Neal Huntington discusses the Pirates' offseason

Here's a terrific interview with Neal Huntington. I already summarized bits of it at MLBTR, but here's the gist:

-P- At around 3:40, Huntington talks about how he integrates opinions from throughout the organization, presumably from scouts, analysts, coaches, and people like Jim Benedict (who did an interview with David Todd that David transcribed last night).

-P- At 5:05: "This is the deepest team, the most versatile team and the most talented team that we've had on paper in our eighth season here."

-P- At around 10:00, Huntington discusses his reasons for the Travis Snider trade. He thought Snider might not be with the team beyond 2015 anyway, and replacing him on the bench with someone who can be optioned (Snider couldn't) gave the Pirates additional flexibility, both in terms of roster manipulation and payroll. Meanwhile, the Pirates felt Stephen Tarpley and Steven Brault both had shots to be starters in the big leagues.

-P- On Jung-Ho Kang, at 12:50: "He recognizes he's the first professional Korean (position) player to come to the United States, and he understands that he's either going to open a pathway wide, keep it fairly narrow or maybe even close it if this doesn't go well."

-P- At around 15:00, Huntington says that the prices for "reclamation" pitchers went up to $10 million - $14 million this offseason, and that's one reason they signed Radhames Liz. I'm not sure what the $14 million figure refers to, but pitchers like Brett Anderson and Justin Masterson were in the $10 million range. Both of them are ground ball pitchers who probably would have been appealing to the Pirates, so my guess is that's who Huntington's referring to.