Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

NL East Phillies Mets (WC) Braves Marlins Nationals So why the Phillies this year? Because the Mets have an awful starting rotation, that's why. I still think the Mets potent offense wins them the Wild Card. The Marlins are still a year away and might step back with injuries to their young rotation. The Nationals might be the worst team ever. NL Central Brewers Cardinals Cubs Astros Reds Pirates I'm feeling like a healthy Ben Sheets is the difference in the division this year. The Cards will come back a bit to the division, but the Cubs didn't get enough better to pass them and challenge for the Wild Card. The Pirates, well, are the Pirates (see John Wasdin and Don Kelly comment below ). NL West Dodgers Padres D'Backs Rockies Giants Another division that I don't know much about. The Giants are still geriatric and Zito isn't that good, the other four teams are very close. I think the two teams that finished above the pack last season will again. Umm, that's a...

Quick roster update at the PG today. I'm incredibly rushed for time right now, but the bullpen is set with Jonah Bayliss, John Wasdin, and Juan Perez joining Torres, Capps, Marte, and Chacon. Meanwhile on the actual roster side of things, Jose K(!) and and Luis Matos were sent packing leaving McLouth, Cota, Kelly, Eldred, Doumit, and Castillo to fight over the five spots on the bench. Then I read something that made me choke: The only certainty of the group was that Kelly, a Mt. Lebanon and Point Park College, will make the team. Assuming Cota makes the team (and I think he will), Don Kelly will be taking a roster spot from Nate McLouth, Brad Eldred, Ryan Doumit, or Jose Castillo. Kill me. Seriously, if there's anyone out there that believes the Pirates can compete this year, how can you honestly think a roster that opens the year up with John Wasdin and Don Kelly on it will manage to not lose 90 games?

AL East Yankees Red Sox (Wild Card) Blue Jays Devil Rays Orioles Let's be original with the finishing order in this division, eh? They're picked in this order assuming Clemens doesn't pitch for the Red Sox. If he does they'll probably have the best rotation of all time ever and I think they could win the division. Meanwhile, the Yankees have an awesome offense. I hate hearing about the Sox and Yankees, but this should be a hell of a division race. The other teams? They're just in the wrong division AL Central Twins Indians Tigers White Sox Royals One of the best divisions in baseball is probably the hardest to predict. The Twins are going to suffer with Silva and Ponson in the rotation and Garza in AAA, but I can't imagine that will last long. They still have Santana, Mauer, and Morneau. The Indians finished 11 games under their pythagorean record last year. The Tigers are young and good. The White Sox are still good but getting older. Really the top four might ...

David Schoenfeld is attempting to tell me that there are 16 teams with more miserable fans than the Pirates ? Are you serious? Dave, come to a game with me and tell me that again. I can't believe the Pirates didn't ask me to be in their new commercials . We will support our Bucs? We will create memories? Ugh. We will vomit all over our monitors. Freddy Sanchez played in the field today . I guess that's good.

So it's almost baseball time and I'm incredibly excited. Not about the Pirates chances, particularly, but just about baseball in general. Sorry that I missed so much time earlier in the week, but there wasn't much I can do about it. Anyways, start today off by reading Dejan's 5 reasons to believe or not to believe in the Pirates in 2007. It's a good read and though I've got a couple points I'd like to pick at, but I'm not going to offer a critique just yet because I need some time write up my own final preview for the season. Also, I posted a Freddy Sanchez update at the FanHouse, so check that out too, while you're at it. So we've got four days left before baseball season starts. Here's what to look for on this blog. I'm going to do an AL Preview today and an NL Preview tomorrow to go along with posting news updates as the final roster gets set, etc. I unfortunately won't be able to post at all on Saturday, but I'm probably goi...

