I can only hope that "blockbuster" is being used ironically.

CVaCDE, the "Washington Times take" link points to this blog. ( I was actually going to RaFA)

ack!

sorry... it's here

If Morgan and Hinske are two of your everyday players, to say nothing of Burnett, you're probably not contending. (Well, I suppose you *could* be, but you'd need to have a few superstar or budding superstar players and the Pirates have exactly zero of those.)

Well, Jack, the Bucs are in a tough position having to pay a less gritty David Eckstein 7 million a season.

Somebody fetch the waaaaambulance. Hey Jack, buddy, they're trying to build a good baseball team. The days of the Drive For 75 are over.

Jeez. They trade a bench guy, a left fielder who's slugging .350, and a LOOGY and it's as if the world is caving in.

I get why he's upset. It seems like they are finally competing - five games back is striking distance. But kudos to Huntington for taking the long view. This is not a contender. Littlefield would have acquired Matt Morris in a vain attempt to stick in the race. Huntington will take a lot of heat I think for this move, but it was a great move in the long run.

I fixed the link in the header.

Hey Jack, buddy, they're trying to build a good baseball team. The days of the Drive For 75 are over.

Those days aren't quite over, although this deal gives some hope that they're getting closer.

The Pirates are becoming somewhat less risk-averse than they were under Littlefield, but they're still not taking any huge chances. The organization still focuses on "safe" draft choices, for the most part - Alvarez over Hosmer a year ago, for example, plus low-upside pitchers and up-the-middle defenders both last year and this - and while that's a strategy which pretty much ensures that you won't have any terrible teams, it also doesn't give you much hope for improving into the 85-90 win category. I mean, I LIKE Brian Friday, but he's never going to become much more than what Jack Wilson already is. I LIKE Alvarez, but he's looking less likely to become Troy Glaus, and may not ever be more than what Andy LaRoche already is. Sanchez isn't the type of player that they needed to get in the draft this year - The Pirates have to get significantly BETTER players than they have already - not simply minor upgrades - and to do that they have to take more risks than they've been willing to take, both with trades like this one and in the draft.

-- MWE

Somebody fetch the waaaaambulance. Hey Jack, buddy, they're trying to build a good baseball team. The days of the Drive For 75 are over.

Tell me why Jack Wilson should care about that. By the time the Pirates have built this good baseball team, he'll be long gone. He's been on awful teams his entire career. He wants to win.

Tell me why Jack Wilson should care about that. By the time the Pirates have built this good baseball team, he'll be long gone. He's been on awful teams his entire career. He wants to win.

Then why in the world would he have signed a contract extension to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates? If winning was his top priority, he would have become a free agent and taken a lower-paying job as a utilityman on a good team. Because, really, any team that would give him $20 million over three years and 600+ plate appearances a year as a starting shortstop isn't serious about winning.

I think - and I've never met the man, but this is the impression I get from these quotes and the contract he signed - that Jack Wilson wants to be a well-paid starter on a championship ballclub. Hell, I'd like to be a multibillionaire who looks like Brad Pitt. Some things just aren't going to happen, no matter how much we want them to.

I think - and I've never met the man, but this is the impression I get from these quotes and the contract he signed - that Jack Wilson wants to be a well-paid starter on a championship ballclub. Hell, I'd like to be a multibillionaire who looks like Brad Pitt. Some things just aren't going to happen, no matter how much we want them to.

He could easily have been Julio Lugo.

I was going to say that in the last four years the World Series has featured Jason Bartlett, Julio Lugo, and Adam Everett. You could swap Jack Wilson out with any of those guys without making a massive difference.

Of those three, Lugo is the only one getting paid like a star. That was Dan's point, that Wilson wants some team to give him 4/36 and win with him. And Wilson never had the offensive ability that Lugo did for a bit, so no contending team would pay him something like that. Precisely because there are cheaper versions of him out there like Bartlett and Everett.

EDIT: Well, Lugo's best years weren't as good as I thought. But Wilson's good ones were surrounded by OPS+s in the 70s. Lugo in that stretch was a better bet to still be pretty good hitter for a SS and be paid as such. And his career OPS+ is 9 points better.

I was going to say that in the last four years the World Series has featured Jason Bartlett, Julio Lugo, and Adam Everett. You could swap Jack Wilson out with any of those guys without making a massive difference.

Then Mr. Wilson shouldn't sign long term contracts. He should just sign one-year deals and move to good teams.

