duq81 wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

The Bucs ran a cheapskate operation for many years, even trading away talented young players as soon as they started to emerge as stars. In recent years, MLB started to punish George Steinbrenner for spending big bucks on trying to put the best team he could on the field by taxing him for going over a certain payroll level. That money was distributed to the other MLB teams to spend according to their own discretion. Many owners - including the Pirates for several years - stuffed the cash into their own pockets, screwing their own franchises and fans.

Two things are incorrect here. The first is that the current owners are responsible for the years of futility. The Bucs are on their third ownership since the collapse. The current owner is in his 7th year of running the franchise. The two former owner(s) were indeed guilty of what you say, but the current owner, has made the correct moves, which is evident in the progress the team has made over the last few years. Second, it's a myth that the Bucs traded away their good players. During the entire 20 year run of futility, the Bucs traded away two good players who were near the top of their game. The Aramis Ramirez trade was just awful, and the worst thing they did during the entire disaster. The other player was Jason Bay. We got a lot of good mileage out of Bay, but paying him the big bucks would have been a disaster, as he pretty much hit the wall soon after he left here. The other good players we had, Giles, Kendall, Jack Wilson, and Freddie Sanchez, all spent their primes in Pittsburgh. The Bucs problem was not a failure to keep good players, it was a total failure to draft, and develop players worth keeping. Even the Yankees can't win when the farm system isn't producing. The bulk of the great Yankee teams under Joe Torre was home grown. The current regime has pumped tons of money into player development, and now the farm system is absolutely loaded.

Bay's another guy who fell off the map once he changed uniforms. But there were some pitchers (Benson for one) who, when I heard the Bucs had traded them, made me slap my head ... until they bombed at other locales.

People want to forget that the core of the team that won all the WS at the end of last Century was home-grown. Posada, Jeter, Bernie Williams, Pettite, Mo. And a lot of guys who came up during that time either contributed or were traded for needed pieces, like Juan Rivera, Shane Spencer, etc. Current organization has done a nice job of developing pitchers, but position players since Cano have been sparse. There are no studs on the farm, but some decent guys.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm rooting for the Pirates to go to the World Series. Why not? Many of my friends are Pirates fans, and I  do hate most of the NL.