Update from Down Under

Reader of the blog, Dan B. from Australia has been helping me keep some tabs on the Australian league as play has begun. Dan drew my attention to the Adelaide Bite, now starting to resemble the Pirates of Australia. One Frederick Quincy Latimore is having a whale of a time playing for the Bite.

Latimore is leading the whole league in home runs, RBI and OPS. He has a total of 5 home runs in only 12 games and is red hot right now.

Recent signee Jackson Lodge is also pitching for the Bite. It is easy to see how Tony Harris, manager of the Bite, was able to sign Lodge. Lodge is not throwing all that well, but is very young and pitching against a few guys that are pretty advanced.

Mitch Fienemann, Wilson Lee and Dylan Child have yet to make any appearances for the Bite this season, so those Baby Bucs have been on the bench thus far.

Dan also pointed out that Rinku Singh has pitched a bit in the league, though for Canberra. He has pitched 4 innings, allowing only one run. Not all that bad for Rinku, who will probably miss Dinesh this season.

Pirates Have to Spend?

This offseason the Pirates have been linked to a few players that may command a great deal of money. The contracts that these players, like a Jorge De La Rosa, may want exceed what is the typical Pirate outlay of money. 

In today's PG, Dejan makes a case that perhaps the Pirates may need to spend money this offseason.

No one on any side is likely to acknowledge this, but the Pirates probably must spend more than their $48 million total of 2010. Coonelly was successful in convincing the union in the spring that the team was spending appropriately for a young roster, but that stance will not last long. If the union does not like what it sees, it could push for an investigation similar to the one that prompted the Florida Marlins to finally raise payroll.

It would be interesting to know if that is indeed the case that there is a sort of mandate that they must spend. If so, we are looking a pretty large chump of change that the club would need to spend, close to $20 million or so. That is pretty significant and could help a long way to improving the club.

The question is would the team spend it wisely or would it be like a little kid with $5 dollars to spend and just pick whatever cost him $5 at the dollar store. It is exciting to think about the Pirates being players in the free agent market, but also scary in that it is uncharted territory. Will they do the right thing or not?

Coaching Staff Finalized

The coaching staff for the Clint Hurdle era has been finalized. Looking over the names, it looks as though many of the men on staff won't have to spend too much time to introducing themselves. Many of the coaches are coming back from the team in some capacity.

Jeff Banister - Now the bench coach for Hurdle.

Ray Searage - Pitching coach again.

Nick Leyva  - Thought to be the bench coach, but now the 3rd base coach

Gregg Ritchie - Hitting coach, promoted from minor league hitting coordinator

Heberto Andrade - Retained as bullpen catcher

Euclides Rojas - New bullpen coach, former Latin American field coordinator for Pirates

Luis Silverio - Former base coach with the Royals, new 1st base, outfield and base running coach

Mark Strittmatter - Former Rockies coach, will be a pitcher hitting coach/catching coach

The staff has a very Pirate flavor with a little outside sources sprinkled in. It will be interested now to see if philosophies change at all, if Hurdle's thoughts permeate through the staff. 

Duke Dealt to the Desert

According to MLB Traderumors for a PTBNL. No information as to who the PTBNL is. Though this sort of trumps what was reported last week about the Pirates not being able to unload Duke for over a year and a half.

New Look in Altoona

In just doing a regular perusal of baseball sites. I found that the Altoona Curve have now teamed up with MILB and are using their standard website that most teams now use. In addition I found that the team has changed their colors and gotten new logos. One features the pictured engineer in a Keystone backdrop with Altoona written across the top. There are also some secondary logos, perhaps what will appear on their caps, that have a "A" in a Keystone and a smoking baseball going around a "C" shaped railroad track. The new colors are red, bronze, gray and black.

I don't know what to think of the logos and new colors just yet. I'd like to see the uniforms first, but if they utilize the C or the A in the Keystone, I should be fine with them, though it will look a little weird.

