18 Comments

They finally figured out the correct deployment for Williams... as the 41st roster spot, since they can waive him over and over again, and no one will claim him. He has permanent options unless he someday accrues enough service time to refuse a minor league assignment.

Expand full comment

So Connor Joe, a very comparable player to Pham and a great team guy gets 1.25 million with the Padres. Unbelievably Pham gets 3 million more. I have lost all confidence/respect for this front office

Expand full comment

I would have much preferred they bring Joe back to signing Pham. I like Joe, and if used correctly (i.e. only against lefities), he is the better player at this point.

Expand full comment

So here's my question: any chance that Joe didn't want to come back? He's originally from San Diego (Spanish for: A Whales Vagina), and his family lives in Arizona. Maybe he was hoping to be closer to home?

Expand full comment

Completely agree! And the fact that the Pirates seemed to be bidding against themselves for both Pham and Frazier, who I’m convinced both would have eventually settled for minor league contracts make it so much more confusing.

Expand full comment

When you look at the sequences of some of BC's bad signing, you just see a guy bumbling incoherently. Joe is basically the same guy as Pham, except he's much younger and has some upside if you use him correctly. BC could have kept Joe, but instead he paid more to get Pham.

Same with Santana/Tellez. Santana wanted to return, but BC had no interest. Instead he paid slightly less to get Tellez, who was a whopping 3.5 wins inferior to Santana.

BC's player moves seem to wander around as pointlessly and incoherently as his word salad interviews. I've come to the conclusion that the word salads mirror his thinking. He's just a dim bulb who's lost in his job.

Expand full comment

I just can’t seem to fathom that he is REALLY this bad. I mean, he can’t really be THIS bad, can he?? It can’t be this cut-and-dry. Other than the obvious budgetary constraints, there has to be something else at play here.

Expand full comment

I taught college for some years in the U.S., and I still edit academic essays as a a part-time job. I can tell you, from reading countless essays from both undergrads and professors, that word salad is always... always... a cover for incompetence and lack of knowledge.

Expand full comment

As soon as you hear the types of word salads so common from so many today, you know immediately that that person is an idiot who is trying to talk about something that they do not understand.

Expand full comment

More from "Baseball Wit and Wisdom" to get us past this next ice storm and around the corner to pitchers and catchers reporting next week:

"You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to 'Run forward! Bend! Scoop up the ball! Peg it to the infield!' Then your body says 'Who, me?'.

-- Joe DiMaggio

Expand full comment

Great news that Alika Williams cleared waivers. NO ONE HAS EVER SAID!

Expand full comment

Cleaning out the chest freezer. Threw a bag of crappie (fish) In my truck bed earlier this week to take to the dump. Ruined when Helene took our power for 9 days. Proceeded to get flu. Went out this am after several upper 70s days after feeling better. The bed smells pretty similar to the Pirates off-season. Enjoy your day.

Expand full comment

Hard to say whose off-season was worse, yours or the pirates.

Expand full comment

Nuttin probably had somebody follow him to grab the fish.

Expand full comment

Definition of dumpster diving. I was one of BC references.

Expand full comment

Sad thing is it's been less than a week. Theirs have been going on since 1993. The crappie were free besides my time. They actually spend $ (minimal) on the crap they obtain.

Id guess it's theirs Freddy my man.

Expand full comment

Cade Marlowe, Mariners and Alika Williams, Pirates both DFA'd, neither selected by another team, both sent back to AAA by their ballclubs. How about an exchange of them?

Expand full comment

Nutting approved this signing only because he misread the last name as Payless.

Expand full comment