A few random subjects today:
— MLBTR had a piece yesterday on free agent catcher Robinson Chirinos, who apparently is near a decision on where to sign. Chirinos, of course, is the one free agent of any significance who’s been connected (very briefly) with the Pirates. With Jason Castro now off the market, he’s also the only catcher of any note left.
Whether the Pirates make any serious play of one sort or another for a real catcher will tell us a lot about the team’s plans for 2020. They’ve been very careful to leave open the possibility that they’ll try to contend (or “compete,” or whatever vague term we’re using instead of “win” these days). The fact is, no team that was serious about doing anything other than rebuilding, or retooling, would go into a season with Jacob Stallings and Luke Maile, or somebody similar to Maile, as its only options behind the plate.
— In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been highly interested in MLB’s efforts to eliminate a quarter of the minor leagues. Some of it is a morbid fascination with MLB’s obvious lies and obfuscations about the need for the reduction. (My favorite was MLB’s accusation that minor league players were sometimes transported in school buses; it turns out that the only times that happened involved affiliates owned by the MLB parent.) Nobody with any sense could possibly think the real reason for MLB’s proposal is anything other than a desire to cut costs.
Even so, the interesting part is that fewer affiliates probably would make sense strictly from a development standpoint. John Dreker recently mentioned a Baseball America article on lower revenue teams going younger in the draft. It’s an especially interesting subject given what happened with the Pirates’ Greensboro affiliate in 2019. The team’s principal position players were more or less evenly divided between 2018 college draftees (Connor Kaiser, Grant Koch, Zack Kone, Jonah Davis, Brett Kinneman, Zac Susi), and prep draftees and international signees (Ji-Hwan Bae, Rodolfo Castro, Lolo Sanchez, Jack Herman, Mason Martin, Fabricio Macias). The college players struggled badly in every case, at least until Davis got hot after a brief, mid-season demotion. Despite being 2-3 years younger, the prep and international players performed well, or in some cases a lot better than well.
The outcome of MLB’s contraction proposal, if it goes through, will be the elimination of all the short-season leagues except the “complex” leagues (i.e., the Gulf Coast and Arizona Leagues). That would probably mean promoting younger players to low class A more quickly. In a situation like the Pirates had at Greensboro in 2019 — a bunch of college players who don’t appear likely to develop beyond organizational players — younger, more promising players might struggle for playing time. In particular, that could happen in 2020. The Pirates had a number of promising prep draftees in the GCL, along with a number of college draftees who mostly struggled in the New York-Penn League. It’d be unfortunate if, say, Jasiah Dixon or Deion Walker got pushed back to the NYPL or Bristol to make way for outfielders who had sub-.650 OPS figures in the NYPL.
So what I’m wondering is whether, if MLB’s plans go through, the Pirates might cut back sharply on the number of college players they’re drafting. Keep in mind, part of MLB’s plan is to cut the draft to 20-25 rounds and move it to August. That’d largely eliminate the need for the NYPL. The Pirates signed 30 college players and two junior college players out of the 2019 draft, a large number of whom don’t profile as more than organizational players. The six prep players they signed, however, all look like potential prospects at least. The team would (hopefully) be forced to try to focus its reductions on organizational players rather than players with upside.
— Baseball America recently posted a list of 15 sleeper hitting prospects for Dynasty Baseball, which is an online fantasy draft league. These are players BA believes have “scouting pedigree” who “demonstrated standout skills in short-season ball in 2019.” The Pirates have two players on the list.
Third baseman Alexander Mojica tops the list. He had a big year in the Dominican Summer League, ranking second in OPS despite being one of the league’s youngest players. One caveat, though: Mojica played for the creatively named DSL Pirates2. That team played all of its games within its six-team division. The other five teams, to the extent you can tell anything from DSL stats, seem to have had mostly bad pitching. That could have contributed to the team batting .306, which was 31 points higher than any other team. Still, Mojica is a player to watch.
