News Roundup: Huntington: We Acquired Milledge Because We Could

by Charlie on Jul 2, 2009 9:58 PM EDT Comment 32 comments

MLB - New York Mets/Pittsburgh Pirates Box Score Thursday July 2, 2009 - Yahoo! Sports
Garrett Jones came within a single of the cycle today.

Huntington answers fans' questions | pirates.com: News
An unusually blunt answer from Neal Huntington:

Why trade an outfielder for an outfielder when we need middle infielders? -- Josh J., Bethel Park, Pa.

Huntington: Because Milledge was available. He was a premier prospect in baseball (the No. 1 prospect with Mets in 2005-06) with five tools. He has a very high ceiling. At 24 (Morgan is 29), Milledge is still young and can develop into an above-average Major League player.

It'll be interesting to see how Huntington's behavior will change when (or if) the Pirates acquire enough talent to shape into a good team. The Rays' transition from merely acquiring talent to aiming to contend happened extremely quickly--their 2007 team was a collection of mismatched parts, but with one big trade (the Delmon Young / Matt Garza deal) and a couple of positional changes, they suddenly became one of the best teams in baseball. The Pirates are still very much in the mismatched-parts stage, which is as it should be for now and probably for the next two years or so.

Taiwan Baseball: Pirates on a Roll....Sheng-Chin Hung Signed
In addition to Ping-Hung Chi, whose signing hit the news a few days ago, the Pirates have also signed pitcher Sheng-Chin Hung and first baseman Chi-Wei Hsu from Taiwan. Of the three, Hung may have the most upside. He can hit 91 MPH with his fastball and also throws a curve and change.

Kiley McDaniel Liveblog
Baseball Prospectus reports that the Pirates are one of two teams (along with the Royals) in on Dominican prospect GianCarlos Santana, brother of the Angels' Ervin Santana. The younger Santana recently threw as hard as 91 MPH. Also, the Cardinals signed outfielder Wagner Mateo, one of the big prizes of this year's Dominican class.

Lynchburg 9, Winston-Salem 5
Eric Fryer, recently acquired in the Eric Hinske deal, went 1-for-2 with a walk and two runs scored in his Lynchburg debut. Also, Jamie Romak just realized he knows how to hit Class A+ pitching.

Donald Veal: Stats
Donald Veal now has twelve walks in 12.7 innings at Class AAA Indianapolis. He'll probably still be with the Pirates at the end of the year thanks to these "rehab" shenanigans, but it's becoming increasingly clear to me that he's not really a prospect.

Is this thing on?: A must see Snell video and my All-Star ballot
Indianapolis announcer Scott McCauley picks his International League All-Star team.

The Canadian Press: Canadian left-fielder Jason Bay becomes American citizen
Jason Bay became a naturalized U.S. citizen today.

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Those fan comments on the pirates.com site are fun to read.

Lemme quote some good ones.

“16 years of losing baseball because of Neal Huntington and the nutting family.”
“Huntington wants to give away Nyjer’s ability to steal bases”

Along the obvious, ‘news breaking’ reports that we traded these players for money.

But yeah, the fact that we got Milledge just because he was available is kind of unlike Neal. Not that I’m complaining…Milledge is worlds better than Morgan, after all.

by ryebr3ad on Jul 2, 2009 11:08 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Don't you just love

those brilliant Pirate fans? That’s why I mainly stick to here. I tried to explain to someone earlier why Nate McLouth was not a good fielder and a Gold Glove is essentially worthless. You just can’t explain anything to these people. I give up.

by thecheeseisblue on Jul 3, 2009 12:16 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The worst part is...

they’re too stubborn to listen. Typical yinzer attitude though. I agree with a lot of my Philly friends. Hate the fans here, but I’ll love the teams until I die.

Remember when Ben had one bad year, and we were calling for his head? God bless our retarded citizenship.

by ryebr3ad on Jul 3, 2009 12:38 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Man, I remember that about Ben. It was ridiculous. Acting like Charlie Batch was the solution to the Steelers problems that year.

