- 2.25M for Allie? What? I have a feeling about 10 GMs around the league just widened their eyes in shock!

- Taillon’s bonus figures are undisclosed as are the terms. I don’t much care how much Robert Nutting pays, but please don’t be a major league deal! Pretty please, Neal?

UPDATE: Tweet from Jon Heyman:

jameson taillon, the no. 2 overall pick, is in agreement with the pirates for a bit more than $5 mil, si.com learned.

If this turns out to be true, and no major league deal, I will be convinced that Neal Huntington has been spying and clicking compromising photos of the entire baseball world!

- The Pirates broke 40 wins behind another dominant James McDonald start, Andrew McCutchen’s 10th home run and consecutive 2 RBI hits from the #4 and #5 in the lineup. Good game to watch!

- I don’t expect Neal Huntington to be done for the day. I trust him to get us  Carey, Kirsch or Kent!

- More later as my workload decreases!

In 2-3 years, Taillon could be in Pittsburgh, potentially anchoring a rotation involving some of Morris, Owens, Locke and Wilson. Still, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves with the signing of 2 pitchers yet to pitch to a player above high school. Note first that their stats from high school mean nothing. Then take a look and allow yourself a smile, if you will: Taillon and Allie- 16+K/9 and 20+K/9. Just a little something to help you dream through very rough days for the parent ballclub.

The Pirates will have a golden opportunity if they manage to sign both, who will instantly become the crown jewels of a farm system that is slowly recovering from the misdeeds of the past. They will turn them over then to their minor league system, and then will come the biggest test of Neal Huntington’s tenure. There is little or no doubt that in 4-5 years both these players could be #1 level pitchers- can the farm system develop them into pitchers that get to their ceilings?

That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call the Prestige -from Christopher Nolan’s Prestige

Turning these kids into major league aces will be the hardest part, and that part might well determine the short-medium term success of this team.

—–

If they signed right now, Taillon and Allie will be the 25th and 26th draftees to sign. But the Pirates could well have a few tricks up their sleeves. By at least one account, it looks like Chris Kirsch is gone. I am very surprised that the Pirates would close off negotiations with a pick they must have liked at least a decent amount this early. It seems to me like it may have been a negotiating ploy, and I’d expect at least one of Hursh, Weiss or Kirsch to sign, if not 2. Hursh, especially, seemed close to signing at one point before his name disappeared from the rumor mills!

Dale Carey and Emmanuel Kent- what’s going on there? Carey seemed the likelier option, and hasn’t made up his mind yet, one way or another, which leads me to believe that unless the Pirates pull back, Carey is going to be a Bucco.

Drew Maggi might well be already done, with the formalities remaining, depending on who you believe. I’d expect at least 3 of the above to sign. That would lead the Pirates to a draft class of about 29, with possibly a 30th lurking somewhere!

Apparently, the experts think tomorrow will be a good day to be a Bucco fan. We’ll find out. Here’s to tomorrow!

Of course, the Pirates are likely going to clear that too, with Taillon and Allie together commanding somewhere in the $9-10M range, and the total spending likely to end up in the $13-14M range, as I wrote before.

What’s next for the Bucs?

In the meantime, over the next few days, watch out for Taillon, Allie, Maggi, Carey and a name we haven’t heard much of, but one that I expect the Pirates have their eye on- Dan Grovatt.

Pirates Prospects is now reporting that the Bucs have stepped up discussions with Carey. This should come as a surprise to no one, since Carey was clearly one of the better draftees, and I’d have expected him to be gone after before someone like Hursh, for instance. I also wonder if this means negotiations with one of the other picks- Hursh/Maggi- may have broken down or whether it was in the plans all along. Well, we’ll know in a day and a half!

So, is this draft going to lead into an era where teams regularly start doling out these kinds of numbers to draft picks? Boston seems like another team that will end up in the high 7 figures in terms of draft spending when it’s all said and done. With teams realizing the value of draft picks, it sure seems like this is one aspect where the advantage is going to disappear really quickly for the small market teams. So, it’s all going to come down to who can develop these picks the best.

