Crasnick's column on ESPN

I saw the Jerry Crasnick column about the Bucs and Royals on the front page of ESPN.com's baseball page (Insider only) and figured it would give me something to write about on here (plus I know most people don't have Insider and are probably wondering the same thing, thus I feel like it's my public duty to share). Wrong. It's mostly just drivel about how the Pirates and Royals have to overpay to get anyone to play here. No deep insight or anything there, though I did love these paragraphs here:

The Pirates will ultimately succeed or fail with their next wave of talent. They're counting on Chris Duffy in center field, Ryan Doumit at catcher and Jose Castillo at second base. And they're hoping that 6-foot-5, 270-pound first baseman Brad Eldred will do more than just blot out the sun and hit tape-measure jobs in the minors. He'll wait his turn this season while Casey plays out the final, $8.5 million installment of his contract.

Pittsburgh's pitching staff is certainly intriguing. Zach Duke looks like the real thing. And if Paul Maholm continues to progress, Kip Wells puts up some numbers in his free-agent "walk" year, Oliver Perez rediscovers his pre-laundry-cart-kicking form and Sean Burnett rebounds from Tommy John surgery, Tracy and pitching coach Jim Colborn might be on to something.

Quite a lot of ifs... if you ask me. Though he is quite right about "succeed or fail with the next wave of talent" thing.

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