John Grabow's ready to come in for the eighth. That's a good Pirate name. Kinda like "Jack Nyargh." Grrrrrrabow.
Get more runs please.
...nice finish to that one. But eight games under .500 is just as disgraceful as nine games under .500. Sean Burnett tomorrow will try to do something about that. In the meantime, gather round the punch bowl and toast the jolly roger.
Jacob Luft wrote this back in April for Sports Illustrated. It begins like this:
Three years ago, the Pirates traded away a career underachiever on the verge of free agency.Jason Schmidt, upon becoming a member of the Giants, instantly became the top-of-the-rotation workhorse the Pirates had been lacking. Schmidt went 7-1 for San Francisco down the stretch in 2001 and followed with 13-8 and 17-5 records in 2002 and '03, respectively.
From John Shea's mid-July article for the San Francisco Chronicle:
The problem is there aren't many available starting pitchers. For every 10 position players on the trading block, there's one starter. And for every one starter, there's .01 aces. This year, it seems there's no equal to Randy Johnson (traded in July 1998 from Seattle to Houston) or Curt Schilling (July 2000 from Philadelphia to Arizona).David Wells is 8-1 in the postseason, but he's likely out for the rest of the year. Chan Ho Park, a free agent next winter, was shopped earlier, but the Dodgers' recent surge in the standings prevents them from making a move. The Mets wouldn't mind dumping Al Leiter's contract, but it would be tricky because he can block trades to 10 teams, including interested suitors such as Seattle and Cleveland, plus the Giants.
We're left with Pedro Astacio (the Rockies are hesitant to exercise his $9 million option for next year), Rick Reed (the Mets need to start over), Sterling Hitchcock (a year removed from Tommy John surgery), Jason Schmidt (new Pirates GM Dave Littlefield may have other ideas) and Jeff Suppan (the low-budget Royals don't want to pay $3.8 million next year).
Other possibilities: San Diego's Woody Williams, Cincinnati's Pete Harnisch, Tampa Bay's Albie Lopez and the White Sox's James Baldwin.
The dilemma is they're all expensive, either in terms of dollars or talent required in return, so the Giants and A's will probably take a pass. It is what it is.
The "other ideas" alluded to there reflects the confusion among some observers as to whether or not Littlefield would enter a "rebuilding" mode by dealing Schmidt for a prospect or two.
The Giants didn't pass, of course, as they got Jason Schmidt in a deadline deal that burned a bunch of other teams and forced some crappier deals for crappier pitchers in the final day of the 2001 trading season. Schmidt was no sure bet to become the equal, for a few seasons at least, of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, but the potential was there and the change of scenery - one from a club that struggled for years to a club that was in the thick of a playoff race - did him a world of good.
Here's Stan Savran in the July 28, 2001 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
It strikes me as rather ironic that Jason Schmidt is now in the position Denny Neagle was in five years ago.Sound familiar?Although Schmidt is nowhere near as accomplished as Neagle was then, there are great similarities in the circumstances surrounding these two men who were traded for one another about this time in 1996. Despite his unrealized potential, which, in turn, has resulted in unfulfilled expectations, Schmidt is the Pirates' most realistic, tradeable commodity. Not because of who he is, but because of what he is: a competent starting pitcher.
With the possible exception of Seattle -- what do you get for the team that has everything -- all the contenders are on the lookout for starting pitching. You catch Schmidt on a good night with a significantly better team behind him, you've got something.
One might legitimately ask, "Given the potential upside, why wouldn't the Pirates keep him?"
Because they can no longer afford to wait for him to reach that tantalizing potential, because he'll be a free agent and because whichever team signs him for whatever money, they'll do so at an inflated price.
Wes Obermueller is pitching his way out of a starting job. The Brewers have given him eight days' rest to prepare for today's start so expect some scrappiness from a guy whose back is against the wall. Wes hails from Cedar Rapids, IA, and pitched for the Hawkeyes in college. He is a finesse righty with no good strikeout pitch and some serious weakness against left-handed hitting. Fortunately for the Pirates, some of our best lineups are those stacked with our left-handed and switch-hitters.
