So, now that Doumit and Jaramillo are beginning rehab stints, what does everyone think we should do with the catching situation? Obviously Jaramillo will replace Fryer(I believe by the end of the week), but more than likely won't get the primary starting spot over McKenry. But when Doumit comes back, possibly as soon as next week, Hurdle's going to have a big decision to make about who gets most of the starts the rest of the way(assuming Snyder won't be coming back this year).

McKenry's by far the better defensive catcher, and in the month+ that he's been the primary starter, the pitching staff's ERA has dropped from 3.51 to 3.20. I know it's a small sample size, but the staff seems very comfortable with him behind the plate.

Doumit's the better hitter, but McKenry hasn't been terrible by any means, hitting around .250. He may not be able to drive in runs the way Doumit can when he's in the zone(though that too has been fairly rare recently), but he isn't a full-on detriment to the lineup by any means.

So what does everyone think would be the better move?

After Doumit's injury the other day, I found myself wondering who would be called up to replace him, as Jason Jaramillo was injured a few weeks ago and likely wouldn't be the replacement. It turned out to be Dusty Brown, and I assumed, as I'm sure many of you did, that he's likely to see little to no playing time. However, with the weather entering a true heat wave right now, Chris Snyder almost definitely won't be able to catch every game, meaning Brown is probably going to be given at least a few games until Doumit can come back.

My question then is, do you think that if Brown struggles enough that the team considers him an inadequate temporary replacement, that he could be sent back down and they give Neil Walker a chance to catch for the interim until Doumit's return? Obviously Walker would catch for no more than a game or 2 in this scenario and it's unlikely that Brown would struggle so mightily that this would happen, but I thought it to be an interesting possibility, given NW's struggles for 5 years in the minors trying to juggle hitting and finding a position he could play in the majors, bouncing from behind the plate to around the infield before settling in as a solid 2nd baseman.

Exactly a year ago today, I wrote this fanpost detailing every trade made by Neal Huntington that involved a major league player, and how on the whole they had worked out for the better for the Bucs. Since that fanpost was incredibly well-received, I figured I'd do another one, basically the same thing, just more recent (obviously).

1. July 26th, 2008: Pirates trade Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte to the New York Yankees for Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, Daniel McCutchen, and Jose Tabata.

How it's worked out for the Yankees: Nady played all of 66 games for the Yankees in 08 and 09 due to injuries, batting about .270 with 42 RBIs and 12 homers before moving to Chicago this season. Marte's still with the Yankees, though he's pitched a total of 76 games for them from 08 through now thanks to injury troubles, with an ERA of about 6, and less than 50 K's in the 49 1/3 innings he's pitched for NY.

How it's worked out for us: Ohlie's been mostly injury free, apart from a fairly brief stint this year, with an ERA of about 4.25 for us, though a record of 12-21 mainly due to horrible run support. Karstens has done it all for us, pitching in the 'pen and filling in injuries in the rotation, getting an ERA of 4.76, with an 8-18 record; not horrible numbers, though not great by any means. McCutchen's been pretty bad, with an ERA over 6 and a 2-6 record, though he did have occasional bright spots. Tabata has been the big win in this deal, hitting .284 with 2 homers and 15 RBI's in the  1 1/2 months since his callup, while also not committing a single error to date.

Result: Major win for the Pirates

2. July 31st, 2008: Pirates trade Jason Bay to the Boston Red Sox for Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen from the Red Sox, and Andy LaRoche and Bryan Morris from the LA Dodgers.

How it's worked out for the Red Sox: Bay hit pretty well for the Sox in 1 1/2 seasons, hitting about .275 with 45 homers and over 150 RBI's. However, they were unable to re-sign him over the offseason, and he went to the Mets instead.

How it's worked out for us: Moss has not worked out at all, hitting just .225 in 175+ games with the Bucs, and getting just 64 RBI's and 13 homers in that span, and was sent to Indianapolis before the season started. Hansen has been injured his whole life seemingly, and only recently got back off the DL. Andy's hit just over .230 with 16 homers and 90 RBI's in 270+ games for the Bucs, showing some splashes of excellence, but overall disappointment. Morris destroyed in Bradenton, achieving a 0.60 ERA there, but has struggled somewhat upon promotion to Altoona, with a 4.41 ERA there.

Result: Depends on perspective. On the one hand, Bay badly outperformed anybody we received in return. However, on the other hand, if the (at the time) 2 times in 5 years champion Red Sox couldn't re-sign Bay there's no possible way the (at the time) sub-.500 for 17 years straight Pirates would have, so it was worth the risk to see how those prospects panned out(which, apart from possibly Morris, they have not).

