I had a chance to talk to Clint yesterday and asked him if the Pirates would look to use Wandy on his regular turn or if they would look to slot him into a rotation spot. The obvious choice would be to have him work between A.J. Burnett and James McDonald, the spot currently occupied by Kevin Correia, who pitched yesterday. Working on normal rest, Rodriguez's next scheduled outing would be Saturday. In the Pirates' current rotation, Erik Bedard is slated to go that day. I suggested that he probably wouldn't want to have the two lefties back-to-back in the rotation. His response:
He could very well slide into pitching on his normal day, his next turn, and then we’d make some adjustments accordingly. I think at this time we’ll probably also try and stay away from him being piggy-backed with Erik if that’s the way it all falls out. We've still got to move a man out of the rotation.
I also suggested that with A.J. Burnett and James McDonald's performance and Jeff Karstens' and Bedard's injury history, Correia would be the obvious choice to go to the pen. I'll take his response, "You've been doing your homework," (made me laugh) as a tacit yes.
I then asked if my assumption that the pitcher removed from the rotation would be the guy who would make the spot start(s) that both he and GM Neal Huntington had referred to in the past week:
It very well could fall that way. That’s another conversation we’ve had in place.
Here is how I see it playing out: Wandy will take his normal turn on Saturday, JMac will follow in his normal spot on Sunday and Bedard will be pushed back to open the series in Chicago on Monday. This isn't rocket science. An extra couple days rest for Bedard will be useful and the Pirates won't have any two similar-type pitchers throwing back-to-back.
We'll see Wandy in uniform tonight. Expect him to throw his first pitch as a Buc around 7:15 Saturday night.
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I didn't get a chance to link to Keith Law's analysis of the trade yesterday (sub. required). His take was more negative than most others, largely because he is higher on Rob Grossman than most in the industry.
The Pittsburgh Pirates acquisition of Wandy Rodriguez is just the type of move their fans should fear -- the team is buying into their won-loss record too much and trading some of the products of the long rebuilding effort before they really arrive. It's not a disaster, as the team didn't trade Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon or Alen Hanson, but it was too much to give up for a veteran player who doesn't make the team substantially better.
Here is my interview with Keith, in which he discusses both Grossman and Starling Marte.
And who is going to be the first national writer to confuse the first names of Starling Marte and Starlin Castro? Link to it if you see it.