Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

2005 key stats : .257/.295/.363 with 39 XBH (24 2B, 7 3B, 8 HR) in 639 PAs (587 ABs) 2006 ZiPS : .272/.314/.395 with 49 XBH (31, 8, 10) in 628 ABs. It's time for the prediction on maybe the toughest guy on the team to get a read on, Jack Wilson. After his breakout 2004 (.308/.335/.459) he heavily slumped for almost all of last year until a hot September brought his numbers up to the level they've been at almost his entire career. He had an appendectomy in the offseason and it's hard to say how long it affected him for. One argument is through April, because May was statistically his second best month last season. On the other hand, he still stunk in May last year, putting up a .306/.413 month for a .719 OPS. A .719 OPS would've been worse than every month he had in 2004 except two. Still, we'll use April as the cutoff for the injury because he was truly awful in April and just pretty bad from May-August. Let's take a look at his key stats without April included...

According to this article from the official Pirates mouthpiece, the Pirates are planning to add another mascot next year. You know what? I don't even want to know what this is. The Parrot is one thing, kids love it (is it a he or a she? I can never tell), it's a classic, it reminds everyone of '79, it sold coke in the 80s, it's a part of the team. I don't even want to have to think about putting up with some shit like this next year, it's just going to make me angry.

2005 key stats : .276/.335/.452 with 62 XBH (17 HR, 43 2B, 2 3B) in 609 PAs (555 ABs) 2006 ZiPS : .277/.332/.440 with 57 XBH (14, 41, 2) in 534 ABs Now that it's Monday it's time to continue with predictions. After Castillo on Friday that brings us to Randa today. Randa is, to say the least, an intriguing guy to make a prediction for. Last year he set career highs in homers (previous high, 16) and doubles (previous high, 36) with his highest OBP since 1999 and a SLG that he'd only put up once since 1999. He did all of this at the age of 35. Since players don't just get better at the age of 35, this means one of two things, either he juiced up (we'll call that unlikely, though admittedly, just about anything is possible) or something drastically changed from 2004. A quick look shows that about 60% of his PAs last year came with the Reds, so we can assume about 30% of his season ABs came at the Great American Ballpark. His numbers showed a pretty drastic decline after...

I meant to talk about this column yesterday about the Pirates farm system because it reminded me of some things Littlefield said at Piratefest, but it slipped my mind. Anyways, Dejan's Sunday Hot Stove report dealt mostly with prospects after a conversation with Brian Graham, the scouting director. As has already been pointed out by Charlie in a post yesterday , not many of these guys are actually prospects. Rajai Davis and Ray Sadler certainly are not (mostly because of lack of talent and being too old), Matt Peterson and Shane Youman are awful, Adam Boeve is way too old for his level (though maybe I shouldn't be too hard on him, Wilbur Miller compares him to Chris Shelton and we really are starved for power in Pittsburgh). This all goes hand in hand with a question that was asked to Littlefield at the "Ask Management" session on Saturday. He was asked to name the next wave of prospects we could expect to see here in Pittsburgh, and the first two names he reeled of...

After seeing McClatchy at Piratefest yesterday , I've been doing some thinking about the Pirates ownership. I know I said I was impressed with some of the stuff McClatchy said and I realize that that could be misconstrued to seem like I actually agree with the way the team is being run. That really wasn't my point yesterday, pretty much everything this ownership group DOES, I disagree with. McClatchy's point was just that not every billionaire is George Steinbrenner. Lots of people (McClatchy's example was Huizuenga) think they can pump money into a franchise without the care of losing money, but once they win a championship they get bored with it. It's a good point, I wouldn't trade the team for a championship and I think most fans would agree. Actually, yesterday made me more certain than ever that McClatchy is nothing more than a public puppet of the Nuttings. They own something like twice as much of the team as he does, but this guy can't be the public ...

