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Except to show up the morons who still think the Manny trade was a mistake.
Maybe it's Monday morning, but this flew 50,000 feet over my head. Off the coast of Africa... Cape Verde Islands? Madagascar? Comoros? Seychelles?
no ONE is "enthusiastic" about working with a limited budget- seriously- MAYBE if a GM has COMPLETE autonomy so long as he stays within that budget it's better than a team with an average payroll, but with a PRES and owner who meddle...
Always, even at the end, Littlefield was able to muster up a fair bit of enthusiasm for a good lie.
If you had to pick a GM out of that big pile of fail, who would you take? You can also add Jim Duquette, if you like - they pursued him, but were denied permission to interview by the Mets.
McClatchy's move onto his life's work may be the single best thing that has happened to the Pirates since they drafted and signed Barry Bonds.
well Wren seems to be floundering a bit now- but I think it's too soon to tell. Schuerholz was a great GM, but he didn't leave Wren with as much to work with as one might think- the Braves vaunted pitcher development pipeline had long since run dry before Wren took over for instance.
seriously, I know DL had little $ to work with, but even out of that "pile of fail" he looks like the bottom of the pile.
For all the criticism that he takes here (much of which is deserved, especially with respect to his media relations), JP has done a competent job in Toronto - he's basically been a .500 GM in a division with two of the monsters of the game. You could do a lot worse than him, as the rest of that list demonstrates.
But that having been said, there's absolutely no excuse beyond terrible management at virtually every level of a franchise to explain failures like the ones suffered by the Royals and Bucs. Perhaps only a few small and mid-market teams can be the Twins or A's. But in the time since the Pirates were last over .500 all but three teams (the Royals, Natspos and Brewers) have made the playoffs, the Brewers have a real shot at it this year. Four franchises have entered the league with all of them making the playoffs--barring a major, major TB collapse--and two have won pennants.
Maybe being the Yankees or Red Sox is beyond the budget of the Pirates. But the reason they've sucked so bad for so long isn't money.
The Pirates traded Aramis Ramirez for Jose Hernandez, Bobby Hill, and Matt Bruback for financial reasons. Reasons that included the following salaries (courtesy of the BBref, of course):
Brian Giles $ 8,833,333Jason Kendall $ 8,571,429
Kevin Young $ 6,625,000
Kris Benson $ 4,300,000
Mike Williams $ 3,500,000
Aramis Ramirez $ 3,000,000
Pokey Reese $ 2,500,000
Scott Sauerbeck $ 1,566,667
Brian Boehringer$ 1,500,000
Randall Simon $ 1,475,000
Kenny Lofton $ 1,025,000
You can't traffic in that kind of fiscal incompetence and then claim that the playing field is uneven; that is, you can't claim the playing field is uneven if you insist on playing with only one shoe.
And even among those, the Expos would've made the playoffs in the interim if not for the strike, and the Brewers seem like a pretty good bet to make it this year.
The payroll is much too low, but at the same time, management has been horrible enough that if you gave them buckets of money, they would've just turned into the Orioles. The challenge is going to be convincing Nutting to open the wallet once Huntington has built a decent foundation.
I've never heard that one before. If that's original, very nicely done indeed.
You can't traffic in that kind of fiscal incompetence and then claim that the playing field is uneven
You can't claim that the uneven playing field is the only reason. For sure, there is no reason other than incompetence for signing Kevin Young to that contract. I also like the 2.5M for Pokey.
And it would've been even worse if not for the gift of Operation Shutdown.
Does Arbuckle belong in the pile of fail? How much credit does he get for Utley, Rollis, Hamels, Howard, Burrell?
The Yankees (eg Steve Karsay) and Red Sox (eg every FA shortop they've tried) and Angels (eg Gary Matthews Jr) have made similar big money mistakes, too. The difference is that they can eat the money without it being a franchise-crippling mistake. That's not to excuse Pirate incompetence, but the money does help to cover up mistakes.
yes it does...
looking at that list of fail-
how bad would Ned Colitis look if he had not inherited all that farm talent?
Two of the four have won the WS (one of them twice), and a third has won a pennant.
The Phillies would probably know best, and when they got rid of Wade, they elected to add Gillick rather than promoting Arbuckle.
I guess Arbuckle might turn into a good GM, but I've never been really that impressed by him for whatever reason. (If you want to get a look at his general philosophy, Neyer did an interview with him back in '02).
