Pirates

Ken Rosenthal:

[T]he Dodgers' bid for [C.C.] Sabathia is complicated by their pursuit of Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson as a replacement for the injured Rafael Furcal, sources say.

To get Wilson, the Dodgers would need to trade the Pirates some of the same players that the Indians want for Sabathia, leaving Los Angeles with a choice of one deal or the other...

Class AA right-hander James McDonald, Class AAA shortstop Chin-Lung Hu and third baseman Andy LaRoche are among the Dodgers' prospects likely drawing consideration form the Indians...

[T]he addition of Wilson, 30, would fill the void created by the absence of Furcal, who will be out at least eight more weeks after undergoing back surgery...

By acquiring Wilson, the Dodgers would signal that they might not intend to keep Furcal, whom they probably consider too big of a physical risk to re-sign as a free agent.

Well, there's no way to know until something happens. I've already said I think the Bucs should try to get Matt Kemp, but I seriously doubt the Dodgers would consider giving him up for Wilson. 

I like the players mentioned in the article, though. McDonald has a very good performance record and looks like he could be a good big league starter, and he'd significantly improve the Pirates' awful minor league pitching depth. Hu and LaRoche are both good buy-low candidates; neither one is having a great year, but they've had success in the minors in the past. Hu is actually very much like a young Wilson--he doesn't appear to have great plate discipline or power, but he's hit for high averages in the minors and is potentially a vacuum cleaner at short. As for LaRoche, given that the Bucs should soon have both Neil Walker and Pedro Alvarez in their system at third, I'm not sure where he fits in, but you can never have too many good hitters.

If I were the Indians, I would want better players than this for Sabathia. But for Wilson, they're good enough.

You know, a story like this seems like a fairly big deal, but all we know about 16-year-old Colombian shortstop Jonathan Barrios is that he's one of the top 25 prospects coming out of Latin America. (And, judging from this article at ESPN.com, he's probably not in the top half of the top 25.) There are only 30 teams in the majors. The Pirates really should be signing one of these players pretty much every year. This is certainly a start, and I don't mean to sound critical of Barrios, who I know little about, but still: this is something we should expect more than something we should celebrate.

Remarkably, the Pirates managed to get runners into scoring position during each of the first six innings, and they still managed just one run. It sounds silly, but this easily could have been a close game if the Pirates had better timing; John Russell let the Brewers tack on several runs in the fifth after it was already clear that Tom Gorzelanny didn't have anything left. (The pitcher's spot came up first in the top of the sixth, and Russell was presumably hoping to get Gorzelanny through the inning so he didn't have to waste a reliever.) Gorzelanny, for his part, had his usual troubles finding the strike zone, but he didn't exactly deserve to have seven runs tacked onto his ERA. His free pass Ben Sheets, a bad hitter even by pitchers' standards, to lead off the fifth probably  should've had Russell ready to pull him at any time. On top off all that, the Pirates made two errors. Not one of their better games, this one.

Tom Gorzelanny vs. Ben Sheets, 2:05 PM.

Now here is something you wait until the end of business right before a three-day weekend to do:

To clear space for [Chris] Duffy on the 40-man roster, right-hander Bryan Bullington was designated for assignment.

Bullington, as you all know, was the top pick in the 2002 draft. Judged by that standard, his pro career has been a spectacular failure. In the low minors, he didn't have the solid stuff he had shown before being drafted, generally throwing his fastball in the high 80s. Since beating up on South Atlantic League hitters in eight games during his first pro season, he hasn't had a single stop where his stats and stuff indicated he was likely to be any more than the last guy out of a big-league bullpen. There was literally nothing to recommend him other than his draft position. Meanwhile, other top-20 picks in that draft include B.J. Upton, Prince Fielder, Jeremy Hermida, James Loney, Scott Kazmir, Nick Swisher, Cole Hamels, Jeff Francis, Zach Greinke...

Obviously, it isn't Bullington's fault he was taken first. I wish him well. But what I wouldn't do for a do-over.

The Post-Gazette:

They were negotiating yesterday on the final details of a signing bonus for Jonathan Barrios, a 16-year-old shortstop out of Colombia who made the final top-25 lists of two publications. Barrios was the star talent at an academy in homeland called Prospect Sport, owned and operated by Chicago White Sox shortstop Orlando Cabrera.

"We feel pretty good about getting it done," general manager Neal Huntington said yesterday of signing Barrios.

