One of the worst parts about the offseason is people freaking out over minor moves. One of the worst parts about being a Pirate fan is that they tend to only make minor moves over the winter, which leads to freak outs over minor moves. The Scott Olsen signing is a good example. I don’t really think signing Olsen was a great move or even a good move; he’s struggled with shoulder problems, he’s apparently a jerk, and he hasn’t actually pitched well since about 2006.
That said, he’s going to make a million dollars next year and the Pirates need warm arms capable of throwing baseballs. They had two huge problems with their pitching staff. One was that their rotation was awfully short on talent and the other was that they had pretty much no depth at all. When Charlie Morton exploded like a hydrogen bomb and Ross Ohlendorf went on the DL with back problems and Brad Lincoln couldn’t hack it, the Pirates had to turn to Hayden Penn and Dana Eveland and Dan McCutchen and Chris Jakubauskas. The bright spot of the early part of their season was Brian Burres, for pete’s sake.
Scott Olsen might not be any better than the sad parade of pitchers the Pirates trotted out in 2010 (I don’t really think he will), but then, hey, he really can’t be worse and they’re not paying a whole lot to find out. The Pirates need arms in 2010, and Olsen has one. They haven’t said he’ll be in the rotation, they haven’t shied away from signing other pitchers, they just signed a guy for a million dollars. It probably wasn’t a great move, but it’s going to be hard for it to be a cripplingly bad one.
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