Sidney Crosby

With all the Sidney Crosby excitement this weekend in the Burgh, the biggest problem with the Pirates (and maybe Major League Baseball, but definitely mostly the Pirates) struck me. Imagine the Pirates are in position to draft an absolute can't miss, once in a lifetime prospect. As we approached the draft, we'd hear all about his faults. We'd hear all about how some other guy is great, and has a ton of potential. We'd hear about how someone else in our organization plays the same position as the can't miss guy, while the other guy they're building up fills a "need." It would all be bullshit, of course. We simply wouldn't want to (or couldn't) afford the signing bonus of the can't miss guy. Part of the problem is baseball's CBA, sure. But most of the problem is the people that run the Pirates. The bottom line is that if a baseball equivalent to Sidney Crosby was available and the Bucs had the first pick, you could be almost sure we wouldn't take him.

Oh wait. This already happened with Brian Bullington and BJ Upton. OK, maybe Upton wasn't a can't miss, once in a lifetime guy. But he was real good and he's having a great year at AAA for Tampa this year. Wouldn't he look good at third for us right about now? And instead we took Bullington, a middling pitcher from the MAC. And we'd do it again if we had the chance.