3. April 15th, 2009: Pirates trade 2 players to be named later/cash considerations to the LA Dodgers for Delwyn Young

How it's worked out for the Dodgers: Harvey Garcia has an ERA of 8+ at the Dodgers AA affiliate. Eric Krebs has a 3.89 ERA for that same AA team.

How it's worked out for us: Young's hit .262 in just under 200 games for us, with 68 RBIs and 12 homers. His main contribution was being a nice stopgap at 2nd for us until Neil Walker came into his own this season, and is now a solid bench OF.

Result: An excellent move by NH, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

4. June 3rd, 2009: Pirates trade Nate McLouth to the Atlanta Braves for Jeff Locke, Charlie Morton and Gorkys Hernandez

How it's worked out for the Braves: McLouth was decent for Atlanta last season, hitting .257 with 11 homers and 36 RBIs in 84 games, but was absolutely abysmal this year, hitting just .168 with 3 homers and 14 RBIs in 62 games, and was sent to the minors earlier this week.

How it's worked out for us: Locke had a solid 3.54 ERA at Bradenton, and has been lights out in his 3 games so far at Altoona, with a 1.59 ERA. Hernandez has hit .266 in 92 games at Altoona for us; decent numbers but not spectacular by any means. And finally, Charlie Morton...excellent stuff, but the results just aren't there yet. An ERA over 9 this year at the majors, though 4 of his last 6 starts were quality starts, showing at least some level of improvement, though he was DL'd and is now rehabbing back up.

Result: It hasn't exactly been a great trade for us yet, but McLouth's numbers in Atlanta show he was hitting way over his head for us, and trading him when he did was the right move.

5. 5. June 30th, 2009: Pirates trade Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett to the Washington Nationals for Joel Hanrahan and Lastings Milledge

How it's worked out for the Nationals: Morgan was lights out for Washington last year, hitting .351 and going 24/31 in SB's, but has come back to earth, hitting just .262 this year and going 28/42 in SB's. Burnett has been solid but not spectacular, compiling a 2.95 ERA in the 80 games he's played for them.

How it's worked out for us: Hanrahan has been excellent, with a 2.69 ERA for the Bucs over 80 games. Milledge has been sensational as well, hitting .329 in June and .271 in July, with improvement showing consistently this year, as well as showing no signs of the character issues that plagued him in NY and Washington.

Result: Likely a slight win for the Pirates, if Milledge continues to develop as he has here.

6. July 22nd, 2009: Pirates trade Adam LaRoche to the Boston Red Sox for Argenis Diaz and Hunter Strickland.

How it's worked out for the Red Sox: LaRoche played all of 6 games for Boston before being traded back to Atlanta, hitting around .260 in both places, with decent HR and RBI totals as well.

How it's worked out for us: Strickland was 0-4 with a 5.86 ERA in West Virginia, but has improved slightly at Bradenton with a 4.50 ERA and a 2-1 record. Diaz hit .248 at Indianapolis, but went 0-2 in a very brief April callup, and has recently been recalled to the majors.

Result: Probably a net loss, though there's still plenty of time for Diaz and Strickland to develop

7. July 29th, 2009: Pirates trade Jack Wilson and Ian Snell to the Seattle Mariners for Jeff Clement, Ronny Cedeno, Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock.

How it's worked out for the Mariners: Jack's played just 86 games for Seattle over 1 1/2 seasons, and hit under .240 along the way; seems like he's likely to retire very soon. Snell was decent for Seattle last year with a 4.20 ERA, but was terrible in 2010, going 0-5 with a 6.41 ERA, and was out of the majors in June.

How it's worked out for us: Clement badly underperformed at the majors for us, hitting just .189 with 5 HR's and 9 RBIs in 45 games, was sent down in early June, but was recently recalled. Cedeno has shown excellent fielding at SS, hit .246 for the season, but .333 in July, and was not any net dropoff from Jack Wilson overall. Pribanic has a 3.87 ERA at Bradenton, Lorin has a 5.40 ERA at West Virginia, and Adcock has a 3.63 ERA at Bradenton.

Result: A slight win for the Pirates even if nobody but Cedeno pans out, simply because Cedeno's effectively been a younger Jack, and it rid us of the headache that Snell had become.

8. July 29th, 2009: Pirates trade Freddy Sanchez to the San Francisco Giants for Tim Alderson.

How it's worked out for the Giants: Freddy's hit just over .270 with 35 RBI's in almost 90 games for SF, but has been plagued by injury issues there as well.

