Wednesday Widgets

-- The New York Mets interviewed Clint Hurdle and Don Wakamatsu for their manager spot today. GW would have liked to seen Wakamatsu get some face time here.

It's not been a very inspiring search process. We wonder if losing Eric Wedge caught the FO completely off guard or if they just can't get people to commit to Pittsburgh. Either way, a lot of interesting names have been left in the dust, many much more qualified than the group that was interviewed.

-- Baseball America's Matt Eddy has listed all 551 minor league free agents today, a list the Bucs have trawled before and will trawl again.

Pirates on the list from Indy are: RHP Steven Jackson, RHP Jean Machi, RHP Jeremy Powell, RHP Tyler Yates, LHP Dana Eveland, LHP Corey Hamman, C Erik Kratz, 1B Brian Myrow, 2B Doug Bernier, OF Mitch Jones, OF Brandon Moss, OF Kevin Melillo and OF Jonathan Van Every.

From Altoona: RHP Derek Hankins, RHP Dustin Molleken, C Hector Gimenez, 2B Yung Chi Chen and 2B/SS Jose de los Santos.

From Bradenton: 2B Rodolfo Cardona, C Milver Reyes and C James Skelton.

Ex-Buccos on the FA list are: Jimmy Barthmaier, Jonah Bayliss, TJ Beam, Luke Carlin, Ray Chang, Raul Chavez, Robinzon Diaz, Brad "Big Country" Eldred, Eric Hacker, J.R. House, Brandon Jones, Matt Kata, Steve Lerud, Michael Restovich, Jeff Salazar, Chris Shelton, John Van Benschoten, Virgil Vasquez and Ryan Vogelsong.

Interesting list, hey?

-- Eric Seidman of Baseball Prospectus wrote "Sneaky Good in the Senior Circuit" about guys who flew under the radar. One of his under-appreciated choices was Andrew McCutchen, of whom Seidman wrote "He is the real deal...He legitimately deserves any accolades sent in his direction and much more publicity than he currently receives. He might be the MVP of this group."

-- Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk selected the best and worst unis the Pittsburgh Pirates have ever donned. The best, per CC, was the traditional uniform that dates back to 1948, very similar to today's, and the worst was the seventies' polyester mix-and-match.