This is part of a series of posts wherein we castigate teams for their cruddy offseason crusades and applaud them for their excellent additions.

Look, the Pittsburgh Pirates aren’t going to make the playoffs in 2010. I know it. You know it. Heck, even the Pirates know it.

So why did the team bother to trade for 2B Akinori Iwamura, or sign free agents OF Ryan Church and RP Octavio Dotel when it would have been cheaper to promote minor leaguers?

Pittsburgh signed Iwamura because the organization felt there were no internal candidates to play second base. Moreover, it’s important for the sanity of the team’s pitchers and fans that the guys up the middle be able to field their positions. You don’t want to retard a minor leaguer’s progress by promoting him prematurely. While not a screaming deal ($4.25M), Iwamura will be a free agent after 2010 (and Pittsburgh should get at least one draft pick when he departs) so the team maintained flexibility.*

The Pirates’ other two big additions, Church and Dotel, were affordable pieces who will likely be worth more than they cost.

Church won’t make much money ($1.5M) and will give Pittsburgh some flexibility in its outfield and at first base should any of the team’s young players struggle. That’s a good thing since Lastings Milledge and Jeff Clement are far from safe bets (though for different reasons). CHONE predicts Church will be worth $4M in 2010.

Dotel, who will only earn $3.25M this season, could be a valuable trade chip come July. If he has a good first half, the Pirates could flip him to a contender, who would likely pay a pro-rated portion of his salary and send Pittsburgh a prospect or two in return. For a team that is solely focused on adding young talent, that would be a great result. Nor is it unlikely. Dotel hasn’t closed since early 2007, but he was a reliable arm for the White Sox the past two seasons, maintaining a strikeout rate of 10.83 per nine innings. He’s still got it.

From a financial standpoint, the organization probably saved a little money non-tendering closer Matt Capps and signing Dotel. GM Neal Huntington explained the non-tender decision, saying, “we felt that the risk of an arbitration award at a substantially higher amount was not a good business decision for us….” That makes sense. Also, there’s a good chance Dotel will be the better pitcher in 2010. He was in 2009.

It’s easy to look at the Pirates’ offseason acquisitions and say, “why bother?” But these vets won’t steal playing time from youngers, at least not for long. That’s not how Pittsburgh rolls. Whenever possible and practical, the Pirates have given young players the chance to win starting jobs. That’s the correct strategy for a midmarket team with a still-recovering farm system (damn you Dave Littlefield!).

GM Neal Huntington has been unflinching in his willingness to pull the trigger on a trade that will improve his team’s long term chances. Gone from the team’s 2009 opening day lineup are Nyjer Morgan, Freddy Sanchez, Nate McLouth, Adam LaRoche, Jack Wilson, and John Grabow. Eric Hinske, Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, and Sean Burnett were also traded.

Huntington’s got this team headed in the right direction. We knew it wouldn’t be quick, nor easy. But the Pirates are getting closer to respectability everyday.

I can’t give the Pirates an A, because they still stink. But so far management is making all the right moves.

NOTE: Nick emailed me earlier and said, “I feel the Bucs are foolish to sign those players, because it can’t really ever hurt to let young guys play and see what you have – it can only help – so there’s no need to waste that money on free agents.”  In baseball matters and pretty much everything else, Nick is smarter than me. So I should probably just agree with him. But I’m going to go against my better judgment this once and say that I think if a team is really dedicated to developing young players, then they will surround those young players with a few talented veterans. I’m not as big a proponent of intangibles as Sarah, but I do think a certain amount of leadership is a good thing. Plus, from a marketing standpoint, it’s nice to have a couple of names that the fans recognize.

Grade: B

Added: Akinori Iwamura, Octavio Dotel, Ryan Church, Bobby Crosby, Brendan Donnelly, Javier Lopez

Lost: Matt Capps, Phil Dumatrait

Projected Lineup:

C – Ryan Doumit
1B – Jeff Clement
2B – Akinori Iwamura
SS – Ronnie Cedeno
3B – Andy Laroche
CF –Andrew McCutchen
LF – Lastings Milledge
RF – Garrett Jones

Pitching:

SP1 – Paul Maholm
SP2 – Ross Ohlendorf
SP3 – Zach Duke
SP4 – Charlie Morton
SP5 – Kevin Hart

CL – Octavio Dotel

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

Here’s what Paul had to say about the Pirates as recently as last winter:

The Pirates appear willing to let their kids play, which is good. They didn’t trade them away, didn’t foolishly sign any free agents to long term deals and maintained their flexibility, which is also good.  The fact that I can pat the Pirates on the back for these seemingly innocuous decisions is further evidence that Dave Littlefield was an idiot. After years of failing to even tread water, Pittsburgh appears headed on the right track. Their system still lacks top-notch prospects, but it’s not entirely barren either. If they had some promising young pitchers, they’d be in decent shape. They don’t. At least, not yet. But they’re taking baby steps.

