-P- Some posters at OnlyBucs have noticed something weird - Pirates scouting director Ed Creech has hardly been getting any talent out of Southern California. That's strange because Southern California is the country's biggest hotbed of amateur baseball talent. To put it in perspective, Brian Giles, Jack Wilson, Craig Wilson, Freddy Sanchez and Jason Kendall are all from there. (Kendall was the only one of those players who was drafted by the Pirates.) So not only are the Pirates not getting anything out of the Dominican Republic or anywhere else in Latin America except Cuba, but they're not getting anything out of Southern California either. It's like they're intentionally avoiding places where they might accidentally run into too many good baseball players. Teams do, of course, specialize in scouting certain types of players, sometimes from certain geographic regions - the Braves draft an awful lot of Georgia prep prospects, for example - but that's not the same as just avoiding a fertile area almost completely, especially when you're not doing anything to pick up the slack.
-P- Baseball America gets in Andrew McCutchen's head.
-P- Baseball Prospectus reviews Tom Gorzelanny's recent start against the Dodgers.
-P- ESPN has a pretty fun interview with Twins reliever Pat Neshek.
-P- Sometime this weekend, one of you gave Bucs Dugout its 500,000th page view.