Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

This article from Sportsline.com has been getting passed around the internet a lot lately as it's the rare national article that repeats all of the "FIRE LITTLEFIELD" sentiment that gets heard around these parts so much. Littlefield is terrible at his job, but when he gets axed I get the feeling that he's just going to be the fall guy for an entire organization that is rife with problems. This headline at the new Pirates blog Buccowire made me imagine what's going to happen this spring when the Pirates start 4-20... ( note- I've tweaked this slightly since I posted it, mostly to make it rhyme better and help the flow ) Robert Nutting : Times have changed The fans are getting pissed. They don't obey the spin. And they scream and yell and hiss. Jim Tracy : Should we blame McClatchy? Kevin McClatchy : Or blame that Jim Tracy? Ogden Nutting : Or should we blame those guys on the TV? Robert Nutting : No, blame Littlefield! Blame Littlefield! With his beady l...

In the next couple of weeks, you'll hear certain names over and over again. McGwire. Dawson. Rice. At least one stat-head with a sense of humor will bring up Albert Belle just to piss people off. Should they be in or shouldn't they? Well, the Pittsburgh Pirates would like to add one more name to the mix... Screen grab from the one and only Pirates.com .

The comments thread below on the poll post hits the nail on the head when it comes to the real discussion we should be having when it comes to guys like Suppan, Ohka, etc. The question isn't whether or not the Pirates have the money to spend on those guys ( Dejan makes that clear in today's Q&A ) because they do have it, the question is whether or not they should spend it one those guys. Honestly, you can make arguments either way. Don't spend the money We've got four pretty good young starters and beyond Jason Bay and Freddy Sanchez, we've got no real bats. We're a small market team, getting involved in bidding wars for middle of the road pitchers is not a smart use of that money. Sure Suppan or Ohka may help us in the short term, but in the long term that money could be spent on scouting, on signing Latin American prospects, on improving the minor league system, or in so many other ways that would help this infinitely more than either of those two would...

I replaced the poll before bed last night but didn't put a post up. This week's poll is straightforward, do you want to see DL spend $8-10 million a year on a middle of the road starter like Jeff Suppan (yesterday's hot name) or Tomo Ohka ( today's hot name )? A simple yay or nay will suffice. As always, feel free to discuss in the comments. Last week's results for "Gut reaction to the Soriano signing" The Cubs are stupid and desperate- 49% Being a Pirate fan is depressing- 43% Good move, Cubbies- 9% Lots of people told me they wished they could vote for each of the top two options. This obviously bore itself out in the vote. Personally, I kind of thought all three things at the same time, if that's even possible.

Kip Wells has signed a one year, $4 million with the St. Louis Cardinals. This strikes me as a reasonable deal, but then again I don't think Kip Wells sucks, while I know a lot of people disagree with me. Given the Bucs and Cards recent history, look for Jason Bay to take one right in the ribs from Round Tripper Kipper next year while LaRussa laughs his smug ass off in the dugout.

Dejan says we are pursuing Jeff Suppan . Not only is it a bad idea to attempt to sign the best playoff pitcher the World Series Champions had in this crazy market, it's not going to happen. Dear Ed Eagle, Just because someone sends you an e-mail regarding your "GM For a Day" request doesn't mean you have to print it. You are making us all look bad, yourself included. Sincerely, WHYGAVS Signings: Indians- Delucci Dodgers- Wolf Orioles- Baez Red Sox- close with Drew and getting closer with Matsuzaka Charlie recaps Wayne Krivsky's insanity Rowdy talks about Adam Dunn

I don't know what to make of this. A day after picking up Damaso Marte's option for 2007, the Pirates extended him through 2008 by chopping some money out of his 2007 contract and guaranteeing him a contract for 2008, when he only had a club option. They also gave him a $6 million club option for 2009, which means we (or someone else, but most likely us) will be paying the $250,000 to buy that out. I think this move probably means that the Pirates won't be trading Marte, but I can't tell because this move is stupidly unnecessary. According to Rotoworld , he's now guaranteed $2.45 million in 2007 and $2 million in 2008 with the club option in 2009. This is instead of being guaranteed $3 million in 2007 with a $3 million club option for 2008. Before this deal, the Pirates could tell teams that Marte is cheap in 2007 and if he's good this year, you can keep him for cheap next year as well. Now, they'll have to tell people that he's cheap for two years, but...