It’s one year later and I don’t have a whole lot to add. GM Neal Huntington continues to stay the course, stockpiling young talent and giving raw, inexpensive players the chance to prove themselves at the major league level.

The Pirates kicked off the offseason by trading for Tampa 2B Akinori Iwamura. Here’s what Huntington had to say about that deal:

“We’ll be looking for value, but we definitely don’t feel like we’re desperate to fill any hole,” Huntington said. “We made the trade for Akinori Iwamura because second base was the position we identified as the one we most wanted to improve, but we feel good about the options that we have, now and for the future, and we’re not going to abandon our plan. We absolutely will not do that.”

“Looking for value and “not going to abandon our plan” aren’t sexy phrases, but those words should put Pirates fans’ minds at ease. Huntington gets it, and it’s been a long time since Pittsburgh had somebody capable in charge.

Reports are Huntington has permission to spend a little this offseason, and he’s indicated a desire to bring back reliever Mike Gonzalez. But Gonzalez will probably pass on the chance to play for the rebuilding Pirates and I’d be surprised to see Pittsburgh make a big splash in the free agent market. In fact, while Huntington has the OK to increase payroll, it seems likely this season’s Pirates will be a less expensive group.

The 2010 Pirates will take their lumps. But they’ve got potential major leaguers in third baseman Andy LaRoche, center fielder Andrew McCutchen and first baseman Jeff Clement. It’s still too early to give up on Lastings Milledge, and Garrett Jones had a surprisingly powerful debut. Meanwhile, prospects Jose Tabata (RF), Pedro Alvarez (3B), Bryan Morris (RHP) and Brad Lincoln (RHP) are on the way. Tabata, in particular, looks like a baller after tearing up the Arizona Fall League. He could be in line for a midseason call-up.

Regarding the starting staff, Ross Ohlendorf, Zach Duke, Paul Maholm and Charlie Morton will return, and Kevin Hart and Daniel McCutchen will battle for the fifth spot. It’s not Maddux-Smoltz-Glavine-Avery-Other-guy, but the Pirates had better pitching in 2009 than both the Reds and Brewers, so that’s something.

What do the Pirates need? More patience, and a continued dedication to developing young players. Fortunately, Huntington seems to have patience in spades.

As for the fans, hey, when your team has lost for 16 years straight, what’s another season or two?

-What They Need Index-

For months now, everyone has been talking about how second baseman Akinori Iwamura’s $4.85 million 2010 option might be too expensive for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to pick up, especially with the explosive emergence of Ben Zobrist (your 2009 MLB leader in WAR). But all the speculation I’ve seen has focused on whether the Rays would pick up Iwamura’s option or let him walk.

Nobody mentioned the smarter move, which would be to simply trade Iwamura to a team that found his $4.85 million price tag acceptable. But of course the Rays and GM Andy Friedman were ahead of the curve on this one, and it’s clear that they have been thinking trade for several weeks now, and never even entertained the idea of letting it get to the stage of picking up the option or not.

Instead, they shipped Iwamura to the Pirates today for cost-controlled reliever Jesse Chavez. This move makes sense for both sides. The bullpen was an issue at several points last season, and the Rays were definitely in the market for an arm, so Chavez is a useful addition, especially when their only viable option with Iwamura was going to be to let him walk and get nothing. Meanwhile, the Pirates get a league-average to slightly above league average at a not-unreasonable price to serve as a one-year stopgap at second while they continue to rebuild.

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this weeks honoree is Krista Dumatrait, the wife of Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher and fellow Bakersfield, CA native Phil Dumatrait. The couple still resides in Bakersfield, and has two children: son Maddox and daughter Jaclynn.

More pictures after the jump…

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If the departure of Nate McLouth warranted a candlelight vigil in the Pirates clubhouse, you have to wonder how many suicide notes are being written over there in Pittsburgh now that Adam LaRoche, Jack Wilson, Ian Snell, and Freddy Sanchez have all been traded over the past week (not to mention Nyjer Morgan this past month).

Those five players – including McLouth – had been the most recognizable faces of the franchise for a few years now and following their departure, I’d bet that 90% of baseball fans can no longer name you more than three guys on their big league roster. On the surface, this sounds like a terrible setback for a team that has not had a winning season since 1992. But there’s a big difference between getting worse and rebuilding, and GM Neal Huntington appears to have made the decisions necessary to achieve the latter of the two.

Let’s discuss these deals individually:

July 23 – Adam LaRoche traded to Red Sox for Argenis Diaz and Hunter Strickland

The elder LaRoche came to Pittsburgh prior to the start of the 2007 season and immediately became one of the team’s most reliable offensive players. But once you took a step back and compared him to the rest of the regular first basemen around the league, you could see that his overall skillset was below average at the position.

