Strictly business: KDKA out, Clear Channel in, Smizik reports. "...the Pirates announced that all five of their broadcasters, whose contracts expire at the end of this season, will be back next year." I wonder what a ballgame announced entirely by Bob Walk would sound like. Other than Walkie, I've found the KDKA broadcasts insufferable this year.
According to the New York Times, Rocky Bleier Jr. plays third base for the Pirates.
Sanchez was 13 months old, with a pin in his right foot and a cast covering most of his right leg. But when the wagon came to a halt, he stood up, stepped over the side and walked out on his own.“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” said Michelle Sanchez, Freddy’s mother. “From that moment, he has never stopped being a miracle.”
Lee Jenkins also reports that
Tracy is treating the batting title as if it were a playoff spot. He reviews Sanchez’s statistics — better against lefties than righties; better in the day than at night — to make sure he is using him in the most advantageous situations.
So if Freddy does not win the title, we can blame Tracy. This is a good development in the whole batting title race thing. The stakes are raised. I am finally prepared to jump into the fray and pay attention.
Seriously, I would not monkey with small-sample splits. The day/night stuff is probably noise and the batter vs. pitcher data, unless it fits the general overall scheme, is probably noise too. I'd start Freddy five times a week against the type of pitcher he looks more comfortable against. He's a right-handed lefty masher, so it makes sense to keep him away from the kind of right-hander that's tough on him.
This is the same thing I'd be doing with everyone on the roster, every week of the season.
If Freddy's going to win the battle title, he's not going to win it because the manager games an extra percentage point or two studying Strat-o-matic cards.
And more to the point, I question Tracy's decision to not remain neutral. He should do what he's been doing all along. By conspicuously managing Freddy with the batting average title as high priority, we can now all blame him if Freddy slumps the rest of the month.
Doug Davis and Zach Duke tonight at seven. The Brewers are thirteen games under .500 and nearly ten back in the wild-card race. Their season is about as over as our season.
The Pgh Biz Times passes on this rumor. KDKA or Clear Channel, the announcement is set for tomorrow.
Ed Bouchette suggests the backfield depth, with Staley looking useless, is not what it should be in his daily answer for 9/10.
I still have my card for the Verron Haynes fan club. Not sure he would stay healthy if forced into a starting role, but I would not be afraid to see what happens should he ever be thrust into the spotlight.
Watching the Colts-Giants last night, I thought that Tiki Barber, who is listed as 5' 10" 205 pounds, reminds me of this Willie Parker guy. They are about the same size and shape, and they look more like each other than like a lot of other NFL backs. In the last nine seasons, Barber has missed two games.
So we already got Parker, who reminds me of one of the more durable and productive players today, and there should be at least a few more years on his tires. It's too early to suggest one might some day be as good as the other, but it's not too early to say there's no reason to think that Parker is sure to be injured soon, is sure to need time off, or is sure to wear down over the season.
And teams with outstanding run-blocking personnel can also make stars out of scrubby guys.
So no worries about the backfield depth. I see no reason to fret about Parker's health or workload, and I see no reason to worry that any semi-competent backup would fail running behind our line and tight ends and fullbacks and wideouts.
Paul Meyer reporting.
"He's been a prototypical leadoff hitter for this club," Tracy said. "[Duffy has] played with energy, conviction, commitment and a thought process."
FWIW, this post was composed without a thought process.
Paul Meyer quotes Tracy:
Before the game, Tracy conceded he was eager to see Youman pitch.I should just let it go, but I'm still trying to decipher this. The non-very-special players have not had to make their first of something? After the first at-bat, start, etc. come the subsequent ones? Maybe he's just saying that everyone has to start somewhere. Unless you're an established idiot, in which case you can just continue to spew meaningless horseshit."You're always anxious to see a young guy make his first appearance and wet his feet at the major-league level," Tracy said. "There have been a lot of very special players come along in this game who had to make their first of something -- whether it was their first at-bat, their first start, their first relief appearance -- and it goes on from there."
Shane Youman makes his major league debut vs. Bronson Arroyo starting now.
