Pirates Q&A with Dejan Kovacevic

Friday, August 04, 2006

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Q: Is it too soon to put my name on the waiting list for playoff tickets? Shawn Chacon, a couple of middling Class AA players and a part-time outfielder ... Woo-hoo! We will!

We will rue the day that the Pirates made a colossal blunder by not acquiring Ryan Shealy, especially in light of what the Royals gave up to get him. It is the type of bold move that seems to escape this franchise.

Greg Thompson of Crofton, Md.

KOVACEVIC: The citizens were almost universally angry this week, starting at about, oh, 4:01 p.m. Monday.

And most of it had to do with Shealy.

Onward ...

Q: It's hard not to be disappointed in this trading deadline, again.

The Pirates continued their trend of trading away chips at the absolute nadir of their value and, this time, it was Ollie. One upside of acquiring a Craig Wilson clone is that this version will likely not be inexplicably reviled by management and held out of the lineup in favor of lesser hitters. The only thing that would have brightened a miserable day would have been getting Ryan Shealy. Middle relief is the one commodity this team has a lot of. How could we not beat that meager K.C. offer? I think Littlefield didn't go for it because Shealy wasn't injured at the time a la Nady, Sanchez, Bobby Hill, Jody Gerut, Brandon Lyon, et al.

Oh, well. At least they saved on the payroll. That makes me want to go to more games.

Zach Pozun of Oakland, Pittsburgh

KOVACEVIC: And another ...

Q: So, Ryan Shealy ended up going to the Royals for Jeremy Affeldt, he of the lifetime 4.77 ERA and 1.52 WHIP, and Denny Bautista, with a 6.55 ERA in 22 starts. If thats all Shealy ended up going for, what did the Pirates offer that was worse? Bobby Bradley and J.R. House?

Jon Shelly of Highland Park, Pittsburgh

KOVACEVIC: And finally ...

Q: I find the recent trades to be nothing short of insufferable. You've cautioned us in the past about acquiring less-than-stellar returns when offering less-than-stellar product, but ... acquiring 27-year-old Xavier Nady when Craig Wilson was rotting on the bench seems highly suspect. If acquiring Shawn Chacon is an idea of a Kip Wells replacement, we couldn't have found a better candidate. And watching the Royals acquire the one player we could have afforded to be buyers on, that hurt worse than the three-game whooping they gave us earlier in the year.

I don't understand. I don't understand. I simply don't understand. I thought I did. After these trades, it's clear I do not.

Dejan, can you help me understand what Littlefield's vision is?

Nathan Anderson of Indiana, Pa.

KOVACEVIC: The Pirates never have stated any clear goal, either for the season at hand, or the ones in the near future. Other than, of course, the nebulous we-want-to-see-improvement or the goal-is-to-win-a-championship staple. If there is a master plan within the baseball operations department, suffice it to say it has not been made public.

I did a piece just before the season on this subject and, through all that was gathered, I drew the conclusion that the plan was to put as many pieces in place until 2009 and allow them to grow together, filling in the blanks along the way. But that was my conclusion, not a pronouncement by the Pirates.

Anyway, regarding the trades ...

I find myself having a difficult time getting analytical about trades that, ultimately, were symptoms of a larger issue.

Go back to December. Teams were asking about Craig Wilson then. Kip Wells, too. If a decision had been made to deal those players then, their value would have been far higher.

Why would the Pirates deal those players then if they wanted to do well in 2006, you ask? Because 2006 was irrelevant all along, I say.

All that should matter, if the team does have a plan geared toward 2009, is building toward that group. The Pirates already had decided they had no use for Wilson and would relegate him to the bench. Why not deal him when more teams might have viewed him as a starter rather than willfully devalue him? The Pirates also knew better than anyone what they had in Wells and, as Wells confirmed to me the day before he was dealt, never at any point offered him a contract extension. Why, then, keep him around?

I do not take issue with Sean Casey. The Pirates needed a first baseman, got one and, once they were not in contention, moved his salary before his free-agency time. Any team would have done the same. Could he have been moved earlier? Probably, given the number of first basemen that changed hands. But there never was an indication of heavy demand.

Same goes for Roberto Hernandez.

But Oliver Perez? That is the tough one, and not just for the gave-up-on-him-too-soon possibility.

To keep repeating myself, decisions have to be made to move players at their peak. This is what more successful teams -- that would be all of them -- do. It did not creep up on the Pirates that they had a wealth of left-handed pitching. Neither was it a surprise that Perez had been erratic and, more alarming, had lost several mph off his fastball. He should not have been moved Monday. He should have been moved over the winter, when the Texas Rangers were offering third baseman Hank Blalock.

Finally, to the Shealy matter ...

Colorado, seeking left-handed relief while trying to move Ray King, asked for John Grabow and another player, to the very best knowledge I have available. The Pirates declined, but it is not clear if that was because of Grabow or the other player. Given that the second component of the Kansas City trade was middling starter for middling reliever, it seems unlikly that the second component could have killed the deal.

The Pirates' reasons are their own. Littlefield does not discuss potential deals, even after they are no longer potential deals. He even is reluctant to give background on the workings that led to deals that actually get done.

