Remembering the 2007 draft

The Pirates might have had one of the worse drafts in the history of the franchise in 2007.  Need proof? Look here and tell me what guy is currently contributing in the majors for the Pirates (not named Tony Watson).

2007 was the last year of Dave Littlefield as the GM.  He pretty much made sure that he would never be a GM again after some of the boneheaded moves made during his tenure as GM.  I am willing to overlook the following from Dave Littlefield because every GM makes some bad moves

-trading players like Kenny Lofton, Aramis Ramirez, and Jason Schmidt for nothing 

-passing up the opportunity to trade Kip Wells for Ryan Howard 

-passing up the opportunity to trade Kris Benson for Ryan Howard

-leaving most of the Pirates minor league prospects open to the Rule 5 draft in 2003 and not using a pick even though they had 2 spots open on the 40 man roster.

-trading one of the best pitching prospects in baseball (Chris Young) for Matt Herges who they released before appearing in a single Pirates regular season game

-trading for Matt Morris at the end of his career 

-trading for Benito Santiago so he can play 5 games for the Bucs by sending away an electric young arm formerly known as Leo Nunez.

One thing I can never overlook though is blowing the 2007 draft.  The Pirates had the 4th overall pick in 2007 and passed over the top hitting college prospect, Matt Wieters, to select Daniel Moskos.  Did I enjoy watching Daniel Moskos close out the 2010 Eastern League champions Altoona Curve with a strikeout? Absolutely! I was at that game.  However, that was Daniel's age 24 season and his 2nd year in AA.  By that point Matt Wieters already had 20 career MLB homeruns and was on his way to begining to prove why he would win 2 consecutive gold gloves. 

2014 Donruss Matt Wieters Game Used Jersey 

(The above Matt Wieters Game Gear is available for trade)

  

Why do I bring this up?  Well, quite simply because Daniel Moskos has been terrible competing for a spot in the LA Dodgers bullpen as a nonroster invite.  In 2 innings of work so far, he has given up 6 hits and 3 earned runs.  Opponents are batting .462 against him.  Last year he was released by the Chicago White Sox posting a 4.97 ERA over 29 relief innings.  His WHIP was down from last year, but still an abysmally bad 1.55.  

Did anything good come about the 2007 draft for the Pirates?  Well, yes actually.

While not huge impact players, there were 2 players who made it to the majors in a Pirates uniform that have made contributions to the Pirates.  

Kyle McPherson was the Pirates minor league pitcher of the year in 2011 and made his debut in 2012.  He has recently undergone Tommy John surgery.  He's still young and may one day make the majors again in the bullpen.  

Tony Watson was a huge contributor to the Pirates "shark tank" of a bullpen last year.  In 71 innings last year, Tony had a 3-1 record with a 0.88 WHIP and 2.39 ERA.  His strikeout to walk ratio was better than 4:1 and he's been used to setup, close, and do long relief for the Battlin Bucs.  He will likely be a huge part of the Pirates bullpen success this year as well.  

One of the biggest contributors to the Pirates underground success last year came in a trade with the Cleveland Indians for Jeanmar Gomez.  In exchange for the Pirates 2007 4th round selection(Quincy Latimore), the Pirates got a swiss army knife of a pitcher in Gomez.  Gomez was able to start, pitch as a long man, do mop up duty, setup, and finish games.  Through the All-Star break last year when Jeanmar Gomez pitched at least 1 inning, the Pirates were 15-5.  He finished the season appearing in 34 games (8 started, 6 finished) with a 3-0 record, 3.35ERA, 1.15WHIP, and a 2:1 strikeout to walk rate.

So even though I still blame Littlefield for not drafting Matt Wieters when EVERY PIRATES FAN was begging for him to be drafted, at least something came out of that draft class.

Thank you Tony Watson!!!!

Feels like something magical is happening in Buctown

The Pirates kicked off the series with the Royals with a 4-2 victory.  Heads up baserunning again played a huge part in this ball game.  Rod Barajas was able to score from second on a single by Clint Barmes on a ball hit to left field.  Rod is huge guy and looks like a locomotive trying to get started when running the bases.  The throw had beaten Rod to the plate, but with cat like reflexes dodged the tag by Quintero, then crawled to homeplate to avoid a second tag. 

Another heads up play was when Jose Tabata got picked off first base with Pedro Alvarez on 3rd.  Tabata was able to keep the fielders distracted long enough in a rundown for Pedro to score. 

It looks like something magical is happening in Pittsburgh at the start of this summer as the Bucs keep winning series after series and opening with series wins.

