Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

Here's the thing about the 2006 Pittsburgh Pirates, they might be a really fun team to watch this year. Then again, they might not. They probably won't contend under any forseeable circumstances, but that doesn't mean they can't have a good year. For some reason in the last week or so, I've been feeling a lot more positive than I usually do about the Pirates, though it might just be due to the opening of the season. Ever since PNC Park opened, all Pirates fans have really wanted was a year where we got to see a bunch of young (or at least fairly young) players get a shot to play and play hard and maybe even get better as the year went on. With exceptions made for a couple individual players, we don't ever really get to see that. On the surface, it doesn't really look like we'll get to see it this year either, our biggest offseason "upgrades" were Joe Randa, who stands in the way of Freddy Sanchez and Jose Bautista, Sean Casey, who makes Craig W...

The Pirates made a couple of roster moves this afternoon that go a long way towards clearing up what the final roster will look like though they don't go quite as far in making me think that Dave Littlefield is competent. First off, they sent Brandon Duckworth down to minor league camp. That's fine with me, honestly. I don't see much difference in him and Santos. Ducky had a better spring, but Santos has had a better career, I really think this one is a push. Add in the "use or lose" factor on Santos, and I really don't see this as that bad of a move. Sending Duckworth down opens up a spot on the staff for Matt Capps, who's had a great spring. Yeah, there are concerns about him only really having one pitch and only having played a few games above the A level, but I dunno, I don't have an awful feeling about this. Relief pitchers can move up faster that just about any position, so his lack of experience doesn't really terrify me. I just hope DL has...

Alright, because you asked for it, and because somehow I ended up on the first or second page of most search engines for phrases like "Anna Benson" or "Anna Benson pictures" or inexplicably even "Anna Benson Playboy," which has directed like 400 people to my humble little blog here over the last two days, here it is: Anna has dumped Kris and filed for a divorce based on irreconcilable differences. So comb your hair and floss your teeth because the crazy bitch is single. Also, true love may be dead because if a perfectly bland Joe Baseball player and his certifiably insane stripper wife can't last in this day and age, well, I don't know what to believe in this crazy world.

It's looking more and more like Nate McLouth has played himself into a roster spot this spring, and I'm incredibly happy to see that. In today's Pirate notebook, Dejan suggests that the Pirates may cut the number of relievers down to 11, which I think is a bad idea, or let Chris Duffy start the season in AAA, which I think is a good idea. Their stats this spring aren't even on the same level , in one more plate appearence McLouth has 7 more hits and almost twice as many total bases. He's struck out a whopping 15 times less than the Duffster, and has even swiped four more bases. Duffy is playing like a guy that's still hurt, while McLouth has continued his hot streak that he ended '05 with. I agree with Billy over at Romo , it will be a crime if McLouth isn't given a shot over Duffy to open this year in centerfield. There's always the possibility that trading Craig Wilson will open up that roster spot, but as usual, I hope that isn't the case. In...

Alright, here goes nothing. After spending most of a plane ride to Atlanta with BP 2006 it's time for my 2006 MLB predictions. This is really just for fun and to start some debates. My picks are based upon things I've read about the teams, things I already knew about the teams, wishful thinking, and thick bias against teams I don't like. The format is each division's finishing order (* denotes wild card) followed by comments on the division. The NL Central will be a little more in depth because I know more about it and it's more pertinent to the Pirates. My final Pirates pre-season preview will be tomorrow. Here goes nothing... AL East NY Yankees Toronto Blue Jays Boston Red Sox Tampa Bay Devil Rays Baltimore Orioles Comments: Clearly it's still the Yankees division to lose, though I do think this is the year they could. The Red Sox seem to be aging in leap years and their pitching staff at the moment centers around Schilling, David Wells, and the Kip Wells of B...

Dejan's write-up of yesterday's Bucs/BoSox game concurs with the opinion of many that watched Oliver Perez pitch yesterday on the ESPN telecast, mainly that the radar gun, which only seemed to be working some of the time, seemed to be slow most of the afternoon. Also, his final strikeout on Ortiz, which a pitch which had some nasty break on it that I incorrectly characterized as a slider yesterday was instead a split-fingered changeup. That makes sense, as the pitch was much slower than a regular slider, but didn't break like a curveball. I don't even think I know what a split-fingered changeup is, but it sounds pretty tough to hit. In fact, 5 of Ollie's 7 Ks came with his offspeed stuff. Tracy's comments were pretty simple: I saw a guy interested in being the ace of the staff. He pitched like an ace. He had the demeanor of one. I was extremely pleased to see that. Maybe the immature, laundry-cart kicking pitcher is finally growing up.

