Dichotomy

There are some times when I read something and know that I want to write a post about it, but can't decide whether to be over-bearingly smug and cynical, or to just play it straight. Today's article about Kyle Stark's plan for the minor league system is a great example. It's an awesome read and it really sounds like Stark has some exciting stuff planned for re-shaping the Pirates' miserable minor league system (at least, as exciting as this stuff gets to fans that don't get to see the day-to-day progress of it). I mean, people have been saying that things are going to be different, but Stark actually lays things out and says, "This is what we're going to change and this is how it's going to be better." That's some exciting stuff.

And yet, there's one paragraph that I so desperately want to make so many jokes about:

Dr. James Andrews, the surgeon who has taken the knife to the arms of so many of the Pirates' former first-round draft picks, last year began a program of biomechanical analysis at his American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala. In the procedure, high-speed motion cameras use extra frames to film a pitcher's delivery and detect anything that might raise a red flag. The Pirates will begin sending pitchers there, six at a time, this summer.

I want to say "Looks like we're throwing up the White Flag (not Vogelsong!) and sending the pitchers to Andrews six-at-a-time before they even get hurt." Then again, breaking out the Mythbusters high-speed camera to make extra sure that pitchers' deliveries aren't injuring them sounds pretty freaking sweet.

Being a Pirate fan

If you've been a reader here for a long time, you've probably noticed that I don't spend a whole lot of time criticizing the local media for the things they write about the Pirates (unless you count gentle pot-shots at Pirates.com), even when they're incredibly bone-headed. The reason for that is pretty simple- I'm not trying to do their job and I don't particularly want their job. You probably notice that I link to the Post-Gazette a lot and the Trib hardly ever. There's a reason for that, and you probably even know what that reason is and we don't need to spend a whole lot of time wallowing in stuff like that. There are rare occasions however, when someone actually writes something that offends me. Mike Seate's (who?) column about how lame Pirate fans are is one of those rare occasions. Charlie has already ripped the column apart in wonderful fashion for its lame reasoning and I don't want to step on his toes (I strongly recommend you read his post if you've got the time), but I really just can't let drivel like this pass without posting about it.

The thing that kills me about Seate's column is that it rips baseball fans without ever understanding why someone would be a baseball fan. It actually bothers him that people are baseball fans. I have no idea why someone would be a superbike fan, but it doesn't keep me awake at night and I certainly don't ever plan on wasting 500 words on why I think superbike racing is stupid.

It's really hard to describe why I'm a Pirates' fan. I suppose, if I had guess, it would be because when I was six years old, I was sure of about two things in life:

1. I was going to be a baseball player, an astronaut, or the President of the United States.
   
2. I really liked the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It's suddenly 16 years later and I'm not ever going to be a baseball player or an astronaut and President looks less and less likely every day, but man, I still like the Pirates and I think that I kind of like the fact that the six year old that played T-Ball for the Cookery and bee-swarm soccer on the weekends and liked big yellow slides, giant pits of mud, hitting fireflies with tennis rackets, and watching and reading anything he could find about baseball isn't entirely gone. I like that the fact that as long as the Pirates are around, there can be a part of me that never really has to grow up.

The thing is, if you follow anything for as long as most people end up being baseball fans, you tend to develop a connection to it. Towards the end of June, I was in a pretty crappy place. I was in the middle of breaking up with my girlfriend and simultaneously facing moving 500 miles away from the only place I ever really wanted to call home. Understandably, I was pretty down about life in general for a couple weeks. One night, smack in the middle of that ugly run, Xavier Nady and Ryan Doumit hit back-to-back homers in the tenth inning of a game I had already given up on and the Pirates beat the Marlins 7-5. It was an inconsequential baseball game between two terrible teams, won by two marginal players that I don't have any sort of emotional attachment to. And yet, the Pirates winning a game I thought they were going to lose made me smile for the first time in like a week. Those homers didn't bring my girlfriend back and they didn't make moving any less terrifying, but they did make me smile for a minute and forget about how crappy life can be.

I can't speak for everyone else, nor will I pretend that I am, but that's why I'm a baseball fan. There aren't many things in life that are there when we're 6 and there when we're 86, but barring unforeseen circumstances, the Pirates are always going to be there to provide a little bit of an escape from the day-to-day routine. And so if I want to boo a little, walk out of a game to express my displeasure with ownership, or spend too many hours every week writing a blog bemoaning the hand fate has dealt us Pirate fans, I hope that's not too much of a problem for anyone. And I'd really appreciate it if Mike Seate stopped insinuating that I was a bad fan because of it.

Damaso Marte in an accident, not seriously hurt

Earlier this evening the PG reported that Damaso Marte was involved in a three-car accident in the DR today, but not seriously hurt. He's got a sore neck, which means his car probably got rear-ended pretty hard. Still, it seems like he'll be pitching in the Caribbean World Series this week, so it can't be that serious. His brother-in-law and daughter were in another car that was involved, but they both seem to be OK too, which is great news to hear.

Tuesday Links

Dejan faces a hard hitting questioner in the first question of today's Q&A.

The Johan Santana sweepstakes is over and the Mets are the winners, sending Carlos Gomez, Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra, and Kevin Mulvey. Umm, I'm not a GM or anything, but I think I would've taken any package that included Phil Hughes over those four guys. I think Bill Smith just pulled a Dave Littlefield. The deal is contingent upon the Mets and Santana working out an extension, which I think is kind of a given.

Meanwhile, the Erik Bedard trade is on hold until Peter Angelos finishes his meddling. Which will probably be never.

Some of these unusual contract clauses are amusing.

Down time

Now that Piratefest is over, we're probably going to be seeing some downtime until pitchers and catchers report. That means that we'll get stories about how well the season ticket sales are tracking (I'm not sure, but I think that word is code for "no one wants tickets" because 9,011 doesn't seem like a lot to me). I'll try and whip up a batch of links later tonight, but I've got this sciencey thing taking up a lot of my time this week, so no promises.

