Notes: Tony Watson loses arbitration case

A few notes for Thursday:

• Tony Watson lost his arbitration case against the Pirates, and he’ll receive $5.6 million this year. He had filed for $6 million, so the difference of $400,000 was by no means a big deal, but maybe that chunk of money will end up helping the Pirates acquire someone at the trade deadline. Probably not, but you never know. Anyway, even with the arbitration loss, Watson is getting a nice raise, having made $3.45 million last year.
• All the Pirates’ position players except Eury Perez and Jason Rogers are now at Spring Training.
• Dave Cameron lists the Pirates’ re-signing of Ivan Nova as the fifth-best transaction of the offseason. He sounds a bit baffled by the price the Pirates got, and I share that sentiment.
• Thanks for your takes on who the Pirates’ MVP will be this year. There was, as it turned out, considerable diversity of opinion. Here they are: Rintintinsoldier (Jameson Taillon), Below the Mendoza Line (Gerrit Cole), The Tony87 (Gregory Polanco), BattlingBucs (Jose Quintana), HebnersGhost (Starling Marte), BuccoFan21 (Jung Ho Kang), Chiburgh (Taillon), Aarr! (Andrew McCutchen), IAPiratesFan (Marte), Grumbly1 (Marte), SpankySlaught (Polanco), 2010 Will Be the Year (John Jaso) and WTM (uh, Byung Ho Park).