Doing some browsing on the internet looking for something Pirate-related to talk about has finally brought me some inspiration today. While browsing the BBTF blog I found a link to this interesting post by the Baseball Crank. Using the new toys at Baseball Reference , BC compared a bunch of pitchers across generations to see how they pitched in their wins compared to their losses (just read the whole post, it's worth it). He found that as much as people bitch about wins and losses as a useful stat, things evened themselves out over time and in general even great pitchers pitch very well in their wins and poorly in their losses. This is incredibly intriguing to me, though I suppose maybe I shouldn't be that surprised. Still, career-wise, Shawn Chacon has a better ERA in games that he's won than Chris Carpenter , it's just that he pitches well enough to win on a much less consistent basis than Carp does. Anyways, I've decided to have some fun with these splits and...

Dejan is changing his Q&A to a daily format, taking 1-2 questions a day every day instead of a bunch every Friday. That starts today, where he fields a couple extra questions due to his layoff. I'll be back later tonight with something more fun and more original than just another link, I promise.

The Bucs have picked up Damaso Marte's option and hopefully the next step from here is a left-handed reliever getting traded. If DL can convince teams that Marte had a good 2006 (read: to ignore his 1-7 record) Marte might bring a decent return in a trade, especially priced at $3 million for one year on a market where Justin Speier is worth $18 million over four. The rest of the article talks about other choices the Pirates are faced with including extending Freddy Sanchez through his arbitration years (something I hope they're not spending too much time on right now as it's not exactly a pressing matter) and deciding whether to tender Chacon or not. I'd imagine that will depend greatly on whether DL pulls the trigger on a trade involving a starter. If he does, he might have the cash on hand for one starter on the market but he almost certainly won't have the money for two. As much as it pains me to say this, Chacon actually seemed to be improving under Colborn af...

The rest of the NL Central keeps busy while the Pirates stand still. Yesterday the Brewers and D'Backs completed a six player swap . The big names are Doug Davis going to Arizona and Johnny Estrada going to Milwaukee. The Brewers also get starter Claudio Vargas and reliever Greg Aquino while the D'Backs get prospects Dana Eveland and Dave Krynzel. Both Eveland and Krynzel have seen limited time in Milwaukee, but I don't really know a ton about them. Davis is pretty much the definition of an average pitcher (career 62-63 record, 1.47 WHIP, 4.35 ERA), though he did strike out a ton of batters in 2005. Estrada should upgrade the Brewers at catcher in a big way. The Astros continued their spending spree by inking Woody Williams to a 2 year deal worth $12.5 million. Williams had a good year with the Padres last year, but Minute Maid is not going to help anything and he's going to be 40 next year. If the Astros are hoping to replace the potentially departed Clemens and Pettit...

With only a little over a week left until the Winter Meetings kick off, Dejan Kovacevic returns to the PG today with two Pirate related stories, which is pretty much two more stories than we've seen about the team from the PG since his post-season wrap in October. The first story is similar to what I said here , that the crazy off-season market could benefit the Pirates if they play their cards right in the trade market. In the article Littlefield has this to say about the market: Sure, it's going to help us. You've got to go someplace to get players. If the free-agent market gets expensive, you would think, in general, that the trade market would increase, as well, as far as value. It's nice to know that DL's at least got his mind on the right track this winter. I doubt he's thinking of going as far as I talked about in my post (that would be trading EVERYone), but at least he's saying the right things. From the same article, we get what we bloggers thriv...

