By Dejan Kovacevic | 12:49 a.m. Wednesday
Combining a couple of seemingly unrelated storylines from this week -- the Dominican series and the pursuit of Derrick Turnbow -- I am reminded of something I had intended to share from the recent trip: The Pirates want power.
Rene Gayo talked about it during and after the one tryout I watched, how the previous administration emphasized speed and other traits, both in terms of hitting and pitching, and even defense worked its way into that mix. But Gayo apparently was expressing his own philosophy when he stated bluntly, "You have to hit your way off the island," and the numbers will back him in all walks of baseball if you look at it from this simple standpoint: The best players are the ones that can do the most valuable things better than others.
For position players, that means hitting. With power.
For pitchers, that means throwing hard.
Anyone trying to make it more complicated than that is probably just muddying the picture.
So, Gayo looks for power -- though not exclusively -- and scouting director Greg Smith goes for power through much of his first draft, and Neal Huntington adds players at the major league level who, almost no matter their control history, can add power to the pitching staff. In the Turnbow article, I cite the examples of Tyler Yates, Denny Bautista and Evan Meek, and there surely will be more.
Linkage to the general coverage ...
The Pirates are talking to Turnbow, just like the creatively written lede describes.
The Q&A for yesterday can found a bit lower. The one for today will be up around lunch time.
And from other realms ...
Brent Lillibridge, the prospect the Pirates sent to Atlanta in the Adam LaRoche trade, was part of the multi-player deal the Braves made in getting Javier Vazquez from the White Sox yesterday. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's David O'Brien, author of a tremendous daily blog there, reports that Lillibridge's prospect status slipped this year. Yet another reminder that trades are best evaluated after a good period of time. Remember that Dave Littlefield refused to give up Chris Duffy as the second component in that deal and was roundly criticized for it, just as the Braves were roundly criticized for acquiring Mike Gonzalez right before elbow surgery, just as the Pirates were criticized when LaRoche failed to hit in the first two months of his first two seasons ... and so on.
Operation Shutdown, indeed. (Thanks to Pat Lackey at Van Slyke for the link.)
The Detroit Free Press' Jon Paul Morosi reports that the Tigers and Pirates remain in touch about Jack Wilson.
Michael Ryan, a good guy who had a good spring for the Pirates in 2007, had quite a hard time digging up work after not cracking the roster, according to his hometown Indiana (Pa.) Gazette. Ryan still lives in the North Hills.
Posted
Dec 03 2008, 12:49 AM
by
Dejan Kovacevic