Sorry for not getting anything posted while I was gone. Internet was $10 a day at the hotel and we all said "Eff that, that's drinkin' money," so there was no chance to use the computer while I was gone. So let's comb some headlines and see what happened: Andrew McCutchen finally got cut and the Bucs set the rotation . After much speculation as to who would be in it, it's exactly who we thought it would be before spring started. This is why I hate spring training. Javier Guzman was dropped off the 40-man roster . Who's it gonna be? Matos? Jose K? Probably not Danny Kolb, but maybe him too, I guess. Sharpless, Diaz, Ryan, all cut . I'm only surprised by Sharpless, I thought he'd be in the pen this year. He will be eventually. Freddy Sanchez is playing in minor league games , but may not be ready to start for the opener . That second link has lots of good stuff, Ronny Paulino's torrid spring, Brad Lincoln's rehab, etc. I think that's all ...

I hate to do this so close to the start of the season, but I'm going to be in Chicago attending the ACS Spring Meeting (chemistry nerd alert!) from today through Wednesday and since I don't have a laptop, it's pretty unlikely I'm going to be doing much posting while I'm there. Anyways, I'm going to put a long and at least somewhat fun post below and what I'm going to do is leave this thread for Pirate news, discussion, whatever. I'll try to log on once or twice (though I can't promise I'll get the chance) while I'm gone and check the comments. If there's something good in there I'll bump it up to the front page. So... something fun. The music-related posts seem to get people talking and since that's kind of the goal because I'll be gone for so long, let's do a losing streak retrospective. Using the tried and true iTunes shuffle method (that is, put my entire playlist on shuffle and use the first songs that come up), I'...

As promised, I've got the audio feed from my interview with Steeltown Mike on Steeltown Sports Live earlier today. We talked some WHYGAVS history and of course we talked about the Pirates, namely the rotation and the Bautista/Castillo stuff. Anyways, you can listen below or download it straight to your computer at Steeltown Mike 's site. Big thanks to Mike for having me on the show, as you guys have probably guessed I'm happy to talk about the Bucs to anyone that will listen and it was great to get some time over the airwaves. I was especially happy when Mike mentioned the big negative run differential over the 37-35 second half last year.

Three more cuts today , Youman, Burnett, and Gryboski. Burnett needs more time in AAA no matter how good he's looked this spring (he's got to prove he's past the point he was at last year) and Gryboski is just a roster filler. Youman is a bit more surprising. I thought between the way he pitched in September and the way he's pitched this spring, he'd be a lock for the team assuming Grabow starts the season on the DL. If that situation does play out, will Jim Tracy really open the season with Damaso Marte as his only lefty in the pen? Or will we have to endure Juan Perez?

I probably should've posted this last night because it's a little late now, but if you've got nothing to do between 12 and 12:30 (that's of the noon variety) today I'm going to be on Steeltown Mike 's radio show, Steeltown Sports: Live on WMBS Uniontown: 590 AM to talk some Buccos. If you miss it, Mike usually posts the audio on his site, which I will certainly relay along.

Before we all make a huge deal about Jose Bautista being named the starting third baseman, maybe we should consider whether or not Freddy Sanchez will even be playing on Opening Day, no ? It's certainly starting to become an issue.

Here's a pretty surprising move, the Pirates have actually gone ahead and made a rather significant move this spring by benching Jose Castillo and putting Jose Bautista into the starting lineup as the third baseman. I had assumed the Bucs were going through the motions with the pre-season "competition" at the spot, but apparently they really are going to start Bautista. This really throws a wrench into filling the past few spots, Tracy may have kept Jose K off the team in favor of Bautista but I doubt he'll keep Castillo as his primary utility guy. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I don't know how many of you guys still get/read Sports Illustrated, but this year with each team preview they have a little blurb about the best blogs and a link to go vote for them. And so I was kind of blown away to open SI this week, turn to the Pirate preview like I do every year, and see "Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke" in freaking print. Also, Bucco Blog, Honest Wagner, and OnlyBucs.net got mentioned, so congrats to them as well because I'm fairly certain the guys in charge of those sites probably reacted in a similar manner to me. Anyways, the link to vote for the thing is here , and I of course encourage you click on over and vote if you're into that kind of thing and you like my blog because, well, if you guys didn't read it cool stuff like this would never happen (read: thank you ). And if you've only found your way here because of the SI article, then by all means click around and hopefully you'll like what you see.

