So, why did the Pirates feel the need to pull the trigger on the trade five days before the deadline?

Moreover, why include both of their prime chips in the same deal?

Trading Nady 5 days early makes Bay that much more valuable as the deadline approaches by both creating a move that other teams (Boston, Tampa) may need to respond to and by taking away the second most valuable bat on the trade market. As far as prime chips, I think that Bay is their most valuable asset; partially because they do not need to trade him at this time. I like that Huntington used the same argument that I tried to make:

If the Pirates could have traded Nady and Marte straight up for Tabata last winter, Huntington said, "We would have done it in a heartbeat."

Coonelly's line scares me, though, because it's the same thing that McClatchy used to say:

"Today's trade is not a sign that additional trades are imminent before the deadline," Coonelly said. "The organization will, however, continue to evaluate aggressively any opportunity to make additions that will help build the foundation upon which we can again win championships in Pittsburgh. We have said from the beginning that we do not aspire to finish .500."

Finishing .500 shouldn't be a goal, but it'd be an important stepping stone. Yeah, the Rays are in first after never sniffing .500, but everyone's not fortunate enough to pull the worst-to-first (damned Braves).

I still think this was a great trade. Standing by that.

JP Ricciardi has mentioned this before, too. There are more untouchable prospects than players on the 25 man roster.

I still think this was a great trade. Standing by that.

I wouldn't say great trade, but I agree with the rest of your post and I think the trade was fine. Nady for Tabata would have been a very good trade, Marte for the rest is a weak trade so all in all, it's a reasonable trade for both sides.

If this puts the heat on Boston or Tampa to get Bay, then the value of the trade basically doubles.

Re: #1:

It's certainly disturbing to hear the new regime uses the same cliches as the old. I'll need to find a new team if Huntington ever says "With where we're at...." He'll have no credibility left after making that gaffe.

Pffffffffft. Meet the new regime, same as the old regime, fellas.

Pffffffffft. Meet the new regime, same as the old regime, fellas.

But what proof do you have of this?

The Pirates traded the veterans enjoying peak years in order to buy low on a very high upside player and 3 serviceable arms, one of which could well be just as good as Marte in middle relief, and saved a ton of money, also opening up a spot to play a much less expensive, home-grown Xavier-replacement named Steve Pearce. I am seriously not trying to be snarky, or to smack a bee-hive with a big, fat stick. I just can't see how this trade in any way resembles something Littlefield&co;. woulda done.

If I remember correctly, you say yourself in another thread that the Giles trade was anomalous for the previous GM. So, let's then say that if Huntington&co;= Littlefield&co;then this trade is also anomalous, in that it is more similar to the Giles trade (forgetting of course that Giles was WAY more talented that Marte/Nady) than the rest of the moves Littlefield made. So, what has Huntington done that makes him align so perfectly with Littlefield? I want to know, because I'm just not seeing it, and you seem to be so confident in your assertions.

if it was Littlfield, the Yankees and not the Pirates would have gotten a McCutchen as a throw in.

But what proof do you have of this?

You have to remember you're asking this question of a man who LITERALLY BELIEVES that the Pirates FO had a super-secret Trilateral Commission-style meeting 10 years ago and specifically decided that their goal was to lose forevermore, to never put a good a team on the field, to never finish at or above .500 or field a competitive team. I'm not kidding, not even exaggerating: Zeth seriously believes that the ownership's agenda is "failure at all costs." So that colors his opinions on any move the Pirates make.

I like JZ as a contributor to BTF quite a bit, but I'm not gonna lie: his theories re the Pirates' FO are just one step short of 9/11 Truther territory in their wacky, byzantine improbability......

...and then I remember things like the Matt Morris signing and I can't help but think for just a second that, "damn, he might be right."

Wait, is Justin Zeth Baron Von Awesome?

(BTW, I think they had a similar goal, but one that was neutral to winning, not hostile to it. Like the Marlins, but with slightly-above-tiny budgets, instead of a competent front office, as the thing that would prevent fan revolt)

I still think this was a great trade. Standing by that.

