Pirates Overpay 4 Players

We actually have some Pirates news that is worth me spending a few minutes typing up! Downright shocking, right? The news is that the Bucs signed 4 of the 6 players on their roster that were set for arbitration. Adam LaRoche, John Grabow, Zach Duke, and Tyler Yates were the quartet who signed and Paul Maholm and Nate McLouth were the pair who didn't.

The elder LaRoche signed for 1 year and... 7.05 million dollars! If that seems a solid 2 million dollars too high to you... then you and I think very much alike. I know that LaRoche made 5 million dollars last year, so his salary figured to go up to the 7 million range, but what on earth did he do last season to deserve a raise of even 1 penny? He spent the first few months of the season crapping the bed yet again, and by the time he put together his inevitable second half comeback, the Pirates were already in the division cellar and were packing things in for the 2009 season. The end of season numbers are fine and he cranked out 25 home runs with an .841 OPS, but he was atrocious in the first half. I hate this mindset of a guy getting a raise just because its a new season and he wasn't completely awful for the entire season. LaRoche's deal should have given him 5-6 million or so in guaranteed cash and then should have had crazy incentives that could have propped it up to 9 million, or maybe more if they were lofty incentives (20 first half home runs, a .300 batting average, a .900 OPS, you get the idea). I just can't fathom that we live in a sports world where Adam LaRoche is the worst hitting first baseman in baseball for three straight months in 2008 and then gets a 2 million dollar raise to start the following season because he hit well when there was absolutely, positively no pressure on him. In case you couldn't tell, I'm not a LaRoche fan.

The other guys signed were Zach Duke (who became the highest paid batting practice pitcher in history with a 2 million dollar deal), John Grabow (2.3 million dollars for a lefty specialist... mehh), Tyler Yates (the most reasonable deal with just 1.3 million dollars which should be a decent contract as long as John Russell doesn't wear his arm down again).

Clearly, I'm not exactly enthused by these maneuvers, but at least its something worth talking about with the Pirates right now, which judging by my posts on this site, is a definite rarity these days.

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.