How it's worked out for us: Alderson simply has not shown the same ability as promised, with a 5.30 ERA at Altoona before being demoted to Bradenton, where he's got a monstrous 20.65 ERA, albeit over just 2 games.

Result: It's too soon to tell whether Alderson can pull a miraculous turnaround, but even if he doesn't, the Pirates infield production has really not suffered w/o Freddy this year, at least since Walker and Pedro were called up.

9. July 30th, 2009: Pirates trade John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny to the Chicago Cubs for Kevin Hart,Jose Ascanio and Josh Harrison.

How it's worked out for the Cubs: Grabow was solid with the Cubs last year, with a 3.24 ERA, but has a 7.36 ERA this season, and is now on the DL for over a month. Gorzelanny has a 3.96 ERA and a 10-7 record over 21 starts between the last 2 seasons.

How it's worked out for us: Hart and Ascanio both put up underwhelming numbers before going on the DL. Hart now has a 6.75 ERA at Indy through 5 games, and Ascanio remains on the 60-day DL after shoulder surgery. Harrison's hit pretty well at Altoona, with a .303 average and 59 RBIs through 99 games.

Result: Unless Hart and/or Ascanio can recover solidly from their injuries and Harrison can become a decent producer, likely a net loss thanks to Gorzelanny's unspectacular but solid production.

10. July 31st, 2010: Pirates trade D.J. Carrasco, Bobby Crosby, and Ryan Church to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Chris Snyder, Pedro Ciriaco, and $3 million.

What the Diamondbacks are getting: A decent right bullpen arm in Carrasco, but 2 BADLY underperforming bench players in Crosby and Church.

What the Pirates are getting: An excellent defensive catcher with decent power, a C-prospect, and some cash.

Result: Can't really judge anything yet, but given the fact that we got rid of 2 of the worst players on the team and got multiple players AND money in return? WIN

11. July 31st, 2010: Pirates trade Javier Lopez to the San Francisco Giants for Joe Martinez and John Bowker.

What the Giants are getting: A solid lefty relief pitcher.

What the Pirates are getting: A decent righty reliever and a fairly well regarded former prospect.

Result: A basic trade, not much to say until some time passes and these guys get some innings under their belts/time in the field.

12. July 31st, 2010 Pirates trade Octavio Dotel to the L.A. Dodgers for James McDonald and Andrew Lambo.

What the Dodgers are getting: A decent right reliever, formerly one of the best closers in the game, now a pretty good one. 

What the Pirates are getting: A pretty decent right-handed pitcher(possibly starter) in McDonald, and a highly touted OF prospect who was caught using "a drug of abuse" in Lambo

Result: Same as #11, only time will tell.

Unlike last year, when I went out of town for a week w/o internet access immediately after I wrote the fanpost and so couldn't respond to any comments, this year I will be at home, so I'd certainly appreciate any comments, because, as a college student, while I'm not able to follow the team and the system as well as I'd like to, I try to do my best to keep up with our progress. Thanks!

Since a number of people enjoyed the breakdowns of articles written by local writers, I figured I'd do one written by Alan Robinson for AP: Link 

PITTSBURGH (AP)—The Pittsburgh Pirates hid the signings of their manager and general manager to new contracts. They misled their fans about the recall of top prospect Pedro Alvarez(notes). They were ridiculed nationally for firing one of their racing mascots.

Celebrating the golden moment in franchise history, they couldn’t even get the final scores of the 1960 World Series correct.

All this represented a single week in yet another miserable first half for the Pirates, one that greatly resembled those in the record 17 consecutive losing seasons that preceded it.

What does hiding manager signings have to do with anything? Yes, they shouldn't have done it, but it really isn't very relevant to what's going on on the field, especially if the players realize that given their age, the only ones who there's even a chance of us trading are Maholm, Duke and Doumit.

How exactly did the Pirates mislead us about recalling Pedro? Maybe they should've done a better job of it by promoting it more, but they certainly did not mislead anyone. They said, quite simply and straightforward-ly, that he'd be recalled for the next day's game, and indeed he was.

As for the pierogi firing, just idiotic for anyone to ridicule the team for it. If anyone else blasts his bosses on Facebook they'd be fired and no one would give it a second thought. But of course, since it's the Pirates, everybody has to pile on...

The 2nd paragraph is referenced later, so I'll deal with it then.