Ian Snell is mad as hell. This time, Colborn has been getting on his nerves:
After his start Friday night, Snell took exception to pitching coach Jim Colborn's visit to the mound in the sixth inning... "I know it's his job to come out and try to calm me down," Snell said Friday night. "But it gets on my nerves. It's really bothering me."I get the feeling that it gets on Ian's nerves when a bartender serves him a drink and when the mailman brings him his mail. Not that I'm convinced Colborn has been particularly good at it, but Jim's just doing his job. If Ian takes issue with how Jim does it, he should bring it up with him in private, not publicly mouth off nonsense to the media.
Maholm vs. Harang underway. Bucs are up 2-1 in the top of the fourth. Bay hit his 32nd jack.
Steelers sign Najeh. RB Patrick Cobbs released one week after being acquired to make room. I've been hoping for a Najeh signing all week. Najeh is a large (6'1", 247), yard-gaining machine (averaged 4.9 yds/carry in 217 carries) who just might defecate in your closet. (link via Mondesi's house). All hail Najeh!
Snell and Lohse at seven. The Reds are two games under .500 and five games back in the wild-card race.
This and a Michelob Ultra in Kovacevic's Q & A.
... as for the hipness of Piracy (see closing comment), the Pirates need to win for that to change. There is no substitute for winning. Youth and promise and fireworks are nothing in comparison.
Charlie Batch played real well last night for a backup. Teams can go to the second-string quarterback for a game or two and suffer little drop-off, so it was not too surprising to see the Steelers drive on the Miami defense with Batch as the QB.
He looked better than the average back-up, however. He reminded me of Mike Tomczak when he would play only a game here or there.
I could not evaluate Batch's ability to start many games in a row without seeing him play many games in a row. For now, however, he's a huge asset for the team. Any time Ben needs a week off, Batch looks more than capable of leading the team.
The Steelers impressed me last night. One impressive thing is they are not old. Nate Washington made a play, Heath Miller made a play, Ike Taylor was described as one of the best cornerbacks in the league.
Who's the next important player to retire? Gardocki? Punters are not so important. Hartings? He'd be my first guess just because of the mileage on his tires.
Hines Ward is in his tenth ninth year. Not many players put in more than ten seasons, but Ward does not look ready to retire any time soon. Alan Faneca is another service-time leader, and he also looks good.
John Madden did good work last night, I thought.
Al Michaels, on the other hand, was just disgraceful. More and more I cannot stand the man. He better understands make-up for television lighting than he does NFL rules and strategy, and there are long stretches of time when he literally has nothing of value to offer.
He has a good voice and I like to hear it when he's recapping the facts, as play-by-play men are tasked to do. But the more he strays from straight-up summary of the action on the field, the more he embarrasses himself. He opens his mouth to say all kinds of immature, pointless, and stupidly inflammatory comments about the role of the officiating in the NFL game. The play-by-play guy, especially one working for a national audience, should be more detached and wise; Michaels has turned into an evil hybrid of Robin Leach and any loudmouth partisan talk-show radio host.
There was about 120 plays in the game and 7 penalties, and he talks and talks and talks about the penalties. The Dolphins bungle a probably pointless request for review, and he immediately flames up into indignation like this decides the outcome of the game and it's all the fault of the zebras. This approach to the game is more simple-minded than blaming a loss on the placekicker who shanks a hail-mary 50-yard field goal with time expiring. He peddles cheap outrage, and it's a terrible education he's providing for young fans.
It's one thing to comment on calls as they are made. But once the players and coaches move onto the next play, Michaels should restrain himself from babbling on like a whiny tit with such pompous certainty that he best understands how exactly the outcome of the game was or will be decided by this or that made or blown call. He pretends to know things that he can't know -- how, for example, the referees would rule on this or that replay, or how, for example, the referees would flag or not flag that play in some hypothetical other reality.
Silence is golden, Al, when you have no intelligent comment to offer. Working the refs is bush league, and people need to tell him this.
... Clay brings up another valid criticism of Michaels' work. Every game he makes some kind of not-sly allusion to the Vegas point spread on the game, and he always does this with the greatest naivete and gullibility, like the point spread is God's measure of the relative value of teams. I'll spare confused novices my lecture about what the point spread is and what the point spread is not, since, while Michaels' great respect for the spread is supremely annoying, the stupidity of it detracts from the professional/ethical questions it raises: here one of the NFL's #1 representatives routinely encourages gambling on the game. He routinely "handicaps" the match-up with the bait of bookies. Where there is smoke, there is often fire: people who know so much about the movement of the point spread sure sound like people who itch to place wagers. Does the NFL want one of the top primetime play-by-play jobs occupied by someone who gambles, appears to gamble, or (at least) encourages gambling on the outcome of the game he calls?
