I'm surprised no one has mentioned it in the wake of Mariano Rivera's season-ending knee injury, but we now find ourselves in a landscape where the Yankees and Red Sox are both desperate for a closer. And happily enough, we just happen to have one of the better ones in the game.

Obviously Hanrahan is an important part of this Pirate, and without him our chances of a winning season almost certainly dwindle from slim to none. But as has been mentioned repeatedly in this forum, relievers are, if not overrated, at least a luxury a building club can't afford. The Pirates aren't going to win the World Series this year with or without him. And beyond that. we can't afford what it will take in arbitration to keep him.

What better time to make a deal than when the Yankees and Red Sox both need something we have and can bid the price up in hopes of keeping that commodity from the other?

I don't think the Sox would part with Iglesias under any circumstances, but does anyone know if the Yankees have a promising shortstop prospect down on the farm being blocked by Jeter?

Math has never been my strong suit, but according to my rough calculations, Pedro Alvarez has stroked six homers in the Pirates' first 23 games. Projecting that over a full season, it works outs to around 37.

Of course that number is deceiving because while he only hit one in his first 12 games, he's hit five in the 11 games since. Assuming he continued to hit at that pace, he'd wind up with around 70, which is totally unrealistic.

That said, even if you agree he won't be near as good as he's been the past two weeks but still better than he was when he was struggling early on, Pedro is comfortably on pace for around 40 bombs this year.

Which brings me to my question. Which would you rather see this season, the Pirates break the losing streak or Pedro hit 40 homers?

Ideally, of course, both could happen -- especially since the two are interrelated. I'm sure we'd all be just as happy, too, if Pedro hit 38 or 39 homers as long as the team ends up with a winning record. But for purposes of this discussion, let's assume it's a choice between Pedro hitting 40 but we lose 100 games or hitting 20 and the streak ends.

Would you make that deal? I honestly think I'd rather see the home runs than the wins at this point because of what Pedro's bat represents to this franchise.

I made a similar argument in an earlier thread, but it boils down to this -- the Pirates have an interesting cast of complementary position players already, with more on the way over the next couple of years. Even more important, they have three or four potentially dominant arms, as well as a number of other pretty good ones, in the pipeline.

What they lack, however, is a truly dominant bat. And without that, they could break .500 but they're never going to be a real contender again. Simply put, Pedro was drafted to be our Willie Stargell, the guy opposing teams have to pitch around five times a game. If he can't, it changes the whole dynamic of the franchise.

Bashers like that don't grow on trees. You either have to:

• trade for one, which would mean dealing away at least one of our untouchable arms;
• sign one as a free agent, which would cost more money than the Pirates have; or,
• cultivate another, and the closest thing the Pirates currently have in the minors is Josh Bell, who was years away even before injuring his knee.

As tired as we all are of losing, I think most of us see the bigger picture -- and Pedro's role in it. If he's a bust, no amount of smoke and mirrors can take this team to a World Series. But if he's finally starting to figure things out, the sky is the limit.

Joe Starkey's column this morning is hardly the first to point out how much is riding on Pedro Alvarez developing into a legitimate middle-of-the-order threat. But reading it sort of crystallized my thinking about the status of this team and prompted a few thoughts.

1. If Alvarez has a breakout year, this team is a contender as soon as next season. A lineup that starts off with Tabata, Presley, McCutchen and a productive Alvarez, followed by Walker, Jones/McGehee, Barajas and Barmes actually doesn't sound too bad -- especially with the addition of Cole to the pitching staff next season.

2. If Alvarez continues to flounder, though, you have to start thinking he's a bust -- in which case you have to seriously consider a major rebuild, starting with trading Cutch.

Why? Mostly because we've got a three-year, first-round talent gap to fill. Moskos, Alvarez and Sanchez were all taken as college players who would presumably be in the majors within two years of being drafted and productive within three. Thus far, only Alvarez has shown any glimpses of being a solid major leaguer, and he's currently our biggest question mark.

Simply put, if Alvarez can be what he was drafted to be, this team can be competitive in the short term and ride out the talent trough we're facing over the coming few years until the next big wave -- Taillon, Bell and Heredia -- starts to arrive in 2015 and 2016.

If he can't, this team is going to be as bad for the next three years as it's been for the past 20. In which case my suggestion would be to start dealing off people like Cutch, Tabata and Walker in hopes of acquiring the pieces you'll need to surround the likes of Marte, Bell, Taillon, Heredia, et al, with when that day comes.

