Not surprised DK loves the Rolen deal, we know he loves gritty veteranosity from his infatuation with Dougie M. Just be glad he’s the beat writer and not the GM.

I read the same article and thought it was bunk.

Just a couple minutes of research would have revealed that during that span, the Reds went I believe 16-2 against our Bucs (essentially a AAA team at that point) and the ‘Stros… not exactly running the gauntlet there. I mean, didn’t DK learn anything from the years of Littlefield touting the team’s September records?

10. Focus on Pittsburgh.

Well, yeah, that’s part of the plan. Heck, that’s been the plan for two years now. Andy LaRoche and Lastings Milledge were acquired for the ML club in that timeframe; Did Kovacevic forgot about those two?

9. Stick by Jones.

More like, “Stick with Jones as long as he’s playing well and isn’t blocking anyone.” I think it’s fair to say Jones is in his prime, and he’s only an average major leaguer. If a team offers a quality prospect for Jones, the Pirates should take it. Ideally, it gives them a player who will peak along with McCutchen and Alvarez, and Jones will hit his prime with a team that could use his offense for meaningful wins.

8. Evaluate the moves.

Huntington explains that they are evaluating the moves, yet Kovacevic presents this as if it’s a novel concept. Kind of a waste of an idea for the story…

7. Find left-handed relief.

Aside from the one option listed (Beimel), does Kovacevic have anywhere else the Pirates could look? More importantly, is all of the time Kovacevic uses to look in hindsight on the Grabow deal going to help the search at all?

6. Bolster the middle.

DK does address this with the idea of moving LaRoche to 2B. It makes sense, but here’s the burning question: Who plays 3B until Alvarez is ready? If the point is to turn around the 2010 Pirates, this move doesn’t help for a while. It’s rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. (And a near-literal interpretation at that.)

5. Fix Hart and Capps.

Much easier said than done. Kerrigan may have a plan, but that doesn’t guarantee success—and it doesn’t make the idea of just “fixing” the pitchers any less of a fantasy thatn it already is.

4. Manage emotions.

So emotions are the reason the Pirates lost Miguel Sano? Not an agent with an agenda against the Pirates? (That’s not to totally excuse Huntington and Gayo, but Plummer is a complete nut. He’s baseball’s equivalent of Glenn Beck.)

3. Promote Alvarez, Lincoln.

No. Not at all. You do not sacrifice player development for PR points. Even more so, you do not choose two months of winning over a year of winning. Setting the stage for great things in 2015 is far, far more compelling of an argument than setting the stage in April and May 2010.

2. Improve individually.

Players have to emerge from nowhere and rookies have to hit the ground running? Has a team ever won with a plan that includes events like that occurring?

1. Spend.

This is something that I hear Pittsburgh sports fans say all the time about the Pirates. It’s a nice idea in concept, but the past has shown it to be an absolute failure. Let’s take a trip back in time, long long ago…

…To the era of Howard Baldwin. While owner of the Penguins, he would dump money into the team when he didn’t have the money, and the team kept sinking further and further in red ink until the team declared bankruptcy. Returning to the present…

…What does this have to do with the Pirates? Well, if the team were to just spend, as Kovacevic (and many others) think the Pirates should do, the same thing would happen to the Pirates as it did the Penguins. The Pirates would be deep in debt, and when the time would come to sign McCutchen or Alvarez to a big extension, there wouldn’t be any money to spend.

I know a lot of people out there think the Pirates can just spend their way out of this, but it’s not anywhere near that easy. And articles like this aren’t going to enlighten anybody about the process that the Pirates are faced with taking to build a winning organization.

You could look at the flip side — maybe the Reds were more concerned with presenting a Littlefield style approach to marketing the team for 2010 and they hard sell their late season meaningless success. Rolen shows they’re serious about upgrading talent, maybe they sign an Ankiel or Nady in the offseason, and the idiot contingency of Reds fans buys into it for 2010. Keep in mind many of their fans also root for the Bengals.

Why is everyone so concerned with Nutting’s $$? I’d be more pissed if he pulled the kind of s@#! the Lerners pulled in not signing Crow, then nearly cheaping out on the Strasburg pick, and then using the supplemental pick for Crow on an awful signability pick reminiscent of Moskos. The Pirates are spending money in the right places now. Reaching for 70 wins is just throwing good money after bad.

