More thoughts on the deadline

While on vacation last week, my younger brother read Moneyball for the first time. Throughout much of the week, my dad and I (who both read the book in the winter of 2003) were constantly amused by my brother quoting passages from the book that seemed to advise doing the exact opposite of what Dave Littlefield does. Charlie at the Bucs Dugout did a great post on this last summer (and updated it for Irate Fans this summer). The best example that my brother came up with in his reading came from the chapter about Billy Beane's performance at the trade deadline (it's the best example because the whole thing is freshest in my mind, of course). Beane has 5 simple rules that he always tries to follow at the deadline. Let's break it down (if you're reading along at home, the rules come on page 193 of the original hardback printing of Moneyball, which I suspect at least several of you have, if you have a different version, it comes about 5 pages into Chapter 9, right after the AL West standings on July 1st of 2002).

Rule #1- "No matter how successful you are, change is always good... When you have no money you can't afford long-term solutions, only short-term ones. You always have to be upgrading. Otherwise you're f*****.
The part about long and short term doesn't really apply to the Pirates because they aren't contending at the moment, as Beane's team was when Lewis was following him around for the book. Everything else does, especially the part about constantly upgrading. The Pirates very obviously failed to do this at the deadline this year. They brought in Xavier Nady, a guy who is likely no better than Craig Wilson. They brought in Shawn Chacon who is much worse than Kip Wells. They traded Sean Casey and got nothing particularly comparable. They traded Oliver Perez and got nothing even remotely comparable in return. They traded Roberto Hernandez and ended up with 2 minor league middle relievers on the day, something they already had plenty of. With a change to upgrade the team, Littlefield failed to do it.

Rule #2- "The day you say you have to do something, you're screwed. Because you are going to make a bad deal. You can always recover from the players you didn't sign. You may never recover from the player you signed at the wrong price." (emphasis mine)
The Pirates could've (should've) traded Craig Wilson over the offseason after they signed Burnitz and Casey. They should've traded him in May or June when the Yankee outfielders were dropping like flies and Melky Cabrera was unproven. They waited until nearly 4 PM on July 31st to pull the trigger on a deal with a player that everyone knew they had to trade at that point. Same goes for Kip Wells since most teams probably knew the Pirates had no intention of offering him an extension. Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez, well, one was going to be a free agent and one may only get worse. Littlefield clearly felt he had to deal both of them. Same for Casey. By waiting until well after noon on July 31st to make 3 of his 4 deadline day deals, everyone in baseball knew that Littlefield had to deal at that point. As a result, we got screwed. I italicized the last part not because it had anything to do with the deadline, but rather because it pretty much sums up everything wrong with both Cam Bonifay and now Dave Littlefield.

Rule #3- "Know exactly what every player in baseball is worth to you. You can put a dollar figure on it."
Does a man who traded Craig Wilson for Shawn Chacon straight up seem to have a handle on what every player in baseball is worth to him? How about Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez for Xavier Nady? Or to go further back in time, what about asking for David Wright in return for Kris Benson, (apparently) rejecting Benson for Ryan Howard, and settling on Benson for Ty Wigginton? Or what about the now infamous 2003 Rule 5 draft? Yeah, didn't think so. Actually, not making the theorized Benson for Howard deal is a great example of how bad DL is at this. Supposedly the deal wasn't made because we already had Eldred rising through the minors at the same position. The thing is, with a short right field at PNC, Howard was more valuable to the Pirates at that point because he's left handed, despite the similar minor league stats he and Eldred had at the time. DL could've traded for Howard, then swung Eldred to a team while he still had value. Instead we took Wigginton, a crappy AA pitcher, and swapped prospects so that we could get one of our Rule 5 draft losses back.

Rule #4- "Know exactly who you want and go after him. Never mind who they say they want to trade."
I'll freely admit that Littlefield actually does this. The problem is that he so thoroughly ignores Rules #2 and #3 that it renders this rule useless. In addition to knowing what everyone is worth to you, you must know exactly what everyone on your team is worth to the GM of the team you're trying to trade with. Littlefield is so clueless in evaluating players that I wouldn't trust him to go within a mile of any fantasy team of mine. This results in laughable offers like Benson for Wright or CWilson for Anthony Reyes or... you get the picture.

Rule #5- "Every deal you do will be publicly scrutinized by subjective opinion... Not everyone believes that they know everything about a personal computer. But everyone who ever picked up a bat thinks he knows baseball... You have to ignore the newspapers."
I'm sure if Moneyball was written in 2005, Beane would've added "and blogs," so technically, advising Littlefield to follow all of Beane's rules would mean that he should ignore this post, and thus ignore the rules. Regardless, I'm going to press forward. Littlefield didn't actually make any moves that make the 2007 (and beyond) Pirates better, unless Xavier Nady really blossoms next year. By adding Chacon, he may have made them worse, assuming Chacon spends any considerable part of 2007 in the rotation. By trading Perez he may have made them worse because, well, if Perez regains his form there's nothing that can equal that in a trade, though Littlefield got nothing even close in value to Perez's hyopthetical worth. If he made no moves at all Wells, Casey, Wilson, and Hernandez would all still be gone in 2007. Still, the public outcry if Littlefield dealt none of them would've been huge. Thus, Littlefield felt like he had to deal those guys, which brings us back to rule 2.

The great thing about the five trading rules is that, like most of the rest of Moneyball, they're just common sense. Much of baseball operates without common sense, thus small market teams have to have it. When a team like the Pirates is run with little common sense, well, it's obvious what happens.

EDIT (2:10 PM)- I forgot about Charlie's posts on the subject of the Pirates and Moneyball, so I've added the appropriate links in the top paragraph.