Yes...every single Pirates season has hidden GM and manager signings, poor top prospect callups, and pierogi firings; That makes perfect sense.

As the Pirates (30-58) jockeyed with bad-all-season Baltimore (29-59) to own the worst record in the majors at the All-Star break, they crammed a full season’s worth of ineptness into only 3 1/2 months.

“It’s awful,” reliever Joel Hanrahan(notes) said. “This definitely isn’t what we expected coming out of spring training. We need to turn it around in the second half and start playing together.”

Manager John Russell and general manager Neal Huntington were given contract extensions following a 99-loss season last fall, but the team didn’t reveal the news until last month because it feared negative fan reaction.

This is just mathematically nonsensical. I mean, if a team lost 58 games over the course of a season, they would've won over 100; how is that inept in any way? And if you're talking about our winning percentage, then that applies equally now as it will in 3 months, so...

Yes, the players are upset. Who wouldn't be, playing for a team as bad as we are right now? The difference is that unlike you, the players understand (hopefully) the strategy that our FO has taken.

Yes, we get that they should've announced the signings earlier, we don't need to hear you reference it again.

Their starting rotation was a mess. They still haven’t hit a home run with a runner on base since June 8. Their second baseman didn’t hit his weight. First baseman Jeff Clement(notes) didn’t hit, period, and was sent back to the minors. And starting outfielder Lastings Milledge(notes) went three months before hitting a homer on a team that recently had a 12-game losing streak and is currently in a six-game slide.

Once again, we understand that they suck right now. It just gets annoying when you reference every single bad thing that happened without regard to the circumstances. The rotation was a mess because Morton did not adjust at all, and everybody else, besides Maholm, has been injured at some point or another. Clement was likely a failure, yes, but Milledge was hitting the ball pretty well overall, he just hadn't had the HR's till now. I don't want to compare Milledge to Ichiro, cause Ichiro's a HoFer and Milledge isn't even close, but given that he didn't even reference any other stat besides HR's, you could easily substitute Ichiro's name in there for some season where he simply wasn't getting those short HR's that he usually hits once or twice a month.

They tried rebuilding on the fly, calling up top prospects Alvarez, Jose Tabata(notes), Neil Walker(notes) andBrad Lincoln(notes) and starting them immediately. Walker and Tabata settled in quickly; Alvarez and Lincoln struggled. Not that it made a difference; their 10-32 record after they began recalling prospects was far worse than it was (20-26) before the kids started arriving.

Actually no, we did not rebuild on the fly. Rebuilding is a long, arduous process, something only those of us who've been following the Bucs for years would know. We've been legitimately rebuilding the organization since 2007. And yes, we struggled after these guys were called up, but perhaps it was because it took them some time to adjust to the majors, and not because they're bad, as you imply?

“Any time you get the young guys up here, you want to win with them,” Hanrahan said. “You don’t want them to fall into bad habits.”

Alvarez, the franchise’s top power prospect since Barry Bonds, probably didn’t know if he was coming or going. A few hours after Huntington told reporters he wasn’t close to being ready for the majors, he was brought up. He’s hitting .214 with 35 strikeouts in 84 at-bats.

Why is Hanrahan the only player quoted in this article?

And as for Pedro, he's always been a strikeout king, anyone who's watched him for more than 3 days at any level of his career can see that. The difference is that looking at his total stats, of course he sucks. However, looking at his improvement, he's improved dramatically, going 14-46 since June 27th, an excellent average for a guy who's more of a power hitter.

The gaffes weren’t all on the playing field, either. One of their in-game pierogi racers, Andrew Kurtz, was fired for criticizing the front office on his Facebook page. He was brought back to the part-time job when it was determined he wasn’t properly terminated.

If only the Pirates had the same safeguards in place when they let Jose Bautista(notes) and Matt Capps(notes) go.

Bautista, cast off for long-gone backup catcher Robinzon Diaz(notes), leads the majors with 24 homers for Toronto. Capps wasn’t tendered a contract last winter because the Pirates didn’t think he was worth a $500,000 raise; he has 23 saves with Washington and won the All-Star game on Tuesday night.

Personally, I believe they made a mistake by re-hiring Kurtz, cause anyone who publicly criticizes his bosses deserves to be fired. However, you seem to be asking for us to criticize the Pirates both for firing him, and for re-hiring him. You can't have it both ways.

Haha, yes, once again Bautista and Capps come up. Did you realize that when we traded Bautista, he was coming off a season with a .242 average and just 44 RBI's in 107 games? Or even think that his incredible HR pace is absolutely an anomaly given his .237 average this year, and he's bound to tail off. Yes, in hindsight, we probably shouldn't have traded him, but I seriously doubt you would've done anything different.

