What We've All Been Waiting For Starling Marte

Just one day after the Pirates announced the trade for Wandy Rodriguez from the Astros they tell us officially that arguably the best hitting prospect in their entire system with Starling Marte,will join the club for the Thursday night in Houston. To make room for Marte on the roster the Pirates will option the recently recalled Evan Meek to Indianapolis.

There have been a ton, and I mean a ton of people screaming for Marte in the past week or so especially with lack of production the Pirates have been getting recently from both the corner-outfield and lead-off position. That being said there is no guarantee Marte is going to start his career in the lead-off spot, if I had to guess I would say he hits fifth tomorrow, but just a guess.

Neil Huntington has consistently said that they were going to do their best to not rush Marte to the majors just to help a team that is in contention and I still think that even with this call up that those statements remain true. I believe that Huntington honestly thinks that Marte is ready to be an impact player on a contending team and I also thinks that he still wishes he could get Marte another 100 at bats or so before making this jump but the situation just demanded the call up. I am with Huntington in that no matter what the Pirates did with Marte was not the wrong move. If the Pirates left Marte in AAA and tried to continue his development there for the rest of the year I would of been completely fine with that move since it seems that the Pirates made the mistake of calling up some other players too soon such as Jose Tabata, Pedro Alvarez, and even Alex Presley. But that being said I do not one bit think it is the wrong move to call up Marte to play everyday in a Pirates uniform for the next six and a half years either, especially since the team is currently in a pennant race and they need all the help they can get.

This is an exciting time for Pirates baseball, I think that it is very possible starting tomorrow that for the next six years the Pirates could be 100% locked up at two of the starting outfield positions, I don't think I have to tell you who those two are. Marte is still a question mark though, he could be called up and make a huge immediate impact on this team or he could do nothing at all, we still don't know. But none the less I can't wait to see the line-up card for tomorrow in Houston, I think its going to be an exciting one to say the least.