Pittsburgh Pirates’ GM Huntington on Kang, Bell; More

Pittsburgh Pirates GM Neal Huntington held court on his weekly radio show, commenting on Jung Ho Kang’s injury, Josh Bell’s Call up, & more.

Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager Neal Huntington held his weekly radio address with Greg Brown on Sunday, where a wide range of topics were talked about. Below you’ll find his direct quotes on numerous items.

On Time at First Base Between Josh Bell and John Jaso

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Clint goes through our lineups every day with staff, and with the information he gathers, he’ll put together the lineups.  We do anticipate that Josh is going to play a pretty good amount and with John Jaso, we’re not going to cast him aside but Josh is going to get an opportunity to play a pretty decent amount and Clint will continue his rotation so to speak.  David Freese will get most of the at bats at third base but there will be some other guys that get some time there as well and Clint will make a decision based on match-ups, based on trends, and based on what he thinks is the best lineup for that day.[/perfectpullquote]

On the Chances of Re-signing David Freese in the Offseason

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]His teammates love him.  Our staff loves him.  Without getting into specifics and details, is he the type of player that we would love to have and keep in Pittsburgh? Absolutely.  The same challenges comes up, where does he play, how much playing time can you promise him because you don’t want to make promises, you end up breaking them, but can you work through what is the realistic scenario?   Worst case, moderate case, most-likely case, to then best case, and that’s what we did with David in Spring Training.  David has gone out and played really really well and has played more than we anticipated.  Really most of the guys we have on expiring contracts, in a perfect world, we would love to be able to keep in Pittsburgh but were only going to be able to keep some or maybe none of them but David is one that we feel exemplifies everything that would be able to be a great keep if we can do it.[/perfectpullquote]

On Felipe Rivero’s Future Role with the Team

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Well he has multiple pitches and that’s what makes him so exciting as a pitching prospect and as a multi-year pitcher.  His fastball explodes to 100, it’s been at mid-90s since he’s come to us.  You see the breaking  ball which can get swings and misses from right and left.  You see the changeup which can get swings and misses from right and probably as Tony does can be effective on left on left as well.  At this point right now our focus is to have him help us get to the postseason as a reliever.  We are aware of his prior starting experience.  We acquired him with the intent that he would be a really good back end reliever for multiple years but we certainly aren’t closed minded.[/perfectpullquote]

On the Difference of Jeff Locke Coming Out of the Bullpen

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]When Jeff was good this year, there was conviction every pitch, he really let it fly, he threw the pitch with passion, he threw the pitch with aggressiveness and that’s really what he’s done since going  to the bullpen.  It’s been simpler coming out of the bullpen because he’s worried about setting a guy up for a second of third at bat.  He’s only going to see him once, maybe twice so he’s not as concerned as every pitch is his go to pitch.[/perfectpullquote]

On Jung Ho Kang’s injury

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Hopefully the 2-4 weeks down will knock the inflammation and the irritation out of there and he’ll be able to come back and not have any challenges.  He did it on the head first slide into second base and partially dislocated his shoulder, tore the labrum in there but again, hopefully he’ll be fine and able to go shorter and not longer but we did anticipate about two weeks if not longer though the DL was an easy decision.[/perfectpullquote]

On where Josh Bell is Offensively/Defensively at the Time of His Call-up

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Yeah the challenge when you bring a young player up, all they want to do is stay up in the big leagues and when they go out all they want to do is get back to the big leagues.  As much as well try to put someone in the position to be successful.  Sometimes players press and try to do more and in Josh’s case he probably tried to press and do more and tried to force our hand to put himself back onto our club and got out of the things he did to get here and that’s the hardest thing to learn sometimes.  Just keep doing what you’re doing.  We were getting him back to doing what he did to earn himself his first call up to have to successful four plate appearances he did, defensively continued to get better.  There’s still work in progress here, he’s still a two year old first baseman.[/perfectpullquote]

 

Check back next Sunday for Pirates Breakdown’s weekly breakdown of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ general manager’s comments.