I haven't the slightest idea what this means. ESPNDeportes mentioned Barrios in a recent article about the top Latin amateur talents, but didn't say anything about him, and most of the other references to Barrios on the internet are copies of that article. 

Five days ago, I wrote that the next few days after that might mark a turning point in the Pirates' season. Fast forward to the present and Matt Capps is now gone, but the Bucs have won three of five despite starting the likes of Jimmy Barthmaier, Ty Taubenheim and, tonight, John Van Benschoten. Neither Barthmaier nor Van Benchoten were any good at all (Taubenheim was fine), but the Bucs made up for it with some contributions from unexpected sources--Adam LaRoche throughout, two scoreless innings from T.J. Beam on Saturday, Doug Mientkiewicz last night, Luis Rivas tonight. The Bucs also got a remarkable 6.1 scoreless innings from Denny Bautista, Sean Burnett, John Grabow and Tyler Yates tonight to win the game even after Van Benschoten got shelled.

Now, it's true that the Pirates are also getting help from more established sources like Xavier Nady (who hit two homers tonight), Jack Wilson and Jason Bay, but I would like to stop and ask you to read some of the names in that first paragraph again if it didn't already stop you.

Jimmy Barthmaier. Ty Taubenheim. T.J. Beam. Doug Mientkiewicz. Luis Rivas. Denny Bautista. Sean Burnett. Tyler Yates. That's a remarkably ragtag group of players. I'm not sure if Neal Huntington deserves credit for wringing wins out of them in the absence of half his rotation and his closer. Regardless, I look at a performance like the one the Pirates got from their bullpen tonight, and I have to smile.

Yikes:

Capps, who blew saves here Monday and Tuesday nights, went to Pittsburgh today for tests, which revealed "internal range of motion detriment," according to manager John Russell.

What is "internal range of motion detriment," and why would that cost Capps two months? Any doctors in the house? This is why it's a drag when Dejan Kovacevic has the day off. Neither the other papers nor the Pirates' website is much more helpful.

Steve Pearce takes Capps' place on the roster, but he may be gone when Phil Dumatrait returns.

Obviously, the loss of Capps is a huge blow to the Pirates, who were already struggling to find enough good arms to fill out their bullpen. He won't be back until early September.

John Van Benschoten vs. Daryl Thompson, 7:10 PM.

I'm not sure how much of this game I'm going to be able to see, but I'm interested in checking out Thompson. You may recall that he was the minor league pitcher the Reds got in the Austin Kearns-Felipe Lopez deal. Former Reds GM Wayne Krivsky was lambasted by nearly everyone (including me) for that trade, which seemed like an absolutely boneheaded, horrible idea at the time. But Kearns has merely been an average outfielder since the trade--he hasn't blossomed the way some thought he might--and Lopez has been pretty bad. The Reds haven't gotten much out of the trade so far either, but Thompson has quietly pitched well in the minors. He's pitching this year with good velocity. He could actually end up being the best player in the deal and win the trade for the Reds.

Anyway, while you're waiting for the game, this is pretty amusing.

This was maybe the most frustrating win the Pirates have had all season. Despite some solid performances--from Zach Duke and the finally-hot Adam LaRoche in particular, and there were some great plays in the outfield by Doug Mientkiewicz and Nate McLouth--I don't feel like the Pirates deserved to collect a win here.

Jack Wilson got caught stealing twice, in embarrassing fashion. Freddy Sanchez attempted a bunt with two strikes, lunging at a ball way out of the strike zone and completely failing to get it anywhere near fair territory. He then looked at third base coach Tony Beasley as he walked back to the dugout, as if he didn't understand why Beasley had made the call, or perhaps was confused as to whether the call was made in the first place. Then in the ninth, Wilson tried to bunt Chris Gomez over and got Gomez thrown out at second.

Do you like it when the Pirates score runs? Games like these can make you wonder whether John Russell does. You could be forgiven for thinking the third base umpire wanted the Pirates to score more than Russell did. (At least the ump called Ryan Doumit safe on a play in which he appeared to be out.) As with other games we've seen this season, Russell's tactical moves tonight were inexplicable.

