I Am Here to Dismiss a Rumor

You see, Tom Verducci seems to think that the Pittsburgh Pirates aren't terrible. I, like any rational-minded human being, think that's completely and totally false, 33-31 record be damned.


I have this crazy idea, an idea as crazy as believing in Charlie Brown

I mean, is that like, a thing? Most people, even 4-year-olds, feel like Charlie Brown is completely and totally fictional. You totally shoulda gone with something like Santa Claus. Just sayin'.

a balanced budget

Topical!


the Cleveland Browns 

I guess we're now equating "crazy" with "terrible"

and pro soccer in America

Tom, way to beat 9.4% of America to making this joke.


I am starting to believe the Pittsburgh Pirates are an honest to goodness contender.

Tom, Tom, TOMMMMMMMM. Really? The Pittsburgh Pirates? That team that's 4 games back in a pretty "meh" division and has been outscored by 26 runs? Those Pittsburgh Pirates? Really?

That's right: the Pirates. The team that hasn't had a winning season in Bryce Harper's lifetime, or since Bush the elder was president, Nolan Ryan was pitching and Barry Bonds was skinny. The team that in recent years passed up Zack Greinke, Prince Fielder, Jered Weaver, Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, Matt Wieters, Madison Bumgarner, Eric Hosmer and Buster Posey to take Bryan Bullington, Neil Walker, Brad Lincoln, Daniel Moskos and Pedro Alvarez with top-11 picks in the draft.

I'm really proud of you for looking up all of this information. Really, I am. In fact, it's mostly because of everything you just mentioned that your premise is completely and totally terrible and stupid. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so let's press on.

The team that last year was in first place as late as July 25 and wound up with 90 losses

Don't care what happened last year. Don't care.


The team that has scored the fewest runs in baseball this year. 

Uh oh, Tom. That sorta kinda totally completely insinuates that the Pirates have a terrible offense. Which they do.

The team that is the worst hitting team in franchise history (.224) except for the outfit that finished in 11th place in the American Association 128 years ago!

We get it. It's unbelievable for someone to think the Pirates are contenders. That's actually why it's a stupid thing to believe, Tom.

Today those Pirates are tied for first place with Cincinnati in the NL Central with more wins than any of the four 2011 NL playoff teams and the best record in baseball over the past two weeks (12-3). 

Okay, so I confess. This was written a few days ago. But everything he has to say is still stupid. Trust me.

The Pirates are 30-21 since beginning the year 2-6.

Note to self: You're allowed to remove any single 8-game stretch of a season to evaluate how good a baseball team is in mid-June.

It would be easy to dismiss the Pirates as a pretender waiting for the fall -- a reprise of their 2011 season. But Pittsburgh was doomed to fail last year because its pitching staff was a collection of soft-tossing pitchers whose low strikeout rate and high WHIP portended the collapse.

Yes. And now they are doomed to fail because their hitter with the 2nd highest WARP has a .183 batting average and 69 plate appearances. DON'T CALL IT A......collapse.

This year looks very different. The Pirates are striking out 7.41 batters per nine innings, the highest rate in franchise history by a wide margin (7.00 from 1969). Their WHIP has improved from 15th in the league to fourth. In short, the Pirates now have pitchers with stuff.

They are pretty decent at what probably amounts to 40% of playing baseball. They've had good pitching so far. They're also relying on guys like Erik Bedard and A.J. Burnett who have chronic relapses of sucking or getting hurt.

A.J. Burnett has found refuge from the AL East with the JV lineups of the NL. Erik Bedard, another veteran happily sprung from the AL, has remained healthy. And James McDonald, courtesy of a wipeout slider discovered at the urging of catcher Rod Barajas in a morning spring training game, is a different pitcher. He just might become the greatest righthanded strikeout pitcher in Pirates history.

I fully buy the James McDonald story. W/R/T the other guys, holllllld your horses a little bit. You wrote this on June 12th. There's very few major league pitchers that survive for a career of at least a few years that don't put up a good 2.5 month stretch now and then. You want to reconsider anything?

Still not convinced this is a different Pirates team from last year? Here are more reasons why Pittsburgh is not collapsing this time:

Ya got me Tommmmm. I'm not convinced. Bring on what you have to say.

The offense isn't as bad as the numbers suggest. The Pirates were historically awful in April and May, but have hit a respectable .257 in June.

