Pittsburgh Pirates News Notes & Batting Order

The Pirates are hanging around .500 at the All-Star Break, thanks to a great offense. Here is my take on a lot of things going on with the team.

1st off, John Russell is the worst manager in baseball. Just getting that out of the way first.

Okay, one of the big stories lately has been the Pirates batting the pitcher 8th. The reason they're doing this is because their #1 hitter Nate McLouth is a good RBI guy, producing lots of extra base hits. However I ran their normal batting order of late, up against my formula for creating a batting order.

Pirates' Current Normal Batting Order.
1. McLouth
2. Sánchez /Rivas
3. Doumit
4. Bay
5. Nady
6. LaRoche
7. Bautisa
8. Pitcher
9. Wilson

Here is how it would look if applied to my rules.

1. McLouth
2. Bay
3. Doumit
4. Nady
5. Bautisa
6. LaRoche
7. Sanchez
8. Wilson
9. Pitcher

The shocking thing about my line-up is batting Bay 2nd, but when you think about McLouth & Bay would set the table nice for the following hitters. I almost bent the rules (which is allowed in certain circumstances) and batting Laroche 5th because he's currently on hot streak. However I still want to see another solid week from him.

Now on to the pitching or lack there of. It boggles my mind, the organization can have this few pitchers. They must trade for more pitching asap. If they have to use one more spot starter, I feel they need to give Barthmaier one more chance. His only game was against a buzz saw Tampa line-up, and hopefully he will be more relaxed second time around.

Trades - Now to the topic on everyone's minds. We know the Pirates must bring in pitching, absolutely paramount they do so. This is who I rate in order, they should try to trade.

1. Nady - Having a great year, but too injury prone to rely on for the future.
2. Pearce - Doesn't have the power to be effective in a corner position, trade him now before other teams figure that out.
3. Sanchez - Maybe you can get a team to bite on him.

Jack Wilson, maybe because a lot of teams need a SS, but since there is nobody in the organization right now capable of holding a big league SS job, then trading him would be throwing in the towel.