Thursday, November 15th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
It’s time to start doubting Huntington
According to a report about nine days ago, the Pirates are trying to trade Jason Bay in order to “restock the minor league system,” therefore defying all logic and managing to show a stupidity that even Dave Littlefield was too intelligent to demonstrate.
As has been said before, Bay is coming off of one of the worst stretches of baseball in his entire career. Bay never quite found his groove last season, looking uncomfortable both at the plate and in the field for extended stretches of time. There was some speculation that he never quite recovered from knee surgery performed last winter, so the hope for anyone trading for him would be that Bay (and his very affordable contract) would bounce back to his pre-2007 levels.
The Pirates, however, are running a professional baseball team, not a trading service. If Huntington wants to win Bay will not be traded until he goes on one of his tears. Bay has shown the ability to be the single best offensive player in baseball for month-long stretches, dominating opposing pitching and winning games for the Pirates in the field as well as from the plate.
Bay’s status as, undoubtedly, the best position player on the Pirates and the most important one means that trading him would probably cause even further mutiny amongst the fans, who would interpret a trade as meaning that the Pirates are not committed to winning baseball. And they would be right.
By trading Bay, Huntington and the Pirates’ front office would be admitting that what is important to them and to the future of the team is not the product on the field for the next two or three years and is not avoiding breaking the Phillies’ record of futility. Huntington’s vision is more realistic and generally more in line with what the Pirates need to do, but he wants to trade Bay at the single worst time in the outfielder’s career. He should let a healthy Bay play for a little while, wait until he hits one of his torrid streaks, and then start accepting trade offers.
By waiting for Bay to perform, Huntington would receive a package for the outfielder that is truly commensurate with the value of the outfielder to the Pirates and to another team, not a package that is severely deflated based on a season by the worst Jason Bay that any Pirate fan has ever seen.
This is what is wrong with having a rookie front office, from the President on down. Sometimes, they just do not get it.
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