Q: In following the Pirates via your Q&As, the blog and articles in the PG, I notice very little (if anything) written about Jack Wilson and his status. Do you get the sense that Jack is disappointed in being back in a Pirates uniform?
At the end of last season, it seems he felt that he was destined to be somewhere else this spring.
Bill Chapman of Greensburg
KOVACEVIC: Honestly, Bill, I wrote so much about Wilson in the offseason after his headline-grabbing pronouncement that the Pirates' management needed to get "more players" back in December that it might have been overkill to keep pounding it.
Yes, he is happy. He says so almost daily, and that customary smile and enthusiasm is very much in place.
Oh, and one other thing: Yes, Wilson did think he would be playing elsewhere. So did many people, including, I might add, the Pirates' front office that now seems to making suggestions that the whole Wilson-is-going-to-be-traded thing was either a) a media concoction or b) something that other teams pursued but not the Pirates. I have ample information from outside the Pirates organization that neither is the case. The Pirates shopped Wilson, and they did so very aggressively. They obviously were not going to give him away, or that deal with the Dodgers surely could have been completed. But the notion that the Pirates were passive bystanders during this process, by many accounts, is incorrect.
Just thought I would share.
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Q: Hi, Dejan. As a Pirates fan who doesn't live in Pittsburgh anymore, I just wanted to say thanks for all the good coverage of spring training. Most of what I know comes from your efforts.
Do the Pirates still owe any money to Matt Morris?
Jason Schloetzer of Washington, D.C.
KOVACEVIC: Technically, yes, Jason, the $1 million buyout of Morris' 2009 club option goes onto this year's payroll, as per Major League Baseball's accounting methods. I am using that figure, plus other odds and ends, when I compute -- on my own - the team's actual payroll.
As I have written previously, too many people simply add up the full-year salaries of the 25 guys who play on opening day and refer to that all year as the payroll. Much more to it than that.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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