The other player was 23rd round draft pick, outfielder Jasiah Dixon, who ranked tenth on the list. Dixon may have slipped out of the early rounds due to doubts about his swing, but he didn’t show any such problems in his brief, 22-game GCL debut, batting .329 with ten walks and just 11 strikeouts. He’ll give us an early indication of the new regime’s inclination to move prospects aggressively when we see whether he goes to Greensboro in 2020.
SONG OF THE DAY
DAILY QUIZ
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THIS DATE IN PIRATES HISTORY
By John Dreker
Nine former Pittsburgh Pirates born on this date.
Gus Suhr, first baseman for the 1930-39 Pirates. Suhr is considered by some as the best first baseman in team history. He was signed by the Pirates after hitting .381 with 51 homers, 62 doubles and 299 hits for San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League in 1929. Those totals are obviously extremely impressive but a little bit misleading. The PCL was a high offense league and they played approximately 200 games per year with Suhr playing in 202 during that season. The 1930 season was one of the highest offense seasons in major league history so Suhr broke in at the right time. He hit .286 during his rookie campaign with 80 walks, 93 runs scored and 107 RBIs.
A leg injury cost him part of the 1931 seasons and his numbers really suffered hitting only .211 in 87 games. After that season he was a mainstay in the lineup, averaging 152 games played per season over the next seven years. Three times he led the NL in games played. Suhr drove in 103 runs during the 1934 season and two years later he had a career year, hitting .312 with 95 walks, 111 runs scored and 118 RBIs. He made his only all-star appearances that 1936 season. During each of his eight full seasons in a Pirates uniform, Suhr finished in the top six in the NL in both walks and triples, although surprisingly despite that accomplishment, he never led the league in either category.
In ten seasons in Pittsburgh, he hit .278 with 789 RBIs and 689 runs scored over 1,365 games. He ranks eighth in Pirates history in runs batted in and eighth in walks with 679. He played 822 consecutive games with the Pirates, which was an NL record. His streak only ended when he attended his mother’s funeral. The Pirates traded Suhr to the Phillies in the middle of the 1939 season in exchange for pitcher Max Butcher, who was just 28-46 career at the time of the trade. Despite the stats seemingly making this a one-sided trade, the Pirates actually got the better of the deal as Butcher went 67-60 in seven seasons in Pittsburgh, while Suhr played 70 games for the Phillies before they released him. He returned to the minors, playing off and on until 1948.
AJ Burnett, pitcher for the 2012-13 and 2015 Pirates. He pitched three seasons in Pittsburgh, going 35-28, 3.34 in 87 starts, with 532 strikeouts in 557.1 innings. The Pirates acquired him in February 2012 from the New York Yankees for two minor league players. Burnett won 164 games during a 17-year career, yet he didn’t make an All-Star team until his final season in the majors (2015) at 38 years old. He ranks 37th all-time with 2,513 strikeouts. Just two players on that list ahead of him pitched for the Pirates, Hall of Famers Bert Blyleven and Jim Bunning.
Dick Colpaert, pitcher for the 1970 Pirates. He was only in the majors for three weeks, pitching 10.2 innings over eight relief appearances, but he was actually in the Pirates system for ten seasons. He was drafted by the Pirates from the Orioles in November 1962 during the first year draft (which does not exist anymore) and he stayed around until November 1972 when he was sold to the Royals. He spent 13 seasons in the minors, going 76-60, 3.37 in 546 games. Colpaert’s only win came when he pitched a scoreless eighth inning against the Braves in his second game. The Pirates were trailing 5-3 going into the bottom of the eighth and they were able to take the lead with three runs. Dave Giusti came in for the ninth inning and saved the game. Colpaert ended up going 12-3, 2.28 in 46 relief appearances at AAA during that 1970 season. Two years later he won 14 games and picked up 21 saves in 61 relief outings.
