Pirates Sign Wil Ledezma

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Well I'm short on time so this'll be short.

Today the Pirates signed left handed pitcher Wil Ledezma to a minor league deal. Ledezma pitched 38.6 innings last year in the minors and put up very solid numbers - a 3.49 ERA while striking out over a better per inning. However, his time in the major leagues has not been as impressive. Last year he only notched 5.2 innings in the bigs, but in 2008 he had a 4.17 ERA in 58.1 innings, while making 6 starts. His strikeout rate was impressive once again, as his K/9 rate was a sterling 8.2.

All-in-all this is a very nice sign for the Pirates. The minor league deal means he won't immediately be on the Pirates 40-man roster, but my guess is that he will be in Pittsburgh on opening day coming out of the pen in matchup situations. This is exactly what the Pirates needed to strengthen their pen, a cheap lefty who can strike a better out in a big situation. He is going to give up some runs, you aren't going to see a sub-4 ERA from him, but he definitely makes the Pirates better.

Bringing Gonzo Back?

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One of the biggest holes that the Pirates' have is a lack of left handed relievers. Currently, the Pirates have 4 left handed pitchers eligible on the 40 man roster (Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Donnie Veal, Phil Dumatrait), three of whom are starters. That leaves Phil Dumatrait as the lone southpaw in the Pirates pen. Not exactly ideal, is it?

Well MLB Trade Rumors reported today that the Pirates have an interest in signing Mike Gonzalez, whom they traded to the Braves for Adam LaRoche in the offseason before the 2007 season.

Gonzalez is a Type A free agent, so it won't be easy to sign him. The Pirates will have to compete with some of the big spenders in the majors. Mike Gonzalez could help the Pirates as much or more than he could help any other team in the league, especially with how Matt Capps performed last year.

Despite that, there are some reasons that signing him would not make much sense. First, the amount of money the Pirates would spend on him would probably be better spent elsewhere. When you don't have much to spend, you really want to invest it wisely, and I personally don't think this would be a wise investment. Secondly, the fact that Gonzalez is a lefty wouldn't bring as much value to the Pirates for the sole fact that he is a closer. The whole reason teams get a mixture of lefties and righties is so they can have the upper hand in matchups.

For example, the Pirates are tied with the Brewers in the 7th inning and Ryan Braun hits a 2-out double off of Chris Jakubauskas. Then, Prince Fielder steps to the plate with a chance to give the Brewers a lead with a big hit. Now, John Russell doesn't want Jakubauskas to face Fielder because Prince has been killing righties all year, so he looks to the bullpen to bring in a lefty. He has already used Dumatrait, and now he can't even use Gonzalez because he is the closer and there is a good chance this game will be a save situation 20 minutes later. So, he leaves Jakubauskas in and Fielder clubs a 2-run homer and the Brewers win the ball game.

My point is, if the Pirates are going to sign a left handed reliever, they shouldn't spend closer-money. Sign a middle of the pack free agent who will have less offers from other teams and will cost less. The kind of lefty the Pirates need doesn't have to have lights out stuff, just the fact that the ball is coming out of his left hand would be enough in a lot of cases.

The Pirates should, and almost surely will, pass on Mike Gonzalez.

Pirates Eye Blalock, Ankiel

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The Pirates have some money to spend this offseason, and they may be looking to hand it to Hank Blalock or Rick Ankiel.

The decision to sign one of these guys will largely effect the roles of Garrett Jones and Jeff Clement. If the Pirates do go out and sign Blalock, Garrett Jones would find his home in right field, as Blalock is a corner infielder. However, if the Pirates sign Rick Ankiel, Garrett Jones will be asked to play first base. Either way, Jeff Clement doesn't have anywhere to play. My guess is that they would use him as a bench player.