Of course that would also make necessary my final point:

3. Neal Huntington would have to be fired and some other GM would brought in to oversee our next major rebuilding effort.

Just posted in ESPN.

If there were any question about the Colts trading the rights to Luck out of loyalty to Manning, this pretty much slams that door. A new regime is gonna want to build around its guy, not whatever Peyton has left in the tank.

My guess is Indy releases Peyton, and with his salary, it's a cinch he clears waivers. Depending on how much he cost in free agency and whether we thought we could still trade up for RG3, I could maybe see bringing in Peyton for a year or two to mentor a someone we take later in the draft or keep the seat warm until we can draft one next year.

Either way, I think it takes one more QB off the market and drives the price of RG3 even higher.

I've been going back and forth on this question for months now, but after watching yesterday's game I'm finally convinced that the Redskins need to make a bold move to trade up and get Andrew Luck. Or, failing that, RG3.

Had Barkley come out, I would have taken my chances with him falling to the No. 6 pick. But now that Griffin has won the Heismann, I don't see him dropping that far, which means we'll have to trade up to get one of the two top quarterback prospects.

Yes, I know we have a lot of holes to fill, and trading away draft picks seems like a rash thing to do, but I'm sick of the Redskins not having an elite quarterback. This is a quarterback-centric league and we haven't had a really good one since Theismann -- or a great one since Jurgensen.

Seriously, we just can't keep taking half measures and hoping to get lucky. I won't post a link to a competing site, but one of the others had a pretty good analysis of what teams drafting in the middle of the pack normally find in the first round in any given year, and I can tell you that Andrew Luck is worth three of them any day of the week.

Ordinarily I'm a big advocate of playing it safe and hoarding draft picks, but you don't get within sniffing distance of a prospect like Luck every day of the week. If it takes three No. 1s, I'm down with it. If we need to throw in Trent Williams or someone like that, do it.

I almost literally don't care what it costs anymore. We need a great quarterback. Let's go get him.

http://espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/7345064/source-ex-chicago-cubs-3b-aramis-ramirez-heads-milwaukee-brewers

Damn. Just when I was starting to like the sound of those weasels being emasculated next season, they have to add a legitimate offensive threat.

Someone needs to explain to me how a market the size of Milwaukee can afford to spend on top-tier free agents while the Pirates have to dumpster dive every single year. Is Milwaukee that much bigger than Pittsburgh? Do the Brewers' owners have deeper pockets? I just don't get it.

I like Dan Dierdorf as an announcer and generally his analysis yesterday was spot on, but he did make one glaring error. He said this year's defense is much better than last year's because Shanahan addressed it in the off season, and he predicted next year's offense would be vastly improved because Shanahan planned to give it his personal attention this coming off season.

And those observations are accurate as far as they go, but they totally ignore the fact that this year isn't Shanahan's first as the Redskin coach. Last year was. Which means he's as responsible for a bad defense as he is an improved one.

Like every member of Redskin nation, I was encouraged last spring when the team traded back, added draft choices and apparently acquired some nice young players. And if I was sure we could expect more of the same this April, I wouldn't be overly concerned. But which is the real Shanahan? This year's patient, long-term version, or the one that threw away premium draft picks on a burned-out Donovan McNabb, then chucked an entire season down the toilet in an ugly pissing contest with Albert Haynesworth that accomplished absolutely nothing?

More to the point, Jim Zorn was fired after finishing 8-8 his first year and 4-12 his second year, while Shanhan is on track to finish 6-10 and, at best, 5-11 in his first two seasons. In other words, after taking what we'd all agree were the right steps this year, the team will finish with a worse record than it did during last year's cat fight.

Other than firing fatigue, is there any reason Redskin fans shouldn't hold Shanahan to the same standard they did Zorn? Are you comfortable giving Shanahan a mulligan after totally botching his first season when we were assured he'd spent his year of unemployment relentlessly studying film and preparing to hit the ground running when he ultimately got another coaching gig?

To be clear, I'm not necessarily advocating we fire Shanahan after the season. But at this point, considering he's made a lot of decisions I disagree with and relatively few I actually agree with, I'm not seeing any reason why he should have my unquestioned confidence moving forward.

Do you?

To me, the addition of Cole -- and, to a lesser extent,  Bell -- this week puts the 2013 season squarely in our crosshairs as the year the Pirates will be a legitimate contender in the Central Division. I disagree with Scott Boras that Cole will be in Pittsburgh within a year, but he'll almost certainly be in the show by June of 2013 -- if not on opening day. What's more, I expect Taillon to follow closely behind. He'll only be 21 at that point, but he'll be in his third year of pro ball and, with his stuff, 21 isn't unreasonably young for a debut. Throw in Morton, McDonald and maybe Lincoln, and that's a pretty nice pitching staff.

