Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

I like Jack Wilson. A lot actually, probably more than a lot of people. I'm willing to believe his 2005 season was more affected by that appendectomy that mostly everyone else I talk to. I love watching him play the field and I'm almost positive that no one in baseball works harder than he does. That being said, I'm completely convinced that the people running the Pittsburgh Pirates have either lost their mind or are the most fiscally irresponsible people in the entire world. Jack had a great year in 2004 and was thusly rewarded with a 2 year deal worth about $8 million to cover two of his three remaining arbitration years. He had an awful 2005 in which he might have been the worst hitting regular position player in the National League not named Cristian Guzman, which was at least partly due to his appendix problems, but the Pirates still had him under contract for this year and next year before they had to worry about him getting away. Instead of using 2006 to evaluate how...

Mark Lancaster, the Reds beat writer for the Cincy Frontier, posted on his blog this afternoon that the Reds have dropped out of the running for Pedro Astacio . According to him, Wayne Krivsky (the Reds' new GM) said that some unidentified other team (Krivsky didn't know who) other team had entered bidding for Astacio and drove the asking price way above what he was willing to pay. The only way this could have more of Dave Littlefield's handwriting on it would be if Littlefield publicly acknowledged he entered the bidding for Astacio (which, of course, he can't do because he's still busy pretending Wells might be back this year). Thanks to the ever generous Red Hot Mama for the tip.

Let me start off by saying that I really don't care what Dave Littlefield says , until I see Kip Wells on the mound I refuse to believe he's going to pitch before April. This is a serious clot that apparently has formed from the motion of pitching, meaning thateven if treating it with blood thinners makes it go away, pitching will make it come back. That being said, our rotation has suddenly taken a scary turn when you really look at things, not to mention the fact that two spots will now be open. So let's look at the options In no matter what Oliver Perez, Zach Duke, Paul Maholm Comment: Holy crap, those three look terrifying together as the top three in the rotation and the only people with set jobs. Kip was bad last year, but without him our rotation is suddenly anchored by three lefties aged 24, almost 23, and 23 respectively on Opening Day (Duke turns 23 on April 19th, Maholm 24 in June, and Ollie 25 in August) with a total of 38 Major League wins. Add in the fact that...

The Scene: The Pirates pitchers return from Cincinnatti sometime April 9th. They go into the bullpen at PNC Park for the first time of 2006. They then notice a new sign hanging over the bullpen door. The first thing that jumps out at them is the faces of some of their former comrades, Kris Benson, Bobby Bradley, John Van Benschoten, and Kip Wells loom especially large while Oliver Perez and Sean Burnett notice their own faces in the corners. They wonder if the ghostly shadow faces are those of Dave Williams and Scott Saurbeck Then they notice the text, written in bold, red, block letters. Through me the way into the suffering city, Through me the way to the eternal pain, Through me the way that runs among the lost. Justice urged on my high artificer; My maker was divine authority, The highest wisdom, and the primal love. Before me nothing but eternal things were made, And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

According to this article on MLB.com, it's the axillary artery in Kip's pitching arm that has the clot. Being curious, I pulled the following Gray's anatomy image (the medical book, not the TV show, there was actually a girl in a lecture of mine that didn't know there was a difference) from Wikipedia . (Click the image to enlarge) The axillary artery is that big thick red line going down the middle of the arm and turning into the brachial artery right around the biceps. I'm not a doctor but I do watch a lot of Scrubs and House and it occurs to me that if that artery is 100% blocked like Littlefield said it was in the AP report there can't be much blood getting to the rest of Kip's arm and he's is probably going to be having surgery. Anyways, the MLB.com article says that this clot isn't related to the elbow problems and numbness in his fingers that Kip had in 2004 (which I had forgotten until pointed out by Vaughn in the comments below) but given the...

Yesterday afternoon I drove up to Clarion to visit some friends from back home (explaining the absence of posts yesterday). Anyways, I woke up this morning (I use morning loosely, think 11:30 AM) in pain on a couch (is there any way to wake up on a couch other than in pain?) hobbled into my friends room, and sat down at the computer to browse for any interesting Pirates news I may have missed (which is what I do every morning anyways). What I saw was this , that Kip Wells was having some arm fatigue and was going to get his arm checked out by a clot specialist. I found that a bit worrisome, espcially after reading this: Pirates general manager Dave Littlefield did not divulge any specifics of Wells' status, referring to it solely and repeatedly as arm fatigue, and he did not say if any procedure was performed upon Wells' visit to St. Louis. Anytime Dave Littlefield says something like that, it's not good. Anyways, we went to get some Eat n' Park breakfast, then I got ...

