With the Charlie Morton news out of the way, there's not much new going on in terms of actual player acquisition for the Pirates today. We learned this morning from Travis Sawchik that the Pirates are checking in on Johan Santana in their search for pitching this winter. There's part of me that wants to shrug this sort of news off (Santana missed all of 2011 after surgery on a shoulder capsule injury, pitched for part of 2012 before hurting his shoulder again, then missed all of 2013 after having the same surgery again), and there's another part of me that wants to run around yelling, "OMG JOHAN SANTANA!"
Anyway, I have no idea what Santana's shoulder looks like right now and I'd bet that his outlook for 2014 is not all that good, but PNC Park would sure be a nice place for him to prove to the world that he's healthy if that is, in fact, the case. Signing him wouldn't fill the Pirates' current need for a starter, but if his arm looks OK at this point and the price is pretty reasonable, this might be worth a roll of the dice.
On the first base front, the Mariners went out and acquired Corey Hart and Logan Morrison both today. That might mean that the Mariners will put Justin Smoak on the market, which would be interesting for the Pirates, or it might mean that the Mariners have no real plan this winter other than that Jack Zduriencik has determined that his job is in jeopardy and the roster that he ended 2013 with sucked. Certainly having both of these guys end up on the same team is good news for James Loney, since the number of clubs that want to sign him stays the same but the number of alternative options to him is smaller. I would've told you a week ago that his $10 million asking price was crazy, but I'm not so sure about that now.
