The False Dichotomy of Being Buyers or Sellers

A newt

You may have noticed that the Pirates look like a sinking ship. Andrew McCutchen has been turned into a newt. Jeff Locke misses more lunar eclipses than bats. Francisco Liriano, Juan Nicasio and Jon Neise have left a mess on the mound and there's no one to help closer Mark Melancon clean it up. After a 6-20 stretch from May to late June, they're under .500 and so far behind the Cubs they're about to be lapped.

So, the thinking seems to go, management either believes they can win a Wild Card or they're going to sell off parts at the trade deadline.

Talk about a false dichotomy.

Trading away valuable veterans makes sense if your team won't contend until those veterans leave or lose their value. If Pittsburgh brass believes 2016 is a lost cause they might want to unload a player who turns free agent in November. But jettisoning assets from a team that won 98 times last season for future value is the work of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Total Rebuild as Default
We have become so accustomed to the total rebuild that we've lost sight of what a dramatic and desperate act it is. It's tantamount to giving up in hopes of bouncing back twice as strong a few years hence. Which is why it shouldn't be the default position for any franchise, much less one that seems to be in nothing more than a slump.

That's even assuming the Pirates are a lost cause. In fact, they're a fine offensive and defensive team, except for a rotation that's lighting up scoreboards and dragging the team to a 37-40 record. If you're going to suffer the extended scuffling of good players, it might as well be in the element of the game that is most inconsistent under the best of circumstances.

Small Improvement = Wild Card Contender
Indeed, if Bucco hurling improves from fourth worst to middle of the pack in their remaining 85 games, the Pirates could easily make up the 4.5-game gap between them and the Wild Card. With a pitching coach, Ray Searage, considered something of a mound whisperer, and a rotation of hurlers who have achieved success in the past, that is eminently possible. It might even be predictable.

If GM Neal Huntington believes third basemen David Freese and Jung-ho Kang are sufficiently redundant to swap one for a set-up man or a third starter, that's defensible. If he wants to hedge his bets on sacrificing the long-term for a Wild Card charge that might fall short, that's understandable. 

If he announces he's flipping the roster for draft picks and Single-A All Stars, I want to see a picture ID, because that's some irrational fan talking, not the savvy team builder who turned the franchise around from the two dark decades that preceded him. 

The Pirates have more choices than just buyers or sellers. If the pundits don't know it, I guarantee that the people who run the club do.

Why the 2014 Pirates = the 2013 Nationals

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Pirates, winners of 94 games and the Wild Card in 2013. The Bucs ended two decades of futility by exceeding expectations this past season. The good people of the Steel City should pop an Iron City Brew to toast their young team's accomplishment. And then prepare for 2014, when PNC's denizens return to earth.

We've seen this before. Think all the way back to 2012, when a young Washington Nationals team swept to the league's best record with 98 wins. Like the Pirates, the Nats were a year ahead of schedule, but breakouts by their promising franchise players (Harper and Strasburg) coincided with unexpected leaps from veterans (Adam LaRoche and Gio Gonzalez).

In 2013, Gonzalez regressed to form (from 21-8, 2.89 to 11-8, 3.36) and LaRoche fell predictably hard (from .271 BA and 33 home runs to .237 BA and 20 HR). In addition, a Washington bullpen that strangled NL hitters in 2012, allowing a 2.85 ERA, lost much of its effectiveness in 2013, allowing 3.57 earned runs per nine, and the runs allowed seemed to come at the most inopportune times.

The result was that the Nats wavered all spring and summer, and needed a late-season burst to claim 86 wins. A similar fate awaits Pittsburgh in 2014 assuming their roster doesn't change dramatically between now and Opening Day.

For one thing, the Pirates this past season outperformed their profile by six wins. That's a good bit of luck filling their sails that is unlikely to blow next season. Here is a list of other 2013 artifacts they can't expect next year:

1. First baseman Gaby Sanchez will reprise his career high .361 OBP.
2. The bullpen will finish third in baseball in fewest runs allowed.
3. Only one starting player will suffer a serious injury.
4. Andrew McCutchen will win the MVP
5. Marlon Byrd will hit .318/.357/.486 in the final 30 games. (He's signed elsewhere.)
6. Starter Jeff Locke and his 1.49 K/BB ratio will hold opponents to a 3.52 ERA.
7. Jason Grilli's magic carpet ride will continue at age 37.


Some unexpected positives will offset what's above, but even if it all evens out and the entire net loss is due to luck, Jolly Roger wins 88 instead of 94 and misses the playoffs.

