Remember Harold Ramirez?
He lasered a three-run home run and a double Sunday in Miami against the Pirates, one that might not have climbed more than a couple dozen feet off the ground.
No, really, he might as well have buzzed the bill of Chris Archer's blue cap:
And beyond that, he's being noticed across Major League Baseball for pounding out 38 hits in his first 30 games with the Marlins, breaking the franchise's rookie record. Just before that, he'd been batting .351 with Class AAA New Orleans to earn his call-up.
He and catcher Reese McGuire were the two prospects Neal Huntington sent to Toronto in 2016 in the blatant dumping of Francisco Liriano's salary, purportedly -- and the Pirates passionately insisted on this at the time -- because they just had to have journeyman non-prospect Drew Hutchison. The latter, of course, would become an epic embarrassment unto himself and barely saw the light of day in Pittsburgh, giving up seven runs and two homers in 11 1/3 innings over six total games for the franchise.
Ramirez was signed as a 16-year-old international free agent out of Colombia by Rene Gayo, the former Latin American scouting director, and by Orlando Covo, a full-time banker in Bogota, Colombia, who Gayo trusted enough for his baseball acumen to pay him for part-time scouting, both getting an assist from the brilliant baseball eye of Marc DelPiano.
Signing bonus: $1.05 million.
Imagine watching an amateur play a sport as intricate and involved as baseball at that age and in those conditions -- Colombia's not the most fertile ground for the sport -- and having the God-given gift of being able to project big-league potential, much less eventually watching the kid realize it.
I share this not to call attention anew to that terrible trade. Everyone knew exactly what it was at the time, and no amount of lying was going to obfuscate it.
Rather, I share because, back in January at PiratesFest, Huntington took an uncharacteristically classless shot at Gayo while speaking to a group of season-ticket holders -- I was in the back of the room, with other reporters -- saying unsolicited to one fan that the Pirates have had two of their best classes from that region the past couple years, and better, he went out of his way to stress, than any over the previous decade. Gayo wasn’t mentioned by name, but the dig was obvious.
The owner doesn't care. The payroll is too low. But I'll keep saying this until anyone actually listens: This front office's No. 1 problem with a bullet is that it can't recognize baseball talent.
Which is why they'll sink as low as taking shots at those who can.
• Everyone except the Angels missed on Mike Trout in the 2009 draft. That was intensely documented earlier this month in an excellent piece by ESPN's Keith Law.
Within the piece, Eddie Bane, the Angels' scouting director, is strikingly quoted as saying, "There were teams that didn't even cross-check him."
So naturally, I started asking some questions related to the Pirates, who held the No. 4 overall pick that year and wasted it on Boston College catcher Tony Sanchez, who'd log a grand total of 144 at-bats in the bigs. Sanchez was chosen principally because Frank Coonelly wanted to save slot money for later picks in an attempt to bolster the pitching depth. (We're still waiting on that.) Regardless, Sanchez was an abysmal pick, even aside from Trout being available.
But were the Pirates even aware of Trout?
I couldn't confirm if they were among the teams who didn't cross-check him, but two slices of info did emerge:
1. Trout and Sanchez were in the Pirates' same northeast scouting region, so the same scout was responsible for both. His name was Chris Kline. He'd just been hired away from writing for Baseball America for six years, so he went from doing what I do for a living to whiffing on Trout a year later. That's quite a career swing.
2. Another of the Pirates' scouts, one who definitely saw Trout, put a 48 grade on him, I was told. On the 20-80 scouting scale, that's projecting a big-league bench player. You know, Sean Rodriguez.
That scout has since been promoted by Huntington and Kyle Stark to scouting director: Joe DelliCarri.
But yeah, let's talk some more about payroll.
• Some fans get really rattled when I share stuff like this. It's been that way for years. I won't apologize for it. I'm not here to fortify existing perceptions. I'm here to get real answers to real problems.
The payroll's a problem, but it's one problem, and it wouldn't crack my top-10 list as it relates to the Pirates.
• Oh, speaking of Trout, this was last night in Toronto:
Mike Trout vs. Nick Kingham ... who could've imagined how THAT matchup would turn out? #DKPS #Pirates pic.twitter.com/ySu0oNkN13
— Dejan Kovacevic (@Dejan_Kovacevic) June 18, 2019
Who needs punchlines?
• Would anyone entertain trading Felipe Vazquez?