As soon as you can find a franchise that has made as many mistakes as the Pirates have made and had better success due to financial advantages, then more power to you. But you'll have to forgive me if I don't buy into the current American faith-based evidence strategy: "I believe what I believe and so I must be right, in spite of the data to the contrary."
So does making smart decisions -- if either of those three teams tied their wagons to multiple wastes of payroll space like Mike Benjamin or Kevin Young or Pat Meares or Operation Shutdown, and combined that with a spectacularly awful minor league system, then they'd be in the crapper just like Pittsburgh is. And ask this year's Mariners what $100 million buys you.
Arbuckle seems competent, but the drafting philosophy during his time has always been high risk, high reward (see Anthony Hewitt/Jason Knapp for the 2008 version). Since he has always seemed a tool guy first, you have to think he has had a major say in the drafts.
As for the past, Burrell was the obvious choice that year, and Howard probably a bit of luck, but Utley, Rollins and Hamels were all risky picks at the time that have paid off big. If you look in the system now, you see almost all high upside guys (Taylor, Drabek) or flameouts like Golson. The Phillies farm has notoriously churned out excellent high end talent and massive failures, with little in between.
And, for the most part, he has had to work with a team that didn't bust slot much until this year and who was hemmoraging draft picks in Wade's infamous pursuit of middle-innings relievers. Based on that, I wouldn't put him in the category of Krivksy or Colleti.
i think the pirates have had a LOT of minor league talent they wasted/didn't develop/traded away. it is not that they didn't get any in the first place like the astros these past 7 years
padraic,
just curious about your handle - what does it mean? is it a place?
Pardon me, but I didn't think that was the object of this exercise...
it is an interesting name. is it your mother's maiden name? what ethnicity is it?
Let's give more than a small nod; let's contract the teams.
Edit - Heh, that last part might not help. I recall from another post you aren't the biggest golf fan.
Baltimore is an interesting parallel. A marginally better record and playing in a tougher league, making mistake after mistake.
Year PGH Finish/Rank BLT Finish/Rank2008 60-82 (.423) 6 63-78 (.447) 5
2007 68-94 (.420) 6 69-93 (.426) 4
2006 67-95 (.414) 5 70-92 (.432) 4
2005 67-95 (.414) 6 74-88 (.457) 4
2004 72-89 (.447) 5 78-84 (.481) 3
2003 75-87 (.463) 4 71-91 (.438) 4
2002 72-89 (.447) 4 67-95 (.414) 4
2001 62-100 (.383) 6 63-98 (.391) 4
2000 69-93 (.426) 5 74-88 (.457) 4
1999 78-83 (.484) 3 78-84 (.481) 4
Oh please, calm the rhetoric. You seem to be engaging in the faith-based maxim that salary levels have absolutely no impact on the ability of teams to compete.
And surely you must give the Pirates credit for dumping Kris Benson at the right time. :)
The Pirates would have traded Howard before he ever hit 50 home runs. Sometimes you make your own luck by not being stupid.
Ty Wigginton is another great example. Either don't get him or play when you get him, don't just sort-of-play him and then release him. Wasted resources and another example of simply not having a plan in place for success.
The Rays had an annoying, but eventually successful (be bad forever, draft well for a number of years, play the guys ASAP to get them experience, BOOM you're in the pennant race) strategy.
The Pirates could never quite decide if they were in or out of the competing mode, messing around with whatever "limited" resources they had.
Not quite... I'm saying that there's much more evidence that inadequate management is the reason for the Pirates' struggles than lack of financial resources.
It's a combination of both, with inept management being more important than lack of resources.
-- MWE
Have the Giants ever done anything as stupid as the Aramis Ramirez AND Kenny Lofton trade?
And the combination of drafting Moskos, and then taking on Matt Morris' salary even though the team was absolutely nowhere near contention?
Come on, nothing is worse than Pat Meares. Nobody wanted him, and he goes unsigned throughout all of the winter. As spring training starts, the Pirates sign him to a rather generous deal for $1.5 million for a year. He gets hurt, comes back and plays badly for a week, and as a reward for his .550 OPS, they give him a 4-year, $15 M extension.
Chris Young. For Matt Herges. Who never appeared in a game for them.
Oh sure, but I was only commenting on whether Arbuckle deserved credit for drafting Howard: Wade and Gillick deserve the credit for not trading him.
Wow. I always heard Meares brought up about stupid Pirate moves, but I didn't realize it was that bad.