I found this video on youtube today when checking out the comments section in bucsdugout.com
I highly encourage you to watch this video.  It's really well put together and will make you believe in the Bucs in 2012. 

The song was actually used a lot for promos during the early 90s when the Pirates were heading into the post season year after year thanks to their All-Star loaded lineups of Bonds, Van Slyke, Bonilla, Drabek.

What's amazing about this video is that it features Chris Resop's fist pump striking out Ryan Ludwick when he picked up his 2nd career save in last night's extra inning affair with the 1st place Reds.  Resop was the last available pitcher for the Pirates in a seesaw battle with the Reds.  The video also features Tabata's shotgun throw from right field to nail Joey Votto at home which proved to be a game saving run.

Since this is a baseball card blog first and foremost, here's an Andrew McCutchen dual auto with Royals CF Lorenzo Cain (currently on the DL) numbered 6/25.  It marks my 5th Cutch dual auto just minors auto.

To recap here's my other Cutch dual autos
 

 Cutch with Cole Hamels

Cutch with Gio Gonzalez

Cutch with Pirates 1st round draft pick Daniel Moskos

Cutch with Jason Heyward

LET'S GO BUCS!

1st Round Picks, not First Round Prices

The last time the Pittsburgh Pirates had a draft pick outside of the top 10 was in 2005 when they selected high school 5 tool player Andrew McCutchen.  That pick has worked out nicely, proven by Cutch's All-Star Appearance last year.  I'll never forget the 2007 draft though when the Pirates didn't select Matt Wieters with the number 4 overall selection.  Some promising other names were still available on the board like Madison Bumgarner, JP Arencibia, Ben Revere, Jayson Heyward, and Rick Porcello.  That's the beauty of a draft though.  Scouts can look at a kid and think for sure that he's going to be a quality big league talent and the exact opposite could happen.  How many fantasy football drafts this year wish they could have passed on Chris Johnson with the number 1 overall pick?

The 2007 selection of Daniel Moskos may have upset a lot of Bucs fans (myself included), but I think that Daniel could still be a very serviceable arm in the bullpen.  Left handed pitchers with a fastball sitting in the mid 90s do not grow on trees nor do they typically have a low 80s MPH wipe out slider.  Strangely enough though his splits show that he's better against right handed batters than lefties.  However, lefties strike out more often against him and he seems to control the zone better.  He's only got 24 big league innings under his belt and showed more improvement after the All-Star break last year. 

I think Daniel will start on the opening day roster as one of 2 LHP in the bullpen.  He may even make a spot start once in awhile if needed.

Here's a cyan printing plate I picked up off ebay featuring Daniel Moskos from 2011 Bowman.  I got it for around $10.  Printing plates are fun, but I don't value them too much more than $10 despite being a 1/1. 

This is Daniel's 2007 Bowman Sterling AUTO that I bought awhile ago at a card show for $1.  A whole dollar for a first round draft pick that has seen major league experience.  You can't beat that price.

Continuing the trend of 1st round talents for not first round prices is this dual autograph numbered 46/100 of former first round catching high school draft picks Jason Kendall and Neil Walker.  This dual auto was picked up for $12.

Kendall was selected 23rd overall out of Torrance High School in California.  He would play 9 seasons with the Pirates becoming a 3 time all-star and winning the 1996 Sporting News Rookie of the Year.  With all the talent that had played in Three Rivers Stadium over the years, it was actually Jason Kendall who became the first player to hit for the cycle in a game.  Kendall posed strong base running abilities despite being a catcher and would hit over .300 six times finishing his Pirates career with a .306 batting average.  He's currently a free agent and with 15 seasons in the majors sits just shy of 2,200 career hits.  That statistic puts him 8th all-time on the catcher's list.  Only Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Piazza, and Ted Simmons are the only non Hall of Famers ahead of Kendall on that list.  I-Rod and Piazza most likely will become HOF when they become eligible.  I wish the Pirates would have brought Kendall back on a 1 year contract with a club option for 2013.  He probably would have cost as much as Rod Barajas (possibly less) and could obviously provide better offensive stats than what I think Barajas will put up. 

Neil Walker was selected 11th overall in the 2004 draft as a catcher, but was later converted to 3B.  He appeared to be comfortable at the hot corner, but when the Pirates selected Pedro Alvarez they moved Walker to 2B.  Walker spent the 2010 Spring Training learning how to play second from one of the greatest Pirates of all-time and arguably one of the greatest defensive second basemen, Bill Mazeroski.  Walker came up in May 2010 and had earned the starting role of everyday second baseman.  Walker started the 2011 season off with a bang becoming the first player since Roberto Clemente to hit a grand slam on opening day.