The Pirates controversially parted with reliever Juan Nicasio in a money-saving move last month, but the now-Cardinal and impending free agent would be open to an offseason return to the Bucs, Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. “Yes, I would consider it. I liked it there a lot,” said Nicasio, who joined Pittsburgh prior to the 2016 season. It’s unclear whether the Pirates will pursue Nicasio over the winter, but he has put himself in position to secure a nice deal from them or someone else with his output this year. In 69 innings divided among Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and St. Louis, the 31-year-old has posted a 2.74 ERA with 8.74 K/9, 2.35 BB/9 and a 45.9 percent groundball rate.
More from Pittsburgh and two other NL cities:
- The Nationals plan to activate right fielder Bryce Harper for their series opener against the Phillies on Monday, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets. Harper left the Nats’ game against San Francisco on Aug. 12 after suffering a gruesome-looking knee injury, thus derailing an MVP-caliber campaign, but he’ll have a chance to be a major factor in October for the World Series hopefuls.
- Giants right-hander Matt Cain sounded uncertain on Saturday when discussing whether he plans to continue his career in 2018, Chris Haft of MLB.com writes. What’s clear is that the Giants will buy out the former front-line starter’s $21MM club option in favor of a $7.5MM buyout in the offseason, ending a fruitful tenure in the Bay Area. While the 32-year-old Cain is in the midst of a fourth straight rough season, he has been outstanding for the majority of his career in San Francisco, where he has won three World Series and earned three All-Star nods since debuting in 2005.
- Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang won’t need to come off the restricted list to participate in the Dominic Winter League, general manager Neal Huntington told Adam Berry of MLB.com and other reporters Sunday (Twitter link). Kang is already in the Dominican Republic and working out with his winter ball team, per Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Their season begins Oct. 20, and playing for them will represent his first game action since the 2016 major league season. Kang hasn’t been able to secure a U.S. work visa since earning his third DUI charge in his native South Korea last winter. The Pirates will set an offseason deadline to decide whether they can count on Kang for 2018, according to Huntington. “We’ll get to a point in time where, if we still don’t know, we’ll plan as if he’s not going to be here,” he said. “If he is able to secure a visa to get into the country, we’ll have an extra really good player.”
That looked like one baaaad injury.
Thank goodness Harper’s ok!
best possible outcome for that injury
Why not try to extend Nicasio before we just dumped him
Right
Two sides here:
One side: Nicasio was serving no real purpose after the team dropped out of the running. Letting him go, preferably to a Contender who isn’t competing with the team directly saves saves a few bucs and gives Nicasio a chance at seeing some play off action. Which is kinda what happened… Juan went to a team not competing with the Bucs but not a contender… then ended up with a Contender (at the time) that is directly competing for the Bucs. Crazy.
Other side: Eat the half million or so(?) and try to extend him after you dragged him down on a sinking ship. Good luck.
They should have and probably did touch base about extending but thought option one was better for both sides and maybe foster some good will with Juan, problem is now other teams have a chance to do the same lol.
I think the Pirates in essence treated him very poorly. The, trying to get him to a contender that isn’t directly competing with them, line is a cop out. Why would they worry? Unless he did not want to go to the Cubs, the team that claimed him off revocable waivers, the Pirates should have just traded him if the wanted to help him. The pirates were out of the race, as evidenced by actually releasing him. All it was was bad management and trying to save a few dollars. If I was him I’d never consider re-signing.
its not a cop out. when he was pulled back the team still had an off chance of doing not bad and you don’t want to give up a quality player to a team you will be playing against especially when the return you are going to get is going to be next to nothing other than maybe a depth minors role player.
after a week or two of the team doing poorly they placed him on irrevocable to save money and get him in a better situation. Its not like monday he was pulled off of waivers and then tuesday he was given to the phillies for nothing.
and really it wasn’t a few dollars.. it was quite a bit more than that, even in baseball terms half a million for a month of play is a nice chunk of change to save.
a cop out would be saying it was another “addition by subtraction” since.
ahh.. too late to edit.. but just want to clear up.. i was say at the start of the season to extend him. .. i’m in the extend crowd.. but after the teams failures i can understand why it happened the way it did… even if i don’t like it.
You don’t have to like my post, but why dislike.
So you’re not glad Harper’s ok? I never thought I’d see him this season, after witnessing that injury.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Idy-s25aoug
Not even a Nats fan, but People getting too liberal with dislikes.