Among the 24 first basemen who have made at least 1000 plate appearances since the beginning of the 2007 season, LaRoche’s adjusted OPS of 113 is 14th, his SLG of .470 is 16th, and his OBP of .339 is 21st. These are numbers that a team could live with if the defense was superb, but this was not the case either. In his time in Pittsburgh (as well as in his entire career), his Ultimate Zone Rating has been in the negatives, meaning that his glove was more likely to hurt you than help you win ballgames.

LaRoche is a free agent at the end of the year and offering a player of his skillset and age (turning 30 in November) a contract extension would have been foolish. And as of this writing, there is no guarantee that a player with his numbers would have garnered the Bucs with any compensatory draft picks. Not only that, there was the fear that he would have accepted arbitration had the franchise gone that route. Once they made the decision that Adam LaRoche was not the player they wanted to play first base in 2010, management did the most sensible thing and traded him away in a salary dump, saving the franchise $3 million in salary. And Pirates fans would be better off considering this trade as just that – a salary dump – because the two minor leaguers they received aren’t exactly “prospects”.

Argenis Diaz is a 22 year-old  shortstop who has never hit at the professional level. His power is nonexistent, doesn’t make much contact and doesn’t walk nearly enough to be an offensive asset. He is, reportedly, quite a good defensive player, but you usually have to have some ability to hit to make it to the bigs even as a defensive replacement. Hunter Strickland’s prospect status isn’t much better. His fastball is average at best and relies solely on control and location to get guys out. And combined with his numbers, his ceiling looks to be as a middle reliever.

Out of the three trades over the past week, this one is my least favorite from the Pirates’ perspective, but I at least still understand why they pulled the trigger. If the choice was between nothing and saving $3 million, I would have taken the $3 million too.

July 29th – Jack Wilson and Ian Snell traded to Mariners for package of prospects including Jeff Clement plus Ronny Cedeno

In retrospect, the writing was on the wall for both shortstop Wilson and double-play partner Freddy Sanchez when both players were offered contract extensions that seemed designed to be rejected. And once they predictably were, the Pirates moved ahead by trading them both in separate deals.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates, as woeful as they are in most other phases of the game, had the best starting outfield in the majors last season in Xavier Nady, Nate McLouth, and Jason Bay.  And yet, despite dealing away all three of those players as well as defensive genius Nyjer Morgan in the span of less than one year’s time, the Pirates have not missed a beat.

Their new outfield seems nearly as good as before so far, with Garret Jones providing big-time power in left, Andrew McCutchen merchandising speed and defense in center, and Delwyn Young providing a .300 batting average and high OBP in right.  Their OPS’s, respectively, are 1.118, .801, and .793 so far.

While this new trio is not quite as good as Nady/McLouth/Bay just yet, these three players are younger, and all three still have some upside left to go.  I’m not sure if that upside will all pan out and necessarily translate into stardom for these guys, but it is pretty impressive how the Pirates keep churning out this sort of top-shelf outfield talent.

Now if only they had actually gotten more in return for trading away four of the better outfielders in the game…

With the season one-third gone now, it’s become pretty clear which players were only slumping and which players actually just suck at baseball. And yet on every team there is at least one player which for foolish reasons, whether it be an over-developed sense of loyalty, a case of GM-player man-love, a reputation for grit and hustle, or a bloated contract, the team just hasn’t been able to pull the plug on yet. In this post, we have a look at each team in the National League with an eye for the one player who really needs to be cut as soon as possible.

Dodgers – RP Guillermo Mota: This guy looks permanently broken: he gives up too many hits, he doesn’t strike enough guys out, and he walks too many batters. His WHIP is an appalling 1.79 and he needs to be shelved somewhere.

Giants – 1B Travis Ishikawa: The main job of a first baseman is to hit, so when your first baseman is the worst hitter on your team, you are doing something wrong.

Diamondbacks – CF Chris Young: Chris Young was supposed to be one of those guys whose power and speed would somehow make of for his complete lack of any ability to get on base.  Well, now you have a guy whose power and speed have fallen off, but who is even less able to get on base.  It is unbelievable that Young is still on pace for well over 500 at bats this season despite his .220 OBP. He needs to be working out his suckiness in the minor leagues.

Rockies – 3B Garret Atkins: I’ve been advocating that the Rockies trade Atkins for two years now, while there was still some perception that he was a good player, but they waited too long, and now he’s basically untradeable. Few players have benefited more from Coors Field than Atkins, and Atkins also had the benefit of his personal peak coinciding with the Rockies high profile Series run in 2007. But he was always an extremely inadequate defender at third, and now his bat has disappeared as well, even at home.

