Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Reality check

There is a ton of panicking going on right now among Pirate fans right now with respect to our new GM and his off-season thus far. I am far from sold on Huntington, but there are some things I think everyone needs to keep in mind:

  • Trading anyone just for the sake of making a move is bad idea. When that "anyone" is Jason Bay, it's a worse idea. Having him tank again in May and June and not getting anyone for him is not a whole lot worse than getting Lee and Shoppach for him right now. The reward for keeping him and maximizing his value is way greater than the risk of holding on to him.
  • Just because we think Ronny Paulino and Nate McLouth/Xavier Nady are equal to Brian Schneider and Ryan Church doesn't mean Omar Minaya sees it that way. There's no way of knowing if Huntington was in on any types of talks for Milledge. The trade to the Nats came out of the blue.
  • Elijah Dukes is a certifiable crazy person. Not in a Milton Bradley way, but in a, "He threatened to kill his whole family," kind of way. Personally, I would've taken a risk on him. Still, it's entirely justifiable that the Pirates' didn't.
  • Please remember that Jim Bowden has a reputation as a bad GM for a reason. If he's making a move that seems too good to be true, there's likely something behind the scenes that we're missing. Holding his moves up as ones we should be making isn't a great idea.
  • Huntington is not dealing from a stacked deck here. It's hard to convince people that crap is chocolate.
  • Remaking a bad organization cannot happen overnight. Accordingly, there is no hurry to deal at these meetings.
I'm not suggesting that we blindly accept everything the Pirates do right now, but to start roasting Huntington already is just plain over-reactionary.