Another trade going nowhere?

By Gene Collier
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pirates/
Friday, August 01, 2008

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press
Andy LaRoche will join his brother Adam on the Pirates' 25-man roster today in Chicago.

Flipping through my ever-present compendium of weathered baseball axioms -- don't make the first or last out of an inning at third base, never intentionally walk anyone who represents the potential winning run, it ain't over 'til it's over, etc. -- it appears the entire volume is somehow bereft of the phrase "Two LaRoches are better than one."

But, in an elaborate three-team deadline deal of dubious necessity, the Pirates nonetheless added Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Andy LaRoche to their roster, meaning that not only does Andy LaRoche join older brother Adam LaRoche in the Pirates' infield, but PNC Park now becomes semi-officially a branch campus of LaRoche College.

Wisecrackers are cracking open "maybe with two LaRoches you can generate one decent season between them," but c'mon, Andy and this entire second wave of alleged prospects to join the Pirates' organization since last weekend deserve the reasoned and patient analysis to which the club's abused fan base has grown so hopelessly irritated.

The Pirates have been trying to assemble prospects in lieu of well-paid big leaguers for going on 16 years, and the result has been a record-breaking, soul-destroying slide of 16 consecutive losing seasons.

Not a coincidence.

Just for giggles, what were the odds that the seismic Boston Red Sox-Dodgers-Pirates shuffle yesterday would result in Manny Ramirez landing in Pittsburgh? About seven million-to-1, seven million being, coincidentally, what Boston will contribute in dollars for the balance of Ramirez's $20 million salary. No one should be surprised if Boston emerges the big winner in this deal. Who would you rather have, the resurgent 29-year-old Bay, the still-infantile-after-all-these-years 36-year-old Ramirez, or the two from Column A two from Column B Costco prospects package the Pirates toted away?

Personally, I'm not certain I would trade Jason Bay even up for the current Ramirez, and the Pirates didn't. They traded Jason Bay for Not Manny Ramirez. Funny how the top player in any trade involving the Pirates never seems to end up a Pirate.

Before we're too down the road with patient analysis, it should be noted at this point as well that any deal which results in even a minor respite in people saying "Manny being Manny," is a bloody Godsend. Why do I never hear this hideous construction attached to anyone else? When Iran boasts of greater nuclear capability than previously suspected, no one says, "Well, that's just Ahmadinejad being Ahmadinejad."

Anyway, Pirates general manager Neal Huntington, in his first summer at one of the worst jobs in baseball, has traded two-thirds of one of the most productive outfields in baseball (Xavier Nady and Bay) plus one of the top situational bullpen lefties in the game (Damaso Marte) for eight prospects on the theory that virtually all baseball life within Pittsburgh's minor league system has been wiped out by the Comet Littlefield.

If that's the situation -- and I'm not suggesting for a second that it isn't -- what good does it do to have Andy LaRoche, outfielder Brandon Moss, and pitchers Craig Hansen, Jeff Karstens, and soon Ross Ohlendorf on the major league roster? How is that strengthening a foundation of rubble?

Huntington and CEO Frank Coonelly will tell you they are adding depth, and the plain fact is, anyone who still cares has to take it on faith that they're right. Not only strategically, but in their ongoing evaluations. Results are due in 2010 or 2011.

Maybe Andy LaRoche, rated the Dodgers' second-best prospect before this season by Baseball America, will turn into the kind of corner infielder who is consistently productive, a player that is, you know, unlike his brother. Maybe Hansen, a former first-round pick with high-grade gas will turn into reliable power pitcher instead of just another Pirate lugging around a major league earned run average that's north of six. Maybe Brandon Moss and Jose Tabata will turn into outfielders with greater upsides than Nady and Bay. Maybe Jeff Karstens, who joins the rotation this afternoon, will get the consistent outs that eluded him as a Yankee. Maybe Bryan Morris, just 21, will emerge in two years as a top-of-the-rotation horse.

That's a lot of maybein'.

A week ago last night, when Bay and Nady and Nate McLouth all homered in beating the San Diego Padres, Bay said, "It's almost like someone wrote a script."

Not almost. Someone is writing it. Pirates management, in its various incarnations, has been writing this script for 16 years, an evident narrative arc to nowhere. Characters come and go, none fully developed, and they are replaced by others, far less developed. And, if you were chilled by Chapter 2008, wait until you see Chapter 2009.

Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283.
First published on August 1, 2008 at 12:00 am