Baseball's winter meetings kick off in Orlando todayish, depending on when all of the GMs make it to Orlando after what was presumably a terrible travel day yesterday. The Pirates have made a couple of small trades but done little else this winter. I suspect that that will end this week. We know that the Pirates need a first baseman, they can probably use a starting pitcher (either AJ Burnett or someone else, depending on the whims of AJ Burnett, I suppose), and a shortstop wouldn't hurt, either.
At this point, we have some idea of who they're interested in at first base with James Loney, Adam Lind, and Mitch Moreland coming up. You could probably add Logan Morrison to the list of possibilities since Garrett Jones just signed with the Marlins, but I think Morrison would be down with Moreland on the list of possibilities at this point. He's had a couple of really bad years in Miami, to the point that the Marlins apparently think that Garrett Jones is a better option.
On the pitching front, Neal Huntington told Ron Cook yesterday that AJ Burnett would be "the best free agent acquisition" the Pirates could make this winter. I think that's probably true (Burnett's peripherals suggest that 2013 was one of the best years of his career, despite hitting some rough patches in the second half and getting blasted off of the field by the Cardinals in the NLDS), but I have no real idea of what Burnett is inclined to do at this point in the off-season. The Pirates and Bronson Arroyo have apparently shown mutual interest, which is horrifying enough to make me want to fly to wherever AJ Burnett is and offer to make him beer for the rest of his life to avoid it.
The only other thing I'll say at this point is that while the Pirates have seemingly been pretty quiet this winter, they're certainly capable of doing something dramatic, should the right opportunity present itself. They probably won't be the team that trades for David Price this week, but they've got a deep farm system that would let them do pretty much anything they want under the proper circumstances.
In any case, I'll do my best to keep you updated on what filters out of Orlando this week. I do have to grade exams pretty much all day tomorrow, so you should probably just keep MLB Trade Rumors open in a browser tab and keep hitting refresh all week.
