Happy Boxing Day, Jason Bay

I did it, I kept my promise to myself, I stayed away from Pirates news on Christmas eve and Christmas day in order to keep my Christmas from being ruined by Dave Littlefield signing Eric Byrnes. When I opened yesterday's PG, I stuck mostly to coverage of the Steelers 41-0 whomping of the Browns. I haven't even been online since I put that post up on Saturday morning.

Still, I'm pleased to see that the only outfielder we signed was Jody Gerut, and to a rather reasonable (if healthy) one year, $875,000 deal with a possible $75,000 in incentives at that. This also means we're down to four arbitration eligible players, Kip, Ollie, Craig, and Vogelsong.

Vogelsong himself was the subject of a Christmas day Hot-Stove Report. I was happy to see him left on the roster, as I thought he did good work out of the pen after the break last year and I know he has good stuff (you don't pitch like he did in the spring of '04 without good stuff). We certainly aren't losing anything by replacing Brian Meadows with him, that's for sure.

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