Link Roundup: Yoslan Herrera and the State College Spikes are Still Terrible

Andy (Luigi) LaRoche sprained his thumb (the previously injured one) on his last AB last night. No fracture…but it sounds like we may be short a corner infielder for a few days. Mostly from PG’s page and DK’s blog.

... but here is I wrote to Smizik this morning:

Bob,

With all due respect, you are considerably off base with your 8/5/08 column.

1. You are suggesting that the Pirates should sign Alvarez no matter the cost. I strongly disagree. The team’s stated approach is correct: Assign a fair value to Alvarez (and any player), budget that much money and perhaps a bit more, and be willing to negotiate up to that number. In certain situations (and Alvarez is one of them), you can stretch the budget a bit, but otherwise you do not overpay unless it is the final piece to the puzzle and it won’t cripple you for the foreseeable future (the exception does not apply here). Overpaying makes no sense and doing so is the hallmark of a bad organization. Perhaps one could argue with the value the Pirates placed on Alvarez or that the team’s budget is insufficient, but those would be entirely different issues (and there isn’t enough information at this point – at least as far as I am aware – to reach relevant conclusions).

2. You further suggest that the Pirates should be willing to spend more money to sign Alvarez because of the savings realized by the trades. Again, I strongly disagree. Experiencing a cash windfall does not justify poor subsequent financial decisions – especially when there is no cause/effect relationship between the windfall and the subsequent decision. I’m shopping for a Chevy Malibu with a $20,000 budget. If I win the lottery tonight and double my budget, I’m either buying two Malibus at $20,000 or upgrading to a $40,000 BMW. I’m not paying $40,000 for the same Malibu just because I can afford to.

3. The best way management can show doubting fans that it is serious about putting a winner on the field is to make a substantial and intelligent financial commitment to winning. Substantial but stupid financial commitments are counter-productive.

4. Finally, while I can understand that some – perhaps many – do not like the trades, a considerable percentage of Pirates fans are enthusiastic about the trade. Check out the blogs, where many of the best versed & devoted fans can be found, and you’ll see opinions ranging from satisfaction to outright jubilation. The team has the difficult task of building a winner while placating the casual fan (as opposed to the more learned fan) that makes up the majority of their income generating fan base. Often, the two missions are diametrically opposed. For example, the team had to choose between continuing to "almost win" with the traded players or significantly increasing their chances of actually winning in the next few years. The first choice (continuing to almost win) pisses off the entire fan base and for longer period of time. The second choice pisses off most of the fan base (casual fans), but for a shorter period of time. Unless there was a huge influx of cash on the way, this was the best way to build a sustainable winner. The fact that the approach has failed in Pittsburgh in the past indicts management, not the game plan. The game plan has worked in other cities and with competent management, there is no reason it won’t work here.

I enjoy your work, but your suggested approach to the Alvarez signing is terribly misguided.

Good day.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08218/901899-63.stm

“All of which means the team should be able to come to terms with Pedro Alvarez, their No. 1 draft choice. With this unexpected windfall, there is no reason for the Pirates not to be able to meet the demands of Alvarez’s agent Scott Boras. The Pirates knew going into the draft Boras was the most demanding negotiator in sports, and often asks for the outrageous. Now the Pirates, with the money they cut from payroll in these trades, have the wherewithal to comply with his demands.”

I hate to repeat part of what Uncle Nate says above, but why do they just have to bend over and take it up the you-know-what for Boras` demands?

“The really, really annoying aspect of the trades was the insistence of some - both pundits and apologists - that since the team wasn’t winning with Bay and Nady trading them was the right thing to do. That’s the height of convoluted thinking. Such reasoning suggests Bay and Nady were the reason the Pirates were losing.”

Trading them was the right thing to do in the hope that we could get enough major-league caliber talent in return to help rebuild a team that was going to have a losing record with them this year, and very probably would have had one next year with them in a Pirates` uniform, too.

If we had kept Bay and Nady through next season and ended up with only the compensatory picks in June 2010, how could we have even remotely imagined any winning seasons in the foreseeable future?

Smizik loves to criticize the previous administration of Dave Littlefield and Co., and he knows they left the minor league system in a shambles, so how was the team supposed to get any top-caliber talent without the two big trades in July? No matter who we end up signing from the draft by August 15, and no matter how hard we work at procuring talent in Latin America and elsewhere from this season, we all know our farm system had very few major-league projectible players prior to dealing Bay and Nady.

I think GM Huntington and Mr. Coonelly have done a lot of good so far and they have my support.

Whose thinking is convoluted here?

I think the award should go to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sportswriter, DiscomBobulated Smizik.

The man truly doesn`t know whether he is coming or going anymore.

Well, at least he had someone spell check his article this time.

demanded that it be blown up and started over because there were no pitching prospects in the minor league system and very little hitting prospects. In fact, the system was very thin on talent and so the numbers game had to be played in hopes of finding some hidden gems in other more talented systems which is exactly what NH has done. I would have preferred that the team not be dismantled because I love offense and it was producing very well. However, the fact was that Nady’s stock was at its highest peak and the time was right to trade him and get some numbers we can hopefully turn into several quality players. Bay’s stock may continue to rise but we did receive 4 players who in the long run can hopefully produce more than Bay alone would have done.