Tony Armas Jr. had another solid outing against the Blue Jays today, giving up 2 runs in five innings, though he did walk three batters. Still, it was against mostly Blue Jay starters, so I'd say that it's a pretty solid effort for a fifth starter. Brad Eldred provided all of the offense with a three run homer, his first since early in the month. The box score says Brian Bixler played. That's weird. I thought he got cut.

This article makes me angry in so many different ways that I honestly don't even know where to start with it. Instead, I think I'll just focus on the thought of Tony LaRussa being arrested for a DUI by undercover cops and just smile a little about it. I'm probably lucky that happened before I woke up this morning so that I wouldn't have to try and be at least somewhat partial about it for the Fanhouse because I'm not certain that's possible. I hate that jackass.

Freddy Sanchez must equal or at least approximate his 2006 season. This is the eighth part of a running season preview in which I look at things that I think have to happen in order for the Pirates to be a decent baseball team in 2007 and decide how likely I think they are to happen. Part 1 can be found here , Part 2 here , Part 3 here , Part 4 here , Part 5 here , Part 6 here , and Part 7 here . Freddy Sanchez had what most people would probably call a career year in 2006, winning the NL Batting Title and hitting .344/.378/.473. Unfortunately, the Pirates' offense this year isn't good enough for Freddy's 2006 to be a career year. He's going to bat third and chances are pretty damn good that for at least a month or so he's going to be the only person in front of Adam LaRoche and Jason Bay that can get on base with any kind of regularity at all, so he's going to have to do it. I've looked at Freddy's 2006 in the context of his minor league numbers before ...

So... that Matsuzaka guy... pretty impressive . Gorzy started for us and from the boxscore he seems like he was pretty good through four before losing it in the fifth. Then again, five walks in less than five innings is never, ever good. Anyone that saw the game care to comment on Gorzo? Season Preview Part 8 will be up tonight. For reals.

Buried under a fluffy story about Daisuke Matsuzaka pitching at McKechnie in Paul Meyer's notebook today is this: Paul Maholm, who was to start the game at McKechnie Field, instead pitched in a minor-league game at the Pirates' minor-league complex. Sean Burnett started against the Tigers, primarily because the coaching staff wanted to evaluate him more closely. I dunno if I'm buying that. As azibuck notes in the comments below, Maholm has only pitched 7 and 2/3 innings this spring and that's worrisome. Also worrisome is this note, also in the bottom of the notebook: Freddy Sanchez, continuing his rehab from a sprained right knee, took at-bats in a minor-league game for the first time. "I'm hoping to get as many at-bats as I can," he said before leaving for the minor-league complex. "I need these." Sanchez still hasn't been cleared to run or play in the field. Sanchez's "minor" knee injury was 16 days ago.

You guys are already all over it in the comments, but it certainly seemed like Paul Maholm was slated to start a spring training game today and ended up not taking the mound. Sean Burnett pitched rather ably in his absence, but it's a rather strange thing since none of the game recaps mention anything about it at all. Perhaps I'm misremembering that Maholm was scheduled to start today, but since a couple people have already pointed it out in the comments, I don't think so. I'll have more when I figure it out.

Neil Walker and Brian Bixler were both sent back to minor league camp this morning. They're expected to begin at AA and AAA respectively. They actually both had pretty good springs with the big club. Andrew McCutchen is still in camp. If that lasts much longer, people are going to start mentioning him as a darkhorse to make the team, even though Dave Littlefield has said otherwise . That's the first time I've heard him mentioned in conjunction with AAA though. Also, the Pirates have banned smoking completely from PNC Park this season. The Stats Geek writes again this week and even drops a blogger mention into his column, mentioning the Bucs Dugout for being "meticulously fricasseed" by Charlie. Of course, that's what we're here for. His column this week goes further into what the Bucs have to do if they're planning on winning this year.

