Ghosts from the Past

It has been a few days where some ghosts from the Pirates recent past have revisited the scene.

First, the Pirates recalled pitcher Bryan Morris from Indy to fill a bullpen spot just in case he was needed on Sunday.  He wasn't, and he was then promptly sent back to Indy. More to the point, Morris is the last remaining piece from Neal Huntington's first big trade - the three way deal that sent Jason Bay to Boston, Manny Ramirez to LA, and an assorted collection of trinkets and trash to the Pirates.  Yes, I know it was a trade that looked good at the time, and yes, I know that NH stole James McDonald from the Dodgers, and yes, I know that Bay's career has pretty much stalled due to injuries these past few years, and yes, I know Neal has made some stunning draft picks, even though Pedro Alvarez is the only one of those picks to make any meaningful contribution to the team so far.  However, facts are facts, and when Neal moved the biggest chip that he had in that first season he was here, it ended up as a miserable failure.

Secondly, the Pirates DFA'd Daniel Moskos yesterday, and his days in the Pirates organization are no doubt over.  No, this was not one of Neal's guys, but rather the Legacy (or Epitaph?)  of Dave Littlefield and the Penny-Pinching McClatchey regime.  I don't really have to go over the history of this painful episode, do I?

Finally, the Moskos move came about as a result of needing to clear space on the 40 man roster for catcher Eric Fryer, who is needed as an emergency backstop as Rod Barajas nurses a sore knee.  Why Fryer?  Well, Tony Sanchez, the catcher of the future, and one of Neal's #1 draft picks, is currently hitting .196 at Indianapolis.  If, four years into his professional career, Sanchez is deemed inferior to Eric Fryer as an emergency catcher, well, that tells you something, and it ain't good.

Bieml to DL; Moskos Returns

Yesterday afternoon after the Pirates 4-2 win in Chicago, I posted a question on Facebook asking why was Joe Bieml on the team. I could not recall seeing Bieml have an effective appearance this season, at least not in games that I had seen either in person or on TV. On clever response suggested that he was there to take non-save situations and turn them into save situations for Joel Hanrahan, as he did yesterday.

Anyway, today the team places Bieml on the DL and recalls Daniel Moskos, who pitched very well in a few non-pressure situations earlier in the month.

Another question I posed asked how would you feel if you were a Cubs fan and watched your team getting is collective butt whipped by the Pirates for the last year-and-a-half? Yes, the Bucs, the lowly Pirates, are 16-6 against the Cubs since September 2009. Gotta really be galling for the Bleacher Scums in Wrigleyville.

Welcome, Daniel Moskos

Daniel Moskos made his major league debut for the Pirates last night with one scoreless, 14 pitch, three-up-three-down inning of relief in the Bucs 4-1 loss to the Rockies last night. Here's hoping that this will be the beginning of a long and productive big league career for Moskos.

Unfortunately, Moskos, through absolutely no fault of his own, will always be a symbol of the inept Dave Littlefield Regime as Pirates' GM as well as a symbol of the long established and well known penury of the Pirates Management. You will all recall that in 2007, the Pirates had the 4th overall pick in the Entry Draft that year, and everyone speculated that the Bucs would use that pick to select catcher Matt Weiters. The Pirates bypassed Weiters, who they knew would command a big signing bonus, and went for Moskos, who signed very quickly and, relatively speaking, cheaply. Littlefield went on to say that the Pirates had rated Moskos very highly when no other pre-draft source had even rated him as a top ten pitcher in the draft, much less the #4 overall pick. Littlefield was pretty much ridiculed over the entire Moskos-over-Weiters selection.

The Orioles, as most of you know, snapped up Weiters with the next pick, and he made it to Baltimore in 2009 where he has been ever since.

Another way to look at the Moskos selection is to see it as the beginning of the end of Dave Littlefield, and the marking of a change in Pirates philosophy. Before the 2007 season ended, Littlefield was fired, Bob Nutting hired Frank Coonelly as team president, and shortly after the season, Coonelly hired Neal Huntington as GM. The new management team's goal, as we have been told over and over, was to spend money on the draft and build from the ground up. The team has not shied away from drafting the big name prospects (Alavarez, Taillon) and spending "above slot" to sign the other players that they did draft. This has produced, according to Huntington, complete success on every level except for that pesky little area of "wins and losses on the major league level." Oh well.

In case you are curious, the players selected ahead of Moskos and Weiters that year were: 1. David Price, Rays. 2. Matt Moustakas, Royals. 3. Josh Vitters, Cubs. Other players of note in that first round were 2010 World Series hero Madison Bumgarner at #10, the Braves' Jason Heyward at #14, and the Tigers' Rick Porcello at #23. Another interesting selection was #22 pick Tim Alderson by the Giants, who came to the Pirates in the Freddy Sanchez trade and who now toils in the Pirates minor league system.

On the other hand, maybe Littlefield wasn't so stupid. Seventeen pitchers were taken in that first round of 2007, and, without doing any real in depth research, I can say that only Price, Bumgarner, and Porcello have had any impact in the majors thus far. If any of the 13 pitchers other than these three and Moskos have made it to the Bigs, their impact has been insignificant as yet.

As I have said before, there is no more inexact science than scouting for major league baseball talent. It may well be that when we look back on the 2007 entry draft in ten or fifteen years, the very best player may turn out to be some guy who was selected in the 22nd round.