team, if your team wins there's a one hundred percent certainty it would be of the walk-off variety...
• ...because absolutely nothing beats a walk-off win.

One more factor that seems to have played a major role in which games I tend to remember is recency. If my list seems loaded towards more recent years, it's because those games are still fresher in my memory, and also because I attended more games in those years and thus had more opportunities to have seen something great. Overall, I think I've been pretty fair in my selections. Every year since 1997 has at least one representative in the presentation with the exception of 2000, which I chalk up to just having been a boring season.

Sure, Brian Giles did some cool shit, but really the most memorable part of that summer for me wasn't even something that happened on the field, it was pitching coach and Hollywood actor Pete Vuckovich calling the KDKA post-game call-in show to defend a decision manager Gene Lamont had made during the game. The host, I think it was Thor Tolo at the time, didn't believe it was actually Vuke and just kept playing irreverent sound bites from "Major League." So the lasting impression the 2000 season left on me was Bob Uecker going "when this guy sneezes he looks like a party favor." Despite that, there have been more than enough candidates from other seasons.

And now, in very rough order from simply memorable to completely unforgettable, are some of my favorite moments ever.

#13 - The Ollie Perez K Club
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Pirates 3, Astros 1

The Houston Astros entered play on this date in a virtual tie with the San Francisco Giants for the National League Wild Card berth as one of the hottest teams in baseball, maybe even on a historic level. Winners of a dozen straight games, they had averaged 9 runs a game during the streak, never scoring less than five and reaching double digits five times. The Astros steamed into town for a five-game series against the 5th-place Pirates, probably expecting the Bucs to roll over and hand them the Wild Card.

The Astros had the misfortune of running into vintage Oliver Perez, back when he could hit both 98 mph and the strike zone, sometimes even with the same pitch. Ollie went out and flat-out violated the Astros, making them look like A-ballers in yielding three hits and one measly unearned run across 8 innings, while keeping the Bucco Brigade member unfortunate enough to have been posted at the Kennametal K Club working overtime to put up 14 K placards. Ollie's masterpiece demoralized the Astros, as they went on to lose three of the five games in the series, including one to ol' White Flag himself, although they still managed to capture the Wild Card. Still, it was a nice stand by a team that had earned the reputation as a perennial doormat for contending teams down the stretch, and I'd even go so far as to characterize it as the most dominant pitching performance I've ever personally witnessed.



#12 - The Forgotten Season: 2003

In racking my brain for memorable moments, I realized after compiling my initial list that 2003 was grossly under-represented, which is ironic because 2003 was, record-wise, the Pirates' best season this decade. Indeed, I got to watch Jeff Suppan kick ass and Matt Stairs wage war with the Allegheny River and Reggie Sanders just be a really cool dude, but there aren't too many individual moments that stick out in my mind, perhaps because what success the Pirates did achieve that year was mostly attained through the use of one-year mercenaries.

However, I think the main reason for that could just be that in 2003 I was at home for less time during the summer than during any other summer ever. I spent a month in Ireland, then came home for literally a day before jetting off to camp for two more weeks. During that six-week span, I missed probably the three best games of the season, back-to-back 15-inning marathons against the Indians that included Brian Giles climbing into the left field bleachers to make the catch of the year and Randall Simon hitting a walk-off homer despite a torn muscle in his hand that should have made it nearly impossible to even grip the bat. The third was a stunning comeback from a five-run, 9th-inning deficit against the Rockies that happened on the very last night I was at camp.

When I actually was in Pittsburgh, I did see a couple of neat things. The night I came back from camp, Saturday, August 2, Brian Meadows celebrated my first baseball game in nearly two months by outdueling Jason Jennings in front of a sellout Fireworks Night crowd and shutting the Rockies out, 1-0, a game in which the only RBI was recorded by Abraham Nunez.

I also got to see a great game against the Cardinals the following week, and making Tony La Russa a loser is always a good time. The Pirates rallied from a 4-3 deficit on back-to-back homers by Reggie and Craig Wilson in the 8th, only for Scarecrow to cough up the lead in the 9th. When Randall Simon rolled a ball through the left side of the infield as a pinch-hitter with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning, he demonstrated one of the goofiest walk-off celebrations I've ever seen, extending his arms and flapping them up and down as if he were trying to fly to first base or something.

2003 also brought a humble Canuck by the name of Jason Bay to the Steel City, and I was present for his coming-out party, although it came during an eventual loss and I promised to try to steer clear of losses during this exercise.

Finally, 2003 gave us Reboulet's Army, and that was one of my favorite things ever.

