With some time to kill this afternoon between different rounds of lab work and the UNC/Oklahoma game, I took some time to wander down to Boshamer Stadium and took in about three innings of the UNC/Virginia game and take some pictures. I mean, a chance to watch Dustin Ackley in action and see some live baseball? Who wouldn't want that? I had to leave after the third inning, which meant that I missed out on UNC's victory via the ever-so-rare walkoff beaning, but I did get a chance to grab some good pictures.

As I approached the stadium, I heard the PA man announce, "Now batting for North Carolina, number 13, Dustin Ackley!" I hustled in to the stadium and just as soon as I could see the field, Ackley was weakly flying out to left field. Following him was freshman second baseman Levi Michael, who laced a single into the outfield for his first of four hits. This is him on first.

I wasn't all that impressed with UNC's starter, Matt Harvey. He really struggled with his control quite a bit today. Here's a runner on first and Ackley holding him on.

I don't know who this batter is from Virginia, but I like this picture.

And how awesome would it have been to live in this dorm?

The pitching mound conference. You can see Mike Fox with his head down, like he dreads taking Harvey out of the game.

He did, though, and it was the right move. He brought in junior lefty Brian Moran, who more or less shut Virginia down over 6 1/3 innings. He did a really nice job working out of a bases-loaded no-out mess that Harvey left for him.

In the third inning. I finally got to see a full at-bat for Ackely.

Unfortunately, Virginia had no intentions of pitching to him.

He walked on five pitches and didn't swing once the whole at-bat. Right after his walk, though, Michaels ripped a triple into right field and Ackley easily scored from first. He's got pretty good speed and it's not a surprise that scouts want to see him move off of first base.

Two batters after Michaels, the aluminum bat effect really came in to play when catcher Mark Fleury (yes, that's really his name) hit what seemed like a pop-up down the third base line that bounced off of the fence for another triple. Here's Fleury batting, for the really die-hard Penguin fans out there.

Since it was kind of a last second decision to run over to the park this morning, I didn't really do as much reading up on either our team or Virginia as I would've liked to in order to have a better idea of who I should keep an eye on. Still, it was a nice afternoon and it was awesome to see some live baseball. There's still a few weekends left that the team is in town, so hopefully I can get back on a night when Alex White pitches and have more to share than pictures. In regards to the pictures, I do have much higher res versions of all of these, but was afraid to post them with so many pics in one post. Since I'm planning on going to a lot of minor league baseball this year, I may start a WHYGAVS Flickr stream where I'll post more and better quality versions of the pictures I take this summer. If that happens, I'll of course let you guys know.

Some surprising news in the Post Gazette this morning, as DK reports that the Pirates and Jack Wilson have had "preliminary talks regarding a contract extension." I think that most of us expected that Wilson's time would be up here after this season, as the $8.4 million option that the Pirates hold on him next year is just a bit too pricey for a team in the Pirates' situation. According to the report, Wilson went to the Pirates to open talks up, which I assume would mean that he's willing to take a pay cut starting with next year's big pay day.

It's an interesting idea. I'll admit that when it became clear that a big part of the Rays dramatic turnaround last year was due to huge improvements in the field, I viewed Wilson a bit differently. Anyone that's read this blog for a long time knows that I think Wilson is overpaid and generally overrated by Pirate fans, but when I heard about the extension talks late last night, my reaction actually wasn't universely negative. Should it have been? Or would a Wilson extension not be the worst idea in the world?

There is some value in having a good defensive shortstop, even if he's not a great hitter. My general dislike (or at least the perception that I dislike Wilson) is more rooted in Dave Littlefield's complete misunderstanding of what Jack Wilson was than anything else. The old front office misinterpreted his 2004 season as a breakout at the plate and not an anomaly, they overvalued his defense, and they gave him a pricey extension to match. In effect, they were building around a player who's a complimentary piece at best.

But at, say, $4-5 million a year, is he a value for the Pirates? He does provide a good glove at short and it would be nice to have him there to help out the young pitchers, especially if the Pirates find enough offense elsewhere in the lineup. I'm still not really sold on this idea, though, and it's for a couple different reasons. The first is Jack's age. He's 31 now and by the time the Pirates are ready to contend for anything, he'll be 33 or 34 (if we're lucky). Shortstop is not an easy position to play and given Jack's recent injury history, I don't see any reason to think he's going to be the shortstop he is today even in two or three years. Extending him now because his defense is good now on the assumption that it will still be good in the future is a dangerous gambit.