Some Q&A impressions

The PG has awesomely furnished us with video from Coonelly, Huntington, and Russell's first meeting with the public. I would've much rather been there in person, but I'll take what I can get. Anyways, here are my thoughts on each of our new fearless leaders:

John Russell: Lots of stress from him on accountability, doing things the right way, etc. etc. It's standard fare for a rookie manager with a long minor league track record, I think. Honestly, seeing him talk at length kind of confirms to me my initial suspicion: he's been brought in to manage a bad baseball team. Look at it this way- imagine you're the GM of a team you know is going to be awful. Who do you want talking to the media after the games are over? A whimsical, lackadaisical idiot that talks mostly to himself and doesn't really have any effect on the players? Or a straight-talking, no-nonsense type guy that gruffly demands accountability from his players? I think the second one will play a lot better in print and over the air, and I think that's why Russell's here. He'll be a lot easier to take seriously when he loses those glasses,

Neal Huntington- It really amuses me that he spends a ton of time playing the anti-Littlefield card. It's like some of the stuff Littlefield did personally offended him. I like that, because some of the stuff Littlefield did was pretty offensive. About 2/3rds of the way in, he starts talking about how he'll never sacrifice a player's development to win at the minor league level. That's probably giving DL a seizure, as racking up minor league championships at any cost was his specialty. Of course, this will all be rendered moot if Steve Pearce starts in AAA next year, because doing that would make Huntington a liar. And no one likes liars.

Frank Coonelly- He did the least talking of the trio, but he gave me the same impression that Huntington did- that he knows what he's talking about. He keeps reiterating that the Pirates are going to draft the best available players in June, just like Huntington hammered home the point that they would never sacrifice player development to win minor league games. Seeing that these guys know where the previous front office went wrong is a really encouraging sign for me.

One impression that I did take away from this clip that wasn't explicitly stated is that none of these guys actually expect the Pirates to be a contending team in 2008. They're hammering home the "underperforming in 2007" meme, but only because they can't say, "This team is going to suck next year." It's frustrating as hell to sit back and watch nothing on the major league roster change, but it's comforting to know that these guys don't expect their pumpkin to turn into a carriage without some serious work.

This kind of stuff is always going to be 90% fluff and so it's hard to draw any rock-solid conclusions from it. The questions that Huntington and Coonelly get from the general masses of Pirate fans are certainly not going to be the hard-hitting questions that we'd all like to see them answer (though I'd happily give them the chance to field and answer questions from myself and readers if they're up for it). It's nice to see these guys talk a good game, but it'll be even nicer if they can actually back the words up. Unfortunately, a little video clip from the Post-Gazette isn't going to tell us if they can do that.

Piratefest

Did anyone go? Specifically, I'm curious about the Q&A sessions with Huntington, Coonelly, and Russell. You can tell a lot about these guys just by seeing them talk in person (see: my gut impressions of Jim Tracy). If you did go and see the Q&A, by all means drop a line in the comments and let us curious parties that live too far away to go to Piratefest know what went down this weekend.

Pirates offer Freddy multi-year extension

The PG is reporting today that the Pirates have offered Freddy Sanchez a multi-year contract and since the quote is coming from Frank Coonelly, there's little reason to doubt this. If it's a two year deal to take us through his arbitration years ... great. If it's anything more than that ... ugh.

Let's play a game. Which seems more likely to happen in 2008: Freddy Sanchez hitting .340/.380/.440 or Freddy Sanchez hitting .285/.320/.390? If you picked the second one, you're on the same page I am. In fact, towards the end of the season I said at least twice that Freddy Sanchez needed to be traded because he's one of the few players on the team with any trade value and that value is likely to disappear quickly. I'm sticking with that statement. If he does put up a line that's similar to the second one, how much would playing Brian Bixler over him hurt the Pirates? His defense isn't great at second base by any measure. If another GM is going to overpay for anyone on the Pirates' roster right now it's going to be 2-time all-star, champion of adversity, all-around good guy Freddy Sanchez (actually, this should be probably be in the past tense since most of the moving and shaking in the middle infield positions seems to be done for this winter). Extending him beyond 2009 makes even less sense to me than not trading him.

Jason Bay is disappointed

From today's PG:

"I think that, for a championship-quality team, you need to make more moves. And I'm not talking about the .500 team we can be. I don't think anyone in this room is going to tell you we're a championship-quality team. There still needs to be more moves. And you know what? I'm not trying to tell people anything they don't already know."

The way Bay saw it, remarks he made to the media after the final game of last season obligated him to go public again.

"We've had basically the same group the last four years," he said Sept. 30. "To think we're going to win 100 games or go the World Series next year with the exact same team ... it would be a little foolish. I'm not saying you need an overhaul, but something's got to change."

I have no idea what Bay is trying to say in that article. The full quote is longer than that and he says something about comments made by him at the end of the season last year. When you read the whole thing, it's kind of like, "We need to make moves for us to be good, but no one expects us to be good, but we need to make moves, but not a lot, but some, but..." I think he should probably just try to not hit .247 again.

New poll

We'll springboard from the recent hot button issue in the comments right into this week's poll:

Where should Steven Pearce begin 2008?

As always, the poll's in the sidebar, so make sure you vote by next Friday.

Last week's question was Will the Pirates make a significant roster move before the season starts? and the results were pretty one-sided:

• Yes- 15% (27 votes)
• No- 84% (148 votes)

I don't know where the other one percent went. To Ron Paul, maybe.

Steve Pearce's MLE

Springing from the debate in the comments from my post yesterday about Steven Pearce starting the year in AAA, I dug around to see if anyone calculated the major league equivalency (MLE) numbers for his breakout 2007 in the minors. I remembered that I had seen Sean Smith's CHONE equivalencies on his blog, and I dug up the spreadsheet. This is how Pearce's minor league numbers might have translated if he spent his 2007 in Pittsburgh: .277/.327/.513 with 26 homers and 35 doubles in 551 PAs. You've probably noticed that that's better than the numbers that Nady (.278/.330/.476) and LaRoche (.272/.345/458) put up in 2007.

You can debate the predictive values of MLEs if you like, but like all stats or projections that I use here, I'm just using them as a jumping off point. I'm not arguing that Pearce would've been better in right field than Nady last year or better at first base than LaRoche was last year or that he'll hit 30 homers in 2008. The point is that Pearce doesn't have anything left to learn in the minors and it's pretty unlikely that he's going to be a considerably worse player than Nady and maybe even LaRoche in the coming season. He's killed the ball at every level he's played at and he has plate patience to go with that power. He's going to be 25. There's nothing left for him to do in the minors and that's that.

Is Greg Smith going to be any good?