#11 - What if there were no tomorrow?
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Pirates 1, Braves 0 (10 innings)
Thursday, August 29, 2002
Pirates 4, Braves 1

Late August, 2002, was the first time baseball's future was really up in the air since the strike that wiped out the 1994 postseason. With the strike deadline set for the afternoon of Friday, August 30, parties from both sides were cautiously optimistic, but negotiations seemed to have hit somewhat of a stalemate late into the proceedings.

Just in case, I made it a priority to attend all three games in the August 27-29 series against the Atlanta Braves, who at the time were jockeying with the Arizona Diamondbacks for the best record in baseball. In the Tuesday night game, the Pirates nearly rallied from a 5-1 deficit, scoring three times in the ninth, but Jason Kendall uncharacteristically swung at the first pitch with runners at the corners and two outs and flew out to right field.

The following night, the Lloyd McClendon ran out one of the most offensively inept lineups I've ever seen, featuring a whopping five players with a sub-.700 OPS, and only one over .810. Opposing this collection of suckitude would be none other than future HOFer Greg Maddux, with journeyman reclamation project Brian Meadows on the hill for the Bucs.

In a classic example of how in baseball, moreso than any other sport, anything can happen in any given game regardless of teams or pitching matchups, Meadows somehow matched a vintage Greg Maddux performance pitch-for-pitch as the two hurlers dueled to a scoreless draw after the front nine. Mike Williams, in typical Mike Williams fashion, escaped a self-created bases-loaded mess in the top of the 10th, and after back-to-back walks with out out in the bottom half, Brian Giles ripped a Mike Remlinger pitch down the first-base line for a walk-off hit.

By Thursday afternoon's matinee, a feeling of impending doom had settled in over PNC Park for the finale of the series (and possibly the season). One clever fellow draped a sign over the railing of the porch in right field imploring "SAVE US, DEREK BELL." Others also vented their frustration.

If any pitching matchup could possibly inspire less confidence from the perspective of a Pirates fan than Brian Meadows vs. Greg Maddux, Bronson Arroyo vs. Tom Glavine would certainly be up there.

Naturally, Arroyo got the better of Glavine, scattering ten baserunners across five innings and yielding just one unearned run, while the Bucs pecked away for two runs against Glavine and an 8th-inning Aramis Ramirez two-run homer provided insurance. This was the game that first made me a real Bronson Arroyo fan.

If indeed, the players had been unable to come to terms with the owners, it would have been a fitting send-off. As it was, an 11th-hour agreement was reached, and no games were cancelled. The Pirates could quietly return to their reign of despair. But for a couple of days, there might as well have been no tomorrow, and the Pirates were on top of the dying world.

#10 - The "I hate Tony La Russa" department
Friday, August 11, 2006
Pirates 7, Cardinals 1
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Pirates 3, Cardinals 2
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Pirates 7, Cardinals 0

If I had to list my least favorite people in professional sports, Tony La Russa would easily make the top five. It's bad enough that his arrogant cuntishness has rubbed off on everyone around him, but when he decided to make it his personal mission to antagonize Lloyd McClendon, he firmly entrenched himself as an object worthy of my hatred.

The Lloyd/Tony rift came to a head in 2005 when Tony accused Jason Bay of stealing signs and relaying them to Daryle Ward, the batter. At the time, Bay had been on second base for all of two pitches. Really, if your signs are that easy to pick up, you deserve to have them broadcasted over the public address system. Then, in August, Hector Luna took out Jose Castillo at second base on a double play attempt and wrecked Castillo's knee, ending his season. Lloyd publically deemed Luna's slide unnecessarily dangerous, and Rick White went high and tight on Luna, knocking him down. During batting practice the following night, Tony sent his pitching coach lackey, Dave Duncan, over to ask White, a former pitcher of his, if he had intentionally been throwing at Luna. White told Duncan politely to fuck off because he wasn't his pitching coach anymore, but Duncan persisted. Pirates hitting coach Gerald Perry came over to investigate the disturbance, and ended up having to throw down with Duncan hitting him with a right cross that forever earned Perry a place in my heart.

The problem is, though, that the Pirates simply haven't been competitive enough on the field to make this ongoing feud enjoyable. Even though Lloyd was replaced by Jim Tracy after 2005 and Tony seemed to ease up a little bit, consistently losing to the Cardinals had grown quite wearisome. Whenever I get asked what team I'd most want to sweep a series against, my answer is always without hesitation the Cards.

Finally, we got our chance for sweet revenge on a muggy August weekend in 2006. Tony's boys came into town clinging to a 3.5 game lead in the NL Central, probably expecting to be able to steamroll the reeling, last-place Pirates, losers of 5 in a row.

