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Report: Pirates after Rocco Baldelli E-mail
Written by Pat Lackey   
Tuesday, 23 December 2008 12:28

Last week, you might have noticed that I did a FanHouse post about Rocco Baldelli being re-diagnosed with an ion channel disorder that's very treatable, as opposed to the previous diagnosis of mitochondrial disorder. When I wrote that, I thought to myself that Rocco would make a very interesting buy-low candidate for a team like the Pirates, even though the Pirates don't really need outfielders. Well, apparently that's not deterring the Pirates because the Post-Gazette is reporting today that they're very interested in the free agent Baldelli.

The company line is that the Pirates are mostly interested in adding a right-handed bat to the outfield with Nate McLouth, Brandon Moss, and Nyjer Morgan (gulp) slated to start the year in the outfield. Even if Badelli's not fully recovered, he can play against lefties once or twice a week and give the Pirates some outfield depth. What makes this talk interesting is that there's a much better chance today that Baldelli's healthy than there was a week ago. Doctors have thought that most of his injury problems since 2004 have all been related to whatever was causing his fatigue. If his disorder is treatable, then it's possible that his injury problems will go away.

It's impossible to know what Baldelli's capable of at this point. He hasn't played regularly for an extended period since 2004 (unless you count his 92 games in 2006), but he was an incredibly promising prospect for Tampa before all of the injury trouble started and in 30 games last year, he put up an above average OPS and showed some nice pop. Perhaps most intriguingly, he was an excellent center fielder and his presence, again if fully healthy, could move Nate McLouth to a corner spot at the start of the year and really strengthen the outfield defense.

I know that this is going to immediately kick off lots of "Ohhh nooooo we're going to trade McLouth!!!" or "Well, why did we even trade for Brandon Moss?!?" talks, but I doubt the Pirates are looking at things like that. In Baldelli, I see a talented player that may be worth much more than his market price down the road and I think the Pirates see the same thing. It's likely that the market for Baldelli is going to grow in light of this new diagnosis, but he's certainly worth taking a chance on. What, exactly, do the Pirates have to lose?


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Comments (3)add comment

gregschuler said:

...
Whatever keeps Morgan on the bench in his defensive replacement/PH role is a good move.

If the interest in Baldelli is legitimate, the Pirates would need to overbid - seriously overbid - to entice him away from other teams. Playing time (which might be limited due to his condition) is not going to be a dominant factor (I think).
 
December 23, 2008
Votes: +0

w,k, kortas said:

...
See, there's Daniel Cabreras and Rocco Baldellis. Now, Cabrera has the better part of 850 innings as a body of work to judge, and perhaps "corpse" is a better term than "body." Cabrera hasn't done anything to suggest to a sane person that he could be a useful part of a contending team--he's a big guy who throws hard, and that's pretty much the sum total of his assets--and took the terminally insane Nationals to spring forward to make an offer for him.

Now Baldelli-- yes, there are the health issues, but, as Pat notes, that could be as much a misdiagnosis issue as anything else; plus, as opposed to Cabrera, he has actually been productive at the big-league level, albeit in limited time. And, as has been noted several times here, there, and everywhere, the Pirate outfield situation is far from settled. Obviously, Baldelli comes with a very big chunk of risk, but his potential reward at least has a basis in past performance.

 
December 23, 2008
Votes: +0

Nate said:

...
I'd be pretty jazzed about a Rocco Baldelli signing. He's a good, youngish player and a great buy-low candidate. Plus it would really make my friend Peter mad...he's a Rays fan and Baldelli is his favorite player.
 
December 24, 2008
Votes: +0

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