Super Bowl teams usually have their off-season doubters and come into the year "with question marks." And they usually trounce their opponents in the first game. At some point in the first half of the season, a five-game malaise would not be uncommon, in which the team does not do as well as everyone expects. But rarely do we see it, if memory serves, in the first game.
Anyone picking the Dolphins tonight as a trendy upset special is a Sucker, I say. I foretell an overwhelming performance from the Steelers defense and something like a 14-3 Steeler win. It may not be pretty, but the occasional ugliness of Steeler football is a big part of what makes it such a beautiful thing.
Here we go . . . here we go.
Another cellar-dweller cage match. Chacon and Marshall at two.
Get in the pool while the water's still warm.
Rowdy has invited you to join a FREE PigPool at the FREE Pigskin.com (http://www.pigskin.com). If you are a member of Pigskin.com, click the following link to join the pool: http://www.pigskin.com/Pool/PoolSignUp.asp?PID=78 and enter poolname: "Honest Wagner Pick 'em Pool" and password: "51yardparker". If you are not yet a member click here to sign up: http://www.pigskin.com/Logon/default.asp, then go to the pool sign up page (http://www.pigskin.com/Pool/PoolSignUp.asp)
It's all free at Pigskin.com. Bones and I have used the site for years, and we've never had a problem that some consideration of the fee (FREE) did not make better. FWIW, I've been under the impression that it's a one-man show over there. Whatever fella runs the site makes a data-entry mistake once or twice a season, but he always corrects it within a day or two. All hail Pigskin.com!
If you were in the pool last year, when you sign in you will see you are already in the pool this year. No need to join again, unless of course you want to create a new account and play under a different nom de plume. There are 57 players in the pool right now. Don't worry, we have plenty of chlorine.
Winner gets the satisfaction of some kind of bragging rights. And a FREE year's subscription to Honest Wagner! Woo hoo!
Bones and I are historically good to not bad at this game, but we were both pretty terrible last year. IIRC (it's all a drunken haze right now), Bones was less terrible than me. I dunno what happened.
Fifth place is nothing to celebrate. DK reports:
Even Salomon Torres, who seemed to irk some of the Cubs with a demonstrative celebration to his save the previous night, played it cool when he closed this one."I guess they don't like to see Sully happy," he said. "That's OK. I can be quiet, too."
Victor Santos vs. Juan Mateo starting soon. The Bucs are now a half game back of the craptastic Cubs. A win tonight would propel the Bucs out of the basement and over .400, and also secure their first winning record against the Cubs in 6 years. The players are clawing at the cellar door: "We want to get out of the cellar," Maholm said.
The much anticipated Steelers preview at Deadspin is finally out. If you haven't been reading these, they're not exactly previews. Rather, short pieces by fans on their teams. My favorites so far have been the previews on the Bills (a gut-wrenching tale of a boy, his Bills sign, and his drunk dad) and the Eagles (funny conversation between an Eagles fan and his parents on midgets and gorillas). The Seahawks preview gets an honorable mention for being heartfelt and not whining once about the refs.
Don of Mondesi's House has the honor of representing the Steelers, and he delivers with his hilarious Top 50 List. My personal Top 50 List would've made room somewhere in the Top 10 for The Catch. My childhood obsession with John Stallworth has a history: my two older siblings had claimed Bradshaw and Swann, both of whom I was forbidden to cheer for. Anyway, all hail Don!
PG reports that the Steelers signed 2003 draftee Brian St. Pierre, who will join the practice squad and compete with rookie Omar Jacobs for backup QB duties now that Ben is out. Keep working out, Tommy Gun, anything could happen.
From this ESPN recap:
The resilient Florida Marlins became the first club in major-league history to climb above .500 after being 20 games under.
Whoa. This while the Pirates are talking about climbing above the Cubs.
As usual, Dejan Kovacevic has a well-written recap of yesterday's game, in which certain predictable tendencies again manifested themselves & sent the team to defeat.
Snell could think a little more seriously about the long ball.
