Pirates Sign Kevin Melillo, Billy Killian, Anthony Norman
by Charlie Wilmoth on Feb 2, 2010 6:50 PM EST
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PrintThe Pirates have added a few minor league free agents, none of whom are likely to find their way to the majors:
-P- Second baseman Kevin Melillo was once a well-regarded prospect in Oakland's system, but he seemingly peaked at 23. He's a pretty good Class AA or Class AAA hitter, though, so he'll be in the high minors somewhere, perhaps at Altoona.
-P- Catcher Billy Killian is probably best known as a throw-in from the infamous (well, from a Rangers fan's perspective, anyway) trade in which the Padres got Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Young for Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka. He was a third-round pick in the 2004 draft, but he never really learned to, you know, hit, so he'll probably be a backup catcher in Class A somewhere.
-P- Outfielder Anthony Norman was an undrafted free agent by the Angels whose issues with hitting for average have been masked somewhat by the California League, where he's played the past couple years. I probably saw him play for a pretty lackluster Rancho Cucamonga team this year, but I don't remember him at all. He stole 36 bases in 2008, so he's probably pretty good defensively, and he'll take a walk, but that's about the extent of his abilities, and at 25, Class A+ is as high as he's likely to go.
Infielder Doug Bernier is listed too, but I wrote about him a few days ago.
Thanks to WTM.
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Hey, Jeff Larish made it through waivers!
Augurs well for Moss/Pearce/Young doing the same, maybe.
J.D. Pruitt, on the Oakland cut list, has one of the great freakshow batting lines of all time. In 2007, he put up a .211/.460/.311 for Vancouver in the Northwest league. 180 AB, 38 hits, 50 walks, 34 hit-by-pitch.
I hope Gabe DeHoyos, from San Diego’s cut list, catches on somewhere. He’s a chubby right-handed reliever, under 6" with pedestrian stuff, which is pretty much the kiss of death from a scouting perspective. He was undrafted out of perennial baseball powerhouse Eastern New Mexico University, and paid his dues in indy ball for three years before catching on with the scuzziest possible affiliated team, the godforsaken Baird-era Royals. Despite all that, he’s consistently been a stellar organizational player, with a career 2.36 ERA and 1.22 WHIP in almost 500 pro innings.
Townsend to Toronto, Turnbow to Florida, and James to Washington are interesting low-percentage high-upside gambles. Bush to Tampa is interesting in a train wreck kind of way. Giese is a nice re-up for Oakland. Pascucci might luck into some PT with the Mets, so good for him, and it’s always nice to see Howie Clark get a deal somewhere.
Between Pascucci and Mike Hessman...
…I bet BP is going to be fun in New Orleans.
by Vlad on Feb 2, 2010 8:00 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
That infamous Rangers trade proves that
Anyone who thinks that a) the Bay trade is the worst trade in history and b) the Bay trade is proof that anyone who could make such a trade can never succeed as a GM in MLB, really has no knowledge of baseball whatsoever.
Bless 'em all....
…as one of the Quaid brothers said in “The Rookie,” “Today we get to play baseball.” Will they ever be stars? Probably not. Will kids ever covet their rookie cards? I don’t think so. But there are worse things to do w/one’s life at 23 or 24 than to play a game you presumably still love, and get paid for it.
Only one plate appearance for his career, but at least he didn’t strike out. That memory could haunt someone forever if that was their only chance.
The saddest case I remember was Mike Gulan. He was a thirdbaseman who had a solid minor league career. He managed to get 15 major league ABs, but never got a hit. He played in AAA for the Pirates in 2003 and did pretty well. He REALLY wanted to get one major league hit and should have had a chance when the Pirates traded Aramis Ramirez. DL, though, insisted that Jose Hernandez be included in the deal so he could play third the rest of the year and to help DL pretend that the Pirates got a return for Aramis. Gulan didn’t get called up and played only ten more minor league games.
by WTM on Feb 3, 2010 9:20 AM EST up reply actions
Yeah, that was pretty classless.
At least he got to score and drive in a few runs, even if he never got a hit.
Classless is right. DL supposedly told Gulan when he signed that he’d get serious consideration for a major league job. There’s a reason DL became less and less able to sign good AAAA types over time. He’d have brought Jose Hernandez back before he gave Garrett Jones a shot.
Mike Gulan played for the Yokohama Bay Stars
in 2002. The japanesebaseball site is down now for renovation, so I couldn’t find his stats.
Speaking of DL screwin’ over Gulan in 2003, didn’t we hear the same thing from many guys the Pirates signed in similar situations? C.J. Nitkowski is another that comes to mind, although he didn’t want to comment on it when asked by Charlie a few years ago in a BD interview, if memory serves me correctly.
Nitkowski kind of went off about this stuff in a message he posted at another site. I got in touch to interview him and he was very forthright about a lot of stuff, but he (understandably) didn’t want to go into more detail about Littlefield.
by Charlie Wilmoth on Feb 6, 2010 2:09 AM EST up reply actions
There's always Ron Wright.
One career game, three career PA. In order: Strikeout looking, triple play, double play.
Ouch.
Who wrote the script for that, Ron Shelton?
At least
He probably hit the ball hard. Soft rollers don’t normally turn into triple plays.
by MarkInDallas on Feb 3, 2010 11:09 AM EST up reply actions
Per the NYT piece I linked above:
In his second at-bat, with no outs and runners on first and third, Wright just wanted to make contact. He hit a chopper up the middle, but Rogers is one of the best-fielding pitchers in baseball, and he threw to Rodriguez at second for the force.
Rubén Sierra, the runner on third, broke late for home plate. Sensing Sierra’s indecision, Rodriguez threw home. The Rangers had Sierra in a pickle.
During the rundown, Wright was waved from first base to second. Not only did the Rangers nab Sierra, but they also threw out Wright to complete the triple play.
Also pretty sad:
Comes up to the plate as a pinch hitter in his first ML at-bat, catches a fastball to the back of the head on the first pitch he sees and gets knocked unconscious, has post-concussion problems, never plays in the majors again.
Though it could be worse. The opposing pitcher (Valerio de los Santos) initially thought that he was dead.
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