While I was gone I got an e-mail from my uncle, whom we shall call TP (because that's what we call him, duh), who was spending some time in Florida on vacation, and who happened to be vacationing with some other families from work. Anyways, one of the guys he works with happened to be the brother of Brandon Duckworth (I think, correct me if I'm wrong here, Teeps), which meant that he got to go a game at McKechnie sitting in the players' family section. He's not a huge Pirates fan (he lives around Chicago now), but he still provided me with some details: My aunt (his wife) got to sit next to several of the players' wives. A direct quote, "For your generation I think that the term is HOT. Yes, very hot." Among those contributing to the hotness around my uncle were Paul Maholm's wife and Craig Wilson's wife (who is on TV once a year for the Ladies Night Out at PNC, and I can back this up, Craig Wilson's wife is very hot), who was pushing a strolle...

The first thing that I've noticed since my return is Jim Tracy's failure to name Oliver Perez as one of his "strikeout pitchers." as both Rowdy and Charlie have posts up on it right now. The first thing I honestly thought of when I saw that is that it must be Tracy's way of motivating Ollie. There's no way any self-respecting manager can actually be characterizing Oliver Perez as a soft-tossing lefty. It was only two years ago the guy lead the league in K/9 and even Tracy made some comments a while back to a similar tune. Knowing the massively competitive player that Perez is, I assumed that Tracy must have been trying to motivate Perez. I think it worked. I saw the early part of Bucs/Red Sox game on ESPN today, and thought Ollie's velocity looked markedly increased, though there was no gun and the naked eye isn't the best way to judge these things. I had to run around campus to do some catching up from the time I missed while out of town, but came ...

I'm back from Atlanta and I'll be honest... I've haven't had many Pirates related thoughts while I was gone. I wish I could tell you that I took the tour of Turner Field and burned a Francisco Cabrera card while emptying the ashes on the field, but unsurprisingly when you go to a city that features the world's largest aquarium and a nice little bar literally 10 feet from your hotel, people aren't all that excited to go see an empty baseball stadium. I will say that I liked Atlanta way more than I ever thought possible, given my history with the city. Due to some bizarro weather patterns, it was like 30 degrees there on Saturday and never got much warmer than 50, and yet it by the time we got back to Duquesne today it was like 70 in the 'Burgh, but that really wasn't a big deal. Mostly (but not quite) everyone there was incredibly nice and friendly, and very helpful. There was also some chemistry afoot, but I won't bore you with that. While I don'...

Well, I am in Atlanta, and I do have access to a computer. The problem is that we all have certain things that we have to do while we're down here, in addition to treating this trip like a de facto spring break, there isn't a ton of time for me to get many posts about the Pirates up. If I get a chance I'll do a post about yesterday's Zach Duke debacle and other things that have gone on since I left, but for now I have to head over to the convention center and present my poster on my research. You can all rest assured that I am searching for the ghosts of Sid Bream and Francisco Cabrera so that they may be safely exorcised before I leave town on Wednesday morning. I'm almost positive they have to be on a Peachtree Street somewhere, as honestly this city has about 10 streets with that name.

Just wanted to let everyone know I'm leaving this afternoon to head to Atlanta to do some chemistry stuff. I'm going with a bunch of other people and I'd say chances are pretty good that I can get my hands on a laptop once a day or so to post some Pirates stuff, but I'm not completely certain. That means it's possible I won't be able to post anything until I get back on Wednesday. If you don't hear anything from me by some time tomorrow afternoon, I'd guess that's going to be the case. Anyways, once I get back, it's gonna be overhaul 'till the opener, I'm gonna try to do previews for the Central and MLB in general, and I'll round up the rest of the season outlook things for the Buccos. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up in case I can't find a computer to use while I'm gone.

I missed this in the box score, but apparently during yesterday's rain filled game against the Reds, Jose Bautista played some center field and Jim Tracy was quite impressed . Somewhere, Nate McLouth is banging his head against a wall, wondering just what he has to do to impress someone in the organization.

John Van Benschoten has hit another setback as he tried to pitch some BP and again failed yesterday, throwing only two pitches off the mound after a full warm-up session yesterday. While this isn't really that surprising at all, what is a bit of a surprise is as the second time in two days (the first being in yesterday's Duckworth column ), Paul Meyer tosses in an off-handed comment that JVB could be put on the 60-day DL. I kind of missed it yesterday as it was buried in the column with a list of roster moves that could be made to make room for Ducky, should he make the rotation. Today, I read it and kind of did a double take. As far as I can recall, the team hasn't actually acknowledged that ANYthing is wrong with Van Benschoten other than the fact that he's a bit stiff from the surgery and the time off. Now all of a sudden, he's a candidate for the 60-day DL. Either I missed something, Paul Meyer is making stuff up, or maybe, just maybe, we've been mislead b...

When the Barry Bonds story broke a couple of weeks ago, I had just headed home for Spring Break and was talking about it with my dad. His response to the story, being an attorney, was that if it wasn't true, Bonds would sue them for libel. If the even a few of the allegations in the book were true, there's no way Bonds would sue, because to bring the suit to trial would likely bring out the final word on Bonds and his steroid usage. As it turns out, Bonds is suing just about everyone involved with Game of Shadows , though interestingly enough he's not suing for libel, but rather because the grand jury transcripts were " illegally possessed and obtained under federal law " (via Deadspin ). Of course that count has nothing to do with whether Bonds used steroids or not, and an investigation of this accusation most likely won't expose Bonds to the level scrutiny that a charge of libel against the writers would. Of course, Bonds' plan to sue without suing seem...