Starting a Coaching Staff

Dejan today ran a breaking story that some of Clint Hurdle's staff is starting to now take shape. That staff has a definite feel of the Neal Huntington to it, as three of the new coaches have ties to the Pirates organization. Retaining his place as pitching coach will be Ray Searage, moving from bench coach to thrid base coach will be Jeff Bannister, moving from minor league hitting coordinator to major league hitting coach will be Gregg Ritchie, and coming in from the Blue Jays organization as bench coach will be Nick Leyva.

Clearly the management team made strong arguments for keeping Searage in his current role. It makes sense on many levels as there was a change seen in many of he younger pitchers at the end of the season. Pitching coaches can easily be replaced, as with any coach, so it stands to reason to give Searage a shot to see what he can do.

Making Ritchie the hitting coach is probably all about familiarity with the young hitters. A lot is going to depend on the younger lineup, so having Ritchie, whom is familiar to them all, seems to be a good step.

Keeping Bannister is probably a sign of respect from Hurdle and something that management probably wanted him to do. We all know how well regarded Bannister is in the organization, so it was a forgone conclusion he might be in the organization somewhere, just a little eye brow raising that it is on Hurdle's staff. At any rate, Bannister provides a great deal of Pirate experience and a lengthy familiarity with all the young players that are due to come up.

In bringing in Leyva as bench coach, it seems that Hurdle was able to hand pick his right hand man. I don't see exactly where the two would have crossed paths prior, but Leyva has an extensive coaching/managing experience. At 24 he was managing in the Cardinals farm system, ending up on the major league staff in the 1980's. He managed the Phillies for 2 seasons and some change from 1989 to 1991. Managed in the White Sox and Blue Jays organizations. Coached with the Blue Jays, Brewers, then back to the Blue Jays.

He has a ton of experience and has worked in many different organizations, under different managers and philosophies. I am sure he would be a good fit as second in command with all of that experience.

That leaves a first base coach and perhaps a bullpen coach left to find. Without knowing what other roles these coaches may play, such as infield coach or outfield coach, we can only guess at what else they may add. I am going to guess that they will come from the outside though, as there is a good deal of internal people on the staff already.

Happy Trails

The inevitable has finally come. Zach Duke was designated for assignement by the club. It is in many ways the end of an era, as Duke has been a Pirate for so long. It seems so long ago though that he was the hot prospect that rocketed up through the farm system.

I remember seeing Duke pitch in Altoona that year and was pretty impressed at what I saw. Of course I was also impressed with Brad Eldred in that game, as he hit a monster home run.

Over the years the luster has worn off with Duke and he has settled in as another left handed major leaguer, nothing great. Many have argued for keeping Duke around, as he is a pretty good pitcher with a defense behind him, as evidenced by his 2009 first half.

My only arguement there is that Duke had one of the leagues best infields that half season, so by deduction, he would need to have a top defense behind him to be effective. Right now the Pirates are struggling to build a lineup, lwe alone a defense. Add in the contract Duke was scheduled to make and it was a no brainer.

Delwyn Young was pretty much a given to be released as well. The number of bodies did not bode well in his favor. He provided some great value to the club though, as he only cost us Erik Krebs and $1.

To me though the story is the release of Andy LaRoche, simply for how this speaks to the Neal Huntington era. LaRoche was, regrettably in my eyes, one of the players acquired early on to be building blocks. LaRoche was to be a guy that could step in at third and be a guy that we would not have to worry alll that much about, he just needed a change of scenery.

Instead LaRoche was a disaster at the plate and was eventually phased out by the emergence of Pedro Alvarez. The removal and perhaps eventual departure of LaRoce from Pittsburgh speaks volumes to Huntington now seemingly admitting his own mistakes and moving on. It is good to see that perhaps the bullheaded nature of keeping his guys no matter what has now passed.

More on Hurdle

In trying to find more information on Clint Hurdle, I came across an article from Chris Jaffe of the Hardball Times. Earlier this year, Chris had sent me a preview of his book on managers and here he was talking about the managerial era of Hurdle in Colorado. I highly recommend checking this out.

