Bucs Trade Ronald Uviedo For Dana Eveland
by Charlie Wilmoth on Jun 1, 2010 2:07 PM EDT
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PrintThe Pirates have acquired pitcher Dana Eveland from the Blue Jays for Ronald Uviedo. I'm not impressed. Eveland was pretty interesting coming through the Brewers system in his early twenties, but now he's 26, and he hasn't ever pitched well in the majors. He wasn't even good in the minors last year, having pitched 124 innings with mediocre ratios in Class AAA Sacramento. The best one can say about him is that he's left-handed and can start. The Jays designated him for assignment, which basically means they couldn't find any takers on the trade market before resigning themselves to giving him up forever. Why you'd trade an actual prospect for a player like that is beyond me.
I won't kid myself about Uviedo--as a reliever who allows a bunch of flyballs, his upside is somewhat limited. And as I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of relief prospects in general, because even if they reach their ceiling they become... well, what, exactly? But Uviedo was striking out more than a batter an inning at Altoona. He also pitched pretty well as a starter last year. Some folks in the comments are comparing him to Leo Nunez, the skinny young pitcher who the Bucs traded for Benito Santiago and who turned out to be pretty good, and I think that's apt.
This trade strikes me as being a little like the Tyler Yates for Todd Redmond swap, but worse. Eveland probably isn't much better than Yates was and might even be worse, and Uviedo, who has decent stuff, is clearly superior to Redmond, who did not. Like the Yates-for-Redmond deal, this one probably won't turn out to be a disaster, but I still don't understand why a team in the Pirates' position would trade a prospect for a veteran, particularly a bad veteran like Eveland. Unless the entire deal hasn't been reported yet, I give this one a big thumbs down.
UPDATE: Neal Huntington suggests Eveland will join the rotation:
"Dana Eveland is a 26-year-old lefthander who has shown the ability to be an effective major league starting pitcher," said Huntington. "He has an interesting four-pitch mix and we feel this acquisition is a potential upgrade for our current rotation with the upside of years of control and improved production."
The idea, as with Yates, is that the Pirates can keep Eveland for several years if he works out. I just don't see much likelihood that he will.
UPDATE 2:38 PM: I hadn't seen Eveland pitch recently so I just fired up some video of him with the Jays. I don't think the Pirates would make this trade with the idea of putting Eveland in the bullpen. He has more of a starter's arsenal, with a fastball that comes in at around 90 MPH, along with a slider, curve and change that are, actually, all reasonably good pitches. The 90 MPH fastball doesn't sound like much, but that's not horrible for a lefty. In the start I'm watching, he's doing a nice job keeping the ball down. He has a spotty history of generating rounders, but I think he could begin to do so if he developed some consistency. At age 26, his performance record is probably more important than how he looks when he pitches--this is another lesson from the Yates trade--but the deal for Eveland does make a little more sense to me now that I've seen him pitch. I still don't like it much.
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It's hard to look at his record
and see much upside there beyond the fact he’s only 26. It sure looks like he couldn’t handle 168 innings at age 24. Unless you’re getting ready to send Morton down, what does Eveland give you that Burress doesn’t?
Maybe he's better suited in the bullpen?
The player I would like least at #9 would be my sister’s cat, Captain Creamsicle. She does have a great work ethic and agility, but I’m really concerned that at 9 lbs., she’s too small to play safety in the NFL. She also bites way too often on play action and is easily distracted by someone waving string in the crowd. Lastly, her wonderlic score was pretty awful, answering "meow meow meow" for most of the questions- Dr. Brackish Okun
I don't think so
Just because there are two open spots right now (assuming Burress won’t last).
eh?
Do you think Eveland necessarily stays in the rotation ahead of Burres?
I m not sure. If you had to get Eveland, you had to get him for nothing. I dont see the point behind giving up a real prospect for Eveland
as i said in the fanshot
this is weird! We couldn’t have needed a stopgap starter so bad that we give something up for Dana Eveland! The FO must be really confident they can straighten him out. And this is aside from the fact that I thought Uviedo could be up in the bigs by mid-2011 as an effective reliever.
I guess they didn't want Washington claiming him?
the Nationals are the only team that could claim someone off waivers before the Pirates this year, right?
No...
There are a bunch of teams who could claim him before the Pirates. He has to pass through the whole AL first, and since it’s more than 1 month into the season they go by current record rather than last year.
It would be the 14 AL teams in order of record, then Houston and Arizona, then the Pirates.
Well, this cements the fact that Huntington REALLY
thinks he can build the bullpen from year to year with no problem.
even if he can
the guy you bring in from elsewhere is gonna cost more than $400 K. This is a no-good move as far as i m concerned…
His career FIP and xFIP aren’t nearly as bad as his ERA, and he’s been the victim of a high BABIP every year except 2008. So maybe he’s got something and just ran into bad luck so far. Hopefully.
Maybe this move is more in anticipation of a Duke or Maholm deal
in the next month or so, and less to do with Burres, Morton or Brad Lincoln’s eventual recall.
this
makes a little more sense, but still not that much… the Pirates could be trying to get a lefty just to have one. I wouldn’t have given up Uviedo for Eveland (who doesn’t evenhave an option) but if they expect to deal Maholm or Duke or both, you can see them wanting to add lefties
Dana Eveland looks like he could piss off Akinori Iwamura
by taking his place in the clubhouse buffet line.
Better to release Iwamura this week…wouldn’t want any food fights, you know.
by patthatt on Jun 1, 2010 2:31 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
lets stop judging
until we actually see him pitch, then everyone can start hating he if he sucks
No need
I don’t need to see him pitch to know that his 1.729 career WHIP and 1.3 K/BB rate is terrible. The notion that he is an upgrade to the current rotation is an admission that the present rotation element (Morton/Burres/etc) he is replacing was terrible. At least he has an “interesting” 4 pitch mix, though in this case I suppose interesting refers to the variety of ways he might get pounded until they release him in a year or less.
by wietersforpresident on Jun 1, 2010 2:45 PM EDT up reply actions
Looked at his gamelog
At least we won’t have to pitch him against Boston this year… I doubt they make the playoffs
The 1985 team must feel dissed on the 25th anniversary
of their 104-loss season, so the current edition wants to eclipse that mark to show their appreciation.