With no real Pirate news to talk about today (Dejan returns to the PG tomorrow, so we'll certainly have something to talk about then), we can always rely on the Carbolic Smoke Ball (Pittsburgh's version of The Onion , for the uninformed) for some fake Bucco news . "Ten minutes before a Pirate game, a siren will blare from Mellon Square, warning everyone a disaster is about to occur," Ravenstahl said. "This system is long overdue and, no doubt, will spare countless people from experiencing a calamity." DJ Gallo is also having some fun with the Pirates over at the Sports Pickle this week in his weekly poll. The question: Why are baseball payrolls skyrocketing? Answer number 5: I don't know, but I heard a rumor that the Pirates are going to offer some guy a 2-year, $900,000 deal, so things are definitely out of hand. And as always, there's lots of other good stuff at the Pickle (making fun of the Manning family and Philadelphia is always a good optio...

Holy freaking crap, there's some Pirate news to talk about. Rotoworld is relaying the rumor in from Denver that the Pirates and Rockies are discussing a Paul Maholm for Brad Hawpe trade (the Rocky Mountain News article is here ). Hawpe put up a .293/.383/.515 line with 22 HR and 84 RBIs in 499 ABs last year, so we could likely suspect something similar in Pittsburgh since he's a lefty. He played some first base in the low minors but has been a right fielder for a few years now. He had two years in the minors in which he absolutely raked at the plate, 2002 in high class A Salem in which he OPS'd 1.034 and was named league MVP and 2004 in offense friendly AAA Colorado Springs where he slugged .652 in 92 games before a call-up to Colorado. I would guess that a guy like Hawpe is the ceiling for a straight-up Maholm deal, though Rotoworld relays that the Rockies want more and the Pirates may be willing to part with Gorzellany instead of Maholm to make this trade happen. I hope ...

Gary Matthews Junior was thankful for Juan Pierre, Ned Coletti, and the Dodgers front office yesterday when he signed an even bigger deal than Pierre with the semi-crosstown Angels. If you're curious, his yearly OPS numbers since 2001 (the year he played with the Bucs) are .706, .780, .675, .811, .756, and .856 with those last three years coming in a hitter friendly park in Arlington. That production is now worth $10 million a year over five years for a guy that will be 32 next year. Remember when hockey buried themselves under a ton of player contracts they could no longer pay when people stopped watching on TV? This is getting out of control. The Astros have reportedly signed Carlos Lee to a six year deal. There's no terms available yet, but Rotoworld is guessing $90 million . UPDATE (3:05 PM)- Jayson Stark is now reporting that it's six years, $100 million .

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Today, be thankful for Jason Bay, Freddy Sanchez, Zach Duke, Ian Snell, and Mike Gonzalez, without whom we'd all be completely insane.

It's not only the holiday season, but it's also the time of year that many people release their "Top XX Prospects" list. I can't think of anyone better to make up a list of the top 20 Pirate prospects than Wilbur Miller, so I would be remiss if I didn't share a link with everyone . It's really a very depressing list below the top three (and even among the top three there's lots of questions about Walker and Lincoln). I count five guys that are already relievers among our top 20 (Sharpless, Bayliss, Chavez, Davidson, Rogers) along with at least three more that are probably headed down that road (Bresnehan, Felix, Youman). Throw in two guys whom we still have no idea about after injuries (Bullington and Van Benschoten) and the fact that Brad freaking Corley and his .438 SLG clock in at 11th (and is the last position player on the list) and this is not a list of guys to be excited about.

No holiday will stop the WHYGAVS poll from rolling as scheduled. This week's question deals with your own reaction to hearing about the massive Alfonso Soriano deal. As usual, feel free to discuss in the comments. Last week's results to Matsuzaka question: 40% say it's insane to pay $51 million for negotiation rights. 22% said it's not quite insane, but it's certainly crazy. 19% think it's just a ploy to keep him from pitching for the Yankees. 16% are way more excited about Yuslan Herrera than I am. 3% wish the Pirates would do something like that. All in all, 62% think Theo Epstein should probably be institutionalized for the deal. Not a good sign for the Red Sox.