Position player-wise, one would hope that Alvarez will have energed as a force by then, and Walker will be a solid player, along with Tabata, Marte, D'Arnaud and Sanchez. Hopefully Dickerson will be knocking on the door at that point, too, and Bell will be a year or so away.

What concerns me, though, is that by the time the core is ready to blossom, our best player, Cutch, will be closing in on free agency. And since it's a given that the Pirates will never be able to re-sign him, his departure will leave a huge void to fill, forcing us to start all over again in some ways.

Seems to me the logical thing is to give him a new deal now in exchange for keeping in a Pirate uniform for a couple more years. Again, I have no illusions that Cutch will be a lifelong Pirate. But after seeing the team at it's low point last year, I'm sure he'd like to be here when they start winning again and I imagnie he'd be open to some sort of an extension if the price is right.

In any case, he's earned a raise and I can't help feeling that having brought in a lot of complimentary pieces, now would be a good time to lock up your centerpiece.

Not that it takes the luster off a great win, but can someone explain to me why in the name of Honus Wagner we didn't intentionally walk Darwin Barney in the eighth inning of this game?

The score was tied with runners on second and third and only one out. Barney, who was hitting .297, came to the plate with the pitcher's spot on deck. Maybe earlier in the game you concede a run, but in the eighth you have to put the guy on base to set up a double play to get out of the inning.

The only thing I can think of is that Hurdle figured Veras matched up better against a righthander than he would against whatever lefthanded pinch hitter the Cubs had on the bench. I also figured Veras would just pitch him carefully and not leave anything in the strike zone.

Then he proceeded to throw a 3-2 meatball right down the heart of the plate that Barney grounded past shortstop for a go-ahead single.

I'm sure Hurdle has forgotten more baseball than I'll ever know, but I can tell you that if McKenry hadn't gone yard in the bottom of the inning, he'd be the goat this morning for that brain fart.

Per Colin Dunlap at the Post-Gazette, Pedro Alvarez could be headed to the disabled list because of his quadriceps, while  Pedro Ciriaco will take his place on the roster.

He doesn't say who would take Alvarez's place in the lineup, but I would assume we're in for a steady diet of Brandon Wood, with a little help from Steve Pearce. He also doesn't say how long Pedro could be sidelined.

Tough break. El Toro seemed to be heating up a little. Then again, maybe the time off will give him a chance to clear his head and tweak his mechanics.

UPDATE by Charlie: Colin Dunlap tweets that Alvarez is indeed headed to the DL.

It's Saturday morning and the latest post Washington Post's Redskin blogger is that we took Jarvis Jenkins with our first pick in the second round. Nothing about Hankerson or the flurry of other trades. No speculation about what could happen today. Nothing.

WTF? Is this guy punching a time clock? Did everything else happen after his shift ended? Say what you will about JLC and Jason Reid, but when they were writing the blog at least they worked at it. Jones seems to keep bankers hours.

I'll admit this is very premature and based on nothing but gut feelings, but I'm starting to think Steve Pearce could be this year's Neil Walker. By that I mean he's a guy who's been around forever and was once considered a hot prospect but then fell into disfavor and was forgotten. And like Walker, I think he might be a pleasant surprise for us this year.

Notwithstanding his throwing error yesterday, I'm totally impressed by how quickly Pearce has taken to third base and he looks far more comfortable than I would have dreamed given how little he's played there.

At the plate, he seems to have a better approach than I remember -- probably the Hurdle influence.

Until Alvarez starts heating up, I think Pearce should be platooning at third to spare Pedro having to face tough lefties. And even after Pedro gets it together, I think Pearce should be in the lineup against every lefthander, whether he's playing third, first or right.

I don't know whether Pearce is ready to be an everyday player, but he kills lefties and he gives us a real viable option to guys like Alvarez, Jones and Overbay who struggle against southpaws.

I can't put my finger on it, but I just have a good feeling about Pearce this year.

It isn't normally my nature to be a glass-half-full sort of person. At the same time, I'm getting a little exasperated by all of the disclaimers that precede discussions of the Pirates' 4-2 start.

"It's still early, but..."

"The pitchers aren't getting many strikeouts, but..."
"They're making errors defensively, but..."

