New captain, new crew
by Jeff SackmannJanuary 05, 2010
It's far too early to tell whether the rebuilding effort under the new regime in Pittsburgh will be a success. The Pirates are unlikely to contend in 2010, and given the ages of the most promising players under team control, it will be a few years before the current core group reaches its potential.
Regardless of long-term success, what amazes me is the thoroughness with which the front office has recycled the old for the new. I happened to glance at the batting order for the Pirates' Opening Day game against the Braves on March 31, 2008, and you might be as amazed as I was:
- Nate McLouth – CF
Traded June 3, 2009 for Gorkys Hernandez and Charlie Morton
- Freddy Sanchez – 2B
Traded July 30, 2009 for Tim Alderson
- Jason Bay – LF
Traded July 31, 2008 in a three-way deal that returned Craig Hansen, Brandon Moss, Bryan Morris and Andy LaRoche
- Adam LaRoche – 1B
Traded July 22, 2009 for Argenis Diaz and Hunter Strickland
- Xavier Nady – RF
Traded July 26, 2008 for Daniel McCutchen, Jeff Karstens, Ross Ohlendorf and Jose Tabata
- Ryan Doumit – C
Still a Pirate (at press time, anyway)
- Jose Bautista – 3B
Traded Aug. 21, 2008 for Robinzon Diaz
- Jack Wilson – SS
Traded July 29, 2009 (with Ian Snell) for Ronny Cedeno, Jeff Clement and three minor leaguers.
- Ian Snell – P
Traded July 29, 2009 with Wilson.
- Nyjer Morgan – PH
Traded June 30, 2009 with Sean Burnett for Joel Hanrahan and Lastings Milledge
- John Grabow – RP
Traded July 30, 2009 with Tom Gorzelanny for Jose Ascanio, Kevin Hart and minor leaguer Josh Harrison
- Damaso Marte – RP
Traded July 26, 2008 with Nady.
- Two more pinch-hitters and three more relievers, none of whom are currently on the 40-man roster.
All told, 17 players entered the game for Pittsburgh that day. Eleven of them were traded away before Aug. 1, 2009. If Doumit had come out of the game, it would’ve been 12 for 18—backup catcher Ronny Paulino was sent to the Phillies on Dec. 10, 2008 for Jason Jaramillo. As it is, Doumit is the only Pirate who appeared in the game—less than two years ago!—who is still on the 40-man roster.
Pirate booty
When Pirates fans look back five years from now, a lot of these deals will already be forgotten. Some of the new Buccos have appeared at the top of the prospect lists of their former teams, but every single one of them has lost some luster since then. After all, Pittsburgh wasn’t exactly trading away Johan Santana to get them.
But GM Neal Huntington and his crew recognized what they had to work with. The 2008 Pirates won 67 games, and maybe, if they had kept Bay and Nady around, they would’ve made a run for the low 70s. We’re looking at good, not great, players, many of whom were nearing the end of their arbitration years.
Essentially, the Bucs bought in bulk. A-minus and A prospects are rarely available except through the draft, but if you pick up enough B prospects, you're bound to strike gold occasionally. Pittsburgh replenished a minor league system that desperately needed some potential—particularly potential that wouldn’t flame out at Triple-A after a series of shoulder surgeries. And now, with a few bona fide homegrown prospects on the way (hello, Pedro Alvarez!), they can enter the next phase of the project: Figuring out what the booty is worth.
If you weren’t already amazed by the dispatch with which the front office parted with the 2008 Opening Day roster, how about this: The players received in those trades make up 16 of the players currently on the 40-man roster. This year’s Opening Day 25 could easily feature 10 or 11 of those players.
Some of these trade acquisitions will fizzle out. Prospects like Alderson and Tabata are loaded with raw talent but are ultimately gambles for any club that targets them. But one thing is certain: This is a completely new approach to running the Pittsburgh Pirates, and whether or not you’re a Bucs fan, it's one heck of an exciting young team to watch.
Jeff Sackmann is the creator of MinorLeagueSplits.com. With Kent Bonham, he founded CollegeSplits.com. Jeff and Kent blog about college baseball and the draft, and you can follow them on Twitter for bite-sized snacks of minor league and college stats. Jeff also has an email address.
I think your view is exactly right. Unfortunately many fans will obsess over the many “prospects” who will fail. But that is not the point. In any rebuilding, few of those acquired in trades will pan out, but the system has to be replenished in the hope that some will contribute.
To take an analogous example, consider the Rays circa 2005-6. Friedman and company are rightfully considered very intelligent for the rebuilding (really building) job they did, but look at the players they received in trades for more established ones like Huff, Lugo, Baez, Hendrickson and others: Pedroza, Joel Guzman, Talbot, Seo, Ruggiano, Tiffany, Meek, Thayer, Sean Burroughs. None of them have contributed much to TB (although Talbot got them Shoppach). The only players who did much at all have been Zobrist, really more a throw-in of the Huff deal, Navarro, a very questionable talent at this point and Edwin Jackson, who was very disappointing for most of his stay and was dealt for another prospect (Joyce).
If fans were simply to count successes and failures of trades involving the Rays’ better players, the accounting would look terrible for Friedman.
In fact, it was lesser trades like Gathright for Howell and McClung for Balfour that seem to have worked out better for the Rays. I think Huntington is on the right track. My guess is most of his pickups will flop, but perhaps one or two will contribute to a winning club, and he is following an intelligent plan for building a contending team.