Morneau edges Jeter for AL MVP . I could pick this one apart, but it would involve defending Jeter and I just don't have the stomach for that at the moment (though Jeter did actually deserve to win this year, I'll leave it at that). More insanity- Juan Pierre is getting $45 million over 5 years and he's not even good . In related news, Gary Matthews Jr. is going to be RICH . Nomar also extended for two years with the Dodgers . He may move to third base to make room for James Loney, which would make his bat more valuable. This isn't a terrible deal for LA (the dollar amount is $18.5 million) though it's a bad sign that everyone was excited that Nomar was healthy enough to play in only 122 games last year. The Mets signed Moises Alou to play left field for one year at $8.5 million and it's one of the more sane things I've seen done this off-season. This does serve to make the Mets even older, though. Mussina will stay with the Yankees for 2 years and $23 mil...

To no one's surprise the Pirates filled out their 40-man roster by adding 2 middle relief pitchers (Dave Davidson and Romulo Sanchez) and a fast, toolsy outfielder (Nyjer Morgan) without much talent to the roster. They dropped Carlos Maldanado, though it's likely he'll get a non-roster invite to camp anyways. The most interesting part of the whole thing is that they left off Wadrell Starling and Jesse Chavez who may be Rule 5 eligible (it's hard to tell because of the new CBA rules). The article about the additions on Pirates.com last night initially said they wouldn't have to protect Chavez or Starling, though their names have been dropped from the article now (you can follow the whole thing with this thread at OBN). Starling is mentioned as a potential loss in the Paul Meyer article linked above whereas I don't think he was last night around midnight. As is speculated at OBN Starling is likely safe as he's pitched poorly in Hawaii this winter and wasn...

Finally an awards choice I can sink my teeth into a little bit. It's not that Ryan Howard is a bad choice for MVP, because he isn't. It's just that Albert Pujols is a better choice. I won't make the argument that Pujols made the playoffs and Howard didn't because, well, the Cards finished with a worse record than the Phillies. First off, Pujols lead the league in VORP despite missing some considerable time with his "oblique" strain or whatever it was. It was a narrow lead, but it was there. You can throw in that Pujols was the whole Cards lineup for long stretches of the year with Edmonds missing long chunks of time and Scott Rolen being a less valuable third baseman( VORPwise ) than Freddy Sanchez. Throw in the homer that Pujols hit on this day (the part where I say "It was probably Pujols" really was Pujols, if you recall his big homer to pull out a win against the Padres when the Astros probably would've either tied or pulled within a g...

So the market has gone crazy, there's no use in debating that. The thing that I wonder about is why so many people are going all "woe is me" in regards of what this means for the Pirates. Here's the question: If the Pirates had limitless funds to spend, would you want them spent on 8 years of Alfonso Soriano at $136 million? No, you wouldn't. Would you want them spent on 4 years of Justin Speier at $18 million? Or three years of Alex Gonzalez at $14 million? No, you wouldn't. A crazy market only serves to do one thing, create bad deals. The Cubs have been forced to pay $17M/year for Soriano for 8 years when their window for him, Rammy, Lee, and a healthy pitching staff is maybe (maybe!) one or two years. And yeah, they'll be good for those 1 or 2 years, but by the end of this contract my guess is that Soriano is going to be Mo Vaughn, sitting at home watching baseball while being the highest player in the league. To a good GM, it's not worth it. But t...

While you enjoy your beer soaked afternoon in which the Pittsburgh Steelers won a game that Pirate fans will certainly recognize, the Cubs and Alfonso Soriano have reportedly reached an 8 year deal worth $136 million. Is it too much for Soriano? Of course it is. Will it get the Cubs out of last place? Absolutely. If they sign a starter they're almost favorites for the division with the Soriano, Lee, Ramirez heart of the order. Hello, last place. Go back to enjoying the Steelers win, we can talk more about this tomorrow.

When I said earlier I had no more links, I lied. I have one more. Bill Mueller is retiring to take a position in the Dodgers front office. That makes 2 third baseman (out of two) that Littlefield seriously persued last winter to have retired this offseason. And we wonder why this is the world's slowest rebuilding plan.