Former compadre Dave Williams shut down his old team in a completely meaningless game today , though I'm sure he still got some measure of satisfaction from it, especially given the way he's pitched this spring (which is to say, awfully). Paul Maholm (aka "Hopefully not Dave Williams Jr." as I like to think of him) got lit up by the Reds offense to the tune of 6 hits and 6 runs in 4 innings today. Giovanni Carrera, Mike Gonzalez, Terry Adams (who's apparently noticed that there's still not a token old reliever with a beard that's a lock for the roster), and Ryan Vogelsong (who pitched two scoreless giving up 3 hits and a walk in an effort to keep his job) shutout the Reds over the last five innings, allowing only 4 hits and a couple of walks. I was hoping for an in-person game recap from Red-Hot-Mama , but she's apparently taking a day of vacation from her baseball vacation.

Rowdy links to a Ken Rosenthal article saying that Dave Littlefield has waited too long and asked for too much for Craig Wilson to be traded at any point before the season starts. Normally this would piss me off because it would result in something like Pirates fans having to watch Ty Wigginton at third base or Mark Redman's uncanny ability to turn everyone of his second half starts into Guy Fawkes' Day. This time, however, it's the right thing to do. Wilson's value is low due to his injuries and all the mud he has on him from being dragged through it for several years by our organization. There just isn't much chance that Craig Wilson alone is going to bring a solution to our rotation that's much better than Santos/Duckworth holding a spot until Burnett/Gorzellany are ready (at least not at this point in time). Add that to the fact that he's definitely better than our current right fielder and potentially better than our current first baseman, and I think ...

The headline of today's Spring Training article: ROTATION BATTLE NOT NEW FOR DUCKWORTH Now, I understand that I can be cynical, probably more so than a lot of people. I don't understand how the inability of a former top prospect to hold a spot in any rotation anywhere can be construed as a good thing. And yet somehow Paul Meyer writes an article today in which we're supposed to feel bad for Duckworth that the 5th spot in the rotation hasn't been handed to him because Jim Colborn taught him to throw a curveball the way Sandy Koufax did. Damn those silly things like "past performances," they really put a damper on things sometimes.

After thinking about the rotation that was announced yesterday by the team , the one that goes Perez, blank, Duke, Snell, Maholm. The more I think about it, the more I think that it means someone from outside the organization is filling that blank. I know you could argue that it's all about shuffling guys to get certain people to make starts in that first home series, but I think that goes even beyond what the Pirates would do to put people in the stands. It just doesn't make sense to fill the #2 slot in your rotation with Brandon Duckworth or Victor Santos. Add that in with Craig Wilson recently publicly voicing his displeasure with his treatment by the team, the fact that five teams seem to be interested in him, especially the Braves, and, well, John Thomson anyone?

With an absolute lack of any new Pirates news to write about this afternoon, and an exam and a lab report keeping me from spending the necessary time to write up something in depth of my own, I'm going to use today to put up a bunch of links to Pirates previews from other non-Pirates sports/baseball blogs (since the function of Pirate blogs at this point in the season is like a running season preview). Charlie of the Bucs Dugout has a 5 questions style preview up at Hardball Times. Batter's Box has a long preview that starts out with this great ultimatum: In about 2009, the tone of all Pirates previews will have changed. By that time, the tone will either have become noticeably more respectful or will have blown over the fine line between failure and utter despair. That's the truth, though it may be sooner than that (via Bucs Dugout). Baseball Think Factory also has a long Bucco preview (via Romo Phone Home ). At the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog they've run sea...

The Pirates sent a bunch of people down to the minor league camp today , the players of note being Brad Eldred, Yurie DeCaster, Sean Burnett, Tom Gorzellany, and Rajai Davis. Eldred and Davis didn't have much of a chance to make the team out of camp, so there's no surprise there, DeCaster probably cost himself a shot at the utility role in the bigs by playing in the WBC so his being sent down reaffirms the fact that Jose Hernandez will take over the backup utility role, and Burnett and Gorzellany being sent down just means that the team thinks they both need a little seasoning in AAA (or rust removal in Burnett's case), which I think makes sense. DL says that all of those guys named above will contribute to the team this year, and I'd have to think there's a lot of truth to that statement. Also today, Tracy unveiled the top of the rotation. He'll lead off with Ollie in LA (so much for him being the 5th starter, sheesh), followed by Duke, Snell, and Maholm. He s...

