FanHouse DaveLittlefield

Left on Base is MLB FanHouse's link dump.

* The 45-man rosters for the World Baseball Classic were announced yesterday, which is interesting but not altogether meaningful -- the 28-man rosters that teams will actually play with won't be announced until Feb. 24. In the meantime, Baseball America scours the WBC for prospects.

* Curt Schilling does the math to "prove" the Red Sox should bring back Jason Varitek.

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

Salary Cap. There's not a more controversial phrase in baseball economics. The prospect of one hung over the strike of 1994 and 1995 before the owners and players managed to settle without implementing a true cap. Since then, baseball has instituted a luxury tax that acts as a sort of soft cap, but it's set high enough that it only really affects the Yankees annually, and they regard it in the same manner that a rhinoceros regards a mosquito.

For the most part, a salary cap hasn't been part of the conversation in baseball for several years. The Yankees ridiculous spending spree this winter, however, has changed things. In the days and weeks since their signings of CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira, Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and Astros owner Drayton McLane have once again begun to call for a salary cap. They're the only two owners to have spoken directly on this issue, but it's hard to think they're alone.

A salary cap in baseball is not a simple thing. In most sports, there's only one line in labor negotiations: the line between the players and the owners. In baseball, there's actually a three-way divide between the players, the "big-market" owners (for lack of a better term), and the "small-market" owners. The MLBPA isn't the only thing that stands in the way of a cap. Some of the owners (think John Henry, the Steinbrenners, naturally, the Wilpons, Frank McCourt, Arte Moreno) would likely be opposed to one as well. After the jump, we'll look at all the obstacles and problems with implementing a cap.

In the midst of all the steroid/HGH garbage that's been going on in baseball today, which has been a real downer, there has been one incredible high point that's let me get through the day. As Matt told you earlier, Dave Littlefield has been fired as GM of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I don't know if I can quantify how happy this makes me. Let me try.

In 2001 Cam Bonifay was fired in early June from his position as Pirates' GM. On Baseball Tonight that evening (this was way back when BBTN was cool, mind you), Peter Gammons looked right into the camera and said, "Cam Bonifay has dug the Pirates into a hole so deep, it will take until 2006 to dig them out of it, no matter who the GM is," (OK, I'm paraphrasing a bit, I don't have a memory that good). It's 2007 and the Pirates are arguably worse off now than they were in 2001 when Littlefield took the job. They're a perennial 73 win team at the major league level and at the minor league level they have somewhere between zero and two legitimate prospects.

And that's where the torture for us Pirate fans has lain in the past six years. Littlefield constantly did nothing to improve the team, often did things to make the team worse (Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton for Bobby Hill and Jose Hernandez, turning down Ryan Howard for Kris Benson and getting Ty Wigginton instead, making terrible, senseless draft picks, I could go on but I won't). Instead of getting fired, his reward has consistently been a contract extension on or near Opening Day.

Will firing Littlefield fix all of the Pirates' problems? It certainly won't, but man, it feels good to know that someone in the front office is making a decision based on baseball. I'm going to have a beer in celebration. If you're a Pirate fan, I hope you'll join me.

Dave Littlefield's reign of terror in Pittsburgh has come to an end! Pirates owner Bob Nutting announced this morning that he's fired Littlefield after leading the team to their seventh losing season on his watch (and 15th in a row). From the Post-Gazette:

"After eight months of listening and analyzing the situation, it has become clear that this decision was necessary to move our organization forward," Nutting said. "While there are many bright spots for us to build from, I am not satisfied with the overall performance and progress that has been made. I'm committed to building a successful organization, and this is an important step in that process."

I'm not even a Pirates fan but I have to ask, what took so long? Littlefield has had a moment of triumph or two over the years, but by and large his career has been marked with mistake after mistake (after mistake ...). Yet, against all reason, he was actually given an extension on opening day of last year, which means Nutting will be paying Littlefield to do nothing through 2008.