David Pinto has put up his adjusted Probabilistic Model of Range for 2006 (team defensive rankings... he did one earlier in the week but he's tinkered with it some since then). You'll see the Pirates at the bottom of the ranking there. Pinto's model calculates how many balls in play should be turned into outs (based on a computer program) vs. how many the team actually turns into outs. Thus the Pirates finishing last doesn't mean they had the lowest defensive efficiency rating (DER) in the league, it means they had the biggest negative discrepancy between projected DER and actual DER. Remember when I did the season in review and talked about the high BABIP for pretty much all of our starters? This is why. It's pretty much insane to bulid a team around ground ball pitchers with a team behind them that can't field. Beyond the Boxscore does a profile on Seth Smith , a ...a good, low risk prospect who is flying below the radar, here's your man. Seth Smith is a ...

Dave Littlefield has been notably quiet this off-season. Granted, most GMs save their big moves for the Winter Meetings in early December, not the GM meetings in November, but everyone likes to make a little bit of noise before then. DL gave an interview to Pirates.com yesterday, which I will attempt to translate into common English. Dave says: We're just getting started with the whole process and you know it's something you've got to keep a handle on what's going on in a lot of different areas. We're probably more in the trade market than we are the free-agent market, but there's a couple of areas we'd like to fill whether it be trade or free agent. Dave means: Even if the owners had given me money to spend this winter I'd have to pay at least 3 times market value to get anyone of any worth to come play for a team run by me and Jim Tracy. Accordingly, we will aim for the trade market where the players can't get away. Dave says: We'd like to get...

... Dave Littlefield not involved ! Somehow DL managed to stay out of a middle reliever for middle reliever swap in the Windy City. By far the most shocking news of the day, unless I find myself reading this afternoon that Chien Ming-Wang has won the AL Cy Young. You know what, it's better not to joke about things like that...

At this time of year the non-Pirate baseball news can really start flying, and between going to class and writing lab reports, I've found myself behind yet again. Time to catch up. Ryan Vogelsong is a Hanshin Tiger. Go t o Charlie's blog , look at the picture, and keep in mind that White Flag is 6'3, not 6'11. Everyone here knows that for some irrational reason, I like Vogelsong. Accordingly, I'm very happy to see him pitch somewhere else so I don't have to hate him anymore. Good luck, Ryan. Brandon Webb is your 2006 NL Cy Young winner . Trevor Hoffman finished a close second. I would be bitching if Hoffman won, but he didn't. I'm happy the voters overlooked Webb's win total and gave it to the guy that deserved the award. Jim Leyland and Joe Girardi are Managers of the Year . Again, no surprises or complaints here here. These guys deserve the award. Frank Thomas is close to signing with the Blue Jays . No numbers have been released yet, but you can b...

I know you've been waiting for it, this Wednesday's poll can only be about one topic, the Red Sox and their Daisuke Matsuzaka insanity. Last week's results to the question of "Favorite Pirate Uniform?": These ones - 39% These ones - 18% These ones - 16% These ones - 11% These ones - 7% These ones - 5% These ones - 3% I either wanted to pick another uniform or like the movie Old School - 2% These ones - 1% For those that don't want to click the link, the order is current unis, mix and match, sleeves with cursive Pittsburgh on the road , sleeves with block Pittsburgh on the road, mustard yellow, blue and red, pinstripes on the road with gray caps, non-committal, and finally with one vote, the Dodgers-ish uniforms.

Mark DeRosa- 3 years, $13 million El Duque- 2 years, $12 million Aramis Ramirez- 5 years, $75 million Daisuke Matsuzaka- $51 million just for negotiation rights No way in hell the Bucs keep up in this market. In this post here , Charlie points to a WTM comment that speculates that this offseason is going to be crazy in terms of dollars thrown around. Like Manny/A-Rod 2001 crazy. Jeff Passan at Yahoo! Sports sees the same thing . I don't see anything that's happened so far to contradict that.