The Pirates issued the ultimate "fuck you" to Tony La Russa and company, sweeping the weekend series in front of an average attendance of 30,885. And they didn't just sweep, but they did so in convincing fashion. The three Pirates starters, Zach Duke, Ian Snell, and Paul Maholm, all threw at least 7 innings, Duke's start of the complete game variety. Overall, the Pirates played good fundamental baseball for 27 innings, and that fact, combined with the hearty crowds, made me feel as if I was watching meaningful baseball for once. Not even Tony's asshole beanball tactics (Pirates were hit by pitches seven times throughout the series) could ruin a fantastic weekend.

I was really hoping that at the end of the year, the Cardinals would miss out on the playoffs by a game or so, and could look back at the time they got swept by the lowly Pirates as a key factor in their failure. Sadly, this wasn't to be. But, if anything, this weekend went a long way towards showing everybody that perhaps the talent gap isn't so big after all.



#9 - Memorial Day madness

One very interesting trend that I noticed when perusing memory lane is that through some coincidence, I usually happen to attend the Memorial Day game if it's played at home. And, to add to that, the Pirates almost always win these games, often times in dramatic fashion.

May 26, 1997: Cubs 2, Pirates 1
The Pirates lost, but this game featured two back-to-back home runs in the same inning, courtesy of Sammy Sosa and Tony Womack.

May 25, 1998: Pirates had Memorial Day off.

May 31, 1999: Pirates 5, Dodgers 4
The Pirates rallied from deficits of 3-0 and 4-3. Abraham Nunez managed to double on a bunt attempt, which remains to this day one of the more bizarre things I've ever seen. I wrote a freeverse poem about this game for my English class that was published in some sort of state-wide anthology. I don't know where a copy is now, which is a shame.

May 29, 2000: Pirates 10, Marlins 4
This is the one game I don't think I was actually at, but the Pirates still continued the tradition of winning at home on Memorial Day.

May 28, 2001: Pirates 8, Marlins 5
Down 5-1 in the bottom of the 8th, the Pirates explode for 7 runs, keyed by, of all things, a Pat Meares 3-run homer. Fun fact about this one: Omar Olivares was the starter for the Bucs. Yikes, I had forgotten just how dismal the 2001 season really was.


Cheers for Meares. And Kevin Young.
And crappy all-black unis.

May 27, 2002: Pirates 3, Cubs 2
Dave Williams, secretly pitching with a torn labrum, guts his way through 5 2/3 shutout innings in his final start of the season. Mike Williams wastes a tiebreaking solo homer by Chad Hermansen (my lord, these names) by allowing Bobby Hill to hit a home run which is pretty disgraceful. For some obnoxious reason, there were about fifteen Cubs fans in the rows immediately surrounding mine, and they wouldn't shut the hell up. I still have a very vivid memory of this fat fuck in a Sammy Sosa jersey taunting me, "Isn't that guy your closer?!?!?! He's not supposed to do that!!" Fortunately, Keith Osik comes to the the rescue in the bottom of the 10th, gapping one to left-center with two on and two out. Ballgame. At least our closer wasn't Antonio Alfonseca, you pricks.

May 26, 2003: The Pirates were on the road, but won anyway, wallopping the Cubs 10-0 at Wrigley.

May 31, 2004: Cardinals 8, Pirates 3
A rare Memorial Day loss, but in the Pirates' defense, they were due for a let-down after the magic that had unfolded over the weekend (which will most certainly be chronicled in all of its glorious detail later on...)

May 30, 2005: Pirates 3, Marlins 2
Mark Redman vs. Al Leiter. Cringeworthy. Pirates draw 5 walks and rap out 4 hits in Leiter's 5 innings, but can only push one run across. So they take a gift run in the 8th, and then Freddy Sanchez, who everyone seems to forget was a pretty fine hitter in 2005, too, collects the game-winning hit in the bottom of the 10th.

May 29, 2006: Pirates 14, Brewers 3
Okay, so this one wasn't quite as close-run as the other handful of games, but it does feel good to take a dump all over some poor team every once in a while. Especially when you're the Pirates.



#8 - The "I hate Barry Bonds" division
Saturday, August 23, 1997
Pirates 6, Giants 4
Friday, July 28, 2006
Pirates 3, Giants 0

If there's anybody in baseball I hate more than Tony La Russa, it's Barry Bonds. I don't even think I need to waste space justifying that right now. If you really don't have a clue, this says it better than words ever could.

