What A.J. Burnett Means to the Pirates

The Pirates (finally) completed their trade for A.J. Burnett yesterday with the Yankees. The Yankees will be paying $20M of the remaining $33M on Burnett's contract -- the Pirates will pay Burnett $5M in 2012 and $8M in 2013 -- and the Pirates sent RHP Diego Moreno and OF Exicardo Cayones in exchange. Neither of these guys will be missed. The Pirates seemed to have tired of Moreno's immaturity, as they stalled him out in High-A with only a taste of AA. Cayones was a Latin American bonus-baby ($400K signing bonus) that has yet to hit a professional home run.

I've seen Burnett described as "old" as a 35-year-old pitcher. I'm 35. Hearing him described as old makes me feel old. Gah....growing old is getting old.

Burnett had a rough 2010 and 2011 with the Yankees due to higher-than-usual HR rates. In my opinion, most of the problem is a lack of separation in speed between his slowly declining fastball (still a top notch 92.7 average) and his firm changeup of 88 mph. You really want to see an 8-10 mph difference between the two. Hopefully Ray Searage can alter that.

But what Burnett does is legitimize this rotation and to a small extent this whole team. He's a "name" and still producing well. Barring injury, Burnett will anchor this rotation and provide 190+ innings this year.

Both Burnett (8.1 K/9 innings) and free agent signee Erik Bedard (8.7 K/9) bring a different dynamic to this rotation in 2012 -- the strikeout capability that has been lacking since...forever. Just as an example, here's the K rates for the rotation in 2011:

2011 -- McDonald (7.47 K/9), Morton (5.77 K/9), Maholm (5.38 K/9), Karstens (5.32 K/9), Correia (4.50 K/9)

Here's what that could look like in 2012:

2012 -- Bedard (8.76 K/9), Burnett (8.18 K/9), McDonald (7.47 K/9), Morton (5.77 K/9), Karstens (5.38 K/9)

Quite a difference. Instead of relying on putting the ball in play, with all that entails in terms of errors and poor decision making of other moving parts, the rotation is now a do-it-yourself type of mentality. I'm just going to throw this ball past the hitter, have my catcher catch it (bye Ryan Doumit), and eliminate the middle man.

This past offseason, the Pirates waded in to free agency early and got guys like Clint Barmes and Rod Barajas as soon as the store opened. Both of these guys are defensive upgrades on their replacements. Barmes should at least be Cedeno's equivalent on offense, too. Barajas has power at least -- hopefully a healthier Chris Synder. The Pirates also stole Bedard at $4.5M, although it will be amazing if he pitches move than 140 innings this year.

The Pirates tried to obtain a big player via free agency, but for the 2nd year in a row they couldn't give their money away. Last year their white whale was Jorge de la Rosa, this year Edwin Jackson. So they did the next best thing and shanghaied someone from another team in A.J. Burnett.

It may be the excitement of the move, still, but I'm excited about the Pirates. I will realistically say this is a 78 win team, but with a bounce or two here and there they could finally break The Streak. If that happens, it will be due to A.J. Burnett fronting this rotation. Breaking the losing streak should finally lead to free agents not using the Pirates as their "back up school" while they wait for Harvard to get back to them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to listen to the Silversun Pickups.

Probably Tough to Find Curtains

DB~ stumbled on this story from the New York Times about a Pittsburgh couple that built quite an avant-garde house in Pittsburgh. Click the link and check out the slideshow. Go ahead, I'll wait. (*checks email) (*refreshes MLB Trade Rumors for the 8,156th time to see if the Burnett trade is final) (*thinks about what to make for dinner)

Pretty sweet, huh? As long as your bag of tea is a glass and steel cantilevered box of a house. The story is that the empty nest couple wanted to live in the City and have a cool house. They also wanted to be close to the husband's glass factory business. They took those two things to their maximum extent by building their new home DIRECTLY over top of the business. The house cantilevers out quite a bit from the facade of the business, so that is quite a transfer beam running through there at some point.

The Zielinski's own Emerald Art Glass in the South Side, so they get a picturesque view of people peeing on cars on Carson Street and the muddy waters of the mighty Monongahela passing by them each morning and evening.

All snark aside, I would love to live in an industrial steel and glass house like this. It's ballsy and is a definite showpiece. I wonder if the decorations are as spartan as shown in the slide show or if that was just for the news piece? You certainly must be willing to surrender your privacy to live in a place like this.

Going back to Kingston

I gave DB~ carte blanche to select whatever she wanted to eat. She wanted to reminisce over our trip to Jamaica we took back in March 2010, so she went with Jamaican night.

