Pat Lackey of the Pittsburgh Pirates blog Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? recently took a week-long trip to Florida to check out Spring Training in the Grapefruit League. He also received an unexpected opportunity to tour Pirate City.

Pirate City is a facility that the Pirates opened back in February of 2009. It serves as the home for the Pirates Florida operations, and includes dorm rooms for players and staff.

According to Lackey, the Pirates house all of their minor-league players on-site during Spring Training. Apparently, the Detroit Tigers are the only other team to do such a thing. I know that the Reds don’t.

It sounds like the Pirates have done a great job of incorporating the history of the team into the complex, with pictures of past greats adorning the hallways. Another nice touch is that each of the dorm rooms is dedicated to a particular Pirate All Star.

Lackey also got a meet-and-greet with Pirates GM Neal Huntington, and got to see many of the conference rooms and player areas. There are more pictures and details about how Pirate City is used here.

Boxscore

Well, the game started off well. Drew Stubbs continued to fight for the center field job by leading off the bottom of the 1st with a solo home run. Unfortunately, the home run was a true rally-killer. The Cincinnati Reds never scored again.

Bronson Arroyo started for the Reds, but it was his evil, first-half of the season self that showed up. Arroyo allowed 3 runs in 5 innings and was tagged with the loss. He almost allowed the cycle, but opted for a second home run instead of a single. I guess he’s an over-achiever.

After Bad-royo, the Aroldis Chapman experience took to the mound. Although scheduled for 4 innings of work, Chapman lasted just 1 2/3. It was the first time all Spring that he’s struggled, allowing 4 unearned runs in his shortened time. More frightening than his poor outing was the fact that he left early due to concerns over a stiff back.

John Fay interviewed Reds pitching coach Bryan Price about Chapman’s soreness.

“If we had any concerns about his back, we wouldn’t have gone any further right then,” Price said. “We’re not going to have guys out there throwing, knowing they have problems with their back or arm….[W]e noticed him stretching out a little bit. As soon as we saw that, we brought the trainer out to verify that there wasn’t problem. There was.”

Hopefully, it’s nothing more than a reaction to the rigors of Major League Baseball. I do think this will make the Reds even more cautious about having him be with the team on opening day.

C. Trent Rosecrans recently had the opportunity to ask Bill James a few questions.

Although at first, I wondered why on earth Trent was interviewing the former Marvel Comics executive Bill Jemas, I quickly realized it was the stat-head who’s revolutionized the way baseball players are analyzed.

Rosecrans posted the interview in two parts. Read the first here, and the second here.

I’m a big Paul Janish fan, so it was neat to see James say this about the shortstop.

He’s going to be a guy that probably doesn’t hit .260, but I don’t think he’s going to make a lot of outs, either. I think he’ll be all right in the strike zone. I think he’s going to be one of the best defensive shortstops in the next couple of years.

James also had this to say about the petty squabbles between baseball statisticians and traditional scouts.

It is a stupid debate to have. Exactly. I sit beside scouts at games all the time and we’re trying to do the same thing by different routes. There’s no reason for it to be like that.

James also discusses how Barry Larkin compares to other Hall of Famers, dealing with intangibles in choosing players to comprise a team, and how the Reds may fare this year.