According to Dejan yesterday was the biggest day in Piratefest history , bringing in 6,900 people over the course of the day. I'd believe it, it was mostly elbow to elbow in the convention center yesterday and I think the room was bigger than it was last year. That could be because Friday's opening was smaller than usual due to the Steelers pep rally. Again, I'd believe it because I was also at Heinz on Friday (faced with the same conflict as the kid in the beginning of Dejan's column, going to a mostly empty Piratefest to meet Sean Casey or going to Heinz for the Steelers rally, I chose the pep rally on the basis that I might not ever live in Pittsburgh again when the Steelers are having a free Super Bowl pep rally and Piratefest would be happening two more days in the same weekend) and almost the entire bottom bowl of the stadium was full (it wasn't the 30,000 that was being reported, more like 22-25,000, still impressive). Anyways, the column is filled with more...

Some quick random observations about Piratefest as a whole: There were more people with Steelers stuff on than there were with Pirates stuff. In fact, might've been 2:1 I love seeing random people with authentic Warren Morris and John Smiley jerseys on. There was a stand selling Terrible Towels. Pirates fans are inexplicably, incredibly excited about this team this year. It probably has something to do with the guy on the cover of the pocket schedules, Mr. Pittsburgh himself, Sean Casey. Speaking of Sean Casey, he looks a hell of a lot like John Wehner. It's actually almost terrifying how much they look alike. We got there in time for the last 2/3rds of the Q&A with the Pirates players (Duke, Bay, JWilson, Freddy, Gonzo, Chris Duffy, Eldred, Kip, and Vogelsong), Tracy, and Colbourn. It was mostly "What other position would you play if you could" or "Boxers or briefs" type fare. There were some highlights though. It was absolutely packed. The question li...

Apparently, Jason Bay is a Seahawks fan . It's kind of hard to hold that against him (if I played for the Mariners I'd still be a Steeler fan, that's for sure), but it seems like Sean Casey is, like a good Steeler fan should. The real point of interest in that column has nothing to do with football though, it's the fact that we re-signed Jose Hernandez. After jettisoning utility man after utility this offseason, we signed a bad one to a minor league contract that strikes out a ton. Very uncharacteristic here, though it might be a sign that either Freddy Sanchez or Jack Wilson is on their way out (don't count on Castillo though, the organization loves him). I'm off to Piratefest. I'll be back later with a report on the festivitites.

Dejan has a good article today about the Pirates offseason spending spree. His point is that no matter how much the Pirates spent, their payroll still comes in under everyone in the NL Central, Brewers and Reds included. He reports that between the revenue sharing money and the central league fund (national TV money, etc) the Bucs pulled in $45 million or so last year, which (you guessed it) is just about enough to cover the payroll. Still, a team like Cincy managed to spend $60 million on payroll for next year, while the Brewers are at $50 million. McClatchy also decided to keep his mouth shut at the team luncheon after the "funny water" comment debacle of last year. When asked about the overall huge spending spree that baseball went on this winter, McClatchy said, Teams do what they have to do. Teams like Kansas City and Toronto and Pittsburgh spent more money this offseason. Were there some bad signings out there? You know what? We've done bad signings in the past, s...

2005 stats : .268/.307/.416 with 11 homers and 30 XBH in 393 PA 2006 ZiPS : .277/.325/.394 with 10 homers and 28 SBH in 468 PA Time for one of the most intriguing Pirates of 2006, Jose Castillo. Since he's only going to be 25 next year and he's shown pretty good power both last year and in the minors and has long been considered to be one of those "high ceiling guys." He was hitting the ball well last year and was greatly improved over 2004 before his knee injury. He needs to walk more, but he cut his strikeouts by 33 year in a similar amount of at-bats he had in '04, showing an improvement in plate discipline. The mystifying thing is the drop in his ZiPS for next year. It would seem hard to believe that a 25 year old who is supposed to be completely healthy (the ZiPS don't take injury into account, I don't think) would drop off in performance like they predict Castillo too. I'll be the first to admit, I was not a huge Castillo fan in 2004. He shows fl...

