Heading back to India in a year.

Thanks as always Kevin,
A couple of questions on McCutchen.
1. Does he have good baserunning ability beyond pure speed?
2. Given his speed but also his poor jumps, how would he rank defensively in the majors right now? Above-average CF? Well above-average?

India is home to over 1 billion people and the Pirates now have a bigger foot in the door than any other club. Signing Rinku and Dinesh was probably the smartest low-risk move the Pirates made all year. If they had any brains, they would invest in a baseball academy in India and hope to market the hell out of Rinku and Dinesh in India, even if they never make it out of the instructional leagues.

Neil Walker's an interesting guy. A little young for the league, showed decent power, and showed better BB% and K% previous years. 2008 seems like a make-or-break year for him.

Matt Capps is the perfect example of why teams shouldn't overpay for closers. The Pirates should try and deal him in July if the market is good and he is healthy. Many teams still overvalue "proven" closers and Capps has been consistently good.

The Pirates have been criticized in some places for the Bay and Nady/Marte trades because they didn't really get any elite prospects. But they seem to have taken the interesting tactic of trying to buy low on a bunch of former top prospects (Andy LaRoche, Tabata, Morris, and Hansen).

It will be interesting to see if these moves were really shrewd by the Pirates FO and the Pirates acquired a bunch of talent at the nadir, or whether the Pirates acquired a bunch of guys that were previously overrated prospects and never come close to achieving their earlier ceilings.


KG, at this point do guys like Laroche, Pearce, and Moss retain any sort of upside to be above-average at their positions, or are they just kind of hoping to make it as league average guys (at best)?

KG, thanks so much for these articles. I've enjoyed reading them over the last three years. My question is about Tanner Scheppers. I know that the Pirates passed on signing him to 1st round money and opted for the supplemental comp pick, but what is your take on that move?

If they had signed him, despite being in worse physical shape than his agent was trying to portray him as, where would he have ranked on this list of Pirate prospects?

Do you view the non-signing as a smart move, a bad move, or a lateral move? Thanks again for your research and efforts with these FS articles.

Kevin - great work as always. I couldn't wait to get your take on the Bucs' moves from last year. Q1: Negrych @ 2B...you say "defensive liability," but how much? Could he be a 2010 starter, post Freddy Sanchez? Q2: Any hope...at all...for Danny Moskos?

I'm still not sold that the Pirate's baseball ops are going to field a winning team. the Coonelly/Huntington dynamic is wierd, you don't really know who is in charge, and that brinksmanship they played when alvarez fell into thier laps was dangerous. Outside of the Knicks and Lions this was the worst run franchise in professional sports and there is a large gap between "Dave Littlefield" and competent

By the way, Kevin, was the Moskos pick so bad that he can't even crack the top 14 in a bad organization a year after being selected 4th overall?

As a Yankees fan who's seen Tabata at various points since Spring Training of his 18 year-old season, allow me one observation: Jose Tabata has already "filled-out" way too much. Like all too many of Yankees top prospects over these past number of seasons, Tabata looks seriously out of shape. It's a source of continuing puzzlement to me that so many young players (think DeAngelo Jimenez, Nick Johnson, Dionner Navarro, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera) have such bad bodies at such young ages. Do the Yankees not place ANY emphasis on conditioning for their prospects?
Back to my original point. Tabata doesn't need filling out, he needs slimming down.

Just an FYI to KG or BP staff - the Arizona and Atlanta top 11's are missing from the Top 11 home page.

How close did Shelby Ford come to making this list?

Is "Shoeless" Muntadhir Al-Zaidi the next international prospect to be signed by the Pirates?

Re: Craig Hansen, I think the best plan is to let him pitch in the majors and hope that he puts together a few good months, then you try to sell him as a breakout player at the deadline. I feel like this could be true of any of the guys that Pittsburgh aquired this summer, but Craig Hansen especially. Baseball players can be streaky, and it's easy to misread a few good months, especially on former top prospects.

Kevin, how "signficantly out of shape" was Alvarez during Instructs? Did he just get out of breath during wind sprints or was he looking like a late career Cecil Fielder?

This is more of a rhetorical question, since only Pedro himself could provide the answer, but why in the world would a guy who was being publicly criticized for allegedly reneging on his original deal not show up for his first assignment in tip top shape? Does this speak to his character or am I making too much out of perhaps just a few pounds overweight?

Thanks.

Kevin,
Any thoughtss on some of the other Pirates pitchers? Specifically, what happened to Ian Snell last year. He seemed to break-out a bit in 2007, but then regressed terribly last season. Is he still someone the Bucs can or should count on or is he done? Thanks in advance for your response.