Bucco Breakfast: Scouting Your Own Team?

In one of his most recent MLB notes columns, Jon Heyman had a tidbit about New York Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman has advance scouts looking at his own club. This novel concept should be adopted by the Pittsburgh Pirates immediately.

Welcome to Bucco Breakfast, a new daily morning feature designed to help you through the offseason. Each day we’ll roll out a quick topic designed to spark conversation as well as provide some interesting baseball reading from around the web.

Noted MLB insider Jon Heyman had a tidbit about the New York Yankees in a recent MLB Notes column that raised an eyebrow for me.

GM Brian Cashman is trying something different by having two scouts “advance” his own team. The idea is to pick up flaws other teams may see. Seems like a worthwhile idea …

Not only is this a worthwhile idea, I am flabbergasted that more teams are not doing this. Perhaps they are, and we simply have not yet heard about it, but there are exactly zero drawbacks to any club putting this idea into practice.

The Pittsburgh Pirates could highly benefit from this, with one caveat: any potential advance scout that Neal Huntington would consider putting in place to act in this manner must come in from outside of the organization.

Not only would that preclude any existing bias, it would bring in a fresh set of voices to a team that has rightfully earned a reputation as insular.

Innovation does not have to happen in a grandiose fashion. Sometimes small ideas such as this one from Cashman can carry just as much weight.

Fanpost Fridays

Each Friday, I’ll reach down into the fanposts and pick out one from the previous week that could serve as fantastic discussion fodder. This week’s post — from Chiburgh — asks how the next hitting coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates should be. It is a sneakily important question, and could serve as a hire that carries a high amount of ramification for the years ahead.

Click here to check it out and chime in.

Daily Links

• Here is a link to all of PitchingNinja’s pitch grips. Enjoy. Tell your boss your lack of productivity is all on me.
• Oh, and here is a link to all of his pitching GIFs. Tell your significant other that I’m sorry I ruined date night.