The 2009 Pirates: I didn't know we still had a team

If the folks who brought us the movie Major League came along today with that idea, the team they'd base it on would be the Pirates. No doubt, there are society-type ladies all over Pittsburgh, like the one in that awkward scene where Tom Berenger crashes the party at Rene Russo's boyfriend's place, saying: "Baseball? Here? In Pittsburgh? I didn't know we still had a team?"

Indeed, what with the Penguins and Steelers both winning championships and the Steelers now back in training camp, the only way for the Pirates to get any attention is to do what they did today. Hey, it's not every day a team trades away two of its cornerstone players. It's not every year a team trades away five members of its starting lineup, three of whom have been all-stars and one of whom was just signed to a three-year contract extension in February. And we're not even going to bring up the Jason Bay and Xavier Nady deals from last year.

You can't even really get upset about it anymore. We all knew it was coming. But it's sad when a player like Jack Wilson who kept showing up every year for nine years of losing and gave everything he had gets shipped away. And it's frustrating to give up a guy who can hit like Freddy Sanchez.

They managed to get a pretty decent haul out of the Wilson trade -- or so it seems on paper. Jeff Clement is in his third season in Class AAA ball and hit .227 in an extended trip to the majors with Seattle last season. Hate to say it, but just from looking at his numbers, it feels like he might be one of those guys who's topped out already. Another Adam LaRoche. No more upside. A couple of the pitchers that came from Seattle are in Class A ball -- nice numbers this year, but too early to know if they'll pan out. One of them is 6-foot-7, so if nothing else he's got a great build for a pitcher.

We'll know in a couple years. And that's the frustrating part. We have no way of knowing if these guys are going to work out or if the team will find itself two years from now still bellyaching -- as they have been for years -- that they "don't have enough talent." It's the same old song we've been listening to for years, through multiple management groups. Sure, you can make the argument that the team wasn't winning with all of these guys they've unloaded the last couple years. The thing is, some teams address that by spending some money and filling their holes through free agency. The Pirates seem willing to tear it all down every few years and start from scratch. There are teams that do that too, but then they eventually become at least respectable, if not contenders. No such luck in Pittsburgh.

So we're back to where we were in the mid 1990s and again five or six years ago. We're rebuilding. We're hoping these guys we've picked up in all these deals will pan out. And forgive the pessimism, but we're hoping to hold on to the ones who do pan out. Is that too much to ask? For the last 17 years in Pittsburgh, it has been.