I know I promised more today, but that was before I knew that today was NL Central preview day at the Fanhouse. I've already done the Brewers , Cardinals , Astros , and Cubs with the Pirates and Reds yet to come and I'm rather happy with how they've turned out. I'll give you the last two links as I write them. UPDATE: The Pirates and Reds season previews are live at the Fanhouse as well. The Pirates one is depressing, but you were probably already expecting that. Let's see, we've also got a Pittsburgh Pirate Roundtable that I actually remembered to turn in a response to , so you can check that out. You can also keep an eye on the Sportsocracy blogger NCAA pool , in which I have shot up through the ranks in the second round of the tourney and am within four points of first place on. Ian Snell threw five scoreless innings today . That's good. Snell doesn't do half speed. I'm ready for the season to start and so is he, apparently. Oh, and here's ...

I need to click the little "Save As Draft" button at the bottom of this stupid blogging program more often. I was 2/3rds of the way through a Season Preview post when my Firefox crashed, as it has been wont to do lately. I am unsure why it's doing this, though I suspect it has something to do with having very little free memory on my computer, though I'm too lazy at the moment to find out. Anyways, I'll rewrite the season preview post because I really liked it and felt like it was getting somewhere, but can't do it tonight because I'm a bit worn out after a full weekend of celebrating St. Patty's Day and the NCAA Tournament. Still, I hate leaving a full day without a post when there's no exceedingly good reason for me to do so, so instead I'm going to rip into some Paul Meyer drivel. Why? Because it's easy and because crap like this freaking drives me up the wall. And maybe because I'm tired and just a little ill-tempered after losing ...

I made a guest appearance on the Sportsocracy podcast . We open up talking some Pirates, shift to Pete Rose, and then move on to some other subjects I didn't talk about as much because I didn't want to sound like an idiot. It was a bunch of fun and I think it's a pretty good listen if you've got an hour to kill. Speaking of Pete Rose, yours truly talks about him here at the Fanhouse. And while we're at it, I talk about Andrew McCutchen's impressive spring here . I'm helping bring up the rear of the Sportsocracy Pittsburgh Celebrity Blogger NCAA Tournament Pool . But it's still early. Or something. Oh wait, that's all I got. Go watch basketball and drink some beer, green or otherwise. I won't judge you, I promise.

If I didn't know better, I'd think that Dave Littlefield personally insulted the Castro family over the winter and has promised them to trot out the majors first all-Cuban rotation in 2008 or 2009 as penance. Now it appears the Pirates have their sights set on Alay Soler , a Cuban defector who spent part of last season with the Mets. According to the Cube , Soler started last season in the NY-Penn League and dominated up through AA before struggling a bit in AAA Norfolk and with the Mets (though one of his eight starts with the Mets was a complete game shutout). You can read a little more about Soler at the FanHouse (gratuitous self-promotion: I wrote about Brian Bixler over there earlier in the week and neglected to link here... I am rather proud of bringing Brian Bixler to America). From what I read there, I'm not terribly excited. Also in the NY-Daily News link (the first one), there is some talk of a rather impressive Oliver Perez exhibition start in which he struck o...

I don't know if the sports photo editor or whoever does the pictures for the Pirates articles has a sense of humor, but I have to assume that he or she does. In today's Pirate Notebook , Paul Meyer (could you tell Paul Meyer was back?) writes about Jack Wilson's day in the field yesterday with typically glowing intangible descriptions: Wilson had eight assists, most of them of the highlight reel variety, in the six innings he played in the Pirates' 13-1 win against Cincinnati in the first half of a day/night doubleheader against the Reds, who won the second game, 3-2, in Sarasota. Of course since very few people saw the game, we'll just have to take Paulie's word for it. But that's not what amuses me. What amuses me is the picture right next to the article of Jack "batting." It looks like he's about to get hit in the face with the pitch. Flowing subjective praise, poor objective results. Jack Wilson in a nutshell.

