Archive for July, 2009

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Pardon The Idiocy.

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

I quit watching cable news mainly because it’s a wasteland of pompous, arrogant assholes with opinions on the news instead of just reporting the news. Not only do they let their personal bias get in the way of real reporting, they often times don’t do any research at all on the subjects in which they’re reporting. You would think that since ESPN reports on just sports, it’d be a lot easier to do some research before you do a half hour show. ESPN’s “Pardon The Interuption” was just stupid today and makes you wonder if anyone at ESPN actually cared about research:

Mike Wilbon: The Pittsburgh Pirates usually aren’t worth a mention in our A-Block. But this latest trade, getting rid of popular players Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson in a swap for more prospects means that GM Neal Huntington has dumped 8 of the 9 players who were in the lineup opening day two years ago. The GM defends himself by saying “We don’t feel like we’ve broken up the 1927 Yankees.” Tony, the Pirates are in the midst of their 17th consecutive losing season. 17! Does this seem like the best way to build a winner?

Tony Kornheiser: Pittsburhg’s a great sports city.

MW: Yeah.

TK: They support the Steelers like no team is supported throughout the country, except maybe the Cowboys. Ok? They support the Penguins, ya know, when everyone was afraid they’d move the team, they showed up for everything. The Pittsburgh Pirates organization from management down is a disgrace to have this many losing seasons. They’re not competitive and if they were in England they’d be dumped to the 2nd division and not be allowed to play anymore.

WM: Hahahaha. They’re an embarrassment. They’re an embarrassment.

TK: They lose every year. The owner. They’ve changed GMs. They’ve changed managers and they keep losing.

WM: General Manager Neal Huntington says, he rips the players by saying these aren’t the 27 Yankees. HEY PAL, YOU’RE NOT BRANCH RICKEY, YOU’RE NOT JERRY WEST, YOU’RE NOT BILL POLIAN. I mean, for all we know, you’re the problem, not the players. Even though they’ve made all these changes, you don’t do that.

TK: Pittsburgh deserves better than this, they’re not a competitive baseball team.

WM: No, they’re not.

DING!

Oh wow. I know that PTI is a fast paced show and they probably can’t dedicate an entire half hour to the deadline deals of Neal Huntington. If they’re gonna quote him, they should have actually read the entire quote from the Post-Gazette:

We don’t have to make any of these moves. We’re making them because those of us in baseball operations feel this is the right way to build a team. We’re fortunate to have the support of Bob Nutting and Frank Coonelly to make these difficult and unpopular decisions. But we’re making them because we’re trying to create a winner. We’re not out to get .500. We don’t feel like we’ve broken up the ’27 Yankees. We’re doing this because we’re committed to building a winner.

They certainly didn’t mention the return for either Wilson or Sanchez. I mean, when you get a 20 year old pitcher dominating AA for a 31 year old 2B, how can you possibly call that a loss for the team that gets the 20 year old pitcher?

Secondly, “For all we know”? You’re a fucking sports reporter, are you telling me that you’re too fucking busy to look in to what Neal’s done since he’s become General Manager of the Pirates? If you’re gonna sit there and talk about the Pirates the least you could do is actually research enough to find out what situation the Pirates are in right now, what has happened the last 10 years and why they need to make these moves. Ok, maybe you are too busy to look this up yourself, get an intern to look up this information for you and stop talking out of your ass as though you’re an expert. You’re not. Neither of you are.

Or maybe just go talk to John Grabow, the Pirates reliever that they just traded to the Cubs. I’m pretty sure they won’t put this quote on Pardon The Interupttion tomorrow afternoon.

In all the years I’ve been there, they’ve tried to build things piece by piece, and it’s never worked. So, I think they’ve come to the conclusion that, well, let’s completely overhaul it, get a young group of players and have them all flourish at the same time.

At least one person gets it, but he doesn’t have a TV show to counter the ESPN idiots.

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Total demolition.

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

With some more to come. Apparantly, John Grabow is heading to the Cubs. I think this is only the 2nd player to be traded to a division rival, with Torres having been traded to the Brewers a year earlier.

So the list shrinks again. Freddy Sanchez was traded last night and Grabow is probably heading to the Cubs this afternoon. Freddy trade was pretty cool, the Pirates got Tim Alderson, who was the Giants top pitching prospect. No word yet on the return for Grabow. Doumit, Duke, Maholm, Capps, Meek are what’s left of the opening day 2008 team. That’s it and Doumit is now the longest tenured Pirate since Grabow’s leaving. Grabow’s been with the team since he was called up in late 2003. Doumit has been with the Pirates since June, 2005.

