FanGraphs takes a closer look at Ross Ohlendorf’s arbitration case and concludes that he had a pretty strong case without ever using a metric more advanced than you’d use for fantasy baseball (ERA, WHIP, and K/BB). 

FanHouse’s Frankie Piliere ranked his top 100 prospects yesterday and two Pirates made the cut: Jameson Taillon at #24 and Tony Sanchez at #43. He seems to really like Sanchez, calling his bat not “too far from being Major League  ready.” I’ve tried to sift through his subsequent chat to see if any other Pirates came up, but I think Stetson Allie is the only Bucco that came up in the chat and Piliere says that he does think he’s got a chance to develop into a good starter.
UPDATE: Just asked Frankie about Rudy Owens on Twitter, he said he wasn’t one of his final cuts but that he was considered for the list and that he graded him pretty well when he pitched against Strasburg last year. Indianapolis is slated to come to Durham pretty early this year (May, I think) so hopefully I’ll be able to see him in some game action for myself.  

Vlad dug up this article that mentions Cesar Lopez and his 91-93 mph fastball and excellent change and slider. It’s from last April, so it’s a pretty good indication that he pitched at least a little bit last year. Hopefully the Pirates can get his visa issues ironed out and get him over to the States ASAP so we can figure out more about him. 

Sorry for the relative silence today. I have a post in my head about Joe Kerrigan I want to write, but after spending most of yesterday in airports, I’m all over the place today. Instead, I’ve got some links from fellow HEIST attendees about Saturday’s game.

One of the real highlights of the night for me (besides Pedro’s walkoff and getting to meet/hang out with/drink/sing Danzig with everyone, of course) was getting to share PNC Park, Primanti’s, Manny’s BBQ, Penn Beer, and the joys of Pittsburgh with out-of-towners. Pittsburgh is a damn good city and I’m always happy to make sure as many people as possible know about it.

• Here’s Rob Iracane from Walkoff Walk‘s writeup with more stories shared in the comments.
• Drew from Ghostrunner on First/Walkoff Walk nicely captured one of the night’s most improbable/memorable moments in the stands. Even if he did give me a lot of crap about Jose Bautista and refer to Carlos Garcia as an “ex-Blue Jay.”
• And Dave Brown from Big League Stew has a great recap as well.

OK. Time to focus on the Pirates.