Some more non-news

Looks like we're moving from Cuban non-news to Jason Bay non-news in the Pirates news-cycle today. Littlefield said the same thing today that he said last time, the talks were "on-going." This is, of course, good news because "on-going" is better than "non-existent." The fact is, there's no hurry on the Pirates side to get things done because they control Bay's rights for one more year before arbitration. According to Meyer's article today talks seem to be centering around a 5 year deal similar to the ones the D-Rays recently signed Baldelli and Crawford to, that is guaranteed through arbitration years with the team holding options (worth a lot of money, in the $8-10 million range in Crawford's case) on the next year or two after that. That would seem, at least to be, to be a great situation for the Pirates to be in, but I don't know if Bay would want to tie himself to a team option like that. He's a bit older than most guys coming off their second season and I'd guess he'd want to cash in ASAP. I say as long as we can sign him without completely crippling our future we do it (after all, there's not much of a future without him). Hopefully by the time this contract is up we'll have an owner that can pay Bay what he wants, no questions asked. Until then, let's get this thing done and done right. I mean the guy is one of the five most valuable players in the National League, at least by my count (unfortunately some people disagree and most of them seem to have MVP ballots).