I Send My Sympathies to Pittsburgh

I feel bad for any baseball fans living in the western part of Pennsylvania. Sure, the Steelers won the Super Bowl and the Penguins clinched the Stanley Cup for the Steel City, but what the Pirates are doing is absolutely horrid. It’s one thing to be a bad team in the process of rebuilding, but it’s something entirely different to be on the verge of breaking the record for most consecutive losing seasons while trading away all of your talent.

Nate McLouth was a member of one of the best outfields in baseball at one point when he was sharing space with Jason Bay and Xavier Nady at PNC Park last year. At this point, all three of those guys are now gone and not only was the fanbase enraged when the team sent McLouth to Atlanta for prospects in June, but several Pirates players griped and questioned the moves made by GM Neal Huntington. One man who was really upset about it at the time was first baseman Adam LaRoche who said, “It’s fine. Heck with it. We’re not the GM. We don’t run the team. If they feel like it’s the best move for three or four years from now, great. Unfortunately, that does me no good. I’ve still got to be in here telling guys it’s going to be fine with Nate gone. Well, you can only do that for so long until guys just kind of … well, they know.”

LaRoche doesn’t have to worry anymore though since he was shipped out of town yesterday to Boston for two minor league prospects. Pittsburgh continues to say that they are rebuilding and stocking their minor league system with good talent, but when will it be this team’s prerogative to win now? Despite the fact that LaRoche was struggling, he was still hitting .247 with 12 homeruns and 40 RBI and led the team in the latter two categories. It’s not everyday that a team will just take its leading run producer and ship him out of town on a whim. But that’s not where the story ends, and in fact, it just keeps getting worse for Pittsburgh fans.

The team was attempting to negotiate with shortstop Jack Wilson and second baseman Freddy Sanchez in recent weeks, but according to an ESPN report, talks have been cut off from the Pittsburgh side of things. With no attempts being made at re-signing the two, it makes them trade bait as well. Huntington probably looks at it as “well if we can’t sign them, we might as well get something for them,” but I can tell you that at this point, after 16 straight losing seasons, that’s not acceptable for the fans. Even more frustrating is the fact that the Pirates have been accused of wanting to underpay the two players.

Regarding the attempts to sign Wilson and Sanchez, Huntington recently said, “We’ve not received a counter at his point, so for our minds, they’re not interested even in the foundation we’ve laid…” Here’s my question to Pirates management: If you want these guys to basically take pay cuts, why on Earth would they be interested in your “foundation?” It’s insulting to offer way less than market value for arguably your two best players. Typically the only reason any player will voluntarily take less money is because they want a chance to play on a championship caliber team. I hate to break it to you Mr. Huntington, but there is no way that you will contend in 2009 and you probably won’t in 2010 either.

Since taking the job in 2007, Huntington has shipped out Nady, Bay, McLouth, Damaso Marte, Nyjer Morgan, Sean Burnett, and now Adam LaRoche. In a few days at the trade deadline, I wouldn’t be surprised if both Wilson and Sanchez are added to that list because rather than putting his money where his mouth is and actually showing some sort of commitment to his players, Huntington is coming off as an arrogant front office type who has no interest in doing business on anyone’s terms but his own. In the sports world, when you win championships and make the right moves in free agency, you have a right to toot your own horn. Huntington has done absolutely nothing that can be skewed as even somewhat positive since taking over the job and Pittsburgh is arguably worse now than they were before he came aboard.

You might be able to come back in two or three years and tell me that his deals worked out when all of the prospects he has acquired finally make it to the big leagues, but prospects are called prospects for a reason. Sure they could be great, but they could also fall flat on their face. In my opinion, a lineup consisting of Ryan Doumit, LaRoche, Sanchez, Wilson, McLouth, Bay, and Nady would probably have the Pirates at least showing some fight in the NL Central (where they currently sit in dead last). Instead Pirates fans are forced to deal with Huntington’s ignorance and by October will have sat through yet another losing season, the 17^th in a row.

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Tags: Greg Dietz, Pirates

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 10:27 am and is filed under Rants \'n Raves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.