Dejan says go to Piratefest . Sean Casey says go to Piratefest. I'll be at Piratefest (tomorrow at least, can't make it today) to do the usual, pull some ducks out of a pond, throw some darts, try to win some bobbleheads, hopefully get to hear DL and Jim Tracy talk, and of course get my full late winter serving of optimism and false hope, something no Piratefest would be complete without.

I was going to do this around 7 or so but I forgot about Blogger's scheduled maintenance at the time (which is why if you tried to get to the site around then you probably got an error message). Anyways, after my Doumit predictions yesterday, we'll start moving around the horn to Sean Casey today. 2005 key stats : .312/.371/.423 with 32 doubles and 9 homers 2006 ZiPS : .313/.373/.441 with 34 doubles, 1 triple, and 11 homers Casey is a much tougher task to predict on because of his health. As this great post from a month back by Rowdy at HW indicates, Casey is like two different people when he's healthy and when he's hurt. Last year he puttered along with an OPS of under .800, in 2004 he tore the cover off the ball to the tune of .915. The problem, of course, is that at the age of 31 (32 in July), he's had three fairly poor, injury filled years in the last four seasons. As Rowdy's post illustrates, Casey is the type of guy that won't complain about being hu...

Former Bucco Denny Neagle pleaded guilty to patronizing the ugliest prostitute in the history of the world back in December of '04. Watching Barry Bonds, Aramis Ramirez, Jon Lieber, Abraham Nunez, and others leave Pittsburgh, it's nice to know that not EVERYone succeeds in their after Pirate life. I won't lie, it's Tuesday and I don't think I've seen any new Pirates news since about Saturday. I'm stretching just a bit. I have a Sean Casey prediction post to write up which I'll do sometime after class and my all day lab end tonight.

It's time to welcome a new blog to the Pirates blog family, the Bucco Blog (not the crapfest put out by the Trib, this is an entirely different entity). It's only a couple days old, but he's done a lot of posting and it's very good. Check it out.

Apparently, the Astros think Jeff Bagwell's career is over and are making an insurance claim saying so. Jeff Bagwell doesn't seem to agree, as he's going to report to camp anyways . However that situation ends, it's going to messy. I've always liked Bagwell (read: grudgingly respected him as he bashed the Pirates heads in for over a decade) and was happy to see him and Biggio get to the Series last year after everything they'd done for the Astros. It's sad to think he's going to go out in a messy situation like this (I realize he's owed a ton of money by the 'Stros who don't want to pay it to a guy that's probably best suited to play DH) and I hope they can get everything together to avoid it.

2005 key stats : .255/.324/.398, 6 HR 35 RBI in 75 games/257 PAs 2006 ZiPS : .264/.327/.424, 13 HR 54 RBI in 118 games/414 PAs Random fact: Hit by 13 pitches in 257 PAs, good for 7th in the NL Doumit goes first based on the assumption Jim Tracy will realize he should be our every day catcher, which is a big assumption, given his (somewhat unfair) reputation as a poor defensive catcher. He's certainly going to be a much better hitter than Humberto Cota next year. My gut feeling with Doumit is that he's going to exceed the ZiPS projections by a bit if he's given a chance to play every day. He battled injuries for a lot of his minor league career, but since 2002 his lowest SLG in the minors was .434 and his lowest OBP was .343. He's similar to Craig Wilson in that he doesn't walk a ton, but he's not afraid to put himself in front of a pitch, which accomplishes the same thing. He's a switch hitter, but played primarily against righties last year (177 ABs vs. rig...

With Spring Training approaching and there not being a ton of Pirates news as pitchers and catchers make their way towards reporting I'm going to start off on my season predictions. I'm going to start with a position player a day (unless there's something like a "Super Bowl" on that day, in which case I won't be thinking about baseball). Position players will go first because we learn a lot more about pitchers when they report to camp (a la Oliver Perez last year). I'll be using their major and minor league numbers (from WTM's site ), ZiPS projections , Baseball Reference 's similar player comparisons, and of course my good old fashioned bias. C- Ryan Doumit 1B- Sean Casey 2B- Jose Castillo 3B- Joe Randa SS- Jack Wilson LF- Jason Bay CF- Chris Duffy RF- Jeromy Burnitz

Charlie is starting up a series of "community projections." All that means is that everyone predicts BA/OBP/SLG and he averages them together, then we see how we did at the end of the year. He's starting today with Chris Duffy , so if this is the kind of thing you're into, head over now and then check back for future updates.

