Midnight’s deadline to tender contracts to arbitration eligible players was a little more hectic than I expected; the Pirates did end up giving Jeff Karstens and Ronny Cedeno contracts, but didn’t tender Lastings Milledge, Brian Burres, or Argenis Diaz.
Milledge will obviously be the most-talked about non-tender because of his pedigree, but I’m having trouble getting worked up over it. The Pirates gave Milledge a long look in left and right field last year and he really only hit left handed pitching (.926 OPS and all four homers against lefties, just .602 against righties). A player that can only hit lefties is marginally valuable as it is, but Milledge’s defense was pretty disastrous last year and his base running lapses were maybe the only thing that I saw that got under John Russell’s skin during the season. I wanted Lastings to succeed in black and gold, but the longer I watched him play the less possible it seemed. I don’t think that putting Steve Pearce in the short end of a platoon on the right side of the field with John Bowker and Garrett Jones will yield worse results than having Milledge out there. This move is one of those moves that I’m not sure I would’ve made in Huntington’s position (he wouldn’t have been that expensive and he’s frankly more talented than Pearce, even if he hasn’t really shown it to this point in his career) , but it’s not something that I’m terribly worried will come back to haunt the Pirates either.
I don’t know if there’s much to say about the other decisions. Karstens proved himself to be a useful pitcher last year, Burres really didn’t. Acquiring Pedro Ciriaco made Argenis Diaz redundant. People will likely grumble about signing Ronny Cedeno, but at $2 million a year he could easily shift to a backup role if we acquire another shortstop and still not be hugely overpaid. He’s not a great player, but he’s better than the alternative if the Pirates can’t acquire someone like Hardy (who was tendered by the Twins, though that doesn’t mean he won’t be traded in the future).
As for other non-tenders, MLB Trade Rumors has the full list (AL, NL) of new free agents. There’s obviously not much there since it’s the non-tender lists, but there are probably a few buy-low candidates on the list. Given Neal Huntington’s past, I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t make a run at adding Manny Delcarmen to the bullpen.
