Should We Thank McClatchy and Littlefield?

2012 has seen a remarkable resurgence for the Pirates.  As the media and fans offer their recognition to the Nutting/Coonelly/Huntington team for their work in putting this Team together, maybe it is time to thank two other people for this resurgence - Kevin McClatchy and Dave Littlefield.  You heard it right, McClatchy and Littlefield, the 2 guys who supposedly failed to develop the farm system leaving the current management team to have to "start from scratch" when they took over the reins following the 2007 season.  A look at the facts reveals that without the players drafted during the McClatchy/Littlefield tenure, the current Club would almost certainly not be in first place and and, in fact, would probably not be in a position to end the nineteen years of below .500 baseball that has been the monkey on the back of this franchise for so long. Consider the following:

(1) five players on the current 25 man roster, including two everyday players - Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker - were drafted during the McClatchy/Littlefield era.  The other three players - Brad Lincoln, Jared Hughes and Tony Watson - are all key pieces of what has become one of the best bullpens in baseball. You can also add Alex Presley to this mix as he is currently on the disabled list with a concussion.

(2) The three McClatchy/Littlefield (Walker, McCutchen, and Presley) hitters have a combined total of 30 HR's (over 1/3 of the Team's total of 89), 114 RBI (again over 1/3 of the Team's total of 330), 128 runs scored (almost 40% of the Team's total of 345) and their combined batting average of .305 far exceeds the overall Team batting average of .246.  These 3 even have 29 of Team's 48 Stolen bases (60% of the total). As you can see the position players that the previous management had drafted and signed accounts for a large part of the 2012 teams offense, even though these two guys no longer have any major involvement in the team.

(3) The three bullpen draftees of McClatchy/Littlefield  - Lincoln, Hughes and Watson - are a combined 10 wins and 0 losses! I am not a huge fan of win loss record for arms coming out of the bullpen but when a group of guys are a combined 10-0 its hard to ignore. Their combined ERA of 3.16 is below the Team's overall ERA of 3.47, nothing that special if you really think of it, but when you have the best bullpen ERA in all of the major league's like the Pirates do everyone coming out of that pen plays a big role.

In addition to the six players highlighted above, the best position player prospect in the Organization and the position player closest to the majors is Starling Marte, you guessed it, a player signed (out of the Dominican) during the McClatchy/Littlefield era. Also arguably the pitcher at AAA most likely to get the call if one of the five current starters is hurt or Bedard continues to struggle is Rudy Owens who, no one should be surprised to learn at this point in the post, is yet another player drafted by the much maligned McClatchy/Littlefield duo. In fact, with Bedard on a 1-year contract and Correia on the final year of his 2-year free agent deal, Owens is likely to make the Club in 2013 and with Marte a sure bet to be on the Team, it is likely that nearly 1/3 of the 2013 25-man roster will be players drafted by this "dynamic duo", with as many as 1/2 of the starting position players (McCutchen, Walker, Marte and Pressley) and 2/5 of the starting rotation with Lincoln and Owens joining Karstens, McDonald and.Burnett.  

Those are the facts.  If you are listening, McClatchy and Littlefield, the leftfieldloonies want to say Thanks to helping to make the 2012 Pirates contenders again and for building a farm system that laid the groundwork for the Club's current success.  We urge Pirates fans everywhere to give a shout out to the two of you as well and maybe, just maybe, the current management team will thank you as well. 

Second Half Preview

The All-Star game is over and the N.L.won for the third straight year this time by a score of 8-0 now everyone's eyes are heading to the second half, an especially exciting second half for Pirates fans. There seem to be a lot of things that could go right for this team in the second half but there are also a ton of things that could go wrong as well. I'm not really sure exactly what to say for this post but it seems like a good idea so I'm just going to go through well just about everything.

The Pirates have 77 games remaining on their schedule which means even though the All-Star break is considered half way it really isn't, its a little past it. The Pirates have a relatively easy road the rest of the way and you can see that in this heat map made by Captain Jolly Roger, he does a pretty good job of explaining it. Just click here to see it. As you can see by this link out of the total 77 games left 32 of them are against teams with winning percentage's under .395. The numbers I am referring to are just slightly off because the date this chart was posted was on July 4th and each team has had about three games since then, so please forgive me for that. Also as you can see the Pirates have no games left against any teams that have a winning percentage of .556 or higher now that the Giants series is over. The Pirates do however end their schedule on a fairly tough stretch as they play ten games against three different teams who all have winning percentage of .525 or higher luckily for the Pirates they play six of these games at home where they have a winning percentage of .674.

