Once in a while...

I've been not as productive as I would have liked to have been as I've noted to start the new year, but I have some things coming both in the news and some features to write about so I can feel the wheels starting to turn.

In the near future, I have the final piece on Andrew McCutchen coming (that actually has been already started), the Browns making what looks to be another smart hire in Todd Haley to become the offensive coordinator and likely replace Hue Jackson as the play caller in Cleveland and the Giants signing former Indian Austin Jackson to patrol triples alley in AT&T Park, so there will be plenty to write about over the next few days.

On occasion (and once in a while I've written in the past along these lines), I wonder about things here.
I have never done a lot of the things that really promoted the blog (and the old podcast) well, I'm not a strong self-promoter and I've never even had advertising here through the years, despite the occasional offers because I just like having the freedom to do and say what I want.
It bothers me to this day that I lost a friendship over something I said on Twitter about Donald Trump that made my friend and sponsor of the podcast upset and that has just entrenched me even more that unless someone wants to pay me enough (yeah, right) to make this my livelihood (yeah, right) then I really don't want to be in a position to have to please any sponsor, advertiser etc.

And that leads to Fightheads and what I do every Monday night with Ramon Malpica.
As a boxing fan dating back to childhood, boxing has evolved from something that I shared with many to something that was a solitary passion until this crazy thing called the internet and more importantly Twitter.
That's where I met Ramon, who is strong in every area that I am weak- he is a great promoter and loves to push the name, show and all that comes with it out there and that leads in a long winded way to why I wrote about this instead of the news this morning.

Someone that you don't know sends you a note saying that they like the show.
It is the type of thing that many hear all the time, but when people that I don't know tell me that they enjoy what I do-It makes my day.
Not everyone has to agree with me on anything or everything, but on those occasions when someone takes the time to say they liked something I wrote here or something I talked about on Fightheads, It makes me feel good, because they took their time to read/listen to my work and then liked it enough to then let me know.

Good to know...
Back later tonight with more!!

Boxing Challenge: Spence Stops Peterson!

Photo Credit: Frank Franklin-AP Photo

The 2018 Boxing Challenge raced out of the starting blocks with arguably the next big star in boxing as Errol Spence retained his IBF welterweight title when Lamont Peterson's corner refused to allow their gallant warrior to answer the bell for the start of the eighth round.

Spence won every round, knocked Peterson down in the fifth round, walked through some decent right hands from Peterson and generally made a solid top ten welterweight look like he was one step away from retirement.
It was exactly the type of performance Spence needed to deliver and he came through with flying colors.
I also enjoyed the post-fight interview where Spence called out the usually reluctant Keith Thurman as "Some Time".
Spence tweeted this morning as having a next fight date set already, so perhaps Spence is beginning to set the tone for his career by actually demand that PBC make fights for him, which would be a good thing for Spence and for boxing fans who would love to see more of him in the ring.

In the co-feature, Robert Easter defeated Javier Fortuna via split decision in a fight that likely saw Easter lose a little luster.
The much shorter Fortuna moving up in weight ( having won minor titles at 126 and 130 ) pressed the action, forced Easter to be unable to use his reach and not be able to box from the outside.
The referee took a point away from Fortuna in the second round (which seemed very early to be taking points away to me) for holding and hitting and that decision cost Fortuna a draw on the judge's card.
Fortuna swept the final four rounds on my card and I had him winning 115-112, but it was hard for me to summon too much sympathy for a guy that has lost a title on the scales in the past (at a weight NINE pounds lower), so I won't be crying too much for Fortuna.

In the challenge. I added three points (2 for Spence,1 for Easter) to Ramon Malpica's two (1 for each win) to start the 2018 challenge.

Tune in tomorrow night for Fightheads for Ramon and me's thoughts on Errol Spence, Robert Easter, and this weekend's three fights .

PPM

The PPM hits the Conference Championships.

Last Week: 1-3
Overall: 136- 69

AFC: Patriots 27 Jaguars 19

NFC: Vikings 23 Eagles 13

Boxing Challenge

The 2018 Boxing Challenge begins with a two-fight card on Showtime and one of the coming stars in the sport defending his title for the first time.

