… A lot of something else …

• Their most outrageous gambit yet.

Neal Huntington gets ’em. Ray Searage fixes ’em.

They signed a pitcher with a broken arm (okay, it was the right arm and he is a lefty, but still …) and have gotten 35 wins out of Francisco Liriano. They brought back A.J. Burnett after he led the world in losses and turned him into a first-time All-Star. They dealt for a reliever with 6.20 ERA and turned him into a 51-save closer.

Now they’ve gone so unconventional, the GM should launch his own fast-food franchise and call it Neal out of the Box.

They’ve essentially swapped Neil Walker and Charlie Morton, who was 9-9 with a 1.38 WHIP, for Jonathan Niese, who was  9-10 with a 1.40 WHIP. Ryan Vogelsong is this year’s boomerang Buccos righty, trying to pull a Burnett. The 40-man teems with projects.

Jim Benedict had always gotten a lot of the credit for past pitching makeovers. But he is now the Marlins’ vice president for pitching development, so we’ll find out if Searage is the real Dr. Frankenstein. …

• I think record labels should distribute free turntables to stimulate sales of their LPs — the early cell phone model, when all the profits were in usage (35 cents a minute?!). Have you seen the price of vinyl? …
• Gotta assume Bill Mazeroski doesn’t share the problem most of us have with writing a new year on our checks; the one-and-only finished his career with 2,016 hits. …
• Market analysts are always pointing out that vinyl is “enjoying” a revival. No one is enjoying it as much as the labels pressing those $25 discs. …
• I suddenly get the feeling Justin and Melvin Upton Jr. are becoming the Hank and Tommie Aaron of their generation. …
• Yeah, I’m getting back into vinyl. It’s still a more emotional way of listening to music. I especially get emotional when I rummage through a record shop and see LPs
  I threw away at the dawn of the digital age selling for $25 a pop. …
• Get ready for a barrage of preseason “expert” predictions. But don’t build your fantasy team around any of it. From the bulletin board, here’s one guy’s pre-2015 take on the Royals:

“I want to see whether the Royals can make an adequate defense of their pennant or whether they’re as bad as they look on paper …”

• Given: LPs have become the baseball cards of yesteryear. You trashed boxes full of both way back then … and wish you could have them back now.