The pitching staff in my opinion still has many questions that need to be answered before I can be completely sold for a number of different reasons. Lets start from the top and work down with James McDonald who has established himself as the ace of this staff. I personally believe that McDonald has made a long lasting turn for the better in 2012 but there are some numbers that would suggest otherwise, mainly those of years past. Last year was basically McDonald's first full year in the majors appearing in 31 games and pitching exactly 171 innings posting a 4.06 ERA and 4.68 FIP. This year McDonald is already at 110 innings and is well on pace to significantly pass his previous high of 171, which brings up the question can he maintain? I think that he will because of the mentoring or Burnett helping him through this, but if McDonald looses a mile or two on his fastball things could go bad real quick.

A.J. Burnett is having one of his better years since 2005 when he pitched for the Marlins and seems to have found his spot in Pittsburgh but then again he hasn't pitched this well in a long time. Burnett is a veteran and has been in pennant races before so he knows how to handle the pressure so probably won't be affected to much by that but he is getting older so the innings might start adding up on his arm. Jeff Karstens has recently returned from his long stint on the DL and is basically just starting his season now. I think that if the Pirates stay in this race Karstens and his 88 MPH fastball are going to play a huge role in it. Innings won't really be a concern for Karstens because of his trip to the DL so every fifth day Karstens can just go out there and throw as long as he wants without any watch on his innings.

The bottom two guys in the rotation are the ones I'm concerned about, Kevin Correia and Erik Bedard that is. Correia has a 4.34 ERA this year which actually sound's better then he actually is, which is terrible. It seems like every time Correia takes the hill he strikes out two guys allows 4 runs and gets pulled in the fifth and makes the offense have a great day just for the team to even have a chance to win. When you're in a race for the division like the Pirates are you can't afford to have this all the time, which is what the Pirates are getting from him. The next guy is Erik Bedard who is the only lefty in the rotation which is probably what is keeping him his job. Earlier this year Bedard was the opening day starter and was pitching well locating his fastball and putting nice spin on his curve and then got pulled from a start with back spasms and hasn't been the same since. Bedard was quoted as saying that this is the best he's felt in years so that takes away the excuse of injury which means that Bedard needs to improve quickly which this ten day break for him will help. If neither one of these guys improve I would expect Rudy Owens of Jeff Locke to replace them at some point, if you want to know more about them visit Pirates Prospects they will have everything you need.

Although the Pirates offense had a great last month plus lets not forget that they also had one of the worst first two months since the dead-ball era. Some guys are going to fall off such as someone like Andrew McCutchen, and when I say fall off I mean that he is still going to be really really good but not unhuman like. McCutchen is hitting .362 and chances are that he will not continue at this pace, but he can still hit at a pace of like .320 or somewhere around there. One guy I would really like to see step it up in the second half would be Clint Barmes. Barmes is way below his career lows in just about everything which I think has to improve at some point and hopefully soon, if he improves he can really help this team out. I would also like to see some one like Alvarez hit for a higher batting average, which is in fact already improving but if he hits .280 the second half that would be awesome.

I am really excited to see what happens the second half especially because the Pirates are legit contenders this year and I don't think that's changing any time soon. With the second wild card this year, that only means the chances are greater of something special happening. Even if the Pirates are 10 games below .500 the second half hey it's still a winning season which ends a twenty year drought which is all I really wanted at the beginning of the year.

Andrew McCutchen to Replace Stanton in Home-Run Derby

Tonight at 8:49 Eastern time Karl Ravech of ESPN tweeted that Andrew McCutchen is to replace Giancarlo Stanton in the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game Home-run Derby. At this point the move is basically official, we are still waiting on the MLB to confirm the tweet but basically everyone else has said it to be true. Stanton announced that he would not be participating in the derby and all star game after he found out that he was going to have to have surgery on his knee, Bryce Harper will be replacing him on the team its self.

This move comes not as a huge surprise I guess as McCutchen ranks sixth in the NL in home-runs with 16 to this point in the season. McCutchen is obviously not just a huge slugger like someone who typically come to mind when you think of the home-run derby, as he has the highest batting average in all of the major leagues at .359. The other seven participants include Prince Fielder, Robinson Cano, Jose Bautista, Mark Trumbo, and for the National League Matt Kemp, Carlos Gonzalez, Carlos Beltran and of course Andrew McCutchen. This is kind of exciting for the Pirates and the city of Pittsburgh as it will give the team some nice national attention, well deserved  for the season they have had so far.