Dana Eveland…who’s next? Why not just recall Danny Moskos and stick him in the rotation?
His original minor league numbers look great (Despite the most recent)
…and he was pitching well at a really young age… maybe he’s a typical guy they rushed to the majors too early and has struggled with the adjustments.
His 2008 season was decent. Maybe at best he can be a Zach Duke with more walks and strikeouts.
His big issue seems to be walks, if Huntington thinks he can solve this maybe we have another Duke/Maholm guy on our hands. Though unspectacular this could turn out okay..
so we are going to maybe end up trading
a sometimes good Zach Duke and replacing him with a crapier version? Wow this season is really going to be fun once all the shoes drop
by eyeofhorus777 on Jun 1, 2010 3:01 PM EDT up reply actions
His '09 numbers with Oakland and this year with Toronto
are freakin’ scary.
But we’ll get him turned around.
Yeah player development is one of our strong points
just look at all of our pitchers who we have developed in the last 18 years
by eyeofhorus777 on Jun 1, 2010 3:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Glass half full
Eveland was very good in the minors, before last year. Decent K/9 rates, better BB/9 and H/9 numbers than he has shown in the majors. He’s a lefty who can hit 90 with a 4-pitch repertoire, so on paper he might be worth a flyer. If Kerrigan can reduce his walk rate — and assuming his BABIP drops to a semi-normal level — he could be a serviceable 4th or 5th guy in the rotation.
Lots of question marks there, though. It will be interesting to see how things look in 3-4 months.
No
I’m guessing Morton will get a rehab start or two and barring that, be back on the team.
Duke, Maholm, Ohlie, Morton, Eveland…
Though nothing is imminent, my guess is they keep Lincoln down until mid-July. Duke will be traded and Lincoln comes up.
Morton needs to take care of the mental side of his pitching failures,
in addition to his reported physical problem.
They couldn’t really put him on the DL with broken brain, could they?
by Charlie Wilmoth on Jun 1, 2010 3:09 PM EDT up reply actions
No, they can just call it a hamstring ouchie
like they did when he first came up last year.
So we are replacing Duke with
a worse version of himself?
by eyeofhorus777 on Jun 1, 2010 3:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Basically..
..Duke seems to have better control, but less strikeout potential. Duke has also had much better success, but has pitched in the NL so maybe Eveland gets a boost from a fresh start and easier lineups.
one of the other points that make me dislike this is that Uviedo had some chance, I thought, of being a starter. I dont know if the Jays are going to try that, but they could. That he should move to the pen was a close decision and while understandable, it was not totally clear he couldn’t cut it as a SP.
If Uviedo can make it as an SP, then this would be a big FAIL. And I think his chances of making it are not that much worse than Eveland’s.
on NHs side
Charlie makes a good point about his flyball tendencies, that wmight keep him from becoming too useful, esp as a starter. His K rate is the biggest point in his favor, but on further thought, I dont dislike this as much as I instinctively did, but I still think this is a meh trade as best, and can be a pretty bad one!
I don't think we gave that much up.
Did we get much in return? It doesn’t look like it. Keep in mind Unievdo will be 24 by the end of the season. I assume there is another move coming that will somewhat explain this one. This is one of those moves that can make a GM look like a genius if it works, or an idiot if it doesn’t.
Dana Eveland: "interesting four-pitch mix"
Good, it’s boring watching only two or three different pitches get smacked around the park.
Dumb move.
I’m generally on board with a lot of things the front office has done, but this is a near-criminal waste of talent.
They never seem to have had an adequate respect for Uviedo’s abilities, probably due to his stature. He should’ve been in Altoona’s rotation this season, rather than their pen, but either way he’s an arm of significant value. There’s a very good chance that he’ll make this deal look bad within the next couple of years.
I can understand wanting to take a look at Eveland, given that he has decent lefty stuff and at least some extended bouts of success in his past, but he’s the kind of guy you can often get as a NRI over the offseason. There’s no pressing need to add him now, particularly not at this price (and not when there are alternatives of comparable value, such as Seth McClung, freely available).
Also why not just wait to see
if he made it to you in waivers?
by eyeofhorus777 on Jun 1, 2010 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions
Seth McClung?
They’re probably working on a deal at the moment.
Maybe they would get more viewers in WV if they did, well, if more than a couple games were on each week.
Hey, I'm just sayin':
Eveland, MLB, career: 5.66 ERA (75 ERA+), 1.73 WHIP, 321 ML innings.
McClung, MLB, career: 5.46 ERA (80 ERA+), 1.58 WHIP, 430 ML innings.
McClung, ZiPS, 2010: 4.66 ERA, 1.53 WHIP.
Eveland, ZiPS, 2010 (remaining): 5.72 ERA, 1.71 WHIP.
Both are in their late 20s, and relatively inexpensive (in $). McClung is a RHP and Eveland is a LHP, but since both would be notionally used in the rotation, that’s not particularly relevant. McClung hasn’t played in organized ball since being cut in spring training, but he’s pitching in amateur ball to stay sharp and should be ready to jump right back into the action (Link).
If one player requires you to surrender an excellent prospect, and the other is available for nothing but money and an opportunity, it’d seem like a pretty clear choice to me…
I wouldn't call
Uviedo an “excellent” prospect, but you’ve always been bullish on him so I understand why you’re not in favor of the move.
Even if you're pessimistic about Uviedo...
…the team thought enough of him to roster him over the offseason, and he’s pitched well since. Why would you give him up for a guy who is, definitionally, waiver-bait (what with Eveland having been waived twice in the last six months and all).
No I mean
I’m on your side on this one, but I just don’t classify Uviedo as an excellent prospect.
The question mark after McClung's name was more that I'd forgotten he was still out there.
You make some good points.
Maybe it’s less about money and more about what some ML scouts have seen of McClung since spring training.
The Pirates must think Eveland is better going forward.