Hockey isn't baseball, but it's impossible to be a Pittsburgh sports fan without having #66 impact your life in one way or another. People may debate whether another baseball player should ever wear #21 again, but I can almost guarantee you no hockey player will ever put on 66 again. Everyone has their favorite Mario story, I'm no different. I still remember the last goal he scored of his first career on Garth Snow at home in the playoffs against Philly like it was yesterday, nor will I ever forget the absolute chills I got when he came back on a cold December night 3 years later and scored the first goal of that amazing comeback and we all got to hear "THE PITTSBURGH GOAL, SCORED BY NUMBER SIXTY-SIX, MARIOOOO LEMEIUUUUUUUUUUUUX" again. Three years off and he still had it. Sure, he probably should've hung his skates back up after that first amazing comeback year. Then again, if anyone earned the right to hang around a little too long, it was Mario. Thanks for ...

Apparently, someone somewhere is still discussing retiring Roberto's #21 across baseball (I had forgotten that the conversation was taking place at all) and Jackie Robinson's daughter is not pleased about it . I can understand the arguments on both sides, but it appears to me that by dragging their feet on the issue (as far as I can tell the MLB hasn't really addressed it yet, they'll have to say something eventually, this isn't going to go away if it hasn't at this point), baseball has gotten itself into a tricky situation that now won't be able to end without someone being upset.

Now here's a shocker, Barry Bonds has begged out of the WBC saying he doesn't want to take an actual drug test with impartial observers risk any injury that could threaten his shot at the all-time home run record last season with the Giants . Apparently, appearing in celebrity golf tournaments outside of the States are on the approved list of activities, however. That article describes him as fit, but some of the pictures I saw of him at the outing (on ESPN, I can't find a link to them on the net) were more Casey Hampton-like than they were fit (doesn't that picture just make you smile?).

Please take note on how quickly a new ownership can invigorate a fan base by firing an incompetent GM . No word on who Castelleni (the Reds new owner) plans on hiring, but the reaction to O'Brien's firing in the Reds blogosphere was immediate and positive. This is the type of difference Mark Cuban would make here. Unfortunately, the only difference Cuban has made so far is creating a threating, shadowy presence that scared the Nuttings and McClatchy enough to do something stupid like give Dave Littlefield $15 million to spend as he pleased, resulting in a team of old, overpriced almost stars.

I checked, the Pirates actually do still exist on this Monday afternoon when pitchers and catchers are closer than ever to reporting, but about as far from anyone's minds as they've ever been. Not much news on the Pirate front either. The Bucs have decided to invite Andrew McCutchen to camp this spring . I don't see much wrong with that, espcially now that the old coaches are gone. We've also signed Jorge Vasquez to a minor league deal . I won't pretend to know much about him, but Charlie seems to think this could be an encouraging move . More as I get back into baseball mode.

Kris Benson got traded to the Orioles today . Usually a middling starting pitcher traded for a middling reliever and a prospect would be of no real interest to anyone except the two teams involved, but when Anna Benson is involved that means everyone is interested. Consider my ears peeled for anything that comes out of that psycho bitch's mouth.

Today on Pirates.com we now have a full article about the Ryan Doumit/Humberto Cota "competition" after seeing a question about the two in Ed Eagle's mailbag 10 days ago. Like I said when I saw the mailbag a week and a half ago, there is absolutely no place for a competition anywhere at catcher, unless you want to make Cota and Paulino battle for a spot on the big league team (and truthfully, that might not be much of a competition either). Cota can't hit, he can't get on base, and his defense isn't good enough to make up for the giant gap in bats between him and Doumit. That's all there is to it, end of story. We heard a lot about Tracy blindly playing guys in LA because they played better defense, will this be the first place it happens in Pittsburgh?

