News Roundup: Pirates Dump Craig Monroe, Promote Steve Pearce

by Charlie on Jun 20, 2009 1:03 PM EDT Comment 23 comments

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

The Pirates have designated Craig Monroe, center, for assignment.

-P- As cocktailsfor2 already pointed out in the FanPosts, the Pirates have designated Craig Monroe for assignment, replacing him on the roster with Steve Pearce, who will mostly play outfield. The Pirates' weird non-plan for Pearce marches on--last year he was in the minors working on his outfield defense, this year he was back there to play first base so he could potentially replace Adam LaRoche, and now he's back in the outfield again. I have no idea what the goal of all that was, unless it was to make me not care about Pearce anymore. Well, whatever--Brandon Moss hadn't been playing well and had been playing less and less, so the Bucs might as well give the resulting free plate appearances to Pearce, who might someday be a useful player, rather than Monroe, who shows every indication of being done.

-P- The Pirates have signed second baseman Brock Holt, their ninth-round pick out of Rice University. He'll head to State College, where he'll presumably be the Spikes' starting second baseman.

-P- Shawn Chacon has signed a minor-league deal with the A's.

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Shawn Chacon has signed a minor-league deal with the A’s.

Joe Morgan is probably fantasizing about Chacon choking Billy Beane while saying, “You shouldn’t have written Moneyball.”

by WTM on Jun 20, 2009 1:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

hah...

I wish someone would choke Joe Morgan.

by Slick1 on Jun 20, 2009 1:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Some Astros fans may...

…hope Chacon gets promoted to a team that plays the Astros and then does to Wade what they want to do.

Steve Z

by steve_z on Jun 20, 2009 3:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm glad to see Chacon get another shot.

As generally marginal a pitcher as he was, he never seemed like a bad guy, and it’s not like there’s anything wrong with wanting to kick Ed Wade’s ass. He just had a moment of poor impulse control.

by Vlad on Jun 20, 2009 6:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hopefully I’m the one missing the joke this time.

by Charlie on Jun 20, 2009 6:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I can’t be the only one who thinks this is just a ploy to get Pearce some at-bats before he takes over at first base for a traded Adam LaRoche after the deadline, can I?

by Suffering Buc on Jun 20, 2009 1:21 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

No you’re not. I’m thinking the same way.

by mspirate on Jun 20, 2009 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe you guys

are reading too much into this and it’s just a ploy to get a younger, potentially somewhat more productive player on the team in place of a guy who sucked?

by bucdaddy on Jun 20, 2009 4:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It may be. I just figured some move was going to happen because I didn’t think they would call Pearce up just to be a bench guy. I figured they would want Pearce to play everyday, or at the least, platoon with somebody. That’s the only reason I figured some other major move was on the verge of happening. But he is on the bench tonight. We’ll see what happens.

by mspirate on Jun 20, 2009 5:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

hey i’am thinking the same way

by norris on Jun 20, 2009 7:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Makes sense...

as I would think also that Doumit to RF(upon his return) could also be in the offing. Why not put Doumit in right,saving the wear and tear of catching,and lessening his chances of injury,especially when you are getting decent offense and solid defense from the tandem of Jaramillo and Diaz?
Could make them stronger at three postions,as it isn’t hard to imagine Pearce being,or becoming,a more consistent hitter than LaRoche.

by havildar on Jun 20, 2009 1:34 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

…The same reason you don’t move him to first. He’s a below average right fielder. But and above average to great offensive catcher.

by ryebr3ad on Jun 20, 2009 1:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Why don’t people understand this? This has been explained a thousand times.

by mspirate on Jun 20, 2009 2:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The Pirates have too many outfield prospects to block one of them by sticking a catcher in right field, anyway.

by Suffering Buc on Jun 20, 2009 4:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

And I think the idea of Doumit being healthier in RF is a canard.

He gets hurt hitting, running, playing 1B, playing RF… he’s just fragile. So it goes.

by Vlad on Jun 20, 2009 6:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

We'd be better off trading Doumit than to devalue him by putting him in the OF.

And it has already pointed out that most of Doumit’s injuries at the ML level have come with him playing in the field. Put simply, Doumit is injury prone no matter where we put him so we need to leave him where he is most valuable.

by Slick1 on Jun 20, 2009 2:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Exactly. If he were to move to RF, he would probably pull his hamstring chasing down a fly ball. He’s just fragile.

by mspirate on Jun 20, 2009 2:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The only question

is whether Monroe get a shrine. All the other stuff will work itself out.

by maguro on Jun 20, 2009 3:08 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

will get a shrine, that is.

by maguro on Jun 20, 2009 3:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You joke, but...

…DK’s story says the move was extremely unpopular in the clubhouse.

You gotta be kidding me. All this for a guy abusing the ball at a .215 clip? Meanwhile, Monroe has the monumental gall to say he should have gotten more at-bats? Playing time is earned, buster.

As for the rest of the team, I don’t normally agree with Ron Cook’s negativity, but he made an excellent point about the McLouth deal that’s even more applicable here. He said if they wanted to keep McLouth around, maybe they should have thought about winning more often. If they were over .500, maybe the front office wouldn’t be in rebuild mode. But what right does this bunch have to demand the status quo be maintained?

by bucfaninwa on Jun 20, 2009 4:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think

baseball players, major-league baseball players at least, and probably the top athletes in any sport, believe that tomorrow is the day they’ll go 6-for-6 and never make an out the rest of the season, and so will the guys at the lockers on either side, and the team will win 90 straight.

Meanwhile, of course, every pitcher thinks he’ll throw no-hitters all year if he just gets a chance.

They might slip up some day and say “You win some, you lose some, and sometimes, it rains,” but I don’t think they believe that, that’s just pap they feed the fans. You can’t get to that level, and stay there, if you don’t think you’re going to get a hit every time you step to the plate. There are massive amounts of confidence/ego/whatever you want to call it involved here that most of us will never know.

So they don’t look at Craig Monroe and think “.215 hitter,” they think, “Craig Monroe, good guy, and if he starts tomorrow he’ll get five hits.”

Still, I hope to God nobody on the team thinks it’s OK to do that strikeout-dog-it-to-first thing Monroe pulled the other day without consequences.

by bucdaddy on Jun 20, 2009 4:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Snell's a good example

Snell really believes he should be getting everyone out every time, so if he doesn’t it must be because the umpires don’t like him, or his fielders suck, or some other external thing beyond his control is against him. I think most if not all players believe exactly that. Snell just hasn’t developed the good sense to keep what sounds to the rest of us like monumental assholishness to himself. He hasn’t developed the ability to speak in lying cliches — “I left some pitches out over the plate and you can’t do that, but some days are like that, you can’t win them all blah blah blah.”

Whether the rest of the players care that it sounds like he’s throwing them under the bus, who knows? If they do, they apparently have the ability Snell doesn’t to keep their mouths shut about it to the outside world.

by bucdaddy on Jun 20, 2009 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs