I got the chance to talk to both Huntington and Coonelly one-on-one at Piratefest about some stuff already covered on here (CBA thoughts, Latin American, offseason signings, etc). Nothing new on those fronts but I did come away with two interesting things from those conversations. One, Huntington has in fact been in contact quite a bit during the offseason with the Mariners about trying to acquire a 1st baseman for them via trade. He said they discussed trades with both Justin Smoak or Mike Carp coming to the Buccos to play 1st. He also said to me he is not ruling out a possiblity that they do end up with either Smoak or Carp via trade and that they still are discussing potential deals with the Mariners. Second, I asked just out of curiosity if he put in a bid for Darvish and he got a good smile and chuckle out of it and said "great question, but no we did not. but WE DID IN FACT CONSIDER PLACING A BID FOR HIM". Then with Coonelly, he told me that they have been looking at swinging a deal with the Mets for Lucas Duda to play first for the buccos. He said they did not even consider Ike Davis because they knew the asking price in return would be, as he called it, "a king's ransom". Feel free to comment on this stuff I got from Frank and Neal