Sixteen Buccos (well 7 Buccos and 9 minor leaguers from the system) are on the World Baseball Classic 60-man rosters (60 men? this thing is going to be ridiculously huge), including Jose Castillo who's playing for Venezuela now that he's healthy. See, this is why I'm not jumping around with excitement about this WBC thing. If they have use for 16 people from the Pirates system, including Simon Pond, Vince Rooi, Brett Roneberg, and Jonathan Albaladejo (who the hell are they?), then this thing can't be anything except a chance to show off a clash of the titans between the US and the Dominican and prove that all of the stars can pass drug tests.

Today's Q&A is flipped, Dejan asked the questions last week and the readers answered today . I won't nitpick any of the fans answers, mostly because it looks like Dejan tried to choose a wide spectrum for all of the questions with answers ranging from rational to completely insane. It's massive, but it's worth a read if you've got the time.

I like Kip Wells, you all know that. I understand how the first six years of the baseball payroll system works, with players making more money the more years they play and how arbitration is based on more than just the previous year, but on a player's career as a whole. That being said, I think all of us are dreaming of a day when we can get a job, be as bad at it as Kip Wells was last year, and still see a million dollar raise to $4.15 million .

When I started this blog it was primarily to write about how I see things as a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I realize I'm not a baseballexpert by any means, I analyze things to death on this blog because that's how I think about things. But I have noticed that with few exceptions, I haven't talked much on here about being a fan, so that's what I'm going to do now. In this post I'm saying to hell with things like OPS and VORP. Let's talk about things that matter to fans. Let's talk about karma. I write about baseball because I played baseball, because I know baseball, because I love baseball, because something about the sport of baseball lends itself to writing and something about writing about baseball clears my head. I'm certainly a baseball fan before I'm anything else, that's for sure. It doesn't mean I don't pay attention to any other sports. I certainly take advantage of the Pens' "Student Rush" tickets (I was act...

It's not often that you'll read about a Pirate player headlining anything except the Pirates, but on ESPN.com's main baseball page there is a link that reads " Bay to headline Team Canada. " It's small and not entirely unexpected, but it's still nice to see. Also, the Buccos and Ollie have come to terms for a one year, $1.9 million deal which could be either be a fantastic deal or a complete rip-off, depending on which Ollie appears at PNC this year. Here's hoping for the former.

I didn't post yesterday, mostly because I spent about 10 hours from noon on watching the Steelers, then basking in the glow of their amazing win. At this point it's hard for even me to think about baseball. Still, Dejan gets paid to do it, and on Sunday the Hot Stove Report had a nice write-up about Josh Sharpless, who used a huge season last year to sneak on to the 40-man this season and is probably one of the better relief prospects we have. The same article says that signs are pointing to Sean Burnett's comeback going smoothely. We can only hope. There's also two more Minicamp reports, one on Tracyball (yaaaawn) and one on the bullpen which is looking quite good this year. Of course having guys like Gonzalez, Torres, probably Hernandez, maybe Marte (if he isn't dealt) is a good reason to have confidence in your pen, but the best reason to is the absence of Jose Mesa. Charlie also has a post on Zach Duke's views on Lloyd McClendon . As he points out, this p...

Two points of interest on this Saturday on which no one is really thinking about the Pirates, Craig Wilson and Oliver Perez. First off, Craig Wilson signed a $3.5 million deal to avoid arbitration. That's about what everyone thought he was worth. I think that a system where a player can get a half million dollar raise after an injury riddled season like Craig's was last year is stupid, but I do also think it's the system's fault and not the Pirates', at least this time around. Second is day 2 of Dejan's two day "Flaky Starters of the North Side" series, a minicamp profile of Oliver Perez . Apparently his 0-4, 6.16 ERA performance in Mexico this winter and his word that he feels good are enough to declare that the zip is back on his fastball and the bite is back on his slider. I could be wrong though, Littlefield (who went to Mexico) also seems to be encouraged and Ollie apparently had a very good bullpen session yesterday. I'm not sure there's...