The Nats will be easily the best draft when it’s all said and done with Harper, Cole, Solis and Ray all locked up. The part that I am really curious about with Harper is the major-league or minor-league deal? I wonder what Boras will have in mind there, but also what the Nats will be thinking. A major league deal will allow them to spread out a hefty signing bonus over many years but it will also mean Harper reaches the big leagues by 2014 at the latest. If they give him a major league deal, it could bite them big-time later.

By the same token, I hope the Pirates will also stick to a non-ML deal with Taillon. In about 35 hours from now, ladies and gentlemen, the Pittsburgh farm system will have a brand new look!

Leaving Evan Meek out there today when he was injured/not well/didn’t have his stuff/generally looked like he was in the wrong place is insane. One big reason for this is the crazy risk that the Pirates seem to be taking with Meek. If Neal Huntington hasn’t spoken to Russell about Meek, he should be doing so soon. In my post on the Park and Resop pickups, I said:

Chan Ho Park- a somewhat surprising pickup, but it might be Neal Huntington trying to protect Evan Meek’s arm from John Russell.

By all accounts, Evan Meek had a disastrous outing today, and that pushed his ERA north of 2. He had an ERA+ of 260 before this game, and although I’ll be the first to admit that ERA and stats derived thereof aren’t useful, that should tell you something about his value, because the other stats back it up. Meek pitched 55 innings in 2009, 8 of which were in AAA. In 2010, he is already at 63, and we are just about halfway through August. Expect him to end around 75 at the very least, which is already 20 more than last year. Add in that he’s pitched higher leverage innings this year, and has unfortunately gone multiple innings on more than a few occasions, and you start to see the fear. Currently, Meek has the 3rd most innings pitched as a reliever in the major leagues in 2010. Really, what is going on here?

His arm is going to fall off, sooner or later. I sincerely hope the Pirates decide to shut him down soon for the year, or if they continue to misuse him in this manner, at least seek to trade him in the offseason, with his value (hopefully) still high. For relievers, I don’t really like the chances of coming back from injuries, nor do I think the wait is particularly worth it. I m not sure here whether Russell is the one calling all shots in this regard, but one way or another, this is likely going to come back to bite the Pirates.

Speaking of rest, how about letting Garrett Jones go back to enjoying the game a little more. Give the guy a day off, John! He’s played non-stop, knowing pretty much that this might be his last shot in the big leagues, thereby adding a little more stress. He’s not old, but he’s not young either- it takes a toll, and this is his first full season. He’s played 113 of the Pirates 115 games this year! Wow! And we have a bunch of players we should be finding playing time for, in order to help make roster decisions. Meanwhile, Jones’ bat takes a plunge, with his OPS now sub-.750.

——

Altoona pulls out a 19 inning thriller against New Hampshire. With 24 baserunners, Altoona only managed to score a total of 4 runs. Tom Boleska pitched 4 shutout innings to get the win and lower his ERA to 0.60. I really wish someone would come up with a detailed report on this guy. I m dying to know more about how his stuff plays, and what we can realistically expect of him. Andrew Lambo, meanwhile, has a hot hot start for Altoona and is now hitting an even .400 (small sample size, of course), and here’s hoping we see him in Indianapolis in 2011.

]]> http://johnesparrow.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/wtf-russell/feed/ 0 johnesparrow http://johnesparrow.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/draft-signings/ http://johnesparrow.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/draft-signings/#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:50:26 +0000 johnesparrow http://johnesparrow.wordpress.com/?p=206 ]]> There is something very magical about watching something you believe in grow. At the same time, you start worrying about a lot of things too, and every decision starts becoming more and more critical. Much the same can be said of Pirate fans who watched in distress as Dave Littlefield laid to waste an organization which deserved much better, and whose fans certainly did too. Slowly, however, the fans (or at least, those with open minds) are starting to see a plan mature. They are starting to believe that those much criticized moves might, in fact, one day produce a winner.

In late 2007, the Huntington management committed to building from within, and emphasized the importance of the draft in this process. The 2008 draft nearly turned into a disaster, with Scott Boras and Pedro Alvarez challenging the signing on the grounds that it happened after midnight, ostensibly in an effort to secure a major league deal and more money. The 2009 draft saw an interesting approach by the Pirates where they drafted Sanchez with the #4 pick and picked up a bunch of high-ceiling prep pitchers in von Rosenberg, Cain, Dodson and Stevenson. No one is really sure as to whether the Pirates saw Sanchez as the best player available or whether it was part of the strategy in a draft where there didn’t seem to be a clear choice.