Jim Tracy hasn't managed a game in black and gold yet, but I'll admit that I've been hard on him to this point. My review of his performance at Piratefest was less than glowing and lots of the stuff that comes out of his mouth terrifies me. I don't buy the crap about "Tracyball" and how it will help us win games. Still, the more I think about it, the more I think he might have a different type of effect on the team. The problem that I think exists with the current perception of Tracy, both by myself and by his other critics, is the expectation of a baseball manager to be a football coach. When we watched the Steelers pull off that shocking win over the Colts 5 weeks ago, there were a number of things that even a casual fan could point to that Cowher, LeBeau, and Whisenhunt had done differently than in the mid-November shellacking the Colts gave us, things that had an immediate effect on the outcome of a game. The difference a baseball manager makes is more beh...

Apparently Zach Duke will not follow in the footsteps of Oliver Perez and Jason Bay from last spring and will avoid bitching about the one year, $335,000 deal the Pirates have offered him . He might not sign it, but he seems to understand the process and won't complain about it. The bottom line is, Oliver Perez is a perfect illustration as to why Littlefield (and other GMs) don't go above those low offers for the 1 to 3 guys. Also, Paul Maholm is looking better after a strained hammy, but John VB isn't throwing yet as a result of his shoulder "stiffness." It's good to hear Maholm's injury wasn't serious, but I think Van Benschoten's problem is worse than people think, or then the Pirates are letting on. UPDATE (10:14 PM)- I misread Dejan's article, JVB is throwing and participating in long toss but there's no timetable for him to return to pitching. My mistake on that one, sorry guys.

Just a quick update here, school's keeping me really busy lately and I haven't been able to post as much as I'd like given that camp in Bradenton is open, but things should be better within the next week or so. For now, I'd recommend checking out OnlyBucs for Wilbur Miller's piece about the owners and revenue sharing and for Jim Sullivan's excellent Spring Training reports (if you haven't already, I know Charlie and Rowdy have already pointed out both on their blogs). Anyways, I have some alternate thoughts (alternate from what I usually say about him) on Tracy that I'm going to try and post by tomorrow (keeping with the attempt to stay positive for once).

Today brings us a new Stats Geek column on a different day (from his usual Tuesday) and for some reason this week, the Geek's column is filed under "lifestyle" and it says "Brian O'Neill" bigger than it says "Stats Geek."Besides his identity crises today, he brings us another solid column, this one focusing on the Buccos' defense . The main focus lies on our shortstop, Mr. Wilson, and his propensity for the double play (which is actually almost historic at this point in his career). I'd highly recommend checking out the whole thing, if you haven't already. Anyways, the thing that most caught my eye today was the piece about the last spot on the 25-man roste r, which Dejan believes will come down to Yury DeCaster and Jose Hernandez. Normally I'd be of the opinion that DeCaster should probably spend a little more time in the minors, but the more I think about it, the less I agree with that line of thought. Here's why: Last year He...

More evidence today that Humberto Cota and his .672 OPS will be getting a majority of the starts over Ryan Doumit and his .722, this time in the way of a puff piece from the mouthpiece reminding us just how good Cota was last year with his .242 average, 7 homers, and 42 RBIs. For anyone's that's curious, I'm going to assume that anything I find from the Trib might as well be on Pirates.com and written by Ed (don't call me Dave Littlefield) Eagle. Between this and the earlier crap about McCutchen, they're really making my spring attempt to be positive difficult.

Dejan's spring training article today focuses on McCutchen who, starting today, will be with the big boys at the big league camp in Bradenton. Of course most of the column features his impressive stats from the GCL and NY Penn League last year (though I would stress sample size on the second one, he only played 13 games for the 'Cutters of Williamsport), though McCutchen does expound upon why he's actually not averse to working the count beyond three balls and trotting to first base: "My high school experience helped a lot there because I knew I'd get walked a lot," he said. "I just kind of took that attitude with me to pro ball." Of course, that's why the Pirates are here, to eliminate that patience. Just two paragraphs below, Brian Graham is quoted as saying: "You're looking at someone who has that leadoff ability but also could get you home runs. We see Andrew as having a power kind of swing, and we want to make sure we give him the ...