Of course this complete and total demolition of the Pirates isn’t really unwarranted. They weren’t winning and so it was clearly time for a change, especially since most of their players were heading out anyways. The hard part is after basically tearing the entire team apart, is putting it back together in a way that will create a winning team. They did it before when they tore apart the 85 Pirates and put it back together over the course of the next two seasons to put a winning product on the field in 88. However, that was an easier fix considering the Pirates had a core of players in place before they started the demolition and rebuild.

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Good bye, Jack Wilson.

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Jack Wilson and Ian Snell are going to Seattle in exchange for a couple of decent guys who can fill in at First or Catcher and Shortstop and three pitching prospects who can all fit into our top 20. Excellent trade. The Pirates have increased the pitching talent in the minors and they brought in two guys to replace Wilson and Adam LaRoche. It’s amazing now, to think of all the guys who are gone since opening day last year only Freddy Sanchez and Ryan Doumit remain. Only pitchers Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Matt Capps, John Grabow and Evan Meek. That’s it. Everyone else is gone.

Overall, it’s very disappointing to see Jack leave. He’s been around since 2001. He was traded to the Pirates for a relief pitcher back in 2000 and he’s been a career Pirate since then. Very rare these days to have such a guy anymore. Teams turnover players fast. Even back in the 70′s, only Willie Stargell, Bruce Kison and Manny Sanguillen played on both the 71 and 79 teams. Clearly, it’s more now as only one player remained from 2001. There’s a myth that teams can get guys and keep them for their entire careers, but it just doesn’t happen. A-Rod’s been with three teams. Curt Schilling was with four teams, Randy Johnson’s been with 6 teams, Manny’s been with 3 teams. Jason Bay, including his minor league days, is with team #5. Chances are good that Pedro Alvarez, Tony Sanchez, Lastings Milledge and other minor league guys now will not be career Pirates. It just doesn’t happen much anymore. But yeah, Wilson cool guy, overpaid, great defense, still no bat, just glad to see him go, but also not glad to see him go…

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Birth Certificate.

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Why does anyone care about the president’s supposed lack of birth certificate? I think I have one somewhere around here. Anyways, it really doesn’t matter. If they actually discovered he’s not a US born citizen, they’ll just kick him out and put in Joe Biden and he’ll probably do the exact same things Obama would do.

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Omar Minaya is an idiot.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Omar Minaya is the Sarah Palin of General Managing in baseball.

Rewind a few weeks back to a story about one of the Mets player development guys (Tony Bernazard) going ape shit, ripping off his shirt and trying to pick a fight with minor league ballplayers after a tough loss. Fast forward to yesterday and he was fired by Mets General Manager Omar Minaya. Anyways, the video is just funny as hell. Maybe that reporter should listen to Palin and stop making stuff up! Hahahaha.

Really, he shouldn’t even have a General Managers job. He was the guy who basically destroyed any chance for the National to compete once they moved to Washington. If you want a reason that the Nats are on pace for their second straight 100+ loss season, it’s Omar Minaya. And now, in a few years, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mets are in a similar boat…

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AT&T in 1983…

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Right after the 1980′s Government break up of AT&T, a sign with this was hanging in many bell offices around the country:

There are two giant entities at work in our country, and they both have an amazing influence on our daily lives. . . one has given us radar, sonar, stereo, teletype, the transistor, hearing aids, artificial larynxes, talking movies, and the telephone. The other has given us the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, the Great Depression, the gasoline crisis, and the Watergate fiasco. Guess which one is now trying to tell the other one how to run its business?

Oooh, owned.

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Trade Deadline Time. What’s gonna happen?

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

The Bonifay Era. Not as bad as you would think…

1993: Traded Stan Belinda to the Royals for Jon Lieber and Dan Miceli. Yep, they traded that reliever who cost them the 92 NLCS for Jon Lieber, who had a good career as a starter. Talk about a great way to start your career as a GM, too bad he didn’t have more trades like these.

1994 and 1995: Nothing notable happened at the deadline those years.

1996: Traded Danny Darwin to the Astros for Rich Loiselle. Good deal, got a slam the door in your face closer. A month later traded Denny Neagle to Atlanta for Jason Schmidt and Ron Wright. Schmidt squandered his time in Pittsburgh. But the Wright story was worse. He was a great hitter for average and power in the minors before he hurt his back. That cost him a career as he only had one at bat in the majors. It cost the Pirates as he was supposed to take over 1B and that would have prevented throwing away $24 million on Kevin Young.

1997: The closest ting to a deadline deal this season was getting Shawon Dunston, but that was August 31st instead of July 31st. The Pirates could have been a playoff team if they had tried to pull the trigger a month earlier.

1998: Traded Esteban Loaiza to Texas for Warren Morris and Todd Van Poppel. Loaiza had a decent career after leaving Pittsburgh. Warren Morris didn’t live up to his ability and Van Poppel was just short term bullpen help.