The 2010 draft had a lot of people worried that the Pirates might try the same approach again instead of going for the best players available in Taillon and Machado. Those turned out to be unfounded, as the Pirates spent a lot of time debating between those two players before settling on Taillon. They followed that up with a barrage of RHPs with high ceilings, including Stetson Allie, believed to be first round worthy but one who dropped because of bonus demands. I certainly thought that we would not get most of the large set of prep pitchers drafted, since the top 2 picks would take a significant chunk of the draft budget. So far, though, the Pirates have done a great job with signing a bunch of good picks, and there are so many rumors around that its hard to contain oneself at the potential in this draft class.

The most recent of these rumors says that a deal may already be in place with Taillon. I would be very surprised if this were the case, since I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a pick believed to be as tough a sign as Taillon signed this early, but it would be a welcome change. In fact, since they had extensive meetings with Taillon before the draft, it’s entirely possible they agreed to some part of it in advance.

Regardless of whether rumors about Taillon having signed are true or not, I’d expect the Pirates to sign him. Pitchers like Taillon are rare, and he has very little to gain by not signing. The harder part will be getting Allie to sign and managing to find enough in the budget to sign other high-ceiling players. One way or other, a good number of those high-ceiling players are already signed. Allie remains, as do a few more, and it remains to be seen where this Pirate class ends up.

So with 23 picks in the fold, one wonders if this will be the draft where the Pirates break notions of a draft budget! Some of the higher priced signees include the (apparently) recently signed Jared Lakind, Ryan Hafner, Mel Rojas Jr, Nick Kingham. As I said in my post after the draft:

here are the ones I’d like to see the Bucs make runs at: Andrew Maggi, Matt Curry, Emanuel Kent, Dale Carey, Jared Lakind.

Of those, Lakind and Curry are already in and it appears that Maggi might be too. I’d go after Carey first and Kent after that, although this might well depend on some of the guys earlier that are still unsigned such as Jason Hursh and Austin Kubitza. I wrote then that I expected not more than one of those 2 to sign, but we’ll see how things work out. So far, the Pirates have spent just over 2M to get Rojas, Kingham, Waldron, Cumpton, Hafner, and Lakind. I’d expect Taillon’s bonus to be in the $7M range. That puts it at around $9M (hypothetical, of course). They’ve signed a whole bunch of others too, presumably for much lower amounts, but given that there were at least 15 of them, they would have cost a somewhat significant amount put together.

How much more can they spend, and what can they get? If there are deals in place already, then clearly they must be for more money, else we’d know about them, or later rounds for similar money. I’d expect Hursh to cost around the $400K range, and the more I read about it, the more I think Kubitza will not sign. So, let’s say the likes of Carey, Kent, Hursh or any set of 3-4 players the Pirates have their eyes on will take somewhere between 1.5-2M to sign. How much then can we allocate to Allie?

$2M for Allie will take the overall draft spending in the $13M range, and 3M into the $14M range. I expect the final number Allie will be somewhere between those 2, probably in the 2.3-2.5M range, and yes, I expect the Pirates to sign Stetson Allie. The overall point, though, is that if they do, they will end up spending in the $14M range, and that could end up being the new record.

In the meantime, over the next few days, watch out for Taillon, Allie, Maggi, Carey and a name we haven’t heard much of, but one that I expect the Pirates have their eye on- Dan Grovatt.

EDIT: Even as I typed this up, I received email from a friend pointing me to this signing.

So, the Pirates are going to go out of their way to get Ryan Doumit playing time. Presumably they’ve had teams interested before when they made their ill-advised move-Ryan-to-1B gambit which backfired spectacularly. And I can only guess this latest effort is meant to see if they can boost his trade value. More on the other potential trade chips after the jump

Apparently, the Red Sox have signed Carlos Delgado. They could do with a lefty 1B, and Garrett Jones should certainly be on the market. The trouble, however, is that the Red Sox are a smart enough organization to not overpay for a 1B like Jones. So don’t have any hopes of a Dotel like steal. This also is the primary reason I’d look for players farther away from the majors with high ceilings if I trade with the BoSox.

