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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
“Huntington’s first two major trades as the Pittsburgh Pirates’ general manager have been panned. The Pirates keep appearing in the losers’ column in seemingly every national analyst’s review of how teams fared during last week’s non-waiver trading deadline…
“The beating Huntington is taking in the national media is completely unfair. What the national guys seem to forget is the Pirates are out of the running again this season with no hope beyond center fielder prospect Andrew McCutchen in the farm system.”
Leave it to a Pittsburgh Pirates beat writer to call out the credibility of his Baseball Writers Association of America peers in evaluating the trades in favor of at least one executive in the game who was involved in a trade.
Your peers, John, are the same people who annually elect folks in the game into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, vote for the Most Valuable Player, the Cy Young Award winner, and the Rookie of the Year awards. They are the people in the know and some of those very writer’s you dissed in your article. Besides, if we remember back just a few short years ago John, you were writing articles for a Pirates publication while some of those same media boys were writing the club was going nowhere, but you were drinking Nutting Kool-Aid then too.
But we still enjoy your coverage even though you wanted to kiss some Pirate ***. Maybe you should consider kissing some BBWAA *** instead - you might get farther along.
Scathing.
4seamer
Posted: August 05, 2008 at 07:40 PM | 39 comment(s)
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Yeah, it's scathing all right. Scathing and, well, wrong. "Impact upside"? You mean the sort of player that is already better than most of the guys the Pirates traded away? Great thinking. Don't rebuild by acquiring risk? The hell.
It's this one. Bucco Blog is embarrassing to Pirates fans, to baseball fans, to humans for whom English is a first, second or third language and to the concept of logic itself.
Didn't Bucco Blog shut down for a while because the author got fooled by a fake email claiming to be from the Pirates' front office, threatening to sue him for badmouthing them or something like that?
"That's not a drunk, it's a man with an alcohol dependance!"
"He doesn't have shell shock, he has combat stress reaction!"
I just cannot buy that.... I mean - I think everyone in the universe knows Xavier Nady is still Xavier Nady.... basically, Juan Encarnacion with less athleticism, but perhaps a bit more plate coverage. Marte is a run of the mill reliever, though he's a lefty...
But let's be serious folks, no one -- certainly no major league GM -- is going to suddenly start overvaluing them because they're both putting up career numbers.
I think Huntington did quite well for himself in the Yankees deal. Tabata most certainly does have upside -- and while the 3 pitchers are probably just a step above organizational fodder, the Pirates certainly increased the quality of their organizational fodder.
Huntington has a big mess to clean up - and I think he's doing OK for himself so far.
If no teams (including the Yankees) were willing to give up more, there was no absolute necessity to trade either player now. Nady's contract runs through next season, and the Pirates had an option on Marte for 2009. I'll agree with you that Nady was having a career season (so perhaps there was more urgency to trade him), but Marte was not having a career year with Pittsburgh.
Good times...
Nady's seasons with 300+ pa and OPS above 100: 4 out of 5, with low of 92
Encarnacion's seasons with 300+ pa and OPS above 100: 2 out of 9, including three seasons in the 80s
Career OPS: Nady 110, Juanc 97.
I thought Nady's advantage might be due to being employed more in advantageous platoon situations, but Juanc has a .758 OPS from either side, and Nady is at .770 vs. RHP.
Their main similarity is that neither one seems to care much for the base on balls.
Yes.
-- MWE
I think this is a situation where the false sense of urgency to which you're referring overtook reason. No sense in unloading the guy at peak value if you're getting the same (perhaps less) than you would get at any other time with calmer heads. But once a GM feels that urgency, it's easy to forget why there was urgency until after the deal is over.
/falls prey to this dilemma as a fantasy owner
/also, thinks being a fantasy owner is the same as being a MLB GM
My favorite piece of Jake's analysis was probably when he said, during the '06/'07 offseason, that the Pirates shouldn't look at Adam Dunn as a potential acquisition because they'd be better off (according to his projections) with Casey Rogowski. The post where he accidentally-on-purpose botches the Runs Created formula while comparing the two sadly seems to have been taken down, but you can see him singing Rogowski's praises here.
Two of them are. McCutchen is a cut above the others, though no casual analysts seem to want to admit it.
"...and the Pirates had an option on Marte for 2009."
Sure, an option for one year at $6M. Pretty excessive for a bullpen lefty, on a team with a $50M-ish payroll, espeically in a world where you can get a Trever Miller for a third of that (or an Affeldt for half).
The Pirates' choice with Marte was between trading him at the deadline and declining his option in order to offer him arb and potentially get a pick or two.
Like I said earlier: Jake is a nudnik.
On the upside, this: trading overpriced veteran impact talent to acquire projectable youthful talent with impact upside that starts with good health and makeup might be the most over-the-top "inside baseball" jargon-y sentence ever written. I don't think someone could parody that sort of talk better than that.
Like I said earlier: Jake is a nudnik.
I'm not overly familiar with the site, but when the generally circumspect Emeigh (or Ron Johnson for that matter) call someone an idiot, I'm inclined to believe them.
A C-level prospect who was in the White Sox system, 13th-round draft pick in '99. In 2006, the year that Jake's gushing over in the post I linked, he hit .272/.351/.436 as a 25-year-old at AAA (but with great clutch numbers!). The next season, the year that he would've been having as the Pirates' starting 1B if Jake had his druthers, he hit .245/.340/.400 while repeating AAA, then got dumped off of Chicago's 40-man roster and signed with Oakland as a minor-league FA.
Career stats.
You're implying that circumspection isn't my strong suit?
Rogowski is a minor league journeyman but he has impact middleside, topwise smartness, country-strong instincts, and double-plus good speediddily.
/covers groin
And he's clutch, too.
Minor league 1B, age 27, now in Oakland's system. Comparable to Daryle Ward among MLB players in terms of skills.
-- MWE
That feels about right to me. Or Hal Chase with more walks and ethics, but a lot less talent.
Two comments:
1. You haven't seen Rogowski lately; he bulked up big-time in 2006 and he's got a very similar build to Ward's now.
2. Ward really isn't much of a power guy. When he was traded to Houston, the Astros tried to make him into one; what they got for their efforts was mostly fly balls to the warning track.
-- MWE
Really? Last time I saw him was at a Frederick Keys game 3 or 4 years ago.
[Edit: Check the web, he really bulked up a ton! He doesn't look like he should still be stealing bases]
Good stuff
Maybe, just maybe if your going to tout some AAAA 1B you should pick one who, you know, actually mashes AAA hitting? Like this guy?
or
this guy
or
this guy
or
this guy
or anyone else who is better than AAA average?????????????
Talk about damning with faint praise.
-- MWE
-- MWE
what's worse is that I tend to think Eldred has FAR more "upside"....
Eldred might have a Mike Jacobs 2005, Shelley Duncan 2007 momment in him, Rogo not so much...
I'd bet Perrotto would prefer if BTF separated his good name from the headline, JJ/Sunny, Bucco Blog, 4seamer, etc.
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