Bucco Blog - New Bucs http://newbucs.com Think. Live. Pittsburgh Pirates baseball Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:03:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Bucs: concern about Aki’s strikeout rate batting second?!? I hope you are sitting at home getting hammered on St. Patty’s drinks as you read this post! 

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New Bucs Black & Gold League 3 drafts Thursday at 9PM.  Here is the link. Be sure to get there a bit early and do the java test to make sure you can participate in the draft. 

Good Luck! 

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Wow, not only are we facing quite a few 5th/6th type starters this spring, now teams are keeping their veterans at home too.  Facing [...]

Continue reading: Bucs: concern about Aki’s strikeout rate batting second?!?

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/17/bucs-concern-about-akis-strikeout-rate-batting-second/ My vote is for Carrasco as 5th starter What a choice we have.. Hart or McCutchen as the 5th starter.  Hart has the inside track everybody is saying but I suppose it really doesn’t matter too much because they are both going to get hit hard.  Probably so would Lincoln, for that matter. Or Morris. Or anybody else we have hanging around right now.

But what if we started Carrasco? I mean, so what if he’s +63 innings from 2008 to 2009 and so what if [...]

Continue reading: My vote is for Carrasco as 5th starter

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/16/i-vote-for-carrasco-as-5th-starter/ Young Bucs disrespect Blue, media follows. Both lose. At least two of the beat writers covering the Pirates sounded off on their concern about Monday’s home plate umpire Justin Vogel saying things like the Phils brought their own umps, that the Pirates are giving the ump dirty looks, or that Doc Halladay had a generous zone, or that he was talking too much to Ryan Doumit. That surprised me because in their game recaps, not one of them talked about the real reasons we stunk up [...]

Continue reading: Young Bucs disrespect Blue, media follows. Both lose.

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/15/young-bucs-disrespect-blue-media-follows-both-lose/ Things are starting to click in camp What a great game of baseball.  Ah, nevermind we played some of the Yankees “B” roster, and nevermind that the winds aided the power game, it was just nice to see blue skies, happy faces in the stands, and the club starting to come together.

Oh, and then there was Bob Nutting doing his best Kevin McClatchy impersonation sitting in row 1, seat 1.  At least Kevin liked baseball. Anyway…

My take on Morton.. he’s obviously not got [...]

Continue reading: Things are starting to click in camp

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/14/things-are-starting-to-click-in-camp/ Pirates: no trades without receiving 1st newborn too? I was a bit disappointed to hear today that clubs are calling the Bucs on players but we’re asking for the moon.  I respect that the season is about to start and some of the inquiries made could significantly impact our season if we traded the player asked about, but in at least one case I heard we were offered quite a haul and we still demanded more.

I’m going to go on the record as saying that the Pirates [...]

Continue reading: Pirates: no trades without receiving 1st newborn too?

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/13/pirates-not-willing-to-deal/ Pirates Blueprint already obsolete. Where’s Part II? I have two MLB.com Fantasy League Baseball slots left to fill.. both are for a live draft next Thursday 03/18 at 09:00 pm ET.  The league is free to play, MLB’s software will draft best available for you if you can’t make the live draft (I won my division that way last year), and very little time is needed during the year – you set your roster one time for the next week’s play and that’s [...]

Continue reading: Pirates Blueprint already obsolete. Where’s Part II?

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/12/pirates-blueprint-already-obsolete-wheres-part-ii/ Patience, patience, patience? Rays 16, Pirates 15.  How many touchdowns did Tabata have? Goodness gracious. And poor Tabata. The kid has it hard enough learning how to cover the ball in right field off major league bats, but he ends up having to take the field playing center with winds up to 45 mph.  I’m sure he’ll be using those skills the rest of his playing career.

So what can we take away from this game that has any meaning whatsoever?  Doumit not [...]

Continue reading: Patience, patience, patience?

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/11/patience-patience-patience/ Duke blows a head gasket, takes loss Lots to talk about and little time so let’s get going.

The Orioles game had an exciting first inning and then fizzled.  I especially liked the part when Duke took the mound, got two fast outs, then gave up a line drive to Adam Jones that should have been a routine out in my mind had McCutchen been playing straightaway center, but he was in as usual and the ball floated right over his head to the [...]

Continue reading: Duke blows a head gasket, takes loss

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/10/duke-blows-a-head-gasket-takes-loss/ How the Bucs can avoid being a pretender So let’s talk about what it will take to not be another pretender team since we’ve been able to see the Bucs play a little.

Obviously we have a gaping hole at shortstop as neither Crosby or Cedeno are major league answers. Since Neal Huntington left the club short-changed here, and because we don’t have any talent in the upper system, we’re going to bleed defensive runs at short all year.  The free agent market was thin but I [...]

Continue reading: How the Bucs can avoid being a pretender

]]> http://newbucs.com/2010/03/10/how-the-bucs-can-avoid-being-a-pretender/ Bucs shutout 17 of 19 innings losing two I’m writing this post with a touch of sadness in my heart as minor league camp starts to gain some momentum. All I can say is that minor events have transpired in our minor league system which are disappointing and I’m guessing you’ll be hearing about them soon enough from other sources.  That being said, New Bucs readers aren’t going to understand a lot of what I have to say right now although I think it’s important that somebody says something…

Opening [...]

Continue reading: Bucs shutout 17 of 19 innings losing two

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