Christmas is one of the few times of the year that I can relax without having to be on-call for this job. Typically, MLB shuts down for a few days, as a lot of people are celebrating holidays.
We provide content during this time, as not everyone celebrates Christmas, or a holiday at this time of year. For some of us, the holiday is the brief vacation from the world religion of Capitalism.
Me being the money-hating businessman that I am, I decided to sleep in today and get the site’s weekly production schedule off to a late start. I’ll have my latest First Pitch later today, and we’ve got some interesting articles for tomorrow’s drop.
For now, I know a lot of people were busy over the weekend. Here’s what you may have missed.
Transactions
**The Pirates acquired RHP Scott Randall for Diego Castillo
**The Texas Rangers claimed Nick Mears.
Winter League Updates
**In this week’s Pirates Winter League Report, John Dreker features right-handed pitcher Brad Case, along with the weekly rundown of winter league action.
**Minor league Rule 5 pick Josh Palacios picked up a pair of hits.
**Andres Alvarez is now leading the league in Colombia in hitting.
Pirates Prospects Updates
**Ethan Hullihen provided a payroll update, recapping where the Pirates are at this point in the offseason.
**Anthony Murphy looked at Alexander Mojica’s unique situation going into 2023.
**I looked at whether it really would have been better if the Pirates won more games in 2022.
**We picked what baseball gift we would like to receive in a Christmas Day Roundtable.
**In this week’s Pirates Discussion, Jeff Reed looks at how the Pirates are bridging to their prospects compared to the last time a big wave of prospects hit in 2016.
Highlight of the Day
If any of you are dragging today, here’s a nice, long highlight video to get you going.
Song of the Day
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
March 20th, 2018
Last day in Sarasota,
6:30PM FLT out of TPA
Pirates were rained out at LeCom an 11AM Start
Hard rain clearing around 2
Call PC, lady was nice as could be
” Pirates are done for the day, which turns into
intersquad day here, you should get moving
they have a 230-5 window
AAA vs the rest”
Clemente field, 1st on left
no one there as usual
There’s 5 of us, a couple scouts and a few autograph seekers
Meadows hit a BAZ heater up in the zone the OTHER WAY
over the entrance road into a creek
My buddies teen age son finds this muddy baseball
Remember place is empty, They see Jacob wiping off the ball
Meadows a few minutes later:
“is that the ball i just hit?”
yup
“Did it make the creek?”
yup
As Baz warmed, I was standing behind the backstop as a scout sat down with a gun, its highly unlikely i’ll see a 100 mph from that distance again
Reynolds just turned 23 with zero games in the uppers,
13 months later in the BIGS
Looked like he was 16
If the above trip down memory lane
minus Meadows and Baz has turned into Fort Knox
I have zero reason to go, that was the best kept pirate treasure
period
Someone told me the Pirates may move big league portion of Pirate City to LeCom this February.
Say it ain’t so.if you can look into this Tim, it would be appreciated.
I may be misremembering, but I thought they moved the ML activities to LECOM earlier than in the past in 2022. LECOM has some training facilities it didn’t use to have.
Sucks for fan access, but the Pirates make very clear in Bradenton that they consider their fans a nuisance at best. Their attitude is markedly different at MiL facilities compared to all the other teams whose facilities I’ve been to in FL. There’s a reason I have zero respect for the people running this team. They have nothing but contempt for their fans.
I’ve only been to one other organization’s facility, the Orioles in Sarasota, but I would absolutely put them way ahead of the Pirates in terms of fan friendliness. I was at a FCL game at PC when a foul ball landed between the two southern fields. When a fan, an adult male, picked it up, someone from the Pirates approached him and politely said “I’ll need that back, it costs $14.” I and the fan were both stunned.
2 years ago closed to fans at Pirate City because of Covid.
Last year closed because they didn’t want scouts checking out Rule 5 which was then canceled. They have always had the 1st 10 days at Pirate City with major league squad.
Going to LeCom would be kick in the teeth. Have to pay for parking somewhere and probably charge admission.
Pirate City with close up behind batting cages etc. was a great friendly atmosphere with the players.
Just a s**t organization Wilbur.
You could watch four games at a time and even interact with players and coaches on occasion. It was a pretty cool experience. I haven’t been there in probably 15 or 20 years though.
You’re telling me.
Here’s an example, just one of many I could relate.
The four fields at PC were all accessible to visitors until this FO came in. Now, the central area is roped off, which blocks viewing access to the two northern fields. During MiL spring training, there are always two games. At least one of those games is always played on one of the northern fields, sometimes both.
Last year, when the Orioles were at PC, a group O’s parents came to see their kids. Naturally, their kids were on one of the fields with no access. They didn’t take it well (the O’s don’t do that kind of crap) and called somebody with the O’s, who called somebody with the Pirates. So the O’s parents got let in to see their kids, but that just incensed the Pirates’ fans, who weren’t able to access the other game.
So, yes, this is a s*** organization.
I didn’t witness this incident so I can’t vouch for whether it really happened. Another fan told me Travis Swaggerty’s wife went to PC to watch him in a MiL spring training games last season but the AAA game he was in was on the inaccessible field and they wouldn’t let her in to watch it.
That’d be just like them.
Part of the problem is that they have PC staffed by hired security who aren’t briefed on basic stuff like where people with media passes are allowed to go. They basically act like bouncers. When they run into problems, they can’t even contact anybody with the team to figure it out. All of the other facilities I’ve been to are staffed by team employees who act like it’s good that you’re there.