Holy shit! Stop the presses! They had 2 historically bad months, but don't worry guys, they sort of hit for an okay BATTING AVERAGE in June! This offense ain't anywhere NEAR as bad as that -0.8 collective WARP makes you think it is!

Neil Walker

0.2 WARP

Garrett Jones

-0.3 WARP

Alex Presley 

-0.3 WARP

and Clint Barmes 

-0.9 WARP

all have awakened to give Andrew McCutchen some help. 

I didn't realize that giving someone the finger and saying, "Fuck you man, we're not gonna help you win shit" qualified as "some help". But I am not as educated as Tom Verducci.

This is still a below-average offense, 

That doesn't cover it. It is a below replacement-level offense.

but Pittsburgh doesn't need as much firepower as most teams because . . .

Goody. This should be good.

The Pirates have a strong homefield advantage. Runs are harder to come by in PNC Park than in any other major league park this season, with teams combining for slightly more than five runs per game.

A statistic not at all attributable to the patheticness of the offense of one of the teams that participates in every single MLB game played at PNC park.


The park plays big in leftfield and left-centerfield, and Hurdle chuckles as opposing hitters try to jack balls over the rightfield wall, which is not as easy a task as it appears. The Pirates have played 18 games at home without hitting a home run and are 9-9 in those games. 

WATCH OUT, REDS!  9-9!

They are 19-6 in home games decided by one or two runs.

This is absurdly lucky.

Pittsburgh's bullpen is ridiculously good, sporting the lowest ERA in baseball (2.44). 

And bullpens are known for how non-fickle they are. I trust this'll last.

Hurdle is proving my theory that many managers are better in their second job (i.e., Terry Francona, Charlie Manuel, Bruce Bochy, Joe Girardi, etc.). Hurdle has been masterful as this team makes the most out of having scored the fewest runs in the majors.

Clint Hurdle honestly probably does deserve some credit, given the circumstances. However, this is pretty easy to overstate, as Verducci is about to prove.

His bullpen usage has been so sharp he has used pitchers three consecutive days only twice.

Genius! All the other managers in the majors use pitchers on three consecutive days on a routine basis!


He twice pulled McDonald from games for a pinch-hitter after just four innings -- and won both games. 

A result that, I am sure, was entirely due to pulling a good starting pitcher after 4 innings.

He has given Barmes and Alvarez three straight days out of the lineup as a "mental break" to snap a slump; each one came back swinging a hot bat.

Wow. That's brilliant. Nothing fluky about that. We found the secret to making Clint Barmes hit well, everyone. Just don't play him for three days.

The manager also has encouraged his players to run the bases aggressively. The Pirates are among the four best teams in the league at taking the extra base.

If they keep their current pace up, that'll be worth....a whole win!

It's difficult to believe that any baseball team in this era could field a losing team 19 years in a row, especially when the Pirates picked no lower than fourth in six consecutive drafts (2006-11). Other than McCutchen, however, they don't have an impact player on the roster.

But...they're contenders, right?

The NL Central champion has won an average of 93 games in the 16 full seasons since realignment, but this is starting to look like one of the five times when only 83-88 wins was enough to take the division. Pittsburgh may not be a playoff team just yet, but can the Pirates win 83 games -- a total that would have them playing meaningful games in September for the first time in a generation? Yes, they can.

You are nuts if you think 83 games is a likely win total for the NL Central division champion.

The Pirates' front office crunched some numbers before the season began and calculated that the expanded postseason format this year (with the second wild card added to each league) improved their playoff chances by 13 percent. 

Which is fascinating, because Baseball Prospectus pegs their current chances at 2.8%. That ain't the say-all-end-all, but they're significantly worse than their record after 2 months.  Trust me, Pirates,  your odds of making the playoffs never came close to 13%.  Forget about "improved by".


Pittsburgh does have a style that allows little room for error. The Pirates' offense is so bad that they must play close, low-scoring games consistently, a style that puts tremendous pressure on their bullpen.

Again, you realize that offense is like 50% of baseball, right? The way you talk about it makes the Pirates' offense sound like it's an inconvenience rather than a serious handicap. There have been teams that have been good at baseball despite bad offenses but none of them were leaning heavily on a pitching staff full of oft-ineffective pitchers without even having a true ace. It is not that difficult to see that the Pirates aren't good. They've done a great job supporting that even in the less-than-a-week since this article was published.

But in this run-depressed era of baseball -- especially in a pitcher's ballpark -- they have a fighting chance as long as their arms stay healthy. 

