Comments on: Early Look At the Pittsburgh Pirates 2013 Payroll

By: John Lease

John Lease — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:21:00 +0000

Geeze, enough of the poor mouthing. The Pirates can afford Hanrahan, they just choose not to. That’s the elephant in the room. The Pirate payroll is microscopic compared to the rest of baseball, it doesn’t need a fig leaf of justification. It is what it is.

By: Dean

Dean — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:32:00 +0000

i agree that we should look closely at trading Hanrahan. I just don’t believe we can compete w/o a slugging first base man, especially if Pedro struggles again this year, which I’m really praying he does’nt. We need to count on him for 30 or more bombs and 100 plus RBI for the next 8-10 years if were going to compete.

By: Evan Lynch

Evan Lynch — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:17:00 +0000

2013 FA infield class looks pretty weak.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:15:00 +0000

Nice work, Tim, as always.

I sometimes wonder if Hanrahan makes it to that 3rd arbitration year (obviously, a valuable trade piece, but a replacement would be difficult to find in their system – at this point). It’s funny that not too long ago, it was seen as a toss-up between Meek & Hanrahan for the closer role, and Hanrahan, obviously, has flown way past Meek. Meek would have to be pretty tremendous and healthy to show he’d be ready for that job. Not something I’m counting on.

By: James S

James S — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:13:00 +0000

I have a hard time believing that McDonald can remain a starter for very long with his inability to pitch past the 5th inning even now at his young age. Is his fastball good enough to make him a closer? That’s the guy I would look at if his repertoire is good enough.
He has shown that he can pitch 4-5 innings of no-hit ball but he runs out of gas awfully quick.

I would see what kind of haul of good young hitters we could get in a Hanrahan deal if I was GM. Closers don’t last that long, and Hanrahan has already had strike zone issues back before he joined the team. It could happen again.

I agree with you on moving the fringe relievers like Resop & Meek before even thinking about moving a hitter. I just don’t think we’d get a good enough return for Garrett Jones anyway.