I don’t have a dislike option on the app but I’d give you a dislike simply for crying about getting a dislike. Come on man. You need a thicker skin. Don’t be a Trump and let the little things bother you.
That being said, I agree with you. That injury looked really bad. Hopefully he’s healthy enough to do some damage to the Dodgers should they meet in the playoffs!!
You misunderstand. I don’t give a **** about dislikes or likes.
I do however, give a **** if you disliked my post because you wanted Harper to stay injured or suffer worse injury. When you dislike someone’s post, it means you disagree with their opinions / views. You can disagree with everything I say, down-vote me all you want, and I’d be ok with it except wishing injuries on players.
One should never wish injuries on players. I’d love to know who down-voted my first comment. (Not my second comment, because it’s fine if you disagreed with my decision to ‘whine’ about it. )
“I don’t give a **** about dislikes or likes.”
“I’d love to know who down-voted my first comment.”
Try not giving a **** a little harder.
95% of the time I’m here on an iPad, I don’t see ratings and don’t have the ability to rate comments. And I don’t think I’ve missed a thing.
I’ve participated at sites where ratings influence placement of comments, sites where user ratings alone could hide a comment. Even sites where user ratings could auto-ban a user. It is my understanding that none of the above is the case here.
If folks are downvoting you for disagreement, try to think of it as them leaving an ugly record of their own ratings abuse. Does this site even have a set of rules for comments, other than no obscenities? Not sure what the value of ratings is if you can’t see whose ratings they are.
I have no problem with the rest of your comment. Heck, I’d “like” it if I could.
All I was doing was wishing Harper well… I’m actually ecstatic he’s making it back.
Go read the Harper injury thread when it happened… Because of the gruesome looking injury, everyone was worried he’d be out for the season, maybe more. Some people even speculated it would take a miracle to make it back in time for the regular season, if he suffered Kyle Schwarber’s injury, and it was a miracle that Schwarber himself even made it back in time for the playoffs, even strictly as a DH.
I remember a few years back, Teixeira was diagnosed with a bone bruise in his leg, after fouling ball off it. Initial tests showed only a bone bruise and some inflammation. He rested a few days, took the same tests that again showed bone bruise and inflammation. He was expected to be back soon after getting diagnosed with “bone bruise” But for some strange reason the — same exact tests — were done twice before the third one revealed a fracture in his leg. He was lost for the season.
Baseball’s a crazy game, Tex fouling the ball off his leg and it looked like a routine baseball play, unlike Harper, where you expected the worst because of that gruesome looking knew injury.
That’s why I was happy in that 1st post, to find out Nationals announced Harpers playing first game since suffering that injury And it makes me sad to know, others would dislike that comment, when all I did was be thankful he didn’t suffer a worse injury.
“All I was doing was wishing Harper well.”
Not quite. You were also commenting about the fact that some cowards who didn’t have the testicular fortitude to confront you nonetheless found the courage to downrate your comment.
You obviously read my comment, I’m disappointed that rather than engaging with what I said you chose to defend your original comment once again, despite the fact that no one has disagreed with you.
“Go read the Harper injury thread when it happened.”
You go read it. Notice my comment, rather early in the thread?
“Because of the gruesome looking injury….”
Once again, read my comment in the original injury thread. You are preaching to the choir here.
” . . . And it makes me sad to know, others would dislike that comment….”
The world was already a cold, cruel place and then they invented the internets. Where anonymous cowards can flash their ids to undeserving strangers.
What part of “stop paying any attention to ratings” is unclear? You say you don’t give a **** about ratings then you go on to complain about them once again. Why does it bother you that someone who doesn’t have the integrity or guts to confront you directly chooses to permanently document his cowardice for all to see?
“I think people think I’m looking for attention…”
I dunno your history at this site and can’t read the minds of anonymous strangers. Perhaps they found your approach a bit self-absorbed. Perhaps they dislike your past comments and are taking a cheap shot now. Whatever the genesis, your “why are people persecuting me” act usually doesn’t go over well. Even with people who agreed with your original comment and don’t think it deserved a d0nut/downrate. Such as yours truly.
In short, my suggestion would be to either grow a thicker skin or stay far, far away from the internets. There lie monsters. Cheers.
If I were cain, I don’t think I would not peruse a contract, at least as a starter. He used to be amazing but right now he either needs to reinvent himself as a bullpen guy or hang it up, especially since he has blowup inning-itis (pretty much every start minus a few in the last few years has been good to great if you eliminate inning X) – would still love to see him retire as a giant though he has meant so much to the club.