Pirates Notes: Bullpen, Payroll, Doumit

Pirates GM Neal Huntington talked about the state of the club following the Trade Deadline on his radio show this afternoon.  MLB.com's Jenifer Langosch has the goods..

• In the past week the Pirates have subtracted four veteran relievers, most notably trading Octavio Dotel to the Dodgers and Javier Lopez to the Giants.  In addition to counting on their starters to go deeper into games, Huntington acknowledged that the club may need some outside help:

"We are a little bit concerned that we're going to throw some young, inexperienced pitchers into situations they're not ready to handle. We may explore some options outside the organization to bring in a guy or two who has some experience back there. Or we might just go with the guys that we have to see if they can show us if they can be a part of this team this year and beyond," said Huntington.

• The GM said that none of the deals that the Pirates made were financially driven and pointed out that Pittsburgh actually sent some cash to the Dodgers in the Dotel deal.  On the whole, the Pirates have loosened their belt somewhat and taken on payroll this year.
• Upon their acquisition of catcher Chris Snyder, some wondered what the future might hold for Ryan Doumit.  Doumit would have a better chance of factoring into the Bucs' future plans if he could switch positions, but Huntington said that the club hasn't gotten a chance to evaluate his glove in one of the corner outfield spots.  It's possible that Huntington meant to say that he personally hasn't gotten to evaluate Doumit's defense in the outfield as the 29-year-old started 33 games in right field for Pittsburgh in 2007.  Huntington was named the team's GM in September of that year.