Buccos need offense

By Jeff

The Pittsburgh Pirates are tied for first in the National League Central Division and are 19 games above .500 at 53-34. In short, they are one of the best teams in baseball right now.

That record doesn't scream that the team needs improvement, but this team's lack of offense could come back to haunt them in September and a potential playoff run. In the NL, the Pirates rank 12th in runs, 6th in home runs and 11th in average, on-base percentage and OPS (on-base plus slugging).

I get that pitching wins championships, and the Buccos have had excellent starting and relief pitching this season, but these low offensive numbers have to be a concern for the team and fans heading into the second half of the season.

Fortunately, general manager Neal Huntington and owner Bob Nutting have shown in the past few seasons that they are willing to take on salary in order to try and improve the team at the trade deadline. A few years ago they snatched up Derek Lee and Ryan Ludwick. Last year brought in Wandy Rodriguez. These moves didn't result in playoff appearances, or even winning records, but they showed that the organization recognizes that this team has an opportunity to punch a playoff ticket and are willing to make moves to help make it happen.

So here is the unoriginal blog post looking at potential options for the Pirates to grab by the trade deadline!

• Giancarlo Stanton, OF, Miami Marlins - There has been no indication that the Miami Marlins are willing to depart with their young stud, so I don't think this would ever happen. Then again, you can never trust what the Marlins say or don't say. Their owner is a joke. If he was available, the Pirates would have to part with a package or prospects including the organization's best in Jameson Taillon. The question is, would you prefer a man capable of 40 homers or a top of the rotation guy?

• Alex Rios, OF, Chicago White Sox - The team could certainly use a right fielder with some pop and his name has been circulating as a possible fit with the Pirates. He wouldn't require the team to give up much, but he would have a $12.5 million price tag next season. It could be a good move for the Pirates, but it depends which Rios they get. Do they get last season's star who mashed 25 home run, stole 26 bases and hit .304, or do they get the 2011 version of Rios who was arguably one of the worst players in the majors? Rios has been Jekyll and Hyde this year as well. Hew as very good the first two months of the season and was pretty miserable in June. He hasn't homered since June 9, so there is a risk that the Pirates wouldn't get the offensive boost they want.

• Howie Kendrick, 2B, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim - Neil Walker can't hit lefties (.196 average). Even when he does hit them, it's only for singles. Really, he doesn't have an extra-base hit against lefties this season. The Angels are disappointing again and have a valuable commodity in Kendrick at second. He also has a .325 average and almost .400 OBP against left-handed pitchers. He would be an expensive platoon with Walker but could help make a playoff push.

• Adam Lind, 1B, Toronto Blue Jays - This would be a risky move, but the reward could be great and the Pirates wouldn't have to give up much for Lind. The man will never replicate his 35-homer season of 2009. Lind is in a career-year, though,  and has been having a bit of a comeback season with 11 home runs and a .309 average. But a quick look at his history and you'll find he is just a slightly better version of Garret Jones. While he is hitting for a good average against lefties this year, he was absolutely terrible against them in 2012, and not much better in 2011. So at best you'd be getting another platoon player.

• Edwin Encarnacion, 1B, Toronto Blue Jays - Toronto spent big money this offseason, and just like the Marlins last season, they doing poorly (43-45). They gave up a lot of prospects in the offseason and could be looking for a way to replenish the farm. One person they could move is Encarnacion. He hit 42 home runs last season and already has 23 this year. He also tends to hit lefties and righties about the same. It is certainly worth a call to Toronto. If it comes back that they need Taillon in return, then hang up and call the White Sox about Rios.

• Kendry Morales, 1B, Seattle Mariners - Morales looked like he was ready to be a superstar in 2009. The switch hitter blasted 34 home runs and hit .306 for the year. He actually finished fifth in AL MVP voting. He was off to another good start in 2010, then he broke his leg celebrating a walk-off home run. It was such a bad break, he missed all of 2011. When he returned in 2012, the Angels had Albert Pujols at first and Mark Trumbo as DH or right field, so Morales saw less than 500 at bats. He still managed 22 home runs. This year he has 11 homers playing in a major pitcher's park in Seattle. The guy hits righties and lefties well and would be an instant upgrade over Jones and Gaby Sanchez at first.

• Chase Utley, 2B, Philadelphia Phillies - Just joking. I sincerely doubt the Pirates want a declining second baseman with major knee issues. Maybe if they take Brandon Inge off the team's hands, then they can start talking!