Prompted by the article in the PG today (your understanding of this post will be enhanced if you read that article first), here's a list of players that Greg Smith drafted in Detroit that reached the major leagues (all from BBREF):

1997: Matt Anderson (1st overall), Shane Loux (2nd round)
1998: Jeff Weaver (1), Nate Cornejo (1), Brandon Inge (2), Adam Pettyjohn (2), Andres Torres (4)
1999: Eric Munson (1), Cody Ross (4), Eric Eckenstahler (32), Jason Frasor (33)
2000: Nook Logan (3), Mark Woodyard (4)
2001: Jack Hannahan (3), Mike Rabelo (4), Ryan Rayburn (5), Don Kelly (8)
2002: Scott Moore (1), Brent Clevlen (2), Curtis Granderson (3), Joel Zumaya (11)
2003: Tony Giarratano (3), Virgil Vazquez (7), Brian Rogers (11), Jordan Tata (16)
2004: Justin Verlander (1st overall)

Obviously Verlander and Granderson are awesome, but beyond them it's a really spotty list (there may be a couple prospects from 2003 or 2004, but I don't recognize any names). He also only drafted one player in the middle/late rounds that's had any sort of big league career- the incredibly injury prone Zumaya (who will probably be a great reliever but is still just a reliever). I want to say "at least his drafts were better than what Creech stuck us with," but depending on how Walker, McCutchen, Pearce, Lincoln, and Moskos pan out to compliment Capps, Maholm, Gorzelanny, I can't even make that statement with a ton of confidence.

Don't get me wrong- when Greg Smith lays out his plan in the paper it sounds plenty good to me. I want to believe the assertion in that article that Randy Smith screwed up his drafts. I want to believe that his double duty as director of player development from 2000-2002 made him draft poorly (though we'd have to throw Granderson and Zumaya out of consideration, in fairness to all of the failed picks from those years). I mean, I wrote a post praising Bob Nutting in the past week, I'm not one to deny someone a second chance. Still, Ed Creech has left me just a bit wary when it comes to trusting scouting directors with spotty track records. Before Creech failed here, he screwed things up in Montreal, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. Everything Smith says sounds good, but if he can't tell Matt Anderson from JD Drew or Troy Glaus (who were picked 2 and 3 after Smith picked Anderson in 1997), none of the talk will matter. I'll give him a chance because he's not Creech and because I have no choice, but my hopes are not up with him running the scouting department.

This is bad news

I know that I always say I'm trying not to get worked up over things I read on Pirates.com, but once again the site has my blood boiling:

With Doumit able to step in behind Nady, 2007 Minor League standout Steve Pearce seems to be the odd man out of the Pirates' roster equation. While Pearce's bat would certainly be an asset off the bench, consistent playing time at the Minor League level is going to be more critical than periodic at-bats in the Majors.

"In a perfect world, Steve deserves a chance to win an everyday job at the Major League level, but with Xavier, with Jason, with Adam [LaRoche], we're not in a position to give that to him," Huntington said. "He's not going to want to hear this, but a young player needs to continue to play, and as a result, Steve will probably end up back in [Triple-A] Indianapolis where he can play every day and develop."

No no no no no no no. Pearce destroyed minor league pitching last year because the old front office promoted him slowly. Pearce will be 25 next year. That's too old for any serious prospect to be in AAA, let alone one who slugged .622 across the minors last year. Nady will be 29 and we know his ceiling isn't very high. LaRoche will be 29 and there's reason to believe his ceiling isn't much higher than Nady's. Keeping Pearce in AAA for any considerable amount of time ensures that we'll know almost nothing about how he'll hit in the majors until he's 26 while we'll spend this year watching players that we already know won't be able to help us considerably in the long run. Trade LaRoche (I'm serious, I don't know how much long term value he has to us), cut or trade Nady, do what you have to do, but don't start Pearce in AAA.

All our problems are solved

Today, the Pirates signed a former World Series Game 7 starter.

Alternately, they signed a guy that threw 10 and 2/3 innings last year and has only had one good year since the turn of the century.

I suppose I could've just said that they signed Jaret Wright.

The new Latin American HQ

The PG has the concept art for the new academy in the Dominican today and if you haven't seen them, you should check them out. Coonelly and Nutting are not screwing around this time.

Is extending Adam LaRoche a good idea?

Lots of talk from the Pirates' front office lately has centered on making a deal to keep Adam LaRoche in black and gold for the foreseeable future. To that affect, Dejan ran this item in a PG story over the weekend:

The Pirates initially made up their minds to approach Adam LaRoche about a long-term contract even before the Winter Meetings in early December. Part of the reasoning: Huntington values ballpark factor as a measuring tool, and LaRoche's left-handed power bat represents a terribly rare commodity all through the organization.

On the surface it makes sense: lefty hitter, decent pop, good age (28 in 2008). If you're going to extend someone, it might as well be LaRoche, right? Actually, I'm not so sure. There's a couple factors involved here that people rarely talk about. Let's talk about them.

The clip from the PG story clearly implies what the Pirates have mercilessly beaten into our heads the past few years: PNC Park is a stadium that favors left-handed sluggers. Does it really? Let's look at the park (in a grab from MLB.com, as are all the following graphics):The right field line is 320 feet, which is only five feet shorter than the typical right field corner. The power alley is 375, which is about normal. There's some area cut off by the Clemente Wall being a straight line rather than curved, but it's not a whole ton. I went to Bill James for verification and I found it: the park factor at PNC for homers by lefties is exactly 100. Over the last three years, the Pirates and their opponents have combined for 155 lefty-homers at PNC and 151 on the road. There's probably some benefit (the LHB HR factor at PNC last year was 107, which was probably helped by Nate McLouth taking direct aim at the stands), but it's a lot more negligible than people imagine. In fact, the biggest benefit in having lefties hit at PNC Park is the fact that they're not righties, who get killed by the giant left field.

What does that mean for LaRoche? He hit ten homers at PNC last year, compared to 11 on the road. That means we're already off to a LaRoche-like bad start in finding some kind of benefit for him hitting at PNC. If we check his hitting charts (which you can access from his player page at the Pirates' site) we can see that of his ten homers, five went over the Clemente wall and five went more towards center. If the hitting charts are accurate, it looks to me like LaRoche gained maybe one or two extra homers in right field at PNC and lost up to FOUR in left-center in 2007:If you check his flyouts (which I didn't include to reduce clutter and the number of graphics on this page) he loses maybe one more. If you look at his charts from Turner Field last year, they lend support to the idea that PNC Park hurts LaRoche's homer total:None of this is particularly new information and lots of people were saying similar things about LaRoche's power being to all fields before he even came to the Pirates. His 2007 numbers just go to confirm that notion. That means that when we talk about extending LaRoche, we're talking about extending a first-baseman with a career OPS+ of 112 that doesn't take advantage of whatever small advantage PNC Park offers to left-handed power hitters. For a team that's just starting a long rebuilding process, where's the benefit in extending LaRoche?