One of the Joses must be a useful baseball player. This is the fourth part of a running season preview in which I look at things that I think have to happen in order for the Pirates to be a decent baseball team in 2007 and decide how likely I think they are to happen. Part 1 can be found here , Part 2 here , Part 3 here , Part 4 here , Part 5 here , and Part 6 here . I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. One of the spots in the Pirates line-up will be filled by a player named Jose. Both of them could be good and actually were good at various points last year. Both of them could also be bad and were quite bad at most points last year. The Pirates need one of them to step up and be some kind of consistent offensive performer if they're hoping to have some kind of offense that approaches average this year. The question is, is it possible? Let's look at 2006 first. Jose Castillo was literally one of the worst regular players in all of baseball from June through the end of t...

Since I know everyone's mind will be on basketball this afternoon, here are two quick links for this morning. I can tell by the comments that this article put Don Kelly in everyone's mind. Even with his great spring, I'm not really convinced Kelly is a terribly useful player for the Pirates this year. In order to make the team he's going to have to really leave an impression on Tracy because he's got beat out Tracy's man-crush Jose K. Also, Tracy announced that Zach Duke will be the opening day starter this year, though he made no indication who will start the home opener the next week.

Time for a new poll. As we get closer to opening day, I'm going to try something different on the poll front. Instead of your typical "I ask a question, you pick an answer" type thing, I'm giving you the eight guys most likely to end up on the Pirates bench this season and asking you to play Jim Tracy and pick five for the Opening Day roster. If you don't want to pick five, you don't have to, but you're not getting your money's worth that way. Andrew McCutchen poll results are here .

In a game that was a pretty decent match-up of potential starting lineups, both Ian Snell and Zach Duke had good outings against the Red Sox today. Duke pitched four innings and only allowed 2 runs on 3 hits, while Snell went for 3 hitless innings later in the game with 4 K's and only one walk. It's nice to see Duke pitch well this spring after a tough spring last year that he kind of carried into the season. On the downside, Brad Eldred whiffed four times against a Boston Red Sox pitching staff that was decidedly not as "opening day-esque" as the lineups in this one were. The Bucs did win 3-2, buoyed by a go-ahead Neil Walker homer in the seventh. You can find the boxscore here .

I've done my share of complaining about the stupid spring training caps and uniforms, but now that I've seen Matt Capps in them , I want to scratch my eyes out. I know every team has to wear this shit, but come on, how can anyone take us seriously looking like that?

The Stats Geek writes today about the Pirates in comparison to the rest of the NL Central and how they don't appear to stack up too badly when considering the team records after April 30th. I'm not really a huge fan of this comparison, to be honest because I think the talk about the weak division probably severely underrates the Cardinals. I do realize this is a bit of a departure from what I've said about the Cardinals in the past, but watching the NFL playoffs this winter made me think about things a little differently. Everyone has already made the Colts/Cardinals parallel, but it's really there. The Colts have been a fantastic team the past couple years that couldn't get over the hump for one reason or another. Faced with a weak division this year, they rested players and coasted into the playoffs to be prepared for what was really important, the playoffs themselves. After the games on September 19th , the Cardinals stood at 80-69, seven games up on the divisio...

Tony Armas Jr. continued in his quest to make me sound like a blathering idiot (admittedly, not all that hard to do) by turning in his third solid outing of the spring, today going 4 strong innings against the Indians in which he only allowed one hit, a home run to Ryan Garko. If there's only one rotation spot open this spring, I've got to think Armas has it pretty much locked up at this point, though I suppose there's still a lot that can happen. The Buccos won today 6-1 against the Tribe and you can see the full box score here .

I think it's a fair question after yesterday's outing. Both he and the team have said his elbow is not an issue (remember he went on the DL with some stiffness or something at the end of the year last year, then the team strangely brought him back for a start or two in September) this year, but Jim Sullivan is hearing whispers that say otherwise in Bradenton. I haven't heard anything from either of the papers or the Pirates yet, but my ears are open. Combine those whispers with his performance so far this spring and yeah, I'm a little nervous about Gorzo in 2007. He got rocked in the first inning yesterday , though he did throw much better in his second two innings. There's no report on his velocity in the PG, but needless to say I'm just a little on edge about Gorzelanny at the moment, especially with the quiet and slow way that Paul Maholm is being brought along this spring.

