Who gets tendered? Who doesn't? Tim has a rundown here, with some salary projections. The list:

Joel Hanrahan

Jeff Karstens

Jose Veras

Garrett Jones

Charlie Morton

Chris Resop

Evan Meek

Jason Grilli

Today's the deadline, so get your predictions in fast. The winner gets . . . respect.

My guess is they'll tender everybody but Veras. They'll consider him too expensive for a reliever. I'd tender everybody but Grilli.

Platooning: During his time in Colorado, Hurdle’s hitters in most years had the platoon advantage less often than the league norm. Looking at the Rockies’ personnel year-by-year, I concluded that this had more to do with the players Hurdle had, specifically the lack of switch-hitters, the lack of hitters who were worth platooning, and the fact that Hurdle’s left-handed starters generally were stars whom nobody would have platooned.

Hurdle’s Pirate hitters had the platoon advantage 60% of the time, well above the NL average of 55%. This was better than I expected, because Hurdle operated with a number of disadvantages. He did have an everyday switch-hitter at second and a switch-hitting catcher who was available once in a while. He was also, however, severely constrained by injuries and other factors. Once Pedro Alvarez went out, he had no left-handed hitter who could play on the left side of the infield. Alvarez himself obviously wasn’t a platoon candidate, at least going into the season. Hurdle did sit him against LHPs in September . The team had no right-handed-hitting first baseman once it lost Steve Pearce, unless you count Brandon Wood, which I don’t. Pearce’s injury was especially harmful because he was hitting well at the time and Hurdle was beginning to start him at first against LHPs over the hapless Lyle Overbay.

On the plus side, Hurdle stuck very strongly to the plan to platoon Garrett Jones, to the consternation of a certain segment of the Pittsburgh media. Jones made only 15% of his plate appearances against LHPs, which was almost the sole reason for his OPS+ improving from 94 in 2010 to 107 in 2011. Similarly, Xavier Paul made only 11% of his plate appearances against LHPs. Alex Presley made over a third of his plate appearances against LHPs despite struggling badly against them (.599 OPS), but he didn’t have much of a platoon split in AAA so this made sense. Ryan Doumit made over a third of his plate appearances against LHPs despite past issues hitting right-handed and despite the team’s other catchers all hitting right-handed. It worked out, though, as Doumit had a .912 OPS against LHPs in 2011. Jones’ platoon partner, Matt Diaz, made 47% of his plate appearances against RHPs. This seems like too much, but it’s actually nearly identical to Diaz’ percentages with Atlanta in 2008 and 2010. (The Braves tried Diaz as an everyday player in 2009.) Overall, I think Hurdle did about as much as he could do to get the platoon advantage for his hitters.

Bullpen usage: In Colorado, Hurdle led the NL three straight years in "slow hooks," which the Bill James Handbook calculates using both runs allowed and innings pitched. The high totals almost certainly had something to do with Coors, where you can’t just take your starter out every time he allows three runs. Hurdle had only moderate numbers of "long outings," which are outings of 110+ pitches.

Hurdle’s first year in Pittsburgh was very different. The Pirates finished second in the NL to Washington in "quick hooks" with 58. The average was 41. Hurdle also had the fewest slow hooks (27, average was 37) and had only one long outing (the Nats had three, average was 34). This obviously wasn’t a product of a bad rotation. The Pirates had one of the league’s best rotations through the first four months and still finished 11th in starter ERA despite the rotation coming unglued in the last two months. I attribute the quick hooks to Hurdle being realistic about a staff that contained no workhorse, had limited starting experience apart from Paul Maholm, had pitchers who tended to have stretches in which they didn’t throw a lot of strikes (James McDonald and Charlie Morton), and had pitchers with possible stamina issues (Jeff Karstens and Morton). Hurdle also had two pitchers, Karstens and Kevin Correia, who had a history of getting hammered after the fourth or fifth inning. When Karstens showed he could pitch effectively later in games, though, Hurdle kept him in longer; after never reaching seven innings through the end of May, Karstens went seven or more in eight of eleven June and July starts.

