Pirates designated Akinori Iwamura for assignment

[missionhockey21]

What's the deal Neal Huntington? No love for a .558 OPS?

Pirates Designate Akinori Iwamura For Assignment: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com

[Kingdom]

I give them credit. Tabata, Walker, now Alavarez. They need to dump the Cedeno experiment and keep up with this trend of trying out the young and unproven. Cause trying the proven shitty isn't working.

[missionhockey21]

Yeah, watch out, this Pirates team could be exciting one day. Who would ever think that would be a possible thing to say after a decade of the worst Pirates since PoTC 3.

[Kingdom]

I wouldn't go that far. I have no idea who Neil Walker even is, Jose Tabata at one point was eating himself to death, and Alvarez was not lighting it up in AAA. It's just the right step. No more recycling of bums. At least have a crappy season with your "future"

[Sabu88]

Being actually familiar with the Pirates let me...enlighten


They have 0 impact players left in the minors...this despite this new "draft strategy" of signing a bunch of homos over slot. Okay maybe Bryan Morris has developed into an impact talent. We'll say 1.

The Pirates are still at least 10 years from competing at this current pace... and by that time players like Alvarez and Mccutchen are likely to be gone...so there's that.

Alvarez was brought up too early. He has obvious holes in his swing and horrible mechanics.

Brad Lincoln was brought up too early. He has only 2 pitches right now. Rather than developing a 3rd in AAA, he was forced up.

Both of these moves were PR/Job saving moves for Neil Huntington.

I feel bad for the guy in that he was put in a situation where he can't win. Pirates owner Bob "Let me **** the fans until the point I'm" Nutting refuses to spend any money on impact talent, free agents, and most importantly scouting and developing.

This team is an enigma...a quagmire. They spend 6 million and get the best player available in Pedro Alvarez a few years ago only to follow that up with a safe, boring, player in Tony Sanchez who lacks pure impact.

They follow this up the next year by taking a high risk best player available in Jameson Tailion.
This is great and everything...but this is after the fact they failed to sign top foreign prospect SS Miguel Sano, who actually FAVORED playing for the Pirates. The difference in money between Sano's final contract and the Pirates offer was about $200,000. How do you miss out on moves like that?

Despite a laundry list of moves, trades, and dumps the Pirates farm system still only ranked in the middle of the pack for 2009, that's with players like Lincoln and Alvarez being included.

The factor that would REALLY help the Pirates despite their frugal owners is a scouting and development team who knew what the **** they were doing. The Pirates have neither, as Frank Cooneley and Neil Huntington have decided to stock both departments with rookies, businessmen, and yes even friends. It's vomit worthy.

Every once in awhile you have a Pirates player in the organization who takes it upon themselves to go against the coaches and management and work for themselves (see Neil Walker) and they have been successful and loved by the fans. By the way Walker was the Pirates 1st round pick in like 2004 or something. He often criticized ownership, management, and development and yet found a way to be successful on his own accord.

It's a truly truly pathetic state.

The worst part? The Pirates aren't even good at losing. If they were to have lost I think it was a combined 30? more games 3 of the last 4 seasons they would have had the 1st overall pick each year.

The picks?

David Price
Bryce Harper
Stephen Strasberg.

Ouch.


I'll go into some of the trade failures of Neil Huntington later....

It's pretty hard to be worse than Dave Littlefield....I think Huntington has accomplished it as far as trades go.


Sorry for the sloppiness of the read

[missionhockey21]

Great post Sabu.

As a Reds fan, I can relate. Poor draft strategy, an unwillingness to spend petty (for a ballclub) cash to get the best talent, confusing moves, etc... been there, done that. It really takes bringing in an owner willing to bring in a competent GM and actually listening to said GM. The Reds last few GM's, after Bowden, all contributed in various ways to the current build of the team so neither were complete disasters, but it took Jocketty coming in for the ship to be righted. Jocketty seems to have ownership believing in his draft strategy and willing to pay for it, someone like Yonder Alonso would have went unsigned 10 years ago in Cincinnati and Chapman would have never received an offer. There are still things that baffle me, like Bavasi working in the front office, but at the end of the day I trust Jocketty.

