Buccos Cove

One of the keys to any good team is the strength of their man suiting up behind the plate. He controls both the defense and the pitching staff and the best ones add offensive punch to the middle of the lineup. Here is a look at the Pittsburgh Pirates top five catchers since the 2000 season. As the Pirates transitioned from MLB bottom feeders to playoff contenders, the strength of their starting catcher got better and better. You don't see everything that the catcher does on a day-to-day basis, but without his tireless preparation, the game wouldn't run smoothly. Over the past couple of seasons, some of the Pirates' biggest off-season trades and signings came from behind the plate. For this list, we will be focusing on catchers that played for the Pirates since the 2000 season. Any catcher that had stats before 2000, will be considered but only for his performance from 2000 on.  The Pirates have always had a good backstop behind the plate from Doogie Miller in th...

As we await the start of the 2020 MLB season due to Corona Virus concerns, we will take a look at every player on the Pirates roster and outline what they will bring to the table and projections for the 2020 season. I hope this brings some positive reading to the current situation and helps us all as we wait for baseball. Since the 2012 season, Jacob Stallings has been working his way up through the Pirates system trying to make a name for himself. However, every time he was ready to make the leap to the next level, there was someone ahead of him ready to take his place. Because of this, Stallings's Major League reps have been limited to no more than 14 games a season and he wasn't seen as anything more than catching depth. 2019 would change all that as injuries thrusted Stallings into a starting role by the end of the season and he seemed to thrive. The 30-year old would have the best season of his Major League career hitting .262 with six home runs and 13 ...