Then you are a fool.

The Pirates traded the veterans enjoying peak years in order to buy low on a very high upside player and 3 serviceable arms, one of which could well be just as good as Marte in middle relief, and saved a ton of money, also opening up a spot to play a much less expensive, home-grown Xavier-replacement named Steve Pearce.

This is a preposterous evaluation of the players involved. You've gone out of your way to give the best possible evaluation of all the guys the Pirates got while giving the worst possible evaluation of the guys they've traded. Tabata isn't a very high upside player. He's a garbage player who only appears to have value because he's young. Young players who suck still suck. He's not anywhere near one of the top 100 prospects in baseball and most of those guys, all of whom are much better than Tabata, will never amount to anything. Moreover the idea that the other guys are serviceable is wishcasting at its finest. They are also nothing. They certainly are nowhere near as good as Marte.

On the other side of the coin, Nady is a quality major league hitter and Marte is a good major league quality reliever that add serious value to the Yankees team. You don't have to be a star to have value. Every year numerous teams on the verge of being good end up tanking because of black holes in their lineup because they can't find guys like Nady and Marte. In a very real sense Nady and Marte could be the difference between making and not making the playoffs for some teams and the Pirates gave them away for nothing.

This isn't Krivsky bad but it is bad enough to get fired in my books. Horrible, horrible, trade.

What teams like the Pirates and most primates don't understand is that while there are a handful of prospects out there with real value the rest are just lineup filler. You trade Xavier Nady for a guy with a 5% chance of becoming Xavier Nady. How does that make sense?

You have to remember you're asking this question of a man who LITERALLY BELIEVES that the Pirates FO had a super-secret Trilateral Commission-style meeting 10 years ago

That's just not true! That meeting happened 12 or 13 years ago.

Wait, is Justin Zeth Baron Von Awesome?

Yeah.

I think I'm fairly reasonable about most things, and generally willing to own up to when I say stupid stuff. Yes, I continue to entertain my pet conspiracy theory about the Pirates, mainly because it's damn hard to lose as consistently as the Pirates have for as long as the Pirates have, especially when you're in the NL, especially when you're in the NL Central. You have to admit, I make a pretty good case. But then, you can say that about any wacko conspiracy theory, I guess :P

By the way, one of the main reasons I believe the Pirates are losing ad infinitum intentionally is that, as an economic model, I think it has merit and may be tempted to try it myself with a tiny market team if I thought I could get away with it, and had no conscience for anything but profit.

I just don't buy it, Gaelen. I call bs. I suppose I could get snarky and self-righteous and say something like, "Margery has spoken." But whatever. You could well be right. I don't know.

But I do know these things:

Tabata, coming into this season, was a very highly touted prospect.* He was ranked in multiple 'top 100 prospects' lists, and he has show uncanny plate-discipline at a very young age at advanced levels. He has real potential, and may turn out to be a great player. You may call him mud all you like, but those are still facts. He has been hurt/obese/mean as Mr. T this season and his prospect status has taken a hit as a result. Thus the Pirates buy low on a kid they feel might turn it around. I, for one, like that. I'd think lots of people would. Sometimes you end up with crap. But sometimes petulant kids with big ceilings turn into Hanley Ramirez or BJ Upton.

*Jim Callis claimed, "Tabata was the most impressive position player in the Futures Game. One of the 10-20 best prospects in baseball, I think."

John Sickles rated Tabata as high as A-, and dropped him to a B+ due to injury concerns, though he did praise Tabata's plate discipline. Here are his comments before this season: "18) Jose Tabata, OF, New York Yankees 'Hit .307/.371/.392 with 15 steals in 103 games for Class A Tampa. Power hasn't developed yet, but other skills are coming along nicely.'"

