Some Perspective. Maybe.

Decided to respond to DK's latest Q&A, since his comment seemed a bit silly. This is the letter I sent into him. Hoefupply I be not insane and rambling?

"It is difficult to label any franchise future-minded when it gives a 33-year-old first baseman platoon time at third with someone management was saying had a chance to be part of the future"

Normally, I would agree with you. However, you and I both know a few things here. First of all, it is definitely true that any new management team will eventually try to fill an entire organization with "their people" - from the best player in the majors to the 25th man on the roster in Hickory, and all the office positions to boot. Much can be said for proverbial clean slates, especially a long-failing team like ours.

The Pittsburgh situation is made different by the fact that the previous management filled all of the square and round holes at all of the various organizational levels with pegs that any reasonably educated baseball fan, let alone baseball employees and personnel, knew didn't really belong at that level.

I have followed this team much more closely over the last couple of years than at any other point - partly because I have become a much more educated fan. In the process of watching the team, I know that Jose Bautista was certainly, as you mentioned, miscast as an everyday player, because he simply cannot produce offensively to be considered a regular starter at any position, let alone third base, and is not defensively versatile enough to compensate.

Doug Mientkewicz wasn't brought to this team to play third base. He was brought in as a first baseman. However, the team also played him at third base and in right field, and obviously now feels that he is a more consistent - and versatile - option on offense and defense, while also having the perk of being a very passionate and vocal veteran teammate.

The fact that a 32 year old (Michaels), or a 34 year old (Mientkewicz), or a 35 year old (Chavez), or a 37 year old (Gomez), is situated on the current bench is not in any way a reflection on the new management's ability to be forward thinking, nor is that ability - or lack - reflected in a younger player not being given regular playing time over an older one.

This is simply management doing their best to fill in the cracks, the fringes of the 25 man roster, with the most versatile and inexpensive putty they can find, which just so happens - at the moment - to be low-priced, older free agents instead of any younger talent currently in the organization.

This move with Bautista is probably one that the team should have made sooner (though it was likely delayed by his homerun binge earlier this year) so that they could have him playing second base or center field and increasing his versatility, instead of running out a matt kata/josh wilson organizational filler platoon in Indy.