0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/20/2015
Let’s begin here: Chris Stewart has a hamstring injury that will likely cause him to open the 2015 season on the disabled list. That means that Sanchez, who’s crushing the ball this spring (10-for-19 with two doubles and two homers) and has apparently shown some improvement defensively, will probably open the season as Francisco Cervelli’s primary […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
There is a chicken-or-the-egg game to be played with Sean Rodriguez and Jung Ho Kang right now that goes a little something like this: Would the Pirates have traded a decentish prospect like Buddy Borden for a player that had been designated for assignment like Sean Rodriguez if they knew that they were only a […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Playoff predictions: AL Orioles, Indians, Mariners; DET, NYY. NL Nationals, Pirates, Dodgers; Cardinals, Marlins. PIT to win WS over SEA. — Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) March 20, 2015
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/19/2015
This is what I think is wonderful about Jung-Ho Kang: I have no idea what he’s going to do in 2015. None. With most players, I can make an educated guess based on minor league numbers and key rate stats and other indicators. With Kang, it’s almost impossible to know how any of those sorts […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/16/2015
On its face, the Pirates’ signing of Corey Hart this winter was a pretty uninspiring move for all the obvious reasons: Hart missed all of 2013 with knee problems and was awful with the Mariners in 2014. He probably can’t play the outfield anymore, which limits him to first base, which makes him substantially less […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/13/2015
If you’ve been paying much attention to the evolution of the sabermetric-leaning public’s understanding of catcher framing for the last couple years, you know that it feels like more of a positive feedback loop than anything: every study that comes out seems to amplify the effect of good framing catchers even further. Last month, Jonathan Judge, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/11/2015
In the early years of the Neal Huntington era, Huntington would fill the roster with pitchers like Tyler Yates and Franquelis Osoria and take shots at pitchers like Kevin Hart and Donnie Veal. Occasionally he’d unearth a diamond in the rough like Evan Meek or hit it big on a trade with a pitcher like […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/10/2015
Brandon Cumpton had Tommy John surgery today. Dr. James Andrews did the procedure. — Bill Brink (@BrinkPG) March 10, 2015
0 comments by Pat Lackey
One of my absolute favorite things about the Neal Huntington front office is that they absolutely do not care what anyone else thinks about what they do. People freaked out last year about the Cole Tucker draft pick and then that the Pirates didn’t save a significant amount of slot money with his bonus, but […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
The Stolmy Pimentel Story is a pretty straightforward in 2015. He had a rough go of 2014 and spent time bouncing between the bullpen and the disabled list, because he was out of options. The Pirates wanted to hang on to him at all costs, though, because in the 32 2/3 innings that he did […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/9/2015
I finally got a chance to peruse this year’s Baseball Prospectus this weekend and among other things in the Pirates’ section (including a great team essay by
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/8/2015
I haven’t written a whole ton about Spring Training, so let’s take a Sunday to get caught up on some reading about what’s going on in and around the Pirates thus far in camp. David Todd has an excellent interview with Jim Benedict up at Bucs Dugout, which you can listen to or read. There’s […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 3/6/2015
When Parks and Rec ended its run on NBC last week, I spent a little bit of time thinking about what it was that I liked about the show so much. Given that the show spent most of its second half making references to sabermetrics and once made an entire episode dedicated to Infinite Jest, it could […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 2/26/2015
I’m a day behind on this story, but I think it’s an important one to weigh in on. Yesterday Bob Nutting talked to Rob Biertempfel at the Trib, saying that he’d like Andrew McCutchen to be a Pirate for a “long, long time” and Biertempfel’s sources indicated that while the Pirates are not actively engaged in extension talks […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 2/24/2015
John Holdzkom started 2014 in independent ball and at one point in the season got cut by his indy league team. He has pitched for New Zealand’s World Baseball Classic team. One time he called in to Chelsea Peretti’s podcast, lamenting his blown baseball opportunity. The Pirates signed him out of the blue last summer, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 2/23/2015
With most of the early spring training talk about the Pirates being extremely positive, their bullpen is sort of the elephant in the room. Obviously Tony Watson and Mark Melancon are great and John Holdzkom was promising down the stretch last year, but the Bucs’ bullpen blew a lot of leads last year. They did […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 2/19/2015
This is what I think is great about Jared Hughes: there’s an awfully good chance that he’s walking proof that the Pirates’ front office is a step ahead of most analysis about the relationship between pitching and defense. Over the course of his Pirate career, Hughes has pitched in 170 games and thrown 183 innings. […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
We are headed into murky territory for the < 500 series, as I’m not sure I have anywhere near 500 words to say about the players left to talk about. Still, I’m going to press on for at least a little longer. The upside is that if these posts are short, the possibility exists that […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 2/18/2015
One of the nasty little side-effects of the Information Age is that a day that used to feel magical — the day pitchers and catchers report — is now one of the biggest anti-climaxes on the calendar. If you follow the
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 2/14/2015
Andrew McCutchen, writing at the Player’s Tribune: Baseball used to be the sport where all you needed was a stick and a ball. It used to be a way out for poor kids. Now it’s a sport that increasingly freezes out kids whose parents don’t have the income to finance the travel baseball circuit. McCutchen […]