Nutting announced that Brian Graham, the team's director of player development, would take over for Littlefield on an interim basis, though a search for a permanent replacement will begin shortly. If all goes according to plan, the Pirates should head into 2008 with a lot of new faces in the front office, as the team is also searching for a new CEO to replace Kevin McClatchy.

Everyone in Pittsburgh has a favorite "Why Dave Littlefield should be fired" story. There's tons of them. I mean, the guy's been on the job since mid-2001 and he's managed to not improve the Pirates at all since he took the helm. My favorite Littlefield story? The one chronicled in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today, the one about how he turned down Ryan Howard in a trade for Kris Benson in the summer of 2004 because the Pirates already had Brad Eldred.

Yeah, you read that right. The Pirates, who have been searching for a left-handed power bat since PNC Park and its 320 foot right field porch opened in 2001, turned down a trade for the left-handed first baseman that has thumped 91 homers in his last 250 or so games. Eldred? He's got fourteen bombs in his career.

This is why speculation that Littlefield will be canned after the season is so rampant, because it's insane that he's still employed. Instead of pulling in Howard as a return for Benson, he pulled off a three way traded that netted him Ty Wigginton (who the Pirates waived after the 2005 season), and Jose Bautista (a player the Pirates had in their own organization but lost when Littlefield failed to protect him in the Rule 5 draft) while also giving up Jeff Keppinger, who's killing the ball in Cincinnati right now. Howard is, of course, the reigning NL MVP.

I'm not sure why Pirates GM Dave Littlefield feels like he's in any position to rake another team over the coals, but that's apparently what he wants to do if you want to make a deal with him. According to Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Littlefield has two opportunities to move Jack Wilson this summer but never got a deal together due to incredibly unrealistic demands.

First, there were talks with the Blue Jays, who were looking for at least a marginal improvement over Royce Clayton. Unfortunately, Littlefield literally insulted Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi that the Jays dropped the subject completely:

That might explain why Ricciardi, on July 23, took the unusual step of mentioning another team's player publicly when he told the Canadian Press, "We have absolutely no interest in Jack Wilson. None."

Then the Tigers were (and still are, apparently) interested in Wilson, including taking on his entire salary ($14 million over the next two years):

The deal on the table at the July 31 non-waiver deadline would have netted the Pirates one of two 21-year-old pitchers, Jair Jurrjens or Dallas Trahern, and another prospect in the Detroit system. Littlefield apparently asked for a major-league player on top of that -- outfielder Craig Monroe was mentioned -- and the Tigers pulled back.

I know Littlefield must see something in Wilson that others do not -- he's the one who gave him that insane contract in the first place -- but asking for a top prospect and a legitimate big-league player is more than a bit ridiculous. How does this guy still have a job?

The one resounding question from MLB's come-and-gone trade deadline remains: what on Earth were the Pirates thinking?

The trade for Matt Morris -- a mediocre, overpaid pitcher -- to the Pirates -- a notoriously finicky, tightwadded team -- continues to make no sense whatsoever, except to prove further that Dave Littlefield is really poor at his job. That doesn't mean some, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Degan Kovacevic, can't try to explain all this silliness:

So, why Morris?

And why now?

To start, rewind to Tuesday morning, hours before Major League Baseball's 4 p.m. trading deadline. The Pirates, according to Littlefield, were frustrated by an inability to pry away one of the several targeted starters on his scouts' list.

Also, there is the job factor. If Morris fares well, he can help the Pirates finish strong this season and, perhaps, convince Nutting and the new CEO coming this fall that Littlefield deserves to stay for the final year of his contract in 2008. If nothing else, he could illustrate to Nutting that, for the first time in his tenure, he could acquire a big-money player with good results.

Those are just two of the several plausible, but still ridiculous, reasons Kovacevic proposes. Like the great scientists of our time, it is noble of Kovacevic to attempt to explain the unexplainable, but really, the more and more you think about it, the deeper the rabbit hole of stupidity goes. Best not to even try sometimes.

Major League Mongering will look at players rumored to be on the move between now and the July 31st pseudo-trade-deadline.

