FanHouse JoseBautista

It seems likely that the bulldozer that Neal Huntington is using to rebuild the Pirates with will not rest until it's eliminated most of the ruins left behind by his predecessors. After trading away Xavier Nady, Jason Bay, and Damaso Marte for prospects, he shipped Jose Bautista (the team's former "third baseman of the future") off to Toronto yesterday for a player to be named. All indications are that he's not done. When the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked him about Jack Wilson's future in Pittsburgh, Huntington said this about the longest tenured Pirate:

"The reality is that we can't make emotional decisions on any player. Jack certainly has proven his worth again defensively, and we can see that the whole club solidified with him out there. But we always need to leave ourselves the ability to make the team better. Jack, hopefully, will be a big part of this turnaround going forward. But, as it was with Jason and Xavier and Damaso Marte, if the right baseball trade is out there, we'll have to entertain it."

In less than a year in Pittsburgh, Huntington has already turned over more than half of the Pirates' 40-man roster. That seems dramatic, but it was what needed to be done. Pittsburgh is still a long ways removed from contending again, but cleaning house is certainly a first step in the right direction.

Cheap Yard Work takes a look at unheralded hitters who are raking and helps you plan your starting lineup each week.

Jose Bautista, 3B, PIT
Stats: .417/.444/.875, 3HR, 7RBI, 2BB, 1SB

I was going to make a Pirates joke, but you know, they haven't been that bad this year, at least from a fantasy perspective. Bautista has accrued almost all of those above stats over the weekend, so he might seem like too aggressive of a start. How-EVA, he's killing lefties this year, hitting .346/.419/.808. And given that four of the six guys the Pirates will face this week are lefties, he makes a pretty nice spot start in deep leagues.

Juan Pierre, OF, LAD
Stats: .563/.611/.688, 0HR, 3RBI, 1BB, 3SB

Okay, I dislike Pierre as much as anyone, but someone drafted him looking for those elusive steals. And have probably dropped him since. But he's getting decent AB's (16 over the last week) and producing big time with them. If he gets on base over 60% of the time, Joe Torre will play him, especially with Andruw Jones stink-bombing it up. (Although it's worth noting that Matt Kemp is even hotter right now). But if you're ever gonna use him to get those swipes, now is the time.

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.