Jeromy Burnitz has learned what Joe Randa already knew : if the Pirates don't want you, you're career is probably over. Burnitz took a lot of crap last year, but the truth is that he played pretty much exactly like we should've expected him to. We simply should've never signed him in the first place. Add him to Randa, Chris Stynes, and the numerous other players who have come to the Pirates in the past 10 odd years and never played anywhere else ever again.

I've got a couple links from earlier in the week I've been meaning to share but kind of forgot. First up is Deadspin's Pirates' Season Preview , written by Mondesi's House . It's a rather painful read for Pirate fans, but you'll get a chuckle or two out of it. And in a very cool story, the Devil Rays (as in team president Matthew Silverman) put in the highest bid on "free agent blogger" Manny Stiles , who was auctioning off his blogging services for a donation to pediatric AIDS research. The Bucs play twice today, the first game is at nowish with Zach Duke facing off against the Braves. This lineup features Xavier Nady, Brad Eldred, and Andrew McCutchen.

Today's thesis statement: For the love of God, could we just be average on defense? This is the fourth part of a running season preview in which I look at things that I think have to happen in order for the Pirates to be a decent baseball team in 2007 and decide how likely I think they are to happen. Part 1 can be found here , Part 2 here , Part 3 here , Part 4 here , and Part 5 here . We all know the Pirates defense was bad last year. Perhaps the best way to quantify it is to remember that the three Pirate starters who pitched all year (Snell, Duke, and Maholm) all among the ten worst BABIP rates in the majors last year. According to BP 2007 (which I finally got my hands on, it should've come last Friday but the mail at Duquesne is always a day slow and I left for break before it got delivered, but I have it now so it's all good), the Pirates were the first team to do that since the 1995 Astros. So let's continue with the BP 2007 thought process and look at the startin...

Most of you are discussing this already in the comments, but better to post it late than never: the Pirates have released Jody Gerut today and announced they'll give Brad Eldred a shot in the outfield. As bad as the 2006 trading deadline was, Jody Gerut is pretty much Dave Littlefield's ineptitude in a nutshell. At the 2005 deadline, Matt Lawton was by far the biggest name available. Despite his lunacy in the field, he was hitting .274/.380/.433 at the time of his trade from the Buccos. All Dave Littlefield could get in return was an outfielder that was well-known to be damaged goods. Gerut played in four (4!) games for us before deciding his knee hurt and that he was going to sit out until 2006. Then in 2006 he decided he'd rather suit up for Hitler than a team with Dave Littlefield at the helm. Now he's gone. Just another stellar Pittsburgh Pirate career. As for Eldred in the outfield, well, I'm happy that the Pirates are thinking a little outside the box on the ...

The Pirates actually won a spring training game today, beating the Twins 5-2 . Tony Armas Jr. and Marty McLeary each threw three solid innings and gave up a run apiece and the stars at the plate were not people that will particularly impact the Pirates this season with Mike Ryan homering and driving in three runs and Don Kelly and Mike Edwards picking up the other ribbies. Jason Bay was 0-for-3, but it was his first appearance of the spring. I'd hope we can keep the "Bayrod" comments to a minimum (kidding, guys). And now that we've got a win, I can go back to paying attention to these games at my own leisure.

I generally don't like Spring Training, if you haven't guessed that yet. It's long and the only things I ever read are "depends on the severity" and "twinge in the elbow" and things of that nature. Management rarely lets spring performances change their minds in any real manner, so the whole month just kind of feels like a waste. But there's one thing that could keep me going: the thought of Brad Eldred playing outfield . Now that I would pay to see. I can't imagine that the organization that despised Craig Wilson's outfield play will let it happen, but a man can dream. Today: Tony Armas Jr. takes the mound again and the Bucs again look for their first win of the spring. And judging from the line-up, Jason Bay will take his first cuts in a game as DH today, which is good news. I know these games don't count, but can we win one or two, please? It would really make everyone feel better about this whole thing.

