Ya know, I really question what the hell Neal Huntington is doing. These two moves blow my mind.
First off, why trade Casey McGehee if you’re going to put yourself in the precarious position of calling up Jeff Clement for the wildcard push?
There is no metric on earth that would say Jeff Clement has a better chance to contribute this year then Casey McGehee.
Obviously Casey wasn’t a god or anything of that sort, but his season with the Pirates was better than Clement’s best season ever in the bigs. Now obviously that doesn’t include his 16 AB in 2007. We’re talking about a guy that had at bats in 2007, 2008, 2010 AND THAT’S IT!
Not only that but it brought the Pirates Chad Qualls to replace Brad Lincoln. Despite the fact that Bryan Morris is more than likely infinitely better.
Don’t get me wrong, Clement has been good at AAA this season.
| G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 112 | 459 | 416 | 58 | 115 | 35 | 2 | 16 | 57 | 41 | 101 | .276 | .340 | .486 | .825 |
But much of that is in the past. Over his last ten he is a pathetic .154/.214/.256.
I guess Neal Huntington is trying to be a trail blazer by calling up guys when they are ice cold to see if the promotion heats them up.
But it get’s better.
Today the Pirates also claimed LHP Hisanori Takahashi from the Angels. Now Takahashi has actually had a decent big league career starting in 2010 as a THIRTY FIVE YEAR OLD ROOKIE.
This move could be seen from a mile away because Huntington was said to like Takahashi years ago. Yup they were serious player for him before so OF COURSE Neal Huntington had to pounce on him. He will be the second lefty in the pen with Tony Watson.
Unsurprisingly neither is especially effective against left handed hitters.
Neal made some good moves at the deadline. Still he really mishandled it in many cases. This is proof of that.
Takahashi is not the best option the Pirates have. Chad Qualls is not the best option the Pirates have. Jeff Clement wasn’t the best option the Pirates had.
The Pirates buried a player with Qualls and left their bench shorthanded in doing it.
That is playing checkers when you need to be playing chess and Neal Huntington deserves whatever criticism he gets.
The Pirates are NOT playing their best players when they have an opportunity to do something very special. Neal Huntington and the Pirates front office should be ashamed of themselves.
