Bucco Fever

Posts Tagged Akinori Iwamura

PirateFest and Off-season in Review

Feb 1

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

PirateFest was this past weekend, and since I’m a season ticket holder, I got free tickets and made the trip over to the convention center on Saturday afternoon.  Due to some other plans I wasn’t able to stay for as long as would have liked to, but I can report that I had a good time, and will likely go back next year.  We got there around noon, played a few of the carnival games, won some prizes, stuck around for the player Q&A and then had to go.  My girlfriend, who is infinitely lucky, got drawn to play both Deal or No Deal (with Ross Ohlendorf as the banker) and the pierogi eating contest.  She ended up with some pretty nice prizes, including this ball signed by the banker.

Ross the Boos autographed baseball

With PirateFest now in the past, and pitchers and catchers reporting in just 13 days, I think its safe to call this the unofficial end of the off-season.   Lets take a quick look back at what has gone on over the last 4 months.

  • October 4, 2009:  The Pirates end their ignominious 17th consecutive losing season with a loss to the Cincinatti Reds, their 99th of the year.
  • October 17, 2009: The Pirates announce that Perry Hill will not return as their infield instructor in 2010.  He would eventually be replaced by former Bucco Carlos Garcia.
  • November 3, 2009: Second baseman Akinori Iwamuri is acquired from the Tamba Bay Rays in exhcange for relief pitcher Jesse Chavez
  • December 10, 2009: In the Rule V draft, held annually at the winter meetings, the Pirates select OF John Raynor from the Florida Marlins.
  • December 12, 2009: Former AL ROY Bobby Crosby signs a deal with The Pirates.  Crosby is expected to back-up incumbent Ronny Cedeno, with the chance to win the starting job in Cedeno struggles.
  • December 13, 2009: In a surprise move, The Pirates opt not to tender closer Matt Capps a contract offer by the midnight deadline, making him a free-agent.  Capps would eventually sign a one year deal worth about $3.5 Million with the Washington Nationals.
  • January 13, 2010: Free agent OF Ryan Church agrees to terms with the Pirates.  Church will be the Pirates 4th outfielder, but will likely get plenty of at bats backing up all 3 outfield positions.
  • January 16-20, 2010: After losing Capps(voluntarily so) earlier in the off-season, GM Neal Huntington made a flurry of moves within a matter of just a few days to revamp his bullpen by signing D.J. Carrasco, Octavio Dotel, and Brendan Donnely.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Hot Stove – Bucs Pursuing Relief Options

Dec 3

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

With the Steelers at a very depressing 6-5 and seemingly heading no where, I’ve started to focus a bit on the rapidly heating up Major League Baseball Hot Stove.  At this point in the off season, there tends to be a lot of interest in free agent players from teams and very rarely does that interest reach the stage of negotiations.  So rather than focusing on the specific players the Bucs are expressing interest in, I’d rather look at the group as a whole to learn what type of player the pirates are targeting.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, The Pirates have already addressed their most glaring need by trading for 2nd baseman Aki Iwamura.  With that hole filled, their focus has shifted to acquiring arms to improve a bullpen that struggled down the stretch in 2009.  From the names being reported so far (J.J. Putz, Justin Duchscherer, Noah Lowry, etc) Neal Huntington seems to be targeting players who can be had at good short term value.  These types of guys are intriguing because they have all achieved some level of past success, but had down years in 2009 due to injury.  Of this group, I find Duchscherer the most interesting because of the possibility that he could start.  Right now, the Pirates front 4 starters seem all but assured of being Ross Ohlendorf, Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Charlie Morton with the fifth spot a toss up between Kevin Hart and Daniel McCutchen.  If the team can sign Duchscherer, he would have the opportunity to compete for the last spot in the rotation and also fall back to be a solid long reliever if he doesn’t win the 5th starters job.

As the off season progresses, it will be fun to watch which of these names become more than just preliminary interest, and to see if Huntington brings in anyone who will make an impact on wins and losses in 2010.

Tags: , , , , ,

Playing catch up

Nov 9

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

A lot has happened in The Pirates world and the baseball world in general since I last posted.  I just wanna give my thoughts on some of what went down.

Pirates acquire Akinori Iwamura for Jesse Chavez

This deal actually happened when I was on vacation in Hawaii, which is why I didn’t post anything then.  So far, among Pirates blogs I’ve read, there seems to be a mixed analysis focusing on the fact that Chavez still has 5 years of club control left compared to Aki’s 1.  Obviously, you hate to see a young talented reliever like Chavez go, but as with any trade, you have to give something to get something, and Iwamura is worth that price to me.  Relief pitching is the most inconsistent and unpredictable position in baseball.  I liked Chavez, and I thought he had a lot of potential to become a high leverage reliever, but I would much rather have a known commodity manning second base.  I believe that one of the reasons our team went into a tailspin after the Wilson and Sanchez trades last season is that the defense up the middle that made our starting pitching look so good early in the season was no longer there.  A middle infield of Iwamura and Cedeno, while not Jack and Freddy, should provide 90% of the defense we saw early last year.  As with any trade, you can’t pick out the true winner and loser until a year or more down the line, but I’m gonna say the Pirates are a better team now than they were before the trade and I’ll like it even more if the end up extending Aki for a few more years past this one.

Perry Hill will not be back as our infield instructor

This one is a huge blow.  Hill was a mastermind of infield defense, and you don’t have to look very far to find quotes from players praising his work.  There was some controversy when he left over why he wasn’t coming back.  Regardless of the reason, Hill decided he didn’t want to work for the Pirates so he’s is gone and I’m sad to see him go.  The one point I’d make counter to that is that he’s only a coach.  Obviously you want to have the best coaches money can buy, especially with a young team like the Pirates have.  But as with any other sport, the talent on the field is what wins games, not the coaches on the bench.  Hill will be replaced by former Pirate Carlos Garcia.

Yankees win World Series

I address this not because I care about the Yankees or the Phillies.  I have a great amount of dislike for both teams and I yearn for the days when Pirates v. Phillies can be a rivalry again.  However, since it ended there has been a lot of discussion in the national media about The payroll advantage the Yankees have, and whether they “bought a championship.”  That is what I want to address.  To say the Yankees bought a championship is unfair to the Yankees.  They are playing within the rules and taking advantage of every opportunity they have, good for them.  Also, saying that they bought a title ignores the fact that almost every team in the Playoffs this year has an astronomical payroll (2009 payroll).  If you count the Tigers and their one game playoff with the Twins, 7 of the top 9 made the Playoffs this year.

With that, here is how I like to think of the advantage the top payroll teams have.  Every extra dollar is a dollar that can be used to make up for mistakes in personnel and player development.  If you the Kansas City Royals, the Pittsburgh Pirates, or any other team who can’t afford to sign the top free agents, you have to be almost perfect.  All of your top draft picks have to turn out to be great players.  When you trade your top players who are free agency eligible, the return has to turn out to be solid major league talent.  As you move up the ladder to teams with a few more dollars, there’s a little more room for error.  And when you get to the top, teams like the Yankees have an almost unlimited margin for error.  Their draft picks are almost irrelevant.  They can afford to take chances on reclamation projects like Billy Wagner.  Any mistake made in developing personnel can be covered up by a good free agent signing.  And those very free agent signings are very low risk because its proven talent.  Obviously its  huge advantage, a broken system that needs to be fixed.

Tags: , ,