It's appropriate, then, that my life as a baseball fan has been bookended by two sensational triumphs over Barry. The first, in 1997, took place in front of a fireworks night crowd of 42,502 with the Pirates at exactly .500, still tottering along where they had no business belonging, just three games off the NL Central pace. On this August night, the Bucs jumped out to a 5-1 lead against Danny Darwin before entering the 9th up 6-3. Rich Loiselle allowed the Giants to rally, yielding a run, and having the balls of steel (or really poor judgement, you decide) to walk Jose Vizcaino to get to Barry.

Gene Lamont stuck with his closer. Bonds, who had essentially been a non-factor thus far, 1-for-3 with a walk, but no runs scored and no RBIs, came to the plate as the go-ahead run. With the crowd on its feet, Loiselle blew Barry away. Ballgame.

Nine years later, I would once again find myself face-to-face (almost literally) with the antithesis of all that is good and pure. Through an extremely fortunate circumstance, this past summer I found myself the recipient of a free ticket to the opener of a three-game weekend series with the Giants at the end of July. Free tickets to any baseball game are always a good thing, but this wasn't just any ticket. It allowed me to sit in the front row of the left field bleachers. I would be fifty feet from the Asshole King for nine innings.

On a sentimental note, the good guys had Kip Wells making what was almost certainly going to be his last start in a Pirates uniform in front of another fireworks night crowd that filled PNC Park to the brim, at 38,092. Wells had been a good soldier for the Pirates when he was healthy, which sadly had been not nearly often enough. Because of a severe lack of starting pitching options, he had been rushed back from surgery to fix a blocked artery in his chest. He entered the game with no wins, five losses, an ERA of 8.68, and a WHIP that's too graphic and obscene to post on this safe-for-work blog.

Kip battled with Jason Schmidt, who himself is no friend of Pirates fans for admitting to not giving 100% in his last couple of years with the Pirates in fear of reinjuring his arm before he had a chance to escape this dead-end team. The Pirates got to Schmidt in the 6th and 7th, accumulating three runs, while Wells kept the Giants quiet.


Seranading Barry with chants of "200 feet! 200 feet!"

In the 8th, Wells hit a wall, plunking Edgardo Alfonzo and serving up a single to Todd Linden. John Grabow came on and allowed a Steve Finley single that loaded the bases with nobody out, but struck out Omar Vizquel. Sal Torres entered the game to face Moises Alou, and coaxed a flare to left field that Jason Bay caught and unleashed a strong throw towards the plate that scared Alfonzo back to third. Fittingly, Bay caught the ball almost exactly where Barry fielded Fransico Cabrera's single in 1992 - approximately 200 feet away from home plate.

Up strode Barry, 0-for-3 on the game, with the bases loaded and two outs now, and Jim Tracy continued the bullpen revolving door game by calling on Damaso Marte. Marte went to 3-0 on Bonds, pumped in a called strike, and then got Barry to fly out harmlessly to Bay, much to the sheer delight of everyone in attendance. The Pirates went on to sweep the Giants; Bonds got one hit on Saturday night, then sat out Sunday with pussyitis stemming from being old and brittle from years of steroid abuse.

I'd have to go home and look at my archived scorebooks and do some real research on this, but I don't believe I've ever personally seen Barry Bonds hit a single one of his 734 home runs. And I'm such a better person for it.

---------------------------------------------------

To be continued.

Offseason Analysis: The Pittsburgh Pirates - A Few Paragraphs

I really wish I could create a whole flowchart and four-page analysis detailing my idea of what the Pirates should do this offseason but the reality is that it would be a completely wasted effort.

This is the bleakest, most depressing winter in recent memory, if not ever (and not just because of the Steelers). Dave Littlefield has apparently told the Marlins he won't give up Chris Duffy to get Mike Jacobs. Mike Jacobs was barely league average at first base, but he's left handed and he hits the ball out of the ballpark, a combination of abilities that can be found absolutely nowhere in the Pirates organization. Smart people deal from positions of strength to acquire positions of weakness, and speedy, slap-hitting center fielders are in overabundance in the system.

Supposedly, the Pirates have in the neighborhood of $12 million to spend this offseason, but where that money could possibly go given the "funny water" spending tendencies of this offseason is anyone's guess. Frank Catalanotto, who some saw as a good fit as a utility player, especially if Jose Castillo were dealt, just signed a 3-year, $13 million contract with the Rangers. The Cubs just gave their backup catcher $5 million. Justin Speier, a poor man's Sal Torres, just became a rich man, signing a ridiculous 4-year, $18 million contract with the Angels.

Based on this offseason's market trends, Littlefield has several very tradable commodities, but I have no faith whatsoever that he'll be able to put any kind of helpful trade together, given his performance in the past and what he's already said this offseason regarding a reluctance to trade Chris Duffy. Evidently, he's only willing to trade players the Pirates have absolutely no need for, like John Grabow. Dave, I have news for you. If a player isn't useful to the Pirates, he probably isn't going to be very useful to any of the other 29 Major League franchises that have bucketloads more talent than the Pirates.

