Futilitywatch '09: Trade Winds Blowing

Futilitywatch '09 is a our semi-regular update on the Pittsburgh Pirates and their march toward their record 17th consecutive losing season.

How many teams in baseball history have traded 2/3rds of their starting outfields in consecutive years? The Pirates started 2008 with an offense-oriented outfield of Jason Bay, Nate McLouth, and Xavier Nady, from left to right. With Bay and Nady slated to become free agents in the two coming offseasons and having good years at the plate, the Pirates dealt them and shifted towards a defensive outfield of Nyjer Morgan, McLouth, and Brandon Moss. Now, Morgan and McLouth are gone and GM Neal Huntington may not be done dealing. Where does that leave the Pirates?

Actually, probably in better shape than a lot of Pirate fans think. In return for the four traded outfielders (and two left-handed relievers, Damaso Marte and Sean Burnett, who were included in the Nady and Morgan deals), Huntington has received Ross Ohlendorf, Daniel McCutchen, Jeff Karstens, Jose Tabata, Andy LaRoche, Brandon Moss, Bryan Morris, Craig Hansen, Charlie Morton, Gorkys Hernandez, Jeff Locke, Lastings Milledge, and Joel Hanrahan.

Of those 13 players, Ohlendorf and Morton are in the Pirates' rotation and both seem to have good enough stuff to make a long-term home there. LaRoche has played fairly well at third base for the Pirates after early career struggles and even flashed some of the potential that made him a top prospect in the Dodgers organization for several years, and Hanrahan and Karstens are in the Pirates' bullpen. Tabata and Hernandez are two of the Pirates' better position-player prospects and Locke and Morris brought an infusion of young pitching talent to a system that had absolutely none at this point a year ago. This all goes without mentioning Milledge, who has as much pure talent as anyone and should be the Pirates' starting left fielder by August.

It's an impressive restocking of talent in a short period of time for a team that desperately needed some kind of infusion after GM Dave Littlefield was fired in late 2007. Pirate fans are tired of seeing an endless parade of players leave Pittsburgh, but this is a different kind of rebuilding than the sort practiced by previous front offices in Pittsburgh. It's actually building towards something.

A Little Bit of History

In 1985, the Pirates finished 57-104, their worst single-season record since the early 1950s. They hadn't been to the playoffs since winning the 1979 World Series and had suffered back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since their ugly skid from 1949-1957. After that season ended, they brought in Syd Thrift to be the team's general manager. Thrift quickly shipped out Jose DeLeon, who had two promising seasons as a starter before struggling at age 24 to a 2-19 record, to the White Sox for Bobby Bonillia.

The next offseason he traded Rick Rhoden, one of the best pitchers on the awful team, to the Yankees for Doug Drabek and sent incredibly popular catcher Tony Pena to the Cardinals for three players, including Mike LaValliere and Andy Van Slyke.

Thrift was eventually fired after the 1988 season, when the Pirates finished a surprising second in the NL East, but in his three years, his quick wheeling and dealing pulled the Pirates out of the cellar and laid the foundation for the clubs that won the National League East three straight times starting in 1990. It's too early to say if Huntington will have as much success, but it's worth noting that just because trades may be unpopular with the fans doesn't mean they're going to be unsuccessful.

The Numbers

Pirates record through 79 games: 36-43
Record required to finish .500: 45-38
1949 Phillies through 79 games: 41-38
Home runs by yesterday's starting lineup, prior to the start of the game: 21
Number of those home runs hit by Adam LaRoche: 11
Home runs hit in yesterday's game: 2
Number of those home runs hit by Adam LaRoche: 1 (and one by Garrett Jones, his third big league homer and first since 2007 with the Twins)