The Pirates need to commit to a plan. Leaving a guy like Alvarez in AAA when so many people realized that despite starting to hit in AAA, there were holes in his game, wouldn't hurt. If resources are limited, holding back said resources from pointless FA signings or moves to tide the fans over makes sense if those resources will be invested in minor league development. The Pirates are just epically unwise, unlucky, and sometimes just retarded. With the Pirates system so thin, if a competent GM was brought on, would you be okay with trading guys like Alvarez or Lincoln for prospect packages so there could be a talent wave coming in the next few years and not coming as two of your better players are ready to set sail?

[Sabu88]

Sadly that will likely happen regardless of whether or not there are prospects in the system or not.

All the moves did was create a higher level of bust potential in both Alvarez and Lincoln. These types of things I've come to expect.

I can name things off the top of my head I would have done/could do differently to improve the ball club.

1) I would have traded Freddy Sanchez immediately after he won the batting title. That's when his value would have been at its peak. He was ( I believe) 27 at the time. He would have gotten a kings ransom in prospects when the Pirates would be ready to compete.

Let's say in a perfect world in 2012 the Pirates had Price, Lincoln (yes I know this was somewhat of a stinker pick in hindsight), Strasberg, Paul Maholm, and a top free agent starter? That would be one of the better rotations in the league.

2) Sign Miguel Sano. Nothing shows a commitment to winning then signing top players when they are available. I doubt Miguel would be ready by this perfect 2012 scenario, but you have to take these risks.

3) Play Lastings Milledge... These are basic simple freaking moves you can do to make your ball club better not only now but for the future. Milledge is hitting. Ryan ****ing Church is not. Milledge has shown great potential and improvement in not only his attitude but his game the last year + . Chruch's potential is maxed.

It makes no sense whatsoever to throw Church out there night in and night out when all he is doing is grounding out to the shortshop.

On Milledge - While I'm sure he wouldn't be starting for a championship caliber team at this point, steady improvement may lead him to that in the future.

4) Trade Garrett Jones

Again, his max value is now. He could be a valuable DH/1B for some team looking for some more pop in their order. He wont be around when the Pirates compete anyways. Burn it all. Burn it all with fire.

5) Not draft like retards

Just from the last few years

2009 - Tony Sanchez (4th)
Some scouts have called him a career back-up catcher. This is pretty much the equivalent of drafting a punter in the 1st round 4th overall in football. Think about that.


2007 - Daniel Moskos (4th)
Instead of a punter, they drafted a money field goal kicker in the first round. Oh brother.
To give an idea of who was drafted with the obvious pick after Moskos.....

5th Matt Wieters

6) Do something with Ryan Doumit that doesnt involve playing Ryan Doumit.

He is the worst statistical defensive catcher in the league. It's not some close,pointless stat. It's by a long shot. I think his percentage of runners thrown out for one is 11% lower than the 2nd lowest dude. Ouch. His +/- when compared to is bat is around the -4 run range. He's absolutely awful. What's worse? He's even worse in the field!

It'd be great if his bat was ...good... but even that is souring lately.



So there are 6 ways the Pirates could have been improved the last few years. I did that in like 5 minutes. None are groundbreaking or necessarily hard to do..but man...what a difference some of them could have made today.

[Kingdom]

This thread has done nicely to reverse jinx Walker, Alvarez, and Tabata.

[love_that_reefer]

Where the **** did Neil Walker come from? Dude never hit this good in the minors but this kid has been raking at the MLB level. Good story.

[realmofotalk]

The kid was born and raised in Pittsburgh and was a Pirates fan, too. You can't help but root for him to succeed because if he does, he won't do what LeBron did (It's okay for him to ditch Cleveland! He's actually from Akron, remember? And he was a Bulls fan!)

[Kingdom]

Catcher to 3B to 2B.. good stuff. Akinori what?

[Kingdom]

And that Nady and Marte for Tabata and some spare arms might not be such a lop sided deal anymore.

[Kingdom]

Tabata and Walker still holding up pretty well, Tabata turning into an intriguing top of the order guy. They may have the top 3 in the order situated, they just need to figure out the next 5.

[Slyder]

Your best all around outfield prospect is still on the farm. He's 22 and got all the tools that Eric Davis had. Dont let the lack of power in the incoming months fool you (had a hand injury that will sap it like it did Yonder). He will reach at least 30/30 plateau. He will cover MORE ground than even McCutchon.

The name to watch for? Starling Marte.

[missionhockey21]

Tabata and Walker still holding up pretty well, Tabata turning into an intriguing top of the order guy. They may have the top 3 in the order situated, they just need to figure out the next 5.

And have Pedro Alvarez catch the consistency bug.