Pirates named the No. 1 least Recognizable team

Kyle Stark of ESPN named the Pirates the third Most Unimproved teams in the National League (the Mets were No. 1, Astros No. 2).

Stark also named the Pirates the No. 1 Least Recognizable Team (the Astros were No. 2, Royals No. 3).

“I might as well retire this category. What’s the point? The Pirates seem to win it every year, anyway. Here’s how I know exactly how faceless this team is: I cover baseball for a living. I kept a daily log book on every team’s transactions all winter. And even I couldn’t correctly identify the Pirates’ entire prospective Opening Day lineup this week. So there’s no telling how much money you could win if you walked into any tavern not located in the 412 area code and challenged your buddies to do it — even if you gave them Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez free of charge. It’s not a good sign when more Americans can name the lineup of the 1979 Pirates than the 2011 Pirates. But I’m betting that if I commissioned a Gallup poll, that’s exactly how it would turn out.”

Stark also took a jag at the Pirates, once again, mentioning the Bucs will pay Ross Ohlendorf $2.025 million for going 1-11.