Padres – 2B David Eckstein: GM Kevin Towers calls David Eckstein the MVP of the team so far this year. He couldn’t be more wrong. Eckstein was only barely adequate defensively and offensively when he was at his peak about 5 or 6 years ago, and now at age 34, he’s pretty much got nothing left.

Cardinals – SP Todd Wellemeyer: Todd Wellemeyer shows that maybe there are limits to what pitching coach Dave Duncan can do. Kind of. Actually, it’s pretty amazing that the Cardinals have gotten as much out of Wellemeyer as they have, considering he was nobody’s idea of good starting pitcher material. But with Mitchell Boggs waiting in the wings, there’s really no reason to keep Wellemeyer around.

Brewers – 3B Bill Hall: Bill Hall couldn’t hit his way out of a paper bag right now. Sure, he hit 35 homers back in 2006, but he’s done nothing at all since then, and he still has no real position defensively. For some reason, Hall still has the image of a youngster who is still developing, but when you actually go look at his age you find out he is already 29 years old, and what you see, which right now is total suckage, is probably what he really is.

Cubs – RP Aaron Heilman: Heilman was once a highly touted prospect, and did manage to throw up a few good seasons, but it’s becoming more and more clear that he’s just not all that good. Nothing about his peripherals suggests that anything is particularly wrong. His velocity is the same as ever, as are his FB/GB rates, his home run rate, his K/9 rate etc., and his BABIP is a very modest .299. Heilman simply walks too many batters, posting an unsightly 6.26 BB/9, and until that changes (if ever), he needs to be in AAA somewhere until he can learn better control.

Reds – SS Alex Gonzalez: Gonzalez was once an elite defender at shortstop, which meant that his extremely weak bat could be somewhat justified, but now he is no longer anywhere near that class, and his bat seems weaker than ever at .209/.250/.302. He needs to be cut.

Erstad is still playing?

Astros – OF Darin Erstad: Yeah, I know, Erstad is supposed to be this super-gritty former football player (except he was only a kicker), but we are a decade removed now from his last actually good season in 2000, and I’m almost surprised to see that he is actually still on a major league roster. He’s hitting .137/.211/.196.  Why is this man still anywhere near a baseball diamond?

Pirates – OF Brandon Moss: Lots of people have mentioned how one good side of trading away Nate McLouth was that it has “cleared playing time for blocked prospect Andrew McCutchen.”  But hardly anyone mentions that one of the players who was allegedly “blocking” McCutchen is Brandon Moss, a corner outfielder who has been playing every day this season despite posting a .310 OBP and only a single home run.

Marlins – 3B Emilio Bonifacio: The fact that Emilio Bonifacio, who has no business being in a major league lineup at all, is actually batting leadoff for the Marlins, despite his .294 OBP, is an indictment of the entire Marlins coaching staff and front office.

Bonifacio whiffs again

Mets – C Omir Santos: It’s a joke that the Mets actually traded away Ramon Castro to clear a spot on the roster for this guy. It’s going to be fun watching as the numbers left over from his fluky hot start rapidly sink toward the Mendoza line.

Braves – OF Garrett Anderson: I laughed out loud when I heard that the Braves signed Anderson in the offseason, and I pretty much haven’t stopped laughing since.  The poor old guy has a .289 OBP to go along with a -15 UZR/150 in left field. At this point you could probably drag Bernie Williams out of the recording studio and run him out there for better production.

Nationals – CL Joel Hanrahan: You can anoint a guy your closer, sing the praises of his “live arm,” and run him out there in save situations as much as you want, but that doesn’t mean he is going to pitch like a closer, just because you really really want him to. In what may be the worst bullpen of all time, no reliever has done more damage in more high leverage situations than Hanrahan. His 1.90 WHIP (for an alleged closer!) pretty much says it all.

Phillies – P Chan Ho Park: Park has looked finished for years now, at least when you look at his peripherals. He managed to reinvent himself as a serviceable reliever in the pitcher-friendly NL West last season, fooling the Phillies into taking him on, but it’s kind of an understatement to say that his game does not play well in Citizen’s Bank Ballpark. The Park-as-starter experiment was basically doomed from the get-go, but ironically, Park has pitched even more poorly this year as a reliever than he did as a starter. This man should be enjoying his retirement somewhere, not getting thrown to the wolves every other night.

I understand the Pirates players being upset about the Nate McLouth trade. But me thinks they need some proper perspective:

On Thursday, at the clubhouse table where McLouth used to play cards with relievers Sean Burnett and Jesse Chavez, a candle bearing his uniform No. 13 was lit, along with a photo of him in uniform, the Post-Gazette reported. “We’ll miss him,” Burnett said.

So I suppose we can look forward to Pirates players wearing No. 13 patches on their sleeves, a foundation to be set up in McLouth’s memory, and his image to adorn the centerfield wall at PNC Park. That should be fun.