Said Verducci, apparently oblivious that he's kind of talking about Erik Bedard.

Maybe October in Pittsburgh still belongs to the Steelers alone, the way it has been for 19 years. But can baseball matter again in September in Pittsburgh? It actually seems possible this year.

Tom -- please see the below message from rational people everywhere:

"NO, IT FUCKING DOESN'T!"

Dayn Perry: Insufferable Douche

Gee golly guys, Dayn Perry sure disapproves of signing any free agent pitchers ever, doesn't he?

The Hot Stove season isn't notable for its certainties, but here's one bankable assumption: teams are going to overpay for pitching.

Well yeah, that's pretty safe. Some teams probably will overpay. Some will get about the right price. And few might even make off with a solid steal.

It happens every year, like paying taxes or the swallows returning to Capistrano. Teams, frantic for help, cough up contracts that can best be described as "galactically stupid."

Agreed. That probably happens too often.

Consider some of the grim boondoggles of the past ... Darren Dreifort (five years, $55 million), Kevin Brown (seven years, $105 million), Carl Pavano (four years, $39.95 million), Russ Ortiz (four years, $33 million), Chan Ho Park (five years, $65 million), Mike Hampton (eight years, $121 million), Denny Neagle (five years, $51.5 million), Barry Zito (seven years, $126 million), Carlos Perez (three years, $15.6 million), and Carlos Silva (four years, $48 million).

And there's a nice glob of evidence to support that.



Lots of belly-itchers in there, and that's but a sampling. Sure, not every winter brings us Dreifortian/Hamptonian levels of irrationality. But you can bet teams are always (emphasis his) going to cough up more than they should for pitching help.

Always?

Really?

Never, in recent history, has any team given a reasonable contract to any pitcher?

There's an economic argument to be made that there's no such thing as an overpaid player — if the market dictates a given contract then that player is, by definition, worth that amount of money. That's true, to an extent. Contracts aren't acts of charity: they cost as much and run as long as it takes to get the player signed. However, as we all know, whether that player provides value on the dollar is another matter altogether. This is especially the case with pitchers.

Ignoring Dayn's insane need to climb on down from his pedestal way up there, this is all pretty true.

Pitching is a destructive art. The human body simply isn't designed to throw overhanded and at such speeds — it's unnatural and, done often enough, it almost always results in injury. As well, pitching entails much randomness and a level of precision foreign to other elements of the game.

Care for some more tea, crumpets, or caviar there Dayn?

(I have no idea what a "crumpet" is.)

Moving, on, your "almost always results in an injury" claim is pretty darn unfounded. There's plenty of guys in the majors who go in year-in and year out and don't have large injury risks associated with them. And you can go ahead and take your "pitching entails much randomness and a level of precision foreign to other elements of the game" argument right on over to Albert Pujols, mmmkay? Ask him, "Hey Albert....you don't need to be precise or anything with regards to where you swing the bat, right? You can just hit any old part of the ball and it just flies right out of the park, I'm assuming...."

And randomness? The only "randomness" in pitching is the luck of where a ball in play lands. You might also notice, Dayn, that this "randomness" applies to the hitter, the person who hit said ball. So in re: there's some kind of mystical randomness to pitching unbeknownstative to other parts of the game, go fuck yourself.

All of these factors conspire to render all but the most elite pitchers wildly unpredictable.

Did anyone else vomit in their mouth when Dayn Perry wrote the phrase "conspire to render?"

Anyone here see why the word "make" had to be replaced by "conspire to render"?

Did you get a vocab list or something that you needed to incorporate into this article?

Because that's the shit that goes on in high school, Dayn.

High school.

CC Sabathia at some point this winter will sign the richest contract ever for a pitcher. At age 28 and with a fairly positive health history, it's conceivable he'll be worth it. But it's not likely. In fact, it's overwhelmingly unlikely.

Some evidence would be nice. After all, you wrote this article to convince me that guys like Sabathia will be making too much money.

What's that? Too much to ask? Ok.....

Derek Lowe might sign a contract that takes him to age 40.

And isn't it possible that there's an amount of money that makes said contract worth it?

Andy Pettitte reportedly wants at least $16 million to pitch in 2009.

Absolutely does not mean he'll get it.

Oliver Perez, according to the impartial and rigorously scientific estimations of his agent Scott Boras, is one of the top-five lefties in baseball and should be paid accordingly.