The boxing challenge with Ramon Malpica will enter its fifth year and it doesn't seem that Ramon and I have been friends that long!
Time sure flies by!
Ramon won the challenge in the first year and I have won the last three, so I'm hoping to add another imaginary trophy to the imaginary mantle!

In Brooklyn, IBF welterweight champ Errol Spence is one of the hottest names in the game and talent wise, he is certainly deserving of that status, especially off his impressive title-winning effort over Kell Brook in England.
Spence's biggest problem is typical of most of the fighters that fight for PBC- they just don't fight enough and often times they don't fight really good opposition when they do.
Spence may have taken way too much off after his win over Brook (eight months), but at least his return is not against a light touch as he'll be taking on former junior welterweight champion Lamont Peterson, who has given every top opponent (except a three-round KO loss to Lucas Matthysse) all they could handle, whether Peterson won (Amir Khan) close or lost (Danny Garcia) close or anything in between (Tim Bradley) and should be at least an interesting test for young Spence.

On paper, this looks like this is going to be a good one and style wise, it looks like it could be a fun fight.
However, I have a feeling, this is going to be the true coming out party for Spence-too big, too strong and too fast for the solid but not special Peterson, who is going to find himself overwhelmed by a very special fighter.

The co-feature has IBF lightweight champion Robert Easter in a non-title bout against Javier Fortuna.
Why a non-title bout?
Because Fortuna, a former minor title holder at 126 and 130 pounds, couldn't find it within himself to make the lightweight limit of 135 pounds and was ineligible to win the title from Easter.
Fortuna will give Easter a percentage of his purse and Easter cannot lose his title even if he loses the fight so the fight will go on, but since Fortuna has done this before (he lost his minor WBA featherweight title on the scales), I don't need to see him on any type of cards of major magnitude in the future.
I'm tired of giving these guys rewards for not doing their jobs to make the weight.
It disappoints everyone involved and they don't deserve second chances for quite a while-let alone third chances...

IBF Welterweight Title. 12 Rds
Errol Spence vs Lamont Peterson
R.L: Spence Unanimous Decision
TRS: Spence KO 7

Lightweights. 12 Rds
Robert Easter vs Javier Fortuna
R.L: Easter KO 8
TRS: Easter KO 6

Andrew McCutchen-What the Giants are getting

Part two of our series on the Andrew McCutchen trade takes a perusal at how the swap affects the San Francisco Giants and what they expect to receive from the outfielder from the (expected) one year that he spends in the Bay Area.

The Giants are a veteran team that was expected to contend last season and instead responded with the worst record in the National League, but considering their situation with veteran contracts and a less than strong farm system, the Giants are going all in for a two (perhaps three ) year push before these players are all past their prime and the revamp will be a mandatory one, whether the Orange and Black likes it or not.
San Francisco hopes to use these few years to continue to contend, draw fans and be able to rebuild that flagging minor league system in order to better prepare for the next stage in Giants baseball.

Andrew McCutchen bounced back a little in 2017 from a down 2016 with a solid line of .279/28/88 and his OPS rose 83 points to .849, so McCutchen doesn't seem to be on the downside, although those numbers aren't quite what prime McCutchen's were, they are still more than solid.
McCutchen also won't be asked to play centerfield in San Francisco as he was in Pittsburgh.
McCutchen's range defensively has dropped through the years and that would have been a huge factor in San Francisco with the largest centerfield to cover in the game.
Pittsburgh was able to slide by with McCutchen in center for two reasons-first PNC Park is much wider in the power alley to left center, therefore, making PNC Park a rare stadium in that left field is more important as far as range goes to have a strong flychaser in left defensively than center.
The Giants suffered badly defensively in center over the last two seasons with Denard Span attempting to cover ground in "Triple's Alley" and the concern was that McCutchen as well would have similar struggles.
The good news there is that the Giants have no such plans to even try as McCutchen will play right field at AT&T Park with Hunter Pence moving over to left.
McCutchen did play 13 games in right last year with the Pirates, but that is his only major league experience at the position.

