Pirates Should Still Be Hunting For Starting Pitcher

David Cameron looks at the value of starting pitchers signed to one-year contracts last offseason. The gist of it is that these players provided very, very good value (and, obviously, at very little risk). Guys like Erik Bedard, Brandon McCarthy and Bartolo Colon were big successes. There are still several candidates for one-year deals left on this year's market, so the Pirates should be looking for ways to avoid going into Spring Training with Kevin Correia still penciled into their rotation.

The Bedard-for-Paul-Maholm swap looks smart so far, but the Pirates can't just finish their work there if they really want to be better than they were in 2011 (at WTM has said at last a couple times). The back of the rotation is still a mess, and a team that's serious about winning shouldn't head into a new season with a pitcher as bad as Correia in the fifth starter spot. This is particularly true given that Bedard and Charlie Morton have serious injury issues.

Speaking of Correia:

When you hear about big market teams shying away from higher profile pitchers to scrape the bottom of the barrel for their back-end starters, realize that they’re not being penny wise and pound foolish, but they understand that there’s often not a lot of difference between the results you can get from a reclamation project versus a "proven veteran" that wants a multi-year deal.

Guess who he's talking about?