Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?

From Jerry Crasnick's article about how Huntington fared at the deadline at ESPN.com today: While most mainstream media outlets categorized Pittsburgh as a deadline loser, some bloggers rode to Huntington's defense. The blog "Where are you now, Andy Van Slyke?'' polled its readers, and 76 percent of the 540 respondents gave Huntington a grade of "A'' or "B'' on his trades. It's a good article worth reading, even if it mis-identifies Jack Wilson as Andy LaRoche and totally whiffs on the name of my blog. Crasnick talks to Mark Shapiro and other GMs getting opinions on how the new front office did at their first deadline. And I love Huntington's, "I don't care what anyone thinks, I think we did quite well," attitude. If he's happy, and I trust that he's doing a good job (which I think I do), then I'm happy. Superfun update: They actually fixed the name of WHYGAVS in the article, but still have Wilson misiden...

I've seen a lot of reactions to this trade and I'm getting a ton of traffic, so I'm going to start this post way back at the beginning. If you're a regular reader and the first two paragraphs or so seem obvious to you, bear with me. One year ago, Neal Huntington inherited a wreck. He was handed a baseball team built for 75 wins through 2009, at which point it would be completely disbanded, and a minor league system that was so barren that Steve Pearce hit his way to being the #2 prospect in the organization with only one good season. Faced with a choice, he decided to try and let his players maximize their value before trading them off to rebuild the entire organization from square one. The key piece in doing that has to be the best player on the major league team. That is, of course, Jason Bay. Trading Jason Bay today is not a salary dump, because the Pirates can afford to keep him. Because of the sins of the past, the Pirates have no choice but to look to the future. ...

Ken Griffey's already been traded to the White Sox. The Bay talks seem pretty intense after everything that happened yesterday and he's probably headed to somewhere in the AL East. I'll update this post all day as things happen and if really big things happen, they'll get their own posts as soon as I can work them up. You can use this thread to talk, speculate, leave me links, etc. Starting at 1 PM, I'm going to be helping with FanHouse's Deadline Chat, but I'll be updating here all day as well. Also, I will be at work, so if I'm not right on the ball, bear with me. This is going to be a wild day. 10:47- Most things I can find about this trade seem to peg it at about 50/50 (there's about ten links I could give you to that). One of the sticking points is certainly what prospects the Pirates are getting and another is that Manny Ramirez is insane. ( UPDATE: and five minutes after I posted this, DK put up an update confirming my guess that Huntington a...

Is this going down? Is this not going down? There are a million variables and a million rumors being passed around tonight. The main tenants of this deal right now are: 1.) Manny Ramirez to Florida, 2.) Jason Bay (and maybe Grabow) to Boston, 3.) Jeremy Hermida and prospects to the Pirates. Will Carrol says it's almost done , but the Commish has to approve and that we might want more for Bay. What to take from this? Where there's smoke, there's fire, and there's smoke all over the place right now. There are some things to consider, though. Hermida is an incredibly promising young player, but he's 24 and he's got 2-3 seasons worth of major league time. As centerpieces for players like Jason Bay go, I don't know that he's who I'd have my eye on because of service time. And it's possible that Huntington is using all of this Red Sox talk to drive up an offer from the Rays. The Rays have so much young pitching that they can almost certainly afford to ...

Lest you were worried that Neal Huntington was done after last Friday's trad e: The Pirates are deep into trade talks with the Tampa Bay Rays and other parties regarding left fielder Jason Bay , one team source with direct knowledge said yesterday, but it remains far from certain that Bay will be moved by Major League Baseball's deadline tomorrow afternoon. DK says it's a slightly better than 50% chance that Bay stays in Pittsburgh, but geez, a deal with the Rays just makes SO MUCH SENSE for both sides that I find it hard to believe that Huntington and Friedman won't find a way to make it happen. UPDATE: From ESPN's trade deadline blog : The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Wednesday that the Pirates are deep into talks with the Rays about Jason Bay. Separately, with about 29 hours to go before the trade deadline, sources indicate to ESPN that while nothing is imminent, the two sides are talking constructively and trying to bridge the gap. We won't get Price,...

I've been sent this link a couple times and I see it being discussed in the comments. I wasn't really planning on weighing in because I don't think it has much substance, but people seem kind of panicky over it, so I'll toss my two cents into the hat. The rumor is that the Pirates and Braves had mostly agreed on sending Jason Bay to Atlanta for four prospects, most likely including Brett Lillibridge and Brandon Jones, only to have the deal nixed by ownership. Let's put this one through the ringer: It's from Mark Bowman, the Braves MLB.com beat writer. You know what MLB.com beat writers can be like. Lillibridge has been terrible since being traded to the Braves and is maybe a fringe prospect at this point, if we're being kind. Jones is a semi-promising 24-year-old outfield prospect. Given what Huntington just traded for, does it seem like either one would be on his radar? The Braves are almost certainly shopping Mark Teixeira and looking to sell at this dead...