1999: Traded Jose Guillen and Jeff Sparks to Tampa Bay for Joe Oliver and Humberto Cota. Talk about giving up entirely too early on someone. Just two years after his great 1997 debut season, Guillen was inexcusably gone. Joe Oliver filled a vacancy at Catcher while Kendall was out. Cota was another catcher that the Pirates used sparingly the next half decade.

2000: Traded Wil Cordero to the Indians for Alex Ramirez and Enrique Wilson. Traded Jason Christansen to the Cardinals for Jack Wilson. A Japanese Star and two Wilsons, one who is still playing SS for us today. Not since Andy Van Slyke have the Pirates taken so much from the Cards for so little.

Dave Littlefield Era….(uh-oh)

2001 Got it started with the Jason Schmidt trade. I understand that he was leaving at the end of the season through free agency, at least get some real prospects for him instead of Rios and Voggelsong. The next day, the Pirates traded away Terry Mulholland and Mike williams for a big pile of nothing.

2002 Was that magical year where nothing much happened. The Pirates finally gave up on the Chad Hermansen project. He never did get around to doing that cool walking on water trick.

2003. Ugh. The Ramirez trade was such a black hole that it nearly eliminates the fact that the Pirates got Freddy Sanchez and Jason Bay that summer.

2004. Traded Kris Benson and Jeff Keppenger to the Mets for Ty Wiggington, Jose Bautista and Matt Peterson. Rumor has it that the Phillies were offering Ryan Howard for Kris Benson. Nice going, Dave.

2005. Traded Matt Lawton to the Cubs for Jody Gerut. Traded Dave Ross to the Padres for JJ Furmaniak. Lawton was no big loss. Jody Gerut didn’t do much with the Pirates as he spent most of that time hurt and got better when he became a Padre. Dave Ross is still playing. JJ is not. Nothing terrible here, but nothing productive either.

2006. A whole bunch here.
Traded Kip Wells to Texas for Jesse Chavez. Actually not too shabby. Wells is bad with the Natinals now and Chavez is a decent reliever when he’s not giving up bombs to Ryan Braun. Draw.
Traded Sean Casey to Detroit for Brian Rogers. Rogers was terrible, but Casey was at the end of his career anyways. Advantage Tigers.
Traded Oliver Perez and Roberto Hernandez to the Mets for Xavier Nady. Long term, it turned out to be not too shabby a deal for the Pirates, even if Perez was too young to give up on. Advantage Pirates.
Traded Craig Wilson to the Yankees for Shawn Chacon. Sadly, no choke slams for Dave Littlefield in Shawn’s time here. Advantage Yankees because the Pirates traded Wilson entirely too late to get any real value for him. He’s what Xavier Nady would have been if Nady was a Pirate in 2009. Talk about pissing an opportunity away.

2007. The stupid Matt Morris trade in which we were lucky that the Pirates didn’t give up anyone good, just a big pile of money, gets all the attention. But they did get Ceasar Izturis a week or so earlier, luckily the Cubs basically gave him to us. But still, it was infuriating to see them bench Jack Wilson to put the less talented Izturis in to games.

The Neal Huntington Era. Could this get any worse?

2008: Traded Marte and Nady to the Yanks for Ohlendorf, Karstens, D. McCutchen and Tabata. Grand slam for Huntington in his first season as GM. It’s unlikely that Nady will ever reach his 2008 level again and even if he does, he would have been gone through Free Agency after 2009 anyways. Marte is injured along with Nady. Ohlendorf is a decent innings eater as a starter. Karstens has been sharp in long relief this season. Tabata lost time to injury, but is still young and capable of being an impact player several years from now. McCutchen is still a ? at this point.

Traded Jason Bay to the Red Sox for Andy LaRoche, Brandon Moss, Craig Hansen and Bryan Morris. Bay had a fantastic start to the 2009 season while Moss and LaRoche stunk and Hansen and Morris got hurt. LaRoche eventually evened out, but is still not putting up the numbers expected after his stellar Minor League career. Moss is finally hitting and is decent in the outfield with the glove. Morris is back, but he’s not pitching as well in the minors as the Pirates had hoped. Overall, a pretty bad trade at this time.

2009: Traded Adam LaRoche to the Red Sox for Argenis Diaz and Hunter Strickland. Diaz is a Jack Wilson replacement who could probably use some instruction from Perry Hill. Strickland is a 20 year old pitcher who’s a long way off but with some potential. Better than the nothing the Pirates would have gotten from him leaving through Free Agency and certainly better than old guys like Armando Rios…

Who’s next this year. They can’t be finished yet…

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Another Thursday, another episode of Bullshit.

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Lie Detectors. I never lie.

Really.

Liars are dangerous, dangerous people. Good thing I never lie. I exaggerate. That’s safer.

If I say I saw the hottest girl in the world working as a flight attendant, then she’s probably in the top 5000 at least. But I’m not lying because she might be the hottest I’ve seen. Especially since I probably haven’t seen the other 4,999.

