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Pittsburgh Pirates

Mario LemieuxMario Lemieux, Pittsburgh hockey legend and two-time savior of the Penguins (both as a player and then an owner), recently made a bid with Penguins' co-owner Ron Burkle to buy the Pittsburgh Pirates from the team's current ownership group, lead by West Virginia newspaper man Bob Nutting. While some characterize the Lemieux group's bid as "serious," Nutting brushed it off when asked about it last night by simply saying that the team isn't for sale.

It's the same answer Nutting has given in the past when asked about the status of the Pirates. Billionaire Pittsburgh native Mark Cuban has also made rumblings about buying the team, though nothing serious has come of that recently either. The Pirates are, of course, frequently targeted for this type of conversation both because they haven't had a winning season since 1992 and perennially have among the lowest payrolls in baseball.
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Matt CappsWith Saturday night's midnight deadline to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players, it was widely anticipated that at least a few productive players would be non-tendered and added to the free agency pool. Jack Cust, Chien-Ming Wang, Johnny Gomes, and Kelly Johnson were all players who looked to be the odd men out with their teams and all four of them were among the non-tenders last night.

That doesn't mean there weren't surprises, though. The Pirates non-tendered Matt Capps, their closer, despite prior assurances from general manager Neal Huntington that he would offer a contract to all three of his arbitration-eligible players (Ronny Cedeno signed and Zach Duke did receive an offer from the team). Capps was coming off of a bad year, and it was expected the team would shop him this winter, but the non-tender left even beat writers stunned.
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INDIANAPOLIS - Of all the names involved with the NL Central, two in particular stuck out during the Winter Meetings. The path the Cubs and Cardinals will lead this offseason will be forged based upon what happens with Milton Bradley and Matt Holliday, respectively. Some expected concrete things to happen at the meetings, but nothing of the sort emerged. The Cubs still desperately need to trade Bradley and the Cardinals are still holding out hope they can retain Holliday.

Meanwhile, there were a handful of other moves in the division. The Cardinals signed Brad Penny, seemingly to take Joel Pineiro's spot in the rotation. The Pirates signed what's left of Bobby Crosby. The Astros lost LaTroy Hawkins and possibly Jose Valverde, but added Matt Lindstrom, Brandon Lyon and Gary Majewski. They also signed Pedro Feliz at the last minute to fill a need at third base.
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INDIANAPOLIS -- Wednesday afternoon at the annual Winter Meetings, the eight managers who had not yet given an interview session took the podium to field questions for a half-hour from in-house media. Eighteen others had already been there on the previous two days -- we posted about these sessions for both Monday and Tuesday -- and Joe Girardi, Joe Torre, Ron Gardenhire and Charlie Manuel were not present.

• Even if the Rockies let Jason Marquis walk -- which they probably will, though it's been reported they are open to bringing him back -- they are incredibly wealthy with starting pitching. Manager Jim Tracy discussed a strong five-man rotation of Ubaldo Jimenez, Jeff Francis, Aaron Cook, Jorge de la Rosa and Jason Hammel, but also mentioned the options they have in Esmil Rogers, Jhoulys Chacin, Samuel Deduno and Greg Smith. Smith in particular seemed to excite Tracy, in terms of how he'll come back healthy in 2010. Remember, the 24-year-old left-hander had a 4.16 ERA in 190 1/3 innings for Oakland in 2008. Simply put, there is absolutely no need to spend the money they'll have to in order to retain Marquis.
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Footprints in the Snow: Pirates

By Pat Lackey 11/17/2009 10:00 AM ET

Andrew McCutchenFootprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.

The Pittburgh Pirates wrapped up their record 17th consecutive losing season last month by avoiding 100 losses with a rain delay. During the season, they traded away four Opening Day starters, plus two starting pitchers and two of their better relievers. It might be easy to say that the Pirates have their work cut out for them this offseason if they want to avoid losing season No. 18.

It's not quite that straightforward, though. The team does have a pretty solid core of youngsters, so anything they do this winter has to be accomplished without blocking players like Lastings Milledge and Andy LaRoche from getting at-bats so that the team can accurately assess just what they have in those players.

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Ross OhlendorfOnce the baseball season ends, most players (or at least the ones that don't play winter ball) do everything they can to enjoy the few months of downtime they get with their family and friends before the rigors of spring training and regular travel begin again in February. Pirates' pitcher Ross Ohlendorf is a little different. After his breakout year with the Pirates in 2009, he's spending the early part of his winter break on an internship with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And he's writing a blog about it.

Ohlendorf is already well-known to some baseball fans because of his college career. He went to Princeton, where he wrote his senior thesis on sabermetrically evaluating major league teams' first-round draft picks over a set period of time. So he's obviously a smart guy, and he's never been afraid to admit it. In fact, he sounds pretty excited about this internship. Click after the jump to read part of his first (and so far, only) post.
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In a surprising piece of mid-World Series news, the Tampa Bay Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates have agreed to a trade this afternoon. Tampa will send second baseman Akinori Iwamura to the Pirates in return for relief pitcher Jesse Chavez. According to the same report by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (who broke news of the Pirates' involvement in the trade after the St. Petersburg Times first reported an Iwamura trade this afternoon), no cash or other players are involved.

Iwamura, 30, is due $4.25 million in 2010 and the emergence of Ben Zobrist makes that a price the Rays clearly weren't eager to pay for a player who'd likely be a utility man for them in '10. The Pirates, however, are looking to add payroll after cleaning house last year and have a gaping hole at second base, so Iwamura is a logical addition for them.
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Pittsburgh Pirates fansStarting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
One team has 100 defeats, two more could follow -- and there could even be a record-tying four 100-loss teams.

The Nationals on Thursday fell to 52-100 with their 7-6 loss to the Dodgers. And the Pirates are 56-95 after a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Reds.

Anyone want to bet Pittsburgh -- 3-23 since Aug. 28 -- goes better than 6-5 in its final three series against Los Angeles, Chicago and Cincinnati?
More Coverage: Scoreboard | Standings | Statistics

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There is a perfect storm of sorts going on in Pittsburgh this week. The Pirates have lost 22 of their past 25 games (and are in the process of losing number 23 as I type this), which is the worst streak for the franchise since well before the turn of the 20th (not 21st) century. Meanwhile, the city is hosting the G-20 Summit, which has resulted in a huge spate of business and school closings in the downtown area as the city ratchets up security for the visiting heads of state.

The result is a crowd at Thursday afternoon's Pirates-Reds game that is so small, the entire upper deck at PNC Park is closed. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dejan Kovacevic has some pictures of the empty park on his blog; he estimates that the actual attendance as the first pitch was thrown may have been below 200 people (UPDATE: apparently, attendance climbed during the game a bit to around 2,000, per both Kovacevic and MLB.com beat writer Jen Langosch)
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The Pittsburgh Pirates are playing some terrible baseball right now. They've won just three games in September, just 12 games since Aug. 1, and are 20-50 since July 1. After emptying their roster in late July, their lineup has been composed mostly of players that only have an opportunity to play regularly in the majors because the Pirates exist.

These players, with the possible exceptions of Garrett Jones and Lastings Milledge, obviously haven't made much of the opportunity afforded to them by the Pirates' firesale. Monday, word got out that they don't seem to be too worked up about it either. When GM Neal Huntington went around the clubhouse looking for winter ball commitments, he got an apathetic response from most players. In fact, John Perrotto is reporting that not one American player on the Pirates has agreed to go to Latin America for the winter.
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