Mid Week Thoughts....

Some of the things crossing my mind on this fine Wednesday evening....

-Neil Walker is off to a great start in his first week back in the majors. A game winning homer will do that. So far, he has put the attitude problems I ripped him for a couple weeks ago behind him and done what you were always told he was capable of (but he didn't do in the minors until 2010). Great to see and I hope he keeps it up. 

-Was it just me or did Ben Roethlisberger look to be about 25 lbs lighter than he normally is this time of year when he reported to OTAs yesterday? Did he start his yearly pre-training camp mma-esque weight cut down early? Or is he finally hanging out somewhere other than the bar in the offseason (like the treadmill)? Based on how things have gone so far, I am pretty convinced Lord Goddell will ultimately reduce his suspension to 4 games. Which brings him back just in time for the Browns.

-If you listen to 93.7 The Fan here in Pittsburgh, you have in the last couple days surely heard about the off the wall Allegheny County Councilman who is urging Pittsburghers to root for the Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals. And if you don't listen to the station, just turn it on for a couple minutes and someone will mention the story. I promise. Its part of their every twenty minutes update somehow. Both yesterday and today, Seibel and Starkey would not stop laughing and carrying on about how dumb this guy is. They replayed their interview with him yesterday first thing today and then took calls about it. How is that anywhere near compelling radio? Yikes.

-Speaking of dumb things that have somehow become part of the news, how about the Pens testing of the toilets at the Consol Energy Center? Are local news outlet that hurting for stories these days? Actually, they are probably just taking any chance they get to make bad toilet/flush puns. Cause those are funny.

-I caught up on the TV show Flash Forward over the last couple of days. It was a good show but I wouldn't recommend making time for it if as it has a cliffhanger first season ending. That would normally be fine, but the show was cancelled. 

-Finally, the Pirates are in a rain delay right now. There has to be a better option than the programming they put on during rain delays. I usually change the channel, but still have seen the Mazeroski show they have on right now numerous times. And if it isn't this Mazeroski show, its "Inside Pirates Baseball" which is on about 15 times over the weekend anyway. Would it be so crazy to just keep it with the announcers and talk about the team, MLB, maybe even interview a guy a or two?

Positive, Negatives, and the Next Wave of Pirates......

Almost two months in, the Pirates season has been up and down to say the least......

-Andrew McCutchen has continued to be much better than advertised. According to this article, he is already a very similar player to Carl Crawford and has been the best CF in the league since his callup...He is extremely fun to watch. However, McCutchen has inexplicably been moved to third in the order and constantly comes up with no one on base. So, a lot of his hits and on base skills are being wasted. Partly because.....

-John Russell's lineup construction has been unbelievably bad. Why is Iwamura still batting leadoff? Why is McCutchen not batting first or second? Why is Delwyn Young and Bobby Crosby and their low OBPs batting second? Why is Ryan Church playing almost every day? Why is Ryan Doumit batting 7th? Its almost as if Russell is going out of his way to create worst possible lineup for actually scoring runs.

-Speaking of the "leadoff hitter," Aki Iwamura has been awful. He just finished a historic hitless streak and might have 5 or 6 total hits in the month of May. And his defense has fallen off a cliff. Anthony has already declared the trade for Iwamura the worst in baseball history.

-Ryan Doumit's has been great at the plate. He is second in the majors among qualifying (ie. have played enough games to be eligible for the batting title) catchers in OPS, behind only future hall of famer Joe Mauer. On the other hand, his defense has been atrocious. Players that have no other stolen bases are routinely stealing second off him. There is absolutely no fear from opposing baserunners.

-Guys like Lastings Milledge, Jeff Clement, and even Garrett Jones to an extent have underachieved so far.

-The backend of the bullpen has been almost perfect when given a chance to win/keep the team in the game. The team has lost one game they have had a lead after the 5th inning. Evan Meek especially has gone from a guy who couldn't throw strikes at all in 2008 to being almost unhittable. He is now throwing a 97 mph fastball and 81 mph curveball.

-The starting pitching was expected to be better. Charlie Morton's struggles/bad luck have been well documented by Anthony and I. Zach Duke and Paul Maholm have been average overall. Ross Ohlendorf missed almost a month and has pitched just ok otherwise. Daniel McCutchen might as well have been throwing batting practice out there. Brian Burres and Jeff Karstens have had their moments but have basically done what you expect them to to: sprinkle a good start or two in with a whole bunch of bad ones.

I could go on and on. For every positive, there is at least one negative.

Times may FINALLY be changing for the Bucs though. Neil Walker was called up today after continuing to dominate AAA like I wanted. And he is probably just the start of a domino effect of callups/promotions. Brad Lincoln will be called up soon to replace Burres. Alvarez and Tabata could be here not long after that. Guys like Bryan Morris and Diego Moreno are being promoted in the minors with others like Nathan Adcock and Jeff Locke ready to move on as well.

