Screw the general baseball thread, this deserves its own for history...Pirates!

Eh - At this point, drafting and prospect evaluation now vs. 1997 is like comparing baseball in the deadball era to now. Baseball Prospectus was still underground, and "Moneyball" was still five-ish years away from popularity. I think teams draft a lot smarter now, which is why you see less obvious mistakes, like the high drafting of Bryan Bullington. (Not like the Pirates and their cheapskate ownership learned from their mistakes though, as they had one of the most inexplicable recent picks with Daniel Moskos.)

 

At the very least, Moskos came months before Frank Coonelly was introduced as the team's new president and Neal Huntington as the GM.

Since then, some moves have worked (Nady-Marte for Tabata, Karstens, Ohlendorf, Dan McCutchen), some moves haven't (Bay for Andy LaRoche, Bryan Morris, Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss days after that Yankees trade). But all in all, I have a lot more faith in this Pirates brass than I have in the past,

 

Fucking bandwagon fans, all of you (with the exception of Oz).

 

Oh I agree - While the Bay trade didn't work out that well, there was at least solid reasoning behind it. They also weren't that wrong on their evaluation of him, nor were the Red Sox when they let him walk, despite the consternation of both fan bases.

 

Benson and Bullington were two eventual flameouts drafted first overall in a span of six years. That's hard to pull off.

Oz, I am happy for the Pirates. Steelers haters are getting behind this team. Shows how magnanimous we are.

 

The trade I'll never forgive them for is Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton to the Cubs for Jose Hernandez, Bobby Hill and Matt Bruback. That was as awful as it gets. As a Pirates fan, every time I look at Ramirez career stats, I just feel sad. He was a Pirate, who signed as a teenager and flourished into a major leaguer, and they just gave him away.

Like I said in an earlier post, I know that was a different management group and you can't hold the current guys responsible for that. But that's the legacy of this franchise, until the current guys decide to change it. They've taken the first step in the first half of this season -- I hope they can sustain it.

 

This management team appears to know what it's doing. Don't forget the other thing, too... all those fans coming to the park means extra revenue for the Pirates to try and make a splash.

 

Different management, but the very same ownership group. Not only did they force the front office to dump salary during the season, they were dumb enough to say they were doing it publicly so opposing GMs knew the Pirates would have to sell off guys like Ramirez and Lofton for next to nothing.

Don't forget that Lofton was having a heck of a season, too, and was important to the Cubs' playoff hopes.If I remember correctly, Bruback was cut that offseason and Hernandez ended up leaving fairly quickly, too. Hill was a Pirate for a while, but he was constantly hurt. He was damaged goods when Pittsburgh got him.

The truly amazing thing was that they actually did get value for Brian Giles -- Jason Bay and Oliver Perez. Sure, Perez didn't work out in the long term, but he did have that one great season in Pittsburgh.

 

Perez had one good season with Rick Peterson in New York.

Midre Cummings was another guy the Pirates thought was going to be good.

 

I'm just talking about Perez's time with the Pirates. I know it wasn't the only time he appeared to be getting his act together. His 2004 was pretty amazing (2.98 ERA with 239 strikeouts) given how bad most of the rest of his career was.

Cummings was another product of a salary dump. The Pirates sent 20-game-winner John Smiley to the Twins for Cummings and Denny Neagle during spring training before the 1992 season. Gotta love a team coming off two consecutive division titles trading away its No. 2 starter just before the season begins.

 

The thing a lot of people overlook is that they lost two key pieces after the 1991 season. Bonilla had driven in 77 runs or more in five consecutive seasons, including three 100-RBI seasons. He bolted to the Mets as a free agent, and then they dumped Smiley in March 1992. So they lost a 100-RBI outfielder and a 20-game winner and they still won 96 games in 1992. Those were the days.

 

Merced
Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates with Carlos Garcia and Dan Plesac to the Toronto Blue Jays for players to be named later, Brandon Cromer (minors), Jose Pett (minors) and Jose Silva. The Toronto Blue Jays sent Mike Halperin (minors) (December 11, 1996), Abraham Nunez (December 11, 1996) and Craig Wilson (December 11, 1996) to the Pittsburgh Pirates to complete the trade.

Lind
Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Kansas City Royals for Joel Johnston and Dennis Moeller.

Bell and King
Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates with Jeff King to the Kansas City Royals for Jeff Martin (minors), Jeff Granger, Joe Randa and Jeff Wallace.

Martin
Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates with cash to the San Diego Padres for Geraldo Padua (minors), James Sak (minors) and John Vander Wal.

Neagle
Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Atlanta Braves for a player to be named later, Corey Pointer (minors) and Ron Wright. The Atlanta Braves sent Jason Schmidt (August 30, 1996) to the Pittsburgh Pirates to complete the trade.

Schmidt
Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates with John Vander Wal to the San Francisco Giants for Armando Rios and Ryan Vogelsong.

Tim Wakefield
Released (has won 184 big league games since being released)

Leiber (won almost a 100 big league games after this trade)
Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Chicago Cubs for Brant Brown.


Shall I go on?