I don't follow the Pirates day-to-day, but can somebody answer me this: are any of the players getting talked about in any of these trasnactions (or, for that matter, Wilson) really any good? To me, part of the Pirates' problem is that they:
1) don't have enough attractive talent that is established in nature, and that a contending team might give legitimate prospects for in exchange. I mean, even Wilson - if they traded him to a contender in the past month, s ay the Red Sox, the Sox weren't going to give Buchholz, Bard, Delcarmen, Bowden - any of them. They wouldn't give up Lars Anderson. Getting a couple of high-A or so-so AA prospects for your best veterans at the deadline doesn't do much to meaningfully grow their talent base
2) as others have said, they don't seem to draft players with the best potential to be high-end MLB'ers. Increasingly, doing so takes money (speaking of the Red Sox, they had to pay Bard, for example, big money to get him signed, but they did, and now they have a reliever, with potential closer written all over him, helping at the big-league level, within a few years of signing).

If you look at the Pirates in, say, the mid-1980s, when they were hitting rock-bottom, they were able to do both #1 and #2, and that helped them get to the top of their division. Consider:

1) They trade Bill Madlock, who was almost done, but had a reputation, for RJ Reynolds and Sid Bream - two guys that were important parts of their playoff teams;
2) They trade Tony Pena for a starting catcher (Lavalliere), a starting pitcher (Mike Dunn), and a very good outfielder (Van Slyke);
3) They trade Rick Reuschel for two pitchers, one of whom (Jeff Robinson) gaves them a couple of effective years, and is then traded for a valuable catcher (Don Slaught);
4) They trade Rick Rhoden for three pitchers, all of them major-leaguers, one of them a top-tier starter (Doug Drabek);
5) They trade George Hendrick and John Candelaria for three more future major-leaguers, including Mike Brown and Bob Kipper;
6) They traded Jose DeLeon for Bobby Bonilla, straight up.
7) They traded Felix Fermin for Jay Bell.
8) They draft Barry Bonds with a 1st round pick, and use another 1st round pick on Jeff King.

By 1990, their lineup now includes:
C - Lavalliere/Slaught
1B - Bream
2B Lind (drafted)
3B - King (drafted)
SS - Bell
OF - Bonds (drafted), Van Slyke, Bonilla
Reynolds was their fourth OF.
Drabek went 22-6, and guys they got from the above trades (Kipper, Ruskin) were parts of their bullpen.

My main point is, when the Pirates were ready to really start over (they bottomed out at 57 wins), they had enough veteran talent to dump at the deadlines (Madlock, Reuschel, Hendrick, Rhoden, DeLeon, Pena) and they went for it on the high draft picks in 1985 and 1986 (Bonds and King), and most of their key players came out of the trades (Van Slyke, Drabek, Bonilla, Bream, Lavalliere, Slaught, Reynolds). I don't see this Pittsburgh franchise getting anything in these trades...because they're not giving up anything.

That was Dan's point, that Wilson wants some team to give him 4/36 and win with him. And Wilson never had the offensive ability that Lugo did for a bit, so no contending team would pay him something like that. Precisely because there are cheaper versions of him out there like Bartlett and Everett.

Exactly, yeah. He chose to sign a lucrative long-term deal with a team that was obviously going nowhere. That's fine...I don't begrudge anyone the chance to make tens of millions of dollars. It's just that if you make a conscious, well-informed decision that you're going to spend the next 3-4 years playing for a bad baseball team, it's lame to complain that you're sick of losing. Suck it up, go play as hard as you can, and sign with the Red Sox, Yankees, or Angels this offseason.

And - on top of that - they gave up a giant pile of nothing yesterday. It's hardly devastating to lose Nyjer Morgan.

Steve Balboni hit the nail on the head and while the nail was out cold did dirty things to it.

My main point is, when the Pirates were ready to really start over (they bottomed out at 57 wins), they had enough veteran talent to dump at the deadlines (Madlock, Reuschel, Hendrick, Rhoden, DeLeon, Pena) and they went for it on the high draft picks in 1985 and 1986 (Bonds and King), and most of their key players came out of the trades (Van Slyke, Drabek, Bonilla, Bream, Lavalliere, Slaught, Reynolds). I don't see this Pittsburgh franchise getting anything in these trades...because they're not giving up anything.