The second reason is that I think a lot of people misunderstand the Rays surge last year and the role defense played in it. A lot of people kind of took the media's Ecksteinization of Jason Bartlett and ran with it, crediting him for most of the defense's (and by some extension, the team's) turnaround. This misses the point by a wide margin. According to UZR, Bartlett was about a run above average in the field last year. His addition was just one part in a teamwide defensive shift that not only improved their team defense, but did it without costing the team offense. If you have a copy of BP 2009, they extensively detail the Rays defensive upgrades in the chapter on Tampa. I won't go into as much detail here, but I'll give a general outline of what they did. Bartlett replaced Brendan Harris, who well below average at short last year. Akinori Iwamura went from third to second, where he replaced a motley crew of defenders lead by the brutal BJ Upton. Upton moved to center full time, eliminating the terrible center field performances by Elijah Dukes and Delmon Young from the equation. The trade of Young also allowed for the excellent fielder Gabe Gross to take over in right field for much of 2008. In the end, the Rays didn't make a move to just improve at shortstop last year, they made a several moves that improved them at short, second, center field, and right field, and the sum of those moves opened a roster spot for Evan Longoria, who not only killed the ball at the plate, but played incredible defense at third base. That's a full five out of eight positions that the Rays upgraded defensive personnel at from 2007 to 2008.

The Rays defensive turnaround wasn't based on getting a good shortstop, it was based on improving positions all over the diamond. That doesn't mean that locking in a good fielding shortstop is a bad idea, because shortstop is pretty high on the defensive spectrum, but given Wilson's age and the likelihood of his skills declining, I just don't see this being a good idea.

Spring training is winding down, which means that the real roster moves start coming pretty quickly now. There were a slew of them today and some of them are notable, even if they aren't surprising.

Today, the Pirates made the unsurprising announcements that Ross Ohlendorf will be in the starting rotation and Paul Maholm will be the Opening Day starter. Paired with those annoucements, Steve Pearce and Robinzon Diaz were both optioned to the minor leagues. Even with talk about Nyjer Morgan's struggles this spring becoming prevelant in this past week, Pearce is headed to the minors with a week left in camp. Not a good sign for him. Diaz's demotion means that Jason Jaramillo is the backup catcher, which isn't really surprising given that the Pirates traded for him after they acquired Diaz and because he's got some history with John Russell. Given their minor league histories, I think I like Diaz a little more, but this is a pretty inconsequential move right now. I think both players will see some time with the Pirates this year, especially if Doumit gets hurt.

Like every year, TangoTiger is putting together a survey, asking fans to estimate how much playing time they think players will receive. He doesn't have a lot of responses for the Pirates, so if you've got a couple minutes this weekend, head over to his site and fill a survey out.

You can read the text of Tabata's full statement to the media on the situation involving his wife here in Chuck Finder's story. There's a lot of stuff in it, primarily that his wife lied to him about being pregnant and tried to pass the kidnapped infant off as her own. Wow.

Reading it, it's painfully obvious that Tabata's just a 20-year-old kid who's waaaaay over his head right now. I really feel bad for the guy and I hope he pulls through this OK.

In 12 innings over 11 appearances, Don Veal's walked 13 hitters and struck out only 7. He's kept his ERA down nicely, mostly because he's only allowed 4 hits in the same span. Given Veal's recent struggles in the minors, I have to think that the Pirates can't be too pleased to see such poor control out of Veal in camp this spring. So what does the team do?

Because Veal is a Rule 5 pick, they have to offer him back to the Cubs if he doesn't make the 25-man roster or they take him off the roster during the season. When Evan Meek struggled last year, the Pirates were able to work out a deal with Tampa to keep Meek for a little bit of cash, but I don't imagine the Cubs will be amenable to that sort of arrangement this year, as Veal has some real upside and the Cubs aren't as pitching rich in the minors as the Rays have been the past few years.

