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12/2: Stewie, Kline & Ginger Deals, '70 KC Swap, Doug & Jeep Sign, Luke Joins, Petey, Bo, Pags & Tolan Go, Spanky GG, Arbs, Prez Carl, Lockout; RIP Danny, HBD Wyatt, Andre, Johnny, Mike, Roscoe & Deacon

Monday, December 2, 2024 7:06

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1847 – Hall of Famer C/3B James “Deacon” White was born in Caton, NY. He played as a 41-year-old for the Alleghenys in 1889, and lasted one more season before ending his 20-year career with the Buffalo Bisons, retiring with a .312 BA. As a member of Forest City of Cleveland, White led off the opening game against the Fort Wayne Kekiongas with a double off Bobby Mathews, considered the first major league hit (the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was the first pro league), and banged into the first double play. Deacon also helped popularize the catcher’s mask and he was the first pitcher to go into a wind-up (he pitched twice, piling up 10 innings of relief work). He managed briefly after he retired. As one would expect from a man named Deacon – he actually was a clean-living church deacon – he and his wife were closely associated with the Christian school Mendota (now Aurora) College after his baseball days. Sadly, Deacon died on July 7th, 1939, at the age of 91, just after being snubbed for inclusion in the Hall of Fame. It took until 2013 for White to earn his spot in the Cooperstown Hall.
1876 – RHP Roscoe Miller was born in Greenville, Indiana. Roscoe started out on fire, winning 23 games for Detroit as a rookie. He stumbled along for the next couple of years but seemed to have righted the ship with the Pirates in 1904, going 7-7/3.35. But bad luck intervened. Miller was riding with 14 other Pirates in a carriage when the rear wheel collapsed. Several players were hurt when the carriage folded and was dragged on its side by the horses, including Miller, who injured his wrist badly in the accident. That would become his last MLB season, although he spent five years in the minors afterward. Roscoe had a boatload of nicknames, with Rubberlegs, Roxy and Ross among them. “Ross” and “Roxy” are wordplays on Roscoe, and he was dubbed “Rubberlegs” after moving from Detroit to New York to Pittsburgh in a 14-month span.
1896 – C Mike Wilson was born in Edge Hill, Pennsylvania (Montgomery County). Mike’s entire MLB career consisted of five visits behind the dish and an 0-for-4 hitting line in 1921 for Pittsburgh. He is notable, though, as one of the early two-sport players who suited up for the Pirates, as he spent four winters playing football with early pro clubs in Buffalo, Rochester and Rock Island.
1898 – Pittsburgh traded IF Bill Gray and RHP Bill Hart to Milwaukee of the Western League for OF Ginger Beaumont. Gray wouldn’t play in the majors again while Hart tossed one more big league campaign. Beaumont spent eight of his 12 MLB seasons as a Pirate, hitting .321 w/200 stolen sacks, winning the NL batting title once and leading the league in hits three times during that span.

Ginger Beaumont – Our Guy Cigars

1906 – RHP Johnny Welch was born in Washington, DC. Welch tossed for nine seasons, closing out his career in 1936 with the Pirates after being picked up in June from the PCL’s San Diego Padres, where he had been sent by Boston in May. He got a save for Pittsburgh in nine outings with a 4.50 ERA, spent the next season in the minors at St. Paul and hung ‘em up after the 1937 campaign at age 30 – his minor league contract had been sold to San Francisco and Johnny didn’t want to play so far from home. No compromise was reached and Welch walked. He didn’t have much time left and so got to spend his last years at home – he passed away in 1940 from TB.
1934 – UT Andre Rodgers was born in Nassau, Bahamas. He was with the Bucs from 1965-67, batting .257 over that time, playing all four infield spots while seeing action in left field, too. Rodgers was the first Bahamian to play in the major leagues. A talented cricket player who paid his own way for a tryout with the New York Giants in 1954, he finally cracked the majors in 1957 and played 11 big league seasons, finishing with a .249 BA.
1936 – The Pirates signed 23-year-old IF Lee “Jeep” Handley as a free agent after a strong rookie audition with the Reds. He was a dependable sometimes starter, sometimes bench player for the Bucs over eight seasons (1937-46, with time off for WW2), averaging 105 games per year and hitting .269. It’s been speculated (by the Uniontown Morning Herald of 1938) that he got his nickname in 1936 as a Cincinnati rookie when he apparently reminded the veterans of a new Popeye cartoon strip character, “Jeep.” As Popeye said when gifted with Jeep: “Well, blow me down! A baby puppy!”
1963 – Win some, lose some… The Pirates lost OF Bobby Tolan, who just turned 18 with a season at Class A Reno under his belt, to the Cardinals in the now defunct first-year player draft. Tolan ended up with a solid 13-year career, compiling a .265 lifetime BA, and even had a later reunion with his original organization in 1977. Pittsburgh claimed LHP Luke Walker from Boston in the same draft, and Luke spent 8-of-his-9 MLB seasons with the Pirates, going 40-42-9/3.42 in 243 games (100 starts) as a sort of an all-around pitching handyman.