This isn't too surprising, but once again the Pirates could end up being a one-stop shop for any contender looking to stock up for the stretch run. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today that the following three players are available:

Jack Wilson to the Blue Jays. This was one we actually broached yesterday, but apparently this deal is dead in the water until the Pirates lower their demands. Who were they looking for in return? Troy Glaus. Can't blame you for trying, Dave Littlefield, but all-glove, no-hit shortstops (and expensive ones at that) rarely bring that much in return.

Saloman Torres to the Red Sox. The Pirates' main objective in any deal will likely be to improve their offense, so the Post-Gazette suggests the Bucs would go after Wily Mo Pena, who just so happens to be on the block, as well. Pena has enough potential that the Sox might be nervous pawning him off for a reliever with a 5.12 ERA, but Torres is better than he's pitched this year, and besides, the Sox can't exactly afford to be too picky considering Pena is hitting just .202-4-12 in 129 at-bats. This is one deal I could definitely see happening.

Jose Castillo to the Mets. Considering Jose Valentin is expected to miss the rest of the season with a fractured leg, this is possible but unlikely. For one, Castillo is hitting just .238, almost one hundred points below Ruben Gotay, the heir apparent at second base for the Mets.

Last week Kevin McClatchy stepped down as the Pittsburgh Pirates' CEO, effective at the end of the 2007 season. It's clear some changes are being made in the organization with the slow phasing out of McClatchy, so the question remains, are more changes in the works? Tracy Ringolsby thinks so:

That leaves GM Dave Littlefield as the next target for blame, once McClatchy's successor is in place ...

[...]

It's an organization where ownership has opened the purse strings a little bit, but has largely wasted the money (and playing time) on the likes of Chris Stynes and Raul Mondesi in 2004, Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa and Roberto Hernandez in 2006, and Tony Armas this year. Yes, the same Tony Armas who despite his $3.5 million guarantee is about to be released.

It's true that both Dave Littlefield and Jim Tracy's contracts expire after the 2008 season, meaning that without extensions they'd be lame ducks. When asked about their fate after the McClatchy announcement next week, owner Bob Nutting refused to comment, saying it was a decision to be made after the season. It will probably be left up to whoever replaces McClatchy as CEO, and it will be a good test of what kind of executive the new CEO will be. Ridding the team of Littlefield would be starting off in a new direction. Extending him would just be an affirmation of the status quo.

Hat-tip to Honest Wagner.

Previously at FanHouse
Kevin McClatchy Out as Pirates' CEO
The Debriefing: The Biggest Threat to Baseball's Integrity

Even though I'm a Pirate fan and they're the team that I know inside and out, upside and down, this is the hardest preview for me to write for the Fanhouse. That's because the segment is called "Why the Pirates are worth watching" and the simple fact is this- the Pittsburgh Pirates are not worth watching in 2007. In fact, they're never worth watching. I can't tell you they're going to be historically bad, because they're never historically bad. They've had fourteen losing seasons in a row, which is only two shy of the record for any sport, but in the twelve full seasons since then (remember, two years were cut short by the strike, that's how long the Pirates have been losing) they've won between 65 and 75 games in nine seasons. They've only lost 100 games once and they've won 78 once and 79 once. Terrible teams are worth watching because they're bad, decent teams are worth watching because they might be good. Even with a historic 13 game losing streak (which included a three game sweep at the hand of the Royals), the Pirates still managed to win 67 games last year.

So why are the Pirates worth watching? They did manage a division best 37-35 game after the All-Star break last year, but they also got outscored by a whopping 43 runs in that timespan. That's an incredibly discouraging statistic. What the Pirates do have is Jason Bay. You probably think you know how good Jason Bay is, but you're probably still underestimating things. He's hit 67 homers in the past two seasons despite playing in a park that kills right-handed pitching (45 of those homers have been on the road). He's driven in 100 runs two years in a row despite the parade of losers that tend to bat in front of him and also happen to be allergic to first base. So Jason Bay, definitely worth watching.