I always kind of felt like Kip Wells hated McClendon and his staff more than the average player on the team. Today, despite his assurances otherwise, Dejan's minicamp article today has some quotes that illustrates it. "I don't want to take anything away from what the other staff did. Spin tried to get everything out of me that he could," Wells said. "But I think that, without a better foundation for what was going to be our fail-safe plan when things don't go well ..." He paused. "Since we really didn't have that, we didn't establish what was going to make us successful as a staff. From a preparation standpoint, there should be a regimented program you stick by through thick and thin." He's also excited to be working with Colborn. "You should be able to say, 'This is what's made people successful from a Jim Colborn standpoint. This is what I've come away with by working with Jim Colborn.' He's had good ...

I was going to say that today was one of the better days of the offseason. As the report goes , Burnett and Van Benschoten threw well yesterday and felt great, Duffy is showing no remaining ill effects from his torn hammy, Jody Gerut took BP without his knee brace, and Castillo said he felt good, though he didn't actually show up at minicamp like he said he would. Of course Bautista was hurt, but it doesn't appear to be that bad (though things are usually worse than first glance when it comes to the Pirates). Then I took a look at Rotoworld and saw that we were negotiating with Jose Lima . I can't even put into words what a bad idea this is. Sheesh, we can't even have one good day, can we?

I saw the Jerry Crasnick column about the Bucs and Royals on the front page of ESPN.com's baseball page (Insider only) and figured it would give me something to write about on here (plus I know most people don't have Insider and are probably wondering the same thing, thus I feel like it's my public duty to share). Wrong. It's mostly just drivel about how the Pirates and Royals have to overpay to get anyone to play here. No deep insight or anything there, though I did love these paragraphs here: The Pirates will ultimately succeed or fail with their next wave of talent. They're counting on Chris Duffy in center field, Ryan Doumit at catcher and Jose Castillo at second base. And they're hoping that 6-foot-5, 270-pound first baseman Brad Eldred will do more than just blot out the sun and hit tape-measure jobs in the minors. He'll wait his turn this season while Casey plays out the final, $8.5 million installment of his contract. Pittsburgh's pitchi...

First I was going to write about ESPN's updated Misery Index , and what an outrage it is that a team like the Astros that's been to the playoffs 7 times since '97 (with a World Series appearence, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, and Roger Clemens to boot) can somehow be construed as more miserable than the Pittsburgh Pirates. I was also going to write about how I took offense to the comment they made that the reason for our misery was the choice of Van Slyke over Bonds, how no one could've seen Van Slyke's career ending with the injury that it did, how he sparked those early 90s teams with the way he played and his attitude towards life, how Bonds would have never played here even if we payed him what he wanted. But I didn't feel like it was enough for a full post, so I moved on. Next up was going to be Bruce Sutter, not that he didn't deserve to be in the Hall (I think to some extent closers do get a bad rap, but then again I hope Lee Smith never gets near the ...

Here's the surprising news of the day, the D-Rays signed Ty Wigginton to a one year MAJOR LEAGUE contract , presumably to play first base. Hope they have fun with that, Wigginton was literally the worst defensive first basemen I have ever seen in my life. I do think he'd have some use as DH, though I suppose that's Aubrey Huff's position. In news of the same vein, the Giants are interested in Josh Fogg , according to ESPN.com's rumor mill.

According to Deadspin, Dr. James Andrews, the guy who does most of the Tommy John surgeries, had a heart attack today and is supposedly in intensive care, but is stable. This begs one very important question; who will fix Zach Duke's elbow when he blows it out this year? All kidding aside, Andrews is probably one of, if not the most, important non-baseball person in the MLB. Just about every pitcher who's had Tommy John surgery has gone to him and thusly had their careers extended. He may not have invented the surgery (Frank Jobe did), but he's certainly perfected it. Hopefully he'll be OK.

