Annoying Pirate ‘Experts’ on WDVE, Dukes’ Deal, Pirates Ink Dotel-Circling the Bases Yells Firsties!

Octavio Dotel is now a Bucco.  A lot of people are scratching their heads about the signing.  We dug for an answer.  It’s from a solid source.  Nothing earth shattering here, just confidence.

The Pirate brass loves their starting pitchers.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  The front office went out and found what they felt was the best way to protect those pitchers because the timing was right, the price was certainly right, and frankly, the more one stares at the potential, perhaps the Pirates will make a run.

They at least resemble a paper tiger right?  If it wasn’t for those three other teams with so much talent ahead of us we could make a move in 2010.

Nah, not yet.  But it’s getting closer Pirate fans.

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Dotel received an overwhelming amount of web traffic today after Dejan at the Post Gazette reported O.D. had been annointed closer and had signed a one-year contract for $3.25 million in base pay plus performance bonuses based on games finished, as well as a 2011 club option worth $4.5 million that has similar bonuses. A $250,000 buyout of the option is also on the deal.

First the new Pirates closer had this to say, ““I feel like I can throw it even more knowing that I have a big ballpark,” Dotel said. “It’s way different than Cellular Field. It’s a pitcher ballpark, and that’s what I was looking for. I’m glad I found this place. It’s a good change for me.”

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DOTEL LINKS:

Pirate fans need to give it up for Circling the Bases   and Craig Calcaterra.  He had the Dotel to the Pirates scoop before anyone.  Proof?  It’s over there, I would link it but he said the Pirates stink, so the hell with it. 

Biz of Baseball’s Joe Tetreault weighed in on O.D. with a short mention in this article.

Jen Langosch had this detailed report on MLB.com, VIDEOS are present as well.

Fangraphswrites on Dotel and Jones, the OF pickup from the Braves. 

The best analysis came from Ray Flowers, who has some sweet facial hair.  Flowers broke down the good and the bad on O.D. in the aptly named Breaking Downarticle.  Basically, he tells fans to not get too excited.  Thanks Ray. 

So much for my Dotel signing party.  Now I’m gonna take a razor blade to the balloons, sweep up the confetti, and just give up on scavenging letters from the DUFFY, MORGAN, BURNETT, HINSKE MCLOUTH jerseys to ransom note a new Dotel jersey.  I could have put it all together Ray.

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We are on the road tonight.  Sitting in one of Washington DC’s finest hotels, it is easy to determine that no matter how elegant a hotel might be, if the internet connection sucks, at least ten people are visually upset.  Can’t imagine the number in guest rooms….anyway,  We said our piece about Dotel in the Hot Stove TV link below. But we can’t blame you if you can’t wait long enough for that monster to load.  God I hate Smitty’s voice almost as much as he does.

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We saw today on BucsBits that Zach Duke’s deal does have some incentives. Jen Langosch writes that it has $25K for 215IP, $25K for 220IP.  Nice work Mr. Duke.  We thought we were losing our mind for a minute with that one-year, bare bones deal. 

Neil Walker will be at Pirate Fest.  And he’s ready for Spring Training.  Hell, aren’t we all though.

One year deal for Rick Ankiel.  The Royals.  Nice work Boras.  Nice work. 

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How irrelevant have the Bucs become in Pittsburgh?  The Great Pittsburgh Sports Debate included zero Pirates question.  None. Zip.   You know who doesn’t help?  Radio sports ‘experts,’ like Mike Prisuta  just hammering the Pirates starting to sell single season tickets early this year.  Heh, Mike, we know that you have a great job with your Michigan State education (where the marketing team is obviously bored silly if it took two years to create this) but did you ever stop and think that people are trying to make a living selling Pirates tickets? 

These people won’t come out and tell you they cringe when you spew this garbage.  It isn’t good for the mojo of sales.  I’m guessing they just click over to the X at 105.9 or fire up Stern.  But I will guess some of these sales associates might have coughed up cash to prove themselves at this event that was recently in Pittsburgh and they have absolutely no control over what product Bob Nutting puts on the field. 

But you have control over comments that impact other Pittsburghers.  Sure you guys get in free.  What the hell do you care if Susie or Billy sells some Pirates tickets today?  You get paid to tell jokes.  Well, the Pirates jokes are getting old.  Real old.

Ticket sales is the chosen livelihood of numerous people on Federal Street.  Most of them very young sport management majors in their first job out of college and not that you would care, but most of them are from Universities in my beloved Pittsburgh. 

I think I got Prisutas’ quote close when he started to pile on the Bucs today on my I Heart Radio feed.   In referring to PNC Park, he bellowed, “it’s a great bar with a hefty cover charge.”  Even Jimmy Krenn jumped on the pile with his, “it’s a great restaurant” comment and Val added, “great view.”    [Maybe the DVE crew is just lost without Randy.]

Baseball Prospectus hot shot John Perrotto had a ‘hilarious’ tweet in response to the ticket sale announcement.

"This should cause quite the stampede. RT @BucsInsider: #Pirates 2010 single game tickets go on sale Saturday, January 30 at 10 a.m. ET 12:26 PM Jan 20th from TweetDeck"

Yeh, funny stuff fellas, maybe you should move to New York and join the rest of the clowns ripping the Pirates.  It’s all we got, and in spite of Nuttingnomics,  it’s starting to come around.  Sure it’s been painful, but so are shots like these, which have a direct effect on quite a few fellow Pittsburghers.

Not all of us can be as cool as you are, we still are loyal Pirate fans.  It’s a shame you’re not.  Maybe you never were.

But when the Bucs do get this turned around, there will be one little, annoying, misspelled word filled blog never letting you live down your dumb ass jokes about ticket sales efforts by the hardest working sales team in Major League Baseball.

Count on it.