The Worst Month Of The Year

Here's a post I wrote at RumBunter about how much the month of February sucks. Sorry for the negativity.

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Monday 1/30 | News, Notes, and Links

• MLB Network ranked Andrew McCutchen as the third best center fielder in the league last night. That's down two slots from last year when he was at the top of the list.
• Fangraphs has their list of the Pirates top 15 prospects out.
• Rant Sports has a post out comparing Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon
• Other than that stuff, there is really nothing else going on. I have been slacking on the posts the last few days because of lack of time and lack of writing subjects, but every day that passes brings us closer and closer to spring training, and that's very good news.

Opening Day Starter Poll

Earlier this week I wrote this post about who the Pirates should roll out as their Opening Day starter. Now I'm going all poll on it, please vote, you don't even have to be 18 to do so.

Two Crappy Signings

The Pirates and Astros haven't been the most successful baseball teams in recent years, and today we saw a possible reason for that.

Two awful pitchers have found work. First, the Astros signed Zach Duke to a minor league deal. Duke pitched 76.2 innings (9 starts and 12 relief appearances) in 2011 in his first season away from the Pirates organization and posted a 4.93 ERA. Believe it or not, that was an improvement from his last season with the Pirates when he put up a 5.72 ERA in 29 starts.

The Pirates countered the Astros minor league deal with Duke by signing former Orioles pitcher Daniel Cabrera, who hasn't pitched in the big leagues since 2009. He had a career 5.10 ERA in the big leagues and a 4.32 career minor league ERA. He didn't pitch an inning anywhere last year, so this seems like a complete waste of a signing for the Pirates. Again, there's no risk to a signing like this, but there's no way he ever helps the Pirates in any way.

At the end of the day, these two signings are not going to mean anything, but at least they'll have jobs to support their families with, right?

Who Should The Pirates Opening Day Starter Be?

It's incredibly early to write this post, but I kind of just wanted to beat everyone else to the punch.

The Pittsburgh Pirates open up their 2012 season on April 5th at home against the Philadelphia Phillies. That means Roy Halladay. So who will the Pirates roll out against him? There are six options, sort of. In ALPHABETICAL order (for the sake of SUSPENSE), the options are: Erik Bedard, Kevin Correia, Jeff Karstens, Brad Lincoln, James McDonald, and Charlie Morton.

Right off the bat, we can scratch off Morton and Lincoln. Morton isn't going to be healthy enough to pitch in early April, and Lincoln isn't nearly good enough to even be considered (he probably won't even be in the rotation to start the season). That leaves us with four pitchers that you could make an argument for.

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Can Nick Evans Help The Pittsburgh Pirates?

Post on RumBunter I wrote about Nick Evans. Hit that up.

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Robbie Grossman: An "Emerging Prospect"

Buster Olney wrote a short column about prospects that have "emerged" through winter ball. The link to that is here, but you have to have an ESPN Insider Account to read it.

Basically, Olney said that scouts were previously concerned with Grossman because he repeated the A ball (Florida State League) level in 2011, which is a red flag for prospects. However, Grossman's continued success in winter ball (hitting .375/.472/.625) has quieted some of the doubters. Olney believes that Grossman will continue to be successful and could find a home in Pittsburgh as soon as next summer.

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Thursday 1/26 | News, Notes, and Links

• The Reds have signed free agent Jeff Francis to a minor league deal, which means my prediction about the Pirates grabbing Francis was wrong. It was surprising that Francis got just a minor league deal, since he is certainly a big-league caliber pitcher. However, the Reds have a ton of depth in terms of starting pitchers, so Francis probably won't be on the Opening Day roster.
• MLB.com released its top 100 prospects for the 2012 season last night. The Pirates had four players on the list: Jameson Taillon (#8), Gerrit Cole (#11), Starling Marte (#40), and Josh Bell (#69). The guys at MLB.com assigned team point values to each slot (100 points for 1, 99 for 2, etc.), and the Pirates came in third after those four totaled their individual points.
• The Red Sox are apparently talking to Edwin Jackson about a possible one-year deal. I'm sure that Jackson wants more than a one-year deal, and the A.L. East is a horrible spot for a short contract like that, since his numbers would almost certainly be inflated. He would be best served signing a short contract in the National League. The Pirates still haven't been rumored to even be thinking about going after him, but it would sure be interesting if they would decide to go for it. With every day that he doesn't sign, I would say the Pirates chances of getting him go up. That said, there is no reason to believe that the Pirates would even consider it, so don't get excited.