Pens bring back missing 'Piece'

By Jeff

Just when you think Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Ray Shero doesn't have any more major moves up his sleeves, he bitch slaps you and reminds you he's Ray "F-ing" Shero.

The Pens GM made a huge move yesterday by bringing back former Pens defenseman Rob Scuderi. You may remember Scuderi as the self-proclaimed "Piece".

While the nickname "The Piece" began as a joke during the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs, if you look at the Pens' lack of post season success since Scuderi left, it has a ring of truth to it.

Scuderi left after the Pens won the 2009 Stanley Cup. The team has not really had a shut down defenseman since then. Shero tried to shore up the blue line with Zbynek Michalek and Paul Martin, but after a good season, they both regressed. Michalek was shipped out, while Martin found his game again in 2013. But Martin is more of the puck-moving type and not so much the stay at home and do the dirty work kind of guy. Scuderi fills that void and makes the Pens a better team.

I have read in some places that people are concerned with the 4-year, $13.5 million deal that comes with a $3.35 million cap hit. I get it. Scuderi is 34 and will probably regress when he is 37 and 38. But I worry less about Scuderi and this deal than I do the Pascal Dupuis deal. Scuderi has never been a player that amazed you with speed. It's not his game. He plays a safe, stay-at-home type of defense. His game doesn't rely on speed. It relies on positioning, doing dirty work in front of the net, blocking shots and playing smart. When Scuderi loses a step, he'll have less of an adjustment to make than someone who relies on speed, like Dupuis or Kris Letang.

The $3.35 million cap hit is also a solid deal if you look at Cap Geek's comparables. Would you rather Scuderi at this price or Nick Grossman, Stephane Robidas, Andrew Ference, Ladislav Smid or Bryan Allen for similar costs. I'll happily take "The Piece" over any of those guys.

Now Shero needs to work a little more magic. While the team currently has a little less than $700,000 in cap space for next season, they have about $1.9 million in qualifying offers out there for Robert Bortuzzo, Dustin Jeffrey and the worthless Harry Zolniercyk. The popular thought I've heard is that Matt Niskanen and his $2.3 million salary will be moved. It's not a big deal if Niskanen is moved. He has had two solid seasons with the Pens, but nothing special. The team has plenty of talented defensemen in the system that will have to get a chance at some point. Why not now?

Salary cap questions aside, this was the right move for the Pens. How many teams would kill to have a top four of Brooks Orpik, Martin, Letang and Scuderi?

Pens extend Dupuis for $15M

By Jeff

The Pittsburgh Penguins took another step in keeping last year's gang back together. It was announced late last night that forward Pascal Dupuis agreed to a 4-year, $15 million contract with the team. The deal comes with a $3.75 million cap hit.

Of all the restricted and unrestricted free agents the Pens had heading into this offseason, Dupuis was probably the man fans most wanted to return.

Dupuis has become the type of player that defines this Pens team and coach Dan Bylsma's system. He works his ass off every shift, forechecks well, kills penalties and plays with speed. Even if this is all he did, and he was on the third line, the team and fans would be happy. But Dupuis has become a legitimate top line winger over the past few years. He has posted back-to-back 20-goal seasons and chipped in seven goals in this year's playoffs.

What may be the most impressive about Dupuis' scoring touch is that his goals come almost exclusively on at even-strength. Since the start of the 2011-2012 season, Dupuis has scored 45 regular season goals, 39 of which came 5-on-5. According to CBS Sports, only eight players in the NHL have scored more even-strength goals in that time period. They are: John Tavares, Evgeni Malkin, Steven Stamkos, Marian Gaborik, Jonathan Toews, Phil Kessel, Alex Ovechkin and Max Pacioretty. All of the above players have cap hits between $4.5 and $9.5 million, so Dupuis at $3.75 is certainly a discount.

Not bad for a man who was an afterthought in the Marian Hossa trade five years ago.

While we're talking about the Hossa trade, when are we going to start calling it the Dupuis trade? Hossa spent a few months in Pittsburgh and that team didn't win a Cup. Dupuis has been contributing for five years, will be around at least another four, and was a part of the team's 2009 Stanley Cup winner. I think it's time we make the name change.

The deal doesn't come without concerns, though. Dupuis and Kunitz definitely took less than they'd make on the open market, but now the team has almost $49 million tied up to nine players in 2014-2015. That leaves around $15 million for 11 more players if the cap doesn't move next year.