Addendum: In my haste, I left out a couple of very salient points I had been meaning to make. First off, in terms of righty/lefty advantage, I was only talking about home runs. It's clear there's an advantage to being left-handed in PNC Park because the park is quite hard on righties. If given a choice between an in-prime Jason Bay and an in-prime Brian Giles, the Pirates' choice should always be Giles because of the configuration of PNC Park. Of course, things aren't always that cut and dried. I also think it's mildly inaccurate to assume there's no power advantage for lefties at all in PNC (vs. the league average that is). Guys like Daryle Ward and Nate McLouth make compelling arguments otherwise. I was simply trying to point out that the advantage isn't nearly as big as people often make it out to be and that a hitter like LaRoche takes almost no benefit from hitting at PNC Park besides the fact that he's not right-handed. Because of that, I think extending him on the basis of park factor is a mistake.

Also- I don't know why the comments link is broken, but if you check the "Recent comments" box in the sidebar, you can jump in on the conversation. Then again- they're working now, so whatever. I'm a science geek, not a programming nerd.

Links and stuff

I'll have more substantial stuff this evening. But until then:

The Hardball Times ranks the ten best World Series Game 7s. The Bucs are on the list twice.

I've been doing a lot of thumbing through the Bill James Historical Abstract lately, which leads me to ask this: why do only the most hardcore Pirate fans know who Arky Vaughn is?

Figures, I gradute from Duquesne right when the Dukes get good at basketball, then the first decent UNC game I get tickets to is their first loss of the year, which somehow sends the student section into hysterics. Yeah, the Heels are 18-1. The Pirates may not get win #18 until mid-May. Is it baseball season yet?
Here's an ominous sign: Chris Carpenter is throwing again. I forgot how good that guy was until I read his name just now.

If Troy Tulowitzki were a Pirate, a seven-year deal after his rookie season would mean nothing but pain and suffering for all parties involved. Lucky for him, he's not a Pirate.

Links

Freddy Sanchez and the Pirates are miles apart on salary figures. Things like this tend to not end well. Everyone else on the Bucs has signed.

Charlie's look at small market GMs and how their careers started turns to what I think is the most apt comparison for the Pirates, the Brewers. It's worth noting that Doug Melvin started with more talent than the Pirates have in the minors, has done a pretty good job as a GM, and won't go to the playoffs before 2008, more than five years after he was hired.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with WearPittsburgh, but it's a website full of awesome Pittsburgh-related t-shirt designs. I am forced to link to it now as a Duquesne graduate that spent a lot of time on the South Side, because they're selling Cat on a Stick shirts. I'm not sure if the Cambodican Kitchen ever made Dejan's lists of "things that make Pittsburgh great," but it's way up there on mine.

It's now officially official: baseball can't get here soon enough.

A new poll

Last week's poll:

Evaulate Neal Huntington
Green and clueless- 5% (12 votes)
Has a plan, but handcuffed by Littlefield's mess- 50% (108 votes)
Wearing a Dave Littlefield suit- 11% (25 votes)
Undecided- 32% (votes)

This week's question: Will the Pirates make a significant roster change before the season starts?

It seems unlikely, but the LaRoche trade went down almost exactly a year ago (I remember because it happened the day before my birthday, which happens to be today) and I think Huntington's going to keep one eye towards making a move all year long. As usual, the poll is in the sidebar and the comments are open for discussion.

Contract updates

Let's see, all the eligible Pirates filed for arbitration this week. That's not surprising and in fact, I don't really know what would happen if they didn't file, but it would probably be bad for them. Jose Bautista won't be going to arbitration, though, because he signed a $1.8 million contract for his first arbitration year. That leaves John Grabow, Xavier Nady, and Freddy Sanchez without deals for next year. I don't think any of the three of them are too far apart with the team right now, so we'll probably avoid another ugly "Jack Wilson in 2004" scenario no matter what happens.

And oh, yeah, PIRATEFEST!!! You know you've always wanted the autograph of an ex-gravedigger and a non-prospect!

A year of Nutting

I've been debating all day whether it's worth it or not to post about the long article in the PG today about the Pirates' first year under Bob Nutting's control. That's mostly because, from an objective perspective, Nutting's first year as the official "owner" or whatever he is of the Pirates was probably one of the best years they've had in quite some time. I don't imagine that will be a terribly popular sentiment but I don't write this blog to be popular, so here goes.

It is, admittedly, quite hard to get past the shadowy image of Bob and Ogden Nutting as the puppet masters that choked the purse strings on the Dave Littlefield/Kevin McClatchy Pirates from 2002-2006. The figures that show the gross profit of the team every year are very public and while the numbers put out by Forbes may not be 100% accurate, they're probably pretty close. Lots of people attribute the Aramis Ramirez fleecing to a mandate from the Nuttings that Littlefield cut the budget. Once you've established an identity as a Rachel Phelps type owner, that's a really hard image to shake in the eyes of the fans. Still, sitting in Wheeling and counting your money is one thing when Kevin McClatchy's name is the name branded on the team and it's an entirely different thing when it's your own name bearing the standard.

When Nutting took over a year ago, he wrote a letter to the fans and I responded on this blog with a letter of my own. I'll paste what was probably the key passage from my letter here:

Still, I'm a reasonable person and I think I'm a pretty fair guy. In fact, a lot of Pirate fans will read this letter I'm writing and tell me I'm too fair. I read the stuff you say to Dejan Kovacevic in the Post Gazette and I want to believe you. "It's my expectation to win." That's what you said. As a fan, I hope you'll forgive me if I say I have ample reason to think otherwise. Still, there's no way around the statement you've made. It's not open ended like "We Will." It says pretty clearly what you want to do with the team and it's hard for me to argue with that, because I want to see the Pirates win and I should hope that you do too. But you know what? Words don't mean anything anymore. I don't care if you say you want to win or expect to win every day. I want you to show me that you want to win. Fire Dave Littlefield. Talk to any reasonable baseball person and they'll tell you that Littlefield is an awful GM. Guess who's helped turn us into a punchline? Littlefield. If you want to win, I'd suggest you start by firing him. Next up, fire Ed Creech and Brian Graham. You profess to want a strong farm system to operate like Oakland and Minnesota. We don't have that and no one is more responsible for it than Creech and Graham.