Personally, I want to see Jeff Clement play first base for the Pirates next year, however, it's not very likely that he would play better than Hank Blalock would. Blalock hit 25 bombs in 123 games last year, which shows some serious pop in his bat. However, his average was very poor, at .234. Clement hit .274 with 21 homers last season in AAA with both Tacoma and Indianapolis. There are major question marks for Clement when talking about his major league career. The Mariners had pretty much given up on him, mainly because they were trying to make him a catcher. The Pirates ruled that out completely and have set him at first base, despite Clement's bargaining to be moved back behind the plate.

The other issue here is what to do with Jose Tabata if they sign one of these guys. It would not make much sense to pay Ankiel or Blalock for one year and then sit them on the bench when Jose Tabata gets called up in the middle of the season. It would make even less sense to leave Tabata in the minors all season. One thing the Pirates will not do is bring Tabata up and NOT start him every day. When he comes up, he is going to be the new every day right fielder.

So the Pirates have some options, along with some logjams. You basically have Garrett Jones, Jeff Clement, and Hank Blalock as possible first basemen, and then Rick Ankiel, Jose Tabata, and Garrett Jones as possible right fielders.

If it were up to me, I'd sign Hank Blalock. I would have Jeff Clement on the big league club and use him in a bench role, spelling Blalock and possibly even Doumit once every week or two. Garrett Jones would start in right field until June or July, when I would bring up Jose Tabata. Now, if Lastings Milledge isn't performing, I would start Tabata in left and leave Jones in. However, I would take Milledge's future with the Pirates over Jones' any day. The fact is that Jones is now 28 year olds, and Milledge is 24 makes the difference. Milledge's ceiling is much higher than Jones, and Tabata's ceiling towers over both of them.

All said and done, it's a good problem to have.

Happy Thanksgiving

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That's right it's one of my favorite holidays, thanksgiving. There's nothing like waking up to head out and play some football with the friends, then coming home and relaxing with the family to get ready and eat one of the best meals of the year.

So what am I thankful for as a Pirates fan? Well...



Hope everyone has a fantastic holiday and God Bless!


Pittsburgh Pirates Top Prospects For 2010

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Today Baseball America released their report on the Pittsburgh Pirates Top 10 Prospects. Here's the list:
  1. Pedro Alvarez
  2. Jose Tabata
  3. Tony Sanchez
  4. Brad Lincoln
  5. Chase D'Arnaud
  6. Starling Marte
  7. Tim Alderson
  8. Zack Von Rosenberg
  9. Rudy Owens
  10. Gorkys Hernandez

No surprises at the top with Pedro and Jose, but there are a couple things in the middle that I was surprised to see. I honestly didn't expect Chase D'Arnaud and Starling Marte to be so high, and it also surprised me that Tim Alderson was the whole way down at #7. Scouts really don't care for Alderson very much, based on his mechanics and whatnot. All I know is the guy can pitch, and the numbers (10-3, 3.93) he put up last year show it.

The article also projects the Pirates 2013 lineup, which looks like this:
C - Tony Sanchez
1B - Jeff Clement
2B - Akinori Iwamura
SS - Chase D'Arnaud
3B - Pedro Alvarez
LF - Lastings Milledge
CF - Andrew McCutchen
RF - Jose Tabata

SP - Brad Lincoln
SP - Charlie Morton
SP - Ross Ohlendorf
SP - Zach Duke
SP - Paul Maholm
CL - Victor Black


Not a bad looking squad I must say, lots of potential in there. The only things I see wrong with it are that Duke and Maholm are still on the team. I really don't see both of them being in Pittsburgh in 2013, as they are both eligible for free agency before that. There is no reason the Pirates would make a special effort to keep them with guys like Tim Alderson and Rudy Owens in the minors, but we will see.

In related news, Tim at Buccofans.com has been counting down his own Pittsburgh Pirates prospects, the whole way from #50. He is now in the top 10, so check him out.