The Cardinals are interested in Andy LaRoche. This is interesting for 2 reasons: one, I expect the FO will want a king’s ransom for Andy, even though his stock is at an all-time low as they should, especially when dealing within the division, and with a player who, as late as March 2010, was considered a huge-breakout candidate. The other aspect to this story makes it a little tricky. LaRoche’s star has dimmed, and clearly he doesn’t have a shot at the Pirate infield assuming everyone stays healthy. His status, however, has not dipped so far that he d be able to make it through waivers ala Moss. So, leaving him on the bench to get 1AB every 3 games is equivalent to killing of whatever hopes he has of making it in the big leagues. Now, the FO will be well-aware that the difference between Andy playing and warming the bench is just 1 injury, something that is all too common at the major league level, and for that reason, I suspect we’ll hold on to him for another year at the very least. But, it’s an interesting situation, with no clear solution.

How about that start by James McDonald? Mowed the Rockies down for 6 innings. We’ll find out over the next couple of months whether that was an adrenaline charged debut, or whether it heralds bigger things to come.

For the rest of the rotation, though, things remain as fluid as ever. Charlie Morton and Brad Lincoln have found no rhythm whatsoever in Indy, Maholm remains steady, Ohlendorf and Duke have been hanging in there. The 2011 rotation will likely be some combination of these guys- McDonald, Maholm, Ohlendorf with 2 others. I m not entirely certain the Pirates will hang on to Zach Duke, but at this point, I’d recommend they do as opposed to non-tendering him. If they can trade him, of course, all is good! Karstens has managed to be steady, but I like him far far more in the DJ Carrasco role of going 2-3 innings at a time. Something tells me we could see the addition of a FA starter next year- if anyone was wondering, yes, I do think the guys in Altoona, esp Owens and Wilson, should move up to Indy for a start or two, and then start 2011 there, and spend the whole season in Indy. There are lessons to be learnt in every level of minor league ball, and if we make a mistake in guessing how long it will take them to learn those, let’s err on the safe side, and give them more than they need rather than less. Bring them up in June 2012, or May, but don’t bring them up too soon.

That is probably not a good idea for a team that needs to rely on its farm as badly as the Pirates do, but it might behoove Neal Huntington to make a call and find out what they may want. The main reason behind this as far as I am concerned is that the Pirates have a logjam in RF that I wrote about recently, and Pat at WHYGAVS discussed since too. If Dunn can be had with players that are part of this logjam, and Tim has another post about the roster crunch regarding the 40 man roster, I’d think about it. Think something on the lines of Adcock and Moreno, or maybe Presley or Negrych could come in there too. But I’d venture to guess that the Nats would turn this down and either reach a long-term contract with Dunn or take their 2 draft picks. Dunn should be worth at least someone like Owens plus another good prospect at a lower level maybe, but he doesn’t have that value to the Pirates who cannot afford to lose their pitching depth at AA. In any case, I expect this to not happen, but I just threw it out there.

Realistically though, the Pirates need to get pitching, since that is the potion that drives playoff races. And they need top of the line pitching, front of the rotation starters. In 2 years, I d guess we’d have a strong back end of the rotation, but its the front that’s going to be a major problem. Where do they get their No. 1 from? The hope, of course, is that Bryan Morris develops into one, but even if he races through AAA, it’s not fair to expect him to be one before 2014 at the earliest. The same goes for the rest of the pitchers at the AA level, who may turn into studs someday but not in the next 2 years. Meanwhile the clock on McCutchen, Alvarez and Tabata keeps ticking. I’ll have a wild suggestion on where to get a No. 1 before this post ends.

Before that, though, one final look at the deadline that went past. The Pirates didn’t have many valuable trade chips, but they traded the least valuable ones, holding onto Maholm, Duke and Doumit. Duke and Doumit had their values nuked by recent injuries and stints on the DL, and I m guessing there wasn’t much interest in Doumit anyway. But what did the Pirates leave on the table with Maholm?

We will never know of course. But, if we insisted on a young starter as Dejan at the Post-Gazette says we did (I can’t find the link right now, darn!),  then we might have shot ourselves in the foot. If we are not planning on contending over the next 2-3 years, and there isn’t much reason to think we might be, we should be asking for high ceiling pitchers at the A-levels, 2 or 3 at a time, and try to develop the missing ace. Two things might have happened in between though, that might have sabotaged deals for our starting pitchers anyway.