It's crazy to read back on that letter and realize that that's exactly what Nutting did this year. He talked to reasonable baseball people, they told him that Littlefield, Creech, and Graham were bad, and he fired them. Not only that, but Kevin McClatchy left and was replaced with an actual baseball person, and Nutting took it upon himself to investigate the team's facilities in the Dominican Republic and decided that they were so bad that the team needed a $4-$5 million new academy to help scouting in the area. Mark me if I'm wrong, but most of us would've considered all of these things to be huge strides 365 days ago.

The problem, of course, is that the Pirates' team that we see 162 times every year has changed very little since Nutting took over. We made the LaRoche trade a year ago tomorrow, and that's been about it in terms of major roster changes. Sometimes as fans it's hard to see that the team on the field is the final product of a lot of things and it's not until all of the variables are fixed that the team on the field will be appreciably better.

I now feel like I need to go out of my way to say that I'm not trying to stick up for Nutting or apologize for the things that his ownership has been responsible for. I'm simply trying to view things through a more objective lens than the one that is normally used by fans. The truth of the matter is that in the past year, Bob Nutting has changed a lot of things about the Pirates and the way business is done on Federal Street, and I think it's hard to argue that the changes he's made haven't been for the better. Listen to him talk about the payroll after a year as owner (from the PG article linked at the beginning of this post):

"When the pieces are lined up for us to contend, it's my responsibility to make sure we can take advantage of it. The answer is yes. We're not going to have any artificial barrier where we can't ever be competitive. The Brewers are a great example. They supplemented only after they had the foundation built. They didn't do it three years ago. They did it last year. It's a very rational, orderly approach, and it's one I'm very comfortable with."

It's one thing to say things and it's another thing entirely to do them and because of that simple fact, I'm never going to fully trust the ownership of this organization until they give me reason to trust them (and the only thing here that qualifies is putting a winning team on the field). The Pirates are still a long ways and a lot of good decisions away from being a good baseball team. But hearing Nutting talk about the team after seeing his actions in the past year gives me the distinct impression that the guy might care more about winning baseball games than any of us ever suspected.

THE PIRATES HIRED SID BREAM! OH MY GOD THE PIRATES HIRED SID BREAM!

I briefly touched on this in the post below, but it deserves its own crazy, ranting indignant post.

The Pirates hired Sid Bream to coach with the State College Spikes. Sid Bream. The man that is most often associated with the horrific loss that kicked off this 15 years of misery is now working for the Pirates organization. Suddenly, all I can see is Jack and Ben from LOST skipping around their island, holding hands and whistling, "Two Of Us" by the Beatles. I mean, I understand that Sid Bream is a wonderful guy. Everyone says it and I'm sure it's true. And realistically, there are a million things to blame more than Sid Bream for the events of October 14th, 1992 (Francisco Cabrera, Jose Lind, Stan Belinda, Jim Leyland, and Barry Bonds all clock in ahead of Sid on my list). But SOMEONE in the Pirates front office has to know that the picture of Bream lying on home plate with his arms up in celebration, being strangle-hugged by an unidentified Brave results in Pavlovian dry-heaving by Pirate fans.

Maybe it's a good sign that the front office is this clueless as to what the fans want. I more than once accused Dave Littlefield and company of pandering to the fans with moves like the Sean Casey trade. Maybe it was the only way we could get the ridiculously overqualified Brian Brad Fischer to manage our New York-Penn League team. Still, I don't imagine Franco Harris ever getting a job with the Raiders or John Elway ever getting a job in Cleveland. Quite often I think to myself that the Pirates can't possible find new ways to torture me. Every single time, I'm proven wrong.

Links

Charlie keeps his comparison of Huntington to other small market GMs going. Since I think this is the best way to evaluate Huntington, I'll keep linking.

SID BREAM WILL BE THE TOP ASSISTANT WITH THE STATE COLLEGE SPIKES. Also, Brad Fischer is the new manager there, displacing the ever-so-popular Turner Ward.

BP rates the breakout candidates for 2008. On the list is Nate McLouth.

It’s not clear whether McLouth can make enough contact to warrant being called a breakout candidate. However, in his career he’s 34-for-36 stealing bases, including 22-for-23 in 2007, and that’s a key skill for any speed player. Moreover, he nearly doubled his walk rate in ’07 and hit for more power. That makes the strikeout rate (more than one every five PA) palatable, if just barely.

Not quite a ringing endorsement, but I'll take it.

Andy Van Slyke is quite fond of the lineup that will make people declare Jim Leyland a "genius" in only a few short months.

LaRoche avoids arbitration

Adam LaRoche is going to get a nice little raise to $5 million in 2008 (up from $3.2M) and the Pirates get to avoid the hassle of arbitration (with him at least). This raise is pretty much in line for a guy going into his second arbitration season, so there's not much to talk about there. What there is to talk about is the talk that the Pirates are still working on extending LaRoche with a four year deal. Given that LaRoche is 28 and been an average hitter every year in his career save one, I'd be a bit hesitant to pull the trigger on a long term deal. We've got him under control through 2009. What's the rush?

It ain't easy

I'm a bit late to the blog party today, but both Charlie and Vlad have been comparing Neal Huntington's current task to the one that faced Dayton Moore when he took over the Royals in May of 2006. I'm really happy these guys went and did this because when the first, "Why isn't Huntington doing anything" rumblings started, my dad suggested taking a look at what other small market GMs did in their first year and how Huntington's first three months of work compared to that. I haven't had the time for that type of undertaking, but I'd strongly suggest you read both Charlie and Vlad's posts before moving along.

The first key thing to note is Vlad's initial point: in less than two years, Dayton Moore has turned over 28 guys on KC's 40-man roster. That's some serious work. Charlie counters that it's not really a fair comparison because KC's major league roster when Moore took over was much worse than what we have right now in Pittsburgh. He's right, too. What always intrigued me about Dave Littlefield was that he was actually quite good at not being noticed. Since winning requires risk-taking, it always seemed like his goal was to avoid risks and thus avoid abject failure. When I tell people I'm a Pirate fan the reaction generally isn't, "Oh, man, that's too bad. They really suck," it's "They still exist?" That was always the Littlefield plan: gather together a group of guys good enough to win 63 games and hope that maybe someday the other 18 necessary to get above .500 would take care of themselves. The Pirates, with the exception of 2001, have been just good enough to be ignored for 15 years. There's no comparison between these Pirates and the Phillies of the 40s and 50s that set the franchise futility record, because those Phillies' teams sucked. They were consistently the worst team in the National League. They were so bad they changed their name to the Blue Jays for two years (seriously). The Pirates, by comparison, are just mediocre.