Pujols is now 4 for 6 against Snell, all of those hits being home runs, and that might not be a coincidence. Partly because he owns a 96-mph fastball and 144 strikeouts, Snell's approach is to do anything but tiptoe around the plate. No matter the opponent."If you lose your aggressiveness, you might as well call it quits," he said. "I'll never lose that."
Snell has been the Pirates' best starter, without a doubt, but the home run has represented his one nagging trend: He has given up 15 in his past dozen starts, and his season total of 25 is fifth-most among all National League pitchers.
Cause for concern?
"Not at all," Snell said. "I don't care who you are, you're going to give up the long ball unless you're Chris Carpenter."
Even if he can shave off ten percent of that home run rate - have 2 or 3 fewer allowed at this point in the season - it would be a big help for the team.
His admiration for Pujols strikes me as comic. Pujols went deep three times off him.
if there was any sign of scarring with Snell, it was extraordinarily well hidden. Truth be told, he sounded more like a wide-eyed kid in search of an autograph."I mean, that's unreal, man," Snell would say afterward, with a smile and a playful roll of the eyes. "It's like freaking Superman playing baseball. After the third one, I was going to go high-five him myself."
Buried at the end is this:
St. Louis rookie pitcher Anthony Reyes, freshly recalled from Class AAA Memphis, worked 6 1/3 scoreless innings and struck out nine.
When are they going to stop making this kind of rookie pitcher look like an All-Star? It's tiresome.
So Ben won't play in the opener because of this appendix thing.
No big deal. The Steelers will run the ball anyway. Run right, run left, run right, punt. It's not rocket science.
Get well, Ben.
Ian Snell and Anthony Reyes just after two. Reyes has struggled to throw strikes in last few outings. So ... I think we know what the Pirates will do today.
Sundays are starting to get that Steelers feeling for me now that it's 56 degrees outside.
Weird schedule for the season this year, however: the Steelers don't play on a Sunday until September 24. Nuts. Then they are on bye October 1st, and they start a stretch of nine consecutive Sunday games (with four home games but only two west-coast games) on October 8th. The first of the series (10/8) is a Sunday night game. The rest begin at one or four. Then the Thursday night game against the Clowns and three more Sunday one o'clock starts.
The season is going to start pretty strangely, with games on Thursday and Monday, but will settle into the kind of every Sunday regularity I like best by October.
Dejan Kovacevic's notebook has the bad news that's new in JVB's comeback.
It also notes that the payroll will be "flat" for next year.
Kevin McClatchy says things are pretty swell all around the diamond. No crisis here with this team, he says. David Littlefield gets a big thumbs-up too. Dejan Kovacevic reporting there for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Mark sends us the link to this interesting item on Craigslist.
...post was deleted by the author. on the seattle craigslist, dude was selling "seattle seahawks super bowl champions" t-shirts that he claimed to have smuggled out of detroit the day of the super bowl. wanted $50 per shirt, and wrote some funny stuff about "we all know the seahawks won anyway" too.
So the Oswalt contract looks to drive up the price of top-notch starting pitching. Hard to see how this would help the Pirates' quest for a right-handed ace this offseason--unless of course the market for young relief pitching goes through the roof. Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus figures this sets the price for top-quality starting at $15M per year -- on multiyear deals. A team would have to pay more for shorter deals.
... Gabe Lacques has more.
Duke and what's-his-name tonight at 8. Duke's 5.01 ERA has been a big surprise for me. ERAs are up across the board this year, or so I think, and I expected some regression. But an ERA over 5? It doesn't look right next to his name.
So did the Pirates call up a bunch of dudes today, or does DL prefer to leave the 40-man roster at 37 so, you know, he can sign free agents?
So I head over to OnlyBucs this afternoon and find this interview with Steve Novotney. Good reading. He always had a different perspective on things, and I think his take was underrated because of his job on the team paper.
They hang out together, Paul Meyer reports. I wonder what they talk about. I picture them laughing hysterically, throwing huge piles of cash at each other, and talking about what a freaking idiot DL is.
Dejan answers questions and admits he'll be "surprised and impressed" if the Bucs avoid losing 100.