Giovanni Carrera finally made it to camp ! I know you were holding your breath, but his visa problems have been cleared up and he's here and ready to have a slot in the bullpen handed to him no matter how he pitches this spring. Also, Paul Maholm is sitting out a couple days with a strained hammy. It doesn't sound bad, but this is how it starts... There's also the main point of the Pirates Notebook today, that Jose Castillo is healthy, though a little rusty. Next up I'd like to hear what he looks like with bat in hand, which I'd assume we'll hear sometime later this week.

Time for me to make two baseball related predictions that only tangentially have anything to do with the Pirates. They're actually two things that aren't very original at all and I'm sure a lot of people are thinking/saying the same things. But I have to get it off my chest, so here goes... Barry Bonds will absolutely not retire after this season without the all-time home run record. The only reason any of this is in the news is because it's always all about Barry. And it can't be all about Barry if he retires without the record. If he's so sick of baseball and this is tearing his family apart and yadda yadda yadda, why not just retire now? If the World Baseball Classic happens this year, it's going to be the only one. Star players are backing out left and right, even not-so-star players like Jose Castillo are backing out. I have yet to find a person that cares. The most dramatic storyline so far involving the whole thing may have been entirely fabricated ....

I've kind of hinted at this a couple times, but I'm going to try and shift focus here for Spring Training. Basically, I've accepted the fact that Dave Littlefield has horribly misspent the team's money and there's nothing left that I can do about that. I can't say anything about Burnitz or Randa that either myself or someone else hasn't already said, so I'm going to put the bitching about signing them to rest. Anyways, I'm going to try and challenge myself this spring. I'm going to try and find positive things to say about the Pirates. Not the typical Spring Training fluffy stuff, but actual things to be positive about, because honestly I don't think this team will be all bad. I've mentioned all of these things before, but here's my starting points, the reasons I think the Pirates will be better in 2006 (not as good as they could be if DL had spent his money correctly, mind you, just better than the '05 edition). Addition by the s...

Zach Duke is keeping a Spring Training journal for the Trib this year. It's pretty standard stuff and I kind of doubt any ground will be broken as they've all stayed pretty tame since the legendary "Jason Kendall and Keith Osik break into a locked closet in their Florida apartment" journal of about 8 years ago. Then again, you never know so it might be worth it to check out.

Today we have two columns in the PG regarding some very early Bucco details out of Bradenton. There's the " Jack Wilson has made himself huge " story, which isn't entirely surprising after what happened last year with the appendectomy. Despite all of his failings, Jack seems to be possessed with being a good baseball player (I remember hearing about him taking batting practice until his hands bled during his awful early season slump last year), so I really hope his extra weight helps him out during the season. There's also some disconcerting news coming out of camp, namely news involving John Van Benschoten and the word "setback." For the uninitiated, if the word "setback" is being used to describe a Pirate pitcher's arm another s-word probably isn't far behind, namely "surgery" or in this case "more surgery." I think if one player could summarize the entire Dave Littlefield in and of himself, it's probably John...

There's a good article about the Duffster in today's PG . Apparently he's spent most of the last five weeks at Pirate City in Bradenton, rehabbing that torn hammy like mad. It seems that the trainers found something odd in the way that he leaned while running which contributed to the tear, meaning that he's been re-learning how to run since January 8th. According to Duffy, he's been timed at the same time around the bases that he clocked in with before his injury, so I suppose things are going well (though it's very early). All in all, I'm just happy to see a young guy so enthusiastic about being a Pirate. I've read too many stories about Oliver Perez doing no arm work at all in the offseason or Jose Guillen getting trapped in the Dominican without a visa to not be at least a little encouraged by reading about someone who actually worked really hard in the offseason.

Today is one of my favorite days of the year, one of the small things that keeps me going right at the point that spring semester seems like it's going to last forever. It's the day pitchers and catchers report to camp. I don't know what it is about spring training, but it's just an all around hopeful time, no matter who you're a fan of. The sun starts shining, the gloves and baseball caps come out of the closet, and Craig Wilson and Oliver Perez look like All-Stars against Manatee County Community College. Today in the 'Burgh was probably a perfect day to reflect that atmosphere. I think it was like 50-60 degrees out all day long (I say "think" because I spent all day inside working on something called "Integrated Lab" that Duquesne uses to torture chem majors), and by mid-afternoon the rain broke and the sun came out. Mostly I like today because of the hope it symbolizes. No one sits down on February 15th worrying about the little things. W...

