so after watching game 1 of the world series, it occurred to me.  yes the pirates have had 17 straight losing seasons, but at least we arent cleveland.  Through this losing streak, the pirates have never had 2 cy young winning pitchers that were traded to dump salary.  Infact, i would argue that over the 17 years, the pirates have one, maybe two very good players that we got rid of.  The first, jason bay, was not a salary dump because he had years left on his contract and we did it to get good talent.  Jason Schmidt, estaban loisa, (both who started against each other in the all-star game with their new teams)  a-ram, these guys were solid pirates but became top tier players with their new teams.  It makes me feel better knowing that over 17 years, we just have not had any talent.  It is the front office, coaching staff, and players fault for this.  It hurts watching Bay hit homers every night, but at least we arent watching the top two guys from our rotation two years ago dueling in game one of the world series.

if we did have some elite talent, id like the examples.

freddy- no

jack- no

nady- no

mcclouth-no

laroche-no

morgan- no

Well it's a double edged sword also.  It means we never really had elite talent to trade away also.

Cleveland is a great example but it's also because they drafted, signed and traded for the great players.  Look at the names that have come through the organization over the last 17 or so years.  Kenny Lofton, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Cliff Lee, C.C. Sabathia, Grady Sizemore, etc.  Florida is another example and the Expos were the best at this.  The Pirates have had Brian Giles and Jason Bay and thats it.  It can be pretty much be blamed on terrible drafting.  We got Bay in the Giles trade but didn't get a star back in the Bay trade.  This is because the landscape of the game has changed.  Right now everyone wants prospects to the point they are over valued.  It's very difficult to get a guy who is going to project to be an all star for a 3 month rental anymore.  The only way you can get top end upside prospects anymore is if you target guys in A ball who are years away.  There is significant risk to this but significant upside as well.  To be a good team you need 2-3 of these star types of players at the same time, a good supporting cast and then luck to go your way.  In McCutchen and Alvarez we have two of those types of players.  If Garrett Jones can give you 80-90% of what he did last year then we are in very good shape.  The starting pitching is solid and should only get better as Lincoln and Alderson advance through the system.  Ideally moving a guy like Duke and getting another cornerstone offensive player.  A guy like Justin Smoak from Texas, would be ideal.

Agreed. 

But my target would be J. J. Hardy for Duke, and yes, I'd do it even though Duke would be pitching against us in the same division.  In my view Hardy is precisely the kind of slightly-tarnished-but-still-young-veteran we ought to be targeting, and he doesn't come with the baggage that---for example---Lastings Milledge brought to town (though Milledge has certainly been a model citizen thus far and if he keeps it up, good for him). 

I would argue that Aramis Ramirez was, in fact, an elite talent.  The year before he was traded he had an "off year" because he suffered a serious ankle injury and the team rushed him back.  He will probably finish his career with more than 400 home runs, and you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of third basemen who have done that.  For comparison, that would be more than Ron Santo, the all-time great Cub third baseman, though of course Santo played before expansion and pitching was better and so on.  But I do think Ramirez can be mentioned in the same breath as Santo, at least when it comes to hitting.  Santo is a borderline Hall of Fame candidate.  That equates to "an elite player" in my book. 

So, we might say that Jason Bay, Brian Giles, and Aramis Ramirez are the only truly elite players the Pirates have had over the past 17 years.  Jason Schmidt to my mind is the only pitcher who can be mentioned anywhere near the conversation, and even he didn't really blossom until he left Pittsburgh.   The lack of elite players in general and elite pitchers in particular is by far the most damning indictment of team ownership and management.  Even a blind squirrel finds a nut(ting) every now and then.  Usually even the worst teams have at least one dominant pitcher (like Zack Greinke) at least once a decade.  In fact, the Pirates throughout their history have rarely had dominant pitchers, a fact that has always puzzled me.  Bob Friend is probably the best starter this team has produced in the modern era, and even he was merely very good and definitely not Cooperstown material. 

I wouldn't put Ramirez up there as elite talent.  He was pretty good but couldn't ever put up great numbers the way that Giles and Bay did when they were pretty much by themselves.  Schmidt was pretty pedestriam when he was with us.  He didn't start to excel until after he left.  I would argue that Denny Neagle was the best pitcher we have had for the last 15 or so years

The top 3 Pirate pitchers in my lifetime (been watching since 1970) are Steve Blass, Doug Drabek, and John Candelaria.

I give Blass the nod due to Game 7 ang Game 3 of the 71 World Series and Game 5 of the 72 playoffs.  Giusti, then Moose blew that one. 

Blass, Candelaria and especially Drabek were good major league pitchers, but it seems like even the best Pirates pitchers top out at around 150 career wins. Respectable totals, yes, but where's our version of Jack Morris, or even Andy Pettite or Roy Oswalt or John Lackey? Why is it that we never seem to have anyone like that these days, and why is it that we had them so rarely even when the team was good? You'll note that I've not suggested any Hall of Famers in that list, though Morris is close and Oswalt might have a shot if he can keep piling up the wins into his late 30s. In other words, I'm asking why we never have any pitchers that are merely "very good", let alone headed for Cooperstown. I don't get it.