Some people in the blogosphere seem to be upset about McCutchen being in the derby as they claim that it will mess up his swing for the second half of the season. People have been making these claims for just about as long as they have been having the event and hardly ever do they prove to be true. Obviously there are some cases where some of the participants have fell off greatly such as in the case of Brandon Inge in 2009 or Dan Uggla in 2008 but its hard to even blame these drop offs on the derby and not just natural regression after outstanding first half's. Since 2000 43% of hitters in the derby have actually improved onward from the event, a high enough percentage to prove that regression is not a given. Naturally you would expect all-stars to regress the second half as well because most of the time they are putting up career high numbers which are hard to maintain for an entire season as is the case for McCutchen. So if you see McCutchen fall down to a .300 BA the second half and only hits 12 home-runs don't go blaming it on the derby because a return to human form can be almost expected at some point.

If you are interested in watching the event you can check into ESPN on Monday night and watch the whole thing. I myself enjoy watching the event as it is a nice warm-up before a very boring all-star game which you can watch the following night, Tuesday. If you are going to only watch part of the derby make sure to watch McCutchen's swings because the national analysts will probably spend a good amount of that time talking about the magnificent things the Pirates are doing so far this year, should be fun to watch.

Series Preview vs Giants

Right now as you know the Pirates are probably playing their best baseball of the year if not the past twenty years and they have sure been fun to watch lately. The team is currently coming off of a rare four game sweep of the Astros outscoring them by fourteen runs during those games and now look at the slumping Giants for their next series, a three game set. The Giants are entering the series on a three game losing streak in which they got swept by the Nationals who currently have the best record in the National League.

Game 1- In game one of this series the Giants will send Barry Zito to the hill to try to beat the struggling Erik Bedard. Zito is 6-6 this year with a 3.84 ERA and has been overall pretty good. Erik Bedard who seems to be trying to work his way of the rotation will enter the game with a 4-9 record and 4.57 ERA and has looked terrible as of late. I think that both for both Bedard's and the teams sake he needs to pitch well tonight and try to get himself back on track and give himself something positive to hang on to before the All-Star break.

Game 2- Game two is shaping up to be the best pitching match-up of the series when Ryan Vogelsong will go up against A.J. Burnett in the middle game of the series. Vogelsong is truly a nice comeback story from last year when he came back from pitching in Japan trying to save his career to pitching for the Giants and having a great year posting a season long 2.71 ERA. Luckily the Pirates are throwing their ace in James McDonald who is 8-3 with a 2.45 ERA and having a career year. If this game ends up being half of what is is supposed to be it should be very exciting to watch.

Game 3- In the final game before the All-Star break the Giants will throw their former Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum who is having the worst year of his career by far. Lincecum is a mere 3-9 with a hideous 6.08 ERA and should be throwing batting practice for the Giants instead of pitching for them. The Pirates will throw their second ace in A.J. Burnett who is having having a career year for the good winning in nine straight start and has had a 3.74 ERA during that time. Burnett might have a chance to start in two straight games as he might be the first pitcher to pitch after the All-Star break when the Pirates play the Brewers in Milwaukee.

I think it would for sure be nice to win the last series before the All-Star break and try to carry that momentum over to the second half where the Pirates will give it their best shot at a playoff bid. The Giants don't have a great offense only scoring 329 runs on the year just five ahead of the Pirates who have scored 324. The Giants live off of their pitching so it will be important to get runs early and often if they want to have a shot.

Pirates Going After Greinke or Hamels?

If you have not seen it yet the highly regarded Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports Baseball wrote a interesting article on Monday talking about the Pirates and how they should go after either Zack Greinke of the Brewers or Cole Hamels of the Phillies and you can read that by clicking here. I have a lot of respect for Rosenthal I think he does a lot of good stuff and brings up some interesting points but this idea is just crazy and would not be worth it for the Pirates for multiple reasons.

The first reason being the Pirates would have to give up way to much. Obviously I can't say anything for sure because I am not Neil Huntington so therefore I have no idea what deals are actually being proposed and not proposed but I think that if you just wanted to trade one or two prospects you would defiantly have to give up one of your top three guys. The Pirates top three guys included Jameson Taillon, Gerrit Cole, and Starling Marte all of whom are performing outstanding in the minor leagues and are expected to have excellent major league careers.

If the Pirates did get either Greinke or Hamels they would be undoubtedly be a two month rental because of their contracts expiring at the end of the year. Some people might say why don't the Pirates just stop being cheap and sign these guys when the year is over? The answer to that is weather you want to believe it or not the Pirates are still a small market team, they do not build around signing big time free agents which both of these guys are going to be. Both Greinke and Hamels will receive monster contracts and the only way the Pirates will be able to afford those is if they just decided to not sign anyone else the rest of the off-season.