I might. Under one circumstance.
He's 27, he's one of the best closers in baseball -- to the credit of Huntington and all concerned, I'll add -- and he's eminently affordable on his four-year, $22.5 million that additionally carries club options of $10 million each for 2022 and 2023. If you'll recall, this was the apology extension the Pirates conveniently timed right with the Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole trades to try to save face, but it's nonetheless been a good one.
A smart front office could get a mint for Vazquez. But that'd be my circumstance, so no thanks.
• I look forward to the baseball this week. I honestly do. It hasn't been particularly pleasant of late, but there are good players to watch, it's one of the best clubhouses around, the stadium is the stadium, and the franchise itself ... not even these guys can undo all 133 years. It's a civic institution unlike any other we've got.
Young fan at PPG Paints Arena. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS• Let no one ever again say that Pittsburgh's a Penguins town but not a hockey town.
Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final drew a 9.2 rating locally on WPXI. That's higher than any game in the recent NBA Finals or the most recent World Series. Among U.S. markets that had no tie to either the Blues or Bruins, that ranked second only to Buffalo's 13.9.
The same was true for the duration of all 86 Stanley Cup playoff games, Pittsburgh finishing fifth overall, behind St. Louis, Boston, Providence and Buffalo.
I'll remind: The Penguins participated in exactly four of those games.
• A fair comparison point for newcomer Dominik Kahun, I'm told from within the Penguins' management, is Conor Sheary. Couple inches taller but very similar player in terms of speed and skill. That doesn't mean Kahun is there yet. Sheary achieved quite a bit in Pittsburgh -- arguably overachieved given his stature -- and Kahun's fresh off his rookie year. As a bar, though, that's welcome. And, indeed, 'a good fit.'
• Contrary to at least two reports from a couple weeks ago, I'm told also from within management, Jack Johnson was never included in the Phil Kessel trade discussions with the Wild. Not even theoretically. It was Phil and Minnesota's Jason Zucker and no one else, no cash, nothing. Just to set that straight.
• The Penguins pick 21st overall Friday night in Vancouver. And they will pick at that point. Rutherford's not giving this one up. And it's well past time that this policy was restored. The biggest difference between this team and its opponents now, compared to two or three years ago, is that the other guys are coming with more fresh faces, more ceiling to their skill. Adding Kahun, Jared McCann and Marcus Pettersson has helped compensate for that, but it can't cover up the Wilkes-Barre vacuum forever.
• The more footage I study on Kahun, the more I like.
Devin Bush at minicamp. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS• The NFL's period between minicamp and training camp can be dreadfully dull for news. But that's not so bad for the Steelers, right?
Really, what a terrific setting of the stage they just had through all of their offseason activities, getting through them both injury-free and incident-free. Enough's been written and spoken of the upbeat vibe, but don't forget about the physical component, too. Only Sean Davis and a couple others were slowed at all, and everyone eventually participated. That shows me that, in addition to the obvious luck involved, this group came prepared from a conditioning standpoint, as well.
It's funny but, when you talk to people on the outside about the Steelers, it's all about the drama. When you talk to the ones on the inside, it's all about what I just mentioned.
Just doesn't make for some blaring headline, I guess.
• Mike Tomlin will get an extension before the season starts. And he should. As I've often written about his job performance, the facets in which Tomlin excels are the hardest ones to find in an NFL head coach. The ones he's lacked can be addressed in other ways. And to an extent, that's underway.
That doesn't make for much of a headline, either, but that's reality.
• Here, maybe this will suffice: The Steelers will retake the AFC North this winter.
Spare me the Cleveland nonsense. Offseason acquisitions are fun, but the offseason subtraction of the head coach -- Gregg Williams was enormous in getting the Browns to perform as they did down the stretch -- means yet another total transfusion for a franchise that has one every other year. It's amazing to me this doesn't get cited more often in football circles, but the Browns' new head coach, Freddie Kitchens, was hired by the same management team to be the running backs coach a year ago.
Heck, the coaches are already squabbling to the extreme it's become public.
Also, in a league where quarterbacks are more pivotal than ever, the Steelers happen to have the very best one of those inside this division.
• Another mega-font headline for this take, please: Chuck Noll won the Super Bowl with Jap Douds' players.
• Going to shut down today in advance of Dave Molinari and me flying to Vancouver tomorrow to cover the NHL Draft. Takes me an extra day or so to pack appropriately.