Romulo Sanchez picked up his first big league save with a shaky, one-run 11th inning. If Sanchez manages to catch on with the Pirates, it'll be interesting to see whether the fans take to him, because he could inspire a sort of Nyjer Morgan debate. Sanchez, like Morgan, will probably end up being an exciting player but not a very good one. Sanchez's basic game is to throw fastballs really, really hard, often up in the zone. That will generate some awesome-looking strikeouts from time to time, but it will probably also generate a bunch of 470-foot blasts. Jerry Hairston drove in a run off Sanchez tonight on one high fastball that made me glad it was only Jerry Hairston up there. He hit it hard, but it only went for a single; many of the Reds' hitters would have knocked it at least 400 feet. My sense is that fans will be less forgiving of Sanchez than they were of Morgan, because Sanchez's failures will be at least as glaring as his successes.

Zach Duke vs. Edinson Volquez, 7:10 PM.

What an odd bit of speculation this is:

The fact that pitcher Paul Maholm batted eighth in the Pirates' lineup last night could be an indication that John Van Benschoten will be the Pirates' starting pitcher tomorrow night.

You'll recall that Van Benschoten was an outstanding hitter in college at Kent State.

As a professional, he's a .213 hitter with two home runs and 16 RBIs.

Perhaps manager John Russell will want Van Benschoten to bat higher in the lineup than ninth.

So maybe last night's strategy was employed so that Van Benschoten batting eighth tomorrow night won't be a shock.

What? Russell batted a pitcher eighth so that batting a pitcher eighth wouldn't be a shock? None of this has anything to do with Van Benschoten's hitting. He has a .601 lifetime minor league OPS and he hasn't done a thing with the bat since 2004. Jack Wilson batted ninth last night, and Van Benschoten isn't a tenth the hitter Jack Wilson is. (There's a phrase I never imagined writing.) He isn't even half the hitter Luis Rivas is. There's just nothing to this.

In fact, the pitcher-batting-eighth thing is becoming increasingly common, particularly in the NL Central. The Brewers often do it, and the Cardinals also sometimes do it. And there's some research out there that suggests they're doing the right thing--this Hardball Times article contains some information and links to some more.

Here, John Russell suggests that one part of the issue is that batting the pitcher after Doug Mientkiewicz creates more opportunities. It looks like somebody in the Pirates organization read this article, also from the Hardball Times. Mientkiewicz is a fairly patient hitter who won't swing at a lot of bad pitches. As a hitter, that's really all he's got, and batting in front of the pitcher allows him to get the most out of that skill. The Hardball Times shows that batters actually hit for a much higher average in front of the pitcher, and suggests that one reason why is that they get into hitters' counts a lot. If that's the case, Mientkiewicz would seem to be ideally positioned to reap the benefits, since he doesn't swing at junk very much.

On a theoretical level, this makes a lot of sense. Of course, the same article shows that Wilson was really, really good hitting before the pitcher last year.

Anyway, the Post-Gazette's broader point that Van Benschoten will start tomorrow is probably accurate. Ty Taubenheim started on the 28th, so he probably can't go tomorrow, we may already have seen enough of Jimmy Barthmaier for now, and no one else at Indianapolis has really earned a shot.

Dejan Kovacevic's chat today:

Sack_Lodge: DK, does mgmt. view Jamie Romak as a legit prospect? Nice average and power numbers in "A" ball. Are the 64 k's in 50 games stoppping a promotion to Altoona?

Dejan Kovacevic: The strikeouts are a problem. The lack of walks, too. Lots of home runs means little at that level, unless accompanied by some patience.

I think this is a misdiagnosis. Yes, the strikeouts are an issue. (Romak has 64 in 186 at bats, which is terrible.) But they're only part of the issue. Here's the rest of Romak's line so far:

.301/.387/.597, 16 doubles, 13 homers, 24 walks

Looks great, right? You can hardly fault a guy who's posting a .984 OPS. The problem, though, is that the strikeouts are likely to eat him alive when he moves up unless he makes adjustments.

Remarkably, in Romak's last ten games, he's had 38 at bats, 17 strikeouts... and 13 hits, seven of which went for extra bases. He's made only eight outs that weren't strikeouts. He also drew five walks over that span.

Patience is not Romak's problem. He has well over one walk for every ten at bats this year, which is very good; last year, he drew 55 walks against 294 at bats at Lynchburg. Keep in mind that I've never seen Romak play, but from watching the numbers and scouting reports closely, it appears the real problem might be that he's too patient, waiting endlessly for the perfect pitch, getting deep into counts as a result, and racking up strikeouts and walks. That approach can work at Class A where pitchers don't have any command--they'll walk lots of batters, and they'll throw a fair number of meatballs too. But it probably won't work even one level higher, at AA, where pitchers' command tends to be much better.

