Bringing it all together

Part four of the "Dave Littlefield is the smartest GM in the National League" series, or perhaps more accurately, "Why I think Dave Littlefield is an evil genius." The introduction can be found here, part one here, part two here, and part three here.

This is the final part here where I wrap up everything up and bounce some crazy ideas about Littlefield's plan off of the wall to see if anything sticks.

As CP from New Jersey said in the comments of first installment, Littlefield's strength is risk aversion. The moves he makes are moves made to keep his job. If the Pirates were to win 75 games next year with Brad Eldred, Freddy Sanchez, and Craig Wilson getting big chunks of playing time but the $15 million left largely unspent, Littlefield is publicly hanged for not spending the money that could've put us over the top and he's fired. If he makes the moves that could have potentially helped us out (trade for Glaus, Bradley, maybe make Nomar a ridiculous offer to play third here) they could all easily backfire, leaving us at the same point, with Eldred, Sanchez, and Wilson playing large roles and 70-75 wins, with Littlefield getting fired. By signing Burnitz and Randa and trading for Casey, Littlefield has now made enough high profile moves that if the Pirates win 75 games next year, people will claim those moves were the reason for the 8 win improvement (because even if guys like Casey and Randa fail, no one will be upset at him for acquiring them, they're nice guys that smile a lot with good local history), not the natural progression of guys like Duke, Castillo, Doumit, Duffy, Maholm, etc., bounceback years from Perez and Wells, and the trimming of deadweight like the Redmans, Fogg, Ward, Mesa, etc. In effect, he's spending money to claim credit for something he didn't really do (or something that won't be noticed like getting rid of the deadweight) so that he can keep his job.

And why's that? After all, by doing this for '06 he makes his job tougher for '07, because it's likely that if $50 or so million doesn't bring a winning season, it'll bring a tightening of the purse strings under the theory that we can lose 87 games at $50 million or 90 games at $35 million. So what would make Littlefield waste the first real spending spree of his career on guys like Randa, Burnitz, Casey, and Hernandez? My guess is because of the opportunity afforded by the All-Star Game. My very first impression of Littlefield was that he took this job to use as a stepping stone. This offseason I think he was the basis of the "Littlefield to Boston" rumor (remember that no one in Boston or Pittsburgh had heard anything of the sort until McClatchy came out to squash the rumor), just to see how people reacted to him getting a high profile job. What I think Littlefield has done is put together a team with a little bit of a higher ceiling for 2006 (admittedly, Randa at his best is probably better than Sanchez at his best, ditto for Burnitz and CWilson, and if Casey stays healthy all year he could probably be an All-Star again, the problem is that Randa and Burnitz are much less likely to reach that ceiling than Sanchez and CWilson are this year and I'd be shocked if Casey stayed healthy all year) as a job audition. If all of his signings pan out, they pan out in the spotlight of the All-Star Game. Everyone will notice that the Pirates are (or at least seem) competitive. He can point to both 2006 and 2003 as years when he snagged free agents that exceeded expectations, and if the Central has a down year and our pitching (because that's the key to this team) springs us to say 80 wins (and thus into contention well into August and maybe September), I think he's hoping to use that as his ticket out of town. With the focus on us that the All-Star Game brings, he'll be the talk of the national media with how his great minor league system and shrewd offseason moves breathed life into the most moribund of franchises. At least one owner will be stupid enough to buy it.

And if it all fails, if Burnitz and Randa get hurt and implode, if Wells and Perez don't get better, if we win 67 games again and Littlefield gets fired (because that's at least as likely if not more likely than the other scenario), then what happens? Well DL's old boss in Detroit (Dombrowski) certainly has a nice little crony system going there, I'm sure it'll all work out for him (I mean even Cam Bonifay found another job somewhere), it'll be the fans that pay the price. Then again, we've been paying the price for a while now, what's a few more years?