That is truly frightening, if true. Quite a thing to say about a pitcher who didn't finish in the top 100 pitchers by VORP last season.

Why is this so? Why can't GMs resist these annual calls to madness? Perhaps the old chestnut that baseball is x% pitching (where x >>>>>> 50) is still believed by too many people within the game. Perhaps it's the notion that good pitching is too scarce these days.

Theory: If you don't do it, you're going to take a serious hit against teams that do. Sometimes, it's smart to "overpay" for that extra guy who's going to get you over the hump and into the playoffs, a feat that nets that team plenty of extra money in revenue. I mean I don't know, I don't write for a prestigious website like foxsports.com, so maybe I'm just clueless.

Whatever the reasons, it happens every time. In reality, unless you're a team of near limitless resources like the Yankees or Red Sox, you should take no part in helping along these sordid valuations.

There's another solid word for the vocab list. "Sordid." And unless I've missed my guess, it's pretty out of place there (check me on that one, dan-bob).

Also, our friend Dayn doesn't seem to understand that if you have no intention of signing a pitcher, you have every reason in the world to want to help along the "sordid valuations."

Hell, for almost every team in baseball, disinterring the four-man rotation would make more sense than throwing $80 million A.J. Burnett's way.

"Disinterring." Nice one. How many more you have left to check off?

Funny. You don't think throwing $80M at Burnett is smart, because he's injury-prone, and that's bad. A proposed "better" solution is to move to a dangerously exhausting 4-man rotation for 162 games.

Huh. And you don't see any contradiction in there at all.

In a sense, the ideal path to strong pitching is the same as it is with hitting: develop your own talent, identify the keepers, lock them up early.

And anyone without 5 solid homegrown starters locked up should just stop being competitive, sit around, complain all day, and become the Baltimore Orioles.

But given the going rates for free-agent hurlers, doing things the right way is even more critical. Otherwise, you end up throwing money — lots of it — at the problem. The historical imperative is that it almost never works. Now watch as teams far and wide ignore that history. Again and again.

Yeah. The Boston Red Sox are REALLY kicking themselves for paying $51M to talk to Dice-K and $52 more to sign him for 6-years. Kicking themselves right square in the face. The Dodgers just vomited money when they threw $36M at Derek Lowe over 4 years. All free agent pitcher signings are terrible, teams are stupid, everyone else is wrong, I'm Dayn Perry, and you can all go fuck yourselves.

Thinking Outside the Box: Not a Good Idea In Certain Situations

When is thinking outside the box a bad idea?

1. When you're on a spacewalk and your box holds all your air.
2. When you're on a dinghy in the middle of the Indian Ocean and your box is keeping you out of the shark-infested waters.
3. When you're Tom Brady and your box is already better looking than just about all the other boxes at the box factory.
4. When you've lost at the game of baseball for fifteen straight seasons so you start signing random guys from other continents who won a reality show about pitching.

Bucs sign two 20-year-old inexperienced pitchers from India

PITTSBURGH -- The Pittsburgh Pirates hope Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel really do have million-dollar arms.

I like how the verb in this sentence is "hope". The Pirates don't seem convinced at all that either of these guys have million dollar arms. Sucks to be a Pirates fan.

The two 20-year-old pitchers, neither of whom had picked up a baseball until earlier this year, signed free-agent contracts Monday with the Pirates. They are believed to be the first athletes from India to sign professional baseball contracts outside their country.

What about Chief Bender? What about Louis Sockalexis? What about Joba Chamberlain?

Is there a minimum salary for a free-agent contract? I would like to know exactly how much money the Pirates are wasting on two twenty-year olds who have never played baseball before.

Singh and Patel came to the United States six months ago after being the top finishers in an Indian reality TV show called the Million Dollar Arm that drew about 30,000 contestants. The show sought to find athletes who could throw strikes at 85 miles per hour or faster.

I wonder what the ratings were for that show. Also, I can't wait until ABC comes out with a wildly popular reality show called Million Dollar Leg, where a country full of arm-based sports players has to find contestants who will try to kick a ball at 50 miles an hour into a really big net, then go to Europe and fail at that professional sport. I think it'll be even more of a hit than my current project - resurrecting Yes, Dear. Also, soccer sucks.

While neither pitcher threw hard enough to earn the $1 million prize, Singh made $100,000 from the contest and Patel made $2,500, plus his trip to the United States.

