Well, my Bucs are tearing it down. First went Gerrit Cole and then Andrew McCutchen. For the return for Cole I, like many others, was hoping for more but as I sit back I am not necessarily unhappy with the return. We got a starting pitcher to replace him (Joe Musgrove), a potential back-end reliever (Michael Feliz), a third baseman for next year (Colin Moran and goodness knows that the Pirates have needed a third baseman for a long time) and a lottery ticket (Jason Martin). Time will of course tell and we will possibly need a decade or more to determine how good or bad the trade was since some of these players could undoubtedly be flipped for other players down the line. The thing that always bothered me with Cole was that he could not beat the Reds, who have been one of baseball’s worst teams over the past couple of years. He gave up too many stinkin’ long balls when he just tried to whiz a fastball by hitters and is one Tommy John surgery away from making this trade look really good for the Pirates. Let’s face it, he has been a bit injury prone over the past few years and the Astros can absorb him going down for stretches of time, the Pirates couldn’t. For two years of a player that the Pirates would not be able to re-sign I am happy. Of course I would have liked a better return but what can you do? For the Pirates Jameson Taillon will be (hopefully) healthy for a full season and Mitch Keller is in the pipeline so things aren’t too bad with Ivan Nova and Chad Kuhl and Trevor Williams improving. If Tyler Glasnow can ever find his stride Pirate fans might forget all about Cole.

For Cutch I feel a bit differently. They got a potential back-end reliever (Kyle Crick) and a hitter (Brian Reynolds) that strikes out too much in A ball. It may be unknown if there were other offers but, I am not impressed with that one. The problem for me is that Neil Huntingdon likes guys who throw hard and it seems like the most common draft profile for his pitchers is that they throw hard with control issues. Well, the pitcher has control issues though some reports say he improved on his control this past season. Some analysts like Reynolds and he seems to be the kind of guy that Hungtingdon gets and Pirates minor leaguers strike out a lot so he’ll fit right in. I guess I should wait to give him the eye test since he’ll probably be in Altoona this year.  The Pirates don’t need more pitchers with control issues and he can’t be worse than Johnny Barbato or Jack Leathersich or anyone in the bullpen not named Felipe Rivero, or can he? Again time will tell and we also still need to see what the Pirates do with the 12 million saved in his salary. Hopefully it will not be for a new ski lift at Seven Springs. The natives would be lighting the torches and gathering the pitchforks if that happened.

Now to something completely different. York College is now ranked #4 in the polls. They beat a bad St. Mary’s team and did not even play one of their starters so theres that. The big test came on Saturday at Mary Washington, which they lost by 2. I considered driving down to Fredericksburg to see it but York High was playing in a shootout at the Geigle Shootout in Reading that day. It’s a nice place to watch several games since they have stadium seating in the upper level. They played Philly power Math, Civics and Sciences and pulled one out. That was a shock and I didn’t see the entire game since this was also the night that the Reading Royals gave out their yearly bobblehead. The Royals beat the Bramton Beast 4-3 in a shootout.

I was going to hit a few breweries on the way up. I had time to stop at St. Boniface to pick up some beer to go and at Chatty Monks for a nice lunch but someone left a glass bottle in the middle of the street here in York and like an idiot I drove over it. About 30 minutes later I was sitting in the Rutter’s parking lot on North Hills Road changing my tire. It’s been awhile since I did that but I got it. Unfortunately there was no time to stop at any brewery but I’ll be heading back up to Reading several times this year.