He’s certainly shut them up since then.

www.sixtyftsixin.com

by Sixty Feet, Six Inches on Jul 3, 2009 1:29 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The thing I dont understand is

How everyone can bash the Pirates one minute for being cheap and not fielding a “contender”, but then fall in love with mediocre players because they try hard.

by Bucs Fever on Jul 3, 2009 1:38 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What year?

Was that the year right after Ben was severely injured in a motorcycle accident and had his appendix removed during training camp?

by IAPiratesFan on Jul 3, 2009 1:45 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yep

My second year of college. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Ben’s time is up” in the hall of my dorm. You know, three years into his pro career, his time is up.

Someone also called Ben a pussy, at a party at my house last semester. You know, because he gets hurt and still plays. So me and one of my friends who happened to walk by at that time tore him a new asshole before even getting into the reasons why Ben isn’t a pussy. Being the size of a linebacker myself, as well as kind of drunk at the time (Lager, baby!), I should have shown him what getting hit by a 240 pound man feels like.

by ryebr3ad on Jul 3, 2009 3:16 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

For those who aren't aware

I got to Pitt, so it’s pretty much the heart of Pittsburgh. Granted, it’s a 2:1 Pitt:Philly ratio, so it’s not as heavily Pittsburgh biased as one would think.

by ryebr3ad on Jul 3, 2009 3:18 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Pitt

Nice I go to Pitt too. Just finished my freshman year, love it!

by baseballgg24 on Jul 3, 2009 3:30 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hah, it’s worse than that. On some Steelers forums I visited people were calling for Leftwich to replace Ben after the Redskins game. Byron Leftwich!

by CptnAwesome on Jul 3, 2009 11:47 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I remember that as well.

Steelers fans always blame the QB when things go wrong, even when he’s performing well. Just be glad they don’t make the decisions.

Be glad Piratres fans don’t make the decisions too.

www.sixtyftsixin.com

by Sixty Feet, Six Inches on Jul 3, 2009 12:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I remember that, sorta.

I was drinking a lot during the ‘Skins game, then my girlfriend and I fooled around and had sex, then i passed out, so I was only paying attention a little bit to the game. The next morning I stopped by Starbucks to get my free election day coffee and the guy making the coffee asked me if I liked the game last night I said “They won, of course I did.” Then he asked me who that QB was that replaced Roethlisberger. I felt like an idiot because I couldn’t even remember his name the next morning.

by IAPiratesFan on Jul 3, 2009 1:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Huntington

Mr. Huntington has done a fine job regardless of all the negative info. received from bloggers. He was put in the worst possible situation “taking over for Littlebrain” and had to rebuild not only the major league team, but the whole entire system. I have recently spoke with a marlins scout who has referred to Littlefield off the record as a complete idiot and A’hole. He believes Huntington is moving the club in the right direction and althought it will be painful in the short-term, the long-term outlook is getting much better. The hope is Doumit can move to first if LaRoche is lost and we can keep Jaramillo and Diaz playing at a high level until another catcher is ready. My personal feeling is that the pirates should keep their middle infield intact; Sanchez and Wilson play very well together and Wilson is willing to negotiate down his pay. The pirates will never get true value for either player at this point in their careers. A move would be nothing but a salary dump which would be nothing like Huntington’s other moves in my and a scout’s opinion. Huntington takes harsh criticism from most fans, but the reality is that he was left with a complete nightmare from top (majors) to bottom (minors). He is in the process of rebuilding the whole ship not just a small part of it and that must be kept in mind! Good Luck Neal and may the ship be built in the proper manner to sail towards a championship! Go Pirates!

by Pilgrim34 on Jul 2, 2009 11:12 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

Can this be posted

as a banner or something on the front page? Well done Pilgrim.

by Green_Wave on Jul 3, 2009 12:01 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Idiot and a'hole

It’s kinda funny that somebody had to say this off the record. My cat is on the record saying DL is an idiot and a’hole.

by WTM on Jul 3, 2009 3:09 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

My cat says the same things...

and I don’t even have a cat!