First, Dan Haren got moved at an unbelievably cheap price. Second, Matt Capps got moved at an unbelievably high price. The first lowered significantly what we could get for Maholm, and the second significantly increased what we could get for our relievers. I’d imagine Huntington would have been happy to consider Lambo and McDonald as fairly central to a Maholm trade, although I expect he’d want to replace Lambo with Dee Gordon for Maholm. In any case, it seems likely that the market decided Maholm’s future with the Pirates.

Other than that, Matt Capps. He could, and should, have been a Bucco, and we might have got Wilson Ramos for him. And no, Dotel could still have been a Pirate if Capps was here. But given how many uncertainties there are in that hypothesis, I’ll let this one slide, since it seems to me that Capps is the main reason we got what we did for Dotel. That, and probably Mike Rizzo’s stubbornness on what he’d take.

However, now that Maholm is with the Pirates and can be till 2012, we have a solid #3. Duke could be a great #5. That leaves spots 1, 2 and 4 in the rotation to fill. It’s not entirely stupid to hope that Lincoln can be a reliable #4 in 2011, and I don’t think many would take too strong a stand here. But then, where do we get our #1 and #2 from?

I’d first take a good long look at the 2011 FA pool. What names stand out? Cliff Lee, Jorge de la Rosa, Jeff Francis, Jon Garland, Aaron Harang, Javier Vazquez. Forget the first immediately- we can’t get him. The rest may all be in play though. De La Rosa will command a 4-5 year salary in the $12M range though, and I’d be willing to give him that. He’d be a real #2. The rest are all somewhat uncertain, but could be had on the right deals for under $10 M. Ideally the Pirates want to avoid giving any of them more than 2 year contracts. Francis and Garland would both be middle of the rotation types, but Harang and Vazquez could both be legitimate #2 pitchers, although age might catch up with them.

But that still leaves out that 1 guy, at the top of the rotation who can put up about 5-7 wins above replacement. Where do we get him from? The answer might just lie with Boston. Wha…?

Let’s think of the marquee free agent pitcher on the market- Cliff Lee. Let’s presume 3 teams can go farther than the rest- the Yankees, Mets and the Red Sox. The Yankees can go the farthest. Those are the assumptions. Now, the rest assumes those are true (and if you don’t buy that, you might as well stop here; and there are good reasons not to buy it).  Who wants to see Lee go to the Yanks least of all? The Red Sox. They can do something about it, but they may not be able to take on another $20M plus contract for 7 years, even though Lowell and Varitek and Martinez come off the books. In that case, they might just be willing to trade one of their big contract starting pitchers.

I am thinking Josh Beckett here, for 2 reasons. He has $17M per for the next 4 years, and let’s face it, there’s no way the Pirates get someone like him on the FA market at that price. He’s coming off a mediocre 2010, which might lower his value, and the return he commands. And finally, the Sox might just want badly enough to keep Lee away from the Yanks that those $17M per year might become a factor in making the upgrade.

There is a side that you need to balance. What caused his bad 2010? He’s had some injury scares, and the loss of control might portend a major injury stint coming, one that has been in the works for a while. While his 4 year contract extension was being negotiated, Joe Pawlikowski wrote the following:

Beckett’s right shoulder hasn’t been a problem in nearly a decade. In 2000 a doctor told him that labrum surgery was inevitable, but Dr. James Andrews opined that the surgery could be avoided. He instead rested and rehabbed, and hasn’t had an incident since. An MRI in 2007 confirmed an optimistic outlook, though the Red Sox still appear leery of signing Beckett through his age-35 season.

Clearly, this might have had something to do with his performance in 2010, although there’s not enough reason to not believe the simple explanation which is that he hit a rough stretch, as David Golebiewski wrote. If such a thing were to be possible, the Pirates would need to examine Beckett very carefully.

That, then, was my fanciful notion of the day. What will it cost the Pirates? This is hard to say, and might depend on many other factors, but I am fairly certain it’s going to cost Bryan Morris. Given the injury potential, that alone might make it not worth the trade, but let’s worry about that later. If we end up in this hypothetical world, and the Pirates believe Beckett’s shoulder will stay attached, he would be well worth the price.

