Here's an interesting story on Bob Nutting at KDKA.com.

"In the past we have made mistakes that we needed to find a short-term patch – something to plug in trying to win right now, at the expense of really doing the right moves for the long-term future of the organization," explains Nutting. 

The short-term future doesn't look too good. So what we have apparently is another one of those five-year plans. And while Nutting won't call it that, he realizes it's going to take some time and he's not willing to compromise it. 

"That plan is in place and I really believe the worst thing we could do now would be to allow ourselves to get knocked off target because we're focused on a short-term goal or one year," says Nutting. "We need to be able to stay the course and frankly that would be maybe the hardest decision that we make as we're moving forward." 

My hackles raise whenever I read the words "five-year plan," mostly because it's typically used dismissively, to describe whatever the Pirates have been doing the past sixteen years to result in all that losing. Actually, the only kind of plan Dave Littlefield knew was the one-week plan, doing whatever it took to hold his job for a short time, and forget the future.

Leaving aside the absurdity of using a slogan to market a rebuilding plan to fans, a real "five-year plan" actually is the only real solution to the Pirates problems. The Pirates' management team really does seem to have something like a five-year plan, and we're now entering year two. Given the mess Littlefield left, particularly in the farm system, it really will probably take four more good drafts to fully restock the organization. 

-P- Here's a pretty funny chat with Nyjer Morgan:

jasbird9: If you could compare yourself to any other baseball player playing or retired who would that be?

nyjer_morgan: I think it would be Juan Pierre, but I have just a little more pop. 

I can't blame Morgan for trying, but actually he has less pop than Pierre. And what does it say about Morgan that even he thinks his closest comparable is a guy who finally played his way out of an everyday role this year?

Anyway, to again echo something I think Vlad said a few months ago, I really wish Morgan was a good player, because he comes across as a really cool person here.

-P- The Cardinals are closing in on a two-year deal with lefty specialist Trever Miller. This scares me, not because Miller's particularly good, but because he had 76 appearances and 46.3 innings in 2007, and 68 appearances in 43.3 innings in 2008. Now Tony LaRussa will be his manager. How many one-batter appearances is he going to have? And how long will games against St. Louis be?