Some Baseball News

Well, we can all calm down after that big Steelers win yesterday, and it has been three whole days since the end of the World Series, so why not kick off the Hot Stove Season right now.

In some not so surprising news, the Pirates made it official today that they will not be picking up the club options for four players for 2012: pitcher Paul Maholm, catchers Ryan Doumit and Chris Snyder, and shortstop Ronny Cedeno. The Maholm and Doumit moves are not surprising since they represent $25.25 million in salary obligations on the part of the team. The Snyder move is somewhat surprising because, while Snyder would have cost them $6.75 million in salary next year, they have to have somebody who can catch and at least have a reasonable chance at hitting the ball. The Cedeno move is a real surprise since his salary next year would have been a relative pittance, $3 million, and despite his mental lapses that tend to drive you absolutely crazy, it has been obvious that the Pirates have been unable to find - or pay - anyone who can do any better (see Wood, Brandon).

If you are keeping score at home, the Pirates have now pared off $35 million in salary obligations for 2012 and are in desperate need of a catcher, a shortstop, and at least one starting pitcher, and this is in addition to everything else a 90 loss team needs. What exactly will they do with that $35 million? Not nearly enough to sign Jose Reyes or Jimmy Rollins to play shortstop or CJ Wilson to pitch. Maybe they will sink that money into securing Andrew McCutchen or Neil Walker to long term deals. Or maybe it will go into "player development" and be used to help the long term plans of the team as the current team struggles to avoid 90 losses again next season.

As I read somewhere today, it's going to be an interesting off season watching GM Neal trying to plug these holes. Right now, I am having a very sinking feeling that the team we watch in 2012 could be a lot worse than what we saw in 2011.

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Elsewhere in baseball, more surprising news arrived with the announcement of Tony LaRussa's retirement. Those who know me know that I am no big fan of LaRussa's. I thought him to be smug and self-important and someone who relished the "genius" tag that the George Wills and Buzz Bissingers of the world bestowed upon him. I also thought that he was allowed to skate on that DUI charge of a few years back. To my knowledge, he never received a reprimand from either MLB or the Cardinals on that.

Be all that as it may, you cannot take away from his accomplishments. Only Connie Mack and John McGraw won more games as a manager, and he had to have had something to do with that two month run that the Cardinals just pulled off. So his eventual plaque in the Baseball of Fame will be well deserved.

And he is certainly going out on a high note!

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One other baseball note. Last week on Pardon the Interruption, Tony and Mike interviewed the newly appointed Cubs major domo Theo Epstein, late of the Boston Red Sox. When asked what it would take to turn the Cubs around, Theo spouted the usual baseball b.s. about player development, setting up a flow of talent that would turn the team into a contender year in and year out, and not just for a one shot deal and on and on and on. It was the same line that we have been hearing for Coonelly and Huntington since their arrival in 2007. I mean, word for word. I guess the big difference is that Theo had the unlimited checkbook of John Henry in Boston to make it work, and I suspect those same resources will be available to him in the Windy City.

A New SS for the Pirates? and Dodgers Thoughts

The Angels this week "designated for assignment" (translation: we don't want this guy any more) short stop Brandon Wood. If you are like me, you never heard of Brandon Wood, so here's the skinny on him.

A one time #1 draft pick of the Angels, Wood shot through the Angels system and made it to the big club in 2007, but as often happens with hotshot, can't-miss prospects, things became different in the major leagues (can you say "Chad Hermansen"). With the Angels Wood has managed to play in 173 games in five MLB seasons and put together a career batting average of .168. That is not a misprint. His BA is One-Six-Eight. He has hit 11 home runs and driven in 33 runs in those 173 games. He has walked 13 times, and struck out 153 times.

Reports are that the Pirates will be "all over" Wood as he travels through waivers. Hard to imagine that the Pirates, in looking for a short stop to replace Ronny Cedeno would be able to come up with a player who was actually worse than Cedeno, but it looks like GM Neal is going to do exactly that.

I'll say this for Huntington - he doesn't embarrass easily. He has to know the ridicule that he will face if the Pirates claim this guy and put him in the line-up at PNC Park, but if the reports are accurate, it looks like he's going to do it anyway. It might make us long for the glory days of Brian Bixler at short.

Of course, maybe the theory is that a change of scenery will work wonders for Brandon Wood. On the other hand, that same theory never worked for Chad Hermansen in Chicago, LA or Toronto.

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Speaking of L.A. the news that Major League Baseball will be taking over the operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers has to be shocking to long time fans of the game. You would probably not get any arguments if you said that apart from the New York Yankees, the Dodgers, both in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, have been the most important, historical, successful and stable franchises in the history of the sport. That the shaky finances and marital squabbles of the McCorts has brought this franchise to this point is sad to behold.

I made a comment about this on my Facebook page the other day and it elicited a lot of comments. Some were pretty good, like..."why doesn't MLB take over the Pirates"...."as happened with the Expos, maybe MLB will allow the team to move; I hear that Brooklyn needs a team." My own comment was that there are surely some still-bitter old fans in Brooklyn who are now screaming "serves you right."

However, I will leave you with this snippet from LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke on the matter:

"Since buying the team in 2004 with more smug than money, Frank McCourt kept his hands in his pockets while the stadium became a dump, the fan base become dangerously belligerent, and the team became the Pittsburgh Pirates."

Ouch!

Early Pirates Thoughts

It is early, very early, but how about a few thoughts on your 2011 Pittsburgh Pirates.

• Neil Walker, with 7 hits, 7 RBI, and an OPS over 1.000, has been the Pirates best player, and his scoring the winning run on Sunday from second base on an infield single has been the Pirates' best play of the four game season.


• Not bad for a guy who the Pirates last year were grooming to be a utility infielder.


• While Walker has been the best player so far, Andrew McCutchen and Jose Tabata have not been far behind.


• The biggest surprise has been the fairly strong performances of the four starting pitchers. Correia, Maholm, Ohlendorf, and Morton, especially Charlie Morton, all have done good work in their starts, each of them lasting six innings.


• How about Clint Hurdle coming out of the dugout on Sunday in Chicago to vociferously argue an umpire's call? After the three years of sleep-walking John Russell, I didn't think that Bucco skippers were allowed to do that.


• And kudos again to Hurdle for yanking his ineffective Eighth Inning Set-Up reliever, and bringing in his Closer with two outs in the eighth inning to put out the fire last night. Used to be that your best relievers were often called upon to pitch two or even three innings at a crack.


• On the minus side of the ledger has been Even Meek and Ronny Cedeno. You have to think that Meek will turn things around and be an effective reliever. You have no such hope that Cedeno will be an effective short stop. He has butchered two seemingly sure fire double play balls two games in a row, and the team is extremely fortunate that those two blunders didn't cost them the last two victories.


• GM Neil can be criticized for many things, and the fact that Ronny Cedeno is the best SS the Pirates have to offer four years into the Huntington Regime ranks very high on the list.

Switching from the diamond to the hardwood, congratulations to the Connecticut Huskies for winning the NCAA Championship last night. The game was, shall we say, far from an artistic masterpiece. I was glad that I had a baseball game to switch too for most of that hoops game. However, that takes nothing away from the well-earned Championship for UConn.

Incidentally, Loyal Reader Bill had pointed out to me over the weekend that the two teams that played for the Championship last night, UConn and Butler, were the same teams that handed Pitt it's two post-season losses in the Big East and the NCAA, respectively. Those victories over Pitt came by a combined score of a whopping three - count 'em - THREE POINTS. Kind of adds a bit of perspective to the Panthers' season.