Even more rumors, poll, and PITCHf/x

Beaver County Times Pirates beat writer John Perrotto had a couple of interesting tidbits in his article yesterday:

"New York Yankees professional scout Jeff Wetherby is reportedly a candidate to become the Pirates' scouting director."

and..

"Colorado bench coach Jamie Quirk is being mentioned as a possible candidate for the Pirates' vacant manager's job."

Good stuff there Mr. Perrotto.

Wetherby has ties to both Jeff Manto (1990 Colorado Sky Box), as well as ex-Bucs third-base coach John Russell (Braves 1989), and has been a professional scout for six years ('02 Tigers, '03-07 Yankees). Prior to becoming a pro scout, he was an amateur scout with the Tigers.

You may remember Wetherby as the guy who had just one at bat against Gregg Maddux and hit a home run off him. It would be the only home run Wetherby would ever hit in his major league career of 48 at bats.

I spoke to a couple of my Tampa friends about Wetherby and got responses like "one crazy dude - maybe too much Wellman rubbed off on him in '86?" and "I'll be shocked if the Pirates sign him".

I'll leave it right there.

My cousin went through the Royals farm system and had a chance to meet and work with Quirk over the years and, well, let's just say Quirk as the Pirates manager would be a huge surprise. He may be interviewed but, unless Huntington is more desperate than even I believe he is, Quirk isn't the answer.

End of that story too.

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Terry Pluto, a Pulitzer Prize nominee columnist with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, suggested that Jason Bay would be a great fit for the Indians.

We mentioned this vision back in early October, thanks to a couple of folks in the game who warned us this exact thing would eventually happen:

"But don't fear Pirate fans. Just think, when Huntington decides to hold his rebuilding garage sale, you can be absolutely sure there will be one trading partner Huntington will have at his disposal.

"Yup - Mark Shapiro."

I suggest Terry Pluto start a new book. This one he can call: Dealing: The Cleveland Indians' New Ballgame: Inside the Front Office and the Process of Screwing Other Organizations Out of Their Talent by Grooming Execs for Others to Hire

Oh man.. I suppose I should start evaluating all the meager talent left
in the Indians system since this is all but sure to play out.

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Following up on yesterday's PITCHf/x post on Pirate batters, the spreadsheet below shows what the typical starting lineup for the Pirates (Bay, Nady, McLouth, LaRoche, Sanchez, Wilson, Bautista, and Paulino) saw at each pitch count.

At the end I compared what Pirate batters saw to what the Red Sox lineup of Varitek, Youkilis, Pedoria, Lowell, Lugo, Ramirez, Crisp, Drew, and Ortiz) saw, as well as the MLB average.

As an example, the Pirates saw 2.2% more fastballs overall than the Red Sox lineup but 0.5% less than the MLB average. Interestingly, Pirate batters were fed more cutters and curves than league average.

Seeing more curves is expected.. look at the stats of the main four trying to hit a curve:

	BA	SLG
LaRoche	0.200	0.267
Sanchez	0.077	0.077
Bay	0.077	0.077
Nady	0.000	0.000

We can guess that teams went to more cutters last year knowing the Pirates wail a changeup. But it didn't work - batters wailed cutters even harder.

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Congrats to Craig Biggio for taking home the 2007 Roberto Clemente Award (given annually to a major league player who combines community service with excellence on the field). It's a perfect fit.

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How many WS rings does Bill James (the guy everyone laughed at) have in the five years he's been there? Two. Wow. Congrats to the Red Sox! Fogg starting game three.. what a joke.

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Here's another Dan Duquette signing that might be heading to Pittsburgh soon. LoL

Is Jim Duquette taking over as Huntington's adviser? Hmm..

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Perhaps we should start a blog pool.. what will be Neil's next excuse? His dog died? The Commissioner said he can't talk until after the GM meetings in December? Coonelly has the flu?

I better go get some sleep because it's going to be interesting trying to sort the garbage in the recycling bins this week.