Following a historic loss against the Brewers yesterday, the Pirates are still not looking to trade for starting rotation help, according to Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Although the team acknowledged that the rotation needs to be upgraded, they have no plans to look outside the organization to do so.
The Pirates' 7.23 ERA ranks last in all of baseball, and the starting rotation has played a significant part in the club's struggles. Daniel McCutchen and Charlie Morton have been extremely ineffective in three starts each, combining to allow 37 earned runs in just 21.1 innings.
Nonetheless, GM Neal Huntington says a trade is unlikely, despite the team being a prime candidate to make a move. For now, the Pirates will recall Kevin Hart, wait for Ross Ohlendorf to get healthy, and hope Morton can straighten things out. The club also has top prospect Brad Lincoln waiting in the wings in Triple-A Indianapolis, but is unconvinced that he's quite ready to be promoted to the majors.
Earlier in the week, we outlined some potentially available starting pitchers, which the Pirates could look into if they changed their stance on a trade. Of course, given the team's usual place in the NL Central standings, they're probably more likely to be sellers than buyers.
This is definitely the right move— don’t trade for a vet when you’ve got several holes.
Brad Lincoln is pitching Saturday in Houston this saturday 4/24/2010 according to houstonastros.com.
I don’t know what you read, but it says that Chris Jakubauskas is getting called up to pitch tomorrow.
My bad your right I was looking at sports.yahoo.com/mlb/scoreboard?d=2010-04-24. I would trust a MLB site more than yahoo sports.
According to the Kovacevic article I linked, Jakubauskas was recalled to pitch in long relief, with Hart being called up to start Saturday. Lincoln’s a little way off yet.
And yeah, the Pirates have by far the worst run differential in the game. They shouldn’t fool themselves by going out to improve an already awful team. Just keep stacking up young talent and hope that it all comes together in a couple years.
I mean, that pitching staff just flat out sucks.
With Tim Alderson in the minors, there should be little rush to shore up a young pitching staff on a club with little chance of earning the wild-card berth. Letting the kids mature and work to get or develop some hitters should be the first priority.
The Pirates problem is they don’t have a 1-2 type starter. They have Duke and Maholm who are good 3-4 guys, but no stud. Then they try filling people like Daniel McCutchen, Brian Burres, and now on Saturday looks like Chris Jackubukus or Kevin Hart. They need to realize these pitchers aren’t that good. I’m still dumbfounded they thought Haydenn Penn was good enough to be on the club. Brad Lincoln is close but he is not an ace type. Alderson is a year away. He could be that guy, but I doubt he will be. I love Zack Von Rosenberg and I do believe he will be an ace type, but he is years away. They wont trade for a top guy or sign a top guy, so they are officially stuck.
Alderson’s probably a 5 at best at this point. He has a LONG way to go.
I wouldn’t say he is a 5 at best. I would say he probably ends up a 3 or 4. That still leaves them with nothing better then a 3.
I haven’t pitched for a few years, but willing to throw a couple of innings for the Pirates.
Only if you’re Brian Bullington or John Van Benschoten. Otherwise, you’re not wanted.