-P- Today, the Bucs announce plans to retire Paul Waner's number. Waner was a great player and he deserves to have his number retired, but the Pirates already have a player - Humberto Cota - who wears Waner's number. This, of course, shows what the Pirates think of Cota. Like Pat, I'm thinking that this and the Pirates' recent decision to have the whole team wear Jackie Robinson's number on Sunday suggest that the Pirates may already think this season is dead in the water.
-P- John Grabow will start a rehab assignment today with the Indianapolis Indians in Richmond.
-P- Wayback Wasdin is carefree about losing games for the Pirates. Well, as long as he's happy...
-P- Cleveland pitcher Jake Westbrook has agreed to a three-year, $33 million extension through 2010. This deal strikes me as defensible, but a little excessive. It's defensible because Westbrook would have been a free agent after 2007 and free agent starting pitching is incredibly expensive. It's excessive because Westbrook's margin of error is very low - he's one of the best pitchers in baseball at keeping the ball down, but his strikeout rate is already very low, and I'm afraid that if it drops much lower, he'll just be a mediocre pitcher. However, the Indians have a history of being ahead of the curve in dealing with contracts and player salaries, and maybe they foresee another huge players' market in the coming offseason. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here.
-P- John Perrotto just did a chat at Baseball Prospectus. A snippet:
John Perrotto: 1-Snell (I think this kid is vastly underrated)
2-Greinke (he gotten things back togehter)
3-Wainwright (he's very talented and showed his poise last October)
4-Cabrera (great, great stuff, but still hasn't put it all together)
5-Loewen (gotta love a lefty with potential)
6-Reyes (showed he could thrive on the big stage when he won the World Series opener)
7-Maine (not overpower but has a great feel for pitching).
What do you think? I think I'd put Snell at the top of that list as well.