After that game was completed, the Pirates announced 1B Jeff Clement would be optioned to AAA and Jack Taschner had been DFA’d.  Those 2 moves made room for SP Brad Lincoln and OF Jose Tabata to make their big league debut’s last night.  Given how dominant Strasburg was in his debut, part of me considers last night a huge disappointment.  Tabata would bat lead-off and went 2-4 with a SB and a BB.  Quite honestly, if he can continue to do that and sprinkle in an occasional extra base hit, I’ll be happy.  But, there was nothing about his performance that was overwhelmingly excellent, and trying to judge a hitter on one game is just dumb anyway.  A one game assessment of a pitcher makes slightly more sense, just because you can judge how their stuff looks, but its still an awful small sample size, which brings me to Brad Lincoln.

Lincolns final line was rather ugly 6.0 7 5 5 2 3 1.  But he was very much let down by his defense, and he showed me some things I liked.  His plus curve ball that everyone has talked about when he was drafted and making his way through the minor leagues is very much that.  It’s a true out pitch when he locates it.  It may have just been adrenaline, but he had more velocity on his fastball than I expected, hitting 93-94 in the early innings.  At least 2 of the runs he allowed probably should have been unearned, but the no decision he came out of the game with seems fitting given how well he pitched.  I’m gonna give Lincoln a pass for now, given that his first start this year at AAA was a rough one and how thoroughly he dominated the level after that.  I’ve gone over this before, but Lincoln is never going to be a true ace like Strasburg, so comparing the two is just plain unfair.  But he seems to have the makings to become a solid middle of the rotation pitcher, one that should be in a Pirates uniform for at least the next 6 years.

In addition, the  AA roster is now final according to buccofans.com, via the Altoona Mirror. The AAA Indianapolis Indians roster is not yet final, and can’t be set until we see if Brandon Moss clears waivers. Here is the link to their roster page. What is there now is probably 98% of what it will look like when they open their season, and any updates will likely be reflected there before I can post about them anyway.

I have 2 more season preview posts to come between now and first pitch at 1;35 tomorrow.  The first is the offensive preview to be posted tonight as soon as I finish it.  The other is a predictions post, which will go up tomorrow morning.  I’ll be down at pnc park tomorrow, so I expect I’ll post some pictures, thoughts, etc. sometime tomorrow night  if I have time, or Tuesday if I don’t get to it tomorrow.

• The Pirates signed former Phillies pitcher Jack Taschner to a minor league contract
• Former Pirates closer Matt Capps signed a 1 year deal with the Nationals
• There heave been talks with, but no offers to, Octavio Dotel and Kevin Gregg

Lets start with Taschner, mostly because that’s the simplest piece of news.  He was signed to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.  Basically, he is a middling relief pitcher who walks too many guys (His baseball-reference page can be found here), but with very little set for the Pirates 2010 bullpen, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is pitching meaningful innings come April.

Moving on, the Capps thing has been analyzed to death at this point, but I’ll beat the dead horse just a bit more.  The contract he ended up signing with the Nats was for $3.5 Million, or about half a million more than the value the Pirates had on him.  He also had similar offers from the Cubs and Mets, so it would seem that his “market” value is $3.5 Million, not $3 Million, but only time will tell if his performance on the mound justifies that $3.5 Million dollar salary.  In their defense I will say this;  No matter how well or poorly Capps pitches this season and beyond, this move is not going to have a lot of impact on bottom line wins and losses this year, or for the long term future of the Pirates.  Based on WAR, he was a 2 win player in his best seasons, and below replacement this past year, so this is not the move to lose sleep over.

Now that Capps is officially gone, who is going to set-up and close for the Pirates in 2010?  The last piece of news could be part of that picture.  In the last week the Pirates have been talking with 2 of the few remaining closers on the free agent market in Octavio Dotel and Kevin Gregg.  Both of these are still in the very early stages, and the Pirates have yet to make an offer to either.  Additionally, it seems unlikely they would bring in both. In addition to Gregg and Dotel, there are the internal options for late inning duty, Joel Hanrahan and Evan Meek.

Comprehensive statistical analysis this is not, but among the group I only see Hanrahan as being a capable closer at this point in their careers.  Gregg was below replacement level in ‘09, losing the Cubs closers job to a pitcher who walked 65 batters in 74 innings, Carlos Marmol.  Dotel had a nice ‘09 season for the White Sox, post a 3.32 ERA and a 3.88 FIP in 62.1 innings.  That being said, will be 36 this year and hasn’t closed since ‘07 so I’d like to think there’s a reason for that.  Meek, the former rule five draft pick, will certainly be in the mix to set up and close.  He has a solid strikeout rate, gets a lot of ground balls and appears to have the demeanor to eventually close.  I just have a feeling that he and the tema would be better server to wait another year or two to thrust him into that role.  That leaves only Hanrahan.  He does have a closer’s pedigree having closed for the Nationals early in ‘09 and for Team USA in the baseball World Cup.  He also was excellent in black and gold late last summer after coming over from the Nationals as part of the Nyjer Morgan deal.  Seemingly, the only thing holding him back from the closer’s job is the Front Office’s desire to have him hone his breaking pitchers  bit more before he returns to 9th inning duty.  That line of thinking is laid out here on the PBC blog.  Surely, before the year is out Joel Hanrahan will get a shot at closing, though it is unlikely to come to start the year.  That job will likely go to Gregg, Dotel, or some other as yet unknown outside option.