]]> http://johnesparrow.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/deadline-comments-part-3-a-missed-opportunity-and-a-flight-of-fancy/feed/ 0 johnesparrow http://johnesparrow.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/action-in-the-bullpen/ http://johnesparrow.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/action-in-the-bullpen/#comments Thu, 05 Aug 2010 06:25:23 +0000 johnesparrow http://johnesparrow.wordpress.com/?p=202 ]]> So Chris Resop is finally a Pirate. All my wild eyed speculation and suggestions of trading for him turned out to be unnecessary after all. It’s a little strange though. You can see the Braves didn’t want to lose him, which is why they called him up and also why they hid him on the DL, but he still has a corner or two to turn before being useful in a major league rotation. Can Kerrigan help him turn the corner? We’ll see.

I had a post on the roster crunch that I spoke about as well as some more wild-eyed fanboy speculation on what the Pirates could do to improve as a team in 2011, but I decided to delay it till tomorrow, with the new Buccos all coming in. Follow after the jump for more about the “exciting” new rotation, a draft signee and a shout out of a little mentioned reliever…

In that post I linked to earlier, I suggested Harrison and Boleska as the kind of price I’d be willing to pay. In light of the present bullpen situation, I wanted to give a shout out to Tom Boleska, oft-injured and little noticed for the performance he’s put up over the last year and a half. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on the major league team in 2011, but I’d suggest giving him plenty of reps to let him learn his craft. He’s done well at every level so far, thanks primarily to a miniscule walk and home run rate. Let’s hope he can keep it up and breeze through his last 2 levels.

Chan Ho Park- a somewhat surprising pickup, but it might be Neal Huntington trying to protect Evan Meek’s arm from John Russell. I don’t like what has been done with Meek so far, and I hope they are very very careful the rest of the year.

****

Very few things are looked forward to as much as the first appearance of a much heralded player. Unfortunately, such appearances have been few and far between for the Buccos, but they may just be starting to happen more often. Tomorrow, James McDonald takes on the Rockies- it’s not his first start ever, but it’s his first as a Pirate. He’s not the most heralded starter, but he’s certainly well-regarded. With good reason! Again, here’s another pitcher who has the potential to be a solid cog in a ML rotation but needs to turn a couple of corners, perhaps mental.

Here’s to a new tomorrow, where Pirates starters are good, and they score in the middle innings!

****

Apparently, Nicholas Kingham has signed. The Pirates 4th round draft pick was highly regarded by Andy Seiler as well as scouts, and was reported to have signed a long time back in this post by Anup Sinha. Today, Tim at PirateProspects wrote about this, and it appears to be confirmed unofficially by Kingham on Facebook! Good luck with the rest of the righties, FO!

Ramos has had a down year in 2010, but that shouldn’t have equated to Matt Capps, unless the Twins saw something they felt would hurt him down the road- the big advantage for Ramos though is that even though his hitting value is heavily tied to his sluggin, the defense remains good, by all accounts, and the absence of walks is not going to make life as hard for him as for regular position players while his defense stays solid.

If Capps had not been non-tendered, would Ramos have been a Pirate? Maybe, maybe not- maybe Capps wouldn’t even have rebounded as a Pirate. However, I do believe that it was this deal that paved the way for the Pirates to get what they eventually did in the Dotel deal. More after the jump…

The GOOD: James McDonald and Andrew Lambo are a phenomenal return for Dotel who’s a good reliever, and is a good addition in the setup role for the stretch run, but either one of those guys would likely have been an adequate return in terms of value. McDonald will start for the Pirates in a couple of days, while Lambo will go to AA.

McDonald’s fastball can get up to about 94 mph, but expect it to average just above 90. McDonald has maintained a K rate close to 1 per IP in the higher minors through AA and AAA. The walk rate has mostly hovered around 3 too and coupled with a low HR/9 point to a solid starter. Unfortunately, for McDonald, he’s never put it together in the big leagues and the deck chair shuffling Dodgers have been forced to move him around between the rotation and the bullpen to help the club in their playoff pursuits. The lower pressure Pittsburgh team may be just what he needs to get going in the big leagues. I have high hopes that McDonald will be the #3 in the rotation at least over the next 4 years or so, and a good one.