But, as some of the writers above indicated, there is no precedent for the Pirates pulling off this type of transaction. And this gets back to the points I was making about making moves when trade commodities are at their peak rather than a low.

Grabow has three years left of arbitration. He has been a reliable bullpen guy for 2 1/2 years now and, for what it was worth, has been pitching the best of his career over the past month. This is when he gets moved by most low-revenue teams, at least if the return is an everyday player. If Grabow were to become the next John Franco or Randy Myers in the bullpen, he still does not carry the same value as a starting first baseman with some pop.

Q: Hi, Dejan. Though I was somewhat disappointed in the trades, I do think that things will work out OK if Nady can be an average or better defensive first baseman, at least until Brad Eldred or Ryan Doumit is ready.

How much input, if any, did Jim Tracy and his staff have on the players acquired through the trades? Is it reasonable to assume that Tracy and Jim Colborn were on board with Chacon, and that Tracy and Jeff Manto were on board with Nady?

Jeff Bay of Alcoa, Tenn.

KOVACEVIC: Littlefield long has consulted people at all levels of the organization on matters such as these, and my understanding is that the same was true in this process.

Q: After observing the trades made on the deadline, I have two questions:

1. Will we ever get an explanation as to why they had such a low opinion of Craig Wilson?

2. Is there a secret plan in place for next year, where instead of spending the money required to be competitive, they will spend the money on fireworks and/or a bobblehead promotion for every single home game? (I'm thinking: Sammy Khalifa for Turn Back the Clock Night No. 28). Maybe even hire an extra pierogi.

Shawn Daugherty of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh

KOVACEVIC: In order ...

1. No, not unless the Pirates break from ample precedent and discuss personal feelings about players, which is not going to happen. But my third-party view, for what it is worth, is that it was, indeed, personal.

2. The plan for the team's trade savings, as was outlined in a brief piece in Wednesday's paper, is to put the money back into the baseball operations in some form or other. How that will happen is not going to be clear even after the fact, of course, since details of the budget are not made public.

Q: Dejan, in your Wednesday article regarding the financial savings from Monday's deals, Kevin McClatchy suggests a future at third for Freddy Sanchez and that the team needed to find out about Jose Bautista in right. That seems to be the most concise sense of direction upper management has stated publicly in the past year, especially after Dave Littlefield 's comments on Sunday's pregame show about not knowing what direction certain positions might head.

What are the fans supposed to make of this back and forth?

Adam Marco of Leechburg

KOVACEVIC: As mentioned above, there is very little about the baseball operations that Littlefield does not like to keep secret. And, as with everything else, his reasons for that are a secret.

I, too, found McClatchy's remarks to be revealing, not just about Sanchez but also the feeling that the team is confident enough in Ronny Paulino to feel catcher is solidified.

Q: Now that it appears the Pirates have a nucleus of fairly talented young players ready for the majors, we don't need another Randa/Burnitz/Casey free-agency fix. What we do need is a hammer in the lineup. What are the chances that instead of spending $4 million-plus on three mediocrities, Littlefield and ownership would go after one Gary Sheffield-type $10 million player, someone with 40-home-run potential and a winning background?

Harold S. Dunn of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh

KOVACEVIC: There are two reasons I think that is unlikely.

One is the aforementioned address-the-holes approach the Pirates have. So long as they have that, I think you are going to see them spread the resources they have somewhat evenly.

Two is that, as I have heard expressed on many an occasion, there is a reservation about pouring so much into one player because of what can happen if the investment goes awry. Think about it in terms of diversifying your stock portfolio rather than throwing all your cash into Google, and you can relate to the mindset.

Q: Is it my mind or does the past week or so seem to indicate that Jason Bay might need a few games off? He has left quite a few runners in scoring position and his defense seems to be a little off.

Ed Rothermund of Washington, Pa.

KOVACEVIC: It is your mind, Ed. Do not overinflate isolated incidents. Bay had an RBI double in the same game he left those bases loaded. And he has made three errors all season, including that ugly one Wednesday.

It is funny but, as I type this, Bay just rammed a fastball into center field for a clutch single.

He is fine.

Q: I read in the New York Post last week that the Pirates were thinking of trading Jason Bay. What has management been doing the last 10 years? Anytime we get a star player, we trade him for three subpar players.

Mike Powell of New York

KOVACEVIC: You know, my favorite aspect of the trade deadline passing is that I no longer get asked questions about ridiculous reports or fabricated quotes or, in this case, pure hyperbolic fantasy that appears all over the place.

I invite readers, always, to be skeptical of all that they read, and that includes what I write. Ask yourself questions when you read something that might sound surprising to you. Who is the author? Have I had cause to trust or mistrust the author before? What about the publication? What about the information itself? Does it seem plausible, based on what you already know or have read elsewhere?

I am always here to answer questions about this particular coverage of the team.

In closing ...

Every once in a while, this bears repeating: If you send in mail without a full, real name and current place of residence, I will not see it. I have soldiers writing to me from Iraq and Afghanistan, and they use their full names. So can everyone else. This is baseball we are talking about. It does not take that much courage.

Until next week, by which time we will return to air-conditioned baseball in Houston and give the poor, overheating laptop a much-needed break ...

First published on August 4, 2006 at 12:00 am