A big chunk of the team in Bradenton for minicamp today and it sounds an awful lot like the roster is mostly set at this point. Rob Biertempfel wrote yesterday that the Pirates are out of the running for Brian Fuentes, as Fuentes is apparently looking for a multi-year deal and the Pirates have no business giving a 35-year old reliever a multi-year deal.
That means the club will likely give long looks to Dan Moskos, Tony Watson, and Justin Thomas this spring in the name of having some kind of lefty in the bullpen. Huntington told Biertempfel that unless the starters don’t get better, having a situational lefty is kind of pointless. That’s true, but something about this whole thing isn’t quite sitting right with me. The Pirates have spent most of the winter doing stuff like signing guys like Kevin Correia and Lyle Overbay and Matt Diaz while sending players like Lastings Milledge to the plank in the name of being at least a little better in 2011 than they were in 2010. And then after all that, they DFA the only lefty likely to be useful to the bullpen in 2011 and will give his innings to three guys that are likely to be cannon fodder. At least they haven’t made a trade with the specific purpose of getting a lefty specialist from someone yet. **Crosses fingers**
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