To be honest, I think that puts Huntington in a tougher place than the one Moore was in when he took his job in KC. Moore went crazy dumping players off of his major league roster, doing anything he could to purge the organization of the practical joke of a baseball team that had been wearing a Royals uniform for the past few years and no one in Kansas City batted an eye. In Pittsburgh, Huntington almost immediately got rid of what he could (Kata, Izturis, Phelps) and then immediately got stuck at an impasse. Because the perception exists that there is some talent on the Pirates' roster, Huntington has no choice but to tread a little more carefully. Remember the rumor about non-tendering Xavier Nady? Pirate fans, myself included, got all up in arms over that notion and it disappeared pretty quickly. But why did we really do that? If you assume that Huntington has tried like hell to trade Nady since the season ended (and I think he has) and that no one wants an injury-ridden player that has been historically unable to hit lefties righties, that considers a season with an .807 OPS a breakout, and that doesn't play first base or either corner outfield spot (the easiest positions to field on the diamond) particularly well, then what's Nady still doing on our roster? Every at-bat he takes that Ryan Doumit or Steve Pearce don't take in 2008 feels like a small loss for the Pirates to me, even though I was one of the people arguing that non-tendering him would be crazy and even though the two of them might not match Nady's production in 2008.

That creates an interesting dilemma for Huntington. Whether we, as diehard baseball fans, like it or not, public perception is a big part of being a GM. Imagine the reception in Pittsburgh if Huntington came in to town and made the changes he's made to this point coupled with non-tendering Xavier Nady. There would already be a public outcry for his head. The clock would be ticking after a 95 loss season, and Huntington would only be one draft and maybe one Jason Bay trade closer to replenishing the system. In short, people would be publicly calling for Coonelly to ax him despite the fact that he'd have done nothing to harm the long-term prospects of the franchise, which is what should be his only concern. Dave Littlefield was kind of a magician and every year the 70-win Pirates and their tantalizing promise in the form of Zach Duke or Jason Bay or someone else was his prestige. Any attempt to clean up his mess has to first start with shattering the illusion he created, and that makes the Pirates' job probably the toughest one Neal Huntington could've taken.

Huh?

The cynical side of me loves January. That's because it's the time of year that the players say stuff like this:

"I like it," closer Matt Capps said. "I think it's a great sign of commitment on their part. It shows they believe in what we're all capable of doing. I believe it, too. There are some good players in here, and a lot of us can do better than we did last year."

"There's no doubt in my mind we all can get better, including myself," first baseman Adam LaRoche said. "And I think we will. I like the direction this team is headed in, just like I did last year."

"We've got the pieces," starter Paul Maholm said. "But, like they've said, it's a matter of having some accountability. We need to step up. We need to win. No excuses."

I love the smell of optimism in the winter! I also love this quote:

"I'll tell you, I saw that Pittsburgh team last spring, and I liked it," a prominent American League executive said recently. "I didn't think they were going to win the World Series, but I liked what their lineup was going to be, and their starting pitching ... well, everybody liked that. I'm not sure what happened to them."

Someone probably needs to be fired.

Some quick links

If you're wondering why Damaso Marte is still in a Pirates' uniform, this is probably why.

It looks like the Cardinals and Blue Jays are going to swap Rolen and Glaus. If it happens, that's a great trade for the Cardinals. Both guys get hurt a lot, but Glaus can still hit and I'm not so sure Rolen can.

Mike Cameron is probably going to Milwaukee, pending a physical. This is good news if you enjoy watching baseball that doesn't look like it's being played by a Vogon, as it'll probably result in a move to Ryan Braun to the outfield.

Umm, this Roger Clemens story has officially gone too far.

The Pirates are breaking ground in the Dominican

After all the talk last year about opening up a new baseball academy in the Domincan Republic, it looks like the Pirates are actually going to do it. There's not many details (those are coming in about a week and a half), but the groundbreaking ceremony is January 22nd and the Pirates appear ready to sink somewhere in the ballpark of $5 million into this thing, which Charlie has discovered is a pretty decent amount.

I'll be honest, part of me feels a little sad reading this story. It's so utterly pathetic that it's taken until 2007 to get this done that it's hard to be excited by it. I'd like this story much more if it were ten years old and talked about how the Pirates were looking to build on their unlikely success of 1997 by building up a cheap base of good talent from Latin America. Still, it's been said time and time again that Latin American scouting was a big flaw of the Littlefield administration, and so it's nice to see something finally done about it. And for all of his flaws as an owner, it really looks like Bob Nutting stepped up to the plate on this one. Unless he's trimming that $5 million from the major league roster.

A new poll

Blogger has added a new "poll" functionality. It doesn't look as nice as the ones I used to run through Pollhost, but it's a lot easier for me to do it this way. I'll see if I can't monkey around with it and get it to look prettier. Until then, it's in the sidebar so vote, vote, vote!

Drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you think of the new poll style.

Links

Josh Phelps signed a minor league deal with the Cardinals. I'm kind of baffled that not only did he choose to stay in the NL, but he chose a team with a first baseman that he'll never ever play over or platoon with.

Speaking of the Cardinals, the PG story discussed below mentions that the Pirates finally completed their trade with the Cubs for the man that is now the Cards starting shortstop, Cesar Izturis. It appears that after asking for the infamous player To B. Namedlater, the Cubbies are settling for the troubled minor leaguer Cash Considerations.

Ian Snell: not pitching but totally not hurt. Wink ;)

The mind of Neal Huntington

If you haven't read today's minicamp report from Dejan, I strongly suggest you do so. There's lots of stuff in there from Huntington about the off-season and his plans for 2008. Let's break down some of his quotes:

"I would say there is a pretty good nucleus in place with the major-league roster, particularly the rotation. I would argue, too, that, if you go around the diamond with our everyday players, there are as many as five who underachieved last year. If just three of those five meet or exceed expectations, those 68 wins become greater."

