Pittsburgh Pirates Tidbits
Trivia time – over the last two years, which MLB team had the highest number of games where no walks were issued by their pitching? And, which team had the fewest?
The most should be easy if you follow the game close. Yes, the Twins with 16% (51) of all games played.
The fewest? The Pittsburgh Pirates with just 2% (8). Zach Duke had three games he started, Paul Maholm three, and, believe it or not, Tony Armas was in three of the games as a reliever.
But wow.. just eight games in two years where no walks were issued. And hey, one of those was a six inning contest Oliver Perez pitched in 2006.
Moneyball GM’s love playing us.
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"Pirates general manager Neal Huntington began a three-day set of meetings on Tuesday that will target a thorough evaluation of the players within the organization. . . Conducting player evaluations with team scouts right now is crucial." — October, 17, 2007 Pirateball.com
Notice there was no mention of whether he was sitting with amateur scouts, pro scouts, or both. Just scouts. Guess all you want..
These meetings occur in every organization after the season, so this isn’t really news. But it is nice to know Huntington is at least sitting down with these family men and talking to them instead of just handing them pink slips.
Of course, that could happen once the summit ends since he will be done picking their brains apart and will have retrieved their scouting databases and laptops. Their contracts end thirteen days later (emphasis on 13).
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Speaking of summits, I heard ole Hank Steinbrenner put his foot down and told the rest of his pop’s war machine that Joe Torre should not be fired. Good for Hank. I’m guessing the younger Steinbrenner will want LaRussa if Torre goes bypassing Giardi because of his potential coaching picks.
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JP Ricciardi was sick and tired of everyone trying to lure Tony LaCava away so he handed him a title I’m guessing he was offered three weeks ago somewhere else – assistant general manager.
Good for LaCava. I guess that means he can upgrade his Marriott room now.
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Some readers have asked me to speculate on the top draft picks for the 2008 draft so here goes in no specific order other than the first two:
Brian Matusz LHP Univ of San Diego
Pedro Alvarez 3B Vandy
Aaron Crow RHP Missouri
Alex Meyer RHP high schooler in Indiana
Justin Smoak 1B USC
Eric Hosmer 1B high schooler in Florida
Brett Jacobson RHP Vandy (expect monster year in ’08)
Dennis Raben OF Univ of Miami
Harold Martinez SS Florida high schooler
Tim Melville RHP high schooler in Missouri
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Yes, I heard the 2008 Pittsburgh Pirates ZIPS projections were released today. I did quickly see ZIPS is projecting some nutty stuff like last year. We’ll look into it deeper once we know who the starting pitchers around the game will be.
Pittsburgh Pirates - Bucco Blog 
Hey Jake, do you think Huntington will go after pitching in the draft like Littlefield did?
allsnprk — yes, pitching remains the key for a small market team. Nothing changes there. However, taking ‘best available’ in the #1 slot will probably change.