The Legend

The Legend

Friday, July 24, 2015

What Goes Around Comes Around

The Pirates depth has taken a huge hit the last few weeks with the loss of Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer. Jung Ho Kang has been great this year and was filling in just fine for Harrison.  The loss of Mercer is what started an unfortunate chain of events that caused the Pirates to be more proactive at the deadline.

As a whole the Pirates farm system is pretty deep, but if it has one flaw it is void of high end upper level infielders. Alen Hanson could have possibly been called up, but he was moved from shortstop to second last year because of defense. The Pirates were left with the likes of Brett Morel and Pedro Florimon.  The writing was on the wall.


The Pirates had options at the deadline because of the versatility of Kang. You could either explore a shortstop and move Kang back to third, or find a third baseman so Kang can stay at his natural position. I'm sure the need for more offense made it easier to explore third base options. Sure enough the Pirates acquired Aramis Ramirez yesterday.

The Brewers received minor league pitcher Yhonathan Barrios, but it was more about getting some salary relief. Barrios was going to be a Rule 5 player next year and the Pirates weren't going to protect him. Ramierez was owed almost 6 million in salary and the Pirates agreed to pick up 3 million.

While not the player he once was, he will be an obvious upgrade over the likes of Morel and Sean Rodriguez who are both replacement level players. I'm sure if he can just give league average performance at third the Pirates would be ecstatic. He should fit right in batting 5th or 6th in the lineup.

I'm hoping this is some kind of cosmic justice and that Aramis will play well down the stretch and lead us to the World Series. His trade from the Pirates was the worst in team history and one of the root causes of the 20 years of consecutive losing. Feels odd that he is ending his career with the Buccos, but I'll take it. 

Thanks for reading!


8 comments:

  1. So how much longer until the Pirates trade for Jose Bautista? I'm sure adding another outfielder wouldn't hurt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are cleaning up old messes. Maybe we'll get Jason Schmidt out of retirement too!

      Delete
    2. I hear the Orioles are listening to offers on Matt Wieters...

      Delete
    3. hahahaha. That was another franchise altering mistake. Maybe they could throw in Steve Pearce too!

      Delete
  2. I did see the somewhat ironic fact that Ramirez came back to the PIrates on the same day 12 years later that he was traded to the Cubs by the Pirates.

    From the Brewers perspective, it's better to have a basically free lottery ticket in a live minor-league arm than to have a retiring Ramirez. I hope this time that ARam gets his chance at a ring.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Brewers were handcuffed so it was the right move too. The only way they would have gotten a legitimate prospect would have been if he started off hot.

      Delete
  3. I am so excited about this move. I'm calling it now, ARam comes up with a huge pinch hit against the Cubs in the Wild Card game on the Bucs road to the World Series.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not really excited about it, but it will help. I'll be more excited if they can find a legitimate replacement for Pedro.

      Delete