As for Capps, he was coming off an absolutely dismal season, where he started great, then fell off big time, blowing saves and getting losses left and right after July, and finishing with a 5.80 ERA. Anyone see how Capps is doing this year? He had an ERA under 1 on May 16th. But then he's given up runs in 8 of the 22 or so games since, an absolutely terrible run for a closer. And if last year, and even 2008 to some extent, are any indication, it could easily get much worse.

Then there were the Aki Iwamura(notes) and Charlie Morton(notes) messes.

Iwamura was acquired from Tampa Bay despite a $4.85 million salary and a major knee injury. He was so limited defensively he could barely field his position, and he was hitting .182 before he was benched and replaced by Walker, a former first-round draft pick who had been repeatedly passed over for call-ups.

Want to see the Pirates’ highest-paid player? That requires a trip to Indianapolis, where Iwamura is playing in Triple-A.

Morton (1-9, 9.35 ERA) stayed in the rotation far after he proved he wasn’t ready, apparently because management didn’t want to acknowledge its mistake for acquiring him.

Yes, Iwamura was a mistake, he fell off considerably. However, do you want to see where the guy we traded for him is? It's Jesse Chavez, who's in the minors for Atlanta after posting a 5.63 ERA in 22 games for them. It was a bad trade for both sides, so it's not nearly as bad as it seems. 

As for Morton, did you even think about the fact that he did improve a fair bit? That 4 of his last 6 starts were Quality Starts? We know he's sucked so far, but that doesn't make him a bad pitcher by any means. Peyton Manning had a 71.2 QB Rating and more Interceptions than Touchdowns as a rookie. Now those stats are not good, but are comparatively certainly better than Morton's, and I'm not saying Morton's going to become an all-time great, but if the Colts had written off Manning the way you did Morton, then Indianapolis would not be one of the best NFL teams over the past 15 years.

The first-half highlight proved to be the back-to-back wins against the Dodgers to begin the season; the lowlight was a 20-0 loss at home to Milwaukee that finished off a three-game sweep in which the Brewers outscored them 36-1.

“The level of disappointment is so high I can’t accurately give you a word for it,” team president Frank Coonelly said.

Once again, we get it. The Pirates have sucked pretty badly, and everyone knows it. I'd say that Coonelly acknowledging that the team has underperformed is a positive, not a negative, since at least he's not blindly coming up with reasons why we've been bad like some team managements do.

The bullpen was a strength, led by All-Star reliever Evan Meek(notes) and closer Octavio Dotel(notes). However, much of the bullpen’s good work came in games that were already decided because of the bad rotation. Morton, Zach Duke(notes) (3-8, 5.49 ERA) and Ross Ohlendorf(notes) (1-7, 4.22) all disappointed as the Pirates lost 15 games by margins of seven runs or more.

Any mention of the fact that Morton, Duke and Ohlendorf all spent time on the DL? I'm not saying that that's the whole reason they've been bad, but to ignore it, implying that it didn't play a part is just idiocy.

“We haven’t been playing up to our capability,” infielder Bobby Crosby(notes) said. “Even though we have some young players, we’re still not playing the way we possibly can. Step it up a little bit, to say the least.”

I'm not sure whether this quote is intended to be good or bad. Given that everything else here has been bashing the team for reasons both good and bad, I'll assume the latter. 

Even their most popular promotion of the season was executed poorly. A commemorative drinking mug honoring their ’60 championship contained incorrect game results that indicated the Yankees, not the Pirates, won the World Series.

If nothing else, their failed first half suggested there’s no World Series soon for the Pirates to repeat that mistake.

Once again, your stupidness is shown. First off, how is a commemorative drinking mug that only 60% of game attendees would've been able to use more popular than a McCutchen bobblehead, a Clemente figurine, and a post-game concert w/ O.A.R. I have no idea who that band is, but since I'm 18 I'd much rather listen to them than get a drinking mug I can't use for 3 years. I also couldn't find a single reference to this screwup that was not this article itself, even with the most general of search terms, so I can only assume that you either made it up or...no, you must have made it up.

Finally, that's exactly what people were saying about the Tampa Bay Rays in 2007, the year before they made the World Series with a team made of prospects that were coming into their own. I'm not saying that the Pirates are going to make the World Series next year, but to say that it's not happening any time soon? That's something that could come back to bite you.

