Only twice during the free agent era have the Pirates signed a player of sufficiently high profile to warrant draft compensation to the team he departed (although why this was the case with 1979 signing Andy Hassler is unclear. He had no profile). Until 1998, Pittsburgh free agent signings were of the superannuated veteran, high-risk/low upside variety. As such, the Pirates paid for the last 53 games of Gene Tenace’s career, the last 40 games of Amos Otis, and the last 72 games of Sixto Lezcano. Only the 1979 signing of outfielder Lee Lacy, an undistinguished part-timer with the Dodgers from 1972, paid dividends. Lacy was not blessed with great power or plate judgment, but in six Pittsburgh seasons he was a consistent .300 hitter. Even he, though, must be marked with an asterisk as he was, allegedly, one of the narcotics abusers infesting the Pittsburgh clubhouse at the time. Then again, drugs in the clubhouse didn’t bother anyone in Pittsburgh at the time, so perhaps it isn’t worth mentioning.
In both the 1997 and 1998 off-seasons, the club once again sallied into the free agent market. Pitcher Mike Williams was signed after going 6-16 with a 5.52 ERA from 1996-1997. The following winter, Mike Benjamin, a utility infielder with one of the all-time weak bats (.224/.275/.337 in 507 games through 1998) to a four-year, $3.25 million contract. For a franchise that claimed to have limited resources, Benjamin was a disastrous addition and a clear sign that the owner and his general manager (still Bonifay) did not understand that baseball had entered the age of the two-way infielder.
In the July 25 edition of Transaction Analysis, Chris Kahrl critiqued the trade of reliever Mike Williams from the Pirates to the Phillies: There are other cranky topics, particularly the re-failure to acquire talent for Mike Williams in this year’s Williams deal. Certainly, if it reflected any new appreciation for the interchangeability of closers beyond the top few personalities in the field, that would be nifty, but instead, it seems that people (appropriately) don’t take Williams particularly seriously as a commodity, so the Pirates got things bad both ways, in terms of plugging in a replacement-level talent in the job, enriching him, and then not enriching themselves when the time came to deal him. Kahrl’s analysis could be applied to the entire trading history of the Pirates franchise, a three-handed process in which the hometown GM extends a good player with one hand, accepts his return with the another, and pinches his nose shut with the third. The top 10 list of best trades in the history of the franchise remains virgin territory, while the worst-10 list provides for an overstuffed buffet of empty calorie choices. This article is a compendium of self-inflicted wounds suffered since the acquisition of the franchise by Kevin McClatchy. After the institution of the amateur draft in 1965 democratized (at least on paper) talent acquisition, a broken franchise, particularly an impoverished broken franchise, could right itself through a combination of smart trading, free-agent signings, and the rewards offered to losing teams by the draft. Over a long span lasting at least since the waning days of Barry Bonds as a Buc, the Pirates have consistently failed at all three.
In honor of the Mets’ rethinking their philosophy on Roberto Alomar, the corresponding White Sox dump of D’Angelo Jimenez, and that inevitable day in the future when Alfonso Soriano plays a bad center field for the Mets, here is a top 10 list of 11 trades and transactions involving some of the best keystone commandos ever to play the game. Note that most of these moves are spectacularly lopsided; apparently it’s a rare thing to come up with a two-way second baseman, but rarer still to recognize what you have, or know how to hold on to him.
In part one of this review inspired by the Mets’ excision of Roberto Alomar from their midst–call it a celebration if you must–we stumbled over the desiccated remains of transactions involving Frankie Frisch, Rogers Hornsby, Eddie Collins and others on the way to a subjective ranking of the most misguided second baseman swaps in history. Part two revisits the five most self-destructive acts of abnegation by teams that had the goods but let them get away.
BP correspondent Steven Goldman sees the Twins messing with top young players Johan Santana and Bobby Kielty and reflects back on Casey Stengel’s handling and mishandling of young players.
Steven Goldman takes on the Tigers’ and Padres’ flirting with a .300 winning percentage with a history lesson on some of baseball’s most renowned losing clubs.