Saturday Notes...

Snowballs to baseballs...

• Don't know how close to the vest the Bucco budget is this year, but Chris Cotillo of the MLB Daily Dish tweets "Source: The Orioles seem to be waiting on response from AJ Burnett before pursuing other starting pitchers. He looks like their main target." Burnett could have the best of both worlds with the Os; he lives in a Maryland suburb 1/2 hour from town. Be interesting to see how much El Birdos think he's worth.
• James Loney's three year/$21M contract with Tampa seems manageable, but the price looks a lot like a home town discount, and the Pirates were leery ("out of our comfort zone") of committing for three years. Still, that leaves the cupboard pretty bare for 2014; there aren't very many good options left. Eric Chavez is starting to look awfully tempting.
• RHP Ryan Reid and OF Jerry Sands were the pair DFA'ed to make room for newly signed Clint Barmes and Edison Volquez on the 40-man roster.
• Not much came out of the first day of Pirate Fest. The only oddity was the FO telling the media that their $19M contract with Root Sports was inaccurate, and they're in the top half of TV deals. We're not exactly sure how you can plead fiscal limitations and then tell everyone what a geyser of a revenue stream you're getting from television.
• Beyond the Box Score noted that 21 qualifying players were above average in 2013 in all three categories of batting, running, and defense as measured by Fangraphs. Three were Pirates; you can probably guess two but the third might be a surprise...