Jose Bautista Is Out in Pittsburgh, Is Jack Wilson Next?

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.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

8-22-2008 @ 9:40PM

Xzavier said...

Ugh, you apologists are stupid. Cleaning house needed to be done? Yeah, so that Bob Nutting can clean up off us fans. After years of rightfully complaining about how terrible Dave Littlefield did, you're now willingly kissing the ass of his terrible replacement Neil Huntington. This guy is a freaking joke, he traded away the two best offensive players to get a bunch of nobodies. I bet the Yankees and Red Sox are gonna be laughing all the way to the playoffs while the Pirates cement their legacy with the worst losing stretch in baseball history. Why didn't the Pirates try to get Sabathia? Trade away McCutchen. Trade away Walker. Trade away Pearce, they're all worthless. McCutchen's had since 2005 and he isn't in the majors yet? Can we say bust? Can you imagine how good the Pirates would be if they had Sabathia instead of the Brewers having them? They'd be in thick of the wild card race. Bay and Nady are both Aramis Ramirez all over again. Clearly Bobblehead Nothing told him to cut payroll so that he can pocket an extra $10 million next season. Spend $10 million on the draft? Ooooohhhh. Considering they'll have $30 million less in payroll and even if they spend another $10 million on the draft next year, there'll be $10 million left over. Guess where that money will go? To Bob Nutting and his rich family. "Cleaning House" is just a way for Bob Nutting and his whores in the Pirates front office to give every loyal fan of this team the middle finger and continue the losing instead of building a winner. And you people justifying it make it even worse, letting them destroy a good team and not get any grief about it. Now the media is even more compliant. John Perrotto wrote a love letter to the thieves running this team. Dejan Kovacevic is kissing ass just to get exclusives on the drafts and trades. Even the dependable Bob Smizik is starting to buy in to the crap they're pulling. PNC Park will become a ghost town in the next few years. I wouldn't be surprised if next season they drop below 1 million fans. Watching the game against the Brewers now. There's a team that is doing it right and has a sellout crowd to prove it. They're spending more money, not less. They went out, gave away a bunch of nobodies and got CC Sabathia. They paid for guys like Mike Cameron and Jason Kendall. Their draft picks have panned out, meanwhile what has Pedro Alvarez and the rest of those draft picks from this year done? Nothing. This team is going nowhere and I'm tired of you guys celebrating this journey in to continued losing.

8-23-2008 @ 9:02AM

Andre10056 said...

Cleaning house did not have to be done. The Pirates had a formidable lineup and just needed another pitcher or two. Now they've got a laughingstock lineup after trading away star players for garbage. The Red Sox and Yankees cleaned house of their garbage and the Pirates willingly took it.

8-23-2008 @ 1:41PM

bwzimmerman said...

okay, where were they going to get these great pitchers from? How were they going to acquire them?

8-24-2008 @ 7:02AM

bigrando said...

did xravier just imply that signing jason kendall is the reason the brewers are playing so well? in order to get sabathia the pirates would have had to give up bay, nady, and marte and we'd be having this same conversation. except that sabathia would be gone next season and they'd be starting from scratch again without bay, nady and marte to trade with. at least now they have talented young players who could develop into stars. pedro alvarez hasn't done anything yet because he just signed a week ago and he hasn't had a chance to. the pirate's weren't going to get a winning record the way things were. at least they're trying something

8-24-2008 @ 5:11AM

Pittfan34 said...

These have to be some of the strangest comments I have ever heard. CC Sabbathia to the Pirates? How exactly? You say they should trade all of their "worthless" prospects to get him, why exactly would the Indians have traded him to the Pirates for a bunch of prospects you deem worthless? Don't trade Nady so that he can leave in free agency after this year anyway? That sounds like a brilliant idea. The Brewers are not successful because they signed Jason Kendall and Mike Cameron(who doesn't even start most of the time), they are successful because they have built from within. Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hardy all came up through their system and were young unproven prospects once too. The draft class such as Alvarez has done nothing? They just got drafted a few months ago and the signing period only ended last week. They aren't even in the farm system yet, no ones draft picks are, how do you expect them to contribute before they are even official members of the team? I don't believe anyone is kissing Hunnington's ass or calling him a genius, the point is this is the first sign of life from this team in 15 years. Would you rather them pretend to be contenders and trade for overpriced veteran pitching again? Last point, if the Pirates had such a formidable lineup and could have contended, why didn't they? Before the trade deadline they were 8 games under .500 and in last place. They just needed another pitcher or two, well what did they go out and get at the deadline? If you thought they were in contention this season with the addition of one pitcher than you are just plain delusional.

8-24-2008 @ 2:45PM

Xzaiver said...

What I meant was that McCutchen is worthless in the short term. He wasn't gonna get us to the playoffs this year (If ever). The Indians can have him and we'd get Sabathia for half a season which might have put us in a position to get to the playoffs. Look at Ed Wade got in Houston. You guys make fun of him, but the fact of the matter is that he rebuilt his pitching staff with Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins and he has a team full of real major leaguers like Lance Berkman, Darin Erstad, Miguel Tejada and Carlos Lee. Even former Pirate Ty Wiggington is contributing. Meanwhile, the Pirates gave up their best bullpen guy Damaso Marte and the heart of their order, Jason Bay and Xavier Nady. Since then, the team has fallen apart. Andy LaRoche is just about the worst pick up in baseball history. The guy is worthless. Brandon Moss is fine defensively but hasn't replaced Bay offensively. Jeff Karstens got lucky for one game but otherwise isn't anything to get excited about. Pure salary dump. Yes, their draft picks have done nothing, why get excited about Alvarez and all these guys already? A lot of these prospects haven't put on a minor league uniform yet. We should be excited about good major league baseall and there isn't any.

8-24-2008 @ 9:26PM

Hey bigrando, if not for Mike Cameron, the Brewers would have lost today. Signing them allows the crew to win more games. Trading away Bay and Nady has allowed the Pirates to lose today and for the forseeable future. This team sucks and it's absolutely painful to watch right now. What Huntington has done is sold our chance of winning to line the pockets of the Nuttings. He is a fraud just like Littlefield.

8-25-2008 @ 8:38PM

pittfan34 said...

To bad the Pirates didn't get guys like Randy Wolff so he could have an ERA over 5 for them. I don't understand what move would have satisfied, getting Sabbathia which would have been impossible in the first place so we could contend maybe for one year? Was the Matt Morris deal a positive move then? He got payed a ton and was about the caliber pitcher Randy Wolff is these days. Why get excited about Alvarez already? Well if you want to have players like Berkman on the Pirates you have to get them the same way Houston did, by drafting them in the first round.

8-27-2008 @ 3:32PM

Now it seems that Alvarez will never put on a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform if he can help it. Huntington just gave up the real future of the Pirates in Bay and Nady in order to sign a kid who has basically told this joke of a franchise to go f*** it self.