The first World Baseball Classic ended last night with Japan defeating Cuba 10-6 to take the first gold medals in the event ( I hate to say I told you so, but... ). I have to say, this thing really exceeded my expectations for it. Besides Oliver Perez being setback another month and the semi-bizarre tiebreakers and format that allowed Korea to beat Japan 2 out of 3 times, only to be consoled with third place, I think it was a success. Besides the US team, every single team in the tournament played like it was their World Series. All the worries about the games being Spring Training games and the players not caring were seriously proved false. And to add on to it, it gave us an extra month of meaningful baseball. Somehow I don't think there will be as much trouble filling up the US team in 2009. On one hand, we do have a GM who burned a ton of money on old guys who don't the Pirates any better. On the other hand, we could be run by a complete moron who loves "toolsy outfie...

Given that Ian Snell has earned himself a slot in the rotation (and he has), that Sean Burnett and Tom Gorzellany have been good but need some time in AAA before they're ready for the show (they do), that no one really cares whether Jose Hernandez or Yurie DeCaster is the utility man (do you?) and that my boy Ryan Vogelsong has pitched himself into oblivion (he certainly has) there's only one interesting position battle left in Spring Training, the rumble for the right to be the last starter in the mighty Pittsburgh Pirates rotation, Brandon Duckworth vs. Victor Santos. This really hasn't been much of a concern all spring, it seemed that once Vogelsong crumbled Santos would get a spot in the rotation pretty easily. Duckworth, however, has pitched pretty well recently and the propaganda machine has written some columns to make sure you notice. I've also noticed that public opinion is swinging towards Duckworth, and I'm not so sure that it should be. It's a give...

The Red Sox traded Bronson Arroyo to the Reds for Wily Mo Pena today , which involves the Pirates in several ways. First and foremost, it means that the Craig Wilson for Clement deal is dead. There's no way the Sox will trade both these guys. It also means that the Red Sox turned Bronson Arroyo, whom they got from off of waivers for absolutely zilch, into Wily Mo Pena, a rather promising young guy who kills the ball and is perfectly suited for Fenway. And of course the final straw is that we had been hoping the Pirates would deal for Pena, and while comparing what Krivsky traded for him in March to what O'Brien would've been asking for him in November (as well as the fact that they traded him to a team they wouldn't be playing 20 times a year) when we were dealing with the Reds is like comparing apples and oranges, but I think it's pretty safe to say we could've found some way to get this deal done without mortgaging the future.

Here it is . Kevin McClatchy on "We Will" (emphasis mine): We will work hard in our marketing department. We will give our customers the best service. We will give our customers the best experience at a ballgame. 'We Will' can go to a lot of different areas. It's more of a positive outlook on how you go about your business. McClatchy is also really pleased about that 20% rise in attendance last year, you know, the one that put them all the way up to... oh yeah, last place in the National League.

Jim Tracy says Ian Snell is pitching his way into the rotation . Jeff Manto says when Brad Eldred's bat managed to make contact with the ball, the ball goes far . Meanwhile, Rob Rossi is reporting that the Pirates are shopping Craig Wilson and are hoping for Matt Clement in return. While I do believe that DL is shopping Craiggers, Clement is an incredibly unlikely return for him. For starters, Clement's been lights out this spring. Secondly, David Wells just called Francona an idiot , meaning it's a bit unlikely he'll do much pitching for the Sox this year, and that Clement's price will accordingly rise. If we're getting anything in return for Craig Wilson before the season, it's probably someone in the Josh Fogg/Mark Redman mold. The only way we get more is by him playing well this year and proving that he's past the two hand injuries he suffered last year.

Ian Snell put together yet another solid start today , going four scoreless innings against the Tribe with 4 Ks, 2 hits, and no walks. I have to say, I was a little worried about him coming into the spring after the DL smear campaign late in the fall after he backed out of the AFL, but Snell has stepped up big time this spring by working on that changeup and it looks like he's cemented probably the #2 slot in the rotation, assuming Tracy will want to alternate left/right as much as possible. If I had to guess right now, I'd say that opening the year the rotation will be: Duke Snell Maholm Santos Perez Zach Duke should keep the following names in mind: Tim Wakefield, Zane Smith, John Lieber, Paul Wagner, John Lieber, Francisco Cordova, Francisco Cordova, Jason Schmidt, Todd Ritchie, Ron Villone, Kris Benson, Kip Wells, Oliver Perez Yep, you guessed it, the last 13 Opening Day starters for the Buccos (courtesy of some Retrosheet browsing, of course). I suppose you could say that...

Looks like Damaso Marte is going to be OK , according to DL he simply tried to start the season too quickly and irritated his shoulder. I hope that's the case, losing him would really throw a wrench into the bullpen plans for the season. We should know for sure within a couple days when he resumes throwing. Also, Zach Duke pitched well yesterday, albeit on a curious three day rest. He thinks they're trying to set up the rotation (for him to pitch the opener), I think it may have just been a chance to get him to work out the finesse problems he's been having. He seems to be getting stronger as the spring goes along, which is all you can really ask for.

