Change time coming

Bob Smizik is making threats again. This time the dwindling fan base via Smizik demands some roster moves.

All of Smizik's moves make sense to me. We supported Sausage Man and Tike Redman at the start of the season and hey, guess what, we were wrong. Simon has not gotten in shape and Redman, yes, hard as it is to admit, has been the second coming of Adrian Brown (without the shoulder injury).

But why bring up Rich Thompson when we know he can't hit? We can't use a pinch-running defensive specialist; if we could, Tike could have that job. I'd rather see Mateo, Bay, Mackowiak, or Bobby Hill take over center while Tike finds his stroke at Nashville. Yes, the outfield defense might be shaky, but give them time out there and see if they don't improve with practice, study, and experience.

And yes, it's time to make a change or two in the rotation. I'm not sure Dave Williams is the guy up next. I'd still bring up Burnett first since he broke camp with the "sixth starter" tag. I'm not concerned about his AAA numbers - I don't think they mean as much, in Burnett's case, as a lot of people think. Either way, be it Burnett, Big Ben, or Williams, it's a win-win-win situation for the Pirates and the fans.

Now, Vogelsong. The Pirates have been raising up these young starters to give us about 25 starts a season. Vogelsong's next start will be his thirteenth. That's half a season for a young starter, and enough PT that no one can say the Bucs muddled his development by being overhasty with the demotions and promotions. If I ran the circus, I'd do everything I could to move a player no more than one level per season and, when they made the Show, I'd do everything I could to find some place for them on the team before I demoted him.

Vogelsong has great stuff but starting has not been his gig. Rather than return him to the Nashville rotation, I'd put him in the bullpen and see what he can do as a reliever. We sure could use a hard-throwing right-hander in the bullpen. Torres's arm will fall off if we keep using him as the two-inning setup guy. He's on pace to make 88 appearances and throw 96 innings. Even Octavio Dotel topped out at 83 appearances when he was the go-to guy in 2001. Torres only pitched 36 innings last year, so who knows how much he can throw before he gets a case of semi-permanent fatigue.

Vogelsong has the stuff. His big-league K/9 rate has not been at the super Dotel level, but it's around 8 and might go higher if he was only used one inning at a time. Regardless, the trick now is finding some role that he excels in. We need more players that are excelling if we are going to be excellent. Duh. If he turns into Brad Lidge, everyone will be happy. Heck, if he turns into T.J. Tucker, we can use that too. If he falters in short relief, move him to mop-up. If he does that well, make him a swing man. If he can't do that, what can he do? Today or next year? Send him to Nashville and work out what role he'll have down there if/when this demotion has to happen.

The Bucs do not need to be spending $2M per year on relievers when they have $311K struggling starters a-plenty. Eric Gagne, LaTroy Hawkins, Octavio Dotel, lots of dominant relievers were great-stuff starters who couldn't get it together in that role. It's obvious that Vogelsong can throw, but he hasn't pitched well as a starter. Maybe he'll click in relief. We won't know until we try him there.