This puts the Pirates in a tricky situation. I think Veal is the kind of player they'd like to have in the system and take a longer look at, but is it worth it to keep Veal on the roster in the hopes that he finds the strike zone and can function as a reliever this year? If he can't, they'd have to bury him in the bullpen in order to keep him. That would cost him an important year of development and waste a bullpen on for a team with a pretty tenuous pitching situation already. It's true that the final record for the Pirates in 2009 probably won't matter in the long run, but it's still a  questionable risk to take on a guy that's far from a sure thing.

I'm guessing Veal starts the year out with the Pirates anyways, but how long do they give him? What sort of performance is deemed acceptable? Since Veal's a more interesting prospect than Evan Meek with no chance of being returned on a demotion, does he get a longer leash? Does he have to pitch to a Denny Bautista level to stick around? Better? Worse? Sometimes I'm pretty sure that being a general manager would be awfully hard.

The PG reports that the Pirates' talks with left-handed reliever Will Ohman have really started to pick up in the last few days. They're still far from getting anything done, as the PG is also reporting that five other teams are involved and at least a couple of them are far more desirable destinations for a guy like Ohman than the Pirates would be.

Still, with the Pirates reportedly in talks for guys like Marcus Thames, I have to think that this could be the precursor some other move involving John Grabow or even Sean Burnett (if someone is desperate for a LOOGY).

Since 1999, the Pirates have gotten better production than most other teams from their starting left fielder. '99 was the year the Pirates traded for Brian Giles, who was quietly one of the better hitters in the National League until 2003, when the Bucs traded him to San Diego for Jason Bay. Bay, for the most part, filled right in to Giles spot and while he wasn't quite the same hitter, he was still an All-Star-caliber player every year he was with he Pirates save 2007.

This year is a different story. The Pirates, for some unknown reason, decided to come in to camp with a backup center fielder starting in left field. They seem to be leaning towards the conclusion that this was a terrible idea (and it was), so who does that leave? There's Eric Hinske, Steve Pearce, who's hitting poorly this spring and clearly not one of Neal Huntington's favorite people in the world, Craig Monroe, who's been washed up for a couple years now, Garrett Jones, a monstrous former semi-prospect from the Twins' system, and Jeff Salazar, another guy with a decent minor league pedigree who's likely best cast as a fourth outfielder.

The problem here is that each of these players are flawed and they're not even particularly complimentary. Hinske and Jones are kind of the same player; lefties that can hit for power but without much to offer in the way of batting average or OBP. Salazar offers more in the OBP and defense category, but he's left-handed, too. Monroe and Pearce are both right-handed, but Monroe played mostly against lefties last year and was miserable against them, while it looks like Pearce's career might never really get off of the runway.

I'm guessing the team solution is going to be to platoon Hinske and Monroe while Pearce, Jones, and Salazar go to AAA and Morgan sits on the bench. It's not ideal, or close to it, but I'm not sure there's an immediate better solution, ether.

I have a few links I wanted to share last night, but decided to save them for the morning when the whole Mrs. Tabata kidnapping story broke (I updated that post again this morning with the latest details).

Anyways, I'll start with some sad news first; John Brattain, who wrote for the Hardball Times, Baseball Digest Daily, and freqented the comments at BBTF (among other places) passed away yesterday. I didn't know John personally, but both the thread in his honor at BBTF and Maury Brown's obituary at Biz of Baseball were incredibly toutching. What I can say is this: I tend to open up articles in numerous tabs and read them throughout the day. Often, by the time I get to reading them, I usually have no idea who the author is if it's from a site like THT. If I'm interested in what I'm reading, I'll go back to the top to see who the author is. More times than I can remember, I'd scroll to the top of the screen and see John's name. In fact, the last time I did this was just last week with his THT piece on A-Rod. As someone that loves good sportswriting and is always looking for more good writers to read and try and model myself after, I'm going to miss his work.  My thoughts go out to the many people he obviously touched.

If you missed it, my Pirate preview at FanHouse went live on Monday. And last night, the Pirate Spring Dugout, which is more or less my favorite part of spring training, was posted.

The Pirates may be interested in Rockies' utility man Jeff Baker.

Ross Ohlendorf is dominating this spring. He's been so good that I'd almost say he's been Vogelsongian. Please at least click that link before cursing me out.