Keith Law's article today for Scouts Inc. and ESPN Insider placed the Pirates in the top 10 in 2009 Draft classes. Law ranked the top 5 teams, then had the next 5 in no particular order, and the Pirates were in this group. Since it's an Insider article, I won't post the link, but I'll quote the paragraph about us.

The Pirates deserve a lot of credit for trying a different strategy in this year's draft; with 29 other teams all using one of two or three basic templates for selecting players, there's merit in attacking the draft in a different way. Pittsburgh tried to go cheap on Day 1 and then pick up a number of signable high school arms on Day 2, and they signed four of those pitchers, spending over $8 million in the process. - Keith Law on the Pirates' draft class

For once, a sports analyst agrees with something that Huntington's doing. While we all know that their opinions really don't matter, it's still nice to finally see Huntington get some credit, even though he's made almost all the right moves since taking over.

I've read plenty of comments from trollers over the last few days about how all of the Pirates' moves are salary dumps, and will kill the team, so I just wanted to do an analysis of all the major trades that Neal Huntington's made in his tenure as GM, to see how they've all actually worked out.

1. July 26th, 2008: Pirates trade Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte to the New York Yankees for Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, Dan McCutchen, and Jose Tabata.

How it's worked out for the Yankees: Nady's played a grand total of 66 games for the Yankees, batting about .270, 60 points lower than he was hitting with the Pirates last season before he was traded, and has been on the DL since mid-April needing Tommy John surgery. Marte has pitched a grand total of 32 games for the Yankees, with an ERA of 7.60, 4.1 higher than he had with the Pirates last season before he was traded, and has been on the DL since late April with left shoulder tendinitis.

How it's worked out for us: Ohlendorf has started 25 games for us, with an ERA of 4.81, 1.7 lower than he had with the Yankees last year before the trade. Karstens has started 19 games for us, and pitched an additional 16 games in relief, with an ERA of 4.26, as well as a near-perfect game last August against the Diamondbacks. McCutchen has had a solid year this year at Indy, going 10-6 with an ERA of 3.78. Tabata was promoted just yesterday to Indy after a solid stint at Altoona batting .303, and is one of the top 75 prospects in baseball.

Result: Huge win for the Pirates

2. July 31st, 2008: Pirates trade Jason Bay to the Boston Red Sox for Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen from the Red Sox, and Andly LaRoche and Bryan Morris from the LA Dodgers.

How it's worked out for the Red Sox: Bay's played 99 games for the Red Sox so far this season, just 7 fewer than he had with the Pirates last year before the trade. In these relatively same amounts of games, Bay has 10 more RBI's and 2 fewer homers batting in a much more potent lineup (although he could easily hit those 2 homers in the next 7 games to equal last year with us), and has 23 fewer hits, and a batting average that is 32 points lower.

How it's worked out for us: LaRoche has played 97 games for the Pirates this year, batting .256 with 37 RBIs. Moss has played 83 games for us this year, batting .250 with 27 RBI's. Hansen has been on the 60-day DL since April with nech spasms, and pitched poorly in 5 appearances for the Pirates with a 5.68 ERA. Morris has pitched poorly at Class-A Lynchburg this year, with a 5.70 ERA in 9 starts.

Result: Overall loss for the Pirates

3. April 15th, 2009: Pirates trade 2 players to be named later/cash considerations to the LA Dodgers for Delwyn Young

How it's worked out for the Dodgers: I could only find out one of the 2 PTBNL's online, and that was Eric Krebs, who has a 3.14 ERA this year at the Dodgers' class A+ affiliate. No idea who the other PTBNL was.

How it's worked out for us: In 71 games for the Pirates this year, Young's done a great job in somewhat limited time, batting .316 with 24 RBI's.

Result: A seemingly insignificant acquisition at the time it was made, but it's paid fairly big dividends for the Pirates.

4. June 3rd, 2009: Pirates trade Nate McLouth to the Atlanta Braves for Jeff Locke, Charlie Morton and Gorkys Hernandez

How it's worked out for the Braves: In an exactly equal number of games as he played here this season, McLouth has done a fair job for the Braves, batting .265 (9 points higher than he had here this season), with 6 homers (3 fewer than he had here), and 19 RBI's (15 fewer than he had here). Batting leadoff in Atlanta as opposed to 3rd here is the main reason for the dramatic reduction in RBI's.