A piece or two that would help in 2010 would be OK, but let’s not get our hopes up that it will be any major impact. All of the potential FA signees mentioned have serious flaws and would represent risk. The only justification for signing them is if you have no other MLB viable in-house option. Johnson would not be a good 1B option, but he could be better than Pearce or Clement if Jones stays in RF. Ankiel or Nady could be upgrades over Moss if Jones is at 1B. None of these scenarios is worth getting excited about for 2010.

paying for veteranopsity for ONE reason, and one reason only, and under these circumstances:

1. The Pirates were in serious position to contend with a bunch of kids and the likelihood of making the playoffs was good.

2. The veteran player was a veteran CHAMPIONSHIP player, a guy who had been on playoff and World Series teams and knew what the atmosphere and pressure were like, and could convey that to his teammates, none of whom would know.

Otherwise: No.

I wonder if in Dejan’s mind, “veteran presence” = good quotes and funny stories for the press. I always suggest my bosses make anything that makes my job easier a high priority too.

Do we not have that already with Chuck Tanner, Maz, Teke and a few others hanging around the park?

I didn’t take his comment that’s the subject of charlie’s post to mean he wanted NH to go all Littlefield on our arses. I think he just wants to see some commitment to the big team; I see nothing wrong with that.

IMO, there’s no reason to go out to the fourth decimal point on the Rolen comparison. For one thing, there’s only one scott rolen; what he brings in terms of talent, injury history, quality as a teammate and mentor, etc., are all unique. So, whoever the Pirates might get, it won’t be Rolen. It will be someone else unique.

But that said, unless charlie has some insight the rest of us aren’t privy to, we have no idea what kind of impact Rolen’s had on the reds (the same is true perhaps of DK, though he’s at least in a position to ask Reds players and we’re not). As for Rolen being a whiner – it’s entirely possible he comes across that way in the press but inside the locker room he’s someone young players gravitate to, and pattern themselves after. None of us know, but that’s not really the point, which is:

There’s no reason to dismiss the idea of veteran leadership based solely on Pirate experience. Two examples – Terry Pendleton and Casey Blake come to mind immediately. I have no first hand knowledge of either’s actual impact, but much was written about Pendleton’s leadership on the worst to first Braves in 91 (and beyond); meanwhile, I’ve read and heard that younger dodgers like Kemp and Ethier follow Blake around like puppies because of the force of his personality and the way he conducts himself as a ballplayer (meaning, to a large degree preparation and approach).

I mean, think about it people; the idea of a strong leader is not something totally unheard of. Nor is its potential impact. I think that’s all DK was going for. We have a lot of young players NOW who might benefit by having a veteran starter – not a bench guy like minky – who goes about things the right way, sets the right tone (as opposed to say, Jason Kendall and Brian Giles making Jack Wilson miserable because of his misaligned teeth). I can’t definitely make the case that veteran leadership is absolutely necessary, but I wouldn’t ridicule someone who took that position.

As for the man himself, I’ve found DK to be highly responsive when I’ve emailed with questions and, yes, criticisms. Unlike the vast majority of media people, he has an elephant-thick skin and his responses to criticism are never pissy or defensive. It’s also not uncommon for him to link to blog posts that criticize or disagree with him. I have a lot of respect for DK.

we’ve fallen apart the last 2 years after we dealt our “veterans”

Because 90% of it is arguing with things that DK did not say and that we know he doesn’t believe.

For example, Charlie spends a couple paragraphs talking about the Rolen trade even though DK is clearly talking about FA signing – Charlie’s trade discussion (“don’t trade Rudy Owens for Scott Rolen!” Uh, OK, Charlie, we won’t) is no more relevant than talking about Skylab.

Then there’s the presumption that DK must be swirly-eyed over veteranosity and team chemistry, when not a chat goes by without him saying the opposite. Take an example from, oh, I dunno, August 2, 2007, when he said

Oh, man, more on the team’s mental state … It remains amazing to me the percentage of mail I get about what the team is thinking or believing or doing off the diamond.

If one were to make a real list of the Pirates’ top 100 problems, individually or as a group, the team’s mental state, individually or as a group, should not be on it.

At the player level: They need to hit. They need to