Odds and Ends

So baseball is officially over for the year. With no postseason left to talk about, my blogging will probably get a little lighter for the time being. Of course I'll weigh in with opinions about Hot Stove stuff as it happens as well as anything else that pops up into my head to write about during the offseason. I probably won't post every day, but I'd say you can count on at least a few new postings every week. I may also try some cosmetic changes to blog, maybe see if I can make it a little more "Pirate-friendly."

The Pirates announced yesterday that they would be keeping their announcing team the same for next year, meaning that Blass and Wehner got new contracts (their contracts were up, everyone else was signed through 2006). That's generally not a bad thing, as I do like the Pirates announcers, though Blass and Wehner are my least favorites. Blass just has a tendency to not really pay attention to the game at all as it happens while Wehner has some decent things to say, he just has a voice that was made for the telegraph (I can't take credit for that brillant analogy, that was all Rory). He did get better as the year went along so I'm willing to give him another year. As for everyone else, well, Bob Walk knows his stuff, Greg Brown does a great job with play-by-play, and Lanny's voice is still golden as far as I'm concerned (as long as him and Blass are kept apart, that can be painful). Plus, as long as Lanny is still around we can all dream of hearing "The Pittsburgh Pirates have won the World Series, AND THERE WAS NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DOUBT ABOUT IT!!!"

Also in today's news, we decided to let Mesa, Meadows, and White test the free agency waters (read: we don't want them back). Mesa's career has to be over at this point, but Meadows and White will end up somewhere. Meadows was surprisingly not completely awful when you actually break his numbers down, while White had a good ERA but a penchant for letting inherited runners score. Meanwhile, Ryan Vogelsong dances in the streets and Salomon Torres celebrates his return to being the primary set-up man, a role he sort of shared with White last year after battling some injuries.