J.D. Martinez Option number one is without question unrestricted free agent J.D. Martinez. The Giants are going to have to open up their wallet if they want to lure Martinez to the Bay Area, facing stiff competition from a number of potential suitors including the Boston Red Sox. Then again, the Giants were apparently prepared to […]

In case you're not following today's Pirates/Blue Jays spring training game, the Pirates used Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon back-to-back in the first four innings today. Cole struggled a bit in the first, but breezed through the second. Taillon was apparently awfully impressive in the third and the fourth, as it lead to this tweet […]

Your browser does not support iframes. On one hand, I want to tell you that spring training is very rarely ever worth getting excited about. On the other, I want to tell you that if you can't get excited about Gregory Polanco, I'm not sure you have a pulse. I love the way the color […]

Derek Jeter is playing the first spring training game of his final year today against the Pirates at Legends Field in Tampa after missing most of last season with various injuries. Because of that, MLB.tv will be televising the game. That's the headline. This is what you as a Pirate fan need to know: Gregory […]

The Pirates and Yankees will play their spring training game at 1:05 today. I'm always of two minds about this; I get really excited about the potential return of baseball, but then I'll also probably be bored with spring training games by Friday (excepting any games that I may see in person if I'm able […]

I'm a little behind the gun on this, but the Pirates made a small move on Monday that's probably worth talking at least a little bit about. They claimed Brent Morel off of waivers from the Blue Jays and, to make room for him on the 40-man roster, they designated Chase d'Arnaud for assignment.  Morel […]

With the start of real spring training actually approaching and a bunch of free agents that are tied to draft picks still unsigned, you've likely noticed that Scott Boras has ramped up his rhetoric in the past week about how much teams are overvaluing late round draft picks as compared to the free agents that […]

News is a bit hard to come by in the earliest days of spring training, but Wandy Rodriguez threw what seems like it was a successful bullpen session today and had some encouraging things to say about it. Pirates Prospects has video of Wandy's session and some quotes, so you should head over there to […]

Pitchers and catchers report today, so we won't talk about AJ Burnett again until he faces the Pirates in a Phillies uniform, right? Oh. I've got a snow day today, so I think I'm headed down into an Edinson Volquez worm hole this afternoon. 

The requisite information, which originally came from an Arkansas TV reporter: Hearing Arkansas native A.J. Burnett has reached a one year deal with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe mentioned in his weekend column yesterday that there's "mutual interest" between the Pirates and Kendrys Morales and that the Pirates would "love [Morales] on the right contract." I don't really expect much to come of this, if we're being honest. However much money Morales may cost, he'd also cost […]

It's been over a week since AJ Burnett announced his vague plans to return to baseball in 2014, and we still have no idea where he's going to pitch. Ruben Amaro Jr. told CSN Philadelphia that the Phillies are unlikely to sign Burnett, while

I'm sure that I've mentioned this more than once in the past, but when I was a really young kid one of my favorite things in the entire world was a VHS tape named The Battling Bucs: The First 100 Years of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The portion of the tape that covered the late 1940s and […]

Peter Gammons is reporting today that the Orioles are very interested in AJ Burnett and that the Rays have some interest in him as well. I won't pretend to know what's on Burnett's mind, but at this point it seems pretty unlikely to me that the Pirates will get into a bidding war for Burnett's […]

We're in Top 100 prospects week, and today's the day for Keith Law's list. He's got seven Pirate prospects on the list: Gregory Polanco (13), Tyler Glasnow (20), Jameson Taillon (27), Austin Meadows (35), Nick Kingham (73), Alen Hanson (74), and Josh Bell (98). You can read more about it at Pirates Prospects, since Tim […]

The relevant news: A.J. Burnett will return to pitch in '14, per source. Burnett will be open to pitching for a club other than the Pirates — Travis Sawchik (@Sawchik_Trib)

Clay Davenport has the first run of his projected standings up at his site this week, and I think they're interesting to look at since they're specifically geared to generate standings with scaled playing time, etc. He has the Pirates projected for 83 wins, which seems low until you remember that projections are always made […]