Hi guys, Jays fan here
Thought I would give you a little of my take on how Dana was for us. Personally I liked him, although fatalists among us always seemed down on him because he wasn’t an over-powering guy, and well, I guess they can say their “I told you so.”s, but I still liked him.
Well first of all, Dana was picked up for next to nothing (PTBNL or Cash) and Dana pitched well enough in Spring to earn a spot in the rotation, although I’ll admit it was more due to injuries to other pitchers that propelled him into there for sure, there were plenty of younger arms that have fallen in the depth charts that could have taken the spot as a placeholder, just as he was.
To start the year, he did far better than you’d expect from a 5th starter, and was able to handily win over some of the lesser teams in the AL. But once he started against Boston, he was exposed for the “smoke and mirrors” pitcher some claimed he was. After that he got really started to nibble on the zone and just couldn’t throw with confidence. He certainly couldn’t deal with powerful hitting teams like Boston, Minnesota and Arizona(?).
He certainly wasn’t good enough to be in the AL East or to play against some of the more powerful AL teams, but moving the NL Central might help him. But he certainly wasn’t worth a prospect, we totally robbed you guys. So, sorry for that.
Ball.
Alex Anthropolous (Spelled right, maybe?)
seems to know more than most think he does, so for this, I worry. If this was the same deal and Eveland was a Met or a Giant, I’d have optimism. The fact that the Jays have been thought to be fools in trades over the past year and have came out looking great so far this season, has me even more worried about this one..
What does everyone think about the possiblity of this?
Anthropolous and the Jays were part of that “kick back” deal where they essentially got Brandon Morrow from the Mariners added in about a week or two after they looked like the big loser in the Roy Halladay deal.
Is it possible by the trade deadline we’ll see a Blue Jays overpayment for Duke, Maholm, or Doumit and then this whole thing will sort of turn out to be a wash?
Is it possible by the trade deadline we’ll see a Blue Jays overpayment for Duke, Maholm, or Doumit and then this whole thing will sort of turn out to be a wash?
No.
Why'd they set up the Morrow deal that way?
I refuse to believe Morrow was able to be had that cheap and the two deals were unrelated.
The only thing I can see is that perhaps the Blue Jays really liked Uviedo and wanted to get a deal done before Eveland hit waivers. Maybe they’re talking something bigger that won’t require a quick deadline.
(I admit it’s an unlikely scenario, but not out of the question)
There was no secret handshake involved in the Morrow deal
All the conspiracy-theorizing surrounding that trade was based on the assumption that Jack Z was a genius who won every deal he made, which doesn’t look like such a good assumption right now.
I agree Jack Z is no genius..
..I still don’t agree the Morrow deal wasn’t a kick-back. I’m under the belief the Phillies wanted this put through ASAP, so they went ahead without Morrow being included. After the dust settled and the two sides saw what was left, they worked out a favorable deal to send Morrow to the Jays.
I don’t think that’s the case here, just looking for some silver lining, but if we see a favorable deal in July with the Blue Jays, I’ll have no doubt it comes back to this.
"if we see a favorable deal in July with the Blue Jays, I’ll have no doubt it comes back to this"
You are, of course, free to believe whatever nonsensical thing you want. Doesn’t make it any less nonsensical, though.
So, hypothetically...
..if we saw a Maholm/Doumit for Drabek deal in July, it wouldn’t make more sense to you as a Maholm/Doumit/Uviedo for Eveland/Drabek than to look at the two trades separately?
Again, by no means am I saying that’s what’s happening here, or in any sense that Drabek would be moved for anyone other than a handful of guys in the Pirates system, but the point is that when you have a favorable deal for the Jays occuring here, if there were to be a favorable deal for the Pirates later this same season, why is it outlandish to think it’s related?
If I saw a Maholm/Doumit for Drabek deal in July...
…i’d try to get to a hospital, because I would’ve obviously suffered some kind of brain aneurysm or psychotic break.
It’s outlandish to posit the existence of some hypothetical future deal despite the complete lack of evidence that something of that kind is in the works because it makes no sense for us or for the Jays to build a deal that way. I really can’t emphasize that last part strongly enough.
if there were, it might be linked
thats a strange way to make deals, and i m guessing the only reason it happened before (if that was the case) was that the Jays and Ms didnt have enough time to thrash out the details because of the Phillies.
I doubt Anthopoulos wants to make a habit of doing this, esp when there is no reason to.
maybe NH is just...
…buttering some bread up in Toronto. Throwing them a small bone now so that he can work something out around the deadline…perhaps some type of Duke/Doumit deal. Maybe…maybe not. Probably means nothing, but it’s nice to think about…..the thought of landing a fan favorite/legend’s son/ticket seller like Kyle Drabek.
I thought that the Jays expressed the most interest in Doumit last offseason anyway. Seems to make sense to me at least.
To get Drabek...
…they traded away the most popular Jay and biggest star in team history, Roy Halladay. They aren’t going to re-flip the primary return from that trade for a package of middling regulars.
Knew I should've made a more reasonable hypothetical offer...
..that was beside the point. Even if it was something slightly favorable, though not ridiculous…
Brad Emaus and Brad Mills (Two top 15 prospects in the Jays system) for Maholm, Doumit, and Dotel. Fair enough? Probably not, but not out of the realm of possiblity.
Just trying to make the point that if a deal slated in the Pirates favor goes down later this season, it’s naive to think that giving away Uviedo has nothing to do with it.
I think it's naive to assume...
…that a minor trade from several months earlier will have had anything to do with any subsequent trade.
Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. The simplest explanation here is that the two teams made a trade that was disadvantageous to us because we undervalued the player we were giving up and overvalued the one we were getting back.
I agree, you're probably in all likelihood right...
But… The time-table on this may have restricted a bigger deal getting done though, would you agree on that?
You give no chance that they are working on a bigger deal, yet due to Eveland’s 10 day window they got this done quickly? Not likely no, but possible?
Maybe the Pirates like Eveland more than we realize and really wanted him in a package. If another deal follows with the Jays it’s plausible to me, I guess still not to you?
Almost nothing is definitionally "impossible".