Maybe the Pirates have good reasons for keeping Romak at Lynchburg I don't know about, but from my semi-informed reading of the numbers, I wonder if the pitching there is just a crutch that keeps him from learning what he really needs to know. I'd be interested to see what he'd learn if he moved up to Altoona.

By the way, the Pirates should consider him a real prospect. The odds are against him, but his upside could be quite high if he can adapt as he moves up. Ryan Howard was a year older than Romak when he played at Class A+, and he posted slightly worse numbers there than Romak has now. Keeping in mind that Howard was playing in a tougher league for hitters, that may be a wash. But Howard also struck out at a rate similar to Romak's and walked a bit less. Players like Howard who make it are pretty rare, but if you've got one, I wouldn't dismiss him.

Paul Maholm vs. Aaron Harang, 7:10 PM.

The Bucs are still in talks with Pedro Alvarez, which is no surprise--it isn't exactly unusual for Scott Boras clients to wait until the last possible second before signing. If the Pirates had signed Alvarez already, it probably would've been because they overpaid.

Fifth rounder Justin Wilson, one of the heroes in Fresno State's recent College World Series win, is talking to the Bucs too. In this article, incidentally, he comes off as a pretty classy guy:

"Basically, I just pounded the strike zone," Wilson said. "When you have a really good infield and outfield, like I was thankful to have this year, you just want to throw a lot of strikes down in the zone and make them hit it."

Meanwhile, 14th rounder Mike Colla has already signed, according to his college coach. From what I can tell, that's not official yet. 

If you're not keeping track of who's signed and who isn't, WTM has you covered. Basically, few of the really high-upside guys the Pirates took later in the draft have signed yet, and neither have Alvarez or second-rounder Tanner Scheppers (who the Pirates will probably wait as long as possible with in any case, because of his injury), so as far as I'm concerned, the signing season hasn't even really gotten that interesting yet.

Nonetheless, a bunch of picks are already playing in the low minors, and a couple have been assigned fairly aggressively, or at least more aggressively than the previous administration would've. Third-rounder Jordy Mercer and ninth-rounder Matthew Hague are playing at Hickory, and Hague has two homers in his first 12 at bats there. (Which is nice, but he's almost 23 already, so that shouldn't be taken as a clear sign that he's loaded with upside.)

Meanwhile, Chase D'Arnaud (4th round), Jeremy Farrell (8th), David Rubenstein (11th) and Calvin Anderson (12th) and several pitchers are all a rung lower, at State College; Farrell and Anderson have started out strongly. 

The most impressive hitter in the first few games of Bradenton's season has been 18th-rounder Jarek Cunningham, although Andury Acevedo (not a 2008 draftee) is also holding his own there at age 17. If we could see him next year in a full-season league at 18, that would be great. 

Andy Sonnanstine vs. Tom Gorzelanny, 1:35 PM.

Other than the whole thirteen-innings-and-six-pitchers thing, this worked out shockingly well. Ty Taubenheim, Tyler Yates, T.J. Beam and John Van Benschoten pitched ten of those innings, struck out seven, and only allowed two runs. Taubenheim probably earned himself another start. 

The trick, now, is for Tom Gorzelanny to stay glued together through five or innings tomorrow. If he can do that, the Pirates stand a decent chance of getting to their off-day on Thursday without the wheels completely coming off.

The Pirates made several more transactions yesterday. Between all these and my travel schedule (completely incidentally, I sat next to this guy today on the flight from Minneapolis; why the Vikings didn't get him out of coach and the row in front of the bathrooms and into first class, I have no idea, but anyway he seems like a really nice guy, confident without being condescending in response to my stupid questions), I'm dangerously close to forgetting who all's on the roster. Today the completely irrelevant Nyjer Morgan heads back to Indianapolis, Franquelis Osoria heads to the DL with bursitis, and T.J. Beam and John Van Benschoten return to Pittsburgh. Van Benschoten will probably start Wednesday. (Denny Bautista apparently will avoid the DL.) Nothing much to say about these moves; I like Beam a lot more than the other guys, but really the names are mostly incidental. This is just juggling, and if Neal Huntington can keep doing it without hitting himself in the face with a torch, Barnum and Bailey should give him a call.