News & Rumors...

News and Rumors...

• Yahoo Sports' Jeff Passan says the Pirates are one of the half-dozen teams in on Tampa lefty David Price. We'd suspect the FO was just checking on the ante. Though under control for two years, Price would still be a far jump from the usual Bucco MO in terms of prospects and payroll, although John Perrotto of Baseball Prospectus tweets that Pittsburgh would be willing to include Jameson Taillon as part of a deal.
• Pirate target 1B James Loney is a popular and somewhat pricy dude; Passan reports he's asking for three years and $27-30M. Jayson Stark of ESPN adds that the FO is looking at Texas' Mitch Moreland and Toronto's Adam Lind. Our guess is that with the tendering of Travis Snider and the deal for Jaff Decker, the Pirates are shopping for a first baseman, a starting pitcher or two and some depth. And if the pitching proves a bit more costly than the FO budgeted for, they may try to fill 1B in house with Andrew Lambo, even though they don't have much else in the pipeline.
• GM Neal Huntington told Bill Brink of the Post Gazette that OF Travis Snider had off season surgery on the left big toe. The injury altered his swing before forcing him to the DL last season. 
• Former Pirate minor league OF Tyler Gaffney went back to college, and ended up as Stanford's leading rusher. His tug-of-war between the two sports is chronicled in the New Pittsburgh Courier by AP writer Antonio Gonzalez.
• The Steamer and Oliver preliminary 2014 projections are out.
• The Pirates may have picked a good year to finish well. Though drafting at the end of the first round instead of the usual early position, this class is supposed to be deep across the board, so the Bucs should still be able to land a solid player.