The Pirates have acquired Class AAA first baseman Brian Myrow from the White Sox for cash or a player to be named. Myrow has long been at least a semi-interesting player because he consistently puts up stats that are a cut above that of your usual AAAA journeyman (although it would probably be unwise to think he's anything more than that, at this point). My first thought was that the Pirates were preparing to trade Adam LaRoche and perhaps promote Garrett Jones (or, I guess, Myrow himself, although that seems extremely unlikely) to the big leagues.

I'm not sure that's irrelevant here, but upon further investigation, there's probably no need for conspiracy theories. Steve Pearce was the Indians' regular first baseman, and he was recently called up; another Indy first base option, Larry Broadway, is currently hurt. And meanwhile, the losses of Andrew McCutchen (to Pittsburgh) and Neil Walker (to the DL) have Indianapolis scrambling for position players. There's really no one at Altoona who deserves a promotion right now, either. So the recent trades for Myrow and Chris Snelling are about minor league depth, and probably shouldn't be read as anything more than that.