The Neal Huntington Show: Pittsburgh Pirates GM Talks Roster Moves

The Pittsburgh Pirates Sr. VP and GM Neal Huntington discussed the difficult month of August the Bucs are having,  poor pitching, the strong pitching efforts that two rookies provided and spent a lot of time on the roster moves the team will be making and will need to make to set the postseason roster.

Huntington explained the process of setting the postseason roster.  He said the obvious:  he wants to give Clint Hurdle a roster that he can feel confident about should the Bucs get there.  Justin Wilson was discusseed and Huntington mentioned that he could be placed on the postseason roster depending on how things shake out.

He didn’t mention any offensive players specifically that are currently in Triple-A.  (Rob Biertempfel mentioned that Tony Sanchez would not get a callup as the Pirates third catcher.)  He talked highly about the makeup of the Indianapolis Indians, but didn’t glow about any of the bats at AAA Indy.  It’s curious to say the least.

Charlie Morton’s 27th roster spot was called the ‘wild card.’

During the show, Huntington said he was emailing the roster move to activate Hisanori Takahashi.  It was later announced by Huntington that right-handed reliever Chad Qualls had ‘irritation in his left big toe’ and was placed on the 15-day disabled list.  Huntington said Qualls had been feeling discomfort for a while now.

Asked about Tabata, Huntington said that he went through a series of tests and the Bucs outfielder was available to pinch hit.  Of course, he didn’t mention anything specific on the injuries to Tabata or starter Jeff Karstens.

When Greg Brown talked about Jeff Clement, Huntington said the club wanted to see if Clement’s bat would play at the Major League level prior to putting the post season roster together.  (Which means I guess we could expect to see a steady diet of Clement this week?)

The Pirates Sr. VP and General Manager gushed about Kyle McPherson.  He spoke about why the Pirates protected him on the 40-man roster saying the organization felt that McPherson was tough enough to stick on somebody’s roster all season.  He spoke about the upside and just gushed about how he has went about his business including his appearance against the San Diego Padres.

Unfortunately, my wife screamed for me to get in the house as there was a snake.  By the screams, I fully expected a ten foot timber rattler.

It wasn’t.

And the little guy is free to invade another day.