Technically speaking, it’s possible that I could shove my hand right through my desk top if all the electrons in the hand and the desk aligned perfectly. I wouldn’t go making any bets on it happening, though.
So by that standard, it’s possible. But in practice, teams almost never build a larger deal around pieces as small and (to be blunt) worthless as Eveland. It’s hard to understand how and why he’d be included in a larger deal of the sort you describe.
It seems much more likely to me that our scouts, who have a well-known institutional preference for large pitchers, would tend to undervalue a guy who’s 6’1" and 160 and looks even smaller. Eveland is also fairly short at 6’1", but he’s built like a beer truck, and scouts are in general more tolerant of short lefties than short righties.
Desktop?
Anyone else surprised Vlad still uses a desktop computer? His posts are usually on the money…. it’s hard to picture him behind a 1997 Gateway.
by DL Da Burghcast on Itunes on Jun 2, 2010 1:01 AM EDT up reply actions
"desk top"
does not equal “desktop.”
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jun 2, 2010 1:05 AM EDT up reply actions
As they surmised...
…I was referring to a piece of furniture (the desk in my work cube), not a computer.
My home system, since you were curious, is an old G4 iMac. Not state-of-the-art, but it gets the job done.
That's skinny
I’m 6-1 and was scrawny in college at 160. By the time I was 22, I’d added a bit of muscle and reached 170. I’ve actually put on far too much since then, and people still describe me as “skinny.” Uviedo sounds Paigesque.
He looks pretty thin.
But there’s no guarantee that the listed height/weight are necessarily accurate. Teams sometimes just keep using the weights guys posted on the day they signed for years after they’re obviously not true anymore.
I remember seeing Sammy Sosa listed at like 190 during the height of his power days, for example. Was worth a pretty good chuckle.
Sammy Sosa...
was just poured into that uniform.
Went to a game while in college (fall ’94 or spring ’95) with a female friend. She was a serious fan, but she certainly enjoyed the view from behind Sammy.
This makes precious little sense to me.
I’m seriously befuddled. If you cherry pick numbers, you might say “hey, 4.55 xFIP starting fulltime in 2008” and ignore the 5.20 and 5.71 (09 and this season) xFIPs he’s posted subsequently. But 2008 was pitching for the A’s, which diminishes the value of that 4.55 considerably (HR park effects balance out in xFIP, but not the Oakland Coliseum’s foul territory).
I hope the FO is thinking something like: (1) they think they see something definite that can be re-tooled to improve Eveland and (2) they see something red-flaggy not showing up in the numbers for Uviedo.
- is a legitimate possibility — I freaking hope they’re not just hoping blindly for improvement based on a nice repetoire of pitches or whatever. It seems at least plausible that they believe his BB numbers can be brought back down if it’s a confidence-in-stuff thing and not a wildness thing per se.
- seems, well, dubious at the absolute best. Yuck.
The Pirates...
have been SOOO good at retooling pitchers [/sarcasm]
Frankly...
this trade makes no sense…unless Morton has a torn labrum or rotator cuff. And it convinces me that the earliest…barring a trade of Maholm or Duke…we see Brad Lincoln is the day after Labor Day.
Actually
Maybe Eveland was on their list of players to try and get this year if possible. Maybe they saw something there we mortals don’t get
Unless the Pirates have a specific thing they see in Eveland that they can fix...
I just don’t see this as a good move.
You mean...
like they fixed Hart, or Alderson, or Morton, or Clement?
Or Hanrahan or Meek or Veal, who has been much more promising despite his impending surgery, or Ohlendorf, who despite his issues this year has been much better than before coming to the Pirates.
There are some successes and some failures. The jury is out on most of them, especially Clement and Morton. I wouldn’t write them off yet.
One issue with Meek and Hanrahan
they had good stuff while Eveland sounds like he is another lefty trying to nibble his way through 6 innings.
by eyeofhorus777 on Jun 1, 2010 6:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Well, yes and no.
He doesn’t throw a lot of balls because he’s nibbling. He throws a lot of balls because his stuff moves pretty well and he has, in general, no idea where it’s going to end up. The FB runs out of the zone, the breaking ball breaks out of the zone, etc.
Oh.
Now I feel better.
Actually, this whole thing is Vlad’s fault. If not for him, I would hardly have an opinion about Uviedo at all.
I lol’d.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jun 2, 2010 12:20 AM EDT up reply actions
Hey:
On the bright side, it makes him fairly high-variance from start to start. So if you go see a game where he’s pitching, you have a much higher chance of him delivering a great performance, if he happens to be “on” that day.
There’s also a much higher chance of a total disaster if he’s “off”, but why not focus on the positive?
Yeah
Based on what’s happening in the minors, I have some confidence that with time they can get a lot of pitchers to turn things around. However, their record at the top has not been good so far, partly because they don’t have a couple years to rebuild the pitchers.
charity standing orders
bla
bluejays gm must get wood when Neil calls, first batista for a crap sandwich and now this. Maybe after the draft they quietly let neilbo go.
Please don't compare the two deals.
Bautista wasn’t any good until two years after we moved him, and that trade brought back something that we needed. This trade brings back a commodity that’s basically worthless in exchange for one with real present-day value.
And it was two different GMs, so even your joke doesn’t work.
sorry
it was a very very bad trade than and now….
Which is why you were on the record...
…complaining about it at the time it happened? Let’s check and see…
Oh, look, how about that? You didn’t say a peep about the deal until Bautista started having his career year.
Well, I never!
Well said Vlad
No one was complaining about Bautista leaving
Steelers - Immaculate Reception. Penguins - Immaculate Rejection. Pirates......Immaculate Resurrection???
Actually
I wasn’t commenting here yet, but I didn’t much like it – Diaz’s upside seemed so slim. I class it in my “NH’s Emotional Trades” folder.
I certainly never saw JB having this kind of upside, but Diaz seemed like such a slight return for a guy with proven, if not prodigious, power. I think NH probably tips his hand pretty clearly when he’s trading one of these guys from his shit list: “Hey Joe, I’ve got this piece of shit player I’d like to move. Care to give me anything for him?”
