State of the Pirates

It's been a long time since the Pirates have had a winning season. 1992 was the last time. Most 90's kids that grew up in and around Pittsburgh don't really know what it's like to follow a baseball winner unless they root for a team outside of the Burgh. Last season the Pirates were competitive basically up till the beginning of August. Even though the team finished with a losing record I still had so much fun following the season. You all know how much I love my Pitt Panthers and Steelers but up until August I can honestly say I never had as much fun following a Pittsburgh team.  That is mostly due to the fact that I never seen the Pirates win the way the did. I have always followed the Pirates but up until August I truly felt like a was watching something special. Something special for the first time and then It was taken away from me. I want to be able to follow the Pirates without being in heartache for most of the season. More than anything though, I wan't Pittsburgh to be known as the "City of Champions" not the "City of Champions, and the Pittsburgh Pirates."

This is an article from Bob Smizik of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I tend to disagree with him alot on stuff (especially Pitt and Steve Pederson) but I think he hit the nail on the head with this Pittsburgh Pirates team. Let me know what you all think.

-Bob Smizik

We learned some interesting facts of Pirates life this week.

The good news is Keith Law ranks the Pirates as having the eighth best minor-league system. Whoopee!

The bad news is the stench of the Pirates has so infiltrated MLB that the team can’t give its money away.  Pitchers Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt, both of whom would be the ace of the team's rotation, rejected offers from the Pirates for significant money.

Jackson wanted a team that would enhance his resume for a return to free agency next season. Oswalt wanted a contender. Clearly, the Pirates fit neither purpose.

Earlier in the off-season, first baseman Derrek Lee rejected the Pirates offer of arbitration, which, if accepted, would have guaranteed him a one-year contract worth about $8 million.

There you have it, folks. No one with any leverage in the market place wants the Pirates money. And Lee, apparently, would rather retire than play for the Pirates for $8 million.

Is there a greater condemnation of an organization than that? And coming, no less, from a player who spent two months with the team last season.

It seems that ``Welcome to hell,’’ is not a secret around the clubhouses of MLB.

Nineteen consecutive years of losing will do that for an organization. So will a reputation of having next to no interest in putting a winning team on the field. The Pirates commitment to winning is an absolute joke and it’s not a secret.

Despite the near-hopelessness of the situation, some fans believe the team can win by continuing on its course of building a farm system. That’s why the No. 8 ranking by Law, a leading authority on amateur and minor-league baseball, has generated some excitement. Law generated more excitement later in the week when he named five Pirates among his top 100 prospects. He also named his top 10 Pirates prospects.

All of this is commendable but not cause for great excitement. Early on in this nearly two-decade long losing spree, the Pirates had the No. 1 ranked farm system. And we can see where that got them.
It would be more encouraging for the future of the Pirates if these rankings were the result of some sort of baseball acumen. They are not. Pirates management deserves litte credit for these rankings. Unless, that is, you want to credit them for putting such bad teams on the field they consistently get high draft picks.

There is a tremendous premium on high draft selections in compiling these ratings. Gerrit Cole, the highest-ranked Pirate, was the first overall choice in the 2011 draft. Jameson Taillon, the second highest ranked, was the second overall pick in the 2010 draft.

The third-highest ranked Pirate was Josh Bell and there are people who fall all over themselves congratulating GM Neal Huntington and his staff for this pick.

The man who deserves the credit for Bell is not Huntington, not co-GM Frank Coonelly and not any of their lieutenants. It's owner Bob Nutting. When Bell was still available in the second round, it was an easy choice -- if you are willing to pay him $5 million, which Nutting authorized.

The draft is a rare example of the Pirates spending money. But since their combined draft spending and payroll puts their total expenditures at or near the bottom of all MLB teams, what’s the big deal?

Here’s hoping Cole, approximate arrival date 2013, Taillon (2015) and Bell (2016) go on to be great players. But that does not alter the cold, hard, repetitive fact that the Pirates are terrible and there is no end in sight.