Top Prospect Alert ranks their top 10 Pirate prospects . It pains me that Nyjer Morgan, Adam Boeve, and Josh Sharpless are all on this list and I can't think of suitable replacements for them on it. Hanley Ramirez and Justin Verlander are your ROYs . I don't really have any qualms there. Manny Acta, who entered the news last month for living in the building Cory Lidle crashed into, is expected to become the Nats next manager . It appears that the Red Sox bid for Matsuzaka is in the neighborhood of the Pirates' 2006 payroll. Remind me how they want people to believe the Yankees are worse than them? Jerry Crasnick writes about names that will get Perrotto going (in fact, he's already mentioned three of these guys).

You've probably (OK, maybe is likely a better word) been wondering why I haven't been doing anything along the lines of Cory 's Fantasy GM posts or sifting through the free agent list looking for potential targets for the Buccos. I've been meaning to do something along those lines but haven't gotten around to it and I've finally decided to scrap the idea. You are probably asking why, so let's get to it. The truth of the matter is, I have absolutely no ability to get excited for another Dave Littlefield-lead off-season. Until something happens to give me reason to think otherwise, creating trades for Mark Teixeira or Chad Tracy or Marcus Giles on paper feels futile to me (note: I am not trying to take anything away from the people that do this in the offseason, I'm just explaining my own mindset for your benefit, please please please don't take out of this that I think everyone that posts about what they think DL should be doing this off-season is wa...

On the first official day of free agency the Cubs are the team in the news by giving Aramis Ramirez and raise and keeping Kerry Wood in blue and red. This isn't particularly exciting since they both played for the Cubs last year, but everything starts somewhere. It's also much more interesting than Jaret Wright being traded from New York to Baltimore . If the Cubs are planning on getting serious about turning things around in 2007, re-signing Aramis Ramirez is probably more important than hiring Lou Piniella was. Meanwhile, Charlie posts about the Pirates' off-season and speculates on first base targets.

After speculating for months that there was no "Lefty McThump" in the free agent class, JD Drew has opted out of the end of his 5 year deal with the Dodgers, making him a free agent. There are serious injury issues with Drew and he opted out of an $11 million/year deal so there's that, but he's pretty much exactly what Littlefield has described himself to be looking for. Somehow, I don't think JD Drew opted out of that contract to come to Pittsburgh, though. Jeff Stanek at the Duquesne Duke got an interview with Freddy Sanchez about his incredible 2006 season. Keith Law at ESPN ranks the top 40 free agents . It's insider only, but #1 (which you can see)is pretty surprising. Jeff Passan at Yahoo! Sports has a slightly more free ranking of the free agents . Surprisingly, reports say that the Red Sox may have the top bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka . In a non-Pirates link, the Pensblog is making me reconsider a reorganization of links so that I can include Pittsbu...

McClendon shifted to hitting coach . Cuz, you know, those teams he managed from 2001-2005 in Pittsburgh were offensive juggernauts. Thanks to Gary in the comments below for bringing this to my attention.

It's Wednesday and after Monday's lively discussion, the poll topic this week is easy, just go ahead and click for your favorite Pirate uniform. If you can't picture the uniform in your mind, use the Baseball Hall of Fame's uniform database , which is one of my favorite things of all time. Last week's results: What does the Yuslan Herrera signing signify? It's probably a good sign, but Dave Littlefield is involved so I'm not getting excited just yet- 51% Dave Littlefield is involved, no good can come of this- 25% DL has a plan! Rejoice!- 12% I like clicking the funny answer or I don't actually follow the Pirates- 12%

ESPN's free agent tracker is up. I wouldn't expect to see the Bucs pop-up on there much, but it's a handy thing to check. MLB Trade Rumors reports there is some interest in Paul Maholm . Charlie talks about the Pirates roster management problems . The A's are moving down the road to about halfway between San Jose and Oakland , just on the right side of the line that MLB uses to divide Giants and A's territory. Remember when Lonnie Smith spent half a season with the Pirates? Sadly, I do. Anyways, he apparently wanted to kill John Schuerholz in the '80s. Drugs were involved.