Today it was over 40 degrees in Pittsburgh, the sun was shining, and I have to say that as fun as the football playoffs were this year, I'm ready for some baseball. Something about the weather and this time of year just makes it feel like it's time for Spring Training, and right on cue the pitchers and catchers will be reporting to Bradenton tomorrow. Jayson Stark has a good article about the beginning of spring and everything that happened this offseason. He doesn't actually mention the Pirates at all (how is Jeromy Burnitz not one of the worst contracts?), but it's still good enough to get anyone ready for baseball season.

Surprisingly, and presumably after watching Chuck Tanner and Jim Leyland sit in the stands for years takings notes on the goings on at PNC Park for employers that weren't himself, Dave Littlefield has decided to hire an advanced scout and it's none other than Kent Tekulve . It is encouraging to see that they've filled a void as glaring as this one (you can say what you want, spreadsheets and videotape only go so far), though I'm a bit skeptical (shocking, I know). It seems like a rather big job for one person to do, though I checked some other team websites and it does seem like everyone does things differently. Littlefield says as much and he also said this is how Tracy wanted it done, so I'll take his word for it (a risky proposition, I know). It just seems a little fishy that a rather prominent former player (at the least you can call Teke a "fan favorite" though his role on the '79 team might elevate him to "local legend") who's been ...

Yesterday (just barely yesterday, as in 8 minutes ago) brought us a Craig Wilson piece by Dejan (I wanted to talk about this earlier except that since I woke up it's been the longest day of my life, so many things went wrong that they even put the wrong mustard on my sandwich at dinner and I was eating a chicken, bacon, and swiss sandwich with yellow mustard, just one of those days, I'm done boring you with the details of my life) and I have to say, Craig Wilson impresses me. If I was him, I'd probably be thinking about how I had a breakout season in 2004, then had two hand injuries that caused me to miss a huge chunk of 2005 and still managed to put up similar SLG and OBP numbers, though my homer power was understandably diminished a bit. That would of course force me to focus on the fact that despite these things my own power-starved team decided they didn't like me enough and made up the bogus excuses of too many strikeouts and bad defense to justify signing someone...

The Stats Geek is back and in fine for today, providing reasoning to not go head over heels for DL's spending spree. I'd spend more time on it, but I don't exactly have that kind of time at the moment. Don't let anyone ever tell you that P-Chem is fun because if they do, they're lying. Just keep that in mind.

Not much going on on the Pirate front today. There's an Ed Eagle mailbag at Pirates.com which is strictly read-at-you-own-risk, as usual. The headlining topic is the Pirates defense and how good it is. Since it includes Sean Casey, Joe Randa, and Jason Bay's arm, among other things, it really probably isn't as good as Eagle says it is, but I digress. Anyways, this is probably going to be a slow week for posting here, between a couple tests and a huge lab report. I'll still try and manage an update a day or so, and maybe a couple of them will be interesting.

Here's a place where I actually agree with Jim Tracy , it's pointless for the manager to set 82 wins as a goal for the team, I think that's something that's really only meaningful to the fans. Plus, as stupid as it sounds, the manager really shouldn't publicly set his sight for the team that low, even if they are the Pirates. Also today, Dejan lists his top 10 questions coming into Spring Training. Some quick thoughts on those: Please keep Jack Wilson out of the 2-hole. He just isn't suited to bat there. Randa would work out much better there, I think. All this crap about some kind of competition between Cota and Doumit is giving me a headache. Doumit's a much better hitter and more than adequate behind the plate. Giving Cota a majority of the starts behind the plate would be a clear indication that the philosophy of the new coaching staff is seriously flawed. If Terry Adams, Giovanni Carrerra, or Brandon Duckworth get a spot in the bullpen I'm going to...

We got lots of baseball stuff in the PG today and I'll try to get something up about all of it if I have time this afternoon. It would appear that a good place to start is the predicted lineups . Dejan, Smizik, Cook, Meyer, and Collier all submitted projected opening day lineups today and they're not much different. All five have Duffy leadoff and Jumpin' Jack second, while everyone except Cook also goes the same at 3-5 with Bay, Burnitz, and Casey (Cook slots them Casey, Bay, Burnitz). Randa is almost the consensus 6 hitter (Collier says Castillo) while mostly everyone puts Doumit seventh (Dejan puts Castillo 7th and Collier puts Randa there) and Castillo eighth (Dejan and Collier both have Doumit 8th). They all listed Duke as pitcher (I don't know if that was done simply to fill in the 9 slot or they all think Duke is the opening day starter). In terms of guessing the lineup that Tracy will put on the field, I'm inclined to agree with Dejan: Duffy, CF Wilson, SS...