I bought a jerk chicken marinade that was just spicy enough to get your attention, but not ridiculous. I marinated some chicken tenderloins at the start of the morning so they were good and marinated by dinner time. For the side dishes, I went with a simple box of herb roasted chicken rice. Technically, it should have been white rice I guess, but that can get boring.

I wanted an island-feeling side dish, so I saw some plantains at Giant Eagle. I took the peels off of the them, cut them in half width wise and then cut each half LENGTH wise (twice) to get plaintain "planks". I fried them in some oil for 1-1/2 minutes each side, until they get just a little brown, then I dusted them with cinnamon to give some taste to the kind of plain taste.

The finishing touch was serving it all with Red Stripe. Swim up bars + Red Stripe in Jamaica = one stumbling good time on vacation. We toned it down considerably, of course, only having 2 each.

Big ups to Tony, who made the fish for us, and Geraldine who braided DB~'s hair. One love. Respec'.

Avacado - Apple Slaw

It's happened slowly. Almost imperceptibly. Like a whisper of a notion daydreamed by the wind.

I'm slowly becoming a vegetarian, I fear. DB~ is a wannabe vegetarian who will one day go Full Veggie. Through osmosis and the transient property of food consumption, that means I'm adopting vegetarian tendencies, too.

DB~ has been on a nice run of finding recipes, primarily through the website Real Simple, and last week she found a good one for fish tacos. We made them with tilapia, but the real star of the show was the Avacado-Apple slaw that was the primary topper on the fish.

I cubed one avacado, diced up one peeled Granny Smith green apple, dashed on some chili powder, and sprinkled salt. I forgot to buy a lime to squeeze over top, but I'll do that next time for sure.

The apple gave it some crunch, while the avacado was smooth and creamy. We added some colby cheese and sour cream on top of the fish tacos in the soft shells.

The sad part to me is that I really don't miss red meat that much. I still love pork and can't ever see giving that up, but aside from a stray burger here and there, I don't eat red meat anymore. In a blue moon, I'll splurge and have a steak. But overall I don't mind a predominantly vegetarian diet.

Park Brugge

Last night I was working late. DB~ planned to meet her aunt for dinner and asked if I would like to join them. The place they selected was Park Brugge, which is the sister restaurant of the fantastic (and still relatively-under-the-radar) Point Brugge in Point Breeze.

Park Brugge is located in Highland Park (see the pattern) and has a French flair to its menu in contrast to the Belgian tint of Point Brugge. Old favorites from the Point are still on the menu, such as the mussels (Moules Frittes), but one of the 3 possible preparations is a Creole-style with andouille sausage/trinity/tomatoes. Foreshadowing!!

They also have these little flatbreads using a recipe from the region in France known as Alsace. The flatbreads are called Tarte Flambees and there are also 3 preparations. We selected as an appetizer the one with carmelized onions, shaved cheese, ham, and chives with a topping of creme fraiche. It was pretty fantastic and enough for 2 people to enjoy and for 3 people to share (meaning I was ready for my entree).

I did end up ordering the mussels creole-style. You get a pound and a half of the tasty little hinged black sea creatures. This was only my second time every having mussels, with the first being when I made them a few months ago for DB~. The sauce and veggies infiltrated every one of the mussels, so you actually get excited to pop them open fully and scoop out the goodness inside. It also comes with frites (french fries) and mayo, plus a chunk of crusty bread. I was uncomfortably full when done.



DB~ made an interesting choice by selecting the Vegetable Pasta, minus the peas which are the bane of her culinary world. She was quite pleased by the huge size of the pasta, which were rather large as pasta shells go. She got it topped with some grilled chicken.



Her aunt went with the Roasted Half Chicken that came with an order of frites and vegetables. The presentation on the plate was quite pretty when it was served. The remnants of this dish are sitting in our refrigerator and will probably be my lunch sometime this weekend.



If you've ever been to Point Brugge, you know that it is a real feat to get a table. It's a small space and has a borderline cult following. Park Brugge has more seating, but it was still a 20 minute wait on Thursday night. We chose to dine bar-side instead.

Highland Park is an area of town that I have not frequented much in the past, but with Park Brugge there and the Smiling Banana Leaf right next door, we'll probably be back in this neck of town.

Cranberry -- Protectorate of the North

Continuing in a counter-clockwise direction around the compass, the next population center outside the city to highlight is Cranberry to the north. Cranberry exploded in population all throughout the 1990's, to the point that it was one of the top 10 growth areas in the United States.