It's true that Diaz was a fairly low-upside player...
…but I think the trade was justifiable given our gaping hole behind the plate at that time. Picking up Diaz was what gave us the opportunity to shop Paulino and get his lazy ass the hell out of town. I’m not sure I could’ve lived through another season of him languidly waving at balls as they flew past him and rolled to the backstop.
The fact that Bautista was apparently becoming a clubhouse problem by complaining about being benched probably didn’t help, either.
The frustrating thing
about that trade was that Jaramillo, just a few months later, suited us so much better. But of course NH couldn’t know that he’d be able to get a Jaramillo for Paulino.
has nothing
to do with batista, we had back up catch and throw catchers in our own minor league system. diaz could not catch and his hitting was very suspect. The trade was done to clear a spot for one of neils boys and wow how did that work out." guys we suck and there no getting around that’ wishiewashie
So your objection to the team trading Bautista...
…has nothing to do with the decision to move Bautista?
You just dislike Robinzon Diaz enough that you felt like bringing it up anyway?
desperation
huntington is looking for the needle in the haystack.he is looking for lightning to strike.he could have waited and take the chance that the other 8 teams would pass on him.
Sure, laugh it up.
We have so many guys in the majors or upper minors who throw mid-90s heat and miss bats, after all. They practically grow on trees!
Funny you mention it...
That’s NOT his real age. He’s actually 23, not 24. Born October 7, 1986.
Which makes him the same age as teammates Chase D’Arnaud, Jordy Mercer, and Bryan Morris. Presumably none of them are prospects, either, if your standards are consistent.
To say nothing...
…of some of the 24-year-old slackers in AAA this year, like Neil Walker. Or, God forbid, gray-bearded 25-year-olds in AAA like Brad Lincoln or Donald Veal.
They better get Uviedo a cane before he breaks a hip or something.
Sure, he'll still be "going on 24"...
…more than a month after the minor league season ends.
But why does that affect his prospect status negatively? Or are Morris and Walker and Lincoln also guys who could be thrown into a trade without “the sky falling”, since they’re all as old or older relative to their levels?
ur comparing apples to oranges
the players u are talking about are two former number 1 picks and a Top player aquired in a trade. Ronald Uviedo is not comparable to that talent. He is a RP they are on the cheap.
So how a player was acquired...
…is more important than how he plays and what kind of tools/skills he has?
Good to know! I’ll start looking forward to Danny Moskos’s era of incipient dominance! After all, he was a first-round pick!
(But wait! He’s going on 25, and in AA! I’m so confused!)
And how about 22-year-olds in Bradenton?
If they play well, they’ll be 23 (going on 24!!!) in Altoona next year, after all.
We may as well just cut Tony Sanchez and Nate Adcock and Jeff Locke and Diego Moreno and Jeremy Farrell and Aaron Pribanic outright. After all, what could we get for ancient “prospects” like that?
And that, right there...
…is why your opinions aren’t worth reading.
Thank you for proving my point for me.
what he said was
And how about 22-year-olds in Bradenton?
If they play well, they’ll be 23 (going on 24!!!) in Altoona next year, after all.
what would you reply when someone doesnt read carefully? Lets see…
going on 24 read carefuly
asshole
by bucsreport on Jun 1, 2010 1:42 PM PDT up reply actions
by BurgherKing on Jun 1, 2010 5:16 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
turning 23 on may 20 doesn't make u going on
24 it makes u 23. If he would be a good way into his 23rd yeah then yes that would be correct
And nowadays...
…the State Department is a lot more thorough about vetting the papers of Dominicans, anyway.
Uh
I hate to say this, because the rancor on this is ridiculous, and I’m basically with Vlad on this trade, but holy shit is bucsreport right and Vlad wrong about the ages of Sanchez and Adcock. Like, Vlad is stupidly, comically, pigheadedly wrong on this point. We’re talking half a year’s difference in birthdays between Uviedo and Sanchez/Adcock. I personally wouldn’t call someone in their 8th month “going on” the next year, but I really really really wouldn’t call someone in their 2nd month “going on” the next year. The only person who would is someone who is trying, very stupidly, to score points on teh internets.
When you’re right on the merits, Vlad, there’s no need to bullshit on the incidentals.
Also
I’m 90% certain that I once got into an argument with Vlad on a very similar point about player ages, except that time he was the one aggressively rounding up to prove that a certain player was too old for a level. But that’s just an added little kicker.
Could've been WTM
I don’t even recall who we were arguing about. I just remember frantically looking up birthdays and subtracting months.
Could've been me, too.
I don’t remember, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I forget lots of stuff.
If you’re not going on the next year what are you going on?
by thecheeseisblue on Jun 2, 2010 12:27 AM EDT up reply actions
I learned this lesson when I was 7 years old
And I was at Disneyland, and I told an older kid I was trying to impress that I was 7, going on 8. Kid asked my birthday, and I gave him a date 3-4 months hence, and he laughed at me.
“Going on” means that you’re approaching the next year – that’s it’s not really right to consider you a 7-year old, because you’re really much closer to being an 8-year old. Two weeks after your 7th birthday, you’re simply a seven-year old.
Furthermore, if “going on” did nothing more than tell your interlocutor what your next age would be, it would only be useful in discussions with people incapable of adding 1 to a given number. I choose to believe that it’s an expression with rather broader use than that.
“Going on” is a modifier used to make a person seem older, but it doesn’t invalidate the statement that a player of age n would be going on an age on n + 1. Nobody is 23 going on 23, they’re 23 going on 24. It’s a rather useless modifier since it only adds one, but that doesn’t mean that Vlad’s statement wasn’t true.
by thecheeseisblue on Jun 2, 2010 1:49 AM EDT up reply actions
To be honest...
…I think it’s kind of a dumb formulation to use within this particular situation. But if he wanted to use it, I was going to take it literally and go from there.
Because that’s how I roll.
Wait, what?
Sanchez’s DOB is 5/20/88, so there’s an argument to be made in your direction. I would disagree with it, but it’s at least an argument.