Harry Fisher, pitcher for the 1951-52 Pirates. He was signed by the Pirates in 1947 as an amateur free agent and his first year he won a career high 17 games pitching for the Tallahassee Pirates. He was a decent pitcher who could really swing the bat, occasionally playing outfield during his minor league career. He was called up late in 1951 and never took the mound, but he did pinch-hit three times. The following season he pitched eight games, three as a starter. While he fared poorly going 1-2, 6.87, he was used seven times as a pinch-hitter, going 5-for-15 on the season. He returned to the minors where he finished out his career in 1959 with a 65-79 record in 264 games. His real minor league highlights though were his back-to-back seasons in which he hit .397 and .423 in 1949-50. Those weren’t just very limited seasons either, as he record 89 hits in 214 at-bats over the two seasons combined.
Kirby White, pitcher for the 1910-11 Pirates. The Pirates acquired White early in the 1910 season for pitcher Sam Frock and first baseman Bud Sharpe. White had a 3.23 ERA in 148.1 innings his rookie season in 1909 and three starts into the 1910 season he was 1-2, 1.38 for the Boston Doves. For the Pirates he had a 10-9, 3.46 record in 21 starts and nine relief appearances to finish the 1910 season. He wasn’t able to pitch until May of the 1911 season due to an arm injury, and when he finally made a start May 24th he was ineffective, getting pulled from the game early and taking the loss. That was his last major league game. Just days later the Pirates sold him to a minor league team in Indianapolis. He finished his pro career playing four seasons (1912-15) for the Sioux City Indians of the Western League.
Luis Sojo, infielder for the 2000 Pirates. Sojo signed with the Pirates as a free agent in January of 2000. He hit .284 with five homers and 20 RBIs in 61 games for the Pirates before being traded to the Yankees in early August for pitcher Chris Spurling. He played more second base and shortstop during his career, but with the Pirates, all but one game he played on defense was at third base. Sojo played a total of 848 major league games over 13 seasons, hitting .261 with 261 RBIs. He won three World Series titles while with the Yankees and drove in 15 runs in 43 playoff games.
Mark Dewey, pitcher for the 1993-94 Pirates. In 66 games for the Pirates, he had a 3-3, 3.23 record with eight saves. He pitched 205 career games in the majors (all in relief) and those eight saves with the Pirates were the only ones that he recorded during his career. Dewey made a comeback in 2001 after five years of retirement, pitching 11 games for the Pirates in Triple-A. He played again six years later in Independent ball in 2007 (he was also the team’s pitching coach), but he lasted just 18 games before cutting short that last comeback. The Pirates picked Dewey up off waivers from the New York Mets in May of 1993. He became a free agent after the 1994 season and signed with the San Francisco Giants. The Giants had drafted him in the 23rd round of the amateur draft seven years earlier. Dewey has been a pitching coach coach off and on since 2000.
Michael Restovich, outfielder who played 52 games for the 2005 Pirates. He hit .214 with two homers and five RBIs in 84 at-bats for Pittsburgh. He then spent the next two seasons bouncing between the minors and majors, seeing time with the Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals. Restovich spent 2008 in Japan, then played another three years in the minor leagues without making it back to the majors. The Pirates picked him up from the Colorado Rockies in May of 2005 for future considerations. He was released following the 2005 season. Restovich had a .239/.313/.377 line in 152 major league games over six seasons. He was a second round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins in the 1997 draft.
Carlos Maldonado, catcher who played 21 games for the Pirates during the 2006-07 seasons. He hit .163 with two homers in 43 at-bats for Pittsburgh. Maldonado was in the Pirates system from 2005 through 2008, splitting his time between Altoona and Indianapolis. After leaving the Pirates in 2009, he spent one season in the minors for the Boston Red Sox. Since then, Maldonado has spent four seasons with the Washington Nationals, briefly appearing in the majors in both 2010 and 2012, playing four games each year. He retired after playing winter ball in 2015-16. Prior to joining the Pirates, he spent nine seasons in the minor leagues with the Mariners, White Sox and Astros. Maldonado was signed as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela by the Mariners in 1995.