How it's worked out for us: Morton's been solid for the Pirates overall, going 2-3, but with a 3.72 ERA in 8 starts. Hernandez  has done a fair job this year for us at AA Altoona, batting .249, but is the 62nd-ranked prospect in baseball. Locke has struggled at Lynchburg, going 1-4 so far with a 5.31 ERA. The trade also enabled us to promote Andrew McCutchen from Indy, who's been solid with the Pirates so far.

Result: Right now about even, although that could change depending on the development of Hernandez and Locke.

The remainder of the trades occurred within the last month or so, so it's really to soon to tell how they will work out.

5. June 30th, 2009: Pirates trade Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett to the Washington Nationals for Joel Hanrahan and Lastings Milledge

How it's worked out for the Nationals: Morgan has been excellent for Washington, batting over .400 with a 77.78% stealing percentage. Burnett has a 0.75 ERA with the Nationals, and has 1 Hold and 1 Blown Save.

How it's worked out for us: Hanrahan has a 3.00 ERA with the Pirates, and 1 Hold. Milledge was rehabbing a hand injury, but was excellent at Indy, with a .333 batting average in 17 games, and was recalled to the Pirates on Wednesday,

Result: As Milledge hasn't played for the Pirates yet, it's too soon to tell the impact of this trade.

6. July 22nd, 2009: Pirates trade Adam LaRoche to the Boston Red Sox for Argenis Diaz and Hunter Strickland.

How it's worked out for the Red Sox: LaRoche has batted .263 with 1 homer and 3 RBI's in 6 games.

How it's worked out for us: Diaz is batting .286 in 6 games at Indy. Strickland is 1-0 at West Virginia with 6 shutout innings.

Result: Happened just last week. WAY too soon to tell.

7. July 29th, 2009: Pirates trade Jack Wilson and Ian Snell to the Seattle Mariners for Jeff Clement, Ronny Cedeno, Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock.

What the Mariners are getting: Wilson's an average hitter who's a spectacular defensive shortstop and makes plays time and again. Snell has talent, but just lost it this year, even admitting he contemplated suicide and was demoted to AAA. He dominated AAA hitting before the trade.

What we're getting: Cedeno's a defensive specialist who can play multiple positions. Clement was the 3rd overall draft pick in 2005, hit .237 in 75 games with Seattle the last 2 seasons, but was hitting .288 this year at their AAA affiliate. Pribanic was 7-6 with a 3.21 ERA at Seatte's Single-A affiliate. Adcock was 5-7 with a 5.29 ERA at Seattles A+ affiliate. Lorin was 5-4 with a 2.44 ERA at Seattle's Single-A affiliate.

8. July 29th, 2009: Pirates trade Freddy Sanchez to the San Francisco Giants for Tim Alderson.

What the Giants are getting: Freddy's a former batting champ and a solid defender, but has had naggin injury issues the last few years, and will be a free agent this offseason unless his 600-AB option vests.

What the Pirates are getting: Alderson was ranked the 4th best prospect in the Giants' system, the 9th best RH pitching prospect in the country, and the 45th overall prospect in the league.

9. July 30th, 2009: Pirates trade John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny to the Chicago Cubs for Kevin Hart, Jose Ascanio and Josh Harrison.

What the Cubs are getting: Grabow's a solid lefty reliever who has a knack for preventing inherited runners from scoring. Gorzelanny won 14 games in 2007, but was apparently overworked and hasn't been the same since, although he had shown signs of progress this year at Indy.

What the Pirates are getting: Hart pitched just yesterday for the Cubs against Houston, throwing a quality start (albeit barely), and getting the win. Ascanio was 2-4 with a 3.16 ERA at the Cubs' AAA affiliate, but has struggled somewhat at the major league level so far. Harrison is a speedy middle infielder who's batting .286 at the Cubs A+ affiliate this year, with 10 steals and only 1 caught stealing.

Although we can't judge the final 5 trades on this list as it's too soon to be able to judge their impact, 2, possibly 3 of the first 4 trades have turned out better for the Pirates than the team they traded with. That's a 66 or 75% success rate, something I'll gladly take compared to Dave Littlefield's success rate when it came to trades and Free Agent signings. Yes, all of  these trades have saved us a lot of money, but they're not straight-up salary dumps, as some people are inclined to say.

Sorry for making this so long, I just had a fair bit of time on my hands, and wanted to put some actual statistics together to try and scare away the trolls who've been coming here so often the last few days.