For my money the best Pirates starting pitcher I've seen in my lifetime was Jerry Reuss. Unfortunately the team got rid of him when he scuffled for a couple of seasons with some injuries, but he went on to win over 200 games and had many fine years with the Dodgers after leaving Pittsburgh. To my knowledge, Bert Blyleven and Rick Reuschel are the only other 200 game winners the team has had since at least 1960, and of course they did most of their work while with other teams.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, Luis Tiant was here for a little while and pitched well, but he was at the end of the line and it was barely more than one season. Again, I'm thinking of pitchers who were here either for the entirety or for the bulk of their careers; honestly, without looking it up, I'm hard pressed to name even one Pirates starting pitcher since World War II who has won 200 games in a Pittsburgh uniform. I don't think there is one. Which is really quite shocking when you think about how good this team was for so many years. Again, 200 wins is in the "very good" category; it's not usually thought of as being in the "great" category, unless you're talking about someone whose career was cut short or diminished by injury or what have you.

BTW, sorry if I'm hijacking the thread here, because the initial post was really very interesting.  But as long as we're on the subject, FWIW I just looked it up.  Wouldja believe that the top Pirates starting pitcher of all time won just 202 games?  We have had exactly ONE 200 game winner and ZERO 300 game winners in all the years this team has played baseball.

There's an interesting piece on the "Sully Baseball" blog that covers some of this territory.  You can read it by going here:

http://sullybaseball.blogspot.com/2009/02/pittsbur gh-pirates-all-time-home-grown.html

I think Blass tops Drabek.  Drabek needed a reliever in the most important game of his life - Game 7 of the 1992 playoffs.  I think Blass could have come out for a 10th inning if needed.

Oh and this.  After being cut by the Pirates, Blass had the opportunity to sign with the Padres.  Blass said "If I can't pitch for the Pirates, I don't want to pitch for anyone" .  Drabek took the money and ran.

Blass at his peak vs. Drabek at his peak is an interesting discussion.   I'd still take Drabek because he missed more bats than Blass did and had somewhat higher strikeout totals, though neither one was, obviously, a power pitcher.  Blass had more peak seasons than Drabek did, but Drabek gets a mulligan in my book because he had a bad leg injury that really chopped him down over the latter part of his career.  He was never the same after he got hurt, and the strange thing was that his injury really wasn't considered a "serious" injury, it just lingered on and on and never really healed.  (Which is one reason why I worry about guys like Charlie Morton and Nate McLouth.)  

Of course, Blass was also cut down too early by his own malady, it's just that in his case it was between his ears.   Such a shame.

Back to the original topic - I agree that this organization's biggest issue post Bonds is the absolute failure to draft and develop elite talent.  Its not the owner or the financial setup of the league.  Our drafting, international player procurement and scouting of young players has been our failure.  Sure the ownership has had a lot to do with that being that they were unwilling to pay for a latin program and top draft picks, but its up to the GM and his staff to convince ownership of the right path.  There was no plan other than day to day survival before PNC was built so throw pre Bonifay out.  Post Bonifay was where we had resources, but we failed to over and over again to allocate them the right way. 

I generally agree with the original post, except for the part about getting "good talent" for Jason Bay.  So far that trade has been a very bad one for the Pirates.  The organization panicked in that trade and didn't get nearly enough in return.

We made the Bay trade and it hasn't worked out horribly but I'm sure everyone was expecting more.  However we can't really say we got fleeced because look at what the A's got for Matt Holliday.  They got Brett Wallace who probably isn't as good on offense or defense as Andy LaRoche.  We got some bad luck in the trade and that is all.  Moss and Hansen have struggled through injuries which is unfortunate but its the risks you take.  Sometiomes you win, sometimes you lose.  These trades need to be evaluated at the time they are made and at that time I think we got fair return for Bay especially when he was coming off a very serious injury the year before.  If we had held onto him longer there is no guarantee we would of gotten a better package.  I'm still open to LaRoche getting better though.  At the beggining of the season all most people did was criticize the guy because he was awful deffensivly and couldn't hit after his 0-20 start or whatever it was and what he batted the previous year.  He ended up batting .258 which isn't great but the big problem was the fact his OBP wasn't in the .380 range which it should be based on his talent level.  He also really started to up the power towards the end of the year and if he can just take a few more improvements on offense there is no reason he can't be a .275/.390/.425 guy which would make him pretty valuable considering he was ranked as one of the best defensive players last year at his position.

katoy2j wrote:

We made the Bay trade and it hasn't worked out horribly but I'm sure everyone was expecting more.  However we can't really say we got fleeced because look at what the A's got for Matt Holliday.  They got Brett Wallace who probably isn't as good on offense or defense as Andy LaRoche.  We got some bad luck in the trade and that is all.  Moss and Hansen have struggled through injuries which is unfortunate but its the risks you take.  Sometiomes you win, sometimes you lose.  These trades need to be evaluated at the time they are made and at that time I think we got fair return for Bay especially when he was coming off a very serious injury the year before.  If we had held onto him longer there is no guarantee we would of gotten a better package.  I'm still open to LaRoche getting better though.  At the beggining of the season all most people did was criticize the guy because he was awful deffensivly and couldn't hit after his 0-20 start or whatever it was and what he batted the previous year.  He ended up batting .258 which isn't great but the big problem was the fact his OBP wasn't in the .380 range which it should be based on his talent level.  He also really started to up the power towards the end of the year and if he can just take a few more improvements on offense there is no reason he can't be a .275/.390/.425 guy which would make him pretty valuable considering he was ranked as one of the best defensive players last year at his position.

I thought it was a bad trade at the time it was made, and nothing has happened to change my mind.  IF LaRoche improves AND Morris reaches the majors someday, it will have turned out better than expected.

But it was a last minute "have to make the trade right now" deal that shouldn't have been made, especially since Bay still had another contract year.  We don't have many A-grade players, and NH did a very poor job getting any return for him. 

Just my opinion.