Just to complete the sequence, after the Pirates released Herges in spring training, he signed with the Padres and put up a 155 ERA+ in 67 appearances that year (split between the Padres and Giants).
PATRICK!!!
that is very kewl. so i guess you are irish as bernal o'diaz who named all his kids with irish names with irish spelling.
and no, i am not the biggest golf fan. unless i got insomnia. and i still like my husband so it don't bother me that he is not the biggest golf fan neither
as for all the wasted talent minor and major, i give the mike to mike. emeigh, that is
Not true as stated. Everyone competes for World Series and the all teams are competing with $ for talent.
the NL teams just will NOT spend with the AL teams or compete for the top $$$ (except for barry zito and you see how THAT turn out) and figger the WS is a crap shoot
but we all know that spending tons does not guarantee a winning team. let alone a playoff spot
Right, but the Pirates are not directly competing with the Yankees and Red Sox for a playoff spot. As a result, it doesn't directly matter to the Pirates how much the Yankees and Red Sox spend on players. It does matter indirectly for, as you note, the big spenders both poach talent from the lesser spenders, and drive up the cost of acquiring players.
The Jays, Orioles, and Rays, on the other hand, are directly competing with the Yankees and Red Sox, and their monster payrolls.
The only comparable error I can think of is Colangelo's bizarro decision wrt Jorge Fabregas. Colangelo beats Fabregas in arbitration, so that Fabregas gets $900K rather than $1.5M. Then Colangelo unilaterally tears up the contract and just gives him a new one for $3M/2 years. For no reason. Fabregas rewards him with a 35 OPS+ in 50 games before being pawned off on the Mets.
They first need to compete for a playoff spot. The Orioles haven't competed with the Yanks or Red Sox since 1997.
Well, the Twins have done many other things well over the years, so this is not a big problem. But for the Pirates, that was what they seemed to spend ALL their effort on. Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa, Chris Stynes, Pat Meares, Derek Bell, Daryle Ward, Benito Santiago, we all know the list.
I was going to ask "Which Chris Young?" as I wasn't familiar with the trade, where either Chris Young came up, or where Herges came from. But considering the outcome, I guess it doesn't really matter, they still lost.
Liriano, Nathan and Bosner (?) for AJ?
I can't read the article; what franchise(s) did the Pirates tie?"
The Phillies of the '40s.
"Chris Young. For Matt Herges. Who never appeared in a game for them."
A few other useful guys they lost for literally nothing: Bronson Arroyo (waivers), Duaner Sanchez (waivers), Jose Bautista (Rule 5), Jeff Keppinger (traded to get Bautista back), Matt Guerrier (waivers), Leo Nunez (traded for a washed-up Benito Santiago). There are probably a few more I'm forgetting.
mike lamb wasn't a bad decision. i was stunned that he did so lousy with the bat. the glove, not exactly.
moses
one of the very worst trades of the past 50 years fer SHER. on the other hand, the players hated AJ a LOT moren barry lamar
vlad
i know there is a TON more u forgetting. plus a WHOLE lot of guys they screwed up in the majors
Gary Matthews Jr. is useful, but the Pirates actually got more for him (money) than did the Cubs (nothing), Mets (John Bale), Orioles (nothing), Padres (nothing), or Braves (nothing) when they lost him too.
Jon Lieber for Brant Brown was a sexy move.
The Pirates had their very own version of Ryan Howard, his name is Brad Eldred- his minor league line through 2005 was .282/.338/.567 - and although a real big boy, Eldred was 27-5 as a base stealer.
He got hurt and hasn't been able to clear a .250 batting average in the minors since.
That, or something like that would have happened to Howard if he'd been a Pirate.
AJ trade was mentioned.
They signed Matt Morris for too much/too long in the first place.
ZITO!
Giving up a draft pick to sign Micheal Tucker
The Ramirez trade is awful, though. But consider when the last time the Giants had any position player developed that was half the quality of Ramirez. Bill Mueller?
I saw Reed go 14-4 2.15 in AAA. He was 26 years old.
Ok, what do you do with a 26 year old who just went 14-4 2.15 in AAA?
A: Promote him and put him in the Rotation.
B: Promote him and put him in the Pen.
C: Hype him as a prospect and then trade him.
D: Stick him back in AAA and keep him around just in case (you ALWAYS NEED PITCHERS)
E: Say, "eh, he's a AAAA bum, release him".
The Pirates' answer was "E".
The Ramirez trade is awful, though. But consider when the last time the Giants had any position player developed that was half the quality of Ramirez. Bill Mueller?
