Thursday Links

I'm going to be M.I.A. for the next few days as I have some family stuff to attend to, but regular TRS coverage should resume at some point on Sunday. If anything big happens in the Burgh between now and then, this blog will be dark, so don't bother stopping by.

With that established, I thought I'd finish out February with a fresh batch of links, hot out of the oven.

-Thanks to Mondesi's House for this link to a Rob Rossi video clip suggesting the Pens should maybe trade Sid. Hopefully someone took the car keys away from Rob that night. I know he isn't the first, and won't be the last to suggest trading Sid for a load of players, but I can't possibly understand this logic. Sure it may have worked out well for Quebec when they dealt Eric Lindros all those years back, but teams have gotten much smarter and are now much more reluctant to trade top prospects, even if it is for a great player. Remember how great that Jagr deal turned out? How about the Joe Thornton trade? That wasn't as terrible, but it was still pretty bad. So congratulations, your plan is to deal Sid for 30 cents on the dollar, and if you are really lucky, you might get one solid NHL player and one borderline NHLer on your roster. Congrats, I'm sure Geno will love the fact that he is now the only player on the roster then with even mediocre offensive skills. I know Sid has areas where he needs to improve across the board and has had some growing pains this season, but consider a few things: 1) He's 21!!!!! Countless NHL players went on to lead very, very good careers that weren't even in the NHL at 21. He is still young and still has a lot of room to improve. People forget that. He is not a finished product, and if you treat him as such, you are an idiot. 2) The problems go one hell of a lot deeper than Sid. There are so many crappy players on this team it's mind-boggling. 3) The way the NHL is going it's far from a sure thing that the Pens would be able to lure anyone else with even somewhat similar offensive capabilities in free agency using the money saved if they deal Crosby. Please people, I understand the issues some have with Sid, but he is still so young and probably has had to grow up too fast for his own good. Try to keep these things in mind and not get completely and totally irrational when discussing Sid. Also, that Rob Rossi sure has some nice hair, doesn't he? (Giggling to myself). And on another side note, do not, I repeat DO NOT under any circumstance ever google image search "Rob Rossi." I was looking for a shot of him with that hair, and turns out there is what you would call an adult film star of the same name. Yeesh.

-I love the Pensblog. Those guys are the best and always stand up for the Burgh. Nothing better than a good jobbing. And Chris Cooley is a definite d-bag. They also have the funniest and most dedicated readers of any blog I've ever seen, as seen by these photoshops of potential new jobs for Michel Therrien. Word's can't even describe how funny this stuff is. I practically wet myself I was laughing so hard.

-Speaking of loving Pittsburgh blogs, the Pittsburgh Sports Blog Tourney over at Sean's Ramblings is marching onto the Elite 8. Strangely the Pitt Blather made it. I just assumed they only went as far as the Sweet 16. (Wincing at the fact that I effectively just pissed myself off with that joke.)

-Nothing says Spring Training like a sex scandal involving the identity theft of a fringe major leaguer. Who knew it was possible for the Pirates to have one of the most popular stories on Deadspin?

-3 Pirates make the Baseball America Top 100 prospect list. And they are exactly who you'd expect and in the order you'd expect. Also of note, not only is Matt Wieters ranked number 1 overall, of the 10 players picked after the infamous Danny Moskos, there are 7 in the top 100 (including Wieters) and even 3 in the Top 10 overall prospects. If you'll excuse for a minute, I'm off to write my 3,000th piece of hate mail to Dave Littlefield.

-Aaaaand I'm back. That was therapeutic. Anyway, I wanted to link to this article on blogging that I got from the superb Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? It was a very interesting read, and pretty well represents the mentality of myself and a few other bloggers that I've talked to. Sex sells folks. That's all there is to.

-I know there are articles out there about Pitt's loss last night, but I can't bring myself to read them, so I'm not going to bother linking you to them as I have no idea what they say. In fact I avoided national sports all day. No SportsCenter, PTI nothing. I read a book this morning instead of my usual dose of SC.

-Jeff Saturday is apparently actively campaigning for a spot with the Steelers. Saturday is a 10 year vet, but is one of those savvy guys who can be very effective so long as he is healthy. I could definitely se him fitting in after a switch to guard.

-TRS Site Update Part I: I've decided to shelve the Pirate Player Profile feature. Instead of that, I'm going to put together a few big posts detailing what my statistical predictions are for the Pirates. I'm a definite stathead and like to make those types of predictions, but it wasn't that much fun to write those everyday, and I'm fairly certain that no one gave a damn about my thoughts on each individual player. I'm still a rookie blogger, you live and learn.

-TRS Site Update Part II: I'm also working on coming up with some kind of weekly gimmick for the site. That seems to be a reliable niche most of the successful blogs follow. I have an idea or two, and will try one of them out next week. Let me know if you have any thoughts yourself on any of this stuff.

-TRS Site Update Part III: I'd feel bad if I didn't give an extra plug to D.C. Pro Sports Report and Sports Jabber for the ridiculous amount of traffic sent my way over the last 24 hours since my latest Mock Draft was posted. I still can't believe the ridiculous popularity of these sites and the popularity of Mock Drafts in general, I'm definitely thrilled to see it though.