This is one of the most dangerous assumptions that the GM of a team like the Pirates can make. We can probably actually call it "The Dave Littlefield Fallacy." Going into last year the mantra was, "Well, with LaRoche in place and a full season of a decent Duffy and a full season of Nady, we've got to be better than 67 wins." Even if Bay and, say Paulino and Nady improve in 2008, we're probably looking at a step back for Jack Wilson, Freddy Sanchez, and Nate McLouth. Counting on a baseline performance from a bad team is never a good idea. And that's not even talking about about the rotation, which I'll probably get into in the coming weeks.

But then Huntington goes on to make statements that lead me to believe he should know all the things I just said.

At the same time, we're realistic," Huntington continued. "We know this team lost 94 games last year, and we don't want to bury our heads in the sand and say, well, things are just going to get better. We have to think not just about the 2008 club but also the 2009 club, the 2010 club. That's what we need to be talking about here, the whole organization getting better, not just the major-league club. We want to be a championship-caliber organization."

Then, why have the Pirates not committed to a total rebuilding, similar to that the Oakland Athletics now are employing with the recent trades of pitcher Dan Haren and outfielder Nick Swisher for a bounty of prospects?

"It's a great question," Huntington replied. "Quite frankly, you can't really rebuild and compete at the same time. But I also don't think we're really in the position to just blow it up, and that's probably the fine line we're walking right now. We can't pull the plug just because this team lost 94 games. The fact is, we haven't been presented with an organizational-changing trade."

He then goes on to indicate that the reason he's not rebuilding now is that no one wants any of the pieces he's selling.With absolutely no insight into the mind of Huntington and the admittance that I still can't get a handle on him after more than three months, I'll venture a guess as to where he's at right now with this team.

I'm guessing that Huntington probably planned to ride in on his white horse and trade Bay and/or Nady for prospects and restock the system and quickly found out that things wouldn't be so easy. Not only are the pieces he has to trade already damaged, but I can't imagine things go over well when a new GM calls you and asks for your three best prospects. For at least a little while, everyone's going to assume they can rip Huntington off. Now we're almost four months into Huntington's tenure and he's finding himself with no choice but to hope some of these guys step it up so he can trade them. That's what leads to the first quote. Maybe he'll get lucky and these guys will step it up and give him an opening, but that's not very likely. That means it's probably back to the drawing board for Huntington.

It's almost that time of year

You know, no matter how dark the prospects of the next season look, I always get excited to read that the pitchers are throwing at mini-camp. On top of that, John Russell is officially issuing his first, "I'll talk to you, but I'm not actually going to say anything," quotes of the 2008 season.

"Another nice day," manager John Russell said afterward. "We had a good workout and a good opportunity to talk about some of the things we're doing. Very productive."

and

"Ronny's not going to be treated any differently than anybody else on this team," Russell said. "Everybody's expected to be accountable, and that goes for Jason Bay, Jack Wilson, Freddy Sanchez and Adam LaRoche. I'm not going to make this special, huge effort to pound on Ronny Paulino. He's a professional. He knows what we're going to expect."

Baseball's almost here!

Ronny Paulino talk

Like most of you probably did, I read the article about Ronny Paulino this morning in the PG. I chuckled to myself about his new commitment to working hard and thought, "Yeah, right!" I still kind of do think that. But then I thought harder about it. If Ronny Paulino doesn't catch for the Pirates in 2008, who does? Carlos Maldanado? Michel Hernandez? Johnny Estrada? Kelly Shoppach? You know I'd push Ryan Doumit like crazy, but he's just not durable enough. Ronny Paulino is it. Accordingly, I decided to see if I could find anything positive about Ronny Ballgame.

During Ronny's rookie year in 2006, he had a .722 OPS against righties and an .845 OPS against lefties. Last year he dipped brutally to .593 against righties, but he actually managed a big improvement against lefties, jumping to 1.055. Somehow, Ronny Paulino is a flat-out lefty-masher. You might even say that not all aspects of his offense were awful in 2007. It's pretty damn unlikey Paulino's going to have an OPS below .600 against righties again in 2008. In fact, he's probably more likely to go over 1.000 against lefties again.

Another thing that I thought was interesting was that in the second half of the season, lots of people (myself included) rushed to the defense of Adam LaRoche when he started hitting, even though he really didn't hit all that well in comparison with his previous seasons. At the same time, we were ignoring Paulino's .780 OPS over his last 80 games (from June 17th onwards). Interestingly, he didn't do it by hitting righties better, but rather by killing lefties even more. Still, a .780 OPS isn't a bad one for a catcher.

Finally, it's easy to forget that we're dealing with a guy that's just in his second year. He'll be 27 this year, which is right when he should be entering his prime. The projections I've seen are split for him: ZiPS has him at .263/.321/.366, which is actually worse than last year and Bill James' handbook has him at a respectable .287/.342/.416.

Of course I haven't mentioned his defense at all yet. Paulino is terrible in a lot of aspects of catching, especially blocking balls and catching balls. He's got a decent arm, but he's often slow to throw. The thing is, if anything's correctable for a guy in his position, it's definitely his defense. A player may not be able to learn how to hit or how to tell a curveball from a fastball, but he can always learn to block a ball. If Paulino's really ten pounds lighter and promising he's going to work hard this year, it's most likely that that difference will be seen in his defense.

Paulino's no all-star, but it is fair to note that I think he took a ton of crap last year because he was a favorite of Jim Tracy, who was pretty unpopular with Pirate fans. It's certainly not unreasonable to think he might be an average catcher in 2008. Unfortunately for us Pirate fans, I think that the problem is that we're excited about the prospect of an average catcher.

We're bad at everything

One of the things that constantly amazes me during the baseball season is how the Pirates almost always seem to be awful at everything. Bad offense, bad pitching, bad defense, everything. Today, the Hardball Times did their yearly off-season analysis of outfield arms. As you'd expect, the results were not pretty for Pirate fans. Xavier Nady clocked in with the fifth worse right field arm last year and Nate McLouth displayed the fifth worse centerfield arm. Surprisingly, Jason Bay rated the eighth best left-field arm, somehow clocking in slightly above average. All-in-all, though, it's pretty clear that outfield arm strength is yet another category in which the Pirates are severely lacking.