So... what you're saying is... the Pirates signed both of these guys and neither of them can throw eighty-five miles an hour?

The contest was sponsored by a California sports management company that believed it could locate major league-worthy arms in a country of more than one billion. After working extensively with Southern California pitching coach Tom House since May, the pitchers staged a tryout in Tempe, Ariz., on Nov. 6 that was attended by 30 major league scouts.

I'm sure there are people in India who are physically capable of throwing a ball hard. As most baseball fans know, big muscles and strong players do not a ballplayer make.

Baseball scouts have to be the most anonymous people ever. Their names are as better hidden than Valerie Plame's!

Snap! Political joke!

"The Pirates are committed to creatively adding talent to our organization," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said Monday. "By adding these two young men, the Pirates are pleased to not only add two prospects to our system but also hope to open a pathway to an untapped market. We are intrigued by Patel's arm strength and Singh's frame and potential."

I can picture this conversation on the phone here (fast-forward to about 2:05 if you're busy and don't appreciate good comedy):

Indian GM: Hey, we have some players here. Yo, Neal is that you?

Huntington: Yeah, yeah.. it's me.. Neal.

Indian GM: Yeah man, we just finished laying a beat-down on the Bombay Bombers. Let me go get Terishna --

Huntington: No no no, don't get Terry - listen, there are some guys going around in baseball uniforms but they're not REAL baseball players. They're about to rob a bunch of money from the Pittsburgh Pirates...

dan-bob: DON'T BE FOOLED.

Neither pitcher has taken the mound in a game situation, no doubt a first for a Pirates prospect. They have pitched in scrimmages against junior college competition.

Depending on how you define it, it wouldn't be hard to argue that no Pirates pitcher has taken the mound in a "game" situation since 1991.

Both threw the javelin in India, a country best known for producing cricket players, and neither the right-hander Patel nor the left-hander Singh had left his small village before coming to the United States. Singh was born in Bhadoni, Uttar Pradesh, and is the youngest of nine children. Patel is from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, and has four brothers and sisters.

I'd like to buy a vowel?

The 5-foot-11, 185-pound Patel hit 90 mph on the radar gun during his tryout, and the 6-2, 195-pound Singh topped out at 84 mph. Each has thrown harder during workout sessions that weren't attended by scouts.

1. "They threw harder when nobody was looking" sounds like a lousy cop-out.

2. There must be at least 23,456 20-year-old Americans who can top out at 84 mph, and 12,345 20-year old Americans who can top out at 90 mph. But since the Pirates have spent 15 years failing to sort the good American players from the bad American players, they're probably like, fuck it, at least we're trying something different.

"Think of them as two Dominican kids," House told the scouts. "They're very raw. But I think this has a huge upside."

Except Dominican kids know the rules to, and can play, baseball.

When they first came to the United States and began playing catch, the pitchers were mystified by the concept of gloves and had to be taught not to try to catch the ball with their bare hands.

Baseball gloves made of cow! Cannot touch! This is a pretty low-brow joke; I am making the outrageous stereotypical assumtption that these two young men are practicing Hindus!

Good thing baseballs are made of horsehide!

Despite being more than raw, the pitchers were signed by well-known agent Jeff Borris, who was attracted by their potential after watching them work out at Southern Cal. Borris estimates they will need three to four years of minor league experience before becoming major league ready.

I guess Borris is just looking for something to do now that he's finally given up the charade of trying to get teams to sign Barry Bonds.

Patel and Singh are learning English, most of which they have picked up from watching ESPN's Baseball Tonight and by taking online classes.

...

They're learning English by watching BASEBALL TONIGHT? That has to be the second-worst idea ever, after the Hindenburg.

Chris Berman, Buck Showalter and John Kruk: licensed English teachers.

"These young men have improved a tremendous amount in their six-month exposure to baseball and we look forward to helping them continue to fulfill their promise," Huntington said.

Yeah, OK, NEAL. Instead of picking up random athletes from foreign countries, why don't you teach your organization how to find GOOD pitchers who already exist in this country?

The signings represent a shift in policy for the Pirates, who have mostly ignored non-traditional markets such as Asia for players.

Going back to my opening bit: sometimes, thinking outside the box is not a good idea.

Seeking out non-traditional sources of talent: not a bad idea, in principle.

Signing the winners of a reality tv show in India: stupid idea.

Add This Guy To the List of People David Eckstein Is Not Better Than

A quickie from JayBird's online column.

