Some Links

CBS Sportsline's Josh Miller made his visit to Pirate City and filed the typical report on how Tracy is looking to turn things around. There were a couple interesting things I hadn't heard before, first that Tracy and DePodesta have spoken several times since the crazy end of both their reigns in LA and DePo left Tracy a note which Tracy called "A very wonderful note ... A very professionally done thing." It makes it sound like most of the problems in LA were between McCourt and everyone, not between Tracy and DePodesta like many speculated. There's also a quote from Roberto Hernandez about Tracy that I hadn't heard before that is pretty typical Tracy stuff, but still something I like to hear: "

He told us that the last four or five years, he sat back and watched the Pittsburgh Pirates from the opponents' bench and he couldn't (understand) why a team with so much talent couldn't reach its talent level -- or strive to reach it."

That pretty much summarizes how I've felt about the Pirates over the last few years.

Anyways, Miller also put up his five things for the Pirates to watch for which are nothing really new, but sometimes it's interesting to see how people from outside of the small sphere that makes up Pirates' fans see things.

Also, John Sickles has his Top 20 Pirates Prospects up at MinorLeagueBall.com. I know I'm not the only person saying this, but damn that's a sad looking list for a team that always seems to have a draft pick in the top ten. A couple interesting notes on the list otherwise, John Van Benschoten doesn't rate at all, and Bullington has dropped all the way to 17 behind guys like Craig Stansberry and Jonah Bayliss. We also have guys named Jason Quarles and Matt Swanson among our top 20 prospects, whom I've never heard of before. Looks like I need to spend some more time at WTM's site.