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It was the 14th of August on a pleasant afternoon in Altoona, and Neal Huntington was at an Eat'n Park, picking at lunch while clicking at a laptop to keep up with his Pirates. These were just pixels on a screen, the real team several states away at Wrigley Field, but there was no diminishing the reality about to hit the team's general manager.
With one run, then four, then 14 by the end of the second inning, those cyber-Cubs sprinted around the cyber-bases. And suffice it to say Huntington was not about to order a Smiley cookie.
"Oh," he recalled thinking. "This is going to be bad."
He never could have processed how bad.
That game, memorably, ended up 17-2, but it would become just a speck within a 3-23 stretch and a 62-99 overall record. Through it all, Huntington and everyone associated with this second-year management team insisted that all was going by the plan to make trades that would "flood the farm system with talent," as Huntington has described it. That was backed all the way up to owner Bob Nutting, who said two days ago that the team made the moves "to speed up the process of bringing winning baseball back to our fans."
But how is speeding up defined?
Will next year bring yet another low?
Here are 10 steps the Pirates can take to reboot for a healthy 2010:
Huntington spent most of his time scouting the amateur and minor league ranks, and most of the moves he has made have bolstered the system and/or hurt the parent club.
If the Pirates are to bottom out, all this has to shift.
This roster hardly is in position to contend, but it does have promising starting pitching, and top prospects Pedro Alvarez, Brad Lincoln and maybe Jose Tabata are due to arrive. The time to begin building at the top level is now, and more help is needed than the standard bench bat.
"We have been in the talent accumulation mode for two years," Huntington said. "Now, we're into the development and transition into the winning mode. We had a group of players entering their final year or two of contractual control. We tried to keep a couple and, obviously, that didn't work."
That was a reference to extensions offered to Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez.
"The mass exodus of players, hopefully, is over. Will there still be trades? Absolutely. But we didn't make any of these other trades to make Lynchburg or Altoona better. We did it to make Pittsburgh better. It just wasn't going to be today."
One National League scout recently identified three players on the Pirates' roster he sees as legitimate contending pieces: Andrew McCutchen, Ross Ohlendorf and Garrett Jones.
All concerned deny it, but the manner in which the Pirates used Jones -- bumping him back and forth between first base and right field -- strongly suggests they are not nearly as convinced. Their thinking was that they could see more of Brandon Moss and Steve Pearce by using Jones at one or the other, but an extended tryout for two .240 hitters would figure to be a lower priority than having an everyday power bat entrench himself at a position.
This is no Adam Hyzdu: Jones launched balls over fences at a rate not seen in these parts since Brian Giles, even as he hit all types of pitches to all parts of the field in batting .293 with 21 home runs in three months.
"I've only been in the majors for half a season," Jones said. "I do hope that what I've done helps with my opportunity, but I also know there's always someone trying to take your job."
The full impact of the many moves will not be known for years to come, but it never is too soon to begin learning from hits and misses.
Was Kevin Hart worth John Grabow, a pitcher the Pirates would love to have back?
Were enough records, including statistical, checked before acquiring Jose Ascanio just before shoulder surgery?
If Los Angeles could teach Ronald Belisario the sinker that led to his 1.93 ERA for the Dodgers, why did the Pirates not see that before releasing him last winter?
How will their offers to Wilson and Sanchez compare to what they get as free agents?
"We evaluate ourselves all the time," Huntington said. "We look at what information we had, how we gathered it, how we weighed it, whether or not it was the best time ... all kinds of variables. But we don't look back and say that it was a good or bad trade. What we evaluate is the process. And we evaluate our scouts."
Of the 31 scouts in the Pirates' employ, 13 are holdovers from Dave Littlefield's failed era. Of Huntington's eight special assistants, three were with Littlefield.
Grabow almost surely will stay with the Cubs rather than test free agency, and the rest of the left-handed relief market is pretty thin.
Joe Beimel, anyone?
In the days after the Grabow trade, Huntington dismissed the importance of left-handed relief, calling it "overrated." But that stance changed -- notably with manager John Russell -- and the team now states openly that it needs someone just like Grabow.
There are no internal options. Phil Dumatrait had huge struggles, and Donnie Veal will head back to the minors to resume a starting role.
