Buccos Cove

Tonight, Adam Frazier will be representing the Pittsburgh Pirates as the starting second baseman for the National League. Today, we look at the last two Pirates to start the All-Star game as we prepare to see Frazier take the field tonight. The first half of the 2021 MLB season is in the books, and now it is time to celebrate the best of the best at the 2021 MLB All-Stat Game. The best of the best from around the league will take the field, and for the Pirates, two of their own will be in the starting lineup. Second baseman Adam Frazier has been voted as the National League starting second baseman, beating out Atlanta's Ozzie Albies and LA's Gavin Lux. He is the first Pirate's second baseman to start the All-Star Game since Bill Mazeroski did it in 1967 and is the first Pirates voted in by the fans to start the game since Andrew McCutchen in 2014. Joining him will be teammate Bryan Reynolds, who will also be a starter replacing Ronald Acuna Jr. for the NL. Since...

The Pittsburgh Pirates made their first major move of the off-season on Christmas Eve when they traded Josh Bell to the Washington Nationals. They brought in two of the National top 10 pitching prospects as they retool for the future. If it wasn't clear before, it is now that Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager Ben Cherrington is rebuilding the organization. He made his first major move as Pirates GM yesterday when he traded first baseman Josh Bell to the Washington Nationals. In return, the Pirates are receiving RHP Will Crowe and RHP Eddy Yean. Crowe has Major League experience, he made his MLB debut in 2020, and Yean was signed as an international free agent and is one of the best young arms at just 19-years old. Both are ranked as top 10 prospects in the Nationals organization and will both hopefully make an impact on the Pirate's future. However, to obtain those pieces, the Pirates had to give up one of the most prolific bats in their lineup, and the only player...

The 2020-2021 off-season, much like the regular season, has been unlike any other we have seen. No major moves have been made as players look for money that teams don't have, and it might benefit the Pirates. Like just about everything else in 2020, the Major League Baseball off-season has been like no other in history. By late December, several major moves have usually been made with some of the top free agents already signing. However, here we are on December 23rd and guys like Trevor Bauer are still on the market looking for their next teams. The players are expecting the lavish contracts that they are used to seeing, but the owners don't have the money to dish out. It has led to a stalemate with both sides seeing who is going to blink first. For a team on the rebuild like the Pirates, this could open the door for a healthy trade market, as teams look to add to their roster.  The Pirates have several players that would fit a competitor's needs in almost every...

The holidays are right around the corner and we are checking off the Pittsburgh Pirates 2020 Christmas List. Today's item, the Pirates are looking for their premier power hitter Josh Bell to turn things around in 2021. The Pittsburgh Pirates' last-place finish in Major League Baseball in 2020 was due to a number of factors. Injuries ravished the team, with 11 players ending the year on the injured list, leaving holes everywhere in the field. However, another key factor to the down year was ineffectiveness, and one of the main culprits was first baseman Josh Bell. Whether it was offensively or defensively, Bell just didn't look comfortable at the plate and couldn't generate the show-stopping numbers he put up during the 2019 season. Since coming up in 2016, Josh Bell has held down first base for the Pirates and has developed into a power hitter in the middle of the Pirates order. That all came to a head in 2019 when he had a career-year hitting .277 with 37 h...

One of the biggest trade rumors that swirled around during their Winter Meetings was a Pirates/Yankees rumor. Jameson Taillon and Josh Bell were rumored in the trade and we look at what it means in the aftermath. The Major League Baseball Winter Meetings is normally the time of year when the "Hot Stove" kicks into high gear. General Managers and team personnel from all 30 Major League teams usually meet at one location, bringing on a flurry of rumors and buzz. While the meetings were held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the country, there was still no shortage of rumors and buzz. One of those rumors involved a blockbuster deal between the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was unclear how serious talks between the two teams were, but the rumor involved two stars from the rebuilding Pittsburgh Pirates organization. According to reports, the Pirates and Yankees apparently discussed a deal that would involve Jameson Taillon and ...

Last season, the National League implemented the Designated Hitter role allowing both Josh Bell and Colin Moran to be first basemen. With that rule gone, we look at who will be the primary first baseman in 2021. Entering the 2020 season, there was no question as to who the Pirate's first baseman was going to be. Josh Bell was coming off a career-year and looked like he was going to be a real face of the franchise. However, he fell flat on his face in 2020, hitting just .226 with eight home runs and 22 RBI. His struggles were even worse at the beginning of the year as he looked really uncomfortable at the plate. However, Colin Moran, who was on a Major hot streak at the beginning of the year, showed he could handle first base and took over part-time for Bell. With the designated hitter implemented in the National League, it allowed the more defensive sound Moran to play first while Bell worked his way through the struggles as a DH. However, the Designated Hitter is leavi...

We continue our position by position grade report as we move to first base, a position that saw a lot of rotation. It was the group that had one of the most impressive and least impressive players on the team this season. When the National League implemented the Designated Hitter for the 2020 season, it set the Pittsburgh Pirates first base situation for a loop. The only clear power hitter on the Pirates was first baseman Josh Bell and the Pirates new there would be a carousel of players rotating through the first base position. In total, five different players cycled through first base for the Pirates, but the two front runners had very different seasons. For one, it was a season full of disappointment while for the other it was a break-out year that might have put him back on the Pirates radar for the future. Josh Bell went through one of the worst seasons of his career, while Colin Moran had one of his best at the plate. While the offense had its ups and downs, the defen...