Pat at WHYGAVS breaks down the second half stats and concludes that the Bucs haven't really been playing that much better, but have been getting lucky. While at WHYGAVS, look in the upper right, and vote for whether you'd rather see the Bucs lose a bunch more and get a top two draft pick or win enough to pass the Cubs and avoid the cellar. Tough call. At first I leaned towards winning (to beget more winning) with the assumption that DL would tank a top pick, but later decided that I'd love to see what DL's replacement will do with the second pick and voted for losing.
Like Rowdy, I intentionally ignore the largely meaningless NFL preseason. This year, however, with the final preseason game being tonight and Game 1 vs. Miami being only a merciful 7 days (!) away, I am suddenly attentive. Dan Rooney, take me away! Gary Dulac lists the questions for tonight's game: FS: Ryan or Tyrone? 2nd-string HB: Duce?, 3rd-string QB: Omar or Shane? I'll guess Tyrone, Yes, Omar. News affecting the 2006 season and years to come: Willie Parker signed a four-year, $13.6 million contract. Chukki is not only OK, but he's ready to play. Same link downplays Deshea's broken thumb.
Underway. Santos provided three runs to the Cubs in the top of the first. Chris Duffy leads off with an infield single and takes another base on a throwing error. Jose Bautista drives him home with a single off Juan Mateo and it's 3-1 Cubs.
Or so hints Perrotto. DK has recently implied otherwise. Perrotto doesn't name his source for this rumor, but let's just pretend this will happen. (Both links via Billy, who in case you've missed it, is back with excellent posts on forbearance and elitism).
Zambrano and Maholm starting now. The Bucs try to avoid clinching consecutive losing season #14 on Pup Night: "For 20 dollars, you and your dog can watch the Pirates battle the Cubs!" For 100 dollars, what can my dog and I watch?
The Pirates' last 12-game winner was Oliver Perez in 2004. FWIW, the most recent Pirate seasons with 13 wins or more belong to Jason Schmidt (13 wins, 1999) and Todd Ritchie (15 wins, 1999). The 1999 Gene Lamont team finished with a record of 78-83; fifteen of seventy-eight in 19%. Twelve of fifty-one is 24%. What I'm trying to say is, Snell's 12 wins in 2006 are more impressive than Ritchie's 15 in 1999. Even if it's just luck, it's still impressive.
Congratulations, Ian Snell.
Angel Guzman and Honest Wagner favorite Ian Snell at seven. Don't pitch like a little girl, Ian.
... uh-oh, rain.
Dejan Kovacevic reports for the Post-Gazette that the Pirates failed to set a four-game attendance record (Shawn Chacon + rain = 19K fans). No worries -- "Kevin and Bob," Littlefield says, will make sure the Pirates have "plenty of money" for the 2007 payroll.
All hail Kevin and Bob!
The season is truly winding down in Pittsburgh. Young Jason Hirsch and Shawn Chacon at 1:35pm. The sight of a rookie starter would have me optimistic, if the Pirates did not have a tendency to make rookies look like future Hall of Famers. We could get into exactly why recent Pirate clubs have been vulnerable to rookie pitchers. Or not.
Dejan Kovacevic records McCutchen's performance for Altoona. Are you watching, Leeeny? At 19 years, 10 months, McCutchen is the youngest Curve yet.
DK also notes the Pirates need 22,523 or larger today to set a PNC attendance record for a four-game series. Not bad for a 50-80 team. All the marketing people deserve ginormous raises.
Jon Heyman for SI.com writes that the Pirates went "bust" in 2006.
There are reasons general partner Kevin McClatchy turned into a hermit at the All-Star festivities. For one, it was no time to be festive. For another, he didn't want to have to explain why his seemingly improved team had virtually the same record as the Royals.This has to be hard on a newspaper owner like McClatchy, who's used to turning out garbage while paying his workers peanuts and still making big profits. Unfortunately for him, the standards are a tad higher in baseball. Word is, a frustrated McClatchy may recede even further into the background and allow others, such as chairman Bob Nutting, to take a more active role.
That's right, someone writing for Sports Illustrated calls the content of newspapers garbage. I don't usually think of magazines as being all that better than newspapers, but what do I know?
And he may have his point. At least I'd like to think the standards are higher in baseball. Not sure right now. Maybe.
The record since the All-Star Break does not impress me, and it does not give me a whole lot of hope for 2007. Any collection of middling professionals should manage a .500 record; such a win rate must always be the most likely outcome of many games.
