Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all! I hope you'ns all have Perez and not Kendall jerseys under your tree.
Mr. Evil, Scott Boras
Excellent piece on the awesome power that is Scott Boras over at
Management by Baseball.
Since the Pirates are a small market team, the Pirates are rarely directly impacted by the Boras effect. However, the escalation of salaries certainly filters down eventually.
In any event, Bucco backers better get familiar with Boras' tricks as Oliver Perez is a client.
Pro Bowl Steelers
6 Steelers were named to the pro bowl yesterday: Faneca, Hartings, Ward, Porter, Farrior, Polamalu. At the risk of being run out of town, I have to point out that Ward and Porter do not deserve the honor this season. Both are having good seasons, but Porter disappears for long stretches and is not back to his 2001-2002 level of play. Ward simply doesn't have the numbers this season to compare to the many great receivers in the AFC.
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let me say that Aaron Smith and Ben Roethlisberger both deserve a place in the game. Yes, I know that I just argued that Ward doesn't have the "numbers" then pointed to 2 players who also don't have pro bowl numbers. But QB and 3-4 defensive ends are 2 positions where statistics don't tell half the story.
Pirates and arbitration
Yesterday was the deadline to make contract offers to players elligible for arbitration. Players offered a contract had the option to accept the terms offered, or decline and enter binding arbitration to determine their 2005 salary. Players not offered a contract become free agents.
The Pirates offered contracts to all seven of their arbitration elligible players: Jack Wilson, Josh Fogg, Daryle Ward, Craig Wilson, Rob Mackowiak, Kip Wells, and Brian Meadows. This probably means that they won't be as aggressive as the recent past in pursuing non-tendered free agents.
Of the group listed above, only Daryle Ward has accepted thus far. Looking at the terms, who can blame him. I highly doubt he could have bested the $975,000 + incentive deal the Pirates offered him for 2005. The acquisition of Matt Lawton pretty much insures that Ward is nothing more than a bench player, therefore this offer puzzles me a bit. But it's better than giving a dime to Randall Simon, so maybe I should just bite my tongue on this one.
None of the other players has accepted their contracts yet, however Bob Dvorchak at the PG is reporting that Jack Wilson is close to signing for just under $4 million and Fogg is close to signing for about $2 million. Both of those figures seem to be about right to me, and I wouldn't be terribly upset about either of them. I'm not fan of Fogg, but I really hope he signs for $2 million as I'm afraid he might get upwards of $3 million in arbitration.
Assuming the Pirates don't do anything unexpected, the opening day lineup might look something like this:
Lawton - rf
Wilson - ss
Bay - lf
Wilson - 1b
Mackowiak - cf
Wigginton - 3b
Santiago - c
Castillo - 2b
Perez - p
I've only got one thing to say about that...
HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO.