Please do me one favor, and don't rail against Bay's rating without reading the methodology first. John Walsh (the author) looked at five key situations for outfielders and measured a kill rate and a hold rate for each outfielder compared to the average. There are a number of possible explanations for Bay's average rating. We know people tend to try and take an extra base on his weak arm and he often throws those runners out, which is obvious in his 23 outfield assists in the past two seasons. He also plays left field, which means that even on his arm runners are going to be careful bolting from second to third (if you look, most of the left fielders have similar ratings and I think it's probably for that very reason). And finally, since only five situations are measured, it's possible that lots of the airmailed throws we remember are on plays that the author decided were unlikely to have a different outcome no matter how good the throw. No defensive metric is perfect and I'm not asking you believe that Bay has a good arm from the outfield. I'm simply providing food for thought here.

Pirates discuss extension with Capps

According to today's PG, the Pirates are talking to Matt Capps about an extension to lock up his arbitration years. This makes a lot of sense to me because when you think about it, by the time Capps gets to the end of his arbitration years here in Pittsburgh, there's a decent chance he's going to have racked up a bunch of saves and will be rather expensive. Think about this: if Capps averages 25 saves a year in the next three years (assuming he stays healthy this seems not only possible but possibly conservative) he'll have almost 100 career saves going into his final year of arbitration. Signing him to a contract now will not only probably save the Bucs money, but it'll make him more attractive to potential suitors as well.

The same story mentions that the Pirates aren't going to sign Freddy Sanchez to more than a one year deal, which also makes sense. It doesn't say they're trying to trade Freddy, which makes less sense to me, but I'm not the GM so whatever.

Is 'prospects' the right word?

John Sickels has posted his top 20 Pirate prospects over at Minor League Ball and it's not pretty. To give you an idea, here are the top five, with Sickels' grades:

1. Andrew McCutchen, A-
2. Steve Pearce, B+
3. Neil Walker, B
4. Daniel Moskos, B
5. Brad Lincoln, C+

If you've keeping track at home, that's a whopping four prospects in the entire system that Sickels has rated higher than C+. There's five more guys that rate as C+'s, then ten Cs to round out the top 20. Included on the list are guys like Bullington, Sharpless, and the one and only Nyjer Morgan. Nothing like a friendly reminder about how hopeless things generally seem as a Pirates' fan.

I'm really not going to be a Jeff Andrews fan, am I?

Hi, my name is Jeff Andrews, and I'd like to make the focus of my off-season pitching workouts something that's completely inane and based on small sample sizes.

I understand this is mostly rhetoric from Andrews and it's stuff he's got to say because it's stuff every new coaching staff does, but it still drives me insane. But just to point out why, let's look at one thing. Last year, as a team, the Pirates were 68-94. That's a winning percentage of .420. The five starters mentioned in the article (Gorzelanny, Snell, Maholm, Morris, and Duke) had a record of 39-49, a winning percentage of .443. In games after losses, they went 19-25, or .432. And yet, somehow, how the starters pitch after a loss is a more pressing problem than how the starters pitch in general.

Elmer Dessens is back!!!

You know you're excited.

Links

Interesting interview with Paul DePodesta at Beyond the Boxscore. If Huntington fails to turn things around, I'll be moaning about the fact that we didn't even give DePo and interview.

David Pinto: biochemistry major. Clearly biochemists make for the coolest baseball bloggers. Interesting stuff about Vitamin B-12 at the link (longer post from me at FanHouse).

Beer will be more expensive at the ballpark thanks to the Onorato Tax. Once you're paying more than $5 for a beer, another $0.75 isn't going to stop you.

Hideo Nomo is baaaaaack. You know what? For a second here, Matt Morris doesn't seem so bad.

The Nuttings might be bad, but they never arrested anyone for selling an Irate Fans shirt.

The trouble with rebuilding

In my desperation for Pirate news, I have turned to reading Pirates.com articles. I'm running over some other stuff in my head, but it's not ready for a post yet. Anyways, I stumbled upon this passage at the dot-com and it caught my eye:

Can a club that finished last season with a disappointing 68-94 mark expect many of the same pieces to come back a year later and make significant strides to ensure that the club doesn't finish with a 16th consecutive losing season?

Will a team that underachieved for much of 2007 mesh under the tutelage of a new manager and coaching staff enough to make a climb up the division standings?

Is this club one that can be actively competitive in 2008, or will it be another two, three, four years before things come together?

Ask general manager Neal Huntington, and he won't hesitate to admit that the challenges between balancing the now with the future have been trying. But, he advises, don't mistake that for suggesting that the Pirates don't have the pieces necessary to compete this season.

The emphasis is, of course, mine. Now most of that article is pure fluff (the answers are, in order, no, no, no, and probably more than that) as you'll usually find on MLB.com and its team sites in the winter. It's pointless to complain about stuff like that because it's the nature of the beast. That last paragraph is what bothers me. I have no idea what Huntington actually told Langosch for the purpose of that article, but I'll assume that we're going off of some kind of statement here.

Anyways, the heart of my problem with this story lies in the bold statement. We've already discussed the A's rebuilding today. Billy Beane is not attempting to strike a balance between the future and the now. He has determined that his Oakland A's cannont win in 2008 and he's now building for a day in the future. The A's won't win a lot of games this year, but they probably will down the road. Either that, or Beane will be fired. There's no middle ground in rebuilding. Either you're rebuilding or you're not. I still think it's too early to judge Huntington as a GM, but if he truly thinks there's a way he can rebuild for the future and have the team be competitive now, it's time to start dreaming about what the next GM can do for us.

Some news

Every pitcher will report to mini-camp but Damaso Marte and Matt Morris.

I wouldn't read too much into that, though, as Doogie confirms that a Gorzo/Snell/Maholm/Morris/Duke rotation is already all but set. And we'll talk more about that soon.

To back that claim up, rumored Pirate target Matt Clement signs with the Cards. As an aside, there's a good chance the Cards are going to suck next year unless they do something, and quick.

The A's sent Nick Swisher to the ChiSox for three of Chicago's top prospects. And with that Billy Beane has swapped his two best players (and one other guy) for nine prospects. That's insane, though it's proof that it's a lot easier to rebuild when you're starting with talent.

My Triumphant Return

Tonight was supposed to be the night when I started writing about baseball stuff and being
interesting again. Then I got a flat tire en route to North Carolina and am stuck in a Super 8 in Virginia. I probably could write some stuff, but it would be angry and vindictive and just downright mean. That means that I'm going to hold off until tomorrow.