The line looks good for Oliver Perez tonight , as he pitched 3 shutout innings against the star-studded US lineup. He only gave up one hit and one walk over the span, and threw 21 of his 36 pitches for strikes. Still, I watched most of it and wasn't really assuaged at all by his performance. His performance was essentially something you'd expect out of Paul Maholm, not Oliver Perez. The US hit several balls hard right at people and sent a couple balls to the warning track. He didn't manage to strike out one batter in his three innings of work and his velocity was still waaay waaaay down. The TV gun may not be accurate (though if anything I'd imagine it would be hopped up for the event, especially with the Rocket on the mound for the US) but Ollie rarely topped 88 with his fastball, and sometimes I could've sworn I saw a couple fastballs cross the plate at 85 mph. We're not talking about him dropping 3 or 4 mph to rein his control in, we're talking about some...

I know it's a lot to ask people to flip their TV away from basketball today (and I don't blame anyone for it, I love the first two rounds of the NCAA tourney), Oliver Perez will take the mound for Mexico against the US tonight at 7:30 on ESPN. The US needs a win to advance. Mexico can't advance (minus winning 3-0 or 4-0 against the US in a 13 inning game or longer... these tiebreakers are seriously on crack for this thing), but eliminating the USA from the tournament is probably almost as good as advancing to the semis. Let's see if national pride can rouse something in Ollie that the NL Central failed to do last year, because if it can't I'm kind of afraid we might not ever see it again.

Today Paul Meyer fawns over Mike Edwards , who judging from the tone and phrases like "toiled incessently" and "battling the odds" that are repeated over and over again, may or may not have survived some kind of famine or genetic disease that affects professional athletes from Mechanicsburg. Despite this, it does not change the fact that he isn't very good at baseball and should not make the team. Also, Meyer reports that the Pirates are considering starting the season with Oliver Perez as the 5th starter , seeing as how he's thrown a total of 35 pitches in game situations since March 1st. He is scheduled to start for Team Mexico today, which is good news for Team USA who needs a win to advance to the semis. Currently, everything involving Oliver Perez terrifies me. I want to see him pitch well today, but if he does there's probably some kind of slim chance that Mexico will advance in this tournament, which is not good for the Pirates (besides that, the ...

Time for the bullpen outlook for 2006. Though we know a lot more about the guys in the pen than we do about the starters, I'm not going all in depth with numerical predictions because, well, it's the bullpen. Mike Gonzalez - One of the few Pirates that's exceeded expectations in recent years. In two years in the bigs he has 113 strikeouts in 93 1/3 innings, compared with only 104 hits+walks. Plus, the guy is incredibly intense. He pitches equally well against righties and lefties (lefties' OPS against him is .517, righties' are at .636). I don't understand where the concern over him closing comes from, I think he's gonna be fine. Salomon Torres - Maybe the most reliable guy in the pen the last two years. He just turned 34, but his arm took a five year break in the middle of his career so that may not matter as much. He put up WHIPs of 1.19 and 1.18 the last two years, I don't see much to worry about here. Roberto Hernandez - Here's a case where age i...

With ESPN's entire focus going on March Madness and the fact that the PG and Pirates.com both apparently forgot that Damaso Marte is in fact a Pittsburgh Pirates, it's pretty easy to miss the fact that Marte's been dropped off the Dominican's WBC roster for the final round due to a shoulder problem (I missed it completely, thanks to commenter Murph y for the tip). It's not really shocking given his performance thus far in the tournament (awful except for his first appearence), and he's coming back to the 'Burgh to get it looked at, but it doesn't really sound good.

This accidentally published as "Failure" when I was about 2/3rds done with it. It's essentially the same post with some changes throughout and an actual ending. I've tried, I really have. About a 8 months ago I swore off writing about the stupid things that come out of Bob Smizik's mouth. My reasoning was that everything he writes is to piss people like me off, and by me bitching about his columns I was only doing exactly what he wanted. Slowly since the end of the season, I've lost sight of that and almost written about Smizik again, but the breadth of the stupidity today is just too much to ignore. Today, he decides to tackle the downside of plate patience . Thus, I have decided to remind myself why I don't write posts about what Smizik writes, then continue my own personal ban on posting about his columns. He begins by acting on an assumption of what plate patience is that is completely wrong. Exercising patience at the plate doesn't always mean tak...

The Stats Geek's column today deals with using a lineup tool to predict the best possible offense for the Pirates in 2006. I'd assume the tool he used can be found here . Since a tool like that can only take numbers like OBP and SLG into consideration, Sean Casey is viewed as the best leadoff hitter. Playing around with the suggestion a bit, the Stats Geek decides on Duffy, Casey, Bay, Burnitz, Randa, Castillo, Doumit, JWilson as the Pirates best lineup, which I can't really argue with (I might suggest dropping Randa to two and bumping Casey, Bay, and Burnitz all back a slot to add some speed at the top, but the real truth is that Randa probably isn't much faster than Casey at this stage of his life). Anyways, this gives me an opportunity to do something I had meant to do a couple weeks ago, but never got around to. Specifically, that is use Cyril Morong and Ken Arneson's Lineup Analysis tool that was posted on Baseball Musings a few weeks back to look at the 200...