Then and now are two different things. In the mid- and late '80s, it was a lot easier to frade established players for good young talent (emphasis on the word good). Teams value their farmhands more highly these days, so it's a lot more difficult to acquire talent that way. For a losing team to move up now, it has to rely far more on the draft, even if only to use as poker chips in trades -- and with the Pirates' dismal track record in that department the past 15 years, things don't get any easier.

Agree with #18 - this is why allowing teams to trade draft picks is the logical response. If the Pirates could trade their players at the deadline for draft picks, like you can in other major league sports, then they could begin (with increased drafting skill) to improve their depth. There are few trades every year where to-tier prospects are involved - the A's trades of Hudson and Mulder, for example, or last year's Sabathia trade. The Red Sox getting Beckett and Lowell for Hanley Ramirez.

It's tough. I don't see anybody on their roster, except for Zach Duke, who has significant trade value. The LaRoches are OK, Sanchez is a nice little second baseman...but unless you're trading Beckett, Hudson, Mulder, Sabathia, etc., I'm not seeing anything coming back that will significantly upgrade this 75-win treadmill...

It's a bit ironic right now, but the Pirates are in an overt drive for 75 for the first time now. The owner Nutting has set an expectation of an improved record this year, and he said after the McLouth trade that he got on board only after he was shown that the combination of Morton and McCutchen would outweigh the loss of McLouth at the major league level this year.

This thread may be the first sign on the internet that analytical fans are able to see a distinction between "better than under Dave Littlefield" and "good." About time.

this is why allowing teams to trade draft picks is the logical response.

I fear it would have precisely the opposite effects, especially for elite selections. Don't you think Scott Boras would prefer that clients such as Strasburg and (conceiveably) Harper could refuse to sign with the Nats (or any team except the Yankees, Red Sox or Mets)?

I fear it would have precisely the opposite effects, especially for elite selections. Don't you think Scott Boras would prefer that clients such as Strasburg and (conceiveably) Harper could refuse to sign with the Nats (or any team except the Yankees, Red Sox or Mets)?


And then get blocked by high priced free agents who signed multiple years?

Also, for the Nats to make room for Nyjer Morgan, they:

Washington acquired Morgan and Burnett on Tuesday, sending outfielder Lastings Milledge and right-hander Joel Hanrahan to the Pittsburgh Pirates. To make room for both newly acquired players on the 25-man roster, the Nationals optioned outfielder Elijah Dukes to Triple-A Syracuse on Wednesday morning.

ESPN

Nats don't seem to want to make many friends.

Nats don't seem to want to make many friends.

They're not in the business of making friends, they're in the business of trying to figure out how the heck to win ballgames.

Dukes has hit like absolute garbage since he got back from his injury, which was a month ago, and his defense is nothing to write home about.

Whatever is wrong with him right now, I hope he can get it figured out in the minors so he can hopefully come back and start once again hitting the way he should.

The thing about the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, and Mets is that they only have 25 spota on the roster each, so everybody can't sign with them...

The thing about the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, and Mets is that they only have 25 spota on the roster each, so everybody can't sign with them...

"Everybody" isn't Strasburg, Harper, et al. The fear as I understand it is that a high draft pick doesn't mean much if those high picks are only going to sign for one of a half-dozen franchises.

"Everybody" isn't Strasburg, Harper, et al. The fear as I understand it is that a high draft pick doesn't mean much if those high picks are only going to sign for one of a half-dozen franchises.

Agree. The only way tradeable picks works is if there is a hard-slotting system, so players don't financially benefit by being drafted by a big-market team.

would wilson be an upgrade over the mess the cardinals are in right now with khalil greene imploding and derosa coming up lame and joe thurston misplacing his brain? brendan ryan is back (i think) but who knows how long that will last?

not that we're necessarily contenders. pujols hits two home runs off randy johnson and we still can't beat the giants ...

Agree. The only way tradeable picks works is if there is a hard-slotting system, so players don't financially benefit by being drafted by a big-market team.

They'd still be blocked by moves the big club does though. Look at the Red Sox and Yankees rotation, Their best pitching prospects can't break the rotation due to promises and signings committed by in the previous off season.

1) They trade Bill Madlock, who was almost done, but had a reputation, for RJ Reynolds and Sid Bream - two guys that were important parts of their playoff teams

I just wanted to hop off my trollmobile to note that Sid Bream was very important to their 1992 playoff team.

Jack Wilson is going to be pissed at this news: Craig Monroe was just released

Dukes is probably hoping like hell that they'll dump him to another team like Milledge.