Somehow, we managed to pick a week to come to Florida where the Pirates actually have an off-day. Since we’re actually staying about 90 minutes away from Bradenton (for the reasons I mentioned yesterday), heading to Pirate City to check out some minor league workouts and scrimmages isn’t really the best option (we’re making the drive twice for games), but we did drop by the complex yesterday just to walk around and see it with our own eyes. If you want action shots, Wilbur Miller was there over the weekend for the B-game between the Pirates and Orioles and got some great shots of prospects.
And a shot of the huge, huge facilities there that doesn’t even begin to capture the number or size of the fields:
Anyways, I’m headed for more beach-related activities today, but I have some links and some news to comment on.
First up is my big realignment opus on FanHouse, written in light of the floating proposal by Selig’s committee last week. Just trying to have fun with a few different ideas that aren’t very likely, but are always interesting to talk about.
Second, the first two rounds of cuts have happened since I got here over the weekend, sending Brandon Jones, Ramon Aguero, Ronald Uviedo, Gorkys Hernandez, Argenis Diaz, and Brian Friday down on Sunday and Donnie Veal, Brad Lincoln, Tony Sanchez, Bryan Morris, Jeff Sues, Justin Thomas, and Virgil Vasquez down yesterday. Aside from me wanting to see Lincoln and Sanchez in action while I’m down here, there’s not much to say about any of these moves. I thought Veal might have an outside shot at making the team as a lefty reliever, but both Javier Lopez and Jack Taschner have looked good so far, which gives the Pirates plenty of room to let Veal pitch in the minors. That’s certainly something he needs, so it’s good a couple other guys are pitching well enough to allow it.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
