Ciriaco called up; Pirates 3rd base thoughts

The Pirates recalled 25-year old infielder Pedro Ciriaco from Triple-A Indianapolis on Saturday. Despite taking the place of injured Pirates third baseman Pedro Alvarez, Ciriaco owns just one appearance at the position in the minors. Brandon Wood should continue to see starts in Alvarez's absence.

Fantasy Impact: Ciriaco provides little fantasy interest outside of his speed. He's stolen 152 bases in 202 attempts in the minors, but his .650 career MiLB OPS and .190 average this year leaves much to be desired. He should carry little interest with fantasy owners. Wood is an intriguing stop-gap player who has never put it together at the major-league level. He's show a touch more ability at the plate since joining the Pirates (.217 avg, 26% K rate) after leaving the Angels (.168 avg, 33% K rate). Alvarez was striking out nearly 34% of the time before his injury and hitting just .208 with limited pop. If Wood continues to perform at this pace or even slightly better, he's arguably the man for the job in Pittsburgh. That makes him a low end fantasy option with some upside due to his former prospect status at the minor league level.

Own-able Ohlendorf

Ross Ohlendorf began to make a name for himself by two-hitting the Florida Marlins for seven innings Monday night. Ohlendorf, who wrote his thesis on the value of signing bonuses while at Princeton, has a nice makeup. He's known as a minor league innings-eater, which might translate well to the big leagues.

Fantasy Impact: It's hard to say many ace-like performances lie ahead, but if you're hurting for starting pitching in your fantasy league, Ohlendorf is quite possibly worth the risk. He's not likely to post a ton of victories, but if the big right hander can keep his ERA in the fours and continue to work a nice K/BB rate, he's worth a pickup as a low-end starting option at this time.

Manatee swallows Piartes

If there was any hope for the hapless Pittsburgh Pirates this year, it may have been vanquished with today's result. No, Pittsburgh did not suffer a devastating injury before the start of the season. No, the Pirates didn't get bashed badly by a Grapefruit League opponent. No, this is much more embarrassing than that. Today, the Pittsburgh Pirates' split squad lost to Manatee Community College, 6-4. Good luck with the National League Central.

6:15 p.m. Update: Manatee is not your typical community college. They've won a ton of accolades.

Karstens = Pirates 5th starter

Jeff Karstens wins the Pirates No. 5 starter spot. This move received little attention as Karstens hasn't exactly put together a special big league career over his three seasons. In deeper leagues, however, especially points leagues, Karstens can be a decent contributor. In nine starts last season, he posted a 4.03 ERA. Karstens won't win much in Pittsburgh, and he doesn't strike anyone out, but he has respectable peripherals. You could do much worse.

Check out Karstens' career minor league numbers:

640 IP, 533 K, 3.52 ERA, 1.26 WHIP

That's very solid. Strike outs are often a tell-tale as to how a minor league pitcher will do in the big leagues. With 7.5 K/9, Karstens is on the edge of the spectrum in terms of meeting the standard, but he brough his strikeout rate up in both 2006 and 2007. He keeps his walks down, and yielded a hit per inning in the minors.

Indian pitchers signed by Pirates

Remember those Indian "pitchers" who tried out to pitch in the USA earlier this year? They earned free agent contracts from the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 20-year-olds don't exactly light up the radar gun (Dinesh Patel reaches 90 mph while Rinku Singh is in the mid-80s), but they did enough to impress. Neither had thrown a baseball before this year.

"The Pirates are committed to creatively adding talent to our organization," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said Monday. "By adding these two young men, the Pirates are pleased to not only add two prospects to our system but also hope to open a pathway to an untapped market. We are intrigued by Patel's arm strength and Singh's frame and potential."

Talk about thinking outside the box. If you want to call this outsourcing, however, it's not. It's technically in-sourcing, which Major League Baseball's already been doing for years.

"Think of them as two Dominican kids," House told the scouts. "They're very raw. But I think this has a huge upside."

When they first came to the United States and began playing catch, the pitchers were mystified by the concept of gloves and had to taught not to try to catch the ball with their bare hands.

Sounds like the Pirates have their work cut out in bringing along these two.