I had a nice long post written up about Brandon Wood, but the Joomla Monster ate it at 2:30 in the morning (it was really my own fault: I know how to avoid these things and I’ve been using Joomla for almost three years now) and to be honest, I’m not quite entirely happy with how it turned out, so maybe getting to re-write it over the weekend will be a good thing. Instead, there are a couple links I want to mention and talk about this morning.
First up, the Pirates are raising ticket prices for 2012. When I was an undergrad at Duquesne, I had friends from Boston and Chicago that flat out could not believe how cheap Pirate tickets were compared to prices in other markets. This was back in 2006 and 2007, and we’re five years removed from that now without a substantial change in ticket prices, save the raise on gameday prices. I’m sure people will complain a bit here, but I suspect the Pirates have been waiting for two or three years at least to do this and it’s not surprising to see them hop on their first real opportunity to do so. Pittsburgh’s a small enough market and PNC’s a relatively tiny park, I think it’s awfully hard to begrudge them their first ticket price raise in ten years given how ridiculously cheap Pirate games have been for a while. I’d assume it’s going to be a pretty small raise in prices, but my bet is that they go to a tiered plan that ramps prices up for, say, SkyBlast or a weekend series with the Phillies quite a bit more than your late-July series against the Astros or Marlins.
Second, there’s quite a bit of talk about Robbie Grossman lately as he approaches his 100th walk of the season. That would give him 100 walks and 100 runs scored, which is a pretty rare feat in the minors. As a result of his breakout year, the Marauders are talking him up for the FSL MVP award, which I think he’d certainly deserve based on his performances. I will say, though, that I’m with Charlie in taking his success this year with at least a little grain of salt. I don’t want that to be taken the wrong way: he’s made a huge stride forward this year with his plate discipline and he’s a much better prospect now than he was in April for it. I still think he’s got a ways to go because, as Charlie points out, being able to take a ton of walks in the minors isn’t always indicative of turning into a great big league hitter. Look, for example, at Daric Barton’s minor league numbers. He flew through the minors with the Cardinals and A’s on his ability to draw a walk, but he’s never been able to develop much pop and as a result, he’s never really latched on with the A’s and he’s back in the minors this year, even though he seemed to break out last year. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, power can often be late-developing and Grossman cutting down on his strikeouts and adding some walks is a good sign, because his home runs and doubles are also up a bit this year. I’m just saying that I’ll feel much better about his future prospects with the Pirates if he shows up in Altoona and whacks 15-20 homers and 30 doubles next year without reverting to his former strikeout/walk numbers (actually, if he does that he’ll probably become one of the better prospects anywhere, which is obviously what I’m rooting for).
To play off of Grossman a bit, I haven’t written nearly enough about prospects this year and as soon as the signing deadline comes and goes, I’m going to start doing that. It was easy to get caught up in the Pirates while they were hanging around first place, but at this point in the year the minors are every bit as important as the Majors.
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