Pittsburgh Pirates GM Neal Huntington Show: Trades, Gerrit Cole and Injury Updates

The Pittsburgh Pirates GM and Sr. VP Neal Huntington held his regular weekly show with Pirates broadcaster Greg Brown.  Huntington spoke on Jeff Locke, the numerous pitchers making rehab work, possible trade scenarios and of course Gerrit Cole.

In regard to Locke, Huntington felt he was a quality piece of the deal that sent Nate McLouth, a popular player at the time to Atlanta for Charlie Morton, Gorkys Hernandez and Jeff Locke.

Huntington feels that Russell Martin is not only helping Locke, but the entire pitching staff to improve.    A.J. Burnett has been a great mentor for Locke as well as many of the players in the clubhouse.

In regard to Jeff Karstens, Huntington said he knew the team was taking a gamble by bringing back the right hander.  Huntington said there might be the opportunity to get a second opinion on Karstens, but the Bucs GM didn’t sound overly confident.

Huntington spoke positively about James McDonald as well as John McDonald.   The Prime Minister of Defense is going to see some action for Triple-A Indianapolis and after that ‘we will see where we are.’

Charlie Morton will make at least two more starts in his rehab assignment.

The upcoming draft was talked about briefly with typical Huntington evasiveness in regard to specifics.  Huntington did mention that he is watching less players this season than in years past and is instead evaluting more reports and asking his team of scouts and evaluators  ‘the hard questions.’

Huntington spoke about the depth of the club’s pitching.  He said a team always wants to deal or work trades from a position of strength.  The Pirates GM went on to say that “any trade of pitching would be done with unease, but we have got to do what it takes to help this team win.”

The health of Kyle McPherson and just when his injuries may have occured were discussed very briefly.  Huntington said that McPherson was adamant that he was healthy.  Huntington mentioned that it’s important for players to be honest with the team in order for the ballclub to help the player.  He mentioned that in spring training there wasn’t huge evidence that anything was wrong with McFear, but went on to say this…

"“…maybe at the end of the day there was something wrong and he (Kyle McPherson) wasn’t telling us.”  Neal Huntington."

If you listened to the RumbunterPlus podcast, you will know that McPherson said he wasn’t hiding anything.  The right-hander “was just trying to win a job.”

Gerrit Cole is making good progress.  He bounced back against a quality hitting club in Buffalo.  He could have let that get away from him.  (Cole allowed three hits to the first three hitters and then walked the next two.  After the first inning, Cole didn’t allow a hit the rest of the way.)

Gerrit continues to progress nicely.  It’s easy to forget that Gerrit is in his second complete pro season.

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We were busy gathering softball supplies and tried to use a new device to help record it.  We will add the dragon speaking notes we took for your enjoyment at the bottom.

The Nate McLouth trade:  we talked about the package is coming up your way I have had read glee in the deal done that just doing that I want to be in the game right now we were able to help you make the best but they wanna trade all free pizza very important and without the 340 suitable replacement package feeling and it was that made it very popular Martin been to the development contact with jeff locke.?

In regard to A.J.:   great picture on the mountain great mentor of AJ Burnett email and that so I guess I’m just very open about his willingness to his desire to learn from the battery out the ice dude yet to be around AJ manager sure. I’m not as good as a great resource player player

Here is how the conversatin about Jeff Karstens was recroded.  Jeff Carson was working through his building program what we talked about getting the Orange County and see where he was physically how was bouncing back where is a she leaving unfortunately that is his catch play after that 1465 come for the show the world is program and last chance please help pain again um just calculated the game last season we can get you through this season and jewelry worth in the year unfortunately man I’m bored work passion as you want to contribute to help in any way to India on timeand some more than once