The Bucs made their first cuts today , though no one surprising has been sent down. John Van Benschoten, Brian Bullington and Yoslan Herrera are probably the biggest names on the list, but due to injuries or general inexperience, everyone expected these guys to start in the minors anyways. Meanwhile, Freddy Sanchez left today's exhibition game with a knee injury that doesn't appear to be severe. And yeah, I'm shamelessly using this as a reminder to check out the stuff going on at the MLB FanHouse, both my stuff and the stuff the other writers are doing over there.

One of the fun parts of spring is trying to guess who the last couple roster spots will go to. Every year a couple guys really shine in Bradenton and give the Pirates no choice but to bring them along for the ride, even when no one saw it coming. Last year it was Nate McLouth. This year, Brad Eldred is shaping up to be that guy. So let's break down the roster as it looks right now and try to figure out who's definitely coming north, who should be coming north, and who actually will be making the trek to PNC. Definitely in: Jason Bay, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, Jose Bautista, Jose Castillo, Chris Duffy, Ronny Paulino, Adam LaRoche, Xavier Nady (we'll assume he's healthy enough by the end of March given his fairly quick return), Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, Salomon Torres, John Grabow, Damaso Marte, Matt Capps, Tony Armas Jr. That's eighteen guys right there, leaving seven roster spots, probably three for the bullpen and four for the field (as...

The Fifth Starter and Beyond Once upon a time I started writing a drawn out season preview. This is the fifth part of it and hopefully more will be coming in a timely fashion . Part 1 can be found here , Part 2 here , Part 3 here , Part 4 here . The Pittsburgh Pirates had rotation problems in 2006. This is not a shocking statement by any means at all. The biggest rotation problem did not arise from having Victor Santos or Shawn Chacon as the fifth starter for most of the season, because almost everyone has a Santos or Chacon filling that role for the better part of the season. The problem came in that for the better part of the season the fourth starter was Oliver Perez, Kip Wells, Santos, or someone of the same ilk. There was only a short part of the season in which the Pirates could trot out Zach Duke, Paul Maholm , Ian Snell, and Tom Gorzelanny as their top four starters, as they hope to do this year. If they are successful in that endeavor, it doesn't much matter who the fi...

I like to think at most points I'm a pretty self-aware kind of guy. I've got a pretty good idea of what being a Pirate fan to the extent of writing like 1000 pages on a blog about them says about me. And yet despite that self-awareness, I still manage to surprise myself from time to time. Yesterday was one of the days I managed to do that. I came home Saturday afternoon for Spring Break. I don't have any elaborate plans for this break: I spent several weekends this semester traveling to grad school visits already and I've got some other time booked for traveling to conferences and other things, so a week at home on the couch sounds pretty good to me right now. Yesterday afternoon my dad, one of my brothers, and I decided to go see Ghost Rider . This is pretty much an annual thing at my house. Every year around this time Marvel puts out a crappy comic book movie about some fringe character that my dad, being a comic geek, gets psyched about, which in turn gets me and my ...

Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects list is out. The Pirates have McCutchen (#13), Lincoln (#69), and Walker (#74) all on the list. The Trib has given their much maligned Bucco Blog (not the one you're probably thinking about: this one was last actually used by Chris Kucharski for the Trib over a year ago I think) to the new Pirate beat writer, Rob Biertempfel. I don't like much that the Trib does, but I think this is a good idea (both Reds beat writers in Cincy have blogs and they're very popular). If nothing else, it gives Biertempfel a space to share an amusing story about a run-in with the Japanese media. This was a couple days ago, but I really enjoyed Rowdy's post at HW about how much we "deserve" to see a winner. ETA: I forgot one. Forbes has ranked all of the general manager in every sport . Dave Littlefield ranks in at 84 out of 98 with Bill Bavasi as the only MLB GM coming in below him. They used some crazy math to figure out who the best is...

