Recent Trades Show the Pittsburgh Pirates (Finally!) Have a Sense of Direction

There's been much hand-wringing among Pittsburgh Pirates fans over this summer's spate of trades that have seen three former All-Stars sent packing in exchange for prospects, but the Pirates are doing exactly the right thing.

The Pirates, of course, are in the midst of their 17^th consecutive losing season, the longest such streak in the history of major American sports. Fans are understandably frustrated that the team keeps trading away its best players, but the club is doing what it has to do in order to compete in the grossly unequal world of Major League Baseball.

Teams like the Red Sox and Yankees can afford to spend upwards of $200 million a year. Smaller market clubs like the Bucs can't, so they have to build through the draft and through shrewd trades. In the past couple of years, since owner Bob Nutting brought in GM Neal Huntington, the team has begun spending much more money in the draft and on player development.

The team's first major trade this summer was sending All-Star outfielder Nate McLouth to Atlanta. This puzzled many observers, but it made perfect sense. Huntington correctly reasoned that McLouth's value would never be higher than it was this summer, so he moved the popular outfielder in order to maximize his return. The solid play of Andrew McCutchen, the young prospect who has taken McLouth's place, has proven that McLouth wasn't really needed anyway.

With his trades of McLouth and of Jason Bay and Xavier Nady last fall, Huntington has seemingly mastered something that his predecessor Dave Littlefield couldn't - the art of trading players at the height of their value. Littlefield was famous for trading players when they were at their lowest possible value and thus getting little in return. He traded Oliver Perez after Perez had been sent back to the minors, for crying out loud.

To his credit, Huntington was also willing to move the team's most popular players, Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez, at the trading deadline. Again, these moves could help the Pirates in the not-too-distant future. The consensus in San Francisco is that the Pirates robbed the Giants by getting top-notch pitching prospect Tim Alderson in the Sanchez deal. Sanchez is injured far too often and can't have many more productive seasons left, while Alderson could be a future All-Star.

Huntington is finally doing what should've been done more than a decade ago - a complete, 100% rebuilding process. Littlefield was never willing to commit to such a process, which resulted in disastrous stop-gap signings like Pat Meares and Jeromy Burnitz that only served to artificially inflate the team's payroll and stunt the development of younger players who needed the playing time.

The way for the Bucs to succeed is to burn the whole thing to the ground, stockpile prospects, and hope they all blossom at the same time, around 2011 or 2012. It's a gamble, but it's also their only hope of winning given the economic realities of MLB. It remains to be seen whether the prospects Huntington has brought in are good enough, but at least, for the first time in 17 years, the team's strategy is sound.

Anyone who stands up for the Pirates these days is branded an "apologist." Not so. It's impossible to apologize for the horrific mistakes made during the Kevin McClatchy-Dave Littlefield era. But remember that the current front office regime has only been in place for a couple of years. They are not to blame for the 17 years of losing, and they deserve a few more years to try to clean up this mess. The belief here is that they're on the right track.

Sources:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09211/987386-63.stm