Enough already. We get it. The Pirates have suffered through 18 consecutive years of futility and things could still turn around and go badly for this team.

But guess what? They could just as easily get better.

I'd be far more concerned at this point if they'd won four road games based on something that couldn't be sustained, like a home run spree by Ronnie Cedeno. But that isn't what's happening here. By and large, I don't see the Pirate players doing anything they're not capable of doing over an entire season -- with the possible exception of Pedro Alvarez still not having hit a homer. I don't see how that could be sustained, and that's a good thing.

Mainly what I'm seeing is a better approach in all facets of the game, which you can chalk up to better coaching. I'm seeing guys working counts at the plate, resulting in more strikeouts, but also more walks and more hits. I'm seeing pitchers working inside more. I'm seeing guys more aggressive on the basepaths. And I'm seeing people being held accountable.

You think the pitching can only  get worse? I wonder how much better it will be when Chris Snyder gets back and starts calling games. Or when Owens, Lincoln and/or Morris force themselves into the picture. You think we're not scoring enough runs in proportion to the number of hits we're getting? I say wait until Pedro gets dialed in and starts launching  bombs. You think the defense will revert back to 2010 levels? I say Neil Walker looks more comfortable every day, Nick Leyva has worked miracles with Pedro and Lyle Overbay is a vacuum cleaner. And on it goes.

Be of good cheer, doubters. These aren't your father's Buccos.

The only thing better than winning a series is winning it on the road.

And the only thing better than winning a road series is winning two road series.

And the only thing better than winning two road series is doing it by beating Tony La Russa in the second one.

And the only thing better than beating Tony La Russa is watching him get upset and storm away from the podium when the media asks him about it.

UPDATE by Charlie: The video is here.

I think what made Neil Walker's performance yesterday so gratifying for me is my conviction that he's the most important member of the young core around which the the Pirates are currently building.

That's not to suggest he's the most talented of the Walker/Cutch/Alavarez/Tabata/Sanchez/(Rendon?) group. Just the opposite, more likely. Certainly it would be far more devastating, for instance, if Alvarez turned out to be a bust because so much more is expected of him.

What I'm getting at is that Walker is almost like found money. Yes, he was a first-round pick, but he was taken in an era when the Pirates weren't trying to hit home runs in the draft. Then when he languished in the minors and endured a couple of position changes, many of us all but wrote him off like Danny Moskos. But he's showing signs of being a really good player. Maybe very good.

The only thing better than having Walker succeed at all is the fact that he plays second base -- a position where you don't normally anticipate having a guy with 20-plus home run power, which I think he does. I'm reasonably confident he'll develop into a better-than-average fielder once he gets comfortable out there, too, and he doesn't appear to have the sort of body that will outgrow the position.

All of which, I guess, is my long-winded  way of saying Walker is the guy I'm rooting for the most because he's the one from whom most of us expected the least. And if the weakest link turns out to be a real strength, this core group could turn into something really special.

First of all, this post is predicated on the assumption the Pirates will use the top pick in this June’s draft on Anthony Rendon. I know everyone on this list isn’t sold on that scenario, but please resist the temptation to hijack the thread with another name.

So again, assuming the choice is Rendon, where do you think he starts off in the minors and how long before he shows up in Pittsburgh?

I’ve argued in other threads that he could/should be in Pittsburgh within a year of being drafted. And while a lot of posters in this forum think that’s too aggressive, I’ve seen analyses from several knowledgeable scouts that such a timetable is feasible.

If I’m the Pirate brain trust, I try to get him signed within a month of being drafted — even if I have to start negotiations with Scott Boras before the draft. Then I start the kid in AA, with an eye toward having him start 2012 in AAA and playing in Pittsburgh by June. Failing that, I start him in AA ball next April, then move him to AAA by June and maybe make him a September call-up.

I certainly understand the importance of waiting to start someone’s arbitration clock, but in Rendon’s case he’s part of a core of position players — Alvarez, Walker, Tabata, Cutch — the rest of whom are in the Majors already. The sooner he gets up to the Show and starts meshing with his teammates, the better.

I also understand it’s not generally a good idea to rush a kid through the minors, but Rendon is an unusually polished prospect. The very things you keep a kid in the minors to learn — pitch recognition, patience, mechanics — are already his strengths.

You think Rendon couldn’t walk out there right now and produce as well as Tabata, Walker and Alvarez did when they came up a year ago? You bet he could. So why delay the inevitable just because of some arcane formula?