Now here's the good news: like the Nationals, the Pirates are built for the long run. Washington will bounce back in 2014 as youth continues to be served and become the World Series favorites many picked them for this year. Assuming the normal progression of its young players and intelligent player acquisition, Pittsburgh will be a contender in 2015. Management in Western Pennsylvania and (to a lesser degree) the District of Columbia have the long view in mind. Fans of the two teams would be wise to adopt the same policy.

Get Real: Cleveland and Pittsburgh

Cleveland and Detroit are locking up for a pair of early-season first-place duels this week. Even if swept (Max Scherzer shut them down in game one), the Tribe will remain atop the AL Central leaderboard. Riding a heavy-hitting lineup and a reconstituted rotation, first-year manager Terry Francona's squad is seeking to dispatch a couple of years of history when Cleveland burst out of the blocks and faded down the backstretch.

Meanwhile, a couple of hours east, the Pittsburgh Pirates are eight games over .500, a position they haven't occupied at season's end in a generation. They're employing the reverse formula -- superb relief pitching and a couple of good starters are carrying the rest of the team.

At the quarter pole, there's time to dream, but in these two beleaguered cities, there's also time to be skeptical. We've seen all this before; say, last year, with predictable and familiar results. The Indians, four games over .500 following the All-Star break, dropped 54 of their remaining 75 games and crashed to 65-91. The Bucs, two games above .500 with two weeks to play, lost 11 of their last 16 to finish 79-83, a 20th straight year losing more times than they won.

Wait 'til this year.

For one thing, both teams come by their records honestly. The Indians have out-slugged their opponents by 37 runs, not quite the hallmark of a 26-17 record, but indicative of quality. The Pirates have shut down enemy batters and while also out-performing their run differential, are giving up fewer runs than they score.

Moreover, both teams are paced by veteran youth and have spread the good play around. Pittsburgh's offensive roster is just six deep -- center fielder Andrew McCutchen, first baseman Gaby Sanchez, right fielder Jose Tabata, left fielder Starling Marte, first baseman/outfielder Garret Jones, and surprisingly, catcher Russell Martin -- but none of them is out of synch with career norms. If anyone else heats up, the bats could begin to contribute.

The starting pitching is strong and deep, led by A.J. Burnett's Yankee revenge and Astro exile Wandy Rodriguez. Francisco Liriano's two starts after recovering from a fractured left arm have been promising (two runs and 16 K in 11 innings) and could give the Pirates a one-two-three punch they've lacked since Doug Drabek-Randy Tomlin-Bob Walk in 1993, the last time they visited the post-season. (That team included a rookie named Tim Wakefield who knuckled his way to 8-1, 2.15.) Flame-throwing closer Jason Grilli (14+ K/9) anchors a relief corps with ERAs that look like digital code -- all ones and zeroes.

In other words, there's more upside than downside in the 2013 Pirates as long as they stay relatively healthy. Pittsburgh has played nine of 15 series against below .500 teams, but in the NL Central that's hard to avoid. they've yet to tussle with Miami, so there remain free wins on the schedule. Not only could they end the futility, they could kick off an era of contention.

Cleveland has remade itself in 2013 and so far the results portend more. The club signed Nick Swisher to a big deal, rescued Ryan Raburn from Detroit, took a flyer on Mark Reynolds and overpaid Michael Bourn. In one-fourth of a season, Bourn and Swisher are delivering as expected, Raburn has resurrected his career (OPS+ of 29 last year; 148 this year) and Reynolds is hitting .253. When Mark Reynolds hits .253, pitchers cry. At .253/.341/.548, the former Oriole hot cornerman has already bestowed upon his new employers all the value he created through the spring, summer and fall last season.

Add in young catcher Carlos Santana, one of the emerging stars in baseball, and slugging keystoner Jason Kipnis, and the result is the Majors' second most potent offense. Like the Pirates, there's not a lot of mean to regress to.

The warning signs are on the other side of the equation. After Cy Young contender Justin Masterson, the rotation is so porous that warmed-over remnants of Brett Myers and Scott Kazmir have made starts. The mercy rule is soon to take effect on the Kazmir experiment, but it's not clear who takes his place. Ubaldo Jimenez  (5.31 ERA) and Trevor Bauer (15 BB in 16 innings) offer little solace. As with the Pirates, they're facing just their fifth .500+ team this week, but playing in the AL Central means KC, CHW and MIN pop up on the schedule regularly. (And they've yet to dip into the goodie bag that is the Astros.)

With a great skipper at the helm, the Indians have delivered more than the sum of their parts and can continue in that vein. If their goal, like the Pirates', is to step this side of mediocrity, they have a solid shot. Eighty-five wins is not an unreasonable goal. If visions of pennants dance in their heads they're going to need a couple of good arms, and soon.

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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