I think Pedro Feliz could be described as "half the quality of Ramirez".
Another candidate, appropriately enough, would be the centerpiece of the Jason Schmidt trade, Armando Rios, who had a career-destroying injury in his second game with the Pirates. Hard to blame Littlefield for THAT.
Well, the Twins have done many other things well over the years, so this is not a big problem. But for the Pirates, that was what they seemed to spend ALL their effort on. Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa, Chris Stynes, Pat Meares, Derek Bell, Daryle Ward, Benito Santiago, we all know the list.
Signing them isn't the problem if you can get them cheap. Signing them to multiyear, eight-figure contracts is the killer (see "Seattle Mariners"). I think the Twins spent << the Pirates on their respective lists of players above, though I haven't checked salaries.
I agree with the Zito signing as worse. The AJ trade? Stupid yes, but at the time, AJ was a 27 year old catcher coming off seasons of 104 and 115 OPS+.
Whereas the Pirates dumped ARam, AND Lofton for a bunch of crap.
Yes and no. The Pirates don't compete with the Yankees and Sox, because they don't have the same resources. If they had similar resources, they would be competing indirectly with each other for FA's. The fact that the Piratss can't go after the same players as the Yankees and Red Sox directly influences the team they put on the field, and their ability to compete with their division rivals.
The Phillies plucked Wes Chamberlain from the Pirates in a bureaucratic screw-up by the Bucs, but that was actually when the Pirates were still good.
Signing them IS the problem if you can get comparable or better performance from minor league free agents, Rule 5 picks, waiver wire pickups and in-house options. While you're right that it is far worse to take the M's option of signing bad players to big contracts, that doesn't make it okay to sign bad players to smaller contracts.
There is a lot of inequity in baseball and it drives me nuts, but the last teams that should be complaining about it are the Pirates and Royals. They are just poorly run. Now the Twins, A's, Marlins - they have a bone to pick.
He got hurt and hasn't been able to clear a .250 batting average in the minors since.
That, or something like that would have happened to Howard if he'd been a Pirate."
I never saw Howard when he was in the minors, but Eldred had (and has) serious issues with contact and pitch recognition. His single-season high for walks is 41, and he was generally down in the 30s - Howard, meanwhile, had 66 in his first full season as a pro.
Yinzers here used to compare him to Adam Dunn all the time, which was a pretty ludicrous example of wishcasting.
Obligatory classic Vogelsong moment.
Some writer for BPRO said at the time of the Giles/Bay trade that it was an idiotic move for Pitsburgh- because they just gave up their most valuable commodity for a guy Bay, who was merely duplicative of a guy they already had...
well DL did win that one...
well Howard had/has even worse issues with contact- he does draw more walks- but the mesmerizing # of IBBs he draws tends to exaggerate his batting eye a bit.
In all seriousness, if he had not gotten hurt Eldred probably could have been a legit MLB hitter in the Dave Kingman/Greg Vaughn sense...
Ryan Howard OTOH is just a statistical freak.
Sorry, I just don't see it. Vaughn drew walks (four ML seasons with 80+, two more with 70+) and his career high in Ks was 137. Eldred NEVER displayed that kind of command of the strike zone.
Kong might be a little closer, but at least he could fake it at 3B or in the OF when he started out. Eldred might be the single worst defender I've seen at any position, ever. He didn't even have two-steps-and-a-dive range; watching him go for grounders was like watching one of those Saddam statues fall over. Three-hundred-pound Walter Young (bought away from a LSU football scholarship as a nose tackle) was noticably quicker and lighter on his feet.
No he couldn't. Kong was my favorite player, I saw 75-100 Mets games on TV a year back then- the ONLY position he could fake was 1B.
They (Giants) had tried Kong at 3rd because he had a strong arm (he'd once been a pitcher)- well his arm was erratic he had no range, bad hands, and... well you get the idea.
Kong in the OF-
strong but erratic arm
he could actually run pretty well once he started moving- long stride helped- but he didn't really run all out except to chase the ball- he couldn't track flyballs well enough to actually catch one on the run...
bad hands, I have never seen an MLB OF then or since drop as many flyballs as Kong- in the glove and out the glove...
and he was CLUMSY- he would hurt himself and miss time due to being clumsy out there.
I really picked on Vaughn because he's Kong's #1 BBREF comp... You're right Vaughn does have notably better K/BB numbers than Eldred.
You might be able to persuade me that Calvin Pickering was worse. It'd be close, though.
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