I do firmly believe that the Pirates are just a year of marked improvement from their stable of young starters and the addition of perhaps two legitimate Major League bats away from at the very least, being competitive. The former is something that will happen intrinsically, which is extremely fortunate because it means Littlefield can't screw it up somehow (no, that'll be on Jim Tracy and his coaching staff). The latter, however, is what this offseason needs to be about. There is no way Littlefield can even remotely consider it a success unless he does everything in his power to get these two bats in Pittsburgh.

The way I see it, he has a few options in that regard. With $12, it's unlikely any sort of impact bat could be brought in via the free agent market, which isn't really Littlefield's fault. But he has several possible avenues if he wants to go the trade route:

• Package three or four guys who are/could be moderately productive, but still relatively cheap and mostly replaceable for one bat. This would be guys like John Grabow, Paul Maholm, and Jose Castillo.
• Trade your really good players. The last (and only) time Littlefield tried this, he ended up with Jason Bay and Ollie Perez. There's no argument against that trade being a huge success, even despite the latter's flameout.
• Have the balls to take on salary in a deal. Go out and get a proven hitter that another team doesn't want anymore, even if he makes a ton of money. There's nowhere else to put your budget this offseason.

If I had to be honest, I really am not a big fan of option #2. The only individual players the Pirates have that could single-handedly bring in anything of value are Jason Bay, Freddy Sanchez, Zach Duke, and maybe Mike Gonzalez. There has been a debate in the Pirates community about whether to deal Sanchez in a "sell high" move because he's probably not going to win the batting title again, but the Pirates aren't exactly crawling with infielders who are even decent at hitting. The dropoff from Freddy to whoever takes his place would still probably be enough to at least mostly negate whatever upgrade is received at another position.

Trading Bay at this juncture would also be unwise given his well-below-market value contract, unless the return is so obscenely good that there's no way you can say no. I would also hold off on trading Duke, if only because his value isn't as high as it could be after a medicore 2006. Gonzalez I would definitely deal if the price were right. He's lights out most of the time, but relievers are the last thing the Pirates need to be worrying about.

Thus, either options #1 or #3 should be what Littlefield is looking at. As far as taking on salary, I don't know who's available, but if, say, the Reds were looking to deal Ken Griffey, Jr. and Junior was the best bat Littlefield could reasonably acquire, then there's no reason not to at least open up talks with Wayne Krivsky. It's not like that $12 million is going to be put to use anywhere else. There have also been rumblings of a Brad Hawpe deal, but the Rockies might want Mike Gonzalez and Littlefield is probably reluctant to trade his closer.

With what's available, I am absolutely stunned that Littlefield refused to pull the trigger on a Chris Duffy-for-Mike Jacobs deal, especially since it seems it would have just been a straight-up swap, still leaving the Pirates with what's expected to be their main bargaining chips this offseason while adding a hitter who has put up an OPS of .849 in his first 569 Major League at-bats. That would have been third on the Pirates last year, behind only Bay and two points behind Sanchez. Not to mention the Pirates already have a tailor-made platoon partner for Jacobs in Xavier Nady.

Unless Littlefield really surprises a whole lot of people, we're in for another long, dark winter and a fifteenth consecutive season of the status quo. I hate baseball.

Little Thoughts

Some musings on the past few days in the world of sports as it pertains solely to me. Since I'm the only person who writes in this blog these days anyway and could very well be the only person who reads it.

• I think this weekend lends a lot of creedence to the theory that in the EPL, no matter how ambitious a club is, there are still basically two teams that can and should expect to win every time they take the pitch. Everyone else is capable of beating everyone else.
  
  Still, what a fucking let down. Win and you're within spitting distance of qualifying for Europe via the league, which would have been pretty remarkable given the atrocious start.

• Pitt has so clearly mailed it in, and to be honest, I'm really not all that upset about it. As long as the Big East is gifted with a BCS berth, Pitt as a football program has reached the stage where anything less should not be considered a success. Losing to Rutgers, for all intents and purposes ended Pitt's chances of playing in the Orange Bowl, so there really isn't any reason to keep trying.
  
  All I care about is one thing: a good showing in the Backyard Brawl. That's our bowl game right there, and given that the game is at Heinz Field, at the very least don't embarrass yourselves. Give me a reason to run around campus shouting "GO HOME MOUNTAINEERS" afterwards.

• I still haven't really weighed in on Yuslan Herrera, mainly because I was going to wait until the signing became official. But then I realized that could take weeks and my opinion will more than likely not change until then, barring a revelation of some inordinate amount of money being paid.
  
