Links for the most boring day of the year

It looks like eighth round draft pick and awesome name holder Dace Kime has decided to go to Louisville and not sign with the Pirates. Kime and his family blame the Pirates for “dragging their feet,” so Tim at BuccoFans takes a closer look (two links) at the situation and concludes that it’s possible that the MLB policy to hold approval for above-slot deals until later in July may have cost the Pirates here.

It’s certainly true that the Pirates have been more than willing to go out and pay for any draft pick they’ve wanted in the Neal Huntington era (remember that Tanner Scheppers was injured when they picked him), but if the Pirates really felt that MLB feet-dragging was holding them back, why didn’t they just make that clear to Kame? It’s unclear how much communication there was between the club and Kame after they came to their agreement last month, so maybe the Pirates did exactly that. Whatever the case is, it’s obtuse to blame the Pirates for being cheap or something here; they’ve spent a lot in each of the last two drafts and they’ve managed to convince several guys similar to Kame (even better-regarded in a few cases) to sign. It’s unfortunate he didn’t sign, but there’s a reason the Pirates drafted as many prep arms as they did this year.

Second, I wanted to mention that this from Dejan Kovacevic’s Sunday mid-season recap:

Busted investment: Iwamura’s $4.85 million + Ramon Vazquez’s $2 million + $3.3 million sent to Seattle for Cedeno, Clement and three modestly promising Class A prospects = Matt Morris’ salary.

But Charlie beat me to it with a great post that was wider ranging than what I was going to write. I will reiterate, because it needs said, that it’s really cherry-picking to toss the money paid to Seattle into this category for several reasons: because the Pirates were going to pay that money to Snell and Cedeno anyways; because Cedeno, even consider how bad he’s been at the plate, is not a heck of a lot worse than Jack Wilson and he’s cheaper, even with that money thrown in; and because the prospects we got from Seattle were better than people realize.

Finally, I just wanted to mention that if you paid me for a WHYGAVS shirt, I should be getting them into the mail tonight/tomorrow. Hope the slight delay isn’t too much of a problem.