True Blue Jazz
Bucco Ball
I'm on Twitter
RIP Nick Adenhart. 4/9/09

by UtesFan89 on Jul 3, 2009 9:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's obvious to anyone with a baseball IQ.

That said, you could still lose your job for saying it. I can see why it had to be off the record.

www.sixtyftsixin.com

by Sixty Feet, Six Inches on Jul 3, 2009 12:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If Jack doesn’t want $4 million or less next year, I see no problem with showing him the door. His bat has been an asset in 2 years out of 8, and I don’t expect he’ll keep his current rates this year either. He had a good glove last year and this year which leads to about 2 WAR per year, but that doesn’t strike me as urgent if the FO believes money better spent elsewhere. I’d rather keep Freddy around, but does his option even make sense?

They’ve been a league average duo, or maybe a bit more, for 4 of the past 5 years. But sometimes you have to move on.

by Gorkys n' Beans on Jul 3, 2009 11:20 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus had a similar thought in discussing Wilson’s comments:

That’s Jack Wilson, who you may remember from such classics as “consecutive .312 OBPs” or “diminished range after his age-27 season,” or—my favorite—"1.4 WARP per season in a nine-year career." If you’re Jack Wilson, and you’re wondering why you’ve never been on a winning team, do you think that he would you ever think, “maybe it’s because I have a career .312 OBP, 36 steals, and have been taking down about 10-12 percent of the payroll for that production”?

I really like Jack and I’m glad he apologized for his comments, but he’s paid way too much.

by CptnAwesome on Jul 3, 2009 11:47 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Plus if he wants to be a winner, there are other teams with a better shot the next two years who appear to have big holes at shortstop: Minnesota, Seattle, Jim Leyland’s team? Maybe even the Red Sox. It depends not only on how much he would need to stay, but whether he still wants to be a part of the Pirates as he further realizes he won’t be part of the winner here.

by Gorkys n' Beans on Jul 3, 2009 12:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I love this trade but

My biggest concern is if Milledge can get his attitude right. He was good the second half of last season, but hes 100% headcase. Hanran is going to be an immediate addition to the bullpen. Even though I’m happy with what the pirates got I just want to say…WHAT IS MIKE RIZZO THINKING?!?! His team has the worst record in baseball and hes trying to buy? I mean come on, show some brains. I still like this trade. And what Charlie said, that would be great. I remember the Rays went from like 62-100 or somthing like that to 101-61. I could see that happening in 2 years. It depends on what Huntington does. I wish we could somehow get Billy Beane or Andy McPhail somehow to be our GM. I know NOT happining

No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded. - Yogi Berra

by trademan56 on Jul 3, 2009 8:53 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

“I wish we could somehow get Billy Beane or Andy McPhail somehow to be our GM.”

In a couple of years teams around the majors may be wishing for their very own Neal Huntington. Or maybe not. But I have no complaints with the job NH has done thus far. I think we can afford to look other places when wishing for change.

by Jake B on Jul 4, 2009 2:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Agreed

NH has done a fine job so far.

True Blue Jazz
Bucco Ball
I'm on Twitter
RIP Nick Adenhart. 4/9/09

by UtesFan89 on Jul 4, 2009 2:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

so far

I like the moves hes making, but imagine what we would be doing withbilly beane or andy mcphail

No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded. - Yogi Berra

by trademan56 on Jul 4, 2009 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The Nationals

I read somewhere where Nat GM Rizzo referred to Nyjer and Burnett as the “cornerstones of their rebuilding” or something along those lines. If those two are the cornerstones, it better be a small building. Both decent MLB players, but far from the kind of talent you need to get over the hump. In other words, expendable if you get the right talent. Let’s hope NH is right.

by Batavia on Jul 3, 2009 9:12 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

That brings back memories.

Littlefield used to say the same type of stuff about declining veterans.

www.sixtyftsixin.com

by Sixty Feet, Six Inches on Jul 3, 2009 12:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Remember when Littlefield said we’d be “excited” about the PTBNL in the Aramis trade? The guy really should be working as one of those assholes who rave about their candidate in the spin room after a political debate.

by WTM on Jul 3, 2009 1:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs