ElDuce

Hacker to the Giants, Dumatrait to the Tigers, both on minor league deals. What will we ever do without them?

Jen Langosch has the story above. Cruz has been placed on waivers and will be able to opt for free agency if he clears. It's unknown if the Pirates will want to bring him back on a minor league deal. This makes a spot for the Rule 5 draft on the 40 man.

Perrotto throws out a few interesting Pirate items over at Inside Pittsburgh Sports. -The team will be looking at offers for Zach Duke during the winter meetings. They don't have a specific package they're looking for, and want to see what kind of offers will come in. -The Pirates biggest trade target is Tampa's Reid Brignac. They've tried to sell the Rays on Capps and Duke, but haven't been able to figure anything out yet. -The team is interested in Rich Harden, as are several other teams who will have money to spend. -The Pirates may look to bring in Daniel Cabrera if he's willing to take a minor league deal.

The Trib reports that the Pirates have made these hires: Former Indians and Braves scout Tyrone Brooks as Director of Baseball Operations Former Blue Jays scout and Las Vegas 51s manager Mike Basso as a major league scout Former Indians trainer Toshi Nagahara as assistant athletic trainer, and Iwamura's interpreter.

Seems like a potentially very good buy low pickup. I assume many teams are interested in his services, so the Pirates may have to gamble and give him a larger guarantee to persuade him to come on. Seems worth a shot to me.

McCutchen got a total of 7 votes, 2 first place, 5 second place. Garrett Jones got 2 third place votes. (This is out of a total of 32 ballots.) UPDATE by Charlie: What a silly pick. Not only is it hard to defend on its merits (Coghlan's defense in left was pretty bad, which makes his offensive performance less interesting), and not only is Coghlan not a very exciting player, but this pick has a great chance of ending up in history's dustbin once the baseball gods realize that Coghlan isn't really a .320 hitter and start making his balls in play disappear into fielders' gloves. It's a real drag that the voters picked him when they could have chosen a player like Tommy Hanson or McCutchen who not only happened to be better than Coghlan but also has a shot at an excellent career. Not that we've come to expect much from the voters.

"In acquiring Iwamura, we opened the door to getting Japanese players. We gave up a middle reliever to get Iwamura, so he [Igarashi] is a player we have interest in." UPDATE by Charlie: Here are some stats.

Promoted from within as he had been serving as the minor league infield coordinator. Has some past major league experience with the Mariners.