There's still not a lot happening, though if my memory serves me correctly, trade deadline day rarely starts to heat up before lunch time on the East Coast. For now, what we've got is this:
Jayson Stark says that an Alex Rios trade today "doesn't look promising." He also says the Pirates' interest in Rios is "lukewarm."
Perhaps that has something to do with this Ken Rosenthal tweet, in which he mentions that in addition to Nate Schierholtz, the Pirates have an interest in the Cubs' David DeJesus. DeJesus is a decent defensive outfielder, a left-handed bat and generally an above-average hitter, without terrible years like Rios has had in recent seasons. He's not a power bat, but his career OBP of .354 would look nice at the top of a Pirate lineup that can occasionally fail to set the table for the big bats in the middle of the lineup. He's also much, much cheaper than Rios, which is, of course, a big plus. He's got a huge platoon split both this year and over his career. As useful role players go, I think I'd rather have DeJesus or Schierholtz than Rios and so it's no surprise that the Pirates' interest in Rios is cooling off.
Meanwhile, Jon Heyman says the Pirates are "not aggressively pursuing" Bud Norris, which is more an absence of news than it is news, but whatever, i's the trade deadline.
As always, let me drop a friendly reminder that MLB Trade Rumors is an invaluable resource on days like today. If you aren't already you should give them their clicks. I do my best to keep up with these things in real time as they develop on Twitter, but MLBTR is ridiculously helpful by curating everything that happens today in one place and creating an archive of pretty much everything that gets said anywhere.
Also, on the "as-yet-unidentified-reliever" front, there's this:
Pirates and Red Sox two of the teams sniffing on Padres reliever Luke Gregerson.
— Nick Cafardo (@nickcafardo) July 31, 2013
