Bits and Pieces

Which is what the Bucs will probably be in when Brad Penny i through with them. SOme interesting notes....

~Survivor Kuwata finally started rolling yesterday with one shutout inning. More, err...MLB seasoned relievers Wayback and Kolb(asa) combined to give up five runs in four innings.

~The Pirates have signed Dewon Brazelton to a minor league contract and will start him at AA Altoona. This should be nothing if not interesting. Brazelton was the D-Rays' next big thing back when he was drafted in the first round (#3 overall) in 2001 - back before any of Tampa's current pitching stars were even out of high school.

He spent most of four years (02-05) bouncing between AA, AAA, and MLB, in spite of not exactly putting up promotion-worthy numbers at most of his stops. He also looks like someone who was rushed through the system. He made his MLB debut in September 2002, at age 23, after only five innings of experience above AA (and not exactly earth-shattering numbers at AA either).

Then in 2003, he made 10 starts and was pretty bad, so Tampa demoted him all the way to A ball and then told him "forget all the changes we made to your delivery. Our bad."

Brazelton improved enough that Tampa called him back up in June of 2004, and Brazelton went 6-8 in 21 starts, while managing a respectable 120 innings and 4.77 ERA - and a 64:53 strikeout to walk ratio. Yikes.

In spite of that, Dewon was Tampa's Opening Day starter in 2005 (mostly because he was actually the best pitcher they had at the time, not because he was doing anything incredible, obviously). He pitched...reasonably well, but not good enough for Tampa (who had Kazmir in the rotation by now) and was optioned to AAA Durham...but he never went. He pulled a Duffy and disappeared for three weeks. He then came back to AAA, then was recalled and finished the season in the bullpen, though he only pitched in 12 games over three months.

That offseason, he was dealt to Sand Diego. In '06, he made two starts, got shellacked, was moved to the buulpen, got hit hard a few more times, and then went off to Portland (AAA).

Perhaps there's a chance Brazelton is still salvageable. He's only 26, he's big (6'4", 215), he hasn't had any major injuries. Who knows?

Though I'm willing to bet we aren't the right team to salvage him.

~Gene Collier talks about Bill James' term "game altering lack of hustle" - Pirates response? not vebatim, but basically:

DL: "I bet that's skewed by false hustle, like running hard for a foul ball"
Tracy: "I bet that involve a bunch of addition, subtraction, and division."

Oy. Our fearless leaders, everyone.