The Top 10

Today Baseball America unveiled the top ten prospects in the Pirates minor league system. In their preview they extolled the virtues of Neal Huntington adding all of the talent that he has added the past two seasons. Hopefully some of the players that he has acquired will make all the pain and suffering well worth it.

Any way here is the top ten from BA:

1.	Pedro Alvarez, 3b
2.	Jose Tabata, of
3.	Tony Sanchez, c
4.	Brad Lincoln, rhp
5.	Chase D'Arnaud, ss/2b
6.	Starling Marte, of
7.	Tim Alderson, rhp
8.	Zack Von Rosenberg, rhp
9.	Rudy Owens, lhp
10.	Gorkys Hernandez, of

That is a list that is heavily newer players. One can only imagine what ti looks like if you were to take a look at the whole top 30. It is hard to dispute with the selection of the players, I'd say most would be in anyone's top ten.

Interesting things to note are the rise of Chase D'Arnaud on the list. He has had a great season and is continuing to make his name as a prospect. Perhaps he will soon not be known as Travis' brother. Also getting a lot of helium were Starling Marte, though deservedly so, as the young Dominican adjusted nicely to full season ball in the States.

The final note is the lofty ranking of Zach Von Rosenberg, who has only thrown 1 inning of professional baseball. His ranking goes to show, exactly how highly thought of he is just basically coming out of high school. Von Rosenberg is definitely going to be one of the most watched prospects in the Pirates system in a long time.

Good to Hear From You

These past few years I have been one of many fans wondering about how much money the Pirates were making and what they could be spending. Recently though I have been happy to focus on not making stupid baseball mistakes, you know resembling a competent organization. That was something that has been missing for many, many years here.

Today I read two very interesting articles that has me thinking a great deal about the amount of money that the Pirates may indeed be making. Both are written by two of the more respected baseball writers out there on a national level in Jayson Stark and Ken Rosenthal. In both they talk about the apparent money woes that the teams are crying about and the collusion watch that the union is on.

In the middle of it all is our old friend, Scott Boras. Granted there are times when I wish Scott Boras did something else with his life, but this is one time that I appreciate him. Boras is making a call to anyone who will listen that something is fishy out there with the books for baseball, and Scott Boras is not one to make such pronouncements without a leg to stand on. You may argue if it is the right leg to be standing on, but he does have something backing him up.

Boras points from many sources of his, and he has a research firm of his own, that many teams are making almost $80 million before even opening the gate, and he accuses the Pirates of being one. Of course Frank Coonelly immediately denied the report, but if you read over those articles it makes sense. Revenue sharing, plus extra funds for being in a smaller market, plus local media contracts, well it all adds up rather quickly.

This not only involves the Pirates, but also all of baseball, as the CBA is coming up after next season and the commish has plenty of things he wants done and the union seems to want to stop many of them. It may lead to some sort of labor strife, but it might be a good thing if we can move ever more closer to fixing the game.

Going Back to Japan

It seems that there has been some news this week that Neal Huntington is going to continue to mine Japan for talent. We all remember Dave Littlefield's flirtation with Japan in signing Masumi Kuwata. Kuwata by the time he came here was well past his prime, but was a legend in Japan. Huntington is taking that up a notch, first by the trade for Akinori Iwamura and now with the flirtation with Japanese free agent Ryota Igarashi.

Igarashi is a right handed reliever that has pitched for the Yakult Swallows for the past decade. At age 30 he is not too old and is a very useful pitcher. His numbers in Japan are pretty impressive and he has the renown of being of one of the hardest throwers in the entire history of the NPB. Igarashi has posted some pretty good strikeout numbers, though he did miss 2007 due to Tommy John.

Looking at Igarashi's numbers, he seems to fit the mold of guys that Huntington really likes to have, power throwers. Add that to what the fact that few if any MLB players have seen him, and he looks like an attractive option to look to sign.

Other things that are going for Igarashi are that the Giants are the only other team apparently interested in him, he was once teammates with Akinori Iwamura, and he might come pretty cheap. If my conversions are correct he did not make over a million dollars last year in Japan, so he will be well within the Pirates price range to add him.

Adding Igarashi would be a good move. I mean we have already trotted out a bunch of guys that don't really belong in the big leagues out of our bullpen, so why not give him a shot. If anything he will raise the profile of the Pirates in that area of the world, especially teaming him with Iwamura, and he will be a tangible sign of the Pirates doing things differently.

40 Man Shuffling

Today the Bucs removed Virgil Vasquez, Eric Hacker, and Steve Lerud off the 40 man. All three were on the roster for about a year or so.

The removing of Lerud makes the most sense of them all. He was added last year as a worst case scenario backup at catcher. A team needs to have one and since Lerud needed to be added and was the highest level catching 'prospect' he was the guy. His removal signals to me that, while he probably won't get added this offseason, Tony Sanchez is the "if all of our major league guys go down he'll be our in house option". I think that speaks a lot of how highly Sanchez is regarded.

Hacker only appeared in three games so we really did not get to see what he can do on the big league level. He came to the Bucs from the Yankees on a waiver wire claim, so the Bucs might be hoping they can slide him through and get him back to the minors.

The puzzling one is Virgil Vasquez. Not that he was really great, but he was one of the few options we had in the upper minors. But after some thought, his spot may get taken by one Brad Lincoln, now sitting at AAA and almost assuredly a guy that will at some point, pitch in Pittsburgh this next season. It is either that or they are all of sudden comfortable with Daniel McCutchen being the upper level minor league guy to call upon in troubled times.

The Dealer Strikes Again

It seems as though Neal Huntington just can't sit too long without making some move to shake up the roster. Just when you thought that it might be quiet for a while, Neal goes and pulls off a trade during the World Series. In this one, he made a move with Tampa Bay to acquire Akinori Iwamura for reliever Jesse Chavez.

First, it is sad to see Chavez go. We went through some growing pains with him and it seemed as though he may have turned the corner this season. As the endless summer dragged on, Chavez was at times one of the more reliable guys we could turn to in the pen. In the end, Huntington saw Chavez for what he was, a reliever, and they are a dime a dozen.

Coming over we get Akinori Iwamura, a second baseman that the Pirates probably were going to target if the Rays were to non-tender him by declining his option. Iwamura is far from a star or someone that will put us over the top, but he is a solid above average second baseman. If he is over his knee injury, he is surely an upgrade over the out of position Delwyn Young.

What I like about this trade is that we get an everyday position player that is above average, for a reliever that is much easier to try to replace. There is some stability there now in the middle infield by having Iwamura come over from the Rays.

What is puzzling, and Dejan seemed to hint at it in his blog, is that the Bucs are really big on pushing the amount of years they control a player. In Iwamura, it is only one year and Chavez was multiple. Why did they give up those controlled years? Why also add an older player when you are trying to get younger?

The answers to those questions are simple. Yes, they are looking to get younger and better, but at the same time that won't happen overnight, so we will need to not look like a train wreck until then. The best example of that philosophy right now is our middle infield.

Chavez was coming off a great year, but was that his ceiling. Could he ever become a closer? Could he be a lights out setup guy? Or is he what he is? Huntington felt that his ceiling might have been reached or is close, so move him now. In return, we get stability in a position that we sorely needed and a player that is not all that bad, without betting the farm. I'd say it is a deal that makes sense all around.