don’t know where to begin with the Chass idiocy, but the incessant digs at Milledge are just so stupid and lazy. Is a 21 yr old supposed to be mature? By that logic, the Pirates made the right move in dumping Aramis, who displayed plenty of immaturity in his time with the Pirates but ultimately abillity wins out.

A lot of baseball writers act like it’s no big deal for someone to reach 30 career HRs and 100 RBI by age 23.5. Tony Plush won’t reach those numbers in his entire career.

Is now 2nd behind NuHo as the worse PBC blogger in the site.

He really rained on that parade.

I’m not a bucco fan but where does the trading stop, what if gorky doesn’t work out along with a couple of pitching prospects and they can’t put a complete young talented team on the diamond…do you trade away your core and start over again?? I couldn’t imagine alverez or mccutchen taking a pay cut and waiting another 5 years just to see competitive baseball played again in pittsburgh. I understand the basic small payroll baseball team theory, try to time your prospects just right so they will be payed under their arbitration years and yet be very competitive. But at some point you have to give out some big checks.

anyone know what we offered Tanner Schepper’s last year considering he’s getting 1.25M this year and it’s not even a Major league contract from what i’ve read.

Locke won’t get the win for Lynchburg…as he’s already hit the showers. 1.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 2 K. The good news is that Lynchburg scored 1 in the 1st and 6 in the 2nd…and lead 7-4 after 2 innings.

for Pedro Alvarez and Brad Lincoln to be a part of a winning team thus far in the World Cup of Baseball, just as we should be happy with the performance of many of our top prospects with Lynchburg in the Carolina League postseason.

These guys need to be a part of winners as they move forward in their Bucco careers and help us overturn what may end up as 20 consecutive losing seasons before it’s all said and done.

Wow, that was a mind-numbingly terrible article. Brain cell count depleted a few.

Good for the Hillcats.

and chose not to read it because what I heard about it assured me that it would be uninformed drivel. Charlie’s post proved me correct.

It is mindnumbingly frustrating to continue to find uninformed opinion pieces slamming the current direction of the Pirates. At some point we need to get past that, but I’m not yet, so I won’t fault others for getting pissed. Oh well.

All of that said, I think that there are some causes for concern that are largely going undiscussed. Tops among these is the poor play of the team recently. I didn’t expect them to charge into the wildcard after the trade deadline, but I was hopeful that this group of players, almost all of whom are being given a legitimate chance to be a part of the future, would step up a lot more than they have. I do not think the total collapse that we have seen is acceptable.

Also, the hesitation of Hill and now Kerrigan to return raises questions about their expectations for the team over the next couple of years. The FOs decisions on contracts have proven to be subpar so far. Remember, there was a real push to sign Capps before the season, too. They also talked to Adam LaRoche. Better lucky than good in those cases.

To be clear, I still very much support the direction of the team, but not all is rosey. And in conclusion, Chass should be embarassed by his column.

Good day.

so ok when does the trading of mlb talent for prospects change to trade prospects for mlb talent?

We’ve heard a bunch of times about hamstring and groin issues limiting his effectiveness.

I’m not much of a stats person, but I find the similarity of the numbers below troubling, health problems notwithstanding.

2008 ATL 16 15 4 8 0 0 0 0 0 74.2 80 56 51 9 41 48 6.15 1.62 .273
2009 PIT 15 15 3 8 0 0 0 0 0 74.0 86 44 44 7 34 47 5.35 1.62 .295

Charlie Morton has a lot to prove next spring to get a shot at the starting rotation in Pittsburgh from April. The good thing is we seem to have several viable options for the #4 and #5 spots heading into next season.

“He’ll be fine.”

The numbers still concern me, as do other things I notice about his “makeup” that the numbers have nothing to do with.

I hope you’re right, but just remember to compare notes on Charlie Morton next summer, the same as Joel Hanrahan.

if you’re going to point out that his BB/9 is better at 4.1 this year next to the 4.9 he had last year, you should also say that his hits per 9 are up this season. He’s given up 7 fewer walks in essentially the same amount of innings, but has also allowed 6 more hits. Sounds like a pretty similar number of runners allowed per 9 to me.

Incidentally, you can’t erase the one inning of horrors he had against the Cubs.

It all counts one way or the other, no matter how you try to count things in order to always “prove” your point.

We have a lot to be concerned about with Charlie Morton. Hopefully, he’ll take advantage of the lead he has tonight and help us to a win.