But look at the DOBs for Adcock and Uviedo. The former was born on 2/25/88, and the latter on 10/7/86. Know what those dates have in common? Both fall after the end of the minor league season (and the MLB regular season, for that matter). So both players are going to be one year older on opening day in any new season than they were on the last game the year before. There is absolutely no functional difference between the two, from a baseball standpoint. If it makes sense to say that one guy is 23-going-on-24 because he’ll be 24 at the start of the next year, then it makes just as much sense to say that the other is 22-going-on-23 because he’ll be 23 at the start of the next year.
So if you want to complain about Sanchez, who will be a year younger for a month and change, maybeso. But get your rhetorical hands off Adcock.
Adcock's marginal
But I don’t especially buy the season-age concept as it’s applied. Essentially, a cutoff date is picked arbitrarily*, and then treated as a hard piece of data, as if a guy with a mid-May B-day is the same age as a guy born 10 months earlier, because they’re the same season-age as they progress through the system.
There’s an interesting thing in hockey: because hockey little leagues all adhere to Jan 1 birthday cutoffs, there’s a disproportionate number of November/December players, because they’re the biggest in their leagues, every year. This effect persists all the way to the NHL – there’s a paucity of Jan/Feb birthdays, then a slightly rising plateau across the rest of the spring/summer, until you get a massive number of Nov/Dec birthdays (I read about this a year or two ago, so the details may be off, but there’s a legit study on this).
There isn’t a structural aspect of season-age in baseball, for all sorts of reasons, but I suspect that there are marginal effects that do, in fact, come from considering 23 1/6 year olds as the cohorts of 23 5/6 year olds – looking at a lot of players, scouts and such will focus on “he’s not doing great, even though he’s the right age for this level” rather than “he’s the youngest guy on the field, he still has time to adjust.”
I probably wouldn’t have squawked over just Adcock, but paired with Sanchez it looked pretty egregious.
- I can’t recall, but I don’t think it’s age on Opening Day – but it’s somewhere around there
"But I don’t especially buy the season-age concept as it’s applied."
You don’t have to buy it. But you have to understand that if another guy brings it up, he’s implicitly buying it by virtue of having mentioned it in the first place, right?
This whole thing is silly
If bucsreport wrongly states that a player of Uviedo’s precise, exact age (23 y, 7 mo, 23 d or whatever it was) is old for his level and does so by misrepresenting both Uviedo’s age (by saying “going on 24”, an obvious stretch of colloquial usage as described in the Disney World bit) AND the average age of AA players (implicitly — Eastern League average right now is 24 1/2 or so), what’s wrong with applying similar logic in similarly nonsensical fashion so as to highlight the absurdity of his argument?
Oh yeah
I’m just going on a tangent at this point.
The original comment wasn’t comparing October-born Uviedo to anyone else, so it’s a side issue, but I do think it’s very legit to point out season-age differences when guys are nominally the same age but one is born in April and the other in October. Given the vagaries of maturity, that half year could mean nothing or everything, but there’s no reason to ignore it.
Getting back on an old hobbyhorse, I’d love to see the age at which players first play in a competitive league. Some guys are on traveling teams before they’re 10 while other guys are in regular Little Leagues until HS – it’s a huge difference* in terms of both coaching and experience, but afaik no one (on the outside at least) knows that background.
- the rule of thumb – for all pursuits, from math to music to sport – is that it takes 10 years of serious practice in a field to achieve mastery/display genius. So the difference between a 10-y.o. traveling team and a guy reaching the varsity at 15 is (potentially) half a decade towards mastery, even if they both started T-ball the same day.
This is your Nyjer Morgan thing again, isn't it?
I really can’t get on board with that particular one, sorry.
You don't have to be on board
Because the results are in. The guy improved his play, in substantial ways*, after his supposed sell-by date. And I have a pretty solid, logical explanation for a guy whose career path was very, very different from that of all of his peers having a different maturation path than all of his peers.
Ultimately, I don’t think it’s a hugely valuable lesson, but I think it’s a real one, and one that would probably yield a handful of buy low opportunities if applied rigorously. Keep your eyes out for guys who, for whatever reasons, got late starts in competitive baseball but who have tools. They may prove more valuable than traditional scouting and sabermetrics suggest, and at bargain prices.
- his less impressive 2010 is irrelevant, because his 2009 wasn’t a mere fluke of SSS – his peripherals agreed with his primary stats and with naked-eye judgment – he was a substantially better player at 28/29 (July 2 b-day) than he’d ever been before
You have one anecdotal example:
A guy who looks to be regressing considerably in 2010. Which you’re trying to discount through some kind of hand-waving. Yes, he put up decent peripherals in some areas last year. That does not necessarily mean that 2009 was a reflection of his true level of ability. It does make it less likely that it was not, but guys have fluke years (including good peripherals) all the time. There are probably more examples of those than there are of guys who came to baseball late in life developing in an unexpectedly positive fashion.
You have a pretty good head for baseball. I’d hate to see you spend the next five years chasing wild geese, looking for the next Nyjer Morgan.
Is this a parody of the piratesreport.com thing?
by CptnAwesome on Jun 1, 2010 4:42 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
EVELAND
YOU MUST HAVE NOT SEEN HIS LAST 3 STARTS,RIVALS MORTON. 27 WALKS IN 44.2 INNINGS PITCHED ISN’T VERY GOOD.
this Eveland move leads me to believe
That Maholm/Duke will be traded within a week
by BadAndy on Jun 1, 2010 4:33 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
a bottom feeding team that continues to take other teams castoffs , Throw them up against the “PERVIABLE WALL” & see what sticks….. 17, 18, 19 yrs of this SHIT… same shit different day, nothing BLEEPING changes …….
And a Steelers fan, and a Penguins fan, and a Tiger Woods fan, and a Jeff Gordon fan, anda Scuderia Ferrari fan, and a Miami Heat fan. No frontrunning going on here, nosiree!
ryebr3ad & matskralc
cant’ help it if my teams KICK ASS… go ahead call me bandwagnor,dare ya, then u can give me your home address so we can meet for lunch….
so do you guys not work, & check everyone’s comments on this blog…OMG, check what other blogs i belong too, ravens, bengals, OMG, bunch of BLEEPING losers
We can always meet at Pamela's
BTW, checking your username took all of 3 seconds for me to do. But man, did you get offended! I’m sorry if I touched on a sore spot.