Some of the thoughts from the article and what I get from it are the following:

One Jaffe mentions that for three years Hurdle was horrible at selecting a lead off hitter, essentially almost batting the pitcher in the lead off spot. I took a look at those teams and well there was not all that much to pick from when looking at the lineup. Hurdle had to chose from the likes of Pirate legend Chris Stynes, Clint Barmes, Tony Womack, Ronnie Belliard, and Juan Uribe. Not all that great to choose from. I would not worry much about it here though, as he can write in Andrew McCutchen's name all the time.

Another note is whether or not he is a good developer of major leaguers. This is really interesting to read, as this is probably one of the reasons for hiring Hurdle here in Pittsburgh. Really Jaffe points out that there are perhaps some mixed results in Hurdle's past. They point to guys like Garrett Atkins, Clint Barmes, Dexter Fowler, Chris Iannetta, and others. Arguments can be made against all of those players either never having the skill set or being one year wonders, but that is a pretty large group of players.

Perhaps most important, a lot of the negatives about Hurdle in Colorado, really can be traced back to the players that composed the team. Essentially Dan O'Dowd may have had more of an influence on the success or lack thereof for Hurdle in Colorado than he could have put on the club. O'Dowd does not strike me as being a sabermetric or new age GM, unlike the influences in the Huntington front office.

The question then with Hurdle is what can he do with different players and a different overall philosophy from the front office. Can he manage the players to fulfill their potential better than in Colorado? Will a general manager that has different roster development/lineup/alignment theories work out better for him? Who knows for certain.

What I am certain of is that the success of Clint Hurdle will hinge on two things. One is Neal Huntington getting him players to work with. Two, how well Hurdle is able to get the results out of the players. It is not so much game day strategy or pitching matchups, no it will be how he handles being the manager of the Pirates and handles the clubhouse.

We Have a New Skipper

News was broken by Jon Heyman that the Pirates have signed Clint Hurdle. Ken Rosenthal says for three years and Jen Langosch says a presser is scheduled tomorrow.

I have to say I am surprised that this happened quickly. I know yesterday news was that they were pushing to sign Hurdle. If that is true then I tip my hat as they got Hurdle before the Mets could move much further.

On the surface, it is nice to have a guy that has had managerial experience, and has experienced winning baseball, as well as managed in a organization that operates in a similar fashion to the Pirates. I am happy that we got Hurdle, as I did not like the alternative.

More to come later, but right now, a sigh of relief that this is over.

Not Much News

It seems now that the managerial search for the Pirates may actually come down to decisions made in the offices of the New York Mets. Yes that apparently is what is happening as Clint Hurdle is now a finalist of sorts for the Mets job. He is going to be given a second interview, along with Bob Melvin and Terry Collins.

It is weird to sit here and think that the Mets, a team of failure but in a bigger market, can basically decide the fate of the Pirates manager search, another team of failure.

Looking at the two options that the Pirates have given themselves, Hurdle and Bannister, I have to wonder what the whole managerial search was about. For one Bannister, early on, was the internal  favorite. You knew he'd get an interview, but somehow it evolved from that perhaps token interview to much more. As for Hurdle, well it seemed as soon as San Francisco clinched the Series, Hurdle, still in his Rangers uniform, was a finalist in Pittsburgh.

Not to sound conspiratorial, but does that not seem as though there is a faction that was dead set on Hurdle and a faction dead set on Bannister? In taking off the tin foil hat though, if Hurdle gets hired by the Mets, it will  make the Pirates look pretty stupid and will speak volumes.

Consider that Bannister's managerial experience is five seasons in the minors. Also there is very little major league coaching experience. He was the Field Coordinator from 1999-2002 for the Pirates, though I am not sure what that quite entails, and has been the minor league Field Coordinator, ever since helping with the overall instruction and development in the minors. 

Sure that is a long and varied experience, but to me this hire is the opportunity to get a manager. If the team were to hire Bannister, it would have the appearance of hiring a Yes Man. That is going to be the case anytime you hire someone like Bannister, who has been around as long as he has.

