Couple of Alvarez points here

By Dejan Kovacevic | 12:46 p.m. Friday

No news here, but I did want to make a couple of Pedro Alvarez points here ...

> Seems to be a lot of discussion in the comments about the possibility he could have an injury, and that could be the reason for all this grievance stuff. Four points here:

1. When I wrote a couple of weeks ago that a major league contract was unlikely, I mentioned that players getting such contracts are risky for teams unless they have a physical beforehand, in the context that Scott Boras does not allow his players to take such physicals. The reason the contracts are risky: Only players with minor league contracts can have contracts completely voided if there is some huge issue with the physical. Alvarez has a minor league contract.

2. The Pirates would have no issue with Alvarez if he had some injury that, over a reasonable period of time, would heal properly. Their only concern would be if it were career-threatening. That is a very common approach in these cases, and Alvarez -- and Scott Boras -- would know that. Going through all this other stuff to disguise a minor injury, hence, would make no sense.

3. Before the union filed a grievance, it surely would check something like this out.

4. By all accounts, Alvarez is completely healthy.

> This $200,000 figure continues to get cited as being the Boras asking price to make this all go away. I genuinely do not know where this originated, but I can offer three points here, too:

1. The Pirates and Boras have not discussed a number of any kind. Boras has let it be known that his preference would be to revisit the negotiations, but there is no number.

2. Why would he ask for just $200,000? His final asking price of the Pirates on the evening of Aug. 15 was $8.5 million. If he really thought he could reopen all of this, why shoot so low.

3. There is no number.

> I referred in the main piece this morning to Bob Nutting being embarrassed last summer by a "vocal fan protest" as a result of the Matt Wieters fiasco. I most definitely was not referring to the walkout of 100 or so people that one night at PNC. In fact, that never even crossed my mind until I got a couple of reader emails about it this morning. The reference was to the general backlash, which was loud and strong. If I had been referring to the walkout, I would not have used an adjective such as "vocal" if only because it was more demonstrative than vocal.

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