You = Bandwagoner.
I’m coming to the Bucs Dugout night out, linked in a FanPost on the side. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Internet Tough Guy, send your ten bucks to Captain Awesome and we can discuss it in person at the game.
This thread is getting wonderfully catty!
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jun 1, 2010 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Now I wish I was going to the game
if there’s going to be fights, I could have taken a bus to get there.
by thecheeseisblue on Jun 1, 2010 6:53 PM EDT up reply actions
Wow
Usually I don’t care much for grammar, but that has to the the worst attempt at spelling “proverbial” I have ever seen. I mean really, there’s a spell checker in the comment box. Squiggly red lines mean you’re wrong.
by thecheeseisblue on Jun 1, 2010 5:34 PM EDT up reply actions
Actually, perviable is a real word.
Just a very obscure one. You more commonly see its opposite – imperviable (i.e. incapable of being affected/penetrated). But if you drop the prefix, the root still works OK on its own.
Admittedly, perviable doesn’t make much sense within context (a wall can be perviable if it has holes in it, but the holes in the wall wouldn’t really affect thing’s ability to stick to the wall). Of course, it’s not like the rest of the post in question is Rhodes scholar work, either…
Hey, everybody's good at something.
I’m good at words and numbers.
By extrapolation, you’re probably good at something else that doesn’t involve either one.
Naw.
Your mom doesn’t like it when we do it in her basement. Too drafty.
Unless by “in her basement”, you’re speaking metaphorically. In which case… yeah, she’s probably down for that.
(Joking, of course.)
To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never had knowledge of bucsreport’s mother. In her basement, or anywhere else, for that matter.
for someone who cares not for grammar, that is the second time in 2 days you have mentioned it
college boy
by karreemofwheat on Jun 1, 2010 6:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Good point
I guess I care more than I thought. I’m just saying I’m not going to grammar Nazi people for some minor misspellings or poor capitalization and punctuation. It only bothers me if it hinders my ability to understand your point.
by thecheeseisblue on Jun 1, 2010 6:37 PM EDT up reply actions
its ok your right about it.
life is not fair and some were not afforded as high of an education as others. i’m glad your back as i enjoy your posts.
by karreemofwheat on Jun 1, 2010 9:16 PM EDT up reply actions
i’m a pirates fan, I have the ticket stubs to prove it, born & grew up 90 min south of burgh…pens, steelers, etc… diehard sports fan period…
OK you win
you have me scared, so lets make up & i’ll buy the first round of beers….
what i don’t understand, is when people come on here & bitch about the usual, “boneheaded trades etc by the baseball geniuses that continue to run this team further into the ground, while playing in 1 of the best ballparks in MLB…other bloggers question everything from there sexuality to there loyalty to the team… i’m as pissed at the teams management as the next pIRATE fan… I”m just hoping & praying in my kids lifetime they get to see the Jolly Roger fly high & proud with a WS banner…. but i’m not holding my breath…oh & i no longer live in the common wealth of PA, job opportunity took me south…way south… but i will be at opening night of Consol & winter classic & at least 1 steelers game…
I retract the bandwagon thing.
You sound like a real fan in this post. I shouldn’t have flapped my gums.
(And the fact that I’m a sucker for a free beer has nothing to do with it…)
this move is gonna give
that clown-faced fossil smizik some ammunition.
Doubt it.
He enjoys criticizing things, sure, but I doubt he’s prepared to concede that a minor league pitcher can have significant value, after his analysis of the Bay and Wilson/Snell trades.
ah yes very true
ive cut him to the quick. give it a few years when Uviedo is a star on Toronto and Eveland is flipping burgers after posting a 4-19 record with a 5.35 era with Pittsburgh.
It'll be interesting...
…to see which way he goes. I can see a case for either one. Maybe we should start making some side bets, get a little action going.
So Vlad
Since you seem to be around right now, what do you think of Eveland’s potential? I respect your opinions, and aside from giving up Uviedo, some of his peripherals didn’t look all bad. Do you think there could be anything there?
It's possible.
He’s left-handed and tough to drive, he’s got decent secondary stuff, and he’s had at least sporadic success in the past. So you can at least see some skills to build on there. It wouldn’t be out of the question for him to pitch well.
On the down side, he’s got issues with stamina and conditioning (probably related), he has a bad rep for coachability (supposedly part of the reason he’s moved around so much), and the command is obviously pretty lacking. IIRC, there’s some medical stuff on his record, too, dating back to his time with Arizona.
If you offered me a no-cost choice between Eveland and a guy like Burres, I’d probably take Eveland, since he’s got more upside and the downside is pretty even. But I’d like it a lot better as a move if he were a waiver pickup, rather than an expensive trade acquisition.
Don't know much about Eveland
But that last para is exactly my take – I have no problem at all with trolling the waiver wire and NRIs for possible 5th starters/BP guys, but trading real (if not amazing) talent for such people just seems crazy. What are the odds that Eveland provides any significant value?
I guess some of it is that the FO has pegged Uviedo as a RP, and probably not a closer. A pretty good mid-leverage RP is lucky to be 1 WAR/season, we’ve got 6 years of Uviedo, so. Eveland, as a SP, could be worth 2.5 WAR if he has any kind of sustained success, so he only needs to produce for a couple of seasons to match Uviedo’s likely total value to the team. That math’s pretty loose, but I suspect it’s at the base of NH’s thinking.
by JRoth95 on Jun 1, 2010 11:59 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I think that's an accurate summation of the thought process behind the move.
I just disagree with some of their judgment calls in getting there.
Dana Eveland
Most fans are ready to write him off before he even throws a pitch. There are a few things NL fans should consider before they think like that.
first: the NL is more of a free-swinging league, where pitchers near 50 are still winning games. Pitchers that throw 100 MPH rack up the strikeouts. NL pitchers thrive, but once they enter the AL, they get bombed. Vasquez, Lee, etc anyone. On the other hand, AL pitchers that switch to the NL thrive and turn into Cy Young every game. Sabathia, Lee, etc.