The Bucs trimmed the roster by seven yesterday , sending Mike Johnston, Matt Peterson, Jonah Bayliss, Josh Sharpless, Javier Guzman, Craig Stansberry, and Andrew McCutchen back to minor league camp. The only mild surprise out of that group is Johnston, but as there's no indication that Marte or Grabow is going to be traded any time soon, there's not really room for four lefties in a Major League bullpen. I've seen it said in a couple places (in the comments here at Charlie's site and in a post at Romo Phone Home ) that during yesterday's radio broadcast Greg Brown spent some time wondering if Oliver Perez's poor limited performance with team Mexico wasn't an indication of something being physically wrong with him. If it's true and Perez can't start the season in Pittsburgh (which would not be at all surprising), it would almost certainly mean that Craig Wilson or maybe Damaso Marte (or both) will be traded before the season starts to bring in some m...

While typing up that monster of a post on pitching below there, I had (and still have) the DR/Cuba WBC game on the TV behind me. I heard an unexpected name pop-up not once but twice, that of Indianapolis Indians catcher Ronny Paulino. So far against Cuba today he's 1-for-1 with a double and two walks. Nothing quite like the baseball that David Ortiz very well may have disintegrated into thin air in the fifth inning, but still, it's always nice to hear the Pirates are doing well (especially after Damaso Marte sh*t the bed last night to the tune of 3 hits, 3 runs (2 earned) and a walk to earn the loss last night for the Domincan against Puerto Rico ... at least Saloman looked good in 1 2/3 scoreless) UPDATE: Just as I was about to publish this post, Paulino hammered a ball to the left center gap and stood at the plate to watch it sail over the fence. Unfortunately for him, it didn't quite make it over the fence and he got thrown out at second by a mile and a half. At least he...

After I did the predictions for the starting position players a while back I decided to take some time off before discussing the pitchers. This was for a couple reasons, first off, someone always seems to get hurt early in Spring Training (thanks, Kip, for filling that quota), second off, it's hard to predict the stats for pitchers, wins, losses, and ERA are all much more arbitrary than AVG/OPB/SLG and stats like K/BB, K/9, and WHIP don't seem to lend themselves as easily to conversation, and finally, it's hard to make predictions for a rotation with such little experience. Anyways, instead of concrete predictions, I'll go with vague assertions about how I think these guys will perform. I'll do starters today, bullpen tomorrow, then finish off the hitters with the bench guys on Wednesday. Oliver Perez - There might not be any pitcher in the league that terrfies both hitters and fans the way Ollie does. I'm sure you all know the drill, he dazzled everyone in 200...

It seems that the McClatchy Company has agreed to buy Knight Ridder , the second largest newspaper publisher in the country, for $4.5 billion (free registration required at the link). Since the acquisition is being described as "A dolphin swallowing a small whale," it is being speculated that the McClatchy Company will be selling some oftheir newspapers and other assets and some of Knight Ridder's papers to make the deal profitable for themselves. I don't know how directly what Kevin McClatchy does with the Pirates correlates to the McClatchy Company, but I'd assume there is some connection as he's on the Board of Directors in his family's company. Perhaps one of the assets to be sold is the baseball team with the low salary, high profits, beautiful stadium, good All-Star Game publicity, and a billionaire waiting to buy them? Thanks to reader Ben Miller for the tip.

Since Spring Break is over, I was sitting at the computer tonight and paging through the referral logs in lieu of admitting defeat and getting out my Biochem book. I pleasantly discovered Romo Phone Home , a new Pirates blog chronicling the trials of a father/son duo of Pirate fans. It's only two posts old, but judging by the graphic in the header and the first couple posts it's definitely worth checking out.

Zach Duke got roughed up again today, giving up 5 earned runs in 4 innings against the D-Rays. The MLB.com recap describes his outing thusly: Duke breezed through the first three innings, allowing just two infield singles, before being done in by control problems in the fourth. He hit consecutive batters after one out in the frame, then surrendered a pair of doubles and a (Josh) Paul home run that put the Pirates behind, 6-0. It sounds like he's still having trouble with the finesse pitches like the two seamer. It isn't a huge problem but it gets bigger the closer we get to the opener, especially as guys like Maholm and Perez continue to struggle in the spring as well. Aside from the rotation, Dejan has an article about the hopeful anchor of the Pirates bullpen this year, Mike Gonzelez . His stuff is clearly good enough to get the job done, as we've seen the last couple years. The biggest problem he'll encounter is his own love of striking batters out. He had some tro...

