The PG, in the PBC Blog, has some comments from Nate McLouth, who still clearly carries a grudge against his old team.

A couple are pretty interesting. The significance of this one is almost certain to be missed in certain quarters:

It feels good to be in an organization that talks about the playoffs this year... and not have to talk about years down the road. It's good to have that feeling in spring training.

Obviously, this doesn't reflect well on the Pirates, and just as obviously it's nothing new. But what McLouth is saying here is that the players Neal Huntington has been ripped to shreds for trading away didn't expect to win. Yeah, that's right, for all the screaming everywhere from the PBC Blog to Bill Madden in his dimwitted column, the players themselves didn't think they made up a competitive team. If Nate McLouth and his teammates didn't think that team was going anywhere, why should Huntington have hesitated for a second to break it up?

There's also this:

(about finding out last fall he needed contact lenses) Guess they do [an eye exam in Pirates] spring training, but a blind man could pass that test. So I'd never really done a full eye exam. Got home a couple days after the seaosn ended and ended up getting contacts. It was kind of interesting to find that out when I got home. I noticed a problem. It has been a big help.

The Pirates' critics will no doubt jump all over this, and maybe they should. But note that the Braves, who should have done a physical before finalizing the trade, didn't catch the problem, either.