Pirates Demote Brian Burres

by Charlie Wilmoth on Jun 4, 2010 3:07 PM EDT

The Bucs have demoted Brian Burres to Indianapolis to make room for new addition Dana Eveland. It appears likely that Eveland will start Monday or Tuesday.

Burres had a couple of very nice starts a month or so ago, but he's headed backward since then, and his year-to-date ERA of 5.62 turns out to be only slightly lower than his career ERA. He also struck out only one more batter than he walked. I wasn't a fan of the trade that brought Eveland here, but I can see how the Pirates think that just about anyone would be an improvement.

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What a relief.

by ryebr3ad on Jun 4, 2010 3:27 PM EDT reply actions

Karstens or Eveland Monday and Tuesday is what it looks like.

by leadoff on Jun 4, 2010 3:55 PM EDT reply actions

So one of our weaker starters going up against Strasburg?

That’s a shame.

by dulciusXasperis on Jun 4, 2010 4:11 PM EDT reply actions

This would just about rule out the possibility that Lincoln would be called up for the Tuesday game, I would assume?

by downandout on Jun 4, 2010 4:22 PM EDT reply actions

Good move to not put Lincoln vs. Strasburg. Would have been a bad situation for Lincoln’s major league debut.

by Adam Reynolds on Jun 4, 2010 4:41 PM EDT up reply actions

all depends

they could move someone up or back a day in order to pitch tuesday. im really not sure who we will throw until i see who we pitch sunday IMO

by C Shint on Jun 4, 2010 4:30 PM EDT reply actions

According to DK’s twitter feed….Karstens Tuesday and Eveland Monday

by Jay32600 on Jun 4, 2010 4:49 PM EDT reply actions

What a relief(whew) Iwamura survives for at least a few more games.

by patthatt on Jun 4, 2010 4:51 PM EDT reply actions

I seem to recall

that before the season started I said something about the No. 5 spot being a black hole. Let’s see if Eveland is the new Josh Fogg.

by bucdaddy on Jun 4, 2010 5:00 PM EDT reply actions

We'd better hope not.

We could’ve gotten an ERA in the mid 5’s from Burres, if that’s all Eveland brings to the table.

by Vlad on Jun 4, 2010 5:22 PM EDT up reply actions

DK

Propping J. Fogg the other day in the interview. Had a long interview talking about Altoona Curve pitchers and some position players. You can listen to the podcast. Hopefully up tomorrow, at least on Monday.

by David Todd on Jun 4, 2010 5:23 PM EDT up reply actions

Career ERA+ of 89

Which makes him a league-average #4. You could do a lot worse than a Josh Fogg. The Pirates certainly have. For his career, he’s been worth 6.9 WAR for a total of $7.5M (as a Pirate, he was worth 3.8 WAR for $3M).

by JRoth95 on Jun 4, 2010 5:37 PM EDT up reply actions

But you can't plan on going into the season...

…with Fogg as your #4, unless you expect all your other starters to stay healthy all year. You need to bank on him as your #5 (or long reliever), so that you have some margin for error.

There were also significant opportunity costs involved in using Fogg in the rotation. He didn’t have much stamina, so he couldn’t be counted on for much more than five innings, and as a result he put a lot of strain on his teams’ bullpens. And lefties killed him, to the extent that you needed to skip him in the rotation against lefty-heavy lineups whenever possible.

On the whole, he was still a net positive on our roster, but his on-field value is greatly overstated by most Pirates fans.

by Vlad on Jun 4, 2010 7:04 PM EDT up reply actions