The Pirates have made a host of changes to their scouting and front office staff, Bill Brink of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports. Steve Williams, a major league scout since 1988, will be their new director of pro scouting. Junior Vizcaino, formerly of the Red Sox, will replace the recently-discharged Rene Gayo as Pittsburgh’s director of Latin America scouting. Assistant GM Greg Smith will now work under the title “Special Assistant to the GM”, though it’s not quite clear what the change in his role will actually be. Pitching coordinator Justin Meccage will now join the coaching staff as assistant pitching coach. In addition, pro scout Sean McNally has been named Special Assistant to the GM, John Birbeck and Matt Taylor have been made scouting assistants, and Joe Douglas and Justin Newman have been named quantitative analysts. While these moves seem to be mostly routine shuffling, it’s worth noting that very few first-round picks of the Pirates have lived up to their billing over the past 12 years.
More details from around the NL Central…
- In other Pirates news, closer Felipe Rivero has dropped agent Scott Boras. He’ll now be represented by Magnus Sports, according to Elizabeth Bloom of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Rivero enjoyed a breakout season in 2017, posting a 1.67 ERA and 3.50 WPA across 75 1/3 innings thanks in part to a 10.51 K/9 and a 52.9% ground ball rate. Although he enjoyed a bit of BABIP and home run luck, his 3.03 xFIP is still a solid mark. The left-hander compiled 21 saves after taking over as Pittsburgh’s closer halfway through the season, and is arbitration-eligible for the first time next offseason. He should be in line for a significant raise if he can perform close to his 2017 numbers. Bloom notes that Magnus Sports also represents some other closers, including Aroldis Chapman of the Yankees and Raisel Iglesias of the Reds.
- Speaking of Iglesias, the right-hander has officially decided not to opt into arbitration, according to Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. It seemed highly unlikely that Iglesias would choose to do so this season, considering his contract will pay him $4.5MM next season, while MLBTR’s arbitration model projected him for a $2.8MM salary. Nevertheless, Iglesias’ statement ends any speculation that he would opt into the process during this offseason (though he’ll have another opportunity next year). For the 2017 season, Iglesias finished 15th among relievers in total innings pitched (75), 22nd in ERA (2.49), 13th in saves (28), and tied for 13th in strikeouts (92).
Why would anyone fire Boras ? He can ice cubes to eskimos.
Sell.
Maybe he wants to go the Marte/Polonco route to sign long term and guarantee a life of financial success. Currently he’ll be year to year arbitration.
Boras has been fired many times. Boras looks out for Boras not the clients needs all the time. That is why.
You seem impresses with Boras. Many are not
The real question is how come MLBTR only mentions the agent who lost a player when the former agent is Scott Boras?
Probably because not too many people know the names of agents not named Scott Boras.
If most people don’t know any agents not named Scott Boras, why would they bother making posts about agency switches then?
They don’t just only mention when Scott Boras looses a client. He’s the only one who was just dropped, however.
Oh really? Link me to one article about a player changing agents where they mention the agent he is switching FROM and that agent is not Scott Boras.
m.startribune.com/miguel-sano-says-he-s-joining-ja…
Here’s one.
He means on MLBTR.
^
Literally not even true. You can easily search the phrase “Changed agents” on the site and see for yourself. In fact, you’ll find FULL article from just 6 months ago reporting he changed TO boras, instead of just a bullet point in a general article. clearly something wasn’t working for him since the relationship was so short lived lol
It proves the original poster’s point even more.
I just searched for that exact post:
mlbtraderumors.com/2017/05/felipe-rivero-changes-a…
It declines to specify which agency he switch FROM, only the one he switched to. The point is that they’re only listing FORMER agents when it happens to be Scott Boras, trying to make it seem like Boras is losing clients.
You beat me to it! It shows a level of favoritism when they decline to list former agents (who are not Scott Boras) of players. Very disappointing they adhere to this philosophy to say the least.
Are you guys serious right now? We’re talking about agents. Who cares about fair agent coverage
I love the back and forth on this subject…here’s the skinny: they do reports on agents because they provide lots of info to MLBTR that make up the content you read every day.
The reason they’ll mention Boras getting fired is two-Fold: it’s news-worthy given his top client roster, and he does not supply info directly to MLBTR. The second point is my guess, but knowing him and his second in command Mike Fiore, I’m pretty confident.
The last thing to note is that there’s a network of communication between teams and agents via the writers. When a certain reporter speaks, it’s known that Boras leaked it. If it was another, then another agent leaked it. They all have favorites. The teams do too. There’s a major puppet show every offseason.
You can figure it out if you watch closely enough.
That’s a really bad double standard. The agent who lost his client is ALWAYS news-worthy. Even if it’s someone I’ve never heard of.
“It shows a level of favoritism . . . “
And what, pray tell, is this site’s or Kyle Downing’s vested interest in making Scott Boras look bad? If anything, Kyle is responding to previous complaints about posts which did NOT include the name of the outgoing agent by including said info here. And you’re busting his chops for it? Get a grip.
We will see if they continue to include the former agent from now on or if it was just this time. I can assure you that if they don’t include it, I will post it in the comments.
And I will be backing Ryan on that
Well Ryan it did not take long. A new article was just posted on Walker changing agents with no mention MLBTR of pervious agency. Different author though so kudos to Kyle Downing here bucking the trend
Yeah, Imma go ahead demand an explanation for this…
Ryan that is an excellent point!
I think it’s about MLBTR showing respect to former agents. They make an exception for Boras because Boras needs no pity losing fish.
Boras has “$210MM 7-year man” J.D. Martinez, who just hired him. Actually, I remember the Steve Adams November 1 2017 MLBTR article: “J.D. Martinez Hires Scott Boras” that announced JD Martinez Hired Boras; they (purposely/strategically) neglect to say who Boras replaced, until you read the comments section of that article, asked by people, curious who Scott Boras replaced, and requesting this information be made public in all future “Player X, hires Agent B, to replace Agent A” articles)
mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/j-d-martinez-hires-scot…
I wish MLBTR disclosed the reasoning (or logic) they use, for not giving us information on previous agents who were replaced, so we can all put this topic to rest. But like the JD article, and this article, they probably won’t comment on the matter.
Again, this is my unsubstantiated theory on why they’ve omitted any mention of previous agents, who were replaced, (other than Boras) lately.
Well if I had it my way they would always include the former agent but it’s a pretty bad double standard to only include it if it’s Scott Boras. Idc if he “doesn’t need any pity.”