When the Pirates went 30-30 to start the 2004 season, then I was excited. Not because the team was at .500, but because they had just won something like 20 of 30 to get to that mark. They were playing very well and winning at a .600+ clip for several weeks at a time.
Then they went to New York and Boston and played like the Washington Generals.
We all know that team was no good, and this current team has done nothing to show us they are any better. There may be nothing a team can do to redeem a 30-60 start short of 48-24 finish.
Expecting a ballclub to play .500 ball ranks right up there with expecting your teenage children not to get arrested. It's not much of an expectation. And it's one the Pirates have consistently missed year after year.
It's possible to enjoy winning a series from the slumping Braves, and to enjoy beating the slumping Astros, and it's fun to follow the pursuit of individual milestones like a batting-average championship. There's enough to like about the team; there's no shame in following them or pulling for them. But any talk of there being clear signs the Pirates are turning the corner--that's premature. They remain Losers with a capital "L" until the standings suggest otherwise.
Questions were asked, questions were answered.
I disagree with Dejan on the subject of Adam Dunn. He would earn that money, so the money would be well spent. There are a small group of predictably, consistently good hitters who would also justify a big salary.
No one should take our current players for granted. There's no guarantee that Jason Bay or Freddy Sanchez, for example, will continue to be healthy and continue to play at a high level. The Pirates need much, much more offense before they will be more than a mediocre team. The team can't wait for Latin American teenagers if they want to be good in this decade. Payroll is not a poor way to invest money provided, of course, that the Pirates choose the right players to sign.
Is Ian Snell more jacktastic or walkeriffic? His HR/9 rate is 1.25, and his BB/9 rate is 3.45. Which one of those numbers is more of a concern?
Regardless, he could be our opening-day starter for 2007. He's been our best pitcher this year.
How has John Dewan's Fielding Bible held up this summer? Mike Berardino's report for The Sporting News suggests the players are aware of his research. Does it command the respect of most teams these days? Are there plans to make it an annual? The 2005 stats are of little interest at this point.
I wonder if this book has had an influence on Littlefield and/or Tracy. If not, where do they get their crazy ideas about the significance of defensive abilities (relative to offensive skills)?
Think the Pirates will claim Victor Diaz off waivers from the Mets? They DFA'd him to make room for Shawn Green.
He's right-handed so I do not expect Littlefield to want him.
... and you know what, he's having an awful year at 24. I'd want to know why before I'd claim him.
At the end of Dejan Kovacevic's series-ending recap, he writes that the series win in Atlanta may end their "realistic hope" for a fifteenth consecutive playoff appearance. Make it so!
At 59-67, they had no business having hopes in the first place.
Dejan Kovacevic's notebook notes that the coming series with the Astros could result in record ticket sales for a four-game series.
Seaks discovered this webpage covering a recent event in West Virginia. It has a picture of Ogden Nutting standing in line to hear President Bush discuss alternative uses for coal.
Emerging ace (?) Ian Snell and Tim Hudson at seven-thirty. Don't pitch like a little girl, Ian.
Cashman tells Bloomberg radio that the Yankees are not making money. And "The New York Daily News reported in December that the team lost between $50 million and $85 million last season." Cashman also talks about the team needing a new stadium to insure their long-term viability. What's not clear to me is how much such talk will get the team from taxpayers.
John Perrotto writes a good one. Go read it.
I wonder, though, if the acquisition of Pudge played an important part in the Ordonez signing. More likely, the overpaying of Ordonez played the only significant role.
This is one of the hidden costs of losing: the more you lose, the more you have to pay to get the talent you need to win again.
Fortunately, the Pirates should have a ton of payroll freed up for the next few years. Get one top-level player this offseason, and add another one or two before 2008. That's what the Pirates would need to do to follow the Detroit plan.
Dejan Kovacevic summarizes the current outlook for the 2007 season. The Pirates will try to acquire a Ryan Howard, Justin Morneau, Adam LaRoche, Nick Johnson-type player.
Good luck with that, Dave.
In other news, it will be fun to see J.R. House in town this weekend with the Astros. I have been following his minor-league performance this season and wondered when Houston would promote him. (Before you grasp at a connection, let me add that House is a right-handed hitter.)