The cap will definitely go up in the future, but it may be awhile before it does so significantly based on James Mirtle's projections.

One also has to wonder if Dupuis, whose game revolves around speed, can keep that speed during the length of the contract. He is 34 and will be 38 when the deal is done. Hockey players seem to have more longevity than other athletes, but he plays a type of game that wears a player down. He hasn't shown signs of slowing down yet, so Pens fans have to hope he doesn't in the next four years.

Another question I have is how big of an influence Sidney Crosby had on this and the Kunitz deal? It's no secret that Crosby loves playing with Kunitz and Dupuis on a line and a part of having super stars on your team is keeping them happy. 

I guess the reasons don't really matter as long as these guys keep producing at the level they are. Considering both Dupuis and Kunitz will be playing on a line with the best player in the world, chances are they will and the team will continue to be a favorite for the Stanley Cup every year.

In shocking news, Browns can't do anything right

By Jeff

Can we all agree the Cleveland Browns are a pretty terrible organization?

Sure, they got lucky with Jim Brown, Otto Graham and Ozzie Newsome, but can you name a great player within their organization that has played in the past 30 years?

The last time the team won a playoff game was 1994. Even Bill Belichick couldn't make winners out of them, and he is considered to be the best coach today and one of the best ever in many circles.

Why do I bring this up? Because their new owner Jimmy Haslam is continuing the franchise's streak of laughable ineptitude. Haslam, who unfortunately had a small stake in the Pittsburgh Steelers for a bit, bought the Brown for a reported $1 billion last year, a fact which is hilarious in itself. Seriously, $1 billion for the Browns? Dude got fleeced.

Anyway, it wasn't long before reports came out the truck-stop chain Pilot Flying J, which Haslam is the CEO and chairman of, is being investigated by the FBI for rebate fraud. Now there is news out of Cleveland Plains Dealer that the company is $4 billion in debt.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that the NFL is not looking to remove Haslam from ownership, and Haslam claims that he can pay down the debt quickly. But would you believe a guy whose company is being investigated for fraud?

Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plains Dealer makes an excellent point in his column linked below. "...you like the owner of your team to have a steady cash flow and not a mountain of legal concerns."

Stories like these just make you're extremely thankful to be a fan of a team run by a family like the Rooneys, right?

Here is  the full story.

Gonchar, other NHL players lose millions to scam

By Jeff

This is a crazy article that Puck Daddy linked to today. Apparently, several current and former NHL players, including former Pittsburgh Penguins favorite Sergei Gonchar, were swindled out of a total of $25 million by their money manager.

The players and the money manager, Phil Kenner, claimed in the suit that their real estate investor, who was supposed to invest the money in golf courses, condos and hotels, instead spent it on "porn stars, escorts, strippers and party girls."

All four of those things sound like the same thing to me. Also, that is a ton of hookers. For $25 million, I'm imagining a golf course where the galleries are nothing but hookers and the real estate investor is the only one playing.

Turns out the lawsuit was brought on by Kenner and could have been a way to divert attention from the fact that he may have been stealing his clients' money.

It's a wild and fun read and you read the full story here.

Pirates win ninth in a row

By Jeff

Never count this Pittsburgh Pirates team out. For the second time in a week they were down heading into the eighth inning and again they got some timely hitting, tied the game and won in extra innings.

It's a feeling Pirates fans are not used to. The idea that this team is never really out of a game. When this team got down in the past, especially late in the game, there was little hope in a comeback. At least I never had any hope of a comeback. Maybe that speaks more about me as a fan, but I doubt I was alone with my line of thinking.

Sunday's 2-1, 14-inning, win against the Milwaukee Brewers perfectly illustrated how this team has played all year and is the reason the Pirates will break the losing-season streak (That's right, I said will). Their pitching was great. They didn't give up an earned run in 14 innings of play. After a lengthy delay, unlikely bullpen stud Vin Mazzaro pitched five perfect innings and five other relievers combined to pitch seven more shut out innings. The effort was topped off by Tony Watson pitching a perfect three innings to get the win.

Combine that with just enough offense to get by, including Andrew McCutchen's two-out RBI single in the bottom of the eighth inning to tie the game. We won't linger of Brandon Inge striking out with the bases loaded in the ninth. We're just staying positive here.