I’m as frustrated as anyone over the past 16 years and by nature am not a patient man. However, I do believe management did the right thing by trading our existing talent and so they deserve some time to see if their strategy materializes. I do, however, agree with Smizik that we need to sign Alvarez at almost any cost and that NH does have an obligation to the fans to expend all of the salary he saved by trading these players and to reinvest the funds into younger talent. The fans deserve this much for their patience.

Dejan says in his August 5 Q&A about the pitching at State College:

“Finally, regarding State College, a commenter in this forum yesterday did a bit of homework: The four June draftees currently pitching for the Spikes are 15th-rounder Michael Colla, 25th-rounder Brian Leach, 38th-rounder Alan Knotts, 44th-rounder Mike Williams, 45th-rounder Allen Ponder and 48th-rounder Owen Brolsma. Those six are a combined 3-4 with a 4.54 ERA. The rest, which Kyle Stark told me are either from the previous administration or extended spring guys, are 6-30 with a 7.39 ERA.”

I think this shows that maybe the mid/lower-round pitchers signed so far this year haven`t done as poorly as we thought.

Two things…I like that the PBC put a fair market value on Alvarez. Also, we are taking a chance on Alvarez. He might have gone higher had he not broken the hamate bone in his hand. His power numbers were down this past year.

Is that an aberration? or will he regain his power back? supposedly he should regain his power back, but….what if he doesn’t? We pay big bucks for a singles, doubles? hitter with a little pop. hmmmm sounds like one of the LaRoches.

Also, I’ve never been a big fan of Big contracts for #1 picks especially since they start in the minors. If Anything, if the player makes it big leagues early maybe a bonus, but he’s gotta stick in the big leagues for a period of time for it to kick in. Most Players make it through performance in the MLB.

Yes Boras has been pretty good in identifying premium players, but is his track record 100%? Is he infallible? and He should follow the slotting system imo. If the pirates pay out of proportion to what Boras wants, imagine the following year what will happen. Assuming the pirates get some kind of high pick again in 2009. All Agents gonna say ‘Hey they paid above their slotting last year, lets see if they do it again this year’. Should the pirates overpay the following year? Could they afford that? Considering, the pirates have at least a year or more to get back to the glory years. On top of that…..other baseball teams get ‘suckered’ into this because of this mentality for following years.

It’s either “Take the money we offer Alvarez, or you can go play college ball for nothing” for one more year and prove you are worth that big money by putting up gawdy numbers in college ball and if he doesn’t hit homers next year…his price will fall and he will have lost money at least i think. So will Scott Boras.

As for Spending money no matter what the cost. Look at the Texas Rangers, they spent a ton of money on Alex Rodriguez (i don’t remember how many years ago), but then couldn’t spend any money on anyone else around him and they literally stunk. A Baseball team consists of 9 players on the field, not one player. You might say…look at Manny Ramirez(boston), but they’ve done well so far with the trade.

The State College guy’s grammar could be better. You do not write “X, Y or Z have …” It’s “X,Y and Z have …” OR “X, Y or Z had …” You don’t get to have it both ways.

There seems to be increasing confusion among young writers about how to construct sentences that contain collective nouns, and increasingly it ticks off old cranks like me. Wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen this construction:

Collective noun (say, “family” or “team,” could be singular or plural given the context) + singular verb + plural pronoun

And vice versa.

Does anybody teach this stuff anymore?

End rant, and I’m calling the cops if I catch you egging my house again

Did you notice the writer thinks the Pirates` GM`s name is spelled, “Huntingdon?”

he describes him as “general Neal Huntingdon” early in the article.

Hard to believe sometimes that Smizik is,I believe,on the Baseball Hall Of Fame Selection Committee…....
However,regarding Alvarez,is anyone else starting to feel that maybe the Pirates selection of Alvarez in the draft was intended to make a big PR splash for the franchise at the time,and then over the next few months “spin” the thing to make it seem as though the contract demands were unreasonable,while never really intending to sign him in the first place? I mean,they had a VERY good idea going in of what kind of offer it was probably going to take to sign him,and it almost seems as though they have been subtly preparing the fan base for an impasse….....

the brew crew just signed their first round pick, though the signing bonus wasn’t announced.

what’s more interesting is that the brewers have now signed 30 or their first 32 picks while we don’t even have half of our top 10. with the trade deadline passed and the signing deadline approaching, i hope we hear some news out of the front office very soon.

up to replace Herrera…no word on LaRoche’s wrist till late afternoon per PG.

Matt Capps…1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. 1 runner reached on error by Cunningham.
Jose Tabata 2-4, 2 HR, 5 RBI
Ronny Paulino finally caught 9 innings, went 1-4. Not so good, a SB and a PB while Capps was pitching.

for Tabata at Bradenton. Somehow, I don’t think he will stay at that level.

We believe - although we don’t agree with his strategy - general manager Neil Huntington made these trades to improve the team in the long term.

Who is Smizik speaking for here?