It's amazing that I'm still finding new things to read about the trade, but almost two days later, I am. There's two more things that I think are important reads about this move. The first is from Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus : While 2008 is a lost year for Tabata, he represents the type of talent the Pirates have generally had problems getting into the system: young, high-upside with superstar potential and some risk involved. It’s not clear what he’s going to become, but what he could become is more impressive than any other Pirate prospect’s ceiling. This is the type of deal Neal Huntington needed to make. Considering that he flipped an impending free agent (Marte) and a player having a career half, this is a very good deal for the Pirates; first-year GM. This is an indelicate comparison, but if you want the optimistic viewpoint, think about Hanley Ramirez , who put up a desultory 2005 season in Double-A, creating whispers similar to what we’ve heard about Tabata. ...

It's looking more and more like Nady and Marte to the Yankees for Tabata, Coke, Ohlendorf, and George Kontos. The conversation on this trade begins and ends with Tabata, who might be a super star and might not ever make it to the majors. More later. MORE: Here's the deal; this is Nady and Marte for Tabata's upside. Ohlendorf is a warm body to fill the roster out with, Coke probably isn't much more than that and neither is Kontos. ( ETA: I'm selling Kontos short here. He's got good strikeout numbers and is age appropriate in AA at 23. He might turn out to be a decent starter.) This is a trade for Tabata. The thing is, it's really hard to project Tabata. His minor league numbers are awful, but they're also practically meaningless because he's extremely young. Prospect guys like John Sickels LOVE Tabata , but he really hasn't done much and he's suffered a wrist injury this year that seems to be pretty serious. He's a huge talent, but he'...

From Newsday : Manuel has made it no secret he'd like to see general manager Omar Minaya pick up a big bat for the outfield. Matt Holliday, Jason Bay and even Xavier Nady are probably out of the Mets' reach, so he might have to "settle" for Seattle's Raul Ibañez or Cleveland's Casey Blake. The Mets farm system isn't very good, so that sounds about right. Meanwhile, everyone keeps saying the Yankees are interested in our outfielders. For some reason, people seem to be upset when Ian Kennedy is mentioned as a potential return. I know the Yankees have soured on the guy a bit and he had a rough stint with them this year, but he's only 23 and his minor league numbers (including his numbers at AAA this year) are sterling. And that's my two cents on that (sorry, very busy in lab today).

Reports from all over the place are making it sound like Huntington's asking price for Jason Bay and Xavier Nady are in the neighborhood of two top prospects, with an additional prospect thrown in on the Bay deal. From Joel Sherman's blog at the New York Post (via MLB Trade Rumors ): Jason Bay/Xavier Nady, Pirates – Pittsburgh is demanding a big package: two premium prospects and a second-level prospect for Bay and two premium prospects for Nady. So far, no one is biting and Pittsburgh is not blinking. An executive from an interested team said, "I guarantee if the prices do not change, the Pirates are going to wake up on Aug. 1 with both players." Buster Olney has a similar report on his blog (insider only). Whether Huntington makes any moves this deadline or not, this is an incredibly important time for him. Part of Dave Littlefield's problem was that when he'd make a demand for a player in a trade, he had a terrible reputation for asking for the moon and a...

Wondering what's going on on the trade front? Jon Heymann checks in from SI.com : The Diamondbacks and Cardinals are among the most ardent pursuers of Pirates star outfielder Jason Bay , SI.com has learned. The Mets and Rays, who also seek an outfielder, are among other teams thought to have checked in with the Pirates. Pittsburgh also has emerging star Xavier Nady , yet another fine outfielder, as a potential trade target. The rumors are basically that Huntington is telling everyone that's interested in Bay or Nady that it's going to cost them the cream of the crop in their farm system. That's about where we should be at this point, because besides Adam Dunn, Nady and Bay are probably the best bats available on the market.

I failed to post this earlier today, but apparently the Jack Wilson to the Dodgers rumors are heating up. John Perrotto wrote a story about it today, one popped up in the LA Times , and one showed up at a site called PE.com (links via Charlie and BBTF ). I'm still guessing that the trade would center around some lesser prospects (I'm thinking James McDonald, just because we're so pitching poor), but Colletti's been making some crazy quotes that are making people think that he might be willing to part with a top prospect (think James Loney or Matt Kemp) to get Wilson. This quote (from the PE.com article) is the one that have the wheels churning: "We're more open-minded to who we may have to move," Colletti said. [...] Colletti's comments echoed what owner Frank McCourt told me earlier in the week when asked about the possibility of trading some of the kids. He said the ones they will hold onto are "the ones who are prepared to put in the work, l...

You probably could've seen this one coming from a mile or two away, but with Rafael Furcal out for the next eight weeks with back surgery, the Dodgers are in the market for a new shortstop. They're under .500 but only 1/2 game behind the Rockies in the this year's crappy division, the NL West. By way of the PG , Ken Rosenthal (who's in full-on trade-season robot-mode) mentions that the Dodgers may be interested in getting someone other than the corpse of Nomar Garciaparra to play short while Furcal is out. These are pretty preliminary talks because all Rosenthal can tell us is that the Pirates are interested in the same players the Indians are asking for in early C.C. Sabathia talks. Rosental mentions James McDonald, Chin-Lung Hu, and Andy LaRoche all as potential targets for the Tribe and thus, presumable the Pirates as well. There's no point in speculating on those names being tossed around at this early point, but there is a more relevant question that will be b...