University of Pittsburgh

Friday Insider: Pirates’ payroll should top $90M

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Frank Coonelly has been the Pirates' president since 2007. -- GETTY

Frank Coonelly has been the Pirates’ president since late in the 2007 season. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

A weekly roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our city’s teams …

fridayinsider• The Pirates “certainly can and I suspect will” top the $90 million mark in payroll in 2015, Frank Coonelly told DKonPittsburghSports.com exclusively Thursday.

And yes, this will represent another significant increase, contrary to widespread misinformation and misrepresentation of the truth.

If you want bluster, click away. If you want facts, here you go …

The Pirates’ 40-man roster payroll for 2014, the one audited and verified by Major League Baseball’s accounting offices, was $82.1 million. While multiple other outlets were howling over payroll being in the low-$70 million range, this site informed you in the Sept. 5 Friday Insider that the actual projected figure for the full year was $82.4 million.

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Pitt 70, Kansas State 47, final

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Getting ready for tipoff …

Game: Pitt (3-2) vs. Kansas State (4-2), 7:32 p.m., Lahaina Civic Center, Lahaina, Hawaii

TV, radio: ESPN2, 93.7 The Fan

Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes

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Column: A Thanksgiving appreciation in threes

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Buffalo Bills v Pittsburgh Steelers

Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown celebrate a touchdown hookup earlier this season. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Feeling especially and personally thankful on this Thanksgiving eve …

• I’m thankful to cover professional sports in a town blessed by not one not two but three truly elite performers on each team, which I’m guessing is more than most would count into that category.

I’ll go Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell with the Steelers, each of whom can currently claim a legit argument for being the very best at his position in the NFL.

I’ll go Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and, yes, Marc-Andre Fleury with the Penguins. Because anyone who would discount the latter doesn’t fully appreciate what it meant Monday that he became the third-youngest goaltender in NHL history to 300 wins. And get this: Since making his debut Oct. 10, 2003, at the Civic Arena, Fleury has accounted for 69 percent of the Penguins’ 432 victories while sharing the crease with 15 other men.

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San Diego State 74, Pitt 57, final

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Getting ready for tipoff …

Game: Pitt (3-1) vs. No. 15 San Diego State (4-0), 10:14 p.m., Lahaina Civic Center, Lahaina, Hawaii

TV, radio: ESPN, 93.7 The Fan

Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes

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Tuesday 12 Qs: Brittle Beau, Mitchell, Neil

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Pittsburgh Penquins v New York Islanders

Beau Bennett is checked by the Islanders’ Thomas Hickey on Saturday in Uniondale, N.Y. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Welcome to Tuesday 12 Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 2 p.m. and offers you a chance to dictate the discussion.

photo-150x150The format is simple: Use the comments section below to submit an entry. No more than one per person, please. Submit early if you prefer, and I’ll pick from that batch to get rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live. All topics welcome, as always.

Thanks to the new commenting platform, by the way, there’s a very good chance we’ll be able to conduct this chat on a live chat platform as early as next week.

UPDATE 2:01 p.m.: And away we go …

jayjay_667: Snark free honest thoughts of whether Beau Bennett can fill a top-six role by the postseason? (Without tired cliche “fragile” commentary.)

DK: Whoa there, Snark Police! Hang on just a minute here. Let’s be crystal clear on this: Bennett being fragile deserves neither your quotemarks nor your preface that it’s a tired cliche. It’s a fact. A stone-cold fact. He is injured more often than he plays. It’s been going on ever since he turned pro. It’s highly unfortunate, but it’s also very real.

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Pitt 81, Chaminade 68, final

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Getting ready for tipoff …

Game: Pitt (2-1) vs. Chaminade (2-0), 9:02 p.m., Lahaina Civic Center, Lahaina, Hawaii

TV, radio: ESPNU, 93.7 The Fan

Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes

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Column: Cure Pitt’s sickness, not symptoms

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Tyler Boyd gestures toward the Panther Pitt student section after beating Syracuse, 30-7, Saturday. — PITT ATHLETICS

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

The Pitt football program isn’t nearly good enough, but it seems that’s just an inconvenient annoyance for far too great a percentage of its aging, fading fan base.

So hey, forget that the Panthers’ hollow 30-7 rout of a rancid Syracuse roster Saturday at Heinz Field meant next to nothing. Or that all that their finale next week at Miami represents is a chance to finish 6-6. Or that a .500 bowl bid is better of discarded than accepted. Or that, other than pride and more individual accolades for James Conner and Tyler Boyd and no one else, they’re pretty much just pulling the curtain closed on another lost season.

Right, gentlemen?

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On location: Pitt 30, Syracuse 7, final

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Getting ready for kickoff …

Game: Pitt (4-6, 2-4 ACC) vs. Syracuse (3-7, 1-5 ACC), 3:32 p.m., Heinz Field

TV, radio: ESPNU, 93.7 The Fan

Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes

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Hawaii 74, Pitt 70, final

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Getting ready for tipoff …

Game: Pitt (2-0) vs. Hawaii (3-1), 12:02 a.m., War Memorial Gym, Wailuku, Hawaii

Radio: 93.7 The Fan

Online: GameTracker / Multimedia / Official game notes

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Friday Insider: How Pirates finished with Russ

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Russell Martin met the Toronto media Thursday in his introductory news conference. — CTV PHOTO

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

A weekly feature rounding up a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our city’s teams …

fridayinsider• There are countless reasons why teams don’t divulge information about contract offers to players who reject them. And for every one of those, there’s a counter-reason why agents won’t want that out, either.

In the team’s case, above all, it can set a poor precedent. Divulge one offer, and it sets the bar for divulging pretty much everything down the road. It also can foster distrust among players or agents for future dealings. And it can unnecessarily create tension inside the locker room among other players who soon will have their hands out.

All of this, and so much more, is why the Pirates are anything but eager to divulge details of their now-well-short bid to keep Russell Martin in Pittsburgh.

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