Dejan reports from minicamp in Bradenton today on the fifth spot in the rotation , namely to add Sean Burnett and Ryan Vogelsong's name to the mix with Victor Santos and Ian Snell. Immediately when I read it last night (as it was posted at midnight) I had a double reaction: Wow Burnett might be ready earlier than they thought, that's awesome. Ryan Vogelsong? In the rotation? WHYYYYYYY? (I then went to Charlie's blog and saw the same reaction ). Then I went to sleep. I woke up. I went to Art History class (stupid required electives) and thought about it (because what the hell else am I supposed to do in Art History?). Now I'm thinking this might not be the stupidest thing in the world. There's a couple reasons why, first off, Victor Santos sucks. Last year he put up his career lowest ERA, 4.57, but he still had a WHIP over 1.50. There's nothing in his past to suggest this year could be better (so he's not a Kip Wells). He's just all around pretty bad. The...

I usually don't venture to Pirates.com much, but out of extreme boredom (back at school, syllabus week, nothing at all to do) I checked out the mailbag today . Good thing I did because apparently Ryan Doumit and Humberto Cota are going to be splitting time until Doumit "emerges" as a reliable major league hitter. Quick, who had an OPS of .672 last year? Cota (Doumit- .722). Who struck out 80 times in 320PAs? Cota (Doumit struck out 48 in 257). Who got on base at a .285 clip last year? Cota (Doumit- .324). Who needs to establish himself as a major league hitter? Cota. Hell, we'd probably better off with Paulino and Doumit next year. Cota may have been "clutch" but he just isn't a very good hitter. If he takes significant ABs away from Doumit next year we're going to have a problem. At the end of the mailbag, Ed Eagle also discusses a question that I was wondering how long it would take Pirate spin control would get to. Spin control also assures fans ...

Today's PG features a nice column about arguably the most important member of the Pirates new coaching staff, Jim Colborn . All cynicism aside, the Pirates will most likely go as Kip Wells and Oliver Perez go this year. This is a team that's been built on pitching, and if those two guys have years like they did last year the Buccos won't be much better. I'm not sure Tracy's examples of the differences in Sanchez, Quantril, Carrera, and Mota between under Colborn and not under Colborn apply here, but I hope he's as good as everyone says.

Part four of the "Dave Littlefield is the smartest GM in the National League" series, or perhaps more accurately, "Why I think Dave Littlefield is an evil genius." The introduction can be found here , part one here , part two here , and part three here . This is the final part here where I wrap up everything up and bounce some crazy ideas about Littlefield's plan off of the wall to see if anything sticks. As CP from New Jersey said in the comments of first installment , Littlefield's strength is risk aversion. The moves he makes are moves made to keep his job. If the Pirates were to win 75 games next year with Brad Eldred, Freddy Sanchez, and Craig Wilson getting big chunks of playing time but the $15 million left largely unspent, Littlefield is publicly hanged for not spending the money that could've put us over the top and he's fired. If he makes the moves that could have potentially helped us out (trade for Glaus, Bradley, maybe make Nomar a ridic...

According to Rotoworld, you can add the Blue Jays to the list of teams interested in Craig Wilson , joining the A's, Red Sox, and Indians. That's funny, I've always (well, not actually always , but you get the point) considered Beane, Ricciardi, Shapiro, and Epstein (who I'm still convinced is running things behind the scenes in Boston) to be some of the smarter GMs in the game. And yes, I'm still convinced Wilson will be traded before the season starts.

Actually, the title of Dejan's Hot Stove Report today gave me such a headache I think I'm just going to pass on it this week. Hot Stove: McClatchy satisfied with Littlefield's offseason The guy that kept Cam Bonifay employed from when he bought the team in 1996 until halfway through 2001 approves of Littlefield's money burning session this offseason. Now that's the the ultimate seal of approval. Meanwhile, Charlie has a good piece up about why we keep failing while the Brewers are moving forward . Even though I was against trading for Koskie when it seemed like a possibility, he does make a good case.

Just an FYI for anyone that's curious, the end of the Dave Littlefield is an evil genius series is probably coming Monday as I have Pens tickets tonight and there's this football game tomorrow . That doesn't mean no posting till Monday, it just means I won't have time to finishp up the Littlefield stuff till Monday.