Bobby Tolan – 1977 photo via Steiner Sports

1967 – GM Joe Brown worked out a pair of deals, trading minor league 1B/OF Bob Oliver to the Minnesota Twins for 35-year-old reliever Ronnie Kline and selling C Jim Pagliaroni, who had offseason neck surgery, to the KC Athletics the next day. Kline won 12 games and saved seven in a strong ‘68 campaign, then faded the next season and was sent to SF for Joe Gibbon. Oliver seasoned for awhile, then starting in 1969, ran off seven MLB seasons, five as a starter with KC and California, batting .256 lifetime with an OPS+ of 100 on the nose. Pags had two seasons and 120 games left in him, hitting .244 during his last hurrah in the AL.
1970 – The Pirates and the Royals swung a six-player trade with RHP Bruce Dal Canton, C Jerry May and SS Freddie Patek going to Kansas City while C Jim Campanis, SS Jackie Hernandez and RHP Bob Johnson were sent to Pittsburgh. Patek and Dal Canton became everyday players for the Royals as Patek played nine years for KC and won three All-Star berths while Dal Canton served as an effective swingman for five campaigns with the Royals. May was a backup who played through 2003, Johnson was 17-16-7/3.34 with the Bucs and Hernandez was a reserve infielder, with the last pair lasting three years for the Pirates. Campanis, the son of Dodger GM Al, didn’t make the club until 1973, and he only had six at-bats in his last hurrah in MLB.
1976 – Danny Murtaugh, who had retired two months earlier as Pirate manager, died of a heart attack/stroke at age 59 in his Chester home. He compiled a 1,115-950 record in 2,068 games (.540), second-most wins in Pirates history behind Fred Clarke, and took five pennants and two World Series championships. His number 40 was retired by the Pirates on Opening Day, 1977.
1982 – C/coach Wyatt Toregas was born in Fairfax, Virginia. He had a 22-game MLB career with three of those games played with Pittsburgh in 2011 where he went 0-for-4. In November, at the age of 28, Toregas was converted into a player/coach and served in the first base box for the 2012 AAA Indy Indians. In January, 2015, Wyatt was named as the first manager of the Bucs’ short-season affiliate, the West Virginia Black Bears, moving up the ladder to skipper for the West Virginia Power and Bradenton Marauders. He continued as a member of the Braves organization, resigning as Mississippi Braves manager in June of 2021 and Wyatt’s been out of baseball since.

Wyatt Toregas – 2011 photo Justin Aller/Getty

1987 – Attorney Carl Barger was named team president, replacing Malcolm “Mac” Prine, who had lost an internal battle w/GM Syd Thrift. Barger was one of the architects of the Pittsburgh Associates and well-positioned to take over the day-to-day operations of the club, although he still kept his day job with Eckert, Seamans, Cherin & Mellott. His immediate goal was to improve the team’s image and marketing, with his aim being for attendance to hit the 2M mark. He left the Pirates in 1991 to become president of the new Florida Marlins’ franchise after he hit his patronage goal in 1990, spurred by the success of the Bucs’ run into the postseason. Westinghouse’s Douglas Danforth was chosen as Chairman of the Board and CEO to replace Barger.
1987 – C Mike “Spanky” LaValliere was presented with his first (and only) Golden Glove as selected by the coaches and players. Spanky led the NL in throwouts (45%) in his first season as a Bucco (he replaced Tony Pena, who was part of the deal with SL that brought Lavalliere to Pittsburgh) and finished the year with a .300 BA, doing it with both his lumber and leather. It also proved handy for his pocketbook; the honor triggered a $10K contract bonus.
1991 – After six years as a Pirate, Bobby Bonilla signed as a free agent with the New York Mets, the opening move in the Bucs’ eventual early-nineties disintegration. His five-year, $29M deal made him the game’s highest-paid player at the time. From 1986 to 1991, Bonilla had a .284 batting average with 114 home runs/500 RBI’s, led the league in extra base hits in 1990 and in doubles in 1991 and was named to the All-Star team for four years in a row. Bo is currently being paid about $1.2M by the New York Mets annually through 2035 as part of a negotiated buyout of a second deal signed in 1999. That deal turned the $5.9M due to him in 2000 into $29.8M over 25 years, earning Bobby Bo a nod as an All-Star in the world of finance, too.
1997 – Free agent IF Doug Strange signed a two-year/$1.1M deal with the Pirates, sweetened with appearance bonuses. The 34-year-old hit .173 in 1988 and didn’t make the cut for the second year of the deal, with his sole Bucco season ending his nine-year MLB career. No hard feelings, though – Strange joined the FO in 2002 and is still a Pirates suit involved with evaluation and scouting.