The second reason this is stupid is because the Pirates biggest need in my opinion is not pitching. The Pirates are still ranked sixth in all the the Major Leagues in team ERA but are only ranked twenty-sixth in total runs scored. If you had never watched the Pirates play before and you saw this stat you would say that the Pirates needs are on the offense side of the game not the pitching. Although the Pirates scored the most runs in the MLB in the month of June their offense is still the weak point of the team. If you are going to throw away prospects do it for hitting not pitching.

The third and final reason is because you have perfectly capable pitchers in AAA that could come up any day you want at no additional cost and perform possibly just as well. Rudy Owens has had a 2.45 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP to this point in AAA. In my opinion the worst this could transition over to in the Major Leagues would be a 4.00 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP which is still very good for a player that you would have to pay nothing for what so ever. Plus there is the possibility that they could perform better, because for all we know he could keep a sub 2.50 ERA and be the teams third best pitcher. Also Jeff Locke and Justin Wilson are also posting very good numbers as well and are also ready to come up at any time and perform well.

I am not in any way denying that getting either Greinke or Hamels would help the Pirates down the stretch but I do not think that it would be worth it for the Pirates to give up a big piece of their future just to have a guy that plays once every five days for two months. This is a neat idea by Rosenthal but I don't think it would work. Maybe he's right it might bring a few more fans to the ballpark for the rest of the year but is it going to bring more fans then when Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon are pitching for the next six years? Why go for it now when you can go for it the next six or seven years if not longer. The Pirates have a nice team now and are shaping up to have even a even nicer team in 2014 lets not throw that away for another year that might or  might not be a playoff year.

Jose Tabata Optioned To AAA Gorkys Hernandez Called Up

Today the Pirates announced that they had officially had enough with Jose Tabata for the time being and showed their displeasure by sending him down to Indianapolis where he will be playing his games in the International League. To replace Tabata on the 25 man roster the Pirates called up OF Gorkys Hernandez who had previously appeared in nine games this season but getting only ten at-bats.

Tabata who has been tremendously unproductive this year basically hit and in some peoples opinions hustled his way to minor leagues, which is never a good thing. Tabata has only hit for a .230/.295/.341 triple slash this year compared to his .266/.349/.362 in 2011. Clint Hurdle said yesterday that he doesn't think that Tabata is a lazy player but "there are times when the ball is coming down and drops in front of him".

Gorkys Hernandez who has appeared in 64 games this season in AAA has hit for a line of .268/.364/.362 with two home runs and thirteen stolen bases. Hernandez appeared in 9 games in the majors earlier this year mostly coming in as a late game defensive replacement only getting ten total at-bats. Hernandez will most likely be the fourth outfielder for the time being backing up McCutchen, Presley, and Sutton.

JMac Snubbed McCutchen and Hanrahan Named All-Stars

Yesterday the rosters for the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star game to be held in Kansas City were announced and two Pittsburgh Pirates made the team for the National League. The two Pirates that made the team were OF Andrew McCutchen and reliever Joel Hanrahan.

McCutchen who earned a bench spot on the All-Star team probably even deserved a starting job but because of fan voting deciding that he only got a spot on the bench. McCutchen among outfielders in the National League ranks 2nd in average (.346) and OPS (.993), 7th in home-runs (15), 1st in OBP (.401), and 3rd in Slugging (.593). However there is still a chance that McCutchen can start in the game because of out-fielder Matt Kemp missing the game due to injury. Kemp was the leading vote-getter for out-fielder's in the National League and has said he would like to play in the All-Star game any way possible, but his team management has come out and said that he has to play in real games first before he can play in the All-Star game.

Joel Hanrahan made his second straight All-Star team along with Andrew McCutchen once again posting very impressive numbers out of the bull-pen. Hanrahan has earned a save in 20 of his 22 chances this year also posting a 2.10 ERA in 30 total innings pitched.

The Pirates also had a few arguable snubs in James McDonald and A.J. Burnett. In my opinion James McDonald was the only one of the two that should of made the team. McDonald has posted a 7-3 record and a 2.44 ERA so far this year by far good enough numbers to earn him an All-Star bid. I think that McDonald has proven himself as the Ace of the Pirates pitching staff to this point in the year seemingly getting the team a win every time he goes out and pitches. Perhaps the biggest argument for McDonald  making the team came from his own teammate in Joel Hanrahan. McDonald has been much better then Hanrahan so far this year but Hanrahan most likely got the nod because he is a reliever so he would be better suited in a one inning situation which most likely he will receive in the All-Star game.