John Perrotto

One can’t help but wonder if Jordy Mercer’s run with the Pittsburgh Pirates might end Friday night when the deadline arrives for tendering contracts to arbitration-eligible players. Mercer figures to have a salary of approximately $6.5 million in 2018 if he goes through the arbitration process for the third and final time. On the surface, that price does not seem unreasonable for a shortstop who hit .255/.326/.406 with 14 home runs in 502 at-bats with 1.4 bWAR. However, it is fair to wonder if the Pirates would be willing to pay that much money to Mercer when they already have 10 players under contract for 2018 for a total of just over $75 million. That doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for a team that finished last season with a $102-million payroll and figures to pay around $7.5 million to right-hander Gerrit Cole and $3 million to closer Felipe Rivero in arbitration. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine the penny-pinching Pirates opening next season with a higher

Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan is undoubtedly one of the top baseball writers in the country and I’m proud to call him a friend. However, I am not going to follow his lead and refuse to vote in the Hall of Fame election. I certainly understand Passan’s reasons for declining to cast a ballot. I believe it was quite heavy handed of Joe Morgan and the Hall of Fame to send a letter to the voters last week urging us not to vote for anyone who has been connected to performance enhancing drugs. As I wrote last week, the toothpaste is already out of the tube on that issue. I have already voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens during each of the six years they have been on the ballot. My biggest issue with Morgan and the people in Cooperstown is that their advice is too little, too late. For nearly a decade, the Baseball Writers Association of America asked the Hall for guidance on how to deal with players who had been linked to PEDs and the answer was always “sorry, you’re on your ow