Jake

Draft Picks? He's got to be worth a sandwich between the second and third rounds. :confused:

Is he going to the Olympic team? No, McCutch is not going to the olympic team - he was cut. I think they'll call up Pearce first. He's already on the 40 man roster (McCutch isn't). Quite frankly, neither one has performed well enough at Indy to make the Pirates want to trade Nady. Having said that, if the offer is good enough, he's gone.

Gorzo: Too many innings last year. I think it was 40 more than the year before. And, all to get that magical 15th win on a losing team. Snell: nobody knows. Velocity is good. control is good. Seems to be all in his head. It'll be interesting to see what he does tonight. Control is good? 2007: 2.9 BB/9, 7.7 K/9 2008: 5.2 BB/9, 6.8 K/9 He's walking a lot more batters this year. Very true. But, the problem is not defined in the stats. The problem is he's afraid to throw his fastball. Thus, he's throwing more breaking stuff, or nibling on the plate more. Therefore walking more batters. It's not that he can't get his fastball over. He isn't throwing it as much. He's not challenging hitters. When he's aggressive, as he was all of last year, he throws strikes. Does this make sense? I understand what you're saying. It seems you're pointing more towards an issue with his confidence in his fastball. However, if he truly is using his secondary pitches more, then his command with them sucks. If that's the case, he's most likely falling behind hitters early with offspeed and breaking pitches and then having to come back with the fastball behind in the count. I'd be curious to see the percentage of fastballs thrown this year compared to last year as well as what he's starting hitters off with. Yeah, that's the point. I'm not sure it's a matter of confidence, but a matter of concentration. Some of the things he's said this year make it sound like he's distracted out there. It's too late in the evening to find quotes.

Gorzo: Too many innings last year. I think it was 40 more than the year before. And, all to get that magical 15th win on a losing team. Snell: nobody knows. Velocity is good. control is good. Seems to be all in his head. It'll be interesting to see what he does tonight. Control is good? 2007: 2.9 BB/9, 7.7 K/9 2008: 5.2 BB/9, 6.8 K/9 He's walking a lot more batters this year. Very true. But, the problem is not defined in the stats. The problem is he's afraid to throw his fastball. Thus, he's throwing more breaking stuff, or nibling on the plate more. Therefore walking more batters. It's not that he can't get his fastball over. He isn't throwing it as much. He's not challenging hitters. When he's aggressive, as he was all of last year, he throws strikes. Does this make sense?

http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/pbc/archive/2008/07/18/nothing-doing-on-st-louis-front.aspx#comments

Gorzo: Too many innings last year. I think it was 40 more than the year before. And, all to get that magical 15th win on a losing team. Snell: nobody knows. Velocity is good. control is good. Seems to be all in his head. It'll be interesting to see what he does tonight.

Veal or Samardzija for Marte?

Nate McLouth? Pirates should build around McLouth, Bay, Doumit, and McCutheon. Trade Nady, Wilson, Marte, and Snell. Get a serviceable 3B and about 3-4 solid arms, a couple of them fireball throwing RHs and compete in 2010. Ideally, yes, we don't trade McClouth. Doumit is about as untouchable as one gets on our team, followed closely by McLouth. If the offer is right for McLouth, (emphasis on right) he'll be traded. McCutheon can play center, and we can go with Bay, Mac, Pearse as our outfield next year. Doumit is different in that we have no depth at catcher (does anyone really?) Nady is the most likely to be moved. But, again, the offer has to be good enough. Wilson probably isn't going anywhere because, as we've learned when he was on the DL, we'd need another decent shortstop back. And, he's relatively cheap. Snell's value is [expletive] right now, so he won't be traded. As I've posted elsewhere, as of right now, the offers for Marte are not better than the draft picks we'd get for him leaving as a free agent. If the offers get better, be sure he will be traded. I wasn't familiar with Bonifacio. Based on what I'm reading here, I'd say he's not the target. Our real need is starting pitching. It's been the difference in most of our losses this year. And, we've won quite a few games in spite of it.

Keep in mind, the Pirates don't want to trade Bay. Having said that, no one is untouchable on this team.

I'm confused. Are you saying that Bonifacio, whom Heyman is referring to as the Diamondbacks Top Prospect, is best projected as a utility player? Huntington is not looking for utility players. We have enough of those.

Why do you say this?

In other news, we just traded Craig Wilson to them for the proverbial PTBNL.

The Pirates current attitude is that the draft picks we'd get for losing Marte to free agency are worth much more than anything offered for him so far. As for the question of who'd close until Capps gets back, it'd probably be Tyler Yates.

Bullington claimed by Cleveland today.

Bad shoulder - had surgery off season. Still not right. Can barely throw, too. He's been sitting with Luis Rivas getting some playing time. 'Nuff said right there.

He was having a bad year. No surprise. John Van B to take his rotation slot.

I thought it was the other way around that Tracy was wasting time with a nobody like Duffy instead of McLouth. Chris Duffy came up and hit 340+ in his first 1/2 season. He hit a lot of line drives. Then, Jim Tracy comes in and decides he should hit only ground balls. Totally changed his stance, his approach, and he never recovered from it. Then, he got hurt. In Altoona (AA), Duffy played center, McClouth played right. The year after, they were in Indy together. Duffy came up in mid August and had the above mentioned .340. At one point, we were hoping for an outfield of Bay, Duffy & McClouth. Although, Littlefield wouldn't give McClouth the time of day.

Part of exorcising the ghost of dave littlefield. We needed a spot for Chris Duffy (coming off 60 day dl), who, now that jim tracy is gone, might start playing baseball again.

There goes my fantasy of him hitting the homeruns that help us break what ever curse it is you guys have over us this season.

His father was just like this until about 10 years ago. Then, he had a stroke (supposedly) and hasn't been the same since. Also, the team was winning world series.

Nah, Hal won't let him. Hal is too level headed.

Actually, it's pretty easy to have a reason to not like the selection of a college reliever in the first round, especially one that's as unpolished as Cashner is. Gotta be the Dave Littlefield Effect. Look who we took last year!

That'd be an interesting trade. Except, we really don't need Pie. Unless he can play right, and we'd put Pearse at first.

You guys should have given Milwaukee a pick for taking Kendall.

Money was not the reason he passed on Weiters last year. To prove that, he traded for Matt Morris' contract. Oh, we got Matt Morris in the deal, too.