So yeah, the polygraph is a very elaborate reaction recorder. They’re not admissible in court and so there’s really no reason for them to exist in any real way, except maybe in a county fair. Ya know, just for fun. There’s a huge chance that most of them are inaccurate so there’s no reason for the government or businesses to use them. Not that they’ll quit anytime soon…

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Perfection.

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Rays this afternoon. These things seem to happen every five years or so. I wonder what it would be like to be at a perfect game. Has to be cool. The coolest part was that in the top of the 9th Kapler, a Rays player, hit what looked like a home run and Wise, the White Sox CF jumped up and stabbed it as it almost went over the fence. The funny thing is that he was a defensive replacement in the 9th. Makes Ozzie Guillen look absolutely brilliant. Which he isn’t.

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One LaRoche gone, one to go…

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Well, the LaRoche brothers are no more in Pittsburgh. Adam LaRoche will be going to the Red Sox now as part of a trade for two prospects. One is a decent although unspectacular pitcher in A ball and the other is a AA shortstop with lots of glove and a Nyjer Morgan-esque slap htting bat. Trading Adam LaRoche was probably the best thing to do, he wasn’t going to be back next season and it’s likely that Pedro Alvarez will probably be taking over 1B next year. But it’s interesting to see how much the team has changed since March 31, 2008:

CF: Nate McLouth. Traded to Atlanta for Charlie Morton, Gorkys Hernandez and Jeff Locke.

2B: Freddy Sanchez. Still with the Pirates

LF: Jason Bay. Traded to Boston for Andy LaRoche, Brandon Moss, Curtis Hansen and Bryan Morris

1B: Adam LaRoche. Traded to Boston for Argenis Diaz and Hunter Strickland.

RF: Xavier Nady. Traded with Damaso Marte to New York Yankees for Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, Daniel McCutchen and Jose Tabata

C: Ryan Doumit. Still with the Pirates.

3B: Jose Bautista. Traded to Toronto for Robinzon Diaz

SS: Jack Wilson. Still with the Pirates

P: Ian Snell. Sucked enough to be sent to AAA Indianapolis.

Also playing that day:

Nyjer Morgan: Traded to Washington with Sean Burnett for Lastings Milledge and Joel Hanrahan.

Tyler Yates: Out for season with Tommy John surgery.

Doug Mientkiewicz: Left as free agent, signed with Los Angeles Dodgers.

John Grabow: Still with the Pirates.

Chris Gomez: Left as free agent, signed with Baltimore, but was released before the 09 season started.

Damaso Marte. See Xavier Nady.

Matt Capps: Still with the Pirates.

Franquelis Osoria: DFA’d. Signed minor league deal with Kansas City. Is current free agent.

So out of all the guys who played with the Pirates last year, only five are still with the major league team and it’s possible that both Freddy and Jack could be gone by month’s end, bringing that number down to 3.

So what about the current group of guys playing yesterday:

CF: Andrew McCutchen. Drafted by the Pirates in the first round of the 2005 draft. Major League debut on June 4, 2009.

2B: Freddy Sanchez. Traded to the Pirates by the Red Sox in 2003.

LF: Garrett Jones. Signed as minor league free agent before the 2009 season.

C: Ryan Doumit. Drafted by the Pirates in the 2nd round of the 1999 draft. Major League debut on June 5, 2005.

1B: Adam LaRoche. Traded to the Pirates by the Braves in 2007.

RF: Delwyn Young. Traded to the Pirates by the Dodgers in 2009.

3B: Andy LaRoche: Traded to the Pirates in the Jason Bay deal.

SS: Ramon Vazquez: Signed as free agent before the 2009 season.

P: Virgil Vazquez: Signed as minor league free agent before the 2009 season.

Also yesterday:

John Grabow. Drafted by the Pirates in the 3rd round of the 1997 draft. Major League debut on September 14, 2003.

Brandon Moss. Traded to Pirates in Jason Bay deal.

Evan Meek. 2008 Rule 5 draft pick from the Devil Rays.

UPDATE 8:25 PM: Dejan asked him why he stuck around after he was told by the Huntington that he was traded to the Red Sox and participated in the post game celebration. He said:

Those are my boys out there. And it was a great way to go out, with what Mossy did. I’ll miss them.

Very cool. Even though he was never as good as he was in Atlanta, he was clearly a very cool guy. Unlike Prince Fielder, the Brewers 1B, who said:

Why was he still in uniform? I’d have been gone.

Oh really. Shows where your loyalty really lies. I get this feeling that he can’t wait to get away from Milwaukee and sign with the Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers….

Another UPDATE 7/23/09 11:30 PM: Bucco Fans blog has summed up what went wrong with LaRoche and his time here. Not so much that he was terrible, but that he was just expected to do what he wasn’t really capable of.

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