Minor Matters, Free Agency

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Well the talk of the baseball world these days is free agency. Being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, that is something we normally don't talk about. One thing we do often talk about is the minor leagues, so if we put the two together we get Minor League Free Agency, which Pirates' beat writer Jennifer Langosch made a blog post about today. She listed the 28 Pirates minor leaguers that are free agents this year, compliments of Baseball America. So here they are:

1B: Tagg Bozied, Larry Broadway, Brian Myrow

2B: Josh Bonifay, Ray Chang

3B: Angel Gonzalez

SS: Chris Barnwell, Pedro Lopez

OF: Victor Igsema, Jonel Pacheco, Jamie Romak

RHP: Jason Davis, Eric Hacker, Lincoln Holdzkom, Jorge Julio, Juan Mateo, Scott Nestor, Jeremy Powell, Dionis Rodriguez, Ty Taubenheim, Virgil Vasquez

LHP: Corey Hamman, Bobby Livingston

Now there aren't too many notable names on there. The only names a casual Pirate fan would know on that list would probably be Eric Hacker, Ty Taubenheim, and Virgil Vasquez, because those are the only guys to ever play in Pittsburgh. One name that stood out to me was Ray Chang, who I saw play in Altoona last year. That man can play some defense. He made 2 of the better plays from a shortstop I've seen anywhere in that game.

Anyways, I don't think losing any of these guys are going to have any kind of big impact on the Pirates, signing some minor league free agents from other teams might. Remember Garrett Jones? Keep on the lookout for some signings from Neil Huntington, I would be surprised if they didn't go out and sign some guys in the next few months.

A New Era

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Well here it is, the new and improved "Mc" Effect. There is still a lot of work to be done until I have this blog where I want it, but this is definitely a solid start. Considering the fact that it's November, I don't think there is a high-demand for blogs about the Pittsburgh Pirates right now anyways, so I guess this is a good time to get everything straight for next season.

Anyways, nothing is going to change drastically, I will still be posting in the same manner and everything will stay pretty basic. The biggest difference is that this blog should be more friendly for my readers. Commenting is a lot easier (you don't have to have a username to comment), and I have a lot more options with my sidebar (for polls, graphics, feedback, etc.), so I hope you all take advantage of that.

If any of you are fellow bloggers that have my link on your site, I would very much appreciate it if you would change that link to this one, and also if I do not have your link on here yet, let me know and I'll get it on here, there are definitely some I'm missing.

I'll be back soon with some actual Pirates talk.

Karstens, Diaz Out, Jakubauskus In

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The Pirates made some moves yesterday to deal with some arbitration issues and get prepared for the December Rule 5 draft, here's the rundown: 

  • Pirates signed Chris Jakubauskus off waivers from the Seattle Mariners. 
  • What we later found out was the reason for signing Chris Jakubauskus, the Pirates designated Jeff Karstens for assignment, which means he will go through waivers and will most likely never play for the Pirates again. This was kind of upsetting, because Karstens showed definite promise in the long relief role last year. However, he had gotten Super 2 status in free agency, so the Pirates were going to have to pay him more than he was worth.
    • In case you are wondering what it means to get "Super 2" status, here's the basics -The top 17 percent of players with at least 2 but less than 3 years of Major League service. These are known as "Super 2" players. To qualify as a Super 2, a player must have accumulated at least 86 days of service in the previous year. Historically, the cutoff point for Super 2 status is 2 years, 128 days of service, though the requirement has been as high as 2 years, 140 days in years past.
  • The Pirates also designed Robinzon Diaz and Justin Thomas for assignment, I personally don't like to see Robinzon go, but it clears the way for some prospects that we acquire in the Rule 5, which is always good.
  • Brad Lincoln, Bryan Morris, and Gorkys Hernandez were all added to the 40-man roster to protect them from being selected in the Rule-5 Draft. I do expect to see Lincoln in Pittsburgh this year, but I would not expect to see Morris or Hernandez next year.
  • Evan Meek and Jose Ascanio were moved from the 60-day DL to the 40-man roster.



