I honestly have no idea what to make of this

So, umm, yeah, according to Perrotto the Pirates are apparently close to signing Masumi Kuwata, a 39 year old veteran (huge emphasis on veteran) of the Japanese Central League and they may be close to pulling off a massive six player deal with the Braves. Let's take this one at a time.

Close to signing Masumi Kuwata. If I had one question for Dave Littlefield it would be... "What are you, f*cking nuts or something?" His Baseball Cube page doesn't have numbers for 2006 (I think they're a year behind there, even the prominent Japanese players don't have 2006 numbers up), but from 2003-2005 his ERAs were 5.93, 6.47, and 7.24 and his WHIPs for the same seasons were 1.51, 1.61, and 1.77. He will be 39 next year. There is literally not one good thing that can come of this. If we sign this guy and are serious about making him our 5th starter, I might never have any hope for the Pirates ever again. I'm not joking.

Discussing sending Mike Gonzalez, Jose Castillo, Nate McLouth, and Humberto Cota to the Braves for Adam LaRoche and Kyle Davies. This one just smells like bullshit to me. Why would anyone want Humberto Cota in a trade if they knew we were planning on non-tendering the guy tomorrow? How do Nate McLouth and Jose Castillo equal Kyle Davies? I can't imagine this deal is for real outside of Littlefield's mind. I hope it is, mind you, but I just don't see it.

As usual, the only thing to do is take this with a grain of salt because it's Perrotto, who's kind of like our own local mini-Rosenthal. If we were close to trading for Davies, why would we sign an ancient Japanese pitcher? If we weren't close to trading for Davies, why would we sign an ancient Japanese pitcher? Can the Braves really be so desperate to dump Giles at second base that they'd trade Davies to get Castillo and McLouth? How can anyone believe any trade rumor with Humberto Cota's name involved? There's waaay too things that don't add up on this one to believe any of it until we see more.