Pirates Hot Stove Report

Okay, so I'm a little tired of studying for my numerous finals this week, and stumbled upon Keith Law's ESPN chat today. I read through it and got all kinds of excited for the baseball hot stove season, which should heat up in the next few weeks, what with the winter meetings coming up shortly. So I decided I hadn't give enough news on the Pirates on here and rooted around a while for some Pirates news and linked to the stories below. There's not much here, but I intend to update the site a little more with this kind of breaking news stuff. Until then, enjoy what I've got.

-Check out Dejan Kovacevic's PBC Blog on the Post-Gazette (Link to the lower right) if you really want a breaking news type story on the Pirates. Here's a story he put on the blog about the Pirates-Tigers Jack Wilson trade that was rumored to be going down earlier today.

-ESPN has an AP story about Jack Wilson as the Pirates continue to like talking to the Dodgers for these trades for some reason. The hang-up, as they put it, is the salary for JackO next season of a way-too-high 7.25 million dollars. However, the Dodgers are expected to lose Raf Furcal in the next day or two, and they view themselves as legit contenders so they will need to shore that spot up somehow.

-Dirty Dougie Mientkiewicz is keeping the door very much ajar to return to the Burgh next season, but is definitely holding out for a starting job somewhere if one were to come open.

-The Pirates are talking to second baseman Mark Loretta, who looks like the latter-day Rogers Hornsby when he plays against the Pirates. Loretta would be for a super-utility position I'd assume, but would likely be given a shot to earn some serious playing time at the shortstop position unless the Pirates can somehow obtain a replacement shortstop when they inevitably deal SteveO Wilson.

-Joe Starkey of the Trib calls for a doomsday destruction of the Pirates in this rant. I'm oftentimes a little lukewarm on Starkey, but I rather enjoyed this piece, mainly because it reads like a rant. Seriously, it sounds like he set up one of those computer programs that type what you speak and just went on an absolute tangent about the Pirates. It starts off as him getting all sorts of irritated by the thought of the Pirates signing Adam LaRoche for 6-7 million for this season (a number that I agree is absurdly high) and then somehow morphs into them trading away everyone making good money and not half-assing this rebuilding effort and then comes full circle back to LaRoche with him being replaced by "the next upright, breathing mammal you see." And it ends with a truly bizarre "Be fruitful and multiply" line. I'm not sure what kind of reaction to produce to that one.

-Frank Coonelly has his monthly chat with the 11 loyal Pirate fans. I really do amire Coonelly for this little bit of PR. He doesn't seem to shy away from anything, either in these things. Among other things, he hints the Pirates will likely take a player or two off the 40-man pretty soon and use a Rule 5 pick to fill up a slot. He also says to look for a (my guess is lower-tier) starting pitcher and a right-handed bench man.