Second: in the AL, there are many teams that are patient at the plate. I’m sure everyone has heard about Joe West and his comments about games lasting four or more hours, when Boston, New York, etc are involved.
Third: When Eveland pitched against teams that don’t stand with the bat on their shoulders every at bat, waiting for a strike to be thrown, he was 4 – 1 and had a 2 hitter under his belt against the White Sox. Before anyone judges a pitcher, look at the circumstances surrounding his numbers, instead of taking them at face value.
Fourth: I can see Eveland winning 12 – 14 games each season in Pittsburgh and he is only 26. He will enjoy success against 13 of 16 teams in the NL, but he will struggle against teams that are patient. Don’t forget that umpires have a lot to do with the performance of a pitcher too. If the NL umps don’t give him the low strike, he will walk guys, because that is where he throws. In a perfect world, the strike zone is letters to the knees, but in the past ten years, many pitchers get squeezed, example Oswalt last night.
Note: I’m a Jays fan and Cito used Eveland in situations that created failure, not success in his past three starts. I hope that the manager and pitching coach use Eveland where he has strengths and Pittsburgh will win games with him on the mound this year.
Why is Lee a "NL pitcher"?
He spent seven and a half years with the Indians, made twelve starts with the Phillies, and gets re-classified? For a guy with a username that starts with “logic”, you’re basing a lot of your argument on anecdotal examples of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Also, pitcher wins are useless as a method of evaluating pitchers. Eveland could win 12-14 games and be a great pitcher or a terrible one.
You Jays fans
are rather nice fellows. I’ve been on Bluebird Banter and you’re all pretty pleasant, polite people for the most part. It’s a nice change of pace from a lot of teams.
by thecheeseisblue on Jun 1, 2010 5:59 PM EDT up reply actions
LogicD
Thanks for the thoughtful post … my only concern is that I get the following from what you’ve written:
Dana Eveland very well could prove successful for the Pirates if A) John Russell uses him in intelligent situations and B) if umpires give him a fair, respectable strike zone.
A) is far outside the realm of possibility and B) is just about as unlikely. I’m already feeling for Eveland.
by RetireNutting on Jun 1, 2010 6:24 PM EDT up reply actions
Examples only.
I was using pitchers that have seen games in both leagues, as example’s only. I agree that a pitcher can be successful or fail. Example: Scott Feldman last year won 17 games with Texas. No one was more surprised than Washington. This year, he has returned to his normal losing ways. Vasquez won with Atlanta, but sucks this year with the Yankees offense behind him. There are some things that logic can’t explain, but that is what makes Baseball the greatest game in the world. Who would have believed that 10 out of the top 15 best hitters in the AL last year would all be struggling around the Mendoza line this year? lol.
Fair enough.
I certainly hope he’s as successful for us as you suggest. Though I’m still not putting any money on it.
Best of luck w/ Uviedo.
FWIW, I remember hearing somewhere that Uviedo's velocity was down this year.
I think they reported him as being in the 88-90 range but I’m not sure about that. I know when I first started following him a couple years back he was said to be at 94 with good breaking stuff but I’m not sure if that’s still true. If he doesn’t still have a power arsenal he’s not really all that valuable. Of course, guys gain and lose velocity spontaneously all the time it seems.
Dana Eveland
I thought it was a joke when I saw on the Post-Gazette that the Pirates had claimed him on waivers. He’s just not very good. I thought maybe they were planning on using him as a reliever in Indy.
But then I saw the Pirates actually traded a player for him.
Why trade anything for Eveland? I’m pretty sure they would have gotten a waiver claim. If not, who cares? He’s just not very good. Is he really a dramatic improvement over Burres or Karstens? I don’t think so.
Finally, I don’t think Uviedo is a stud. But he does throw hard. He likely will be a MLB pitcher. Maybe he’ll even close.
I don’t understand why such a bad team would trade anything for Dana Eveland. It’s not like he’s going to suddenly make them a wild card team. This is as strange as the Santiago-Nunez trade.
Even stranger, IMO.
Because at least with Littlefield, it was obvious that he had no idea what the hell he was doing.
That's what we call
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
Vlad
Can’t argue with anything. I like NH and give him latitude because he inherited a horrible situation.
But this doesn’t make sense. Eveland hasn’t been a prospect in years. He’s bounced around three teams with WHIPs of nearly 2.
I just don’t get it.
No way to know for certain
But my suspicion is Vlad’s theory of an ingrained prejudice in favor of big (or big looking) guys. This has become a pattern and I doubt we’ll see as many crafty little guys in the game for a while. Though Uviedo isn’t little, just skinny.
by RichieHebner on Jun 1, 2010 10:46 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
There's some amount of logic to such a belief.
The taller you are, the closer your release point is to home plate, and the faster your fastball will “feel” to a batter. Also, taller pitchers can get a better downward angle on their pitches, making them tough to drive. If you’re picking between two pitchers where everything else is the same, you go with the taller guy.
But in this particular case, Uviedo should still have more than enough stuff to make a go of it as a 6’1" righty. So I kind of have to shrug my shoulders.
FWIW:
(Maybe something, maybe not.)
Wilbur just told me that a guy told him that Uviedo’s velocity was down this year.
Alderson's velocity is down this year
but we’re not trading him. I know, apples and oranges, Alderson’s pedigree and potential is much better. But I feel like that’s a terrible reason to move a prospect whose still getting it done
The glare of the spotlight is harsh, and the pressure that success breeds immense. We revere our heroes, but expect much. And criticism can come as easily as praise.
I mentioned this somewhere else – does his velocity dropping really make him a worse prospect if his K’s go up?
charity standing orders
It might.
If it hampers his ability to perform at higher levels. A guy with a good change and a good breaking ball can do a lot of damage in AA, even without a fastball, but you need more than that to have lasting success in the bigs.
And in any event, ~20 IP is too small a sample to say whether his 2010 K rate is representative of his current level of ability or not.
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