How long will the baseball fans of Pittsburgh be bamboozled by this scheme?

I hope you are right and I also hope I can say I am wrong, but I have two things on my side in this debate, – history and progress. The Pirates have shown nothing to either of those two things in a very long time.

Yes he won a gold glove, but that’s overrated (Raffy Palmeiro won a GG in a year in which he played 13 games in the field) and he was an all-star last year (but would he have been if he wasn’t the Pirates’ required rep?). At the end of the day, I think he’s a .275-.280 hitter with 25 homers and 25-30 steals. Good numbers, sure, but there are plenty of players who put up those numbers and aren’t superstars. But because the Pirates are so bereft of offensive talent, he looks like Willie Mays.

When this current administration took over, the organization had a bare cupboard when it came to talent- especially major-league ready. Because of the moves they’ve made they finally have some of that now (McCutcheon, Bixler, Pearce, Steven Jackson, Tabata, etc.) and they’re going to need places for these guys to play. If they think that McCutcheon is ready and that he’ll be a better player than what they have now, they have to free up that space.

Now, you might ask “why not get McClouth and McCutcheon on the field together?” I think they could if they were in a different situation. There are so many holes that they need to fill, I think they looked at the situation and saw an opportunity to maximize on McClouth’s value and add needed pieces to the organization. If they hold on to both, does it make them a better team in the long run? Maybe. But it’s probably more likely that instead of losing a game 4-2 they’d be losing 4-3. I don’t think McClouth is that big a difference maker to justify not taking advantage of a situation and maxing out his value. Essentially, they got 4 players for McClouth because they received pretty highly regarded prospects and freed up a spot for McCutcheon to play everyday.

Now, did they get enough in return? That’s debatable and only time will tell (I love reading how other teams would have offerend more than the Braves did- how do we know that?). Will McClouth go on to have an all-star season or career (like Bay) or will he have hit his high water mark and settle as a mid-level player (like Nady- a deal that looks better each day for the Pirates and worse for someone like me who is a Yankee fan). Again, perhaps because he’s the best player on that team (which might be akin to being the world’s tallest midget), fans could have a distorted view of his value. He’s not Mark Teixeria. He’s not Johan Santana. Or CC Sabathia. He’s not a guy who is going to net the very top prospects from a team like those guys did. However, right now he is a good enough trade piece to get some quality talent that a lot of people think can play the game at a very high level. For a organization that sorely lacks talent like that, it’s worth the gamble. They weren’t going to the playoffs with McClouth being the best player on their team. He’s not that type of player.

I don’t think this is the Pirates management continuing a trend of being cheap, as the previous group did. I think this group is genuinely trying to max out its opportunities to build the organization from top to bottom to sustain success in the long term. I know after 16 losing seasons, the fan base doesn’t have much patience, but the organization was so poorly mismanaged for a decade that it will take some time. But, it can be done.

Again, guys are prospects for a reason and all three may fizzle out and McClouth goes on to be a 8-time all-star. I wouldn’t bet on that, but it could happen. Prospects are called that for a reason. But if I’m the Pirates, I’ll take that chance because if it works out it can sustain me for several years of competing, not just keeping this team as is presently constructed to finish maybe finish 5 games under .500 by the end of the year.