Doug Strange – 1988 Pacific Aurora

2013 – C Chris Stewart was traded to the Bucs by the New York Yankees for a PTBNL, who ended up being minor league pitcher Kyle Haynes. Stew played through two option seasons before signing up for another two-year stint (with a club option for a third) following 107 games and a .292 BA with the Pirates as the caddy from 2014-15. Stew got into just 34 games in 2016 and had season-ending surgery on his knee in September. He barely topped the Mendoza Line in his final two Bucco campaigns and was non-tendered after 2017, next playing for Atlanta and Arizona before retiring in 2019. The Pirates also lost two fan favorites players on this date when 1B/OF Garrett Jones and C Michael “The Fort” McKenry were allowed to walk as free agents.
2015 – Former #1 pick (second overall) in 2008, 1B Pedro Alvarez, was non-tendered and became a free agent. Pedro hit 131 homers in 742 games for Pittsburgh, but his inability to solve lefties (.203 BA), strikeouts (809) and fielding woes made his projected $8M arbitration award too pricey for the Bucs, which had tried unsuccessfully to move him to an American League club for two years running. He went on to play three years with Baltimore, with 2018 being his last campaign. Petey is now part of the Milwaukee Brewers player development team. Jaff Decker, a depth outfielder, was also non-tendered. Jaff signed on as organizational depth for Tampa Bay, getting into 19 games, and got a cup of coffee with Oakland in 2017, his last MLB posting.
2016 – The Pirates kept the majority of their eight-man arb class. The FO tendered P’s Tony Watson, Juan Nicasio, Gerrit Cole, Drew Hutchison & Jared Hughes and signed Wade LeBlanc (one year + option, $800K guaranteed); they also tendered SS Jordy Mercer. The casualties were P Jeff Locke, who was DFA’ed, and C Eric Fryer, who was non-tendered as a pre-arb player.
2019 – The Pirates brought in Steve Sanders, 31, the Director of Amateur Scouting for Toronto, as an Assistant GM, becoming new GM Ben Cherington’s first front office hire (it was officially announced the next day). His focus was on amateur/international scouting and MLB’s draft. The two had a history of working together: Sanders was a scout for Boston in 2012 when Cherington was the GM, and was the Blue Jays Scouting Director during Cherington’s stint with Toronto. Sanders replaced Kyle Stark, who had been relieved of duty in mid-November.

Erik Gonzalez – 2019 Topps

2020 – The Pirates had 15 guys eligible for arb, and today was the deadline for dealing with their contracts. IF Erik Gonzalez was signed to a one-year/$1.225 million contract (he made $725K last season), while RHP Michael Feliz and RHP Jameson Taillon also agreed on deals. Arb-eligible players RHP Trevor Williams and 1B/OF Jose Osuna had already been released. The remainder of the arb guys (10) were tendered and decided to go through the hearing process. They were 1B Josh Bell, LHP Steven Brault, RHP Kyle Crick, 2B Adam Frazier, RHP Chad Kuhl, 1B/3B Colin Moran, RHP Joe Musgrove, RHP Richard Rodriguez, C Jake Stallings and RHP Chris Stratton (who was the only man left on the roster by the 2022 season). In another move, RHP Clay Holmes, who was ailing with a bad arm, was non-tendered (he was a year shy of arb). Holmes was dealt to the NYYs in mid-2021 and has slashed 16-10-44/2.50 w/10 K per nine innings since then.
2021 – At one minute past midnight, MLB informed the union that the players were being locked out pending a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The main sticking points: the owners were pushing a cap/floor system to control costs, while the union was opposed, seeing it as a ploy to limit the pay of elite players. On the other hand, the MLBPA wanted an easier eligibility path for young players to get paid serious dollars while the owners would rather keep that cheap labor pool intact. Other less pressing points: tanking, expanded playoffs, luxury tax, service time manipulation and universal DH were also on the table. The last baseball work stoppage was the players strike that canceled the 1994 World Series and caused the 1995 season to be shortened to 144 games. This one was settled in early March, delaying the start of the season but saving all the games.

Source: https://oldbucs.blogspot.com/2024/12/122-stewie-kline-ginger-deals-70-kc.html

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