Pirates Q&A with Paul Meyer

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Q: What do you believe Jason Kendall is thinking now that the A's have dismantled two-thirds of their Big Three pitching rotation -- which has been the main reason for their postseason appearances during the past several years? Has Kendall stepped himself into pretty much the same situation he left in Pittsburgh? Except for the weather, of course.

John Gonda of Canfield, Ohio

MEYER: Interesting, isn't it? A number of readers wondered the same thing, John. I wonder if Oakland general manager Billy Beane mentioned to Kendall at some point that, "Oh, by the way, we're going to have to trade away at least two of our Big Three pitchers to stay under budget. Sorry -- and welcome to Oakland." The A's are supposed to have acquired some good, young talent in the Mulder and Hudson deals, but we -- and Kendall -- have heard that tune before. It's difficult to see how the A's can compete strongly in the American League West now that Seattle is spending lavishly, Texas improved greatly last season and Anaheim is even stronger perhaps than it was when it won the World Series two years ago. All those "Good luck, Jason" wishes expressed in this space by readers over the past two or three weeks seem to have even greater meaning now, don't they?

Q: With the trades for Matt Lawton and Benito Santiago complete, I was wondering if this is any reason to celebrate? What our esteemed general manager has done is basically gone out and acquired two more one-year stopgap players. Only this time it seems that he was trying to disguise that fact by getting them via trade instead of scrap heap signings. I can understand one year for Santiago, but do you think there is any chance they re-sign Lawton for longer or are they now both trading deadline fodder?

Kevin of Millvale

MEYER: I believe we mentioned here last week that we think the days of Littlefield having to sign -- or trade for -- stop-gap players are just about over. In fact, maybe this is the final winter he'll have to do that. The farm system should be ready to deliver regular talent by the start of the 2006 season -- outfielders Chris Duffy and Nate McLouth come to mind. Maybe Humberto Cota will show enough that he can in fact become the Pirates' regular catcher in '06. Maybe by then, too, young catcher Ryan Doumit will be ready, although '06 might be a year too soon for him. Perhaps young catcher Ronny Paulino will have a solid year with Class AAA Indianapolis and move into the picture behind the plate. If some of that happens, then there will be reason to celebrate.

As for the Pirates trading Santiago and/or Lawton before August, fine. And maybe that will be the end of that piece, too. If you really want to dream or hope, think about the Pirates being "sellers" at the trading deadline for the final time in '05 and getting themselves into position to be "buyers" at the trading deadline in '06.

Q: Paul, I don't object to having Santiago on the team. He's probably still a good player and he can be a mentor, too. But am I just carping about Leo Nunez? I have no knowledge about him, but even though he's inexperienced, the fact he was put on the (40-man) roster indicates he's a good prospect. It just seems to me that other teams can pick up a 40-year-old catcher for nothing, but the Pirates always have to give up something of value.

Charles Sergis of Los Angeles, Calif.

MEYER: Nunez, 21, is a right-hander who signed with the Pirates as a non-drafted free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 2000. With Class A Hickory in 2004, Nunez was 10-4 with a 3.06 earned run average. In 144 innings, he allowed 121 hits, walked 46 and struck out 140, a sign he has a good arm. Slender -- he's 6-foot-2 and weighs 152 pounds -- Nunez nevertheless threw his fastball 96 miles per hour and even "hit" 101 miles per hour on occasion, according to Dave Clark, who managed Hickory in 2004. "I love this guy," Clark said. "He can pitch." I guess if there's a downside to Nunez it's that he's pitched professionally for five seasons and hasn't reached the "high Class A" level. That could indicate that he has a lot to learn about the art of pitching and might take a long time to reach the major leagues. Something else to consider is that -- on occasion -- a team will put a player on its 40-man roster to make him seem more desirable to another team even though the player might not be worthy of a 40-man roster spot. I'm not saying this happened with Nunez -- he probably would have been taken in the Rule 5 draft if he hadn't been protected by the Pirates -- but it's something to keep in mind.

Q: What options do the Pirates have left for Ryan Vogelsong should he not perform (well) this year? I have seen him pitch in person several times and even make it a point to watch him warm up when I am there and he has incredible stuff. It seems a shame to give up on someone with his talent, but what else can the Pirates do if he is not productive this year?

