Deadline blues

So I guess the trade deadline is tomorrow. I've hardly written about it at all, and I'm sure you've noticed that. It's been a purely subconscious choice, I assure you. I think the problem is that I don't feel like getting terribly interested in the deadline this year. The one thing I've noticed in my now 2 and 1/2 years of blogging about the Pirates is that the harder I think about things and the more I understand the team, the more negative and depressed I get when it comes to all things Pirates.

When I started writing in April of 2005, I was your typical Pirate fan. A sophomore in college at the time, I had spent each and every March since about 6th grade assuring my friends that THIS year would be the year the Pirates turn things around. I didn't necessarily believe the spin churned out by the team (I didn't read any Pirate blogs before I started my own and I mostly just read whatever the PG's coverage of the team was), I just wanted to think things would be different. I didn't start writing from the perspective that the team was good enough to be a winner, but I really didn't feel like they were that far away either. Any long-time reader of the blog knows that my favorite whipping boy of 2005 was Lloyd McClendon, because I felt that Lloyd was really holding the Pirates back from being a good team.

I started writing for family and friends. To most of them, I have been the ultimate source of Pirates knowledge for a long time. Once my readership grew beyond that, it became pretty clear to me that I had a lot to learn. I don't like doing things half-assed and I don't like passing an opinion or a prediction off as my own unless I'm sure I know what I'm talking about.
I dunno, I suppose it has something to do with the whole "science" thing that generally rules my life outside of this blog. Accordingly, I started reading more about the Pirates and attempting to broaden my general baseball understanding beyond the batting average and ERA numbers that anyone can recite from the box score.

The more and more I learned, the more I realized how bad things were and still are here in Pittsburgh. You can't learn about the Pirates' minor league system and not be horrified. You can't take a good look at Ed Creech's track record and be impressed. You can't look at the players that Dave Littlefield holds in the highest regard and not be scared. They took at 67-win team last year in which at least two offensive players may have had career years (Sanchez and Paulino), added one above-average first baseman, and expected to be contenders. That's insanity. Baseball teams don't work like that.

That brings us to this deadline. Everyone's hopes (mine included) for the future of the Pirates rest on whoever Bob Nutting hires as the new CEO of the team when the season ends. The thing that really concerns me is that while we're waiting, the same old people that run this team are allowed to handle another trade deadline. This year there seems to be a pretty clear seller's market that exists. The Brewers overpaid for Scott Linebrink. The Braves just overpaid for Mark Teixeira. The Red Sox are allegedly close to overpaying for Jermaine Dye. And yet, I can assure you that if the Pirates make any deals at this deadline, whoever ends up with Salomon Torres or Damaso Marte or (God forbid) someone else even more valuable to this team will be sitting in their office tomorrow afternoon with a shit-eating grin saying, "Can you believe Littlefield caved like that! I know everyone said he'd drop his asking price at zero hour, but I never imagined we could get (Torres or Marte or whoever) for that little!" It's what Littlefield does. Ask for the moon, settle for crumbs. With the market at this deadline, I think there may have been a real chance to remake this franchise and start things off in the right direction. The problem is that I know the Pirates and investing myself in thinking that might happen won't do anything but get me all worked up and upset when it doesn't (like last year's deadline). Instead, we're putting all of our eggs in the CEO basket. But hey, what's three or four more months to wait when we've been waiting fifteen years?