One of my absolute favorite things about the Neal Huntington front office is that they absolutely do not care what anyone else thinks about what they do. People freaked out last year about the Cole Tucker draft pick and then that the Pirates didn’t save a significant amount of slot money with his bonus, but the Pirates just kind of shrugged, pointed out how young he was, and moved on. When it was reported later on that the A’s would’ve taken Tucker with the next pick, suddenly it became clear how Tucker’s age and skill-set might have caused him to be undervalued pre-draft. Obviously we have to wait to see how Tucker pans out, but it seems to me like the Pirates knew what they were doing with that pick and they didn’t care if anyone watching realized it at the time.
I’m mentioning all of this because the most out-of-left-field thing the Pirates have done in a while is to sign Radhames Liz to a big league contract this winter. Liz was a decent prospect and then a bad big league pitcher for the Orioles from 2007-2009, and he hasn’t worn an MLB uniform since. He pitched poorly in the minors in 2010. He spent 2011-2013 in Korea, and pitched decently in the KBO’s high-offense environment. He came back to the States last year and was OK enough for Toronto’s Double-A affiliate before getting rocked in 19 Triple-A innings. And then, six-odd months before his 32nd birthday, the Pirates gave him a big league deal that more or less guaranteed him a roster spot.
The only real option here is to say, “Well, hell, he pitched right in front of (Indianapolis manager) Dean Treanor in winter ball and it’s hard to argue with the Benedict/Searage track record at this point, so they probably see something we don’t.” Still, this feels crazy. This feels like Marvel Studios telling you, “Trust us, we made the Guardians of the Galaxy seem awesome on screen, Ant-Man is gonna be great.” Yeah, but it’s still Ant-Man. And what about that Edward Norton Hulk movie, anyway? (Ernesto Frieri is the lame Hulk movie of this poorly-drawn analogy. AJ Burnett is Iron Man, Francisco Liriano is the first Avengers movie, and John Holdzkom is Guardians of the Galaxy. I don’t know who Captain America is. I can’t bring myself to compare another Pirate to Thor after the Craig Wilson era [shout-out to the whereisvanslyke.blogspot.com readers still here after all these years].)
In short, Liz was apparently throwing very hard this winter. He did a good job keeping the ball in the park in his stint in Korea, which was a weak spot for him in his time with the Orioles isn’t necessarily the easiest thing in the world to do in the KBO. The Pirates went pretty hard after him, as that Pirates Prospects link attests. They must see something. They are good at seeing things in pitchers that no one else sees. This will probably be fine. Probably.
<500 is an ongoing series previewing 2015 for each key Pirate in fewer than 500 words.
Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images
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