Saturday links

Since I imagine that most people are more concerned with college football this afternoon, we'll keep this brief.

As pointed out by apk in the comments thread directly below, Chris Duffy hasn't sucked that much in the last month. His power is still terribly lacking, but the stolen bases can help cover for that. Impressively, he's cut down on the strikeouts quite a bit with Nady as the only Pirate with 100 ABs in the last month striking out less (though that's a mostly strikeout prone group he's compared to there). I don't think Duffster has earned the job for next year yet, but he's probably at least earned the right to compete for it in the spring. I still don't think he's a leadoff hitter, though.

Also, today's PG Notebook reports on a sad turn of events with Pirate broadcasting, as the Pirates and KDKA will end their 51 year relationshipi and Clear Channel's 104.7 WPGB will take over as the flagship for next season. After the Cards moved on from KMOX last year, you could see this coming from a mile a way. With the big stations like KDKA and KMOX moving away from baseball, this has to be a huge victory for satellite radio.

Also in the notebook today there is mention of Shane Youman and how he's getting ready for his debut on Sunday, and the comeback's of Mike Gonzalez and Gorzellany. Meyer's notebook makes it seem like both will be back before the end of the year. While it's good to know that neither has a catastrophic problem with their arm, I hope we aren't rushing them back to make an appearence or two just to prove that point, because that would be stupid.