Kris Benson goes for us. Benson is not comfortable against Geoff Jenkins. Jenkins has not been hitting much lately or this year in general. He's streaky and he's always dangerous.
Hopefully the Pirates will come out and play with some urgency and some pride. Nine games under .500 is no place to be seen. They need to put that behind them.
Sam Ross Jr. has a take on the Benson-like-Schmidt theme in his latest.
Benson's age (29) is no strike against him for a team looking for a two- to three-month rental. For that matter, it's no strike against him for a team looking to sign him to a three- or four-year deal. Whether or not he lives up to the standards of Randy Johnson or Sandy Koufax is a pretty silly standard; there's plenty of good years left on his arm for him to live up to the standard of Jason Schmidt. It's not like Benson is 37 or 41 years old.
In other Benson news, the Twins are scouting him, too. They have some good prospects, including a left-handed slugging first baseman that would fit our needs pretty well.
...John Harper of the New York Daily News writes that "The Mets would love to get Kris Benson from the Pirates."
...Kevin Baxter of Knight-Ridder newspapers (reg. req'd) has the slow wit to include Benson in the "lackluster crop of available players" this summer. He also mentions Jason Jennings of the Rockies and Jamie "No, we're not trading him" Moyer of the Mariners. "Clubs don't want to wait too long because the two, three or four guys on the market might be gone to another team,'' Atlanta GM John Schuerholz told USA Today, reports Baxter reports H-Wags. Baxter's a little behind the curve. In his notes he writes that "One factor that has gone overlooked in Cincinnati's revival this season is the improved control of the pitching staff" and then goes on to talk about how the Reds are throwing strikes and not walking people. Not overlooked, Kevin.
Ron Cook was impressed by Oliver Perez last night. We all were.
On J.J. Davis:
Give him a chance, Pirates fans say. Play him instead of Randall Simon. But every time Lloyd McClendon puts Davis in the lineup, he does something stupid. Last night, in the Pirates' 8-1 win in Game 1, he failed to run from first base on a 3-2, two-out pitch to Chris Stynes. You won't see a high school player make that mistake. It's inexcusable.Davis can become a better player, but don't expect Mac to be in a rush to start him again soon. He's definitely behind the Hot Dog on my depth chart.
Heck, he's behind Sauerkraut Saul, too.
We have to find some kind of 8-RBI picture to frame and hang in our drinking room.
Bucs are still a disgraceful nine games under .500. Tomorrow they'll have another chance to do something about that.
In the meantime, it's nice to see some fireworks at PNC Park. They outscored the Brewers 21-3 today. Fun stuff.
Just discovered Chris Kucharski's work at PiratesLIVE.com. He sees higher OBP the lower you go in the minor-league system and wonders if the Pirates are putting an emphasis on that as they draft. Good eye, Chris.
The A's went for OBP not because they thought it the most important hitting measure but because they saw good value in players Now that OBP is valued more appropriately, what's the next opportunity for a small-market team? Former prospects such as Jose Guillen, Ruben Mateo, or Bobby Hill? Some kind of defensive ability? Bunting ability? Basestealing and bunting seem to be out of fashion and might be a buying opportunity for a team that has confidence in their value.
The Brewers are in third place in the NL Central and view the next few weeks as ones that will determine if they are buyers or sellers in the late July trade market. Here are the overall numbers for the Brewers' batters this year. Here's what they did last month. No one looks particularly hot or cold to me. They are a good team, even without Scott Podsednik, who has been limited and might sit out with some kind of plague. The Brewers are coming off a three-game sweep of the hapless Rockies in Colorado.
Chris Stynes will tell you it's damn hard to hit on the road after a cushy stretch on Planet Coors. If the Pirates can get a lot of movement on their pitches today, they could take advantage of this.
The Pirates will miss the Brewers' best pitcher, Ben Sheets, in the four-game, three-day series that begins today. Works for me.
For the men in wheat, game one will feature Doug Davis, a soft-tossing lefty with a handsome goat. An American-League castoff, he's won his last two starts and he's enjoying the best year of his career. He generates loads of groundballs.
