Virgil Vasquez, Eric Hacker, Steve Lerud Booted From 40-man
by Charlie Wilmoth on Nov 6, 2009 5:21 PM EST
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PrintThese are all fairly logical choices with Evan Meek and Jose Ascanio still on the 60-day DL and several prospects still waiting to be added before the Rule 5 draft, as well.
At 27, Virgil Vasquez is little more than a vaguely convenient guy to have on your AAA roster--homers ate him alive in his 14 appearances with the Pirates this year, just like they did in his major league debut in 2007. There's no real reason to think that will change.
I liked Hacker a little when the Bucs acquired him from the Yankees for Romulo Sanchez, but he didn't do much with the Pirates to justify my continued interest. His line at Indianapolis (132.3 IP, 4.49 ERA, 94 K, 50 BB) was boring enough to place him squarely in that group of pitchers in their mid-20s who are nice to have, but only because they can start. He's another Vasquez, in other words.
As for Steven Lerud, the reason he was on the 40-man in the first place was not really because of his performance, but because catchers, and especially left-handed catchers with power potential, were in high demand. This season he made strides in controlling the strike zone, but the power mostly disappeared, and he continued to struggle hitting for average. He now has a career minor league average of .228, which means that unless he improves that and fast, he'd struggle to crack .200 in the majors. If he doesn't wind up in an another organization next year, he'll probably be back at Altoona for a third season.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis!
Kidding, of course. All three were sensible selections to be bumped, based on ability, but I wish them all the best in their future endeavours.
Vlad, not everyone knows Latin
In English, “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” means, “I’m done with this team!”
At least some sensible drops off the 40 man team roster
They all are replaceable players so I like having the space for rule 5 draft picks, free agents, or young prospect players.
lerud
I went to one altoona game last year, and it was unremarkable (Tabata looked good, Gorkys looked terrible), except that I finally got an insight into why Lerud lasted on the roster for so long. He hit a long HR, a 2b off the center field wall, and a loud out to the opposite field. An easy swing, and the ball jumped off his bat. I was shocked when I looked at his season stats to see that, as Charlie correctly says, his power potential seems to have disappeared in every other game he played this year. Obviously, 3-4 years of consistently batting .220 tells a lot more than one game, so he is never going to amount to anything, but I did get a glimpse of what the organization saw in him.
At the time we drafted Lerud...
…he held Nevada’s high school home run record, having taken it away from Matt Williams.
There were definitely some tools there, even though it doesn’t seem likely at this point that he’ll ever put the package together.
Vlad
Off topic, but I’d like to know what you think of Scott Atchison-the former Mariners and Giants pitcher-who’s been with the Hanshin Tigers the past 2 years. He was tremendous for them in 75 appearances this year and has decided he wants to return to MLB.
I don’t think this is a Jeremy Powell situation where the guy is washed up.
Is this a veteran arm we should be looking at?
Wouldn't mind a look at him.
Haven’t seen him pitch in a dog’s age, of course, but the numbers from his US days weren’t bad (missed a fair # of bats, little trouble with HR), and from what I’ve heard he was sitting around 90 with a solid slider in Japan (please correct me if that’s wrong). That’s a workable reliever’s skill set.
Kind of depends what he wants in terms of a contract, of course.
I only know him from Japan,
not watching Seattle or SF games when I was over there. I think your take on his stuff is accurate. What intrigues me is that he settled into a comfortable niche in 2009 as a reliever, and one who consistently went multiple innings. He also had a tremendous hits per 9innings, which is meaningful at any level of baseball.
I’d like to think this is a guy we could take a serious look at for a reasonable price. We obviously need more in the ‘pen after Chavez was traded, and it’s not like we had so much going on in the first place.
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