Initial gut reaction registered while hungry and frustrated by stupid leaky mini-gels:
Lyle Overbay? He was not terrible when, like in 2004 for the Brewers? Blerg. Has someone checked Neal Huntington’s ID to make sure he’s not Dayton Moore? I hate everything.
Near immediate over-correction to counter the inevitable response of certain subsets of Pirate fans that blame Neal Huntington or Bob Nutting when their milk goes bad:
OK, so this means Ryan Doumit will be traded. That’s good. And as much as I’d like to see John Bowker play every day, the dude’s going to be 27 with a sub-.700 big league OPS. Not great. AND Overbay can field his position at first base pretty well, which is definitely more than can be said for Garrett Jones. In fact … it looks like Overbay’s WAR was 15 times higher than Jones’s in 2010. And his wOBA was 20 points higher. So if you’re going to play Garrett Jones, you might as well play Lyle Overbay. And if they use Overbay correctly, they can probably trade him in July.
Meeting with the truth somewhere in the middle:
I don’t think the Pirates will be able to trade Jones, so this means that John Bowker either heads to the bench or to ex-Piratedom. I’m not happy with shelving Bowker for a 34-year old, no matter how long the odds are that Bowker becomes a useful big league player. The Pirates aren’t likely to contend in 2011, so I’m always going to want the team to pick the younger player. Frankly, when a GM doesn’t it worries me a bit. But really, Bowker’s ceiling is what? A younger Overbay? Overbay should improve the defense at first base, which is something the Pirates need. He should help them trade Doumit, which is something they need to do. He was better than Jones at the plate in 2010 and if he’s platooned, he shouldn’t be a liability. Overbay and Pearce at first combined with Diaz and Jones in right isn’t likely to sell season tickets, but there’s a decent chance that it’ll be better than the hodge-podge of Jones, Clement, Milledge, and Church that the Pirates mainly used at those two positions last year. That counts for something, right?
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