Another All-Star Bites the Dust

First it was Brian Giles, then Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton. Both with mixed reactions and results. The Ramirez and Lofton trade brought back the Pirates a second basemen with a baseball IQ below the mendoza line and a bag peanuts. Who am I to argue, I like peanuts. But the Giles trade brought us back 2 all-star calliber players in Oliver Perez and Jason Bay. Ollie started to fizzle so the Pirates ousted him, but Bay...oh Bay; He was a different story. He was our All-star. He became the face of the franchise for a short while averaging about 30 Hr's and 100 RBI's a season while he donned a Pirates uni. However as we all know, Bay along with Nady (who both had another year on their contract left) were traded with Damaso Marte to the Red Sox and Yankees Respectively, to trim payroll and get rid of the head ache of having to shell over multiple millions of dollars to a couple guys who would certainly be worth the money the Pirates cannot afford to give, to bolster a weak minor league system with a few prospects. In my opinion at least one of those prospects seems like he may work out in Andy LaRoche, who is hitting .300, and has an OBP around .370. Both respectible, but a little more power (2 HR's all season) couldn't hurt. Jose Tabata seems like a ligitimate future star, but he still has a couple of years to grow, Hanson needs to learn some control, that and get healthy, and I'm still in the wait and see mode for Moss, who I think was the worthless piece thrown in, but I digress. The trade has been OK, for the Pirates, it was a complete failure for the Yankees (haha!), but it has been Gold for the Red Sox and Jay-Bay who is making a run at making it back-to-back seasonal MVP's for the Red Sox Affiliate.

The first major move by Huntington and Company, had most everyone in Pittsburgh second guessing his scouting savvy. His managerial prowess of assessing the future stars for the franchise from players still in professional diapers spitting up on themselves, gurgling, and doing it all over again and calling it progress, has most of us scratching our heads. But, we give him the benefit of the doubt because it doesn't seem as if he's trying to make progress for progresses sake. Maybe it's because he looks so much like the kid on MAD magazine that we look the other way when he starts analyzing the trade market or available free agents (craig monroe?). Or, it could've been the contract extensions he gave to the Pirates "Core" Players four months ago, that we all figured Hunt and Co. are headed in the right direction and have the right idea for the future of the currently miserable franchise.

Signing Ryan Doumit and Paul Maholm were big deals for us. It signalled the end of a losing era, the beginning of a bright future from 2 above average players who were ready to take one more step to start calling themselves all-stars. Hell, even fantasy experts started to agree with that assessment, ranking Ryan Doumit in the top 8 of catchers and maholm, well maholm didn't get the best ranking #81 for starting pitchers, but he was the best ranked pirates pitcher since Jason Schmidt. Then just when there was a peep of rejoicing the Pirates signed Nate "the great" McClouth to a multi-year deal and solidifying him as the face of our franchise and my peep upgraded to a hollow belch. His ranking was in the top 15 of outfielders, ranking him ahead of ichiro, crawford, upton, abreu, etc., and make people (me especially) to start praising the work of the Pirates front office and can't wait to see what will happen after we get that 17th consecutive losing season(you all know it was going to happen regardless). I was thinking .500 was right around the corner in 2010, the playoffs in 2012 and beyond. But, my burping parade was smothered with a fistful of lemons and my hopes of a .500 season dashed as I can faintly hear Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" as an anthem towards the remainder of the Pirates season after Hunt n Co. traded away "...your best all around player..." as stated by Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson.

Gorkys Hernandez, Charlie Morton, Jeff Locke...say hello to your 2011 Pittsburgh Pirates! Atleast thats when they are projected to POSSIBLY make a difference in our franchise. Gorkys Ma-Morkys is playing very well in Double A ball and was the Braves number 4 ranked prospect. Locke, the 7th ranked prospect out of the Braves system, is kind of struggling in A ball, but is left handed, so that makes him valuable despite his 5+ ERA and his worse than 2-1 strike out to walk ratio (43 K's/26 BB's) . Morton is another story all together. He wasn't even ranked, but he is dominating triple A and should be seen in a pirates uniform in the coming month, barring any injury. He's got the frame of a pitcher at 6'4", and throws a mid-90's fastball and is crushing triple A hitters with a 7-2 record, 2.51 ERA and 55 K's to 16 BB's. He's 25, so he's in that stage where he's still young but his window of opportunity is closing. Not as quickly as the Pirates 2009 season, but still it's not as bright as it used to be.

Now, I have to question...Why even give Nate that extension if you were just going to trade him away? It's not as if the Pirates aren't financially stable that we have to unload contract after contract. The front office has been making strides in so many directions. They have invested in expanding over seas, have been building a brand new training facility in the dominican, have shown us how eager they are to put a winning product in the most beautiful stadium in baseball. Why then would they put so much of pittsburgh.500 baseball hope on Nates slender 5'11" frame only to give it away to the team who is so good at destroying pittsburgh baseball dreams (NLCS '91&'92). I can't help but invision Nate making the game winning slide in the bottom of the 9th inning mirroring Sid Bream's gloriously mocking smile as Nate hands us our 82nd loss of the 2009 season and once again dashes my pittsburgh baseball hopes and dreams and for the 17th time in 17 years I toast to the future of my God-Damned Pirates Baseball team, always to the future, never to the next series or the next game as it should, always to the future. I give my silent toast, raise my empty Iron City can, strike up the band and turn up the volume on "::bum:: ::bum:: ::bum:: ::ah:: Another one Bites the Dust!"

Gotta love that Pirates baseball!