Andrew Lambo is slightly further away and harder to predict. As a 21 year old in AA, he’s done well. Not as well as he did in the lower minors, but well enough. He skipped high A which undoubtedly set him back some  in 2008and led to the 25% K rate . In 2009, it was down under 20% and the walks up by 2%. His numbers in 2010 mirror the 2009 numbers with fewer HRs and should be a cause for concern. Coupled with suspensions for marijuana usage, they led to a dimming of his prospect status and allowed the Bucs to get him in this trade. Lambo’s floor seems to me to be a bench player, which is a heck of a start. However, he has plenty of time to put it together and become an elite player. Especially given his age, he has a chance to develop his plate approach more and improve the walk rate to the 12% range at least. Sickels had Lambo at a B-, and if he can develop his tools, he has a great chance to be a solid regular at the major league level. It’s up to the Pirates minor league system now to get him there!

So, there had been talks between the Pirates and Dodgers about Maholm? Wonder what Huntington wanted for Maholm then? Probably something like, Dee Gordon, Chris Withrow and James McDonald! And I imagine Colletti did his best to give them to him too!

One final part to this series coming up- where I’ll outline some issues I had with the Pirates deadline performance: yes, I want the world, I m a nitpicker- what to do only!

In any case, I loved the deadline deals for the Pirates, but there are a couple of things that bothered me too, and I’ll go into them in Smizik style, detailing the good, the bad and the ugly. Actually, only the first 2, there’s no ugly here for me.

The GOOD: Phenomenal returns for 2 relievers. Grant at McCovey Chronicles had it exactly right-

When I think scrapheap lefty, Lopez is who I’m thinking of.

How or why he turned into John Bowker and Joe Martinez is well beyond me. I know a little bit about Bowker, very little about Martinez. From looking at his stats, Martinez figures to be the guy who will hang around AAA, coming in for the occasional spot start when someone in the rotation goes down for a start or two. Think a Daniel McCutchen with fewer home runs.

John Bowker however is someone who could surprise. The logjam in the Pirate OF/1B situation means he’ll have to show his stuff in AAA, but I can see him as a solid contributor, at least as the lefty part of a platoon. Why? Well, 2009 is the reason. It still remains to be seen how sustainable his AAA performance in 2009 was, but there’s certainly cause for hope. Apparently, the Giants asked him to change his approach at the plate, take more walks and so on. The result over a 100 games in AAA was a 254 ISO (!!!), .451 OBP, and .596 SLG!!!! That’s phenomenal, even if aided by a .362 BABIP. Especially that walk percentage of 16.4%. I imagine the time at AAA Indy will be key to his hopes of earning regular PT in the majors.

Milledge seems to be playing himself out of the starting role, but might do enough to earn the righty side of a platoon. The lack of someone grabbing the job so far, however, has meant that the Pirates will have to hold onto Jones, who is solid, though unspectacular. I would trade Jones ASAP while he has value, if teams are willing to give up something for him. Why not see what Sabean will give up? Maybe Wheeler? Maybe Belt?

One other related thought here- Assuming Jones stays a Bucco and plays mostly 1B, it’s hard to see Clement getting much PT. He is also out of options, along with Steve Pearce. I’d think about moving Clement back to catcher and letting him swim or sink. Try to trade him in the offseason for someone like Ka’aihue perhaps, or move one of the catchers Snyder maybe to perhaps the Red Sox, who were rumored to have interest in him. Essentially, move Clement out of the 1B logjam since his value with the bat there isn’t likely to be enough.

How about Brandon Moss? He hit his 19th HR in AAA after a horrendous start- the K-rate stays high though, and as far as I’m concerned, Bowker should be ahead of Moss on the depth chart easily. Again, Huntington got someone to trade him an almost league average catcher for Church and Crosby and get back money, so I am hoping he’ll find someone to take Brandon Moss, preferably in the AL.

The Snyder trade seems a reasonable swap (let me again say how grateful every Pirates fan should be that they no longer have to watch Church- heck, even Smizik didn’t pan this one!) and isn’t of particular interest anyway except to see how Ryan Doumit reacts. Under the circumstances, I’ll do another post on the good, which is about the Dotel trade, and then one about the bad, which consist mostly of my misgivings, with respect to the trade deadline.