It's times like these I'm saddened that I'm living in Philadelphia and can't be at PNC Park to experience this team first-hand. Oh well. This run is still enjoyable, and it will only get better as the team gets closer to meaningful September baseball.

Some other quick thoughts swirling in my head:

• I'm a huge Pascal Dupuis fan, but even I am a little concerned if the Pittsburgh Penguins give him a 4-year deal. He's 34 and a big part of his game relies on speed. What happens if he loses a step after a few years? The man works his ass off, and others have defied age in the past, but I still worry.

• Things just keep getting worse for Aaron Hernandez. If he goes to trial for three counts of murder, does this become the biggest off the field sports story since O.J.? Or is it already?

• How many of you back in August thought that the Pittsburgh Steelers would have had a .500 season and the Pirates would have the best record in baseball? The answer is none.

• With no Letang trade, and therefore no early picks for the Pens, the NHL draft was pretty boring for Pens fans. I know nothing about any of the players drafted. While they addressed an organizational need with goalie Tristan Jarry in the second round, Jarry won't be in the NHL for years and is in no way a threat or message to Marc-Andre Fleury.

• I was shocked the Vancouver Canucks moved Cory Schneider to the New Jersey Devils for only a first-round pick (No. 9 overall). Reports out there had Edmonton offering the No. 7 pick, a second-round pick and Devan Dubnyk for Schneider, but the Canucks didn't want to trade within their division. While the Devils still won't have any offense this year, they probably just solidified their goaltending for the next decade, which is bad news for the Pens.

• "This is the End" was a pretty hilarious. I probably would have enjoyed it more if the theater I saw it in didn't have a burned out bulb. I seriously couldn't see the right side of the screen if it was a dark scene. And there were a lot of dark scenes. The movie also dragged on a bit. They could have cut out 15-20 minutes and it would have been a better movie.

•  Bob McKenzie is tweeting that Cam Neely would like to reprise his roll as Seabass for the "Dumb and Dumber" sequel. I didn't even know that was Cam Neely. He didn't seem to limp in the movie.

• If you hate the New York Yankees and Alex Rodriguez, you have to be loving the bickering going back forth between the two sides. I get that the Yankees still owe A-Rod around $100 million, but considering how drastically his production is falling and how injury prone he has become, they should rid themselves of this headache.

• The eighth season of "Dexter" kicked off last night and continued the downward spiral the show started in Season Five. It's just one episode, but nothing in it got me excited for the rest of the season.

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Letang deal not official, Kennedy confused by trade

By Jeff

Just when it sounded like the Kris Letang deal was done, Rob Rossi of the Tribune-Review reports that there is a bit of a hiccup. Apparently, Letang and his camp want some kind of agreement that the Pens won't trade him next summer.

This sounds like a very minor disagreement and it's doubtful the deal falls apart on account of it. Here's a thought for Letang. Don't suck in the playoffs next season and you'll pretty much guarantee that you won't be traded. How about the Pens agree not to trade him if he promises not to pinch in the first minute of a game and he will not try to pass the puck out of the zone through the middle from behind the net. Let's get it done.

In other Pens news, Tyler Kennedy is gone. The third-line winger was sent to San Jose for a second-round pick. And Kennedy is very confused about why he was moved and why he didn't get more ice-time in the playoffs.

"I thought I had a great playoff, and I'm kind of stumped. I'm really kind of lost why they didn't play me more," Kennedy told the San Jose Mercury. "I think I'm a great player, and I'm not sure. You'd have to ask them, I really don't know."

One thing you can say about Kennedy is he has never lacked confidence. Sometimes you get the idea that he thinks he is a star in this league. Unfortunately for him, and the Pens, he is not a star. Skating down the right wing and slapping the puck into the goalie's chest or skating around the net doesn't make you a great player.

At the time, there are some great memories of Kennedy as well. When Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin had season ending injuries halfway through the 2010-2011 season, Kennedy stepped up and provided the offensive spark the Pens needed to make the playoffs. He had a career high 21 goals and looked like he was ready to break out. But that season was the exception and not the rule when it came to Kennedy, as he regressed back to being Tyler Kennedy the past two seasons.

The other fond memory of Kennedy is his goal in Game 4 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals. The whole play was a thing of beauty and Kennedy was a big part of it.




While that 2010-2011 season and that Stanley Cup goal were great moments for Kennedy, he didn't have enough of them. The consistency was never there and that $2 million salary could be used to help sign Pascal Dupuis. Moving Kennedy was the right thing to do.