Vacation's over

With only a little over a week left until the Winter Meetings kick off, Dejan Kovacevic returns to the PG today with two Pirate related stories, which is pretty much two more stories than we've seen about the team from the PG since his post-season wrap in October.

The first story is similar to what I said here, that the crazy off-season market could benefit the Pirates if they play their cards right in the trade market. In the article Littlefield has this to say about the market:

Sure, it's going to help us. You've got to go someplace to get players. If the free-agent market gets expensive, you would think, in general, that the trade market would increase, as well, as far as value.

It's nice to know that DL's at least got his mind on the right track this winter. I doubt he's thinking of going as far as I talked about in my post (that would be trading EVERYone), but at least he's saying the right things. From the same article, we get what we bloggers thrive on at this time of year, names. One name is one we just talked about, Brad Hawpe. The other is Adam Dunn, who would look awfully nice protecting Jason Bay next year. We may be able to pry Dunn out of Cincy easier than we could pry Teixeira out of Texas because, well, Wayne Krivsky appears to be insane. The problem with Dunn is that he's as expensive as hell ($10.5 million this year and a $13 million club option for 2008) and we'd only get two years out of him before he would almost certainly leave for free agency. If we've got to give up a ton to get him here for only two years I'm not sure it's worth it, only because I don't think Adam Dunn fixes all of the problems this team has. The final name mentioned is Aubrey Huff, who DL says the Pirates aren't going to pursue on the free agent market. This is more good news. The curious news is that he's planning on making these trades without dealing Snell, Maholm, Duke, or Gorzelanny. Just exactly how he plans to do that is beyond me. I'll be as happy as anyone if Jose Castillo and Xavier Nady turn into Adam Dunn, but I'm not sure I see that happening.

Today also marks the return of Dejan's Hot Stove Report. Because of the Pirates' inactivity there's not much to report, thus the bulk of it is on Nyjer Morgan. At the end we learn the Pirates mini-camp may be held at PNC this January (if the weather is like it's been the past couple days we might as well just start the season then). Dejan also mentions Wardell Starling as the only prospect that is Rule 5 eligible and Jesse Chavez as having a shot to make the team out of camp, so maybe Chavez isn't eligible, after all. This is, along with the new CBA rules, is probably worth it's own post sometime early next week. You know, on a day when the Steelers aren't on.