Reaching for the stars?
1. Signing Jose Mesa to be your closer, relegating your promising corps of relief arms to another year of situational duty
2. Acquiring Matt Lawton in his contract year
3. Trading a pitching prospect (Nunez) for a geriatric backup catcher (Santiago), thus stallng the advancement of a promising catching prospect (House).
Are these the moves of a team trying to rebuild toward a championship, or are these the moves of a team desperate to reach (and therefore peak) .500 as soon as possible? I'll let you decide on the evidence.
The GM has changed (Bonifay to Littlefield), but the methods are the same. At least Littlefield is better at finding short term solutions. That's the difference between 60 wins and 75 wins.
2 Comments:
Jeff,
I've been a big critic of the Mesa re-signing at that price. Comparing his deal to other bad contracts isn't winning any points on my scorecard. Anyway, it seemed to me that the Pirates, once again, were bidding against themselves. After all, this is a player who refused to be traded to a contender a couple of months ago! I doubt he was holding Littlefield's feet to the fire for more money.
Charlie,
I have 1 disagreement with your suggestions, and I think Jeff already touched on it.
The Pirates have 2 problems procurring free agents. First and foremost is money, but that's not the problem I'm referring to.
The other problem is player perception. Pittsburgh is not an attractive place for free agents. In order to sign a Koskie, the Pirates would have to pay him well above market value. We've seen this before in the Meares and Bell signings.
Incidentally, this is the same reason I was against the Kendall trade. Having more money to spend only does you any good if someone else is willing to take your money.
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