Hurdle also replaced his relievers a lot, enough that he led the NL in pitching changes by a wide margin. One reason was that, other than Joel Hanrahan, the Pirates had a lot of relievers who were solid without being outstanding. With Evan Meek never getting healthy all year, the team lacked a shutdown eighth inning reliever. Jose Veras never quite locked up the role, so Hurdle tried everybody. The frantic pitching changes seemed to work. The Pirates were only 12th in the NL in bullpen ERA, but they were the fifth best at keeping inherited runners from scoring. Another possible indicator is the Handbook’s estimation of "pitching efficiency," which compares a team’s runs allowed to the number of runs its statistical components (hits, walks, HRs, etc.) suggest it should have allowed. The Pirates easily led the NL. Some of this probably resulted from the ability of some of their starters, especially Morton, to pitch successfully with high WHIPs, but it’s reasonable to conclude that some also resulted from Hurdle’s use of the bullpen.

One pitcher Hurdle specifically had a lot of success with was Dan McCutchen. Although he’d always been a starter previously, McCutchen was very effective in long relief. In fact, despite being the long reliever, McCutchen still appeared in 73 games and led the team in the number of times he pitched on consecutive days (23). Of course, this may have contributed to his late-season struggles, but it’s also possible that he just needs to get used to pitching more than once every five days. Regardless, among NL pitchers who inherited at least 30 runners, McCutchen had the sixth best "strand rate."

Hurdle also was aggressive in using Hanrahan, at least in save situations. Hanrahan was second among all closers in "tough saves" and tough save opportunities, defined by the Handbook as saves where the closer comes in with the tying run on base.

Hurdle’s lefty-righty bullpen maneuvering is hard to evaluate because he had little flexibility. For most of the year he had only one left-handed reliever and, when he had two, the second one was usually Dan Moskos, whom Hurdle didn’t appear to trust much in key spots, for good reason (like a 1.56 WHIP). Even so, Hurdle should have done a better job of keeping Joe Beimel away from right-handed hitters. Of the plate appearances against Beimel, 61% were right-handed hitters. In 2010, Beimel faced right-handed hitters only 46% of the time. Tony Watson also saw a lot of right-handed hitters (60%), but Watson has much better stuff than Beimel and he had no platoon split in 2011.

On the whole, I think the data shows that Hurdle adjusted his tactics to the personnel he had, rather than making moves according to pre-determined formulas. I also think the Pirates probably benefited from his moves, although it’s not possible to quantify that. If nothing else, his maneuvering at least left me with the impression that he was doing everything he could to win games, which often didn't seem to be the case with John Russell.

This is in the subscriber's area, so I can't excerpt it here, but BA has writeups of 13 players they think have a good chance of being selected, as well as a list of 20 others.  The first category includes Brett Lorin and Diego Moreno. They describe Lorin as a command-and-control guy who throws 87-91 and projects as a fourth/fifth starter, which would be why he's not on the roster. With Moreno, I remain convinced there's some issue we don't know about, possibly just doubts about whether he can stay healthy.

Andrew Lambo is listed in the 20 others.

A lot of the players with writeups are RHPs who profile as relievers. The Pirates already have, if anything, an excess in that area. There's one lefty, T.J. McFarland of the Indians, who looks like a Scott Sauerbeck-type LOOGY. That's an area of need for the Pirates.

The position players include Ryan Flaherty, a lefty-hitting infielder who's gotten lost in the Cubs' minor league third base depth. BA says he's not so hot defensively, but he has a solid all-around bat. He's struggled, though, in limited AAA time.

About a year ago, I made a two-part post about Clint Hurdle's managerial tendencies.  News has been scarce, what with the Pirates’ efforts to add more outs to their lineup going on hold over Thanksgiving, so it seems like a good time to re-visit the subject after a year of Hurdleball in Pittsburgh.