That is not to say I am extremely pro-Hurdle. I would like him as a choice, but have some mixed feelings that he was a favorite before he interviewed. That reminds me a lot of Jim Tracy, when he was hired by Dave Littlefield.

Either way, complaints will be made on who is chosen, but to me it is ridiculous that we have to wait out the Mets for a guy. But after all these years, that is where we are on the food chain.

Aggressive?

There were a few things that kept bouncing around in mind this past weekend. One had to do with the managerial search and another on the free agency period. Both seem to me to conflict with each other in how they are being carried out by the management team on Federal Street.

First the search for a manager has gotten to a new level. The Pirates opened up their off season, by interviewing a bunch of candidates. Some I had liked and others were just plain bizarre. Then for a few weeks nothing, nothing at all to report on the search. It was rumored that more interviews would happen once some teams in the post season lost.

In the mean time many of the men interviewed accepted jobs elsewhere and the list of the candidates for the Pirates job shrunk. Then it was reported, prior to him even coming to town for an interview, that Clint Hurdle was one of the finalists along with Jeff Bannister. I can't even begin to figure out how someone who does not interview is a finalist.

Then the day after Hurdle interviews, he seems to waiver as he waits for the the Mets to announce who they want to interview. So the Pirates are stuck at the altar waiting. No matter what happens, this decision is going to be criticized in some corners. I can only imagine the level of criticism that will happen if Jeff Bannister is just simply given the job, given his lack of managerial experience.

Then Jon Heyman reports today via Twitter that the Pirates have been aggressive in the early going of the free agency period. I found the characterization of aggressive kind of funny, given how passively the managerial search has been. Then I thought well aggressive is good for the Pirates when it comes to free agency isn't it?

Well yes and no. It is good if they are going after players that make sense or are players in some sort of demand. It is not good if they are aggressive in going after guys that make no sense. I am sure that Dave Littlefield was aggressive in going after Jeromy Burnitz and Chris Stynes as well.

I guess it is just this time of the year that is making me antsy. It seems like the managerial search has dragged on long enough already and to even think of free agency right now seems so soon. I just want a manager soon and then we can look at free agents. I can only take one at a time to disect and analyze and right now the lack thereof is killing me.

Pirates Down Under

Couple of weeks ago a reader of the blog, Dan B., emailed me to let me know of the news of the new professional baseball league in Australia. A league had been tried over a decade ago with it functioning sort of like the Hawaiian Winter League did a few years ago. If I remember correctly I had read that players like Vernon Wells had played down there in the winter.

After sometime with out a professional league, and Aussie baseball fans having the Claxton Shield to wait for, got a bunch of great news when MLB and the ABF announced that they were brining back the ABL.

This year the league is back and there is a very distinctive Pirate feel to it. For starters, Tony Harris, the Pirates scout in that area of the world, is a manager of one of the teams. Harris is one of the more well respected baseball men in the country and he will lead the Adelaide Bite.

The Pirate connections don't just end right there. Harris has a few Buccos on his Bite roster. Mitch Fienemann, a State College Spike this past season, will be on the pitching staff of the bite and there is a chance that he may throw to another Bucco in backstop Dylan Child. Also on the team, a player with no Aussie connection, is Quincy Latimore.

As I perused the website, I was able to find one more Pirate in the league, the one and only Rinku Singh on the Canberra Cavalry. I could find no mention of Dinesh anywhere in the league, so Rinku might be by himself.

The league site is pretty cool to check out and the league will have 40 games, starting early this month and continuing on through the winter. It will be interesting to see how the few Pirates down there perform and if in coming years we might see more players go down there. The league seems to be a mishmash of players, mainly Austrailian, but many with plenty of professional experience in the States, such as Paul Mildren or Ryan Rowland-Smith.

I'll be sure to try to provide statistical updates, as it will be pretty interesting to see how the new league progresses. Especially if there is more expansion after this current season. rumors have teams in New Zealand as well as in Taiwan and Japan.