It's mid-July, which means the questions most asked about the Pirates is whether the team should be a buyer or a seller as the non-waiver trading deadline approaches. The fact there's even a thought of the team being a buyer is a bit short of hilarious.

Buyers are usually contending teams acquiring players who offer immediate help for the final two months of the season. The Pirates absolutely do not fit the mold of a contender. Sellers are teams unloading veteran and often high-priced players in exchange for young, often untested players who will help build future winning teams. Selling is not a good fit for the Pirates either.

To suggest the Pirates should be a buyer is to ignore history. The average number of wins by the champion of the NL Central Division, since it became a six-team division in 1998, is 96. The average number of wins by the National League wild-card team since 1998 is 92. After their 5-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves yesterday, the Pirates are 40-51, which means they'd have to go 52-19 -- an impossible pace -- in their remaining 71 games to reach 92 victories.

Because it is virtually impossible for the Pirates to become a contender this season, it would be foolishness in the extreme for them to mortgage the future for a present that has no promise. As bleak as the Pirates' future might appear, it would be worse if they parted with any of the few high-end prospects they have in their organization.

That doesn't stop some people from dreaming. A survey yesterday on post-gazette.com asked participants to vote whether the Pirates should be a buyer or a seller at the deadline. Forty percent said the Pirates should be a seller. We needn't tell you the poll is unscientific.

Nor are the Pirates the kind of team that has the configuration of a seller. They are not in a position to trade productive major-leaguers for prospects. They need to win in 2008, not 2011. As general manager Dave Littlefield has said many times, the team of the future is in place. To begin dismantling it would be foolish. The Pirates need to add to it, as they did in the offseason by acquiring Adam LaRoche, not subtract from it.

Teams are always looking for relievers late in the season and the Pirates have some to offer in right-handers Shawn Chacon and Salomon Torres and left-handed Damaso Marte. Chacon is a free agent at the end of the season. Torres and Marte are signed through 2008.

Chacon has pitched well out of the bullpen but the fact he'll be a free agent means the team would get nothing more than a mid-level prospect in return. More to the point, the Pirates should not be looking to unload good players, they should be looking for ways to keep them. They don't have nearly the bullpen depth necessary to trade Chacon or even Torres, who came off the disabled list yesterday.

The Pirates tried to do bullpen on the cheap this season, preferring to go with largely untested relievers in replacing the departed Mike Gonzalez and Roberto Hernandez. The result: The bullpen was 15th in earned run average in the National League going into yesterday's game at 4.77. That's down from fourth and 3.89 last year.

Marte should be close to an untouchable, unless he can bring a major-league ready position player. He's as good a left-handed specialist as there is in the league. If the Pirates have any intention of winning in 2008, they have a better chance with Marte.

If the Pirates deal any of these pitchers for anything short of immediate help, it will be business as usual and a dagger at the hopes of winning next season.

The same applies to shortstop Jack Wilson, who might attract some interest. Wilson is a competent major-league shortstop. You can finish .500 with him. You can even win a title with him. To trade him because he's not Derek Jeter or Carlos Guillen and elevate Brian Bixler, who is not ready and who might never be ready, would be a step backward.

Off their miserable performance in being swept by the Braves -- six runs and 14 hits in three games -- there's little reason to be optimistic about the Pirates. They did not get an RBI in the series from their three big hitters, LaRoche, Xavier Nady and the severely slumping Jason Bay, whose average has dropped from .314 to .249 since June 1.

It's a typically dreary scenario. But as the trading deadline nears, there's no good reason to buy and, short of more rebuilding, no reason to sell.