The Pirates were unable to use their momentum to propel them into the playoffs this year but things are looking bright in Pittsburgh. Here are a few items on the Bucs..
- Pirates General Manager Neal Huntington says that he didn't do a great job with the free agents he signed last winter, writes Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The Bucs lost Kevin Correia to injury in mid-August while Lyle Overbay and Matt Diaz were unable to get on track this year.
- Even though Huntington was tough on himself for his offseason signings, Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gave the GM a B+ for his work this season. Brink credits Huntington for landing Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick but says that the signings of top draft picks Gerrit Cole and Josh Bell were even more significant.
- All of manager Clint Hurdle's assistants will return for the 2012 season, a team source told Biertempfel. A formal announcement likely will come Monday.
The Bucs will rise again!!! Aaarrrgggghhhhh!!!!
AAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!
LETS GO BUCS!!! Neal doing it big this off-season!
we should trade hanrahan for a power bat at either 1b,corner outfield, or catcher. how about hanrahan and tony sanchez for Ryan Lavarnway and lowrie
I definitely agree about trading Hanrahan. I’m not ready to give up on Sanchez though.
I’d trade Hanny in a heartbeat
As a Sox fan I’m not totally against the idea, we certainly could use Hanrahan. However I think it would have to be some other prospect besides Sanchez.
How about no…
dave littlefield is that you.
I’d feel more comfortable trading Hanrahan if Evan Meek hadn’t had such an injury-filled season
I wish people would quit giving Huntington credit for signing draft picks. He merely selected the best players available. Nutting opened up the checkbook to sign them. But no one in Pittsburgh will ever give Nutting credit for anything.
Tony Sanchez was NOT the best player available in the 2009 draft! They drafted Alvarez in 2008 because Dave Littlefield stupidly passed on Matt Wieters the year before.
Its a bit more comlicated than just “picking the best player available”.
Why are you guys willing to trade one of the top closers in the NL?!! If our starters improve but we do not have a good closer, we are going to lose games we should had won. It does not make sense! We need a least two high caliber starters that can not only eat innings but win games. NO MORE KEVIN CORREA’S!!! NO MORE MATT MORRIS’ (after he belong in a museum!).
Because, a position player plays more innings and has a greater impact over a season than a reliever does. I’d much rather have a player who hits 25 to 30 homers rather than someone with 40+ saves.
^What he said^ Plus, you can make or acquire a decent closer easily. They just don’t have anywhere near the same value as position players
A steady bullpen is very important, I agree. It was one of the main reasons for the DBacks turnaround. They didn’t have too bad of a team last year but their pen was blowing literally every lead, and there’s not many people to trust in the pen other than Hammer. I would be against trading him for a prospect, but I’d maybe be open to trading him for a major league piece, as long as we sign one of the closers on the market.
how many one run save opprotunites did hanrahan have this year you might want to look that up. i mean mike williams had 40 saves one year. closers are so up and down if your not a top team you got to move them .
To be honest, I think it depends on who the players coming back would be. Toronto showed this year why having a stopper at the end of the ‘pen was important. AA decided to go cheap on backend help, and look how terrible the duo of Francisco/Rauch were. The year before that? Arizona went with Qualls/Heilman. Look how bad that team was.
The only reason to trade a top closer would be if you were receiving a huge impact bat in return or if said closer was getting a huge salary raise or if the team was rebuilding.
And no, I don’t believe that Lowrie is that bat that Hanrahan should be traded for.
He wouldn’t be the bat in that trade, it would be Lavarnway.
Jerry Meals is the most hated man in Pittsburgh
If you’re gonna keep all the coaches, then at least tell the hitting coach to actually TRY and help the batters recognize offspead pitches!
Aside from that, I think the Pirates are going in a good direction. Its hard to buy free agent talent when you only have a $10 million dollar spending amount.
P.S. SIGN ANDREW MCCUTCHEN TO AN EXTENSION ALREADY!!!!
agreed, I was surprised that hitting coach Gregg Ritchie kept his job
Why is huntington hard on himself? he kept the young core of players around and then brought in some good veterans that helped the team.
Neither Matt Diaz nor Lyle Overbay were any good for the Pirates in 2011, and did not help the team :cop:
The Bucs need to get rid of Garrett Jones before next spring training. And if smart not pick-up Doumit’s option for the next two years. Because neither belonged in the BIGS in the first place.
Garrett Jones is a useful guy to have on the bench. He actually had good pinch hitting numbers this season. To say Ryan Doumit doesn’t belong in the bigsis a dumb argument his glove is terrible but the guy can hit. When he is healthy which isn’t often his bat is a middle of the order threat.
But they’re useless to the Bucs. Because neither of them are more than DHs.
I was glad to see that Huntington didn’t sell the farm before the deadline.
wake me up when someone says something interesting.
Oh, I don’t know about that. There have been some pretty bad deadline deals for relievers. Granted the prospects weren’t established major league power threats yet, but they were projected to be.