Bucs Dugout - An unofficial Pittsburgh Pirates blog

Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Chris Jakubauskas throws against the Angels in the third inning of a game Wednesday, May 20, 2009, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

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The Pirates have cut Robinzon Diaz, Justin Thomas and Jeff Karstens from the 40-man roster, added Brad Lincoln, Gorkys Hernandez, Bryan Morris and Ramon Aguero, and claimed reliever Chris Jakubauskas from the Mariners.

Thomas and Karstens aren't huge surprises--Thomas was claimed from the M's only a couple weeks ago, and Karstens was arbitration-eligible--but I'm a surprised by Diaz being cut. He was a perfectly functional backup catcher for chunks of last year, and functional backup catchers are valuable. If one looks at the entirety of his performance record, though, it's not that impressive--he actually hit worse at AAA last year than he did in the majors. So I suppose there's a case to be made that he wouldn't continue to be productive with the Pirates if he stuck with them. If Diaz is lost and Ryan Doumit is traded, the Bucs will have to hunt around for another catcher. This could be a sign that the Pirates are taking Jeff Clement seriously as a catcher, although it also might have nothing to do with that at all.

Jakubauskas doesn't have much of a performance record and he's already 30, but he has a great curveball and he held his own in the American League last year, albeit with a really low strikeout rate, and the sort of flyball tendency that plays better in Safeco than anywhere else but San Diego.

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Rule 5 possibilities

by Vlad on Nov 20, 2009 3:08 PM EST Comment 40 comments

Now that teams are starting to finalize their rosters prior to today's deadline, I thought it might be fun to create a thread and look at some of the players who will be available to us in this year's Rule 5 draft. We'll be picking second in the draft order, and as such, should have a good opportunity to come away with a useful talent (or two?).

Here are some of the options I like - please add your own in the comments. I'll try to add more to my list periodically, time permitting, though I'm going to be out of town for most of this weekend.

Continue reading this post »

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Baseball Prospectus: Minor League Free Agents

It's subscription-only, unfortunately. This is a nifty writeup of the available minor league free agents. Picking up strikeout-and-walk guy Alexander Smit, formerly of the Reds, and turning him into a full-time reliever seems like the sort of thing Neal Huntington might do.

The minor league free agent list includes a couple of other interesting, and semi-familiar, names. One is Ryan Shealy, the former Rockies minor leaguer who many of us wanted the Bucs to trade for before Adam LaRoche arrived. He missed most of the last season with an injury, but I still hold out hope that there's some hitting ability in there--he has always hit well in Class AAA, and he was awesome in brief duty for the Royals in 2008. The Pirates still need help at the corners, and Shealy has as good a chance as anybody of being next year's Garrett Jones.

Another interesting guy is Ruben Gotay, who was actually in Spring Training with the Pirates earlier this year. It's kind of a shame he didn't stick, because he ended up having an amazing OBP-heavy season for the Diamondbacks' Class AAA affiliate in Reno. He's defensively limited, but he could probably play the Ramon Vazquez role better than Vazquez himself, and the Pirates have a lot of instability in their infield. (Trivia: the Pirates acquired Ruben's uncle, Julio, in 1962 in the trade that sent Dick Groat to the Cardinals.)

3 days ago Charlie 4 comments 0 recs

Jose Tabata Goes 6-for-7 in Arizona Fall League Game

by Charlie on Nov 19, 2009 5:53 PM EST Comment 18 comments

Insanity. Jose Tabata is now 6-for-6 with two doubles in Scottsdale's game against the Peoria Javelinas. Also, Chase D'Arnaud has reached base five times in the game. Scottsdale leads 17-8. None of the Pirates' pitchers have entered the game, fortunately.

Tabata is now hitting .395 in the AFL. His status as a prospect has improved a bunch in the past few weeks. I want to say that it's time to start getting excited, but I don't want to jinx it.

UPDATE: He finished 6-for-7, his batting average back to .392. Unacceptable! Back to the batting cages, Jose.

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John Grabow Agrees to Re-Sign With Cubs

by Charlie on Nov 19, 2009 5:49 PM EST Comment 23 comments

Pittsburgh Pirates' John Grabow, right, and Robinson Diaz high-five after the Pirates' 8-3 victory over the San Diego Padres in a baseball game in San Diego, Sunday, April 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)

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7 months ago: Pittsburgh Pirates' John Grabow, right, and Robinson Diaz high-five after the Pirates' 8-3 victory over the San Diego Padres in a baseball game in San Diego, Sunday, April 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)

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For two years and $7 million or more, which is a good, if not completely unreasonable, chunk of change for him. (Grabow made $2.3 million in 2009, his last year of arbitration.) If the reports about Jason Bay rejecting a $60 million deal from the usually-pretty-circumspect Red Sox are also accurate, we could be looking at a surprisingly robust free agent market this winter.

It's been interesting to see so many former Pirates quickly re-sign with their new teams--first Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson, and now Grabow. After you leave the Pirates, going anywhere else must seem fantastic.

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Bay rejects $60M over 4 years

I am not sure he will get more than $15M per, although I guess he wants more years. My first reaction was, it will never happen. My second reaction is, it probably will, and someone is going to regret it two years down the line.

Fenway Park fits Bay very well, and I m not sure what signing elsewhere is going to do for him. So who do people think is the likeliest to dole out Alfonso Soriano-esque stupid money for Bay for his age-32 season onward?

I have a feeling the RedSox could up their offer, but I don't see them adding more than 1 year. The Cubs? if they can get rid of Bradley's contract? Angels? Yanks? Mets? Braves?

3 days ago BurgherKing 19 comments 0 recs

"[Chase D'Arnaud] does everything well enough," said an American League scout. "He doesn’t have a standout tool, but he has some bat speed and he can square it up. He’s got gap power, but he can turn on one and hit it out."
[...]
Added another AL scout: "He has to not get out on his front side so much, but he’s strong for his size. He drifts out on his front side but he has such good hands that he can make up for it."

"AFL Notebook: D’Arnaud Does It All", Baseball America, Ben Badler

4 days ago Vlad 6 comments 0 recs

Pirates hire Steve Williams as Major League scout

"Williams, 45, most recently served the Kansas City Royals as their Assistant Director of Scouting, a position he held since August 15, 2006. Prior to joining the Royals, Williams worked for the Detroit Tigers as their Midwest Scouting Supervisor (2000-01) and East Coast Supervisor (2002-06), overseeing a territory from Maine to Puerto Rico.

His scouting career began when he served as an area scout with the Minnesota Twins from 1988 to 1995. Williams also worked for the Toronto Blue Jays as their Midwest Area Scout from 1995-99, covering a seven-state region."

Williams was the scout who originally signed Mike Trombley and Orlando Hudson, among other players. He worked under current Pirates scouting director Greg Smith from 2000-2004, when Smith held that same position with the Tigers, and under current Pirates special assistant Larry Corrigan from 1992-1993, when Corrigan was scouting director for the Twins.

4 days ago Vlad 4 comments 0 recs

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