In all seriousness, enough of this bashing of the Pirates management. I mean, once I heard about the LaRoche trade I went online to find out who we got in return, and on other sites like ESPN, the comments section of the article was filled with people bashing the Pirates and their management. Their comments ranged from "The Pittsburgh Pirates' going out of business sale!!! Everything must go! We've got outfielders, we've got infielders, we've got allstars (but they're going fast) Everything and I mean everything must go! We won't rest until our entire inventory is gone!!! Act now before the Redsox take it all!" to "Can Major League Baseball officially move this team to Single A? This is a disgrace. If you ever need a player, just call the Pirates!"

As a lifelong Pirates fan, I've bashed the Pirates myself at times, especially when they traded away Aramis Ramirez as a salary dump, and traded a legitimate prospect in Rajai Davis for a wash-up in Matt Morris., but this is starting to get ridiculous. These commenters have nothing to back up why it's a bad trade. They just bash management constantly, saying they care only about money and not about winning, completely ignoring the fact that they only proven way to rebuild a franchise is to start from scratch, giving up decent major leaguers to get lots and lots of prospects.

The fact remains that last season, before we traded Bay, Nady, McLouth, Morgan or Adam, we were still below .500. It's not like we were 40-20 at the time we started making these deals, and then everything went downhill after that. Neal Huntington's done a good job of taking good major league players and making good trades out of them. To be quite honest, the only one of these 5 guys we traded who had/has even a chance to become a perennial all-star is Jason Bay. The rest of them are good players, but not good enough to be the type of players that a rebuilding franchise could use. Let's take a look at the big trades we've made in the last 2 seasons:

In the Bay trade, we gave up a guy who's now second in the AL in RBIs and 9th in homers, but in return, we got 4 prospects, 2 of whom are already starting for the Pirates themselves (Moss and Andy LaRoche), and another who's in AAA (Craig Hansen).

In the Nady trade, we gave up 2 players in Nady and Marte, both of whom are now on the DL for the Yankees. In return, we received 4 prospects, 2 of whom are on the pitching staff for the Pirates themselves (Karstens and Ohlendorf), another who's at AAA (McCutchen), and the final of which is one of our top prospects (Tabata).

In the McLouth trade, we gave up a guy who's been a fair bit worse for Atlanta he was for us, considering he has 18 fewer RBI's there in just 8 fewer games. In return for him, we got a pitcher who's done a solid job in the Pirates rotation(Morton), and a hitter who has a .290 average at AA and is a solid prospect (Gorkys Hernandez). Not to mention that it enabled us to promote a definitely deserving Andrew McCutchen to the Pirates and play him right away in CF.

In the Morgan trade, we gave up a guy whose value will never be higher than it was at the time in Morgan, and a pitcher who's never come close to panning out the way we hoped when we drafted him in Sean Burnett. In return, we got an average relief pitcher (Hanrahan), and a guy who's a bit of headcase, but might have the most pure talent in baseball, and who's been absolutely tearing it up at Indianapolis once he got here (Milledge).

Finally, in the Adam LaRoche trade, we gave up a guy who's a great defensive 1B, but who's been slumping all season and has shown no real signs of his annual second-half breakout so far. I haven't really scouted the guys we got in return, but from what I've heard, one is a Jack Wilson-type, who isn't a very good hitter, but who is a solid defensive shortstop at AA (Diaz), and the other is a half-decent pitcher at single-A (Strickland).

Now, we really can't decide whether the LaRoche trade was a good one just yet, but from what the stats show, the only one of the other 4 trades that hasn't been good for us  was the Bay trade. I'll take a 75% success rate when it comes to big-name trades, considering that that's a TON higher than what we had when Littlefield was the GM. 

All in all, this idiotic bashing ot the Pirates management has no real foundation or basis, and has to stop. I've even seen some so called Pirates fans do the same thing, and it makes no sense. Give Neal Huntington's management 5 years to clean up the mess that Littlefield left behind before starting to criticize anything. At that point, if we're still not close to fielding a playoff or championship-caliber team, bash away. But for now, their strategy is the one that has been proven to work when it comes to rebuilding a team and they shouldn't be criticized for making them.

I was watching the game tonight, up 4 going into the 9th, when, to my horror, Matt Capps goes ahead and gives up 5 runs and 2 homers and gives us the loss. It's not like this is a one-time thing either. Capps has given up at least 1 run 10 times this year in 32 games, and he's given up multiple runs 4 times. I'm fine with an occasional run given up, but no way our closer should be giving up at least one run once every 3 games.

I'm not sure if we should take him out as closer immediately, but based on how poorly he's done overall this year, at the least we've got to look at someone else, maybe Chavez or Hanrahan who can take his place, if he can't turn it around in the next few games.