Duke and Smoltz tonight. Smoltz, wow. His career has more or less spanned the entire losing-season streak of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Perhaps when he retires, the Pirates can be mediocre again.
Ed Eagle reports the lefty's important elbow has been bothering him. Has he been playing too much Quake with Carlos Zambrano?
Stay well, Gorzelanny.
I'm not sure what Tracy was trying to say here, but it's pretty clear he misspoke somehow after the game.
The 46-75 Pirates go down south to Cincinnati. It's Ian Snell and Harvey Michalak at seven.
...I'd like to see Snell get through this one with less than a walk an inning and no home runs. What're the odds?
A week or so ago, I abolished the DH, expanded the league, and did some radical realignment with hypothetical and unlimited commissioner powers. The new divisions were organized mainly by geographical and cultural proximity. Here are today's standings.
AMERICANIf the playoffs began tomorrow, it would be Texas vs. Detroit, Oakland vs. New York Mets, Cleveland vs. Minnesota, and Cincinnati vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers. Few baseball fans would live far from one of these teams, and the playoffs might hold their own, in every major market, against whatever's on the NFL Network.
FWIW. Facts are so hard to uncover about the men behind the curtain, we will take speculation and file it away. George Hohmann, writing for the Charleston Daily Mail, writes this:
A lot of truly powerful people make a point of staying out of the spotlight. So it's not surprising the magazine missed publicity-shy G. Ogden Nutting.Back to your regularly-scheduled discussion of the question, "How well are the Pirates developing young starters?"Nutting heads a Wheeling-based empire that's probably worth a half-billion dollars. We don't know an exact number because his companies are closely held private enterprises. We do know the family owns 40 daily newspapers, a slew of weekly papers and a rack full of magazines. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review estimates the family owns 25 percent of the Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Club. In June the family bought Seven Springs Mountain Resort. And Nutting is a director of United Bankshares Inc.
No game today.
What do you think of a six-man rotation? On the one hand, I wouldn't want to push too many young guys too far past the 175 inning mark. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to disrupt the preparation routines for a bunch of fatigued pitchers.
Either way, it's worth considering: how best do you end the season of a young starter playing for a 100-loss team? Dejan Kovacevic explains that the Pirates have had a policy of not advancing a starter's inning count by more than 20 from the previous year's total.
Perhaps Ryan Vogelsong can come up and start every game after September 15.
Ed Bouchette on Cowher and what looks more and more like his final year with the Steelers.
It's hard to put the word "lame" next to Cowher, but you have to wonder how the transition will go as/if the team advances to the playoffs.
ESPN's Jerry Crasnick reports on Freddy's ping-pong and baseball skills:
"He's so competitive, he'll destroy himself to be better than you," says Freddy's agent. Crasnick notes: "If Sanchez can fend off Florida's Miguel Cabrera in September, he will join Hall of Famers Honus Wagner, Paul Waner, Arky Vaughan and Roberto Clemente as one of 10 Buccos with a batting crown."
To date, Freddy leads the NL with his .346 BA.
The Bucs are 46-73. (And 32-28 at home.) Tonight it's Doug Davis and Tom Gorzelanny at seven.
The Indians are not doing well, according to Terry Pluto of the Akron Beacon Journal.
Indians owner Paul Dolan has a far more serious problem than the Indians falling out of contention by June.He needs to give his customers a reason to believe.
This suggests that Pluto doubts the owners are outspending revenue (see headline: "Paul Dolan says team payroll will top $60 million, likely exceed revenue. Fans need reason to believe") while superficially doing the usual cry for hope. It's pretty pathetic and humiliating, isn't it, to be cast in the role of crying for "a reason to believe." At least they are holding out for playoff contention--Pirate fans seem more focussed on the .500 season. And this is not asking for the moon or even a moon pie; .500 seasons should come and go with regularity, even under poor management.
That said, while the irritation and anger might be considerable, I don't think fans go quite that far with the despair. We don't need "a reason to believe." We need something else--satisfaction maybe?
The Indians have a shaky fan base in a soft economy (Ohio leads the nation in job losses) with a superstar named LeBron James playing in the building next door for the Cavaliers.As always, the Browns rule the Northeast Ohio sports market. You could put an empty orange helmet on the 50-yard line at Cleveland Browns Stadium and 50,000 fans would show up to stare at it.
