Well, our Pittsburgh Pirates have been much in the news this weekend and for all of the reasons that we have come to expect over the years of the Nutting Administration.
Catcher Jacob Stallings, one of the Bucs' most popular players, winner of this year's Gold Glove Award, and a guy that the team's Propaganda Ministry (I'm looking at you, Greg Brown) pumped up continually all season long was, surprisingly, or maybe not-so-surprisingly, traded this week to the Miami Marlins. All the familiar reasons were trotted out. Stallings is 32 years old and due to hit his downside, that team is getting three great young prospects for him (two pitchers and and outfielder) who have much more upside than Stallings, and, oh yeah, Stallings was eligible for salary arbitration this off season and would have commanded a healthy raise from the penny-pinching front office, a fact that was downplayed in the press releases coming out of 115 Federal Street. Like all trades over the last ten or so years, this trade can be defended in a baseball sense and in a vacuum, but when it becomes just another brick in a wall with other bricks like Neil Walker, Andrew McCutchen, Jameson Taillon, and Gerrit Cole, it continues to paint a depressingly familiar scenario for Pirates fans.
In other Pirates news this week, the team DFA'd pitchers Steven Brault and Chad Kuhl, and infielder Colin Moran. Like Stallings, all three were eligible for salary arbitration this year. What a coincidence.
Set your alarm clocks for when we will get to hear this same news about Brian Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes.
And to top all for his off, the news arrives this morning that Major League Baseball has locked out their players as of today "in the hopes of accelerating the process of reaching a (new collective) bargaining agreement." In the press release issued by the Pirates the team assures us that...
"While we are not able to able to make any Major League roster moves during this time, we will continue to work on the development of our talented minor league players. We remain laser focused on continuing to execute our plan of developing this next wave of talent that will fuel the future of our success in Pittsburgh."
Yeah, right.
Seriously, does anyone even care any more, especially in Pittsburgh?
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