FanHouse Neal Huntington

The Pittsburgh Pirates are playing some terrible baseball right now. They've won just three games in September, just 12 games since Aug. 1, and are 20-50 since July 1. After emptying their roster in late July, their lineup has been composed mostly of players that only have an opportunity to play regularly in the majors because the Pirates exist.

These players, with the possible exceptions of Garrett Jones and Lastings Milledge, obviously haven't made much of the opportunity afforded to them by the Pirates' firesale. Monday, word got out that they don't seem to be too worked up about it either. When GM Neal Huntington went around the clubhouse looking for winter ball commitments, he got an apathetic response from most players. In fact, John Perrotto is reporting that not one American player on the Pirates has agreed to go to Latin America for the winter.

With the Pittsburgh Pirates in the midst of their 17th consecutive losing season, a lot of Pirates players have been walking the plank and being shipped to other teams around the majors. Still, even with all the roster upheaval in Pittsburgh it seems there will be at least one person left who will be returning to the Bucs next season.

While in Chicago on Sunday during a rain delay -- the game was eventually postponed -- team president Frank Coonelly talked about the future of current manager John Russell and said that he would be back manning the ship in 2010.

Just a few days after news broke that the Pittsburgh Pirates had offered extensions to Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dejan Kovacevic is reporting that the team has pulled the offers off the table after they were rejected by the players over the early part of the weekend (which was originally reported on Twitter by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Rob Biertempfel.)

The general perception is that Sanchez rejected the two-year, $10 million offer made to him because the three-time All-Star believes he's worth more than that, which led to Wilson rejecting his two-year, $8 million offer because his staying in Pittsburgh is conditional upon his friend Sanchez staying. The team has already said they don't have much wiggle room with the offers, and GM Neal Huntington has made it clear that it's on the players now to continue the negotiation.

Since taking over as Pirates general manager in the fall of 2007, Neal Huntington has been almost singularly focused on rebuilding the Pirates' ravaged farm system. This has necessitated trades of some of their best and most popular players, including Jason Bay, Nate McLouth, and Nyjer Morgan, which has seriously upset the more impatient Pirate fans, who are about to endure a 17th straight losing season.

With this in mind, it's a bit of a surprise to hear that the Pirates front office has offered both Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez contract extensions. Both players have 2010 options, Wilson's is a team option worth $8.4 million and Sanchez's is a vesting option worth $8 million if he reaches 600 plate appearances, that are a bit pricey for the Pirates' tastes, and as a result both were previously thought to be on the trade block.

With two trades already under his belt, it's clear that Pirates' GM Neal Huntington is intent on setting the trade market this year rather than waiting for it to be set by someone else. With Nate McLouth and Nyjer Morgan already shipped elsewhere, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dejan Kovacevic reported Thursday that the Pirates' are now "pushing" for a trade of their only 2009 All-Star, second baseman Freddy Sanchez.

Sanchez is in the midst of a nice bounceback season after a shoulder injury ruined most of last year for him. He's currently hiting .315/.355/.477 with 25 doubles and six homers, looking much more like the National League's 2006 batting champ than the player that hit .271/.298/.371 last year. The biggest obstacle to a deal right now is probably the $8 million vesting option for 2010 that would make him a pricey acquisition if he gets to 600 plate appearances this year, something he's likely to do with 329 plate appearances in 74 games this year.

Futilitywatch '09 is a our semi-regular update on the Pittsburgh Pirates and their march toward their record 17th consecutive losing season.

How many teams in baseball history have traded 2/3rds of their starting outfields in consecutive years? The Pirates started 2008 with an offense-oriented outfield of Jason Bay, Nate McLouth, and Xavier Nady, from left to right. With Bay and Nady slated to become free agents in the two coming offseasons and having good years at the plate, the Pirates dealt them and shifted towards a defensive outfield of Nyjer Morgan, McLouth, and Brandon Moss. Now, Morgan and McLouth are gone and GM Neal Huntington may not be done dealing. Where does that leave the Pirates?

FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Pittsburgh Pirates.

For the better part of the last decade, the Pittsburgh Pirates aimlessly wandered through the wilderness of baseball with Kevin McClatchy and Dave Littlefield at the helm. Finally, they lost their jobs and Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington took over. For more than a year, the new front office has been working on digging out of the hole dug by Littlefield during his reign of terror. There's only one real problem: The hole dug by Littlefield was so deep that it's going to take more than a year to dig out of it.

It's the middle of the night on a Friday. The week in sports has included an Olympian cast into exile because of drugs, Kobe Bryant scoring 650 points in a single game, and the Super Bowl. Nobody's reading The Dugout. Nobody's reading mlb.fanhouse.com. The only baseball news is "team wants players, might talk about it."

To persevere during these dark times, I have replaced Tonight's Dugout with a new feature we call "MLB.Com Headline Theatre," where we skim the slash-news section, find an awkwardly-worded article title (which is easy, because they are all awkward), and act it out dramatically.

Tonight's feature: High hopes for Bucs' new-look bench.

All of the focus during these winter meetings is on the big moves: signings of K-Rod and CC Sabathia, a JJ Putz trade, Jake Peavy rumors, etc. Just because the focus is elsewhere, that doesn't mean that the smaller market teams aren't active. It's just harder to notice.

Take, for example, the Pittsburgh Pirates (shocking that picked them, I know). Their rumored Jack Wilson to Detroit trade fell apart this week, but that doesn't mean that GM Neal Huntington go nothing done in Vegas. To the contrary, he shipped off former "catcher of the future" and current malcontent Ronny Paulino (known to Pirate fans as "Joggin' Ronny" for the way he runs the bases) to the Phillies for AAA catcher Jason Jaramillo.

Not excited yet? After scaring the crap out of fans like me with some rumors of a David Eckstein signing, the Bucs also appear close to signing utility man Ramon Vazquez, formerly of Texas. He's not bad for a utility guy and may even start, should the Pirates find a new home for Freddy Sanchez or Jack Wilson this winter. And if that's not titillating enough, they drafted Donald Veal in the Rule 5 draft. A big lefty who throws hard but can't throw strikes!

Yeah, maybe it's best that the big moves get all the attention.

It's official, the Pittsburgh Pirates have gone global. They haven't signed a working agreement with those rowdy fellows in Somalia who share their nickname nor have they followed so many others into Latin America or Japan. No, the Pirates are tapping more remote outposts. They signed a South African shortstop earlier this fall and now they're hitting the world's second most populous country. They signed Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel today, making the duo the first two Indian-born athletes to sign professional baseball contracts.

Singh and Patel caught the eye of the baseball world by winning an Indian reality TV show called Million Dollar Arm, which was run by Barry Bonds' marketing agent. Singh won, brought Patel with him to the U.S. and both had a tryout in front of scouts. Pittsburgh GM Neal Huntington saw enough to roll the dice.

"We are intrigued by Patel's arm strength and Singh's frame and potential. These young men have improved a tremendous amount in their six-month exposure to baseball, and we look forward to helping them continue to fulfill their potential."

In addition to their mound skills, Singh and Patel are also wickedly good bloggers (much thanks to Walkoff Walk for sharing their genius with the world). The Pirates are hoping they turn out better than Patel's blog review of Rock n Rolla: "it was supposed to be big action, but it was no action at all."

Even if they never make it to the big leagues, the Pirates just became India's most popular baseball team, which ought to be good for some outsourcing opportunities -- Jack Wilson, welcome to Mumbai! -- if nothing else.