And just for good measure, here's what Keith Law had to say:

21) Tabata was in the top 10 last year, but a nagging hamate injury ended his 2007 season early, requiring surgery in August. Tabata has a quick bat and great hand-eye coordination, and he squares up balls as well as anyone on this list. He also has good pitch recognition, although that can manifest itself in working the count to get to a fastball he can drive. His raw power hasn't shown up in games, which could be explained by the hamate injury; hand and wrist injuries sap power, and full recovery from a broken hamate bone can take up to a year. Tabata can play center but has been bumped to right field by fellow Yankee prospect Austin Jackson (No. 24), and Tabata should be plus there with an above-average arm. He'd rank higher if the hamate problem was fully behind him, but until that becomes clear, there's still some risk here.

Xavier Nady is a very average player having a very above-average year (check his stats if you don't believe me). The Pirates didn't trade Jason Bay for 3 maybe AAAA/maybe above-replacement pitchers. They traded 45 & 1/3 innings of Damaso Marte (and his unusually high 183 ERA+) and a career year 29-year-old Xavier Nady. These players fill holes for the Yankees, and that's great for the team and their fans.

But those two players aren't really filling holes for Pittsburgh, aren't so young any more, and can't realistically be relied upon to have more seasons like the ones they are having this year. Not to mention that one of them is actually blocking an ok-decent prospect.

Guys who seem to have no future in the majors as starting pitchers can often turn into very effective pitchers in middle-relief. Smart teams take advantage of this and avoid spending huge on these types of players when they become cost-prohibitive. Marte is a good reliever. But he's also 33, and not all that useful to Pittsburgh in the grand scheme of things (aside from the draft picks he would net).

Pearce might well rebound after his promotion and put up a line similar to a normal Xavier Nady season, and on the cheap. Pittsburgh has to find out if he can. It's good that they seem to be doing that. One of the three arms might well be 120 ERA+ relief-guy and put up a line similar to a normal Damaso Marte season, and on the cheap (though it really isn't likely to be Ohlendorf).

I just don't see how this trade is a fireable offense, and I can't see how anybody could be so certain it is. We can go back and forth over this ad nauseam, but it still won't amount to a hill of beans until a few seasons are played and we see if Tabata can achieve his ceiling, or something close to it, and it might also be good to see what becomes of the three pitchers, though obviously they aren't any great shakes if their ceilings seem to include hope for one of them to latch on as a good middle-man.

I tried to edit my last comment, but it didn't take, so:

The Pirates traded the veterans enjoying peak years in order to buy low on a very high upside player and 3 serviceable arms, one of which could well be just as good as Marte in middle relief, and saved a ton of money, also opening up a spot to play a much less expensive, home-grown Xavier-replacement named Steve Pearce. I am seriously not trying to be snarky, or to smack a bee-hive with a big, fat stick. I just can't see how this trade in any way resembles something Littlefield&co;. woulda done.

It's 3:30 in the morning, so what the heck, I'll bite on this since you asked nicely.

Nady for Tabata is unremarkable, but acceptable. Tabata's a longer risk than most guys in his situation, and I can't find much reason to believe he's anything other than a 16 year old with an unusually developed batting eye that some scouts can look at, since he's not yet 20, and see him growing bigger muscles and becoming a slugger. I see a guy that was able to murder low-level pitching because of the batting eye, and won't hit AA or above pitching because those pitchers will just throw him strikes. This was my opinion of him before this trade. Even with all that, I fully agree that Xavier Nady wasn't worth much, that they had to move him now, and that Tabata is an acceptable if unspectacular return for him. Tabata does have some star potential, and that's what the Pirates need.

But Damaso Marte for the other three guys -- that is exactly the kind of acquisition the Littlefield era was all about. The Pirates got back three pitchers. Two of them will be 26 soon, are in AAA, and are never going to be anything more than decent middle relievers. Yes, decent middle relievers have value to a major league team. But they do not have any value to a horribly bad team with a horribly bad farm system that's trying to get good. That is, they don't have value to the Pirates, who are equally irrelevant whether they lose 88 games or 108. In fact, if you're serious about improving long term, you might as well lose 108 and get the #1 pick. That's frankly a better result for a single season than losing 88, especially once you're already at rock bottom.

