An achilles injury erased his entire 2010 season. A torn tricep muscle in Week 1 of 2011 made for another season-ending injury. In 2012, 7th year man Willie Colon is back (and healthy) with a new job description: Left Guard. A 4th-Round draft pick out of Hofstra in 2006, Colon lags only the Pittsburgh Steelers […]

Who is the worst Pirate to play at PNC Park? This follows up on our OPS+ conversation from an earlier blog post, where we used the sabermetric "Adjusted On Base Percentage + Slugging Percentage." OPS+ uses ballpark effects and league effects with OPS and SLG to put a player's offensive hitting prowess (base-running aside) on […]

I've been geeking out on sabermetrics of late. That, combined with an interest to put the season (so far) of Pirates CF Andrew McCutchen into some kind of historical team perspective has me looking at OPS+ here on Friday, June 15th. What is OPS+, you ask? Well, I'm relatively new to this stuff myself, but […]

Tuesday, June 12th was the Pittsburgh Steelers' first day of mandatory Minicamp at the team's South Side facility. After watching the afternoon practice, here were the most interesting quotes I listened to: <b>Head Coach Mike Tomlin</b> on WR Mike Wallace's absence: "I don't have any reservations in that regard, Mike has always been a guy […]

Come and meet the Pittsburgh Steelers' value-laden draft picks: Safe and Risky. If Day 1 of the Steelers 2012 NFL Draft was a smoke alarm, then Day 2 was a kitchen fire. 1st Round draft pick David DeCastro enters the Black and Gold family representing arguably the most sure-thing evaluation in the entire crop of […]

With Pirates' Spring Training in full swing, I had a chance to sit down with GM Neal Huntington for a conversation on a number of topics including the expectations and plans for 3B Pedro Alvarez (hitting just .167 in camp so far), as well as the hot spring of the team's top OF prospect Starling […]

As often as house fires appear on the local news, the Pittsburgh Steelers select linebackers in high rounds in the NFL Draft in April. Jack Ham. Jack Lambert. Mike Merriweather. Levon Kirkland. Jason Gildon. Mike Vrabel. Joey Porter. Kendrell Bell. Lawrence Timmons. LaMarr Woodley. Jason Worilds. Dont'a Hightower? Might the Alabama inside 'backer be the […]

If the Steelers are thinking offensive line in the first round of April's NFL Draft, Cordy Glenn might be the guy. Although he played LT his entire senior year at Georgia, he started 13 games at LG during his junior season, 8 games at guard in his sophomore year, and even practiced some at guard […]