Talkin' Turkey

Geez, no rest even on a holiday.

-- The Bucs found a taker for Zach Duke; the D-Backs took him for a PTBNL. Funny how the Pirates couldn't trade him for the past season and a half; we suspect his price tag must have dropped considerably after he was DFA'ed. The Zachster should eat some back-end innings for Arizona.

Duke had a 5.72 ERA working in PNC Park, a neutral field as far as hitting is concerned, and Chase Field is considered a launching pad. Not only that, but its infield is one of the faster ones, and Duke is a career 49% groundball guy.

Of course, that should be offset by the fact that Arizona had the best UZR (a stat that puts a number on how many runs the defense saved or gave up) in baseball at +58.3 and the Bucs had the worst at -66.2.

-- Dejan Kovacevic of the Post Gazette has another name to add to list of pitchers the Bucs are bird-dogging. The newest addition is LHP Scott Olsen who posted a 4-8 record and 5.56 ERA for Washington last season.

He spent some time on the DL because of soreness in his throwing shoulder last year. Olsen had labrum surgery on that shoulder in 2009. He did have a couple of strong seasons with Florida before the injury, but only worked 81 innings in 2010.

Olsen also had a bad boy reputation with the Fish, but has cleaned up his act in the past couple of years with the Nationals.

-- The Pirates, according to Matt Eddy of Baseball America, just released minor-leaguers RHP Sheng-Cin Hong, RHP Melkin Laureano, RHP Yomar Pacheco, RHP Dinesh Patel, 1B Chih-Wei Hsu, 1B Kyle Morgan, 3B Andury Acevedo, OF Erik Huber and OF Kyle Saukko

Patel is the most notable name; he was one of the "Million Dollar Arms" the Bucs signed from India. Hong and Hsu were Taiwanese players the Bucs just signed in July; guess they flunked their audition.