It's Election Day today and I'm not going to pretend that anyone is here to talk politics (at least I hope no one's here to talk politics). Instead, let's imagine what the world would be like if front office officials in baseball faced the voters every two or four years. I imagine things would start like this. (voiceover) Dave Littlefield has been Pirate general manager for almost five years now. When Dave took over for Cam Bonifay in 2001 the Pirates were in the middle of a 100 loss season. They haven't lost 100 since Dave took office, and he promises you they won't again on his watch. Dave has stressed fundamentals and basic baseball while obtaining good young players to build on an organization on. When you go to the polls on November 7th, remember that Dave Littlefield may not ever make your Pirates be good again, but he'll do his best to keep them from being embarrassingly bad. I'm Dave Littlefield and I approve this message. Of course there would b...

The off season can get a little boring between the end of the season and the lighting of the hot stove, so let's have some fun today. In the spirit of the Uni Watch , let's have a stroll through the history of the Pirates' logo and uniforms. If you're not into this kind of thing, that's fine. You can just skim through to what you like or skip it entirely. But I'd be lying if I said this stuff didn't fascinate me for no reason whatsoever, so let's take a look at it. Both the Baseball Hall of Fame's uniform database and Chris Creamer's directory of Pirate logos at sportslogos.net start at 1900, so we'll start there. From 1900 through 1935, the Pirates' logo was simply a variety of P's. Some were quite plain , while others were fancy in the Detroit Tigers old English D style . For two years, in 1908 and 1909, they wore a PBC (Pittsburgh Baseball Club I can only assume) monogram. The monogram was worn on the sleeves of the 1909 World...

Sammy Sosa is coming back . Dave Littlefield must be licking his chops.

The article on Pirates.com about Fall Ball that I talked about yesterday has had Eric Young's name mysteriously removed from it. I knew he wasn't a Pirate prospect. For any other organization, something like that might be embarassing.

I wish there was something more interesting going on this time of year, but there just isn't right now. I'm working on something fun for Monday, I swear. Michael Echan catches up on Fall/Winter Ball stats at Pirates.com. He takes a closer look at some guys I didn't the other day. Nyjer Morgan and Eric Young Jr. (Wait... who's that? I'm not kidding, does he play for us? Why is he in the article? He's not at Baseball Cube or on WTM's site, why are we talking about this guy? Wait, there he is , he was in the Rockies system last year, but is referred to as a "Pirate prospect," I continue to be confused.) are FAST I tell you, FAST! Also, Shane Youman got rocked in his first start in Venezuela. The Mets couldn't figure the guy out, but Cardinales de Lara seemed to have no trouble. Buried Treasure catches up with position players and pitchers that wore black and gold in 2005 but not 2006. Did you know Tike Redman ended the year with Corpus Christi...

Despite what Paul Meyer said yesterday, it appears the Bucs and Yuslan Herrera do have a three year deal lined up (Pirates.com has a similar story ) which will be finalized when he passes a physical and all of the visa stuff goes through. Via Bucs Dugout , Joe Randa is officially retiring . There was a rumor that was passed around during the Kansas City series last year that the Joker told KC's broadcasters that 2006 would be his last year, but there was really no mention of it in the Pittsburgh media then (or now, for that matter). I like Joe, which made Littlefield's signing of him much worse this year- it put him in a position to be disliked. All in all though, he pretty much gave us what any reasonable person should've expected from him with the problem being that our front office is not reasonable, thus making him a backup that made nearly 10% of a bad team's total salary. The KC Star article linked above mentions that he's thinking about doing some TV work. I...

Dave Littlefield has finally commented on the Yuslan Herrera situation by talking to Paul Meyer and it's probably not what people expected to hear. We're aware of the player and we've been scouting him [for a while]. We're still scouting him and hope to attract him [to the Pirates]. Right now, that's basically it. The rest of Meyer's column is pretty much a rehash of everything else we've heard, though it doesn't say he pitched in the 2004 Olympics (Olympic baseball stats are incredibly hard to find, I've been trying for a couple days now, and Herrera seems to appear on some lists of that Cuban team's roster and not on others). There's also one other thing that I haven't seen anywhere else. Meyer says, It's unlikely Herrera, assuming the Pirates sign him, would be with the major-league team next season. Hmm, that's interesting, though there's a good chance that Meyer knows as much about this guy as we do and he's just s...