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The Mets' Marlon Byrd (right) and teammate John Buck celebrate scoring the tying run in the eighth inning against the Diamondbacks on August 9, 2013, at Chase Field in Phoenix.
August 27, 2013
This is what winning teams do.
No, there wasn't anything singularly spectacular about the Pirates' acquisitions Tuesday of Marlon Byrd and John Buck from the Mets in exchange for prospect Dilson Herrera and a player to be named later. No big names, no blaring headlines, no attaboys for some heist of the century. It wasn't the splash some had sought, nor the standing pat some had feared.
But, then, this situation didn't call for a splash, just as it didn't call for standing pat.
It called for smart.
It called for …
• Correctly identifying all positional needs
So long as the Pirates were winning big — and 23 games over .500 through July is pretty big — there shouldn't have been any mega-urgency to address needs. But it's been a blah 11-13 August, including the 7-6 loss to the Brewers by nightfall at PNC Park, and it can be blamed almost wholly on the bone-dry bats.
The urgency changed.
Look, I wasn't wild about how long this took, and I suspect neither was the fan base. All concerned would have been better off skipping Garrett Jones' 7-for-58 slog this month. But I applauded the team's prudence at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, and I'll still applaud Huntington and Clint Hurdle for giving Jones and Jose Tabata a chance. Jones fizzled, but he was coming off a 27-home run season and was worth waiting on. Tabata actually justified the patience by producing.
Saturday will bring the waiver trade deadline. Huntington pushed it to the edge, but he also pulled it off.
• Finding the right help
There's not much to dislike about Byrd, a 12-year vet who can take right field right away, who'll cost the Pirates just $130,000 total, and who's having the season of his life: .285 average, 21 home runs, 71 RBI.
Can he keep it up at age 36?
Who really cares, so long as he keeps it up into October?
The only real doubts relate to Byrd's 50-game suspension last year for use of tamoxifen, a banned substance. And those doubts remain justified, given that the season of one's life tends to come, you know, a lot earlier in most lives.
Byrd's been strikingly forthright on the topic all summer, including this to the Daily News last month: “Why wouldn't anybody question it? Last year, I hit .210 with a home run and nine RBI in conjunction with testing positive. But I can take that and absorb that. Doesn't bother me at all.”
He maintained innocence then — claiming tamoxifen was taken for a chronic swelling of the chest — and still does.
Whatever the case, it's impossible to imagine the Pirates wouldn't have checked this out before putting themselves in position to hang out to dry. And as such, Byrd should fit well.
Same for Buck, a workmanlike backup catcher. All due respect to Tony Sanchez here, but a one-month rookie can't be your fail-safe.
Read more: http://triblive.com/sports/dejankovacevic/dejancolumns/4602604-74/pirates-byrd-trade#ixzz2dGAE7i9I
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