Readership makes it clear, NO PAYWALL

Yesterday I had a total of $567 pledged over the last week or so toward our $1,000 goal to offset some of the costs in bringing you additional coverage during the 2010 season. I was very fortunate to announce that we had a business step up willing to match any pledges made during the last few days of the drive up to $250 and – WHAM – you responded.. $335 in pledges over the last 24 hours. When I add the $250 business pledge match, that brings the total amount of pledges to $1,152 $1,162 (just had another pledge come in as I was getting ready to publish this) with a few days left. 

I’m proud to say that, thanks to you, I won’t have to implement a membership paywall in order to bring you the added coverage this year. 

However, don’t stop now.. All amounts over the $1,000 mark will be used to bring you additional scouting reports from the minor leagues. Obviously I can’t afford to hire three scouts to follow these teams all year so I’ll use those funds to get the scouts out to even more games for us.  There are five days left in the pledge drive which you can read more about it here and here.  Click the button below to make your pledge on PayPal’s secure server.

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New Bucs Fantasy League invitations went out today. If you didn’t receive an invitation, e-mail me using the Contact form in the navigation bar above or log into the private fantasy area I provided you the link to in my first e-mail and chose one of the available time slots.

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Gorkys Hernandez K’s twice against the Manatees. Hilarious. Well, it’s an odd time for the players.. they hadn’t faced any live pitching yet, the Manatees always play us well into their season so they are on a roll, and..  (I can’t think of any more excuses).  Well, they better get their act together in a hurry because they are going to be facing some heat throwers, as well as guys on the bubble with little to no command, real quick.

The only thing I look for in spring training is that the regulars get about 50 at bats over the last couple of weeks, the pitchers start dialing it up to the 100 pitch range and keep their arms attached through dead arm periods, and we break camp as a healthy unit.  How many home runs we hit, how many games we win, and how many times a pitcher strikes out the side doesn’t mean too much to me.  However the play on the other side in minor league camp is a bit more intense so I like to hear reports from that part of the camp.

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One day after the Pirates new mental health conditioning pro was interviewed saying the major leaguers weren’t on his agenda yet, curiously Jeff Clement had this to say today:

“I definitely feel older than I used to, especially on this team,” he said. “There’s a lot of talent on this team, but there’s not a lot of proven big league talent. With this team it’s about a mentality…”

I’d like to see the players be a bit more honest with the fans, if not with themselves. I’m sure a few games here and there might be won due to some sort of positive mental approach voodoo, but in the long run games are won from men with tools that play the game the right way.

As a fan, I don’t want to hear that this team is about a “mentality” — I want to hear that this team is about teamwork, about unity, about picking each other up..  about Doumit getting out of his squat and blocking balls instead of stabbing at pitches that fly by him, or Milledge not running lazy routes, or whatever hard play that can be accomplished.

Not mentality unless that can turn a three-tool player into a five-tool player on a consistent basis. Then I’m all for it baby! 

Coincidental or not, the timing of Clement’s statement combined with it being on a Nutting newspaper comes off as him being a puppet for management.. something I certainly don’t want to see from him. We’ll have to watch this a bit closer over the year.

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Some seem to think New Bucs needs a makeover so I’d like your opinion on a few things in the two polls below. Also feel free to leave comments. These are multiple choice polls and I’ll post the results in a few days.

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Friday night the Orioles plan to give high-end prospect Chris Tillman the start, followed by Jim Johnson and Alfredo Simon.  Sunday, Scott Baker and Brian Duensing will start for the Twins in split-squad game for them.

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Jim Bowden talks about the Pirates chances of winning more than 70 games on this very good Fox Sports video:

Related posts:

1. Anti-Paywall Pledge Drive
2. The goal: 721 RS; now, how to do it?
3. Pledge Drive Update
4. Altoona Curve reach out to all Pirates fans
5. Ten little braves walked? Oh my!