At the plate, McCutchen did cut his strikeouts last season by 27 from 2016 and seemed to be more patient at the plate as well.
Cutch isn't the base stealing threat that he once was as his steal stats has decreased from 27 in 2013 to 11 last season, but he's not a clogger yet on the bases either, so I don't have any worries there.
The Pirates also sent along 2.5 million in the deal to help pay for McCutchen's salary for the season, so look for the Giants to sign or trade for a reasonably priced  and more than likely defensively oriented centerfielder to help make up for some of the deficiencies of McCutchen and Pence in the spacious San Francisco grounds sometime soon before spring training opens...

The power challenged Giants had to make something happen and even with the additions of Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria, the arrivals might not be enough to make a bad team good.
However, it is nice to see a team take the bull by the horns and try to do something, whether it works or not.
Give the Giants credit for the effort.
Now, let's see if the team can do the hardest thing to do in sports-contend while rebuilding on the fly.
Good luck!

I'll have the PPM and the boxing challenge opener soon, so the final part of this series might not be finished until next week, but I hope you'll enjoy it...

Busy Buccos Cutting Costs-Part Two

The Andrew McCutchen trade will be covered in three posts as it involves two of the teams that we cover here.
It's that important.
In part one, we'll talk about what the Pirates received in return and how it affects Pittsburgh for 2018.
In part two, we'll look at things from the Giants perspective as they attempt to bounce back from an awful 2017 and make a short-term move before their core ages.
And we'll finish with part three, where I'll write about Andrew McCutchen, the player, who grew up as a prospect into a star right alongside this blog.
I hope that the reader will find it interesting.

In this post, the trade that sent the longtime face of the Pirate franchise in Andrew McCutchen to the San Francisco Giants clearly ends any hope of Pirate fans of any sort of contention for the 2018 season, despite what the team was attempting to sell after the Gerrit Cole trade with the Astros.
Trading McCutchen, who will be a free agent at the end of the season and will be 32 for his next contract, was thought to be a given before the end of 2018, if the Pirates were not in contention, but trading him now looks to be a salary dump of a player that had given much of himself to the franchise and the community.

The featured player in the trade is yet again another power-armed reliever in righthanded Kyle Crick

Now, this is where I catch a break because there might not be another pitcher that doesn't pitch in the organization's that host teams on the local circuit (Nationals and Orioles) that I have seen pitch more times than Kyle Crick in the minors in addition to his big league season last year with the Giants.
The 2011 "Sandwich" pick has always had one of the better arms in the minors with an A+ fastball and combined with a live slider, Crick's appearance in Hagerstown as an Augusta Greenjacket in 2012 showed an impressive toolbox that gave me hope that the Giants had another future star in their rotation.
After an impressive 2013 at High A San Jose, Crick figured to be tested at the AA level in Richmond, which is where prospects often meet real adversity for the first time.
Little did Crick or the Giants know that Crick would not just meet adversity in Richmond, he would buy property and make a home there as Crick would spend three full seasons with the Eastern League franchise.
Crick walked a lot of batters (a lot), moved from the rotation to the bullpen back to the rotation, his numbers were worse in season three than they were in season one and both Giants fans and Eastern League followers were wondering if Crick was ever going to be able to harness his plus stuff and return to those prospect lists that he was slipping off.

And then something happened.
Rather send Crick to Richmond for yet another year, San Francisco threw up their hands, tried Crick at AAA Sacramento as a reliever and the light clicked on.
Crick put up an ERA under three in 29 innings as the RiverCats setup man before becoming their closer and struck out 39 in 29 innings, but the most important number?
Only 13 walks.
With Crick's arm, there is no doubt that he can be an elite level closer in the league with even average command and the potential seemed to be coming into form and with the Giants suffering through an awful season, it didn't hurt any to bring Crick up to AT&T Park when Mark Melancon was injured, although he wasn't used as the closer of course.
Crick's numbers were solid with the Giants as well in a pitchers park, which should bode well in Pittsburgh as well as Crick's ERA was barely over three, struck out 28 and walked 17 in 32 innings, which I thought was pretty impressive.
I was figuring on (assuming that Crick continued his command improvement) seeing Crick have the first chance on being the eventual closing replacement when Mark Melancon's contract expires after 2020 (Melancon does have a player option after next year), that's how impressed (and surprised) I was with Crick's 2017 season.
Here's the problem- how many times have you seen a player have command issues take a leap forward for a season and then regress?
It happens more than you think and until Crick can repeat (and maybe even another season after that)  can you truly feel comfortable in thinking that things are truly under "Control".