I should've mentioned this sooner, but the Reds did not hire Jim Beattie as myself and many other people thought they would. They did, in fact, hire Wayne Krivsky , formerly the assistant GM to Terry Ryan in Minnesota. I won't pretend to know a lot about Krivsky, but I do know that he's probably better than Beattie. Hiring Jim Beattie would have been an awful move (based on his hack job in Baltimore); hiring Wayne Krivsky makes sense. The guy's been an assistant GM in Minnesota for 8 years now and if there's a small market that has things running right up top, Minnesota is certainly right up there with Oakland. This means the Pirates are falling even further behind in their own division.

Josh Fogg has signed a one year, $450,000 contract to go pitch where pitchers go to die, Coors Field. Last year Fogg seemed to have a problem with the long ball (27 in only 169 innings), going to Colorado won't help that. I'm sad to see Fogg make this decision, he was a guy that I always liked in Pittsburgh and seemed to be a serviceable 4th or 5th starter before last year. He chose the Rockies over Washington, San Francisco, and Cincy, presumably thinking he had a better chance of making their rotation, though he's probably best suited to pitch somewhere like RFK with a giant outfield. If he repeats the problems he had last year in Colorado, his career will be over. Anyways, here's the Rockies blog Bad Altitude (who's going into the sidebar) on the signing.

FSN unveiled the 2006 Pirates schedule of 118 televised regular season games. That's one less than last year, though the number *could* go up if some national games are added (yeah, right). My friends from Boston and Baltimore laugh at the idea that every single Pirate game isn't on TV here (Sox games are on twice a night in Boston, once live and once in condensed version with none of the between pitches crap). Oh well, such is life in the 'Burgh I suppose.

I don't know how much attention everyone pays to the NBA (I personally pay very little to it), but the whole Mark Cuban, Phil Jackson situation is great. Jackson accused Cuban of influencing the refs with the way he apparently reviews game tape and sends questionable calls into the league. Cuban responded with a post on his blog titled "I Own Phil Jackson" and opening like this: Not literally of course. That thrill belongs to the smartest businesswoman in professional sports, Jeannie Buss. Figuratively however, the coach formerly known as the Zen Master must now be considered my bucket boy. This wasnt an acquisition I proactively pursued. There wasnt an official competition that I won, thereby confirming my dominance of his psyche. Instead Phil has initiated an ongoing commentary about me that started in his previous stint with the Lakers and was reinstated this year with his return, that proves that I own the guy. Seriously, how fast can we get this g...

Tim Kurkijan lists Zach Duke with Dontrelle Willis, Rich Harden, Scott Kazmir, and King Felix as the future Cy Young winners "that will continue the comeback of major league pitching." Yeah, them or the steroid testing, one or the other. I've honestly never seen a list like this with less work put into it. Who's surprised by any of the names on that list? Who doesn't consider any of those guys to be the future of their respective teams? Am I supposed to be shocked that a Pirate and a Devil Ray (or is he just a "Ray" now?) are included on the list?

On Sunday (I'm getting to it a bit late, but cut me a break here people), Dejan's Hot Stove column hit a topic I've been meaning to go into depth on for a while, the drop off in the two good teams at the top of the division. The Cards lost Reggie Sanders, Larry Walker, Matt Morris, and Mark Grudzielanek, while replacing them with Juan Encarnacion, Larry Bigbie, Sidney Ponson, and Junior Spivey. They will get Scott Rolen back, which will be a plus, but Jim Edmonds will also be 36, which is not a plus (only one of his Baseball Reference comparable players put up decent numbers after the age of 35, and it was Willie Stargell). Don't get me wrong, the Cards will still be a good team, it's just that I'd be surprised if they're as good as they've been the past two seasons. Moving down the ladder, the 'Stros will probably be without Clemens (I'd be SHOCKED if he came back after they non-tendered him, he's way too proud, family be damned, I'm s...

I shaved the playoff beard last night (and now I do a double take every time I see my oddly naked face in the mirror), went to today's parade (which was completely insane, if you didn't watch it or weren't there, take what the reports seem to read like and multiply it by at least 1000, I have no idea how many people where there, but on Fifth Avenue the people were like 10 deep on either side, the cars with the players could barely move, I heard somewhere they estimated the crowd at 220,000 and I totally believe it), and started getting back into baseball mode. There is, however, one other small obstacle in the way at the moment, college. Specifically the classes that got completely ignored over the weekend that still have tests scheduled for this week. Still, I should have some time to get a real post up sometime tomorrow. Until then, I'd recommend the Royals/Pirates conversation between the Bucs Dugout and the Royals Review, Wilbur Miller's column at OnlyBucs on...