The three guys they got for Marte--that's how I think about it, anyway, Nady for Tabata and Marte for the pitchers--have no star upside. Damaso Marte is valuable commodity. Not VERY valuable, but he's a good relief pitcher, and the trade market wanted good relief pitchers. Had they chosen, I think the Pirates could have gotten back one A-ball guy with super tools and star potential. Hell, look at what the Indians got for Casey Blake. And the Pirates should be looking to acquire one A-ball lottery ticket that might become a star, not three old AAA pitchers that are good bets to be mediocre bullpen arms.

But that's what the Pirates have always been doing: Acquiring guys that they know are going to top out as mediocre major league players. It lends the illusion of competence while ensuring the team will continue to lose, because you can't win without stars, period. And that's why I don't like what they did with Marte.

This isn't Krivsky bad

Krivsky really really screwed over the Reds by trading Kearns and Lopez. How will Jocketty ever recover from the horrible mess that Krivsky created in Cincinatti, when all Krivsky got from Kearns and Lopez is Daryl Thompson?

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</sarcasm>

Pearce might well rebound after his promotion and put up a line similar to a normal Xavier Nady season, and on the cheap. Pittsburgh has to find out if he can. It's good that they seem to be doing that. One of the three arms might well be 120 ERA+ relief-guy and put up a line similar to a normal Damaso Marte season, and on the cheap (though it really isn't likely to be Ohlendorf).

McCutchen? Maybe. Ohlendorf I can see as a long reliever, but back of the pen. Jeff Karstens? Jigga please.

I don't understand why everyone is so determined to undersell McCutchen.

I don't understand why everyone is so determined to undersell McCutchen.

Age, mostly - perhaps the PED suspension plays in here, too.

I think the bigger problem has to do with perceived value vs actual value. Because Nady and Marte are forced to play important roles in Pittsburgh - roles that they wouldn't play on a contending team - people in Pittsburgh believe they have more value than they actually do. Nady's not a middle-of-the-lineup thumper on a good team, but that's where he had to hit in Pittsburgh. Similarly, Marte's a LOOGY on a good team; in Pittsburgh he's a key setup reliever because they don't have anyone else. So when the Pirates have to trade those players, the fans expect a return based on the roles they are playing in Pittsburgh - but contending teams are only willing to trade based on where those players fit for them. If you expect star-quality return for Nady and Marte, you're going to be disappointed - and I suspect that many Pirate fans expected exactly that.

I think the Pirates got about exactly what they could have expected. Perhaps, if they'd held out longer, they'd have gotten Horne, and perhaps they should have tried. But I'm happy with Tabata and McCutchen, I can live with Ohlendorf (he's a righty version of Dumatrait, I think), and while I don't expect anything from Karstens, he's a d***ed sight better than some of the dreck they've been running to the mound in AAA and AA this year.

-- MWE

Amazingly, the Pirates may be better THIS year as a result of the trade. The drop-off from Nady to Pearce is not huge, and the McCutchen/Ohlendorf/Karstens trio is better than the Herrera/Van Benschoten/Taubenheim/Bathmeier/Osoria group we've been running out there. Now, the latter is a pretty low bar to clear, but merely getting some pitchers who can put up ~4.75 ERAs will be a huge help.

"Perhaps, if they'd held out longer, they'd have gotten Horne, and perhaps they should have tried."

If they had, all the Pirate fans would've just complained about how Horne is 25 and therefore has no upside.

and while I don't expect anything from Karstens, he's a d***ed sight better than some of the dreck they've been running to the mound in AAA and AA this year.

AAA and AA? He's probably better than Van Wainscoting, Barthmaier, Herrera, Taubenheim...and his stats this year in the Pirates' rotation will probably be better than Snell's and Gorzelanny's too, until whatever malign force causes every Pirates pitcher to regress 200% after their rookie year causes him to do so too.