I saw some, but not all, of today's televised spring training game with the Red Sox . Vogelsong was his typical self, struggling with the strike zone and giving up some pretty solid hits in the first two innings, but managed to bounce back for a decent third. Jim Tracy was not pleased . Still, it was against a Red Sox lineup not featuring the likes of David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek, or even Coco Crisp. The way the Pirates hitters bounced back against Schilling to score the four runs back in the fourth was nice to see, and Casey hit some balls very hard. Freddy Sanchez also ripped a key double. Jack Wilson did not look hulking or even excessively large in his first TV appearence of the spring. That's about all I got out of today's game, tomorrow Zach Duke looks to reign in that two seamer before the opener against the Devil? Rays at McKechnie

I made some cosmetic changes around the blog today. I updated the site feeds (which I've been slowly workin on for some time now) and moved them a little towards the bottom of the sidebar. I also changed the archives to monthly instead of weekly, simply because the list on the sidebar was getting to be too long for my likings (this doesn't change the links to any individual posts, so don't worry about that). I also changed the title of the blog and the post headings to be gold instead of green because, let's face it, this is a Pirates blog and it's time to start showing some team colors. If you have any feedback leave it in the comments because I'm not done and will probably be tweaking the template here and there until the season starts.

The first spring game of the year is on TV today with the Pirates Opening Day lineup minus Jason Bay playing about half (the lesser half it appears) of the Red Sox regulars. Ryan Vogelsong may have had a chance to capitalize on Victor Santos' bad outing yesterday, but that chance has already passed him by as he's given up four runs in the first two innings and is generally just getting beaten all over the park. The race for the fifth rotation spot looks like it's going to come down to who does less to hurt their status this spring, as opposed to someone actually pitching well enough to earn it.

Ian Snell had another good outing yesterday , throwing 4 innings and only giving up two runs on a wind aided homer (very wind aided, it was blowing out at 20-27 mph). Though his control wasn't perfect, it sounds like just about everything else was and this quote from Tracy seems to indicate Snell may have the fourth starting slot just about locked up: "When Ian Snell gets consistent command, his stuff is more than good enough for the major-league level. I'll take pitching like that anytime." Sounds to me like he's going to have to screw up royally to lose a spot in the rotation right now. As for the fifth spot, I'd still put Santos ahead of everyone else to take it. He took the mound today against Minnesota and it doesn't look like he had a very strong outing (the Twins scored 4 runs in the first three innings), though it's hard to say as no one provides live game updates for spring training games. Rowdy also has some thoughts on Santos.

I TiVo'd ESPNs "coverage" of the Mexico-Canada WBC game from yesterday in hopes of catching Ollie on the mound. ESPN condensed the three hour game into like an hour and a half, so thusly I only saw 3 of the six batters that Perez faced. It was ugly. Aside from what the boxscore can tell you, 35 pitches with only 16 strikes, 3 walks and 3 strikeouts, he looked exactly like the Perez we saw last year. His fastball hovered between 88 and 89, topping out at 90 only once in the batters that I saw him face. He was close to the strikezone, but not exactly in it and he relied on a couple calls from the umpires to get out of the inning relatively unscathed (he came in with a runner on first and ended up walking him around, providing Canada with their only run). He looked a lot like a guy that would benefit from being in camp pitching on a regular basis, instead of staying with Team Mexico pitching maybe once a week. Unfortunately, Mexico won last night in a blowout, meaning they ...

Jason Bay's Canadians face off against Oliver Perez's Mexicans at 9 tonight (it's not actually viewable until 3 AM on tape delay on ESPN) in what amounts to an elimination game in the World Baseball Classic (I'll avoid the easy joke and say it's the most important game any Pirates have played since 1997... oops). Ex-Bucco Esteban Loaizia is slotted to start for Mexico, but given Canada's heavy emphasis on the left handed batters and the fact that Oliver Perez hasn't pitched yet, I'd expect Ollie to take the mound for a couple innings tonight. That raises a question, since I'm sure the Pirates would rather have both guys in camp, who do they want back more? I'd expect the Pirates to be hoping Bay and his likeable group of Canucks (how can you not like a team featuring a guy named Stubby Clapp?) beat Mexico and send Ollie back to camp. Bay, being an established position player without much to prove can probably gain more from the experience of play...

Take a look at this , specifically the picture at the top. The Pirates are telling everyone that Casey, who I believe has had a few concussions the last couple years, is OK after that incident yesterday. I can just see it now. Dejan: Well, Sean, it's May 1st and you're hitting .215. Anything feeling different? Casey: To be honest, my head still hurts from that serious beaning I took in March, but I don't really want to bother anyone with it. It's my problem, not Jim's, nor anyone elses. I get paid to go out on the field every day, so I'm just swinging away at the middle ball and hoping for the best.

So here's a question, which news this week has been less surprising, the fact that Barry Bonds took steroids or the fact that Neil Walker's wrist injury is going to take longer than expected to recover from . A Pirates prospect with an injury worse than we were lead to believe? What will happen next? Airplanes will fly! Dogs will bark! Red lights will turn green! OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Jason Bay and his Canada squad just pulled off what might be the upset of the World Baseball Classic, shocking the US squad 8-6. Bay put up another good showing today going 2-for-3 and adding a walk. He scored twice and essentially served as leadoff hitter for the Canadians as their first two hitters went a combined 1-for-10 today. He was removed from the game around the 7th inning, however. Since the US is the only team that's treating these games like Spring Training games (Buck Martinez rotates players in and out like this is, oh, I don't know, a Pirates/Reds split squad game or something) I can't figure out why Bay would've come out of the game. I didn't see anything that would've caused him to get hurt, but then again I don't figure the Canadians were looking to add another left-handed bat to their lineup either (as Bay is actually the only righty). Hopefully this isn't a big deal. Also, half of the Buccos shut out half of the Reds today, with Tom G...

