Pat Lackey Posts

Futilitywatch '09 is a our semi-regular update on the Pittsburgh Pirates and their march toward their record 17th consecutive losing season.

How many teams in baseball history have traded 2/3rds of their starting outfields in consecutive years? The Pirates started 2008 with an offense-oriented outfield of Jason Bay, Nate McLouth, and Xavier Nady, from left to right. With Bay and Nady slated to become free agents in the two coming offseasons and having good years at the plate, the Pirates dealt them and shifted towards a defensive outfield of Nyjer Morgan, McLouth, and Brandon Moss. Now, Morgan and McLouth are gone and GM Neal Huntington may not be done dealing. Where does that leave the Pirates?

July 2 is already an exciting day for prospect wonks, as it's the first day that teenage Latin American free agents are allowed to sign with major league teams. While waiting on official announcements for superprospects like Wagner Mateo and Miguel Angel Sano, some unexpected news broke today.

ESPN's Jorge Arangure relays a report from a Cuban website that 21-year-old Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman walked out of the Cuban national team's hotel room in Rotterdam, the Netherlands today and plans to defect to America to pitch in the major leagues in the near future. What happens next is all speculation at this point, but Arangure says Chapman is the best Cuban prospect since Jose Contreras and could command more than $30 million on the open market.

There have been very few stranger soap operas in baseball this year than the Ian Snell saga in Pittsburgh. Expected to be one of the Pirates' top starters after signing a contract extension before the 2008 season, Snell has struggled on the mound in the past two seasons, posting 5.00-plus ERAs and struggling with his control. It all came to a head about a week ago when Snell asked the Pirates to be demoted, then gave a strange impromptu press conference where he lashed out at reporters and bloggers and talked about his need to get away from the negative atmosphere of Pittsburgh.

On Sunday, Snell struck out 17 hitters in seven innings in his first start back in Triple-A. Wednesday, he talked to Indianapolis TV station WTHR and revealed that he's been battling depression and actually contemplated suicide about a month ago. He says he wanted the trip to Indianapolis to help clear his head because it's somewhere he's always liked pitching, having thrown a no-hitter with the Indians back in 2005.

Ivan Rodriguez has had a great career. He won an MVP award with Texas in the '90s, has 13 Gold Gloves and an impeccable reputation as a defensive catcher. He's caught more games than anyone in baseball history, and his presence on the 2003 Florida Marlins was widely cited as an intangible reason for their improbable run to the World Series. There have been some loose ties to PEDs that come along with being in the Texas Rangers' clubhouse in the 1990s and that might affect Hall of Fame voting for him, but it's way too early to tell with something like that.

Pudge, however, has decided that all of this isn't enough and he'd like to stick around for a few more years until he reaches 3,000 hits. He's only about 350 hits away, but at the pace he's currently going, he might have to start and play regularly for three years after this one to reach his goal.

With the Steelers and Penguins reigning as champs of their respective sports, it's certainly a fun time to be a Pittsburgh sports fan. The trouble now, with the Penguins' season over and Steelers camp still a month away, is that the only game in town is the Pirates. That's fine for a baseball geek like me, but many more casual Pirate fans are trying to make this rebuilding club, barely hanging around .500, into something they're not.

All those fans had their fires stoked a bit this week when Beaver County Times columnist Bob Hertzel decided to compare Andrew McCutchen, the Bucs' exciting rookie, to the golden standard of Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente. I shouldn't have to tell anyone why this comparison is both unfair and ridiculous, but I'm going to anyways.

With the Cubs imploding and the Brewers still in desperate need of pitching, the road to a playoff return for the St. Louis Cardinals is looking more and more wide open. The Cardinals see this opportunity themselves.

As such, they have begun keeping tabs on A's slugger Matt Holliday should Oakland decide to move him before the trade deadline, a major league source told FanHouse's Jeff Fletcher. St. Louis is cautious because of the size of Holliday's paycheck -- $13.5 million this year -- and his sagging performance in his first season away from Coors Field, but the team is interested in getting perennial MVP candidate Albert Pujols some help in the middle of the order.

Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reported that the team is stepping up its efforts to bring Holliday back to the National League for a stretch run.

Futilitywatch '09 is a our semi-regular update on the Pittsburgh Pirates and their march toward their record 17th consecutive losing season.

Despite the fact that I've started each of the last five or so seasons with very little hope that the Pittsburgh Pirates will do anything (push for a playoff spot, finish .500, not embarrass me as a fan ... anything), I still try to be as positive as possible about the Pirates' chances during the season. It's not easy, but it's the only way to keep going as a fan.

At some point each summer, though, the Pirates do something to crush my soul, be it one awful loss or 13 in a row. This year, the Pirates have teetered on the edge of that breaking point a couple times, but to their credit they somehow haven't passed it yet.

Early Thursday morning, Pirates general manager Neal Huntington defended struggling starter Ian Snell, saying that he would stay in the rotation and the team likes his stuff and just needs to work on a way to get him to be more consistent. Then, in the afternoon, Snell was demoted to Triple-A Indianapolis. More front office doublespeak and b.s.?

Turns out that's not the case this time, as Snell actually went to management Wednesday night and asked for a demotion. His performance to this point in 2009 -- a 2-8 record with a 5.36 ERA and a 1.62 WHIP -- warrants the demotion, but things are never cut and dry with Ian Snell.

With July creeping closer and the Cubs still lingering behind the Cardinals and Brewers in the NL Central, Aramis Ramirez's absence gets more and more noticeable every day. Without him, Mike Fontenot and his pitiful .686 OPS have gotten most of the playing time at third base and Kosuke Fukudome has been the Cubs' second best hitter. Anyway you look at it, that's just not going to cut it.

The good news for Cubs fans is that the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Ramirez worked out today and is still planning on starting batting practice this weekend, which means that his original rehab is still approximately on schedule. The bad news is that Ramirez sounds awfully cautious when discussing the shoulder. Click after the jump for some of his words.

Ever since CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets left Milwaukee via free agency, questions about starting pitching have hounded the Brewers. Could they replace their two aces? Could they compete without them? Yovani Gallardo has been great at the top of the rotation this year, striking out nearly a batter an inning to go with his 3.00 ERA, but behind him the rotation is in shambles. Manny Parra was demoted to Triple-A last week and Tuesday, the Brewers learned they're going to have to put Dave Bush on the disabled list with a small tear in his triceps.

It might seem that this move, which leaves Braden Looper and Jeff Suppan as the best two starters behind Gallardo, would precede some kind of trade, but a major league source told FanHouse Tuesday night that the Brewers don't expect Bush to miss much time, and while he's on the DL, they'll try to get by with Mike Burns,who is taking Bush's rotation spot on Thursday.