It doesn't matter to fans how many games the Browns have lost, and they've lost more than any other NFL team since 1999.
You know the Steelers would draw well if they fell on hard times, too. Is this really a disadvantage? A city of sports fans is a city of sports fans. The Indians and Pirates may have trouble selling tickets on fall Sundays, and that may extend somewhat into the other days in September and October, but I question the logic that says sports fans will only spend money on one sport. It's a bit like arguing that beer drinkers will only drink one beer.
The Indians are a different story. To draw big crowds, they have to prove themselves to many of the fans who have abandoned them since 2001, the last playoff season.
This could have nothing to do with the Browns. The Pirates are in the same situation. The fans, who are serious sports fans, want to watch games and usually see their team win. (It's not the same in all cities. I'll never forget a game I saw in Seattle's old mall-like Metrodome, when I sat next to a person reading a book, and had to look over a crowd of people who were literally paying no attention to the action on the field. Things may be different in Safeco, but my point remains the same.)
The Tribe is on pace to draw about 2 million fans, slightly below the 2.1 million that was projected. But more than 60 percent of those tickets were sold in the offseason, when the Indians were coming off a 93-69 year.
Are the Pirates doing better than the Indians at drawing crowds? I will look up that information and insert it here later. The Pirates also look to have trouble selling tickets this offseason--they will have no All-Star game boost.
Pluto argues that it takes money:
Dolan and his father, Larry, have to spend more than they have in recent years. Yes, the three highest payrolls in team history were under the Dolans: $78 million in 2000, $96 million in 2001 and $82 million in 2002.Since then, their highest has been this season's $56 million payroll, which ranks 24th in baseball. By comparison, Central Division contenders Chicago (fourth at $102 million), Detroit (14th at $82 million) and Minnesota (19th at $63 million) are outspending the Tribe.
If a team doesn't have a budget that at least matches that of the frugal Twins, it has no chance to compete consistently in the division.
He could be right, more money would help. But Pirates fans tend to ask not so much for more money but for better use of the money they have. We know that money is not everything if it is spent wisely. I've been reading up on the Indians because I've been looking for a GM to tout as doing better with a similar situation than Littlefield has done with his. Shapiro may fit that bill, but here the local Cleveland media talk only money and take Shapiro's better trading record for granted. (As perhaps they should; perhaps it is not so outstanding as to exceed expectations.)
The Indians are averaging 25,507 fans. That's 24th out of 30 teams, which is the same ranking they have in total salary.Dolan said next year's payroll will be ``north of $60 million.''
Realistically, the payroll must approach $70 million if ownership is serious about returning the team to contention.
The front office also has to change some tactics. So often, they spend the winter chasing free agents and signing none of them. A better approach would be to explore the trade market, dealing for talented players on teams looking to cut payroll, and using prospects as bait.
How many high-payed players earn their salary (relative to what one can pay a young guy)? The Phillies already gave away Bobby Abreu. And how many teams are cutting payroll this off-season? I don't hear about so many, but if another Abreu becomes available for a rate he should earn, the Pirates would also be wise to take him.
Finally, what other teams are owned by people accused of profiting "excessively" and disregarding the imperative to win? Pirate fans may have more company than I first suspected.
Just read Dayn Perry's summary of Loria's work as an owner, and I wonder if the Nuttings are all that bad.
My main problem with whoever owns the Pirates today has been the unlimited patience with failure. Now that the Pirates are playing better than .500 ball since the All-Star Break, I suppose ownership feels encouraged about "staying the course." Loria's won a championship, and winning is everything, but Dayn Perry's unflattering portrait makes the Nuttings look reasonable.
Dejan Kovacevic reports on the great skill with which the Pirates have stockpiled relievers.
They begin to look like a pro football team with nine good, young field-goal kickers.
John Perrotto has rumors, and this is the big one:
A source close to the Nutting family indicates that Pirates ownership is losing patience with General Manager Dave Littlefield and may fire him at the end of the season, even though they extended his contract one year through the 2008 season on opening day. If Littlefield is let go, his waterloo will have been acquiring $18.5-million worth of declining veterans in Sean Casey, Joe Randa and Jeromy Burnitz last winter and getting little production in return.
The trade for Shawn Chacon, as Perrotto notes here, was more stupid than each of those signings.