I don't think I can recommend this interview of Dave Littlefield by Jim Sullivan enough. Sullivan asks him some tough questions and Littlefield answers them all. I don't exactly agree with all of DL's answers, but this is one of the more candid interviews with him that I've read. If you've got the 10-15 minutes or so necessary to read the whole thing, I'd definitely recommend doing so.

Dejan's weekly Q&A is up today, and as usual he takes on a wide range of topics. He names Santos and Snell as having the inside track to take the last two rotation spots, and that seems pretty likely to me at this point. He again praises the emphasis Tracy has put on plate patience, and I'll admit that to this point in the spring it does seem that there's been some progress made. He also mentions that starting Monday he'll be off the beat for 15 days with Paul Meyer filling in. That means we can probably expect 15 days of DL and Jim Tracy puff pieces. Also today we get a Pirates notebook focusing on Zach Duke's early spring struggles . It doesn't seem like too much to worry about it, he just seems to be having trouble spotting his two seamer, which is his out pitch. I saw him talking about it earlier and he didn't seem too concerned, he just said it's mostly a finesse thing that he expects to get better with time. Also in the notebook, Dejan reveals...

Just finished up my TiVo aided viewing of the near shocking upset by South Africa over Canada, which the Canucks pulled out 11-8 with a 4 run 9th inning rally. Of course for the purposes of this blog, we'll talk about Jason Bay's performance first. He had two hits, one of which should've been an error charged to the shortstop, the other of which was a towering double off of the left center wall off what looked like your typical SoCal surfer wearing the South African uniform, a guy by the name of Tyrone Lamont (a Reggie Cleveland All-Star if I've ever seen one). He also ripped a shot to third base, which was speared and turned into a fielder's choice. It also appeared that even South Africa was able to take advantage of his arm, which still looks pretty weak. Of course, he also seemed to be out of position most of the day (he was shaded towards center and the South Africans were banging hanging breaking balls down the line) which is more a coach's fault than his....

So turns out this Barry Bonds guy might have taken steroids . Actually, this is huge. Two reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle have compiled a massive amount of damning evidence that Bonds juiced up starting after the McGwire/Sosa homer fest of '99. They wrote a book about it due out March 27th and an excerpt will appear in SI this week. The article up about it on SI.com is definitely worth a read. I'm pretty sure that over time this is going to go a long way towards placing an asterik on everything that happened between 1998 and 2004. As for me personally, I don't like Bonds. I never liked him (I'm still blaming the '91 and '92 NLCS losses on his lack of performance and on that awful, awful throw... you don't forgive or forget things that scar you when you're 6-7 years old, that's just how it works), but his recent "I'm so tired of everyone saying I'm on steroids that I just might quit" act REALLY wore on me, especially in th...

Damaso Marte made the first Bucco appearence in the first annual WBC, as he just got pulled after 2/3rds of an inning for the Domincan Republic in their opener against Venezuela. His stuff looked pretty good, his fastball hovered between 91 and 93 and seemed placed very well (he blew a high one past Carlos Guillen for a swining strike three) and his slider looked downright nasty. He got ahead in the count of each of the three hitters he faced, with Omar Vizquel working out a good at bat and lacing a double, Guillen strike out, and Bobby Abreu popping up to center. He was removed so that the righty Tavarez could pitch to Miguel Cabrera (who doubled in Vizquel, meaning Marte will be charged with a run). Still, it looked like a pretty good outing to me. In another note, the Pirates weren't mentioned once during his performance, though his shaky late season performance with the White Sox was lauded, while Joe Morgan wondered why the White Sox soured so quickly (after three full years) ...

Today the Stats Geek tries to assuage the worries that Jack Wilson has been overpaid with this new contract (he admits he himself was worried about it). At first read it makes sense, but going deeper there's just something that just doesn't quite fit. He compares Wilson's contract with those of Edgar Renteria, Rafael Furcal, Orlando Cabrera, Cristan Guzman, Omar Vizquel, and David Eckstein. He says that except Eckstein, Wilson's contract compares favorably with all of them. From the perspective that Wilson's contract falls smack in the middle and that he's definitely not better than Furcal or Eckstein and he definitely is better than Guzman and maybe Vizquel at this point of his career, while being at least comparable to Cabrera and Renteria, the contract makes sense. Of course, hindsight's always 20/20. Cabrera signed his contract after a 58 game run with the Red Sox where he sparked them to the Series with a .294/.320/.465 line. Renteria was a key compone...