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June 27
PittsburghPirates.com, the league's on-field market place
As of this writing, Brian Giles, perhaps the best outfielder to
play in Pittsburgh since Andy Van Slyke in 1994, is still with the Pirates.
For the past two years, Giles was rumored to go to Oakland or another
playoff contender. Both times, the Pirates were lucky to hold tight
and keep him around. This year, things are a little more tedious for
Giles' Pirates career, considering that every noticeable Buc is on the trading block.
Several Pirates have already been shipped off, including Kenny Lofton, Aramis Ramirez,
Mike Williams and Scott Sauerbeck. In return, the Pirates
have cut salary and netted themselves a couple of prospects and Jose Hernandez.
Hernandez's presence is part of the Rules of Baseball. Section 45.8.9 specifically
states that EVERY team must, at one point, employ one of the following players:
Royce Clayton, Jose Hernandez, Reggie Sanders or Todd Zeile. The Pirates
have now fulfilled TWO of these commitments, so they're already ahead of
the pack.
After an outstanding run from mid-2000 to the end of 2002, Mike Williams
has fallen off and deteriorated. The Pirates got as much as they could out of him,
and despite his pants-wetting saves, he won't be missed. Same for Lofton. Several
Buc fans are outraged that Lofton has been sent to Chicago, but if they believed Lofton was the long-term answer at center field, they've been drinking
too much Iron City. Along with Reggie Sanders, Lofton was signed as a stopgap solution, and
I expected him to end up as trade bait. Ramirez is a questionable move, on the other hand.
He would still make rookie mistakes and look awful at times, but
recently his production seemed to have gotten back on track. A homegrown prospect, Ramirez
was due to make roughly 6 million next year. Jose Hernandez will fill the hole
for the rest of 2003, but beyond that, the Bucs have no legitimate candidates to
fill the position in the future. The Scott Sauerbeck move was another
questionable deal. The question was about Sauerbeck's worth in this case. In years past
playoff team have drooled over the left-handed setup man. Which makes it rather
curious that the best they received was Boston's Brandon Lyon and
a Triple A prospect.
The Pirates talk about cutting payroll, the turn around and begin discussing a contract extension
with Matt Stairs. They've made one fantastic deal in the past five years-
trading Ricardo Rincon for Brian Giles. But you may have noticed that
both of the starters in this year's All-Star Game were former Pirates.
Jason Schmidt was traded with John VanderWal to San Francisco for Armando
Rios and Ryan Voeglsong. Rios ran into injury problems and was
released this year. Esteban Loaiza was traded to Texas in 1998 for
Warren Morris and Mr Zits, Todd Van Poppel (!?). The deal looked like
a steal one year later, when Morris finished second in Rookie of the Year balloting...
but Morris' career stalled and he's moved on to Detroit. Furthermore, the Pirates
made the horrific move of trading Jose Guillen (who had a legitimate claim
to an All-Star selection this year) for Joe freakin' Oliver in 1999.
The Pirates seem hesitant to pay any type of salary. That's the problem with
baseball, these guys wont play for cheap. As players develop, their salary demands
also increase. Montreal was famous
for losing several All-Stars in the early 90's to free agnecy, due to their
inability to afford them.
The Pirates can afford certain players and haven't lost any significant personnel
to free agency. They've lost them to awful trades. Instead of using money
on young talent, the Pirates used their money
on the likes of Mike Benjamin, Pat Meares, Derek Bell and Terry Mulholland. The young talent
they've traded away.
Final All-Star shot
The All-Star Game has passed, and the biggest complaint seems to
be baseball's rule of including one player from every team. I still remain a supporter of this idea
and think the rule should NOT be abandonded. As a Pirates fan,
I need to feel represented in the game somehow. Otherwise, the rosters would be
stocked full of Yankees and Braves every year. Remember in 2001 when Joe Torre
selected half of his team, including his middle reliever??! People complain
that the game should have the "best players from the best teams" instead of the
equality selections. Well, there already is a place where this happens-
it's called THE PLAYOFFS.
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