Wednesday 1/25 | News, Notes, and Links

• Prince Fielder is officially in the American League, great news for Pirates fans. The Tigers gave him a hefty 9-year, $214 million contract and now the Pirates won't have to be bothered by him anymore. I wrote this post about the move.
• I took a fairly extensive look at Pirates pitcher Chris Leroux at RumBunter yesterday.
• Pat from WHYGAVS has a post up that talks about the Pirates farm system, that post itself links to some good reads, so check that out.
• Here's a somewhat depressing post from sbnation that reminds us of how tough it's going to be for the Pirates to compete in this league, especially over the long haul. If you're just starting your day, I wouldn't read it, it'll get you off on a bad foot.

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Detroit Offers Free Buffet; Fielder Is A Tiger

The wait has finally come to an end. Prince Fielder is officially out of the National League Central.

This isn't something we didn't all see coming, but it's nice to see it finally happening. It's also nice to see him go outside the National League entirely. My thought was that the Nationals were going to get him and really turn into a competitor fast. Since Washington has a really tall hill to climb to beat out Philadelphia for their division, they figure to be a serious Wild Card contender the next few years with the young core of Steven Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman, Jordan Zimmermann, Michael Morse and now Bryce Harper. That's still going to be a heck of a team, but Fielder would have put them over the top.

Chris Leroux ... And Stuff

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N.L. Central Top Prospects - Chicago Cubs

I'm going around the division looking at each team's top 20 prospects and giving a brief overview of their system. This is the second installment in the series, you can read my post on the Reds here.

The Chicago Cubs have been poor for quite some time now, and their farm system doesn't seem to do all that much to make people believe they'll be turning it around any time soon. They forwent possible trades of Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena last year that could have netted them some quality prospects, and they lost both of those players to free agency this offseason. Nice work.

Monday 1/23 | News, Notes, and Links

• If you haven't seen already, Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com revealed his top ten first base prospects, and Pirates 2011 draft selection Alex Dickerson is number nine of the list. Definitely good to see a prospect not named Cole, Taillon, Bell, or Heredia getting some recognition.
• Patrick Reddick (the photoshop wonder-kin who made my blog's banner) has an article on how he actually found a way to project the Pirates to win 83 games in 2012. While it may not be the best way to project a team, we'll take any positive news we can get.
• Prince Fielder may be close to finding a new home. First came this article about how the Dodgers might have a shot, but there was also this: some Twitter reports late last night that said Fielder may have reached an agreement with the Nationals (although that's probably not a credible source). It's midnight as I write this, and it's not going to post until the morning, so there's a chance that a deal could have already been announced, so check other sources.
• A blog called 60 Feet 6 Inches has a post about how it still pays to be left handed in which he talks about how ridiculous the Oliver Perez signing seems for the Seattle Mariners. I've always found it intriguing how much more advantageous it is for a pitcher to be left-handed.
• I'm trying to keep count of how many times ESPN shows the David Tyree catch over the next two weeks, so if you see it on, please tweet me and tell me you saw it and what time you did so. Thanks.
• Today is the birthday of one of my best friends, Paul Notarianni. All he wants is some more twitter followers, so hit him up @ThePaulFather and wish a brother a Happy 22nd Birthday.
• There's really not much else to tell here. Yesterday was all about football, but now we have two weeks to wait until the Super Bowl, and if you aren't into the NBA or NHL, this could be a long 14 days for you. Hang in there sports fans. Use this opportunity to work really hard in school or at your job for a few days, that would be kinda cool right?