Mike Pickford of Steubenville, Ohio

MEYER: Vogelsong will turn 28 years old next summer, so time is beginning to run out for him, no question. He's 8-17 with a 6.94 earned run average in 33 major league starts, but he has fared better as a reliever. I think the Pirates in the spring will give Vogelsong yet another try as a starter, but I think he'll wind up in their bullpen because the Pirates don't want to give up on his arm yet. Some guys are better suited to the bullpen than the rotation, and Vogelsong could be one of those guys. However, if he doesn't pitch well in 2005, I wouldn't think there would be any reason for the Pirates to keep him around after that. They are supposed to have other good arms coming through their farm system, so there shouldn't be any more need to keep hoping Vogelsong will develop. Trade him or release him and move on.

Q: Paul, I recently I read that Dave Littlefield's greatest need was to bring in a veteran backup catcher since he filled his needs for a starter and a leadoff hitter. What about the most pressing need of a power hitter? I believe this should have been the first move that Littlefield made. Will the Pirates bring in a legitimate power hitter?

Bob Wendt of Pittsburgh

MEYER: We all know, Bob, that power hitters cost money, which the Pirates don't have. Bringing in a legit power hitter via free agency or trade probably won't happen. The Pirates again will have to try to get by with a few players hitting between 20 and 30 home runs a season and continuing to hope that first baseman Brad Eldred somehow turns out to be for real. Because the Pirates don't have the financial wherewithal to go get a power hitter, they'll have to develop those internally. Eldred, who hit a total of 38 home runs last season while playing for Class A Lynchburg and Class AA Altoona, is the closest thing to an internal power hitter the Pirates have. Littlefield surely knows the Pirates need more power -- just as he surely knows, too, that he doesn't have the means to go get it.

Q: What does it say about baseball when a player coming off an injury (Richie Sexson) gets $50 million for four years? This is basically the same type of question asked every week. The Pirates make news when they sign some has-been to a minor league deal and invite him to spring training. Will the field ever be level again?

Craig Krause of Georgetown, Texas

MEYER: The field will never be level when this kind of thing can happen, Craig. As noted above, the Pirates can't compete financially for legit power hitters, and Sexson, when healthy, is a legit power hitter. It does seem a gamble, but, hey, that's what those teams have the big bucks for. We can sit here and holler and scream and complain, but nothing will change until the collective bargaining agreement changes -- if ever. It does get tiresome every winter reading about the Yankees and whoever signing free agents for vast sums of money and brokering trades involving 15 players and three other teams and the Pirates sitting by relatively quietly deliberating about whether to offer arbitration to, say, Rob Mackowiak. The only solace Pirates can take is that another 17 or 18 teams are doing the same thing. It's yet another recurrent sign that baseball definitely has "haves" and "have-nots" and it's a no-brainer into which category the Pirates fall.

Q: Do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, feel that the Pirates can win the World Series (after all, winning is the reason we play the game) with a payroll under $50 million? If you feel as I do, don't you think it's time for Kevin McClatchy to sell the team to someone who can spend a little more money? Enough is enough already.

Arden Nicoletta of Queens, N.Y.

MEYER: Almost every season, there's a rumor that the Pirates are for sale, Arden, and every season either the rumor wasn't true or a deal didn't get done. I think there's some increased pressure on Kevin McClatchy by other members of the Pirate ownership to get this thing turned around real soon, so maybe something will change ownership-wise with the Pirates in a year or so. Thing is, who out there has deep enough pockets to effect a real change here? And, no, in my heart of hearts and gut of guts, I don't think the Pirates can win a World Series with a payroll under $50 million. In fact, I wonder when their payroll will even get back to $50 million. (See a graphic that compares average player salaries by team.)

Q: In answer to a question last week, Paul, you said that the owners of large revenue teams don't care about a salary cap. I am sure this is true. But small revenue teams far outnumber large revenue teams, and small revenue teams can obviously benefit from a salary cap. So how many of the 30 team owners would have to agree to stand firm on the necessity of a salary cap in order to have this be the owners' position on this issue in a contract negotiation? If a sufficient number of owners would be resolute about this issue, I think the players would blink first because the owners are very wealthy people who have other substantial sources of income if a baseball season were cancelled. The players, however, can't begin to make the kind of money they make in baseball anywhere else.

Fred Smith of Glens Falls, N.Y.

MEYER: One would like to think, Fred, that the baseball owners -- at least the owners of small-revenue baseball teams -- are studying the National Hockey League labor scrum with some interest, eh? One also would like to think that if two-thirds of the baseball owners told the other third that "Enough is enough," something would get done to level the playing field in two years when the collective bargaining agreement is up for renegotiation. However, no matter what the owners want to implement, they still have to deal with the players union, which always has been a losing proposition for ownership. That's why the NHL dispute is interesting. The hockey owners seem unified in their lockout of the hockey players. It's always been impossible to get the baseball owners to stay unified for a long enough time to effect some real change in baseball's economic system. Perhaps that time is coming and perhaps the resolution of the hockey situation will hasten that time's arrival.