  On the surface, though, I really can't say I'm too particularly thrilled. One view is that, provided DL didn't grossly overpay for Herrera's services, this could be the kind of outside-the-box move that could pay dividends a year or two down the road. Yuslan probably won't be ready to pitch in the Major Leagues this season, but this could potentially be similar to Walt Jocketty signing Chris Carpenter to a multi-year deal a year before he was able to make a full comeback. If this gamble pays off, it also makes one of the other starters expendable in a trade (not that I trust DL to take advantage of that or anything).
  
  Then there's the other side of the story, the side that's probably much closer to the truth. Every so often, everyone who writes about the Pirates not named Ed Eagle or Rob Rossi, from Dejan on down to the lowliest bloggers, goes on a crusade about some aspect of the Pirates that is severely lacking. This kind of stuff gets published in mainstream media, and after enough harping, the general ticket-buying public will pick up on it.
  
  Recently, the vogue has been was criticizing the team for making no effort to be competitive (read: spend money) in foreign markets, namely Latin America. So what does DL do? He goes out and says HEY LOOK I FOUND THIS CUBAN GUY and thinks the general ticket-buying public will view that as a problem solved, although the people who brought this problem to light in the first place still won't be fooled.
  
  The same thing happened last winter, when the issue was the complete lack of advance scouting employed by the Pirates. Coincidentally, Dave Littlefield hired an advance scout for the first time ever. Now, as then, Littlefield seems to be making a knee-jerk reaction to something that has been costing the team hit points in the realm of PR.
  
  Bottom line, this may turn out to be a good baseball move, but it still doesn't show that DL has any sort of plan whatsoever. In fact, it tends to make me believe the exact opposite even more. Boy, being a Pirates fan sure is fun.

• The NFL, on the other hand, is a bucketload of fun these days. Days like yesterday are exactly why, as Marty Schottenheimer says, "the NFL is the most popular sport in the world."
  
  Still not going to even think about the playoffs, still not going to even think about the playoffs, still not going to even think about the playoffs...but damn, if the Titans had found a way to pull that one out...Rob Bironas should have fallen over for no reason and taken a mulligan. It's worked for Titans kickers in the past.
  
  It's going to be weird rooting for Michael Vick, Herm Edwards, and the Cleveland Browns at various points throughout the rest of the season. But that's the nature of the NFL, and that really is why the NFL is so great.

• I wonder if Jason Bay and Brian Ching are pals. I saw yesterday while flipping back and forth between the Willie Parker Show and the MLS Cup that Brian Ching is 28 years old, and went to Gonzaga. Jason Bay is 28 years old, and went to Gonzaga. Not that it means anything, and it certainly wouldn't be nearly as cool as Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson being youth league teammates, but it piqued my curiosity, anyway.

• Oh hey, it's college basketball season. It's great when ESPN makes time on SportsCenter to show highlights of your team in what's essentially a token game. Ah, the joys of supporting the fourth-ranked team in the nation. Comeuppance for the Pirates continuously getting shafted on Baseball Tonight, I say.

The legend of Joe Randa: a link to the past

I am vowing here and now to avoid posting any absurdly optimistic "what-if" scenarios regarding the Steelers for at least another month. If, at the close of play on Sunday, December 3, the Steelers haven't lost a game, I'll consider looking at the rest of the AFC North and sorting things out mathematically. In the meantime, though, it's back to baseball.

Lost in all the Yuslan Herrera furor of the last week or so, an innocuous tidbit on Rotoworld passed by seemingly unnoticed:

"Joe Randa, who turns 37 in December, said he's done playing after 12 seasons in the majors."

Through no fault of his own, during the 2006 season the Joker was a microcosm of everything that's wrong with the Pirates under the Dave Littlefield regime. Despite the presence of a solid hitter capable of playing third base on a regular basis, Littlefield felt the need to spend $4 million on the services of Joe Randa.

Randa struggled in April, while this other guy came out of the gates hitting .333. When Randa went down with a stress fracture in his right foot just a day or so into the season's second month, Littlefield and Jim Tracy were left with no choice but to run aforementioned other-guy out to the hot corner every day, although Littlefield was still promising that Joe Randa was still the starting third baseman, even up until June 13, when Randa was activated and immediately inserted into the starting lineup at the expense of other-guy, who at the time was hitting .341.

Fortunately, Jim Tracy knows when he's been duped, and came to his senses and not only proclaimed other-guy the every day third baseman, but labelled him a "ballplayer," praise of the highest order from the mouth of Jim Tracy. Other-guy went on to perform some nifty defensive tricks in front of the home-town crowd at the 2006 All-Star Game and win the National League batting title.

