Trading Jason Bay: Name your price for our LF
As the hot stove season progresses, the Pirates could—and should—be active in the trade market. We have a number of commodities that might be near their peak value, and a smart general manager (which we hope Neal Huntington is) would do well for himself by selling at a high point.
One such sell-high candidate is [...]
Armas a free agent
Tony Armas, a free agent flop with the Pirates in 2007, has decided to become a free agent. Armas declined a $5 million mutual option for 2008, an option that certainly would not have been picked up by the team. The Pirates must pay him a $500,000 buyout.
Read moreTigers deal Jurrjens for shortstop, not Jack Wilson
The Tigers have dealt Jair Jurrjens for a shortstop, but it was not Jack Wilson. Jurrjens was shipped to the Atlanta Braves, along with minor league outfielder Gorkys Hernandez, for veteran Edgar Renteria. Renteria is a below average fielder, but he had an excellent season at the plate in 2007. He posted [...]
Read moreDouble-A affiliate Altoona to sport new throwbacks
As originally noted this morning by Uni Watch’s Paul Lukas, the Altoona Curve have introduced an alternate throwback jersey to be worn for Sunday afternoon home games as means of celebrating the club’s 10th anniversary. The uniforms are described in a press release:
Read morePirates must build future around young pitchers
The World Series is over. The Red Sox won, Josh Fogg lost, and we can all return to our regularly scheduled off-season blogging.
Over the past week or so, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Pirates’ future plans—as I’m sure many diehards have. We hear grumblings about changes in leadership, talk [...]
Bat autographed by top Pirate prospects available in eBay auction for Domestic Violence Project
Tom Kackley, equipment manager for the Trenton Thunder (the New York Yankees’ Double-A affiliate) contacted MVN’s director of minor-league baseball and Bronx Bomber blogger extraordinaire E.J. Fagan with the details of a cool auction for charity.
You can read more about the auction for the Domestic Violence Project at Pending Pinstripes.
An impressive list of items includes [...]
Fun with Baseball-Reference – Pirate comparable players
October is a boring time for a Pirate fan. Even the revamping of the teams front office and management has come to a virtual standstill, at least publicly. The World Series started last night, but the coverage here, here and at many other places is far superior to anything I can provide. [...]
Read moreCoonelly: Rockies provide hope for Pirate fans
As Derrick Goold wrote in this morning’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the “Rockies can offer [an] avalanche of hope” to small-market teams on the rise.
And the team Goold uses as a model in painting his picture? Your Pittsburgh Pirates:
“If you get people to believe that chance [to contend for a title], to embrace it, [...]
Was Jose Castillo ever a prospect?
Jose Castillo joined the Pirates in 2004 at the age of 23. He was young, promising, and seemed poised to become a fixture at second base for many years. In 2004, he hit .256/.298/.368. He followed that up with lines of .268/.307/.416 in 2005, .253/.299/.382 in 2006, and .244/.270/.335 in 2007. [...]
Read morePirate lineup analysis by 2008 ZiPS, BB Musings
As I’m sure you’ve seen by now—and as other Bucco bloggers have pointed out—Baseball Think Factory’s Dan Szymborski has posted his 2008 ZiPS projections for the Pirates.
Background on ZiPS from BBTF:
ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors – many of the players [...]
