Projects: in school, it seemed as if kids either hated them or loved them. But school is not the only area where projects are completed. In baseball, projects are taken on all the time. For the past handful of years or so, the Pittsburgh Pirates have loved getting their hands on these projects.

The Pirates would go out in the offseason and they would see things in guys that other teams just did not. A lot of that has to be a credit to the Pirates scouting department.

Edinson Volquez, Vance Worley, Francisco Liriano, and John Holdzkum are all reclamation projects that the Pirates have taken on in recent years, each having at least some success at the major league level.

The Pirates are no strangers to these kinds of moves and they have another reclamation project that seems to be well on his way to finding success once again. Hopefully for the Pirates, they will get to see that from this player at the major league level, and hopefully sometime relatively soon. How soon remains to be determined, however.

The project that is being spoken of is pitcher Clayton Richard. While Richard has struggled lately, meaning in the past few seasons in the majors, he has also shown signs of upside in the majors. Richard's best season was in 2009, when he pitched a little over 200 innings and went 14-9 with a 3.75 ERA. His career ERA is 4.33, but that can be reduced if this reclamation project can keep going well for the Pirates.

Richard pitched in Monday's game for Triple-A Indianapolis and went seven scoreless innings. Richard has not allowed an earned run in three of his last four starts. Richard is also 3-2 with a 1.45 ERA in his last seven starts for Indianapolis.

This is not suggesting that Richard should be called up and replace Jeff Locke in the starting rotation or even replace anyone in the bullpen. However, Richard's newfound success with the Pirates does further validate the depth of the Pirates pitching up and down their system. It also allows for opportunity if Locke does keep struggling; Richard could be called up to fill in the fifth spot in the rotation. That's purely just speculation but it is definitely a possibility.

It is also possible that Richard's success in the minors does not translate to the majors. That cannot be ruled out as a possibility either, especially because of the history of struggles that Richard has endured in the majors. But for the Pirates scouting department, at least for the time being, let's chalk this guy up as another win for the reclamation projects.

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About the author
Brett Blizinski
Brett is a writer that has covered every major sport. He has also had an article featured on foxsports.com after the call-up of Gregory Polanco.