Meanwhile, Randa had a modestly productive season, helping out wherever he was needed, even occasionally at first base, in the Pirates' quest to put some of the worst possible starting first basemen ever on the field. In that task, though, he was often defeated by the sheer incompetence of Jose Hernandez.

While some might look at Joe Randa's splits and see that he hit .410 and drove in 11 runs in the month of July and be quick to name that the biggest contribution he made to the 2006 Pirates, the fact is his biggest contribution was providing the team with their only link to the glorious, magical summer of 1997.

1997: THE FREAK SHOW

The scene: Kevin McClatchy is just a year removed from taking over the ownership of the Pirates and thus temporarily becoming a public hero for keeping the Pirates in Pittsburgh. However, he happened to purchase a franchise mired in debt, and in order to begin paying it off, he ordered the team stripped down and just about anyone making over the minimum to be dealt away. Jeff King, Jay Bell, Denny Neagle, Dan Plesac: all of them, scattered across the baseball landscape by general manager Cam Bonifay.

The opening day payroll in 1997 was approximately $9 million.

The Bucs were coming off a 73-89 season, and many pundits were predicting at least 100 losses for the upcoming campaign, and who could blame them? The Pirates were fielding a team that would be right at home a "Major League" movie. The opening day lineup included Jermaine Allensworth, Mark L. Johnson, 27-year-old rookie Tony Womack, and 20-year-old rookie Jose Guillen, who had never played above A-ball and celebrated being told he made the team by doing a backflip over a picnic table at Pirate City in Bradenton. And, of course, the Joker himself manning third base, having come over from Kansas City in the deal that saw Jeff King and Jay Bell liberated.

The rotation boasted four pitchers entering their first full seasons as starters in the Major Leagues. The team had no closer, and 30-year-old Minor League journeyman John Ericks was named the de facto stopper in Spring Training by new manager Gene Lamont.

The Pirates plodded through April, finishing with a 12-13 record. Along the way, John Ericks blew out his arm, and Rich Loiselle was anointed the new closer. Shortstop Kevin Elster, the Jack Parkman of the 1997 Pirates, severely injured himself about a week into May, leading the team in home runs at the time with seven. Elster would miss the rest of the season, and the Pirates would be forced to call upon the services of one Kevin Polcovich, a 27-year-old rookie who had missed the entire 1996 season due to injury. This competitive baseball, though fun while it lasted, was due to come to an end any day.

But a funny thing happened to these Pirates. This ragtag bunch of misfits kept winning games here and there. When all was said and done, the Pirates remained alive in the National League Central Division race (albeit, a very weak NL Central) until the final weekend of the entire season.

On a personal level, 1997 was also a groundbreaking year: it was the beginning of my masochistic dedication to baseball, and to the Pirates in particular. 1997 was the first spring I ever played the sport myself, which coincided perfectly with the Pirates doing something exciting on the field even they had no right to be doing so, which coincided perfectly with $1 upper deck G.A. tickets for kids under 14. The summer of '97 was the only time in the past 15 years that baseball fans in Pittsburgh have gotten to watch meaningful games after Memorial Day, and for that, I will always treasure my fond memories of this team.

• May 14 - Perhaps my earliest distinct memory of a Pirates radio broadcast. A wild, back-and-forth affair with the Rockies at Three Rivers Stadium. 3-1 Pirates turns into 6-3 Rockies turns into 6-5 Rockies turns into 9-6 Rockies. Then, in the bottom of the 8th inning, the Pirates simply explode for nine runs, capped off by an Al Martin grand slam. The exact soundbyte I remember is, on Martin's granny, Lanny Fratarre getting caught up in the excitement, being unable to simply add four to the Pirates score, and having to count up from 11. The Pirates move to 20-18, and are in a first-place tie with the Astros in the NL Central.
  
  This, I believe, was also the game where the term "Freak Show" was first used in relation to the 1997 Pirates, by Greg Brown and his blatant disregard for political correctness. The name stuck, and we were treated to clips of Brent Spiner showing off his pet aliens from "Independence Day" for the rest of the season.

• May 26 - My earliest distinct memory actually being at an entire baseball game. I have vague recollections of games in 1996 and earlier, but this was the game that truly made me fall in love with the sport. Although a 2-1, Memorial Day matinee loss to the Cubs, the 20,609 in attendance are treated to not one, but two inside-the-park home runs in the same inning, courtesy of Sammy Sosa and Tony Womack. Mark Johnson goes 0-for-4; he is on his last legs as starting first baseman for the Pirates, paving the way for Kevin Young's emergence.