The story with Chris Jakubauskus is not a very pretty one. Last year was his first season in the major leagues, even though he is 30 years old. He went 6-7 with a 5.32 ERA in 93.0 innings. He started 8 games and appeared out of the bullpen 27 times. His K/9 ratio is 4.5, which is nothing to be excited about. Hopefully he will get it together and eat some innings for the Pirates in the middle of games next year, I certainly do not want to see him in the rotation.




In other news, I am working on taking my blog to the next level by purchasing a domain name and running it off of the mlblogosphere, which will give me a multitude of new options and make the blog a lot better. So be on the lookout for that.

Be An American

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Well in the last 2 days I have read about 3 petitions that we can all sign as baseball fans and as Americans, so that prompted me to post the links here. I have no signed any of them myself, yet, but I probably will right after I make this post. Here they are: 


So there you go, go waste some time and virtually sign some petitions, especially that Alcides Escobar one. 

Brown, Blass Visit Waynesburg University

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A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet and interview one of my favorite people in this world, Lanny Frattare. If you haven't read this blog before, you won't know that I am a student at Waynesburg University, where Lanny Frattare, former Pirates' broadcaster now teaches. Today, Lanny brought Greg Brown and Steve Blass down to speak at our school.


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Now, I am not a communications major, so I was not even invited to this event. However, I was not about to miss this opportunity, so I got permission from one of the professors to come. I skipped two classes to come up and listen to two voices I have listened to a lot in my life speak in person.

They spoke a lot about how they got to where they are now. Greg Brown announced for the Buffalo Bison (a minor league baseball team) and the Buffalo Bills before making it to where he had always dreamed of announcing, in Pittsburgh. Steve Blass, of course, played for the Pirates and was considered quite a hero for them in his career, so he had little trouble getting the job as a color commentator after his career was over. He has now been with the organization for 50 years, and few people have done more for the organization as he has.

I sat feet away from the two as they gave us students advice on what to do and how to do it if we want to make it in the communications department. Greg's main point was to be enthusiastic and get your name out there. He told the story of one of Three Rivers Stadium's Public Address Announcers that only got the job because he called Greg, who was currently the PA announcer, and asked if he could have lunch with him and inquire about the field. The man brought his resume to the lunch and kept in contact with Greg. When it was time to get a new guy, Greg instantly suggested this man and he ended up getting the job. "The jobs don't come to you, you have to go get them yourself," Mr. Brown said.

After they were done sharing their stories and advice, it opened up for questions. One question popped into my head as I heard them talk. The memory of the Pirates 8th and 9th inning 5-run rally, that was capped off with 10th inning 3-run bomb from Jason Michaels came into my head. Greg and Steve were on the TV broadcast that night and I have never heard more excitement come out of two men then I heard when Michaels hit that bomb. My question to them was if those lines and those reactions are pre-planned or if they just come out. I specifically mentioned that memory in my question, and I mentioned that I remembered Steve saying something about a "Mrs. McDavis", which he laughed at, and then appropriately said the whole line again.

Some other questions asked by my peers involved the grueling baseball season and how hard it is to stay with even while the Pirates are doing so awful. Greg and Steve admitted that it really does get old and weary at the end of the season, but they always manage to stay sane through it. Now, Steve doesn't travel with the team anymore, John Wehner assumes his duties on the road, but Greg definitely has a lot on his hands at all times during the season. He said that October is probably his favorite time of the year because he can just go escape from baseball and sports and relax with his family. There's no doubt that it would be incredibly hard to have that kind of job, especially when you are with a team that is as uncompetitive as the Pirates. They both sincerely love their jobs and have a great passion for baseball, and I wouldn't expect either of the two to be leaving the Pirates anytime soon.

All-in-all it was a great experience for me. I have always had the dream of being an announcer for the Pirates, so the advice they gave me and the stories they told could really help me if I choose to pursue that dream. The only negative thing that came from this day was that now I'm especially anxious for the 2010 season to come.