Draft him, let his get his feet wet in the minors, then get him into the lineup and usher in the new era sooner rather than later, I say.

Assuming he gets canned, which already have been by the time you read this, that is. I haven't seen anything written, nor am I terribly familiar with the field of candidates. But I did hear Eric Wedge's name mentioned in connection with another opening, and the author specifically mentioned him as someone who works well with rebuilding teams (although in this case I think we can drop the re- from that description). Wedge also has the Cleveland thing going for him, for whatever that's worth.

Anyone else?

As of last night, I believe we now have the worst record in the MLB -- and the way Baltimore has been playing since Showalter was hired, we might just run away and hide with this thing. And personally, that doesn't bother me at this point. Next year I expect to see at least a modest improvement in our record, but this year I'm content to see our young core players do well.

In the meantime, I'm perfectly willing to forgo a few wins in the short term if it puts us in position to take Rendon, who would be the perfect right-handed complement to Alvarez for a long time. And since his swing has fewer holes than Alvarez's, I expect him to be fast-tracked to the majors. Two years from now, I envision a lineup of Rendon, Alvarez, Walker, Tabata, McCutchen, Milledge/Jones and Sanchez, plus whatever shortstop we develop or acquire by then. Throw in the emergence of any one or two of the many interesting arms we've stockpiled in the minors, and this suddenly becomes a very interesting team.

But Rendon is the key. He's another Alvarez-type elite talent, and it's worth a few embarrassing losses to have a guy like that around.

Don’t know if I’m the only one who saw this, but the July issue of ESPN magazine has a short feature by Buster Olney in which a dozen MLB general managers talked anonymously about their peers on various subjects. Of interest to the Pirates is that Neal Huntington was rated in the “Toughest GMs to Make a Deal With” category.

Said one GM, “It feels formal talking with him, to the point of being uncomfortable.”

Take it for what it’s worth, but I don’t necessarily see it as a bad thing that other GMs, whose basis for judgment is probably whether or not a guy is a pushover, aren’t always “comfortable” talking with Huntington.

Maybe I missed some logical explanation from the Pirate broadcasters, but I was mystified by our strategy in that inning.

Pearce had led off with a single, followed by Crosby's infield hit to put runners on first and second with no outs and the punchless Ronnie Cedeno coming to the plate, followed by the pitcher's spot. An 8-year-old child understands in that situation you tell Cedeno to bunt and lift Ohlendorf for a pinch hitter. But apparently Russell is no 8-year-old child.

He had Cedeno swinging away, which resulted in a pop-up that advanced no one. Still, at that point there's only one out and arguably even more reason to bring in a pinch hitter. But Russell sends Ohlendorf to the plate, and he responds with yet another fly out that advances no one. One batter later, Laroche ends the inning.

To cap off the episode, Ohlendorf walks the leadoff batter on four pitches in the bottom of the inning and he's promptly replaced by Meek.

My point is, Ohlendorf had pitched a stellar game for six innings, but he's just one start removed from the DL. Why send him out for the seventh when your bullpen is pitching lights out? Maybe -- maybe -- you let him start the seventh if he's pitching really, really well. But if you had that much confidence in him, you wouldn't be replacing him after one batter. More importantly, the only way Ohlendorf should have been hitting with runners on base in the top of the inning is if he's working on a no-hitter. Any other situation and you lift him for a real hitter so you can pad your lead.

That's just Baseball 101, isn't it?

After two games, the prodigal son is hitting a tidy .333 with three home runs. That includes two jacks and five RBIs last night.

Ah, June 1 seems so far away.

Meanwhile, Tabata is hitting .300 with no homers.

At the other extreme, we have Vinnie Chulk, who's sporting a gaudy 216.0 ERA. But it's early yet. With a good outing tonight, maybe he can get that down into double-digit territory.

The headline is self-explanatory. The question before the court is whether Jones, if he continues to show he's not just a one-year wonder, elevates himself above the status of place-holder and becomes an asset to be leveraged.

I think most of us assumed he'd be a guy who could hold down first base or right field reasonably well until Alvarez or Tabata arrived and needed the position. But if he continues to rake at anything approaching his current pace for the next month or so, he's going to start popping up on people's radar screens.

So again, the question is whether it makes sense for the Pirates to keep him around knowing he might hit 30 or 40 homers for a 95-loss team or trade him to a contender in need of an affordable Lefty McThump and get back prospects who will be ready to contribute in two or three years when this team becomes a contender itself.

As difficult as it might be in the short term, I think the answer is obvious.