Okay, i had this post in my mind after talking with Hayden (my little brother) it started talking about our teams ( Texas and Seattle, i know talk about sibling rivalry right?) we went to talking about some of our players who just we're sad that won't see much of the play offs. This eventually lead to the amazing Pittsburgh pirates whom we both have a vested intrest in because our parents are from the pitt area. In fact i grew up being and still am a HUGE Steeler fan. the pirates have become the worst run organization in sports. clippers got nothing on these guys.
Here are the facts! Since 1992 the Pittsburgh pirates have not finished .500 or better. in 17 years they have been unable to win. Yes they did finish 2nd in the divison in 1997 and 3rd in 99. But they also were 2 and 3 games under .500 in those runs. Thats not close to any title.
Now, i understand that they have been running on a tight budget and that makes it extremely tough to compete. But come on, at what point do you say, if other teams can win without spending money why can't we?
But since the organization loss Barry Bonds after the '92 season. The team has walked to the perverbial corner and started pouting. They have refused to come out of that corner ever since. Despite having some great players on their teams during this time the best record they have scraped together is 79-83...
let's see ... over the past 17 years who have they had??
In the mid 90s they had the likes of Jay Bell, Jon Liber, Al Martin (when healthy), Denny Neagel, Kevin Young,Danny Darwin, Dan Mecili, Tony Womack, Tim Wakefield, Carlos Garcia, Jeff King, and of course Jason Kendell.
While these players were never really players that ever excelled in any capacity(except Jay Bell we all know he should have been a HOF'r lol) However, these players after traded or let go made some type of contributions to other teams and i know you can't build a winning team around players like Jay Bell but with All-Stars like Jason Kendell and then in 2000 they got some young pitching studs such as Kris Benson, Jason Schmidt, Mike Williams, Steve Sparks, Chris Peters.
in 2000 they could have had a rotation of Denny Neagel, Tim Wakefield, Jason Schmidt, Kris Benson and Chris Peters.
REALLY in 2000 that wasn't that bad. That means they would have had to given 4.7 mil to Denny Neagel for an ACE... yeah he wasn't great but in 2000 he went 15-9 ERA 4.52 and a WHIP of 1.39. um... i think thats acceptable. NOT GREAT! BUT something to work with. Tim Wakefield made between 450k and 4 mil between 95 and 2000 in which he compiled 71 wins and averaged a 1.41 WHIP during that time and finished 3rd in CY YOUNG voting in 95. TELL ME, that they couldn't have used him during that time.
NOW please don't miss understand this. I'm not saying if they would have kept Carlos Garcia or Jeff King the pirates would have been better off. In fact i think they should have shipped King off while he had some type of value instead of hoping he would turn into a repalcment Bobby Bonila and build up a good team.
During this time the pirates have drafted 19 players since '92 and while i understand that not nearly all the players your going to draft are going to turn into studs and lead your franchise into the a new era. BUT, the pirates have had 9 TOP 10 picks in 17 years. Wanna know how many turned into studs??? do you count Kris Benson? if you don't like me .. then you get ZERO!!!
****NOTE: this is only in the first round.
in 94' they missed out on Nomar, Jason Veritek, and Paul Konerko
'95 they missed out on Matt Morris and Roy Hallday (wow i didn't realize how long he's been around)
'96 was a huge down year for the draft but here goes a few names, Eric Chavez, Gil Meche and Jason Marquis. Would you draft any of them over Kris Benson? i don't know it's kind of a coin toss i'll tottally give them a bye on this one.
'97 Jon Garland, Lance Berkman, and Jack Cust.
'98 Brad Lidge, CC Sabathia, Matt Thorton, and Mark Prior.
'99 (hold on this one hurts) Barry Zito, Ben Sheets, Brett Myers, Jason Jennings, Alex Rios, and Brian Roberts.
'00 Aaron Heilman and Kelly Johnson
'01 Casey Kotchman, Aaron Heilman (again), Bobby Crosby, and David Wright
'02 (hold on again, this one hurts worse) BJ Upton, Zack Grienke, Prince Fielder, Jeff Francis, Joe Saunders, Kahlil Greene, Scott Kazmir, Nick Swisher, Cole Hamels, Denard Span, Jeff Francoeur, Matt Cain, Mark Teahen
'03 John Danks, Ian Stewert, Conor Jackson, Chad Cordero, Brandon Wood, Chad Billingsley, Carlos Quentin, Adam Jones and Jarrod Saltalamacchia
***(at this point you can probley say some of these guys can still turn out to be busts and others can still have potential)***
'04 Jered Weaver, Billy Butler, Stephan Drew, Josh Fields, Phillip Hughes, Houston Street
'05 Jay Bruce, Jacob Ellsbury, Matt Garza
'06 Brandon Morrow, Tim Lincecum, Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlin
'07 Matt Wieters and Phillippe Aumont
Just pathetic, i can't believe they could miss this many people. Now there are still alot of players that cannot be accounted for and maybe the pirates picks can still turn out. but for now we'll just assume that they are completely failure picks.
I just don't understand as an organization you can produce 17 years of flops and not refill your farm system during that time. Yes over the last few years they had Jason Bay, Xavier Nady, Jack Wilson, Ryan Doumit, Alexis Rameriz, Andy LaRoche, Matt Capps, Nate McClouth, Ian Snell. These guys are all ligitmate All-Stars but they have all been broken, un-encouraged or traded away for lesser prospects or players and then signed half way hacks as replacement players.
I DONT UNDERSTAND THIS... it's like Bill Bavasi was running TWO organizations at one time. Only he seemingly has run them for 17 years. I can't imagine they will be in any hunt for a Wild Card or Divison Title ANY TIME in the near future.....
this has gone on too long but .. ugh... be prepared for more later
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