On Hiatus

I haven’t been posting much lately. I haven’t had the inspiration or time to get anything worthwhile written and I never wanted to fill this space with game recaps everyday- you can get those other places. I’ll be back when there is big news or if the muse strikes me. Until then I’m always on twitter @TheRealDavidK. Thanks for reading.

New Friends

James McDonald had an impressive Pirates debut last night: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, and 8 K’s/ Exactly the sort of thing Neal Huntington had in mind when he acquired him. Garret Jones and Ronny Cedeno hit homeruns and Chris Resop pitched a scoreless ninth in his Pirates debut. Pirates won 5-1.

And I didn’t see a pitch of it.

The 2010 SABR convention is in town and I was out at dinner with Larry from Wezen-ball and his fantastic girlfriend. Larry presented earlier in the day about Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang’s lifetime baseball stats. Its worth a watch if you’ve ever read the comic.

I’m looking forward to seeing them again tonight at the Braves/Giants game along with whoever else is around from SABR. If you’re in town come on out and say hi!

Bucs’ Trades = Win

Interesting deals by the Pirates at Saturday’s trading deadline. Gone are:

Bobby Crosby, SS (to Diamondbacks) .224/.301/.295
Ryan Church, OF (to Diamondbacks) .182/.240/.312
DJ Carrasco, P (to Diamondbacks) 3.88 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 7.3 K/9
Octavio Dotel, P (to Dodgers) 4.28 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 10.8 K/9
$500,000 cash (to Dodgers)
Javier Lopez, P (to Giants) 2.79 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 5.1 K/9

The pitchers will be missed. All were effective and part of a strong bullpen. Crosby and Church were ineffective to put it nicely. The thing that all of these players have in common is that none of them were part of the long term plan and all are (or should be) easily replaceable for next season. In return the Pirates received:

Chris Snyder, C (from Diamondbacks) .231/.352/.426
Pedro Ciriaco, SS (from Diamondbacks) (AAA) .259/.278/.392
$3,000,000 cash (from Diamondbacks)
James McDonald, P (from Dodgers) (AAA) 4.41 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 8.1 K/9
Andrew Lambo, OF (from Dodgers) (AA) .271/.325/.420
John Bowker, OF (from Giants) (AAA) .310/.388/.594
Joseph Martinez, P (from Giants) (AAA) 3.32 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 7.2 K/9

That’s a Ryan Doumit clone with better D, 2 rotation candidates, one OF who could come up now, one young OF who projects very well, a toolsy SS prospect, AND a wad of dough. If there’s anything not to like here I can’t see it. For more analysis and detailed breakdown on the young guys check the blogroll to the left. There have been several good articles written since Saturday.