Bunting:  As I noted a year ago, Hurdle bunted a lot in Colorado, to make up for the difficulty in scoring runs in Coors.  He led the NL in sacrifice bunt attempts four times in his last five full years with the Rockies.  That hasn’t changed.  With the Pirates, he was tied for fourth in the league, just three attempts off the league lead.  The Pirates weren’t much good at it, as they finished only tied for sixth in actual sacrifices, although their total was still above league average.

The frequency of bunt attempts leads to an interesting conundrum: The 2011 Pirates were above average in sacrifices, were fourth from the bottom of the NL in on-base percentage, and struck out more than all but two other teams, 139 strikeouts above league average.  Nevertheless, despite a paucity of opportunities, they somehow finished second in the league in grounding into double plays. They weren’t even a groundball hitting team, finishing eighth in the league in groundball percentage. It wasn’t because Hurdle didn’t like to start runners, either.  He was just a hair below league average in having runners going with the pitch, and even that was probably because he had fewer runners to send than most teams.

So why all the GIDPs? I dunno, but it’s possible to identify the culprits. The average major leaguer grounded into a DP in just over ten percent of his opportunities. On the Pirates, Pedro Alvarez and Matt Diaz "succeeded" in 21% of their chances, Josh Harrison in 16% and Lyle Overbay in 15%. At least two of those guys are gone.

Pitchouts:  Hurdle was more or less an average user of the pitchout until his last full Rockies year, when he went wild and led the league.  As I noted before, the trend in MLB seems to be away from using pitchouts.  Hurdle cut his pitchouts significantly in 2011, from 43 in his last full season in Colorado to 20. That was still above the NL average of 17, but it’s an improvement.

Intentional walks: Hurdle awarded lots of free bases in Colorado, since it’s so hard to for runners to score once they reach base in Coors. He continued this habit in Pittsburgh, finishing second to Fredi Gonzalez in free passes. A below average percentage of Hurdle’s intentional walks resulted in what the Bill James Handbook categorizes as "good" outcomes, 68% to 60%.

Stolen bases:  In Colorado, Hurdle ran when he had the personnel and didn’t when he didn’t. With the Pirates, Hurdle seemingly had the personnel to run a moderate amount. Andrew McCutchen and Jose Tabata appeared to have the potential to steal a lot of bases, although Tabata missed a big part of the season and his running was hampered when he came back. During the season, the team added Chase d’Arnaud, who could be a prolific base stealer if he got on base, and Alex Presley, who was a decent base stealer in the minors.  On the season, Hurdle ordered 160 steal attempts, 14 more than league average. The Pirates’ success rate was 67.5%, below the league average of 72.3%. The most puzzling aspect of the Pirates’ base stealing was McCutchen making only 33 attempts, with a disappointing 69.7% success rate.

In fact, the absence of aggressive baserunning was a team-wide feature, in contrast to the type of baseball Hurdle has said he wants to foster. The Handbook ranked the Pirates 29th in baserunning, mostly due to a failure to take extra bases on hits and other events. The most disappointing player was McCutchen, whom the book rates as essentially a mediocre baserunner. The only good baserunners on the team were Neil Walker, Harrison and Presley (d’Arnaud isn’t rated), while Alvarez, Diaz and (a little surprisingly) Garrett Jones were all terrible.

Substitutions: I didn’t include this the last time around, but Hurdle's use of pinch runners and defensive substitutions says something about his preferences in bench players. John Russell seldom used either. In three years, he averaged eleven pinch runners and nine defensive substitutions.  In 2011, Hurdle employed 26 and 63, respectively. His pinch runner usage was almost exactly league average. His use of defensive substitutions was well above the average of 39, and third-most in the league. It’s obvious from these usage patterns that Hurdle isn’t kidding about his desire for speed-and-defense guys on the bench. This may explain the team’s decision to ditch John Bowker for Xavier Paul. It may also explain the fascination with Pedro Ciriaco, although it still leaves the question of why Hurdle didn’t seem to realize Ciriaco was on the team.

Next up:  platooning and bullpen usage, wherein the beneficial side of Hurdle’s hyperactive managing style is revealed.