Stats Geek and State College

The Stats Geek writes today about the Buccos need for power and how addressing that need may make them competitive next year. Charlie responds to the post over at his blog, if I've got some time this afternoon after lab I may look into a couple of the things that Charlie suggests (mostly the run differentials of the Pirates over the time spans that the Stats Geek is looking at). It's also important to remember that just because a division is awful one year doesn't mean that it will be the next. The NL West barely got a team over .500 last year, this year the division may get the Wild Card and the Rockies and Giants were competitive in the race until recently.

The State College Spikes will replace the Williamsport Crosscutters as the Bucs' NY-Penn League affiliate next summer. This was probably inevitable because State College is owned by the same group that owns the Curve and they only had a one year contract with the Cardinals, likely knowing that the Bucs contract with the 'Cutters was up after this year. Since State College is probably about an hour closer than Williamsport to Pittsburgh, this is a move that makes sense (thanks to reader Steve for the tip).