Jayson Stark is a very good writer. Well, aside from his love for the Philadelphia Phillies that he doesn't even try and hide. The way he portrayed Roy Halladay's no-hitter in the postseason last October was kind of ridiculous. You would have thought Halladay just split the Red Sea and then cured Polio with the praise Stark threw on him. And I'm a huge Halladay fan.
In his most recent column on ESPN.com, Stark and a dozen baseball "sages" broke down the offseason's biggest winners, losers, spenders, etc. The Pittsburgh Pirates were No. 3 when it came to most unimproved team in the NL and were No. 1 as the least recognizable team in the NL.
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| Is he looking at me or you? |
I wish I could argue with either statement, but I can't. The Pirates' big offseason acquisitions were Lyle Overbay, Matt Diaz, Scott Olsen, Kevin Correia and Joe Beimel. What? You're not excited about that bunch?
It looks bad – and it will be bad this season – but the Pirates just aren't going to improve the lineup with free agents until they have a viable starting rotation. They are spending in the draft and hoping they will have a strong core of young pitchers in a few years. It worked for the San Francisco Giants.
I'm a little surprised the Pirates came ahead of the Kansas City Royals and as the most unrecognizable team. The Pirates actually have a few guys that people have heard of across the country in Andrew McCutchen, Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker (to an extent). Once the Royals shipped off Zack Greinke they became a pretty anonymous team. Billy Butler, Luke Hochevar and Joakim Soria are the only guys on their team I can name.
Do you agree or disagree with the voters?
The Pixies - Gigantic
The Pirates should have been lower on unimproved list. In addition to the Mets and Astros, I think you have to add the Padres (when you lose a premier slugger, you are not better), the Reds (points for locking up their young guys but they did nothing else) and the Dodgers (because their moves did nothing more and they wasted $45 million to lock up the services of Ted Lilly and Matt Guerrier). Should the Pirates start planning a parade, no, but I hardly think they are the third most unimproved team in the NL.
ReplyDeleteStark is a Philly-homer but he has never really tried to hide that fact. Buster Olney would like you to think that he himself is unbiased, but he is the biggest-Yankee homer out there. Saw him on BBTN today, going on about how the Phillies lineup is old, which is true, but he was completely ignoring that most of the Yankees key guys are getting up there in age as well