Here is just one potential starting lineup by the end of June:

LF Jose Tabata
CF Andrew McCutchen
3B Pedro Alvarez
1B Garrett Jones
C Ryan Doumit
RF Neil Walker
2B Andy Laroche
SS Ronny Cedeno

That is much more impressive than what is being run out there tonight. The guys that have struggled or underachieved in the majors are finally being pushed from below......

A Night at the Ballpark

Since Anthony stole my thunder regarding Dejan Kovacevic's embarrassing puff piece on Nate McLouth's recent "resurgence" in yesterday's Post-Gazette, I instead bring you some thoughts from the game itself last night......

-This was the fourth game I have been to this year. The first three were very entertaining victories. This was a clunker. It was just one of those nights where the Ross Ohlendorf didn't have it and the hitters somehow couldn't hit a very hittable Tim Hudson. 

-Nate McLouth is a tiny guy. The 5'11 he is listed at is very generous. I never realized that when he was here. He got a mixed reaction at best each time he batted (I was expecting loud cheers after the outrage last year when he was traded). It was probably more boos though. I would think that is due to the comments about the organization he made in spring training that his publicist Dejan forgot to mention yesterday. And those new contacts he desperately needed?  They aren't helping him yet. He hit three lazy fly balls and sac bunted to help setup runners on second and third for the pitcher Tim Hudson. No mention of any of that in the Post-Gazette game summary.

-Jason Heyward on the other hand is a monster. He is every bit the 6'5", 240 lbs he is listed and just crushes the ball every time he makes contact. He was a triple short of the cycle. The Pujols  comparisons may not be so ridiculous after all. Pirate fans should be more disgusted Dave Littlefield passed him up in the 2007 draft than the constantly talked about Matt Wieters. By the way, he doesn't turn 21 till August!

-As much as I ripped him before, its time for Neil Walker to come up and play 2B. I think he has finally earned a promotion by dominating AAA. Not to mention they are wasting valuable time and at bats playing the underwhelming combo of Delwyn Young and Bobby Crosby at second base while Aki Iwamura is "hurt." The team needs to see what they have with Walker and start to figure out how the infield is going to be configured once Pedro Alvarez is ready.

-Why is Ryan Church getting so much playing time?

-Finally, there were a decent number of Braves fan there last night. Come to think of it,  there always is when the Pirates play Atlanta. Where do these people come from? The Braves don't draw very well at home, much less have a national following. Are these fans Pittsburghers who just threw their arms up after the 1992 NLCS and decided to join the winning team? Weird.

The beauty of baseball after a lackluster game like last night? You get to play again the next day. Hopefully it works out better tonight and the next time we go.....

Neil Walker and Entitlement

Neil Walker was supposed to be the guy who saved baseball in Pittsburgh when he was drafted in the first round of the 2004 draft out of Pine Richland High School. The hometown kid who made good and got to star for his childhood team. However, it hasn't exactly worked out that way so far....

Instead he has never had a truly "great" year in the minors, and with Pedro Alvarez/Andy Laroche around is staring down the barrel at a long term utility role with the team. Now, just as he starts to really hit at AAA (in his third season there), there are reports of attitude problems (again). From the PG on Monday:

Frank Kremblas, Indianapolis' manager, and Kyle Stark, the Pirates' director of player development, are firm disciplinarians, which is part of the equation. The other, according to the team, is that Walker, in addition to failing to run out a popup last week, has generally reacted poorly when disciplined.

"We're not isolating Neil," Huntington said. "We're challenging a lot of guys, and there are challenges like that across baseball in systems that do it the right way. If you want to coddle and pamper your athletes, then you won't have any issues. But you'll also have underachieving athletes.



This goes hand in hand with Walker last year claiming "Dave Littlefield guys" like Brian Bixler and himself were not getting a fair shot with the current management team. At the time he made that quote, Walker was hitting in the .240s with little power in AAA, and I dare you to find a guy who was worse than Brian Bixler was in his limited MLB time (a 57% strikeout rate!). I am pretty sure Neil Huntington (or any GM) doesn't care where you came from if you can play. Of course a lot of Littlefield players got shipped out or weren't brought up to the majors. Here's the thing though. Most of those guys stunk. Players worth keeping like Andrew McCutchen are here and part of the future. I would be annoyed if Huntington had not cleaned out the dead weight and started over.


Walker's problem seems to be that he feels the organization owes him a spot in the majors because of who is. The problem is that things don't (or at least haven't since Dave Littlefield left) work that way. He has never earned a chance to play everyday in the majors by tearing up the minors. He has always just been ok and advanced because players don't really stay at a level more than a year.  In fact, I think that if  he was a middle round draft pick not from Pittsburgh, very few people would even know his name. 


Walker is still only 24 and based on the way he is hitting in 2010, he could certainly still end up somewhere in the Pirates long plans (maybe at 2B or RF). However, to get there he needs to work hard,  let his play do the talking, and start acting like a true Pittsburgher.....