Q: Now that we know some of your "nice" guys, how about a list of your worst guys?

Ron Klammer of Greentree

MEYER: I'm going to change "worst" to "all the guys who were tough to deal with," Ron. Here's the list:

Barry Bonds.

And now for the weekly comments and observations and rants 'n at. . .

COMMENT: Paul, I'd like to mention another fine person in the game -- Salomon Torres. In 2002, when I was working in public relations with the Class AAA Memphis Redbirds, a family called and told me that they were hosting a boy from the Dominican Republic who was receiving treatment at St. Jude's Hospital. They wanted to know if he could meet a player from the Dominican prior to the game. The Redbirds had no Dominican players. However, Nashville, the Pirates' AAA affiliate, did. Torres was among them. Torres and several other players welcomed the boy with open arms, talked to him for about 15 minutes in the clubhouse and it turned out he and the boy were from the same hometown. After we left the clubhouse, Torres came running out after us yelling for the boy. He had a glove that he wanted to give to him. Torres was a class act. I'll never forget that experience, and I'm sure that young man won't, either.

Kevin Gray of Savannah, Ga.

COMMENT: The only way MLB can be assured of eliminating steroids from the game is to make the penalty for use -- and that means the very first offense -- harsh. And I do mean harsh. The penalty would include: Banishment from the game, all records expunged and a giveback of salary over the years the cheating took place. And the penalty is retroactive. So if a player is now taking an "undetectable substance," MLB has the right to go back to previous urine samples, as new tests are developed to ascertain how long the player has been cheating. The chemists will always be ahead of the testers, so if a player wants to take an "undetectable steroid" and risk the harsh penalty stated above, he'd be a fool. But if MLB enacts my suggested penalty, I guarantee MLB will no longer have a steroid problem.

Bill Kaib of Greer, S.C.

COMMENT: The way I see it, the real Kendall trade was Kendall, Frank Brooks and Leo Nunez for Mark Redman, Matt Lawton and Benito Santiago. I think that this is a pretty good deal myself, considering we get three starters for one and the three of them make about the same in salary this year and that frees up a lot of money the next two years. More importantly I think it is beautiful that we are finally at a position where this is Littlefield's team and he is no longer burdened by bad contracts from a previous administration. This is the first off-season that we get to see the real Dave Littlefield and I am getting really excited about this year and the years to come.

Joseph Laughlin of San Leandro, Calif.

Q: It is great to see that David Littlefield is putting the finishing touches on the Pirates' latest version of "rebuilding this team into a winner!" Nothing like new, young talent to get the fans excited about baseball in the middle of winter. Lawton, Santiago? Are you kidding me? Why do other teams like Cleveland and Oakland actually rebuild while all the Pirates do is sign these one-year rentals? Will this never end?

Matt Stokan of Canonsburg

COMMENT: Well, here we go again. Another season losing a "hometown" favorite, just to acquire a list of free agent "journeymen" who had no impact on their previous teams. By the way, this is why many of these players are on the market at "bargain" rates, because no serious contending team needs their services! That is, except for the Pirates. Seriously, what will these one-season players bring to the Pirates? Maybe a .500 season? This is what longtime fans have to look forward to next season. With dwindling attendance and no hope of a winning season soon, why not take a different approach? Sign one or two "free agents" of a better quality that will impact the team in years to come, plus become the foundation of a winning team. With all the free agent signings around the league, I am not getting excited about the upcoming season in Pittsburgh. If I want to see Class AAA baseball, I will stay in Buffalo to see the Bisons and save a lot of ticket money!

Greg Dziomba of Williamsville, N.Y.

COMMENT: Paul, just in case anyone asks again about trading for Milton Bradley, tell them Nate McLouth is Bradley, but with a brain! Chris Duffy is going to be a decent leadoff man and center fielder, but barring injury, McLouth is going to be even better when he fully develops his power. I saw Bradley play numerous times in Class AA also, and our guy has everything he did -- and was even playing out of position this past season.

Leo Walter of Altoona

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Pirate Q&A is taking a break for the holidays but should return Jan. 5. Happy Holidays 'n at to yinz.

First published on December 22, 2004 at 12:00 am