• June 29 - With a 10-8 loss at the hands of the Mets, the Pirates drop to 36-43, 3 games behind the Astros in the NL Central. This was when the fun really began.

• June 30 - The Chicago White Sox come to town as part of interleague baseball's inaugural season. Jon Lieber not only tosses a complete game shutout, but strikes out Albert Belle four times. This is notable because Albert Belle cost more money than the entire Pirates roster in 1997.

• July 4 - In the spring of 1997, journeyman outfielder Turner Ward was frustrated with baseball and had not planned on playing anymore. He was happily helping coach his son's tee ball team when Cam Bonifay called him on one fateful morning in late April and asked him if he'd like to play for the Pirates, a la Jake Taylor in the first "Major League." On a muggy 4th of July in St. Louis, with the Pirates streaking, Ward hits a game-tying solo home run in the 8th inning, and the Pirates take the game in the 10th on a 2-run blast by pinch hitting hero Mark Smith. I heard the whole thing on the radio at my swimming pool.

• July 6 - The Pirates defeat the Cardinals, 6-3, for their 7th consecutive win, to move into the All-Star break at 43-43, one game ahead of the Astros in the NL Central race. Houston is due into Three Rivers Stadium for a 4-game series immediately following the break.

• July 12 - THE defining night of the 1997 season for the Pirates. Having dropped the first two games to the Astros, Francisco Cordova comes out and hurls nine innings, striking out ten hapless Astros, walking two, and not allowing a single one of that other stat. The only problem is, the Pirates haven't managed to score any runs, having been five-hit by Astros starter Chris Holt. Ricardo Rincon pitches a hitless top of the tenth, and the stage is set for history. Jason Kendall and Turner Ward draw walks off John Hudek. Mark Smith pinch hits for Rincon with two outs, and crushes a pitch to left-center field. Game over, securing the no-hitter, and moving the Pirates back into a first-place tie. Every time I hear Lanny's call, even today I still get chills.

• July 16 - I am at Camp Calvary for the first time. At camp, it tends to be hard to get much in the way of sports news. In later years, I would bring a clock radio so I could try to pick up KDKA at night, but back then I was almost completely in the dark. The previous night, the Pirates had rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Mets at home, 4-3, to move a game up on the Astros. Some staff member has just returned from their day off with a copy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In the middle of the camp dance, they commandeer the DJ's microphone and announce that the Pirates are in first place. Cue all sorts of jock jams. Good times.

• July 21 - Esteban Loaiza vs. Curt Schilling. Yikes. With the game deadlocked at 2 in the top of the 7th, Kevin Polcovich takes Schilling deep for one of his four Major League home runs ever, in what's probably the most ignominious moment of Schilling's career. Bucs pull to within 1.5 games of the Astros, who have started to pick up the pace.

• July 27 - One of the last pre-scheduled doubleheaders we'll probably ever see. In San Francisco, the Pirates split the twinbill, but have fallen to 3.5 games out of first. This sticks out in my mind because I remember lugging a radio to the park so I could listen to the games and play kickball with the neighborhood kids at the same time.

• August 25 - In the second game of another pre-scheduled doubleheader, Joe Randa and Mark Smith hit back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the 9th to give the Pirates a 4-3 victory over the Dodgers. Their record after splitting the games is 67-65. They are still hanging tough in the division, 3 games behind those pesky Astros. Sadly, it's the closest the Pirates get for the rest of the season.

• August 31 - Bonifay, desperate for offensive firepower, deals for shortstop Shawon Dunston from the Chicago Cubs. After we were treated to numerous "Dunston Checks In" jokes, Shawon certainly did his part, hitting .394 with a .690 slugging percentage the rest of the way. Astoundingly, he didn't walk once and actually had a lower on-base percentage than batting average that month. Unfortunately, not even his heroics are enough to keep the Pirates afloat.

• September 17 - During an otherwise unremarkable 8-4 loss to the Astros, Dave Sveum hits a pinch-hit home run, his 12th of the year. In 1997, Sveum endeared himself to me as "the old guy" on the team, and also had his most productive season OPS-wise ever.

• September 24 - The end is nigh. With a 7-5 loss to the Mets, the Pirates fall to 3.5 games out with three games remaining, a series against the Astros in Houston. However, all the Astros have to do to clinch is take out the woeful Cubs on a dreary day in Chicago. The Cubs roll over, 9-1, and the Pirates miracle playoff aspirations are over. I hated the Cubs for a long time after that.

So, I'm sure most baseball fans will join me in appreciation for Joe Randa's serviceable career, but I personally thank Joe for his contributions to my favorite baseball season of all time, 1997.