Might it have been less expensive to simply keep Grabow and offer an extension?
No one will know, because he never was approached.
Ronny Cedeno showed signs that he could become the everyday shortstop, especially with the pop in his bat. But his status is not cemented.
Delwyn Young, for all his hours of work in the field, is not the caliber of Sanchez offensively or defensively, and second base is a position where the Pirates must have both. Besides, Young's pinch-hitting prowess the past two years point to his being a valuable bench piece.
The logical move, and one the Pirates are weighing, is to bump Andy LaRoche from third to second once Alvarez arrives.
"We'll be considering a lot of different scenarios at second," Huntington said.
Four-fifths of the rotation and some of the bullpen showed encouraging signs, but the Pirates must straighten out Hart and Matt Capps to have a complete staff.
Hart has four pitches, including an effortless 95-mph fastball, but was erratic with his delivery in going 1-8 with a 6.92 ERA since coming from Chicago. Management likes his stuff, and pitching coach Joe Kerrigan has an offseason plan to harness it. If that does not happen, Daniel McCutchen will step in.
"If I do what I'm capable, we'll have a really good, really deep rotation," Hart said. "I'm going to work really hard to be ready."
If Capps is not traded -- and that will get entertained this offseason -- he will be the default closer. But expect his hook to be short, with surging Joel Hanrahan in the wings.
With Russell's even-keel demeanor, it is easy to think of those running the Pirates as unemotional. But emotion got them into some trouble in the past year.
The failed attempt to sign Dominican prospect Miguel Angel Sano became as much about personality as about getting the player. There also was the waffling decision to offer, then pull back contract extensions for Wilson and Sanchez. And there was frequent exasperation shown at things spoken or written in public over their many transactions.
All of this is inconsistent with the bold path management has taken through its actions.
A winning approach: Make the move, and move on.
Huntington, on that topic: "We've talked from day one about having to make logical, rational decisions. It gets a lot tougher the more we lose, no question about that. The willingness to stay the course becomes more challenging, but it also becomes more important. There are a lot of teams that have gone this path and ended up short-circuiting themselves."
When the Pirates' top two prospects are ready, they should play in Pittsburgh.
Already, signals have been sent that neither will make the team out of spring training, which hardly seems conducive to offering each at least a glimmer of optimism that a good offseason regimen will make any difference.
This decision should not be dictated -- as it was, in part, with Andrew McCutchen -- by finances. A player must play six full years in the majors to qualify for free agency, and must have three full years to guarantee arbitration. Thus, holding him back even a month or two can save money and a year of control well down the road. But the Pirates have saved plenty enough money, and setting the stage for great things in 2015 does not make a compelling argument, either.
Management gets the bulk of the attention when analyzing any building effort, but the reality is that the success or failure of the 2010 Pirates will hinge mostly on how the individual players improve.
Someone has to emerge from nowhere as Jones did. Or make a rookie splash as McCutchen did. And several someones will have to upgrade their game as Ohlendorf, Zach Duke, Jesse Chavez and Evan Meek did on the mound, and LaRoche did defensively.
Take Meek: While missing the past month to a strained oblique, he bulked up 10 pounds of muscle.
"I'll be throwing 100 miles an hour next time you see me," he said.
Sign Rick Ankiel or any free agent -- Nick Johnson? Mark DeRosa? Xavier Nady for a second tour? -- who might bring some pop to the lineup.
Make a trade for a quality player, regardless of cost.
The Pirates' current $23 million roster -- which projects to $28 million with raises -- has to represent the low point. There is no rule that says a team building from within must be a catastrophe at the major league level until the prospects arrive. Provided that acquisitions do not block key players -- signing, say, a center fielder would be absurd -- the only reason not to fill other holes would be to create more leftover money.
When Cincinnati recently traded for Scott Rolen and his $11 million salary after being miles out of contention, many in baseball scoffed. But the Reds went 25-11 with Rolen, and their many youngsters might have their development aided by his presence.
Do not expect anything at that level from the Pirates, but ...
"We will be out there, and we will be aggressive," team president Frank Coonelly said.
Only 180 days until the opener, April 5, 2010, against the Los Angeles Dodgers at PNC Park.
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