Let's catch up on some of the recent news out of Florida and what it means for the Pirates. The most important thing that we got to hear today was that both Xavier Nady and Jose Castillo are going to be OK. Nady's intestinal thingy was just a virus and Castillo's foot is fine. The most amusing part of the Nady injury storyline? The Cincy Post Reds' beat writer C. Trent Rosecrans somehow misinterpreted Nady's injury as "testicular" and not "intestinal." Oops. Meanwhile, Masumi Kuwata passed Physical Challenge #1 today by pitching a perfect inning in the Bucs' 10-4 loss to the Reds . Yo Herrera got shelled in his first outing against real batters, giving up four earned runs (and five total) over two innings. This is why it's a good reason to not get excited about much that happens this spring.

Remember when Brad Eldred played in 55 games and crushed 12 homers in 208 PAs? It was only 2005, but I recall that it was a pretty good time (though there was that whole .279 OBP to consider to go with those homers). Anyways Breldred homered for the second day in a row, this time off of Mike Mussina. The Pirates still lost and Jose Castillo went down with a foot injury that needs to be x-rayed tomorrow. The good news from the article is that Xavier Nady is back in camp and working out and seems pretty optimistic that whatever's wrong with him isn't Crohn's disease. At this point in the year, that's the most important thing to come out of today.

Writing about baseball games is why I started this blog. Being a science major and all, I can crunch numbers pretty well and being a smartass and all, I can synthesize news reports and make snarky comments about them. But the real reason I write this blog is to talk about baseball that is played on the field. That means that today is a good day: the Pirates and Braves are on ESPN. I'm not going to liveblog it because it's an exhibition game. There's only so much of it that I care about. What follows is kind of a stream of consciousness of the things that I cared about during the game. John Kruk thinks we have a legitimate shot at the division. Steve Phillips is also here. Seriously, how do I not have their jobs by now? John Smoltz vs. Chris Duffy. I take Smoltz every time. Don Kelly, aka Neil Walker's brother-in-law, can't be over 13 years old. Somehow Ian Snell still looks like a badass in those stupid spring uniforms and caps. I think Ian Snell might be my favorit...

Although I have no way of knowing the exact demographics of my readership here, I've got a sneaking suspicion that there are a large number of people like myself that are reading this blog. That is lazy college students with nothing better to do on a Friday afternoon than sit around their apartment and watch TV. If you do happen to fall into that category, or really any category that lets you have access to a television this afternoon, then I just want to remind you that the Pirates and Braves will be on ESPN at 1 today. My cynical nature prevents me from getting too pumped up about spring training games, but, um, I've already got the DVR set so I don't miss any of it while I'm at class (lay off, I've got a quiz). Anyways, I'll weigh back in later with some first hand observations and you can use this thread as a kind of game thread while the game is going on.

The Bucs and Reds played a game at McKechnie today with the wind blowing out and the Reds won 9-7 . Here are the highlights for the Pirates: Andrew McCutchen lead off the game with a home run. Seriously, the dude better stop or Littlefield will just start him in Pittsburgh and ruin his career now. Luis Matos hit two homers. Damn, damn, damn. He's probably got a locker in Pittsburgh with his name on it already. Or it's one game, whatever. Duke and Gorzo seem to have pitched OK if their line is an indicator. That's it for the highlights. Sully got roughed up for a four run inning and Josh Hamilton made his triumphant return to civilization . Not like any of this matters, DL will use the next month's results to justify what he wants justified and ignore anything he doesn't like.

So as we've all repeatedly noted, we know practically nothing about Yoslan Herrera except that despite all of the rave reviews we've heard about him, he seems unlikely to start the year above Altoona because of legitimate concerns about his durability. But now we know something else, he's intimidating as hell on the mound . I mean look at that picture. Do you want to bat against that guy? I don't. Also, the Pirates and Reds are kicking off the non-manatee related exhibition games this afternoon and the game is probably on the radio, assuming you get whatever radio station they're moved to right now (I would find out, but I'm going to be running fluorescence titrations all afternoon so it's pretty inconsequential to me because no one I work with is a Pirate fan).