As for the other player in the trade, the Giants used their first pick in the 2016 draft (second round) on Vanderbilt outfielder Bryan Reynolds and many at the time thought that Reynolds was a steal at the point in the draft.
Reynolds turns 23 next week, so for a college outfielder, Reynolds is not excessively old after spending last year at High A San Jose where he hit .312 with 10 homers and 63 RBI.
Reynolds line does send some mixed signals as far as speed and power.
Ten homers in the California league is nothing special, but nine triples does indicate gap power.
Five steals doesn't indicate plus speed, but nine triples is a pretty impressive number, so there are some stats to think about.
Reynolds also switch-hits which is always a plus, but for a player that doesn't have even average power, his 106 strikeouts (and only 37 walks) is a warning sign to me.
I think Reynolds is a pretty similar prospect to Steven Duggar in the Giants system and with Duggar being one step ahead (expected to start at AAA Sacramento) in the system, the Giants likely looked at Reynolds as being the more expendable of the two, especially with Andrew McCutchen being more than likely a one year rental in the outfield.
I think there are similarities between Reynolds and Jason Martin (acquired from the Astros) with Reynolds being the slightly safer bet and Martin having the slightly higher upside due to the better power potential.
Reynolds should join Martin in the outfield at AA Altoona to start the 2018 season.

I can understand Pirates fans being disappointed with the return.
Perhaps had they waited and McCutchen hit well, they could have gotten a better return at the trade deadline, but that carries the risk of a bad year or even an injury and getting a lesser return or even no return at all, so I can understand taking the safe route now, even if it is the less than glamorous return.
The problem for Pirates fans is that it comes so soon after the trade of Gerrit Cole where the team said that they were not punting the 2018 season- there is no way that one could take such a statement with any type of seriousness now.
It's tough to take the Nutting ownership seriously now when they say that they want to build through youth and then when the time is right they will spend the money to take a shot to win a title.
When the time was right to spend and the window was open, they refused to do so- the returns are in and Bob Nutting just is content to make his dollars from baseball.
Winning is secondary.

Unless something breaks, our next post will look at the trade through the prism from the Giants perspective and how the trade impacts their lineup for the season...

Busy Buccos cutting costs-Part One

I started this post and as I did, the Pirates made another trade, but I'm going to cover that in my next post in order to give this one the coverage that it deserves.

The Pittsburgh Pirates started their revamp (rebuild) with the trade of Gerrit Cole to the Houston Astros for four players, three of which are expected to make the Pirates this season.

The loss of Cole seems like a bit of a risk to move him this soon after signing last week to a contract for the 2018 season for 6.75 million and would have had him for one more season in 2019, although that would have been under double figure millions most likely with possible arbitration in the wings as well.
Still, Cole's numbers did dip some in 2017 after an injury-shortened 2016 and it can be argued that he only has truly only notched one elite-level season, so if you are afraid of another average season that would see a similar return down the road and see Cole still earn large raises through arbitration, the argument can be made that making the move makes sense.

However, if you buy in on the time being acceptable to move Cole, I still question the package coming back from the Astros.
The main piece for me is 25-year-old righthanded pitcher Joe Musgrove, who was tremendous in the second half of the season as a reliever for the Astros (31 strikeouts in 23 appearances and hitters hit under .200 against him) but was nothing special at all in his 15 starts in his second year in the bigs.
For the season, Musgrove finished with an ERA of 4.77 but throws hard and Joe Werner (our prospect guru) says that for his money he doesn't see that much difference in his data and opinions between Musgrove and Cole period.
While I remember liking what I saw from Musgrove when I saw him pitch for AA New Hampshire when Musgrove was in the Blue Jays system, that seems to be a bit of a stretch to me.
The Pirates intend on installing Musgrove in the rotation, so I suppose we'll see soon enough, but still, Musgrove should at least be solid enough in PNC Park, which helps pitchers much more than Houston's Minute Maid Park.