As a quick warning, it's impossible for me to not write about yesterday, so hopefully you'll all let me indulge myself with one last football post, mostly because I don't want to forget what happened yesterday and feel the need to write it down, before I go headlong into spring training mode later this week. If you were in Pittsburgh yesterday, or in the 70s, you probably don't need to read this, but like I said, this is for me. Freshman year at Duquesne, I remember standing in the hall meeting a bunch of other terrified kids, realizing that a bunch of us had one thing in common, the Steelers. Even the non-Steelers fans admitted they would love to be in Pittsburgh for the Steelers to win a Super Bowl (except my RA who was a Browns fan and was heard muttering last night "If hell is worse than this, I'm going to church every day for the rest of my life"). My friends and I were then forced to watch our friend from New England celebrate 2 Super Bowls and a Wo...

Seriously, why are you here? There's a football game on. HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO!!!

2005 key stats : .258/.322/.435 with 31 2B, 2 3B, and 24 HRs in 671 PAs (605 ABs) 2006 ZiPS : .240/.311/.412 with 26, 2, and 21 in 541 ABs I have never like Jeromy Burnitz. I can't believe we signed Jeromy Burnitz for the money we signed him to. He's old and besides his year in Colorado he's been terrible of late. The more I think about it, the less I want to talk about it. I don't really want to talk about it. I'll be shocked if this signing turns out to be much better than Derek Bell. I'm gonna say .230/.300/.390 . That does it for the starters predictions. I may do some reserves as one post next week, and I'm going to wait for camp to open up to do the pitchers. I'll stick a link over on the right in a little bit as a central predictions thread to link to all of them for anyone that is looking to go back over them at any time (UPDATE: It's over there in the sidebar now).

2005 key stats : .341/.385/.429 2006 ZiPS : .287/.338/.384 Here's another tough one to predict, Duffy lit it up for a couple months last year and everyone fell in love with him but it's completely unrealistic to expect anything remotely near that this year. He put up a gaudy batting average, but he only had 7 extra base hits in his 136 PAs. He only has one year's experience above AA, and it was a shortened season at that. He struck out more than three times more than he walked. None of these are things that bode well for 2006. In terms of non-offensive categories, he's got blazing speed and with the exception of last year at AAA, he's got a good SB%. He covers centerfield unlike anyone that has graced center at PNC and I think we have to go back to the namesake of this blog to find anyone that's played center for the black and gold like he can. He was certainly a favorite of the BBTN guys last year in his short time up and I'd expect that to continue next ye...

I think the Pirates may have taken this "Steelers in the Super Bowl" thing as an excuse to drop off the face of the planet this week, as the most news we've heard from the team is that they've signed the three J's (Jonah Bayliss, Josh Sharpless, and Johnny VB) to wholly unremarkable $327,000 deals. That's not news, because those guys make what the team pays them, and that's that. A friend of mine that works at the Duquesne Club downtown said Kevin McClatchy came in the other day and ordered expensive bottles of wine with his rich friends because it was his birthday. I don't think that's really news either, but it's something. But yeah, there is the Super Bowl thing, which has pretty much everyone's minds preoccupied, which is understandable. That's why I haven't posted much besides the predictions this week, because it's hard for me to think about a 95 loss baseball team when the football team is in the Super Bowl, and I doubt ...

2005 key stats : .306/.402/.559 with 32 homers 44 doubles and 6 triples, 21/22 SB 2006 ZiPS : .297/.395/.557 with 32/35/5 There's not much I can say about Jason Bay that hasn't already been said. The guy can do it all, he's been doing it for two seasons, and he'll probably keep doing it next year. I don't know what kind of protection to expect for him in the lineup, I'm guessing we're looking at something like Duffy/JWilson/Bay/Burnitz/Casey. It means his RBIs will probably go down, as I don't imagine Duffy and Jack will get on base as much as you'd want the first two guys in a line up to get on. Then again, Burnitz and Casey probably won't be much worse than the guys we paraded around behind Bay last year while Craiggers was hurt. Bay was 26 last year, which means he's still at the age where he could be getting better, and he won't be getting worse. If he can stay healthy again, I don't see any reason we shouldn't expect .310/.41...