I am thankful that they finally put an ‘X’ on the AdChoice video box. 🙂
Best. Christmas. present. Ever! 🤑🤑
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas surrounded by the people you love, doing the things you enjoy doing.
Now that the countdown to Christmas is over, let the countdown to Pitchers and Catchers reporting begin. I believe it’s 50 days. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Tim was late because he was making quite merry yesterday and it won’t happen again. Christmas comes but once a year. He promises to be here all the earlier tomorrow
Karl Marx birthday doesn’t happen to fall the same time, does it?
I have a feeling that by the end of my life, the name Tim Williams will be as synonymous with anti-Capitalism as Karl Marx. A key difference is that I’m not pushing for any “isms”. I just know that I will die young under this current system. I’m 39, and 35 years of my life have been a stress to get a job and make as much money as possible. I’m not going to do this for 30 more years. I’m winding down now. The only way to extend my life beyond my 40s would be a universal basic income.
Every living thing faces stress whether it is a blade of grass or an animal in the forest or a human trying to support their family or dealing with a life- threatening illness. You have chosen the path in life you wish to travel, if it isn’t what you are happy with try another path.
Obviously, you believe there is some socialist world that will be stress free. You have no idea of human nature.
My neighbor has two mango trees in her backyard. One is two stories high. The other is a younger tree, but producing fruit. At the end of the summer, I watched her bring in someone to trim and shape the tree.
In the process, the person cut branches off of the tree. Some of them were small branches, but some were big arms. In a way, the living tree had to feel that. At the end, the tree was managed for future growth. It was left bare with all of its wounds on display, but from the surgery you could see that this tree would now grow in a way to match the older tree in the yard.
I’ve thought about that tree almost daily this year, as I’ve watched it heal and grow in a new unified direction. I’ve had a few haircuts since then. I wonder if the tree’s pain is more along the line of a haircut. I’ve also been exercising more, focusing on alignment and posture, and I wonder if the tree’s pain is in the same deeper, structural nature. All things adjust to their new setting eventually.
I’ve looked around to all of the fully grown trees that surround this young tree, and when you look closely at each one, you can see scars from wounds of their younger days. Every tree is trimmed for future growth. The gardener has fears of growing too much in one direction or another, which could put the tree off balance. Too many branches on the tree will lead to a lack of resources flowing to the leaves needed to produce flowers and fruit in the dryer months. In the end, we trust that the gardener knows best for the tree, as evidence by the fully grown trees. And still, part of me questions whether the gardener is making the decisions on the younger tree, based solely on what he sees from every older tree. My dog was barking, and I had to take him inside. The gardener was gone when I got back, so I didn’t get a chance to ask about his strategy. I haven’t had a chance to ask my neighbor, either.
I stare at this tree every day of my life. It makes me think about our role. What would the tree be, without the guidance of the gardener? Shorter and more expansive, like a tree in an orchard? Would the tree even exist, in the direct center of my neighbor’s yard? Is that our true role in life, to be gardeners of this planet, living off the fruit it produces? And what is the urge we all have to grow taller? Is it because we all have our branches systemically clipped at a young age to provide for vertical growth? Who is the gardener who decided that all trees should grow in the same way? And what is the fruit that we actually provide?
I could go on with my answers to those questions. This was actually just a warmup for my writing session tonight, after taking the day off. Your “every little thing faces stress” made me think about the younger mango tree. I spend my life thinking about the cause and effect of inevitable stressors that this world provides. In the end, we’re all the tree, subjected to the shaping of the gardener. In this world, the gardener is Capitalism.
I deal more in philosophy than religion. I find people who deal in religion see the world through movements. My entire world view is based on my immense knowledge of human nature. I’m cursed with that.
I don’t actually think there’s a socialist world that is stress free. Again, just because I hate capitalism doesn’t mean I’m a socialist. That’s capitalist propaganda to attack competing systems when capitalism is attacked. I do think parts of socialism would be better. Really, I just think we should abolish money completely.
My only real path in life is toward death, and my only real goal is to explain what I know of human nature before I get there.
I’m wrong because I am not allowing for others to follow their minds and thoughts. I have just adapted to life as I found it and never really questioned it.
When I was a young man, I fell into a career, it paid well, and I never looked back. I grew up in abject poverty and when I found this work, I never went hungry again, it put a nice roof over my head and money in the bank. I can’t say I loved my work but never having to be poor again I was satisfied.
So, I guess in the future I have to understand we all come from different lives and experiences, and I have to be more tolerant of others needs and wishes .
I’m historically late. I never promise to be early.
But do you promise to never be early?
It feels like no one knows I was directly quoting Bob Cratchett. I watch four versions of A Christmas Carol every year. The lines are stuck firmly in my brain
That explains a lot. But hopefully, one of them is Mr McGoo and another is Scrooged.
I’d avoid Finney’s and Scott’s.🤓🤓🤓
I watch the 1935, 1938 and 1951 versions, as well as the Disney one released in 2009
No McGoo? That’s the best one of all.
I have watched it, but I never see it on TV. I thought about it and I technically watch five, but I never lump Bill Murray’s Scrooged in with the others.
I see your point with Scrooge. Here’s Mr McGoo online. We old folks know how to find these things.
https://vimeo.com/245264831