The other main player in the deal is expected to be the Pirates starting third baseman in Colin Moran.
The 25-year-old former first-rounder of the Marlins in 2013 will be joining his third organization and has made just 37 plate appearances in the big leagues, although Moran was hitting well in seven games last year with the Astros before a facial injury caused by fouling a ball off straight up into his eye.
Moran has always hit for average through the minors but had never hit for power (10 homers had been his high) before last season when an adjustment to his swing saw Moran hit 18 homers at AAA Fresno, where he hit .308 in 79 games before his promotion to Houston.

Moran is a very slow runner ( when Moran appeared in Hagerstown with Low A Greensboro, we were all struck by just how slow the then 22-year-old third baseman was and we all wondered even then how long he was going to be able to play there) and he lacks range and athleticism defensively at third.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Moran hit for a decent average, but do it without great power, clog lots of bases, and be a defensive liability, but there is a chance that he is one of these players that has caught the latest novelty in baseball of "swing plane" and increasing the loft of his connections and could see his game change because of it.
However, from what I have seen as of today, I would think that there is a better chance of Moran being a "4 A " player than an above-average everyday major leaguer and I wonder about depending on him to be the third baseman on a regular basis...

The Pirates always seem to love to add hard throwers to add to their bullpen in almost every trade that Neal Huntington makes and this one was no exception as Michael Feliz was the third player involved.
Feliz, a 24-year-old hard-throwing 6'4 righthander, spent the last two years in the Houston bullpen with far better numbers in 2016 than last season as Feliz posted an ERA of 5.63 in 46 appearances (48 innings).
However, Feliz still notches highly in the stat number that I love most- Strikeouts Per 9 at 13.1- 70 whiffs in those 48 innings, so the gas is there even when the command isn't and therefore has been and still is the issue with Feliz.
After all, there is an issue with a power arm and strikeout numbers like those or they wouldn't be giving him away, now would they?
The Pirates have found success with similar projects before, most recently Felipe Rivero, and there is plenty to like with Feliz's arm, so there is upside here, but plenty of polishing and patience will be needed...

The final player in the deal is a lottery ticket in outfielder Jason Martin.
The 22-year-old Martin split last season between High A Buies Creek and AA Corpus Christi and hit .278/18/66 with 16 steals at the two levels.
I saw Martin a little at Frederick and the left-handed hitter came into 2017 with a 23-homer season at High A Lancaster (then the Houston High A affiliate), but the Astros felt Martin needed to at least start the season at the same level (All California league parks are hitters paradises) as Martin had struck out 108 times in 400 at-bats.
Martin didn't improve much on that in 2017 (124 SO in 474 AB's) and contact is going to be the major hurdle that he'll need to get past if he is going to make the big leagues as a contributor.
Martin has some speed and I could see him maybe being a backup outfielder, but he has plenty of work to do to be more than that.
I would expect him to be assigned to AA Altoona, but there is a chance the Pirates could assign him to AAA Indianapolis to start the season.

Honestly, I'm going to say this, I think the Pirates moved too soon on this trade.
Maybe they know something I don't about Cole (maybe his arm isn't 100%?) and they wanted to get something rather than nothing later?
But if that's not the case, I'm not impressed with the return.
I like Joe Musgrove, but he did pitch far better from the Houston bullpen than in his 15 starts and the Pirates will be relying on his skills in the rotation.
I'm not nearly as big of a fan of Colin Moran as others are, Michael Feliz has a big arm, but big arms with command problems aren't hard to find and Jason Martin is a decent prospect, but not a sure-fire blue chip by any means at all.

I think the Pirates could have done better by waiting or accepting offers from elsewhere (not that I really know what those would be for sure), but time will tell, which of us was correct on this one.
Next post More Pirates talk as Andrew McCutchen heads for San Francisco...