When Do the Bucs Get Good?

A blog post on the Pirates has been slaking through my brain for the better part of the new year. So you can imagine how my ears perked up today when I heard that the Pirates and Yankees were on the verge of a trade involving A.J. Burnett. 

Wouldn't a trade that includes the mercurial right-hander mean a one way ticket to Pittsburgh? Why on earth would a rebuilding team want an erratic 35-year-old with an ERA over 5.00 the last two seasons? The only way this deal makes sense is if Pittsburgh receives prospects as reward for absorbing some of the $33 million owed Burnett for the next two years. 

(Reportedly they'll send a prospect and roughly split the bill. Blecch for the Bucs.)

The slack that the SABR world has cut Pittsburgh brass over the last four-and-a-half years will begin getting taut in 2012. In the five off-season's since Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington came aboard as president and GM, they swabbed the decks of the veteran core for a treasure chest of young players and minor leaguers. Gone are Jason Bay, Xavier Nady, Nate McLouth, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, Ian Snell and other, lesser lights. Bay tore up the AL for the Red Sox in '08, but otherwise, few in Pittsburgh are lamenting these losses.

The losses they're lamenting are across from the Win column in the standings since. The Pirates' 19-year streak of losing records is not Coonelly and Huntington's fault, and they have been wise to ignore the record and focus on building a contender for the long term. But at 72-90 in 2011, their best record since '04, there's no clear sense that the team is headed in the right direction. (Baseball Prospectus projects the Pirates for 71 wins in '12.)

In swapping the present for the future, the Pirates brought back the likes of Jose Tabata, Jeff Karstens, Ross Ohlmendorf, Dan McCutchen, Brandon Moss, Andy LaRoche, Craig Hansen, Gorkys Hernankdez, Jeff Locke, Charlie Morton, Lastings Milledge, Joel Hanrahan, Jeff Clement, Ronny Cedeno, Tim Alderson, Chris Snyder, Pedro Ciriaco, James McDonald, Andrew Lambo, Kevin Hart, Jose Ascanio, Josh Harrison and John Bowker. This group will determine whether the Pirates are contenders or pretenders in the future.

In 2011, the payoff was still small, and Pittsburgh's fans, even the most patient, are going to be hard pressed to remain so in 2012. Hanrahan saved 40 games with a 1.83 ERA, Tabata and Harrison  provided replacement level hitting at left field and third base, starting pitchers Karstens and McCutchen both got good results as starters despite vexing strikeout rates and Cedeno is a glove-only shortstop now entering his 30s. Besides that, the treasure trove from all those trades is mostly seaweed and sand.

The Pirates have also had five (more) years of high draft picks and have spent the most money in baseball scouring the globe for prospects. Yet they still lack an ace -- or a number two starter, for that matter -- and aside from Andrew McCutchen (.259/.364/.456) they still don't have anyone who can hit a lick.

It's early, to be sure. Almost none of the names above has entered their primes. But it's getting late to be early. A 20th year of failure will have the new management team's supporters assembling the plank for Coonelly and Huntington to walk.

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Don't Believe the Tripe

If you purchased a fixer-upper, would you put new double-paned, super-insulated windows into sagging window frames or would you fix the wall first? Would you consider the resplendent brass faucets a useless luxury for a dented aluminum sink in a rotting counter top? Might you sell the hot tub to pay for a shower insert that would prevent further molding?

This is the situation facing the management, specifically the president and general manager, of the Pittsburgh Pirates. They will never make the playoffs with this team, notwithstanding two or three decent 31-year-old players. The Jack Wilsons and Freddy Sanchezes (Sanchezs? Sanchezs'? Sanchemen?) might help the Pirates win 70 games this year, but they're not going to contribute to the plan for a winning team in 2012.

So when you hear sports talk radio dingoes braying about the Pirates selling off their best parts, remember that Frank Coonelly (president) and Neal Huntington (GM) are trying to develop a franchise, not win 70 games this year. That fans in the Steel City haven't had a rootable ballclub for 17 seasons is immaterial to Coonelly and Huntington, who joined the club after the '07 campaign. Their job is to tear down the dilapidated eyesore and construct something habitable, and that's not going to happen this year or next.

Whether the Pirates have reeled in any usable parts from their offloads of Xavier Nady, Nate McLouth, Ian Snell, Tom Gorzellany, Adam Laroche, Wilson and Sanchez in the last two years is another matter. Huntington has snagged his trading partner's top three prospect in almost none of the deals. But as a scout with the Indians he helped recruit a constellation of stars (that has largely failed to produce) in Cleveland.

Time will tell whether the trades the Pirates have made were the right ones. But we already know that trading guys at the top of their value for young players is a strategy for future success, and that's the only kind of success Pirate fans can hope to have.
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