Pirates Journal

The Pirates were previewed not once, but twice today.  The Hardball Times and Baseball Prospectus both did their season previews today and as usual, there’s not a whole lot of optimism. 

This is definitely some good news.  Pirates pitching prospect and 2006 first round pick Brad Lincoln was given the green light to begin pitching again.  He’s going to start the season at Class A Hickory once he spends some time at extended spring training.  Hopefully this isn’t a false positive and Lincoln puts together a solid season.

Here’s another installment of the Pirates round table.  Good stuff as we talk about prospects and some of the offseason moves the Pirates did or did not make.  As usual, opinions are across the board on both subjects but it makes for a well rounded read.

Jim Tracy broke the news today that Jose Bautista will be the team’s starting third baseman.  Freddy Sanchez will then start at second and the odd man out is now Jose Castillo, who will most likely be used as a utility infielder.  Tracy pointed to Bautista’s plate discipline as a reason he nabbed the job and Castillo’s lapses at times may have cost him as well.

You have to wonder if Castillo’s days on the Pirates are numbered.  While Tracy said he has a role as a utility infielder for the team, he also alluded to the fact that he still might have to earn even that.

I recently took part in the 24th installment of the Pirates roundtable.  The two questions this time around were the Pirates centerfield situation and what to do with pitching prospect Shane Youman (who’s pegged to pitch today against the Tigers). 

In a recent spring training review over at MiLB.com, we find out how Neil Walker’s doing with his transition to third base and we also find out how that Andrew McCutchen is hanging on in camp longer then a lot of people though.  Brad Lincoln is back on a throwing program after a solid MRI and he’s hoping to come back soon and you also get a Q&A with Jared Hughes.

I recently took part in the weekly Pirates roundtable over at the Pittsburgh Lumber Company.  Good questions this time around with the topics being who the Pirates could go after in a trade and sign and then the top “baseball” story heading into the 2007 season.  A lot of good input for a variety of Pirates bloggers.

The bad news is, Freddy Sanchez had to leave yesterday’s game when he tried to turn a double play and wrenched his knee.  The good news is, the MRI came up fine and instead of something really bad happening, Sanchez will just have to sit out a couple of games.  If the Pirates were smart, they’d lean towards caution here.  It’s early spring and there’s no sense in testing Sanchez too much.  Make sure the knee is fine, then bring him back, nice and easy.

A lot of people contend that the spring season is too long and every once in a while, something like this happens.  You just hate to have it happen to someone on your team.

The Pirates lost their third straight spring game today in a loss to the Yankees.  Three games and three losses isn’t good, but these are the least important games of the spring so it’s not time to get concerned yet.

Nine different Pirates scattered nine hits in the 4-3 loss.  Brad Eldred hit a solo homerun in the second inning for one of the three Pirate’s runs.  On the pitching side, Shane Youman got the start and he threw two shutout innings while John van Benschoten was hit hard for three runs in only one third of an innings.

The Pirates will see if they can get their first win of the spring tomorrow.  They take on the Reds at home.