I’m working on the WHYGAVS Glossary, but right now it’s just a messy jumble of terms and definitions that keeps getting bigger and bigger. Hopefully I can get it refined and cleaned up and online by some time tonight.
This morning let’s do open question time. I did a Q&A with Simon On Sports last week and one of the questions was about free agency. I kind of shuffled it off with a John Lackey joke, but the honest truth is I’m not sure who I think the Pirates should be going after in free agency this year. They’ll probably take a look at Rick Ankiel and I can get on board with that. I think Carl Pavano might be a cheap source of good innings for a National League team. I’m not sold on Khalil Greene, but I guess maybe Nick Green or John McDonald could possibly provide an all-glove substitute to Ronny Cedeno at shortstop. Marcus Thames could make a nice platoon partner for Garrett Jones.
Even there, I feel like I’m stretching. I know the Pirates are going to spend money this off-season, I’m just not sure who on this list that would be a productive signing considering that a team in the Pirates’ situation is much better served by giving at bats to guys like Milledge and LaRoche and Clement than it is signing a stop-gap to fill their positions. The stop-gaps will always be available, but we need to know about these players now. The Pirates could certainly afford to do something like the Brewers did with Mike Cameron, but that’s a much less valuable move for a team further away from contention. So who on the free agency list should the Pirates be interested in? Why?