In signing the chubby and maddeningly inconsistent Juan Uribe to a one-year deal, Williams said something that blew my mind. ``Uribe is, and has been, one of the most consistent shortstops in the game,'' he said.

How does this statement blow your mind? Uribe's numbers don't vary ridiculously from year to year. I mean yeah, there's variation you can expect from every player there, but you know what you're getting. Low batting average, low OBP, decent-to-good power, high strikeouts, low walks. He does it every year. The problem isn't that Uribe isn't a consistent hitter there, Joe Morgan, the problem is that he's a bad hitter.

What's truly remarkable about Uribe are his FRAA for the past 6 years: 26, 19, 6, 14, 8, 19.

So, you win, Jay. I guess he is inconsistent in the field. You don't know in any given year whether you're going to get Uribe's pretty good glove or his awesome glove.

Consider it more proof that Williams is still in love with his 2005 title creation, even if the mission is 2008. Uribe hit .234 last season. His on-base percentage: .284. He fields well enough, but the Sox needed to part ways and upgrade the shortstop position. Free agent David Eckstein might be wearing down, but he's in shape, his winner's attitude is infectious and he'd have been a worthwhile gamble as a much-needed leadoff hitter.

David Eckstein, 2007 WARP: 2.4
Juan Uribe, 2007 WARP: 3.9

David Eckstein: winning attitude, skinny.
Juan Uribe: fat, kills people(?).

First comparison: Helps determine what a player is worth.
Second ocmparison: Pretty irrelevant to a winning team.

Granted, Eck can lead off because of his above-average OBP, and the Sox need that, but it isn't worth giving up anything more than they gave to Uribe.

Too much of the '05 everyday nucleus remains intact.

Problem with the White Sox: Too many guys who won the World Series together are on the team.

Williams will be forgiven if he trades for third baseman Miguel Cabrera

What the fuck could he possibly trade for Miguel Cabrera? He'd have to eat the salary of anyone that gets paid significant dough, and the Sox farm system isnt exactly crawling with prospects. (Maybe the Marlins will take Jerry Owens....PLEASE TAKE JERRY OWENS)

And, much as this will rile the ancient and ready-for-retirement Hawk Harrelson, won't a .500 season further relegate the Sox to No. 2 team status around here?

1) Who cares
2) Taking shots at the increasingly senile Hawk Harrelson shows such great professionalism.

As a final thought, it seems that Pittsburgh's new general management is going to use statistics to valuate players. We are now down to zero (0) teams in MLB that would be better off if a Fire Jay Mariotti writer took over as GM. Rats.

This is Beginning to Get Insane......

Headline on MSNBC.com

Pirates' Dukes goes on disabled list, will have elbow tests Monday

Now that Tampa Bay doesn't want him, I guess he's the Pirates' problem now.

Seriously, even if this isn't a lack of knowledge, aren't there editors?

They've also got this closer, Salomon Capps.....

I wouldn't bring this up if it wasn't for that Gorzelanny blip from this morning, but....Bob Cook

Or, if we all agree Freddy Sanchez shouldn’t be Pittsburgh’s representative, Tom Gorzelanny. Better yet, Mike Capps, who was strong as a middle reliever for the Pirates, and has been even stronger as a closer since being promoted this month (seven saves in June).

Better yet, Jeff Wilson or Jerry Bay or Chris Ducky or Bryan Dummit or Andy Laroche would make worthwhile All-Stars for the Pirates.

Again....to clarify....the Pirates are still a Major League Baseball team.

Who's that guy....Gordonlenny?

I'm almost positive this was Karl Ravech that said this on Baseball Tonight (quote is not exact, but close).

Right now Freddy Sanchez the only Pirate on the roster, but Tom Gorzelanny, the reliever, could get voted in as well.

Reliever.

Guess how many relief appearances Tom Gorzelanny has this year.

I mean, I really should give these guys a break. They aren't paid to know stuff about the Pirates, they're just the number one baseball show on the number one sports network in America.

Anyone else think the show should be renamed to "YankeesMetsRedSoxCubsCardinals Tonight"? Or how about "Jose Reyes" tonight? Because in 3 months time, the show has promoted him from "Most interesting player in baseball" to "Most exciting player in baseball" to "Better than Derek Jeter" to "Only player in baseball worth ever talking about.....except for whats-his-name in San Francisco that nobody likes but is chasing some sort of milestone".