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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
Generally, losing doesn't get you anywhere. If you do enough of it, though, you might grab some attention for it. Meet the Pittsburgh Pirates. They haven't had a winning season since 1992. That's 16 years, which ties the all-time record for losing seasons in any North American sport. As things stand, the Pirates are pretty well lined up to break the record with losing season No. 17 in 2009.
And yet, not all is lost for the Pirates. After taking over last year, GM Neal Huntington has started to restock the minor league system with some actual talent. Still, he was left quite a mess by his predecessors. The Pirates might not be able to avoid losing season No. 17, but can they avoid 18, 19, or 20?
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.
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. 
Since taking over as Pirates general manager in the fall of 2007, 
With two trades already under his belt, it's clear that Pirates' GM 
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 
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. 
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 
It seems likely that the bulldozer that 