With the Pirates 8-6 loss to the Cleveland Indians last night, the 2020 season has officially come to an end. There were some ups and a lot of downs this season, but each moment was a learning opportunity for this young bunch. Coming into the 2020 season, many Pittsburgh Pirates fans knew it was going to be a rough year. With a lot of young and inexperienced players, the Pirates were going to have to go through a learning curve as their young guys grow and develop. There were several exciting moments, like the Major League debut of Ke'Bryan Hayes, that helped build hope for the future, but ultimately the record would get to them as the Pirates finished a Major League worst 19-21 in the 60-game shortened season. Injuries and ineffectiveness were the biggest hamperings to the Pirates successes they missed key players throughout the season. As the 2020 off-season approaches, General Manager Ben Cherrington and his staff have a lot of work to do. They have some quality piec...

After combining for four errors in yesterday's doubleheader, the inexperience of the 2020 Pirates is starting to show through. The Pirates have to work through errors to come out on the other side of it. In game two of yesterday's doubleheader, the Pirates had what looked like a convincing lead taken away by defensive miscues. The Pirates committed three errors, and one mental error, that led to six runs and turned a 2-1 Pirates lead into a 7-2 Cardinals lead. The only hit in that inning was a three-run home run Dylan Carson that took the game from a somewhat manageable deficit to an almost insurmountable mountain to climb. It put a capper on what would become a four-error night and extended the Pirates lead for the most errors in the Major Leagues with 45. It has been frustrating not only for fans but for the players and coaches as well, see Jacob Stallings getting ejected last night. Unfortunately, with a young team errors are something that you are going to have ...

After a disappointing series in Kansas City, the Pirates continue their road trip when they head to Cincinnati on Monday. The Pirates have a chance to put that series in the rearview mirror with a doubleheader of action today. To say that the Pittsburgh Pirates' most recent three-game series in Kansas City was a disappointment would be an understatement. Against a team that the Pirates matched up pretty well against on paper, they were outscored 22-7 with the worst of those games coming in yesterday's 11-0 loss. However, the Pirates have a chance to put all of that behind them today as they travel to Cincinnati to start a five-game series with the Cincinnati Reds. The Pirates will have plenty to keep their mind off of the last series today when they play two with the Reds. By the time 4:10 pm rolls around the Pirates will be looking to bust out the bats in a hitter-friendly ballpark. The first two series against the Reds this season have been deadlocked as the Pirat...

The 2020 season has not been the smoothest of sailing for Pirates First Baseman Josh Bell. However, a move down in the batting order has helped the slugger regain his identity over the last week's worth of games. The Pittsburgh Pirates offense has been one of the worst offenses in all of Major League Baseball this season. Out of the 30 MLB clubs, the Pirates enter play on Saturday having scored the fewest amount of runs in Major League Baseball this season (163). They added three more runs to their total last night, but it wasn't enough as they ended up falling to the Kansas City Royals 4-3. One of the big reasons that the offense has been so bad is the underperformance of Josh Bell throughout the season. After hitting 37 home runs last season and being one of the top power hitters in the National League, Bell has struggled mightily in 2020, spending most of the season with an average under the .200 mark. Because of this, Manager Derek Shelton has moved Bell out of ...

Even when the Pittsburgh Pirates are down, you can't count them out of any game due to their ability to score runs late. It has been a blessing at times, but it has also had its share of being a curse. When talking about the Pittsburgh Pirates dynasty teams of the 1970s, the Pirates were often referred to as the Battling Buccos. They were known for their ability to be right in every single game they played and you could never count them out until the final out was recorded. This year's team has a similar knack for scoring runs late, and it has both helped them and hurt them throughout the season. The brief two-game series with the Chicago White Sox was just one example of how that can both help and hurt a team. On Tuesday night, the Pirates found themselves down 4-2 heading into the bottom of the eighth, and we're able to battle back with three runs in the final two innings to claim a 5-4 walk-off victory. Conversely, yesterday the Pirates offense couldn't g...

We continue our series of Trade Proposals, as we send a package of Major League players to the New York Yankees for a big return. The move helps the Pirates both now and in the future. "Rebuild." It is a word that no baseball fan ever wants to hear their General Manager say, but it is also a fact of the game of baseball. At one time or another, every team has had to go through a rebuild as they restock the farm system and get ready to be competitive again. For the Pirates, their time to rebuild is now as the new regime looks to retool their roster to get back to competitive baseball again. To do this, there are going to be some painful goodbyes as some of Pittsburgh's biggest stars. In today's trade proposal the Pirates work on a megadeal with the New York Yankees involving seven different players to help the Yankees now and get the Pirates started on their rebuild for the future. Pirates Trade IF Josh Bell and RHP Richard Rodriguez to the New York Yankees...

It has been a while since we could say it, but the Pirates have finally Raised the Jolly Roger! The offense showed a glimpse of their true potential with a seven-run outburst in last night's win. After weeks of seeing almost no offense from the middle of the Pirates lineup, the team broke out for seven runs in their 7-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. Josh Bell, Bryan Reynolds, and Colin Moran combined to go 8-11 while driving in four of the team's seven runs in the win. The offense showed a glimpse of what they could be and gave starter Chad Kuhl his first win of the 2020 season. It was an effort that the offense desperately needed after dropping seven of their last eight games where the offense was held almost stagnant. The big performance of the day was by Bryan Reynolds, who went 3-4 with all four RBI from the middle of the order. So, can this offense be sustained over a length of time? If it can the Pirates have a chance to get back on track and see some succes...