Despite the recent return to winter weather here in Western PA, it's time for voluntary Pirates mini-camp in Bradenton. There's not much of a story here really, 18 of 20 pitchers on the 40-man are showing up, with Torres and Hernandez being the only exceptions. Oliver Perez is going to show up, despite earlier reports that he might not. And it makes sense that the new coaching staff would want to get an early look at their biggest project and probably one of the guys most important to turning this team around. There's also a bunch of non-roster invitees, and it's a group to salivate over, let me tell you what. Terry Adams, Brandon Duckworth, Marty McLeary, Ron Chiavacci, C.J. Nitkowski, Matt Peterson, Britt Reames, Joe Roa, Scott Strickland and Matt Whiteside will all be there, with Strickland being the one to keep an eye on, as he was very good before his arm surgery and if he's recovered he might have a chance at being good again. All three catchers (Doumit, Cota...

Everyone needs to check out this week's Sports Pickle (for anyone that doesn't know, it's kind of like a sports version of the Onion written by DJ Gallo). On the right hand side in the "Stuff You May Have Heard" column about halfway down (and it's actually a column with no direct link) there's the headline: " Pirates front office refusing to let increased payroll keep team out of last place." There's also some fantastic fake quotes such as: “Our owner, Kevin McClatchy, has loosened the purse strings in hopes of making this franchise a winner,” said Littlefied, “but it’s my job to look at the big picture and what I want to do is bring this team a record 16 consecutive losing seasons. Sure, I could try to make smart moves and push the team towards wild card contention, but an 82 or 85-win season isn’t memorable. Sucking for two decades though? That’s the stuff of legend.” and “This franchise is flush with young talent, and it’s so close to b...

Part three of the "Dave Littlefield is the Smartest GM in the National League" series, or perhaps more accurately "Why I think Dave Littlefield is an evil genius." The Introduction can be found here , part one here , part two here , and part four here . Quick summary to this point: Dave Littlefield has decided to build a baseball team in Pittsburgh that will appear to the fans to be competitive while not actually competing, thus keeping his job security higher than it would be if he took the necessary risks to build a winning team in a small market. This is best illustrated by the Wilsons, while Craig is probably an all around better player, Jack's flashy glovework and hustle are immediately obvious to the fans while no one gives two shits about a guy that hits doubles and gets hit by a lot of pitches. As I said in this post yesterday (and in the comments of the same post), I get the impression that Littlefield knows the value of Craig Wilson, but feels that t...

At the end of the article about Jeromy Burntiz's day yesterday (woke up, flew to Pittsburgh from California, took a physical, signed a contract, flew back to Cali in time for the Rose Bowl, incidentally if everything lived up to its hype the way that game did we'd have nothing to worry about for the Pirates next season) we've got a fantastically patronizing quote from Dave Littlefield. (Littlefield) also said he did not intend to trade Craig Wilson, even though Burnitz and Casey would start in right field and first base, Wilson's two positions, and even though Wilson could make $4 million or more next season. "Whether it's media or fans, everybody has to realize that, if we are going to get better, part of it is having better backups," Littlefield said. "Through ownership, we've been able to increase payroll, so you're going to have the opportunity to have quality backups. Craig brings things that we need. He has power, gets on base a...

Part two of the "Dave Littlefield is the Smartest GM in the National League" series, or perhaps more accurately "Why I think Dave Littlefield is an evil genius." The Introduction can be found here , part one here , part three here , and part four here . This is more or less an extension of yesterday's "Illusion of Competition" post, but the problem with how the Pirates evaluate talent is so plainly and clearly evident in two players with the same last name on the team that I couldn't stay away from it (and both these posts and mammoth on their own, thus the need for two of them). You've probably figured out who I'm talking about, the Wilson-not-quite-twins. Let's get this out of the way first, I like both Jack and Craig Wilson. I find it hard to say bad things about either one of them, even though I know both of them have their faults. In the past, I've spent a lot of time defending Jack Wilson for last year and that won't chan...