The Pirates have seen him two times in 2004. In April he gave up many hits and the Brewers lost in extra innings. More recently, he threw six shutout innings to beat Kip Wells on a good day. No current Pirate has a meaningful record against Doug Davis. Chris Stynes owns a 5-for-12, one double performance. As a summary of past performance, that's exactly true; that's what happened. As a predictor of future performance, the margin of error on a sample of twelve is something like .280. All the 5-for-12 means, then, is that there is a 95% chance Stynes's "true" ability against Davis lies between .137 and .697. And that's only if you believe that hitters have "true" or "intrinsic" abilities up there in Plato's world of forms. (And this makes you an idealist. In America, we call such people "gamblers," "statisticians," or "crazy transcendentalists.") Anyway, such a thinker would consider Stynes' ability against Davis as a subset of his ability against all left-handers. He's hitting .159 this year off left-handers but .292 off them in 2001-2003. Confused? Imagine how Mac feels.
Perhaps the best case for getting him into the lineup tonight is the fact that the team has to play two. With his barky knee, Mackowiak is not a good candidate for eighteen innings a day. A manager normally uses his entire bench in the course of a doubleheader, so Stynes will be in there one way or another. Sad to say, but fans will boo and heckle him all night unless he makes a big hit or outstanding defensive play early. A lot of Pirate fans want Stynes to go away.
Why do we keep talking about Chris Stynes? My bad. No more writing about Stynes for a week, I promise. Let's talk about California-boy John Grabow, who was a maniac on Wednesday against the Cardinals. I'd like to see him do his strike-'em-out routine again this weekend.
Oliver Perez, our Amish-Mexican left-handed flamethrower, will start for the Pirates in game one. If you have been living in a submarine for the last year, Ron Cook's latest will catch you up on the who's and what's of this guy. Cook says "phenom" and other nice things. (Also note how Cook describes the Giles trade as "wonderful." Last year he called it "a horrible blunder" but, to be fair, there's no inconsistency given that he conceded Perez and Bay had a "chance" to be good. By "blunder" Cook alluded to not trading Kendall. If Littlefield sealed the deal by making the Padres grateful for not taking on Kendall's contract, then he deserves some serious credit as a horse trader. Or maybe he got lucky. Who knows. Either way, it's not sensible to make conclusive judgments on a trade that happened less than a year ago. We can only say: so far, so good wonderful.)
Joe Rutter also has game-day coverage of Oliver Perez's gradual emergence.
The Brewers tagged Perez on May 1 in a game the Bucs eventually won in overtime. Even with that rough start, the Brewers have a collective .641 OPS off Oliver. Better is the lack of power: they have no home runs and two doubles in fifty-three at-bats against him. How'd they score five runs off him in early May? They bunched up some singles. Here's hoping that doesn't happen tonight.
In game two, an unknown pitcher will take the mound for the Brewers. Their AAA ace, Ben Hendrickson, pitched Tuesday night so he'll receive no Sean Burnett-type callup. My wild-ass guess is going to be Matt Kinney, an enormous (6'5" 230 lb) 27-year-old righthander who started the season in the rotation. The Pirates haven't seen him this year, but Simon had two homers off him in a previous life. He hasn't been very good as a starter. With Wes Obermueller due up this weekend and struggling, perhaps they will give Kinney a shot to prove he's worth another turn in the rotation.
Dr. Jekyll Josh Fogg beat the Brewers on May 22. Geoff Jenkins likes Josh Fogg a lot.
Mac calls pinch-hitting "the most difficult thing to do in baseball." Bobby Hill is good at it. This from Paul Meyer's notebook.
28th round pick Patrick McAnaney will go to college. Be careful, buddy. College is not the best place for a future major-leaguer.
T.R. Sullivan of the Star-Telegram reports that the Rangers are debating the future of Mark Teixeira (Tuh-SHARE-uh) and Adrian Gonzalez and weighing their need for a starting pitcher. Teixeira's already making $2.6M so cross him off our list. They'd rather deal Fightin' Blue Hen Kevin Mench, whose claim to fame also lies in the fact that he has the largest hat size known to man. Mench is 26, hits right-handed, has some range in the outfield, and runs the bases like a blooper-show clown. Gonzalez is 22, bats left-handed, and plays first. Clearly, Gonzalez sounds like the better fit.