Cranberry is located just over the border from Allegheny County, in Butler County's southwest corner, which is part of the allure for its population growth thanks to a much lower tax rate. It also sits at the point where the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76) passes over Interstate 79. This provides great access for trucks to service the large amount of commercial and industrial businesses here, while also providing fantastic access to major roads for normal motorists. And by the way, Route 19 (leading to McKnight Road) and Route 228 also come through here, too.

All of this traffic, coupled with the volcanic increase in population, led Cranberry to experience terrible traffic. Within the past 7 or 8 years, though, PENNDOT and the Turnpike Commission have done some major projects to try and alleviate the mess. The Turnpike Connector allows vehicles on I-79 to go straight to I-76 without having to clog up Cranberry's roads. Additionally, the Cranberry toll booth was eliminated and replaced with a mainline massively wide toll station 3 miles outside of the original exit.

The interesting part of Cranberry is that the vast majority of the commercial and residential developments are located in the southern sector of the Township. There are huge swathes of land in the north and eastern part that remain rural farms or woodlands. It is conceivable that if the City of Butler continues to struggle and rot away on the vine that Cranberry Township could become the County seat within 50 years. The drawback to that would be that it would be located in the southwest corner of the County and not be geographically centered for the other residents of the County.

Cranberry Township is well run, with a fantastic manager overseeing the growth and development in Jerry Andree. They have a robust staff of senior officials in the Public Works and Engineering departments as well. Cranberry received a huge shot in the arm when Westinghouse relocated their entire corporate headquarters from Monroeville to Cranberry a couple of years ago.

Cranberry has better planning than the previous post of Monroeville, but it is still a sprawled out community. They do have a very impressive array of parks and speciality parks, plus their own municipally-owned golf course. They also have a "neo-traditional" neighborhood that pushed the homes closer to the road and closer together to encourage communication between neighbors.

Similar to all four municipalities that I'll be discussing, Cranberry is the kind of place that you can live, work, shop, and play all without leaving the community. It's not a perfect place, but it is a good place to set up shop while still having access to Pittsburgh (about 12 miles north of the city via I-279/I-79).

Monroeville -- Protectorate of the East

Back in the days of the Roman and Greek empires, outlying cities would be the scouts for the main cities of Rome and Athens. If trouble was brewing, they would send scouts to the main city to report on it.

Fast forward to the 1980's and 90's and people were fleeing from the main cities to the suburbs, accelerating a trend started in the 1960's known as White Flight, when the white middle class abandoned the urban areas of America.

Due to better services and lower tax rates, Pittsburgh is no stranger to this phenomenon. As I was going to a seminar last week in Monroeville, it dawned on me that Pittsburgh has 4 major population/commercial nodes on each point of the compass surrounding the city. Today's post will be about Monroeville, our gateway to the East. Gateway is ironic in the usage there, as that is also the name of the school district that serves Monroeville.

As a child growing up in the North Hills during the 1980's, my parents frequently dragged me to the Monroeville Mall when they wanted to go to a "nice mall". This was pre-Ross Park Mall opening in 1987. Many a Sunday was spent in the back of my parents car driving Allegheny River Boulevard, Lime Hollow Road, Rodi Road, and then business 22.

I go to Monroeville on work related reasons about twice a year now and view it in a whole different prism, now from a land development/urban planning perspective. Monroeville is stuck. They're stuck between the "dying on the vine" big box mall complexes, rapidly becoming dinosaurs and the newer sleeker strip malls that serve a younger, tech-savvy population.

There was a pretty interesting looking new strip mall with a gym and an AT&T store on one end of Monroeville, replete with a lot of glass and aluminum cladding. But it was the exception and not the rule in this slip-shod of a design business district. A driver's eyes are visually raped as you move from the Turnpike down Business 22 and into Wilkens Township. There are practically no trees, tons of garish signs at varying heights, and strip malls stacked on big boxes intertwined in chain restaurants. And that doesn't even get into the abomination of the old Expo Mart and Monroeville Mall, both criminally underutilized at this point. I won't even start a rant about how pedestrian unfriendly Monroeville is, either.

Monroeville is trying, though. I did notice a small stretch of decorative street lights in front of one re-developed mall. The old Wickes Furniture is now a halfway-decent Convention Center with a Doubletree right next door. Monroeville is a by-product of the 60's and 70's, so it's change to at least the early 2000's will take some time.

Losing Westinghouse's massive operation to Cranberry (an upcoming Protectorate post) probably stung Monroeville a bit in terms of income taxes and business taxes. Hopefully Monroeville has heard of this new thing called "green design" and incorporates that into any potential re-designs.