AAA and AA? He's probably better than Van Wainscoting, Barthmaier, Herrera, Taubenheim...and his stats this year in the Pirates' rotation will probably be better than Snell's and Gorzelanny's too, until whatever malign force causes every Pirates pitcher to regress 200% after their rookie year causes him to do so too.

Karstens is not a rookie. He has over a year of ML service time...

To my mind the key point made by the article was the unwillingness of teams to trade prospects for help. Because teams were unwilling to trade high-ceiling prospects for veterans the Pirates took on the lion's share of the risk in the Nady/Marte trade. The Pirates failed to get enough high-end talent to balance out the risk.

It's unclear, then, if Coonington could have made a better trade for Nady/Marte had the Pirates waited till the bitter end. The choice: Take this trade or make no trade at all (because the market strongly favored the buyers).

The problem with this interpretation: It also looks as though the Pirates made the trade to add mediocre pitching to the organization. This aspect of the trade was Littlefieldesque insofar as it preferred quantity to quality and pitchers to position players. Coonington may have made this move to stave off a future disaster (a 120 loss season or three), but the wish to avoid this disaster does not alter the fact that the pitching component of the trade was a bit of straw grasping by the doomed man in the whirlpool. A Drive for 75 is a Drive for 75 no matter what the circumstances were and the expectations are

According to this rumor site Nutting killed a Bay to the Braves deal.

If true, the report supports the argument that teams are less or even unwilling to trade quality prospects for veterans but also that the Pirates remain mired in the Drive for 75 mode.

The sad fact is: Eventually bad baseball decisions will come home to roost when the Pirates field teams that are markedly worse than the teams that they have had during the post-Bonds era.

As those of you familiar with my loony and/or nutty true conspiracy theories know, one thing the Pirates always have done is keep one (and exactly one) star player on the team, as that's an important thing to sell to the fans and media. It was Jason Kendall, then Brian Giles, now Jason Bay. Unless the Pirates are convinced Nate McLouth is really the Next Big Thing, they're not going to trade Bay unless somebody offers a serious, MLB-ready slugger for him (like when the Padres offered Bay for Brian Giles). It's the one exception to their general policy of trading for low-upside guys.

"According to this rumor site Nutting killed a Bay to the Braves deal."

Wow, that's a terrible offer. Good for Nutting.

The site doesn't say what the offer was. It says that the Pirates would have interest in Lillibridge and Brandon Jones, and that the Braves would have to add one of their "talented" A-ball pitchers (I have no idea what that means - they ain't all that talented) and another marginal position player to complete the deal - but it doesn't say the Braves offered that, all it says is that they offered four minor leaguers.

The Bucs aren't getting Heyward or Hernandez, and unless one believes that Jon-Mark Owings is finally breaking out (which is a possibility - a .524 SLG in the hitter's Hades that is Myrtle Beach is pretty good), there isn't another position player in the organization that interests me.

-- MWE

The three guys they got for Marte--that's how I think about it, anyway, Nady for Tabata and Marte for the pitchers

Just about everyone I've seen discuss this trade have put it this way, and I think it's silly. What on earth suggests that the Pirates could have done a Nady for Tabata deal straight up? I consider that exceedingly unlikely.

What on earth suggests that the Pirates could have done a Nady for Tabata deal straight up?

They *would* not have done that. Nady's a regular, therefore he's worth more than an AA player, stud though he may be. In analyzing the deal, however, it does make sense to consider the core of the deal as Nady-for-Tabata, with the other players filling in around the edges.

Again, I think the people who are disparaging this deal from Pittsburgh's side are overvaluing Nady and Marte, and undervaluing Tabata and McCutchen. I understand why they're doing that, but you have to take into consideration that *most* of the information the typical fan has about those players is being filtered through the lens of the New York media, which probably is getting most of its information from a Yankee front office that has no interest in painting a true picture of what they are giving up.

-- MWE

I was assuming Jones, Lillibridge, a "marginal position player", and the best possible A-ball pitcher (Locke? Osuna? Rohrbaugh, despite the bad season? Diamond?).