Randy Miller at Phillyburbs.com reports that a team source told him "the Phils have been scouting very available Pittsburgh pitcher Kris Benson, but are unlikely to deal for the right-handed starter." Ah, now we know they really want him.
Jon Heyman of Newsday reports the Mets could have had Carlos Beltran or Freddy Garcia for David Wright. The Yankees and the Mets are both scouting Benson. The Yankees prefer the Big Unit and the Mets also feel they need another bat.
Shannon Countryman of the Illinois Lincoln-Courier disses Matt Morris for losing to the "lowly Pirates" and argues they need an ace. Sorry, St. Louis, you can't have him.
When Jason Schmidt was traded in 2001, I was fed up with his injuries and his inconsistencies and his character and his tantalizing yet unrealized potential. He got healthy, the Pirates traded him, and he became one of the very best pitchers in baseball.
Here's a comparison of Benson's present-day career stats and Schmidt's career stats on the day he was traded to San Francisco.
| Age | |
| Benson | 29 |
| Schmidt | 28 |
| IP | |
| Benson | 746 |
| Schmidt | 883 |
| Starts | |
| Benson | 121 |
| Schmidt | 142 |
| Wins | |
| Benson | 40 |
| Schmidt | 49 |
| Losses | |
| Benson | 48 |
| Schmidt | 53 |
| Win % | |
| Benson | 33.1% |
| Schmidt | 34.5% |
| Tm Wins, Avg | |
| Benson | 71 |
| Schmidt | 79 |
| K/9 | |
| Benson | 6.45 |
| Schmidt | 6.75 |
| BB/9 | |
| Benson | 3.54 |
| Schmidt | 3.79 |
| HR/9 | |
| Benson | 0.95 |
| Schmidt | 0.95 |
| ERA | |
| Benson | 4.33 |
| Schmidt | 4.59 |
| WHIP | |
| Benson | 1.43 |
| Schmidt | 1.47 |
A few words of explanation: "Win %" indicates not the overall winning percentage but the percentage of starts a pitcher won. "Tm Wins, Avg" indicates the average number of wins of his team while the pitcher was a member. For 1996, since Schmidt pitched about 1/3 of his games for the Pirates and 2/3 for the Braves, a number was reached by weighting the finish of both teams appropriately.
In 2001, when Jason Schmidt was traded to the Giants, he was 6-6 after 14 starts with a 4.65 ERA. Right now, Kris Benson is 5-7 after 15 starts with a 4.78 ERA. The Giants were 58-49 on the day they acquired Schmidt, in third place in the NL West. Schmidt went 7-1 the rest of the way. The Giants finished at 90-72. Schmidt made $3.2M that year and was granted free agency on November 5, 2001. Five weeks later, he signed as a free agent with the Giants.
Dave Littlefield got Ryan Vogelsong and Armando Rios for a three-month rental of Jason Schmidt. Now that he's asking for prospects like David Wright, is it fair to say that he's "asking for the moon"? David Wright, unlike Scott Rolen, has never played a game at the major-league level. Let's not wet our pants over a guy with no big-league experience. Perhaps such a deal is not in the best interest of the Mets, but Wright is a reasonable demand for a pitcher of Benson's ability. Schmidt's post-trade history does not guarantee how Benson will pitch the rest of the year, but Schmidt's case does provide a reasonable precedent.
Benson will continue to pitch well. He could be pitching here or in New York. No matter where he goes, the better he pitches, the more money he'll make on his next deal. I'm looking forward to his next start.
Ed Eagle interviews Dave Littlefield. Short version: The Bucs are after major-league-ready position players with power and they are ready to deal pitching. Evaulating the season to date:
"It was a pretty solid first couple of months and a poor June. We underachieved as far as the talent level of our starting pitching, played defense probably about per our expectations, and we've hit better than our expectations."
Main goal for the second half: Win more games.
