Shortstop Smoke & McClutch

Matthew Pouliot of Circling the Bases has this to say about Pittsburgh and its shortstop outlook:

If the Pirates had come up with J.J. Hardy to go along with Akinori Iwamura, then they probably would have moved on from (Ronny) Cedeno. However, the former Cub was adequate after being acquired from the Mariners last season and he's only due $1.2 million or so in arbitration. Odds are that he'll stick around.

He also said that he expects to Pirates to make a play for Kahlil Greene.

A team with nothing to lose, such as the Pirates, Astros or Nationals, could sign him and hope for the best. He's just 29, and he still has 25-homer power. Prediction: Pirates - one year, $2 million

If they're looking at free agents, we'd rather they grabbed oldie but goodie Alex Gonzalez, who can probably be had for $2-3M in 2010. The Rays are also shopping Reid Brignac. Even old Bucco farmhand Brent Lillibridge of the White Sox is available.

-- Aaron Gleeman of CTB said this about the BBWAA ROY vote, won by Chris Coghlan of the Florida Marlins:

My guess is that not many of the 32 writers who cast ballots cared that Coghlan beat (Andrew) McCutchen by only 14 points of OPS or spent a lot of time factoring in Coghlan's poor defense in left field compared to McCutchen's good defense in center field, let alone making positional adjustments for their offensive production. Baseball analysis has come a long way in recent years, but for 32 beat reporters casting ballots batting averages and headlines still carry the day.

Gleeman wrote this about Garrett Jones:

Of course, on a per-plate appearance basis, Garrett Jones was the best rookie hitter in the league. He was amazing, but playing just 82 of 162 games keeps him from ranking higher on my ballot.

(He had him pegged as the fifth best NL rookie; he finished seventh.)