From Eastern Europe With Love

Eastern Europe

Traditionally, Major League Baseball players come from two places: The United States and Canada and Latin America.  Lately, Asia has joined the ranks in as far as supplying Major League Baseball with talent.  Other than that, places like Africa and Europe have done little to produce professional baseball talent.  That doesn't mean teams won't look for the diamond in the rough in those areas.

The Pirates are no exceptions.  Recently, the Pirates have signed two players from India, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, and a player from South Africa, Gift Ngeope.  Negope and Singh are still in the minor league system and both have an outside shot of one day being big leaguers.  In addition to those signings, the Pirates had two intriguing pitchers on their GCL squad this year, both from Eastern Europe. Dovydas Neverauskas hails from Lithuania while Alex Lukashevich is a native of Belarus.

International Bounty: 2012

Julio De La Cruz at the plate.

The Pirates have willingly spent significantly more money in Latin America during Neal Huntington's tenure.  Part of the new emphasis in Latin America has come from a directive put forth by team owner Bob Nutting.  Thus far, the results have been mixed.  Overall, the Latin American pipeline has been a boon over the past few years, with Starling Marte, Luis Heredia, Alen Hanson, and Gregory Polanco all becoming top prospects in all of baseball.  Interestingly, Heredia is the only player of the four who received a significant bonus, which turned out to be a seven-figure bonus.

And We're Back...

The great thing about hobbies is the fact that they can be ignored from time to time.  It's for pleasure and enjoyment.  That's certainly true about Buried Treasure.  Unless something insane happens, this blog isn't bringing home anyone's bacon.  Because of that, I'll most likely go AWOL from time to time.  The last few months has been that time. Now I'm back.

I can't guarantee I won't go AWOL again and it could be soon.  I'm not going to lie.  That said, I've got some baseball writing fever again and with the look of things in Pittsburgh - 2nd half collapse, great farm system, potential new management - there will be plenty to write about, so I'm going to sit back and enjoy the ride. Y'all - yes I said "y'all" are welcome to come along.

Buried Treasure is back baby.

MLB Draft 2013

Compilation of 2013 MLB Draft information. Click the links to go to that particular post.

01/26/2013 - Names to Know for the 2013 Draft v. 5.0
12/27/2012 - 2013 MLB Draft - Personal Favorites
12/23/2012 - Names to Know for the 2013 Draft v. 4.0
12/11/2012 - Notable Former Pirates Draftees
12/09/2012 - Names to Know for the 2013 Draft v. 3.0
10/06/2012 - Names to Know for the 2013 Draft v. 2.0
06/07/2012 - Names to Know for the 2013 Draft