I keep hearing this question, as if people haven't noticed the last 14 years of Pirates baseball and this is some sort of new development. Well, I've been paying attention for a while now, and what's happening this year is for certain nothing new. So, as we began by asking, what's wrong with the Buccos? Short answer: The Pirates are the worst-run organization in professional sports, hands-down, from the owner to the general manager and his staff to the coaches. And, because of all that, and in regards to this year's struggles, they don't have all that many players who are good at baseball. Sure we have a few: Jason Bay (who's great at baseball), Freddy Sanchez, Adam LaRoche, Ian Snell (who's probably the most fun-to-watch Pirate in years), Tom Gorzelanny, Matt Capps, and some other serviceable folk, but (and I'm blaming this on Dave Littlefield), we don't have enough.
The latest and worst example of this ineptitude is Oliver Perez, who's pitching like an ace again for the New York Mets. We traded him, basically as a throw-in, for part-time outfielder Xavier Nady. At the time the trade didn't look all that smart but now it looks downright stupid, because Perez has rediscovered his 2004 form, striking out batters and dominating. We couldn't fix what ailed Ollie (actually, we broke him in the first place), the Mets could fix him it seems, and to sum it up, we made a series of bad baseball moves and decisions and gave away an ace because of it.
And then there's what happened today. The Pirates, with the fourth pick in the 2007 entry draft, take a college reliever. For a team like the Pirates that refuses to spend any money (and really, we're just about the only team that still doesn't), building from within, from our own system, is absolutely a must, which makes the first-year player draft probably the most important day of the year for the Pirates future. (And by the way, our system is awful.) We will never (save a Mark Cuban purchase of the team) spend money with the big boys, but it's inexcusable that we refuse to spend money with the Reds, Brewers, Royals and teams from similar markets. And we did that today. We over-drafted on a college pitcher projected at best to be a closer and passed on a potential franchise catcher and loads of other more talented position players and pitchers, because we wouldn't (not couldn't) sign those better players. That, or the people responsible for drafting are actually just stupid. And I suppose it could just as easily be the latter.
I'm upset. I'm disappointed. But I'm not surprised. As I said, the Pirates are the worst-run franchise in professional sports. The ownership has no commitment to winning and the GM and scouting director are completely clueless or just gutless. Either way the Pirates are bad now, and they look to be indefinitely if the makeup of the front office remains the same.
I hate to be a downer, especially after a fine win like today's. Snell pitched seven strong, as he always seems to now (if not 8) and Capps pitched a great two innings for the win, thanks to Bay's eight-inning blast. We'll continue to have wins like this, maybe 70-some a year. One of these years we'll get lucky and win 82. But the main thing this weekend's trek to Yankee Stadium (to see the Rocket's return to the Bronx, by the way) will remind me is that the Pirates are a long way away from being a good baseball team and way farther from being a good baseball organization.
But, I won't let all that dampen my enthusiasm about my Buccos. Or I'll try not to. As I said, I'm seeing Saturday's game at Yankee Stadium with a bunch of my buddies and both of my brothers and I'll be there in my Jason Bay black and gold t-shirt, cheering for the good guys and loathing the Evil Empire in person. A lot of Pirate fans are under the impression that the best thing we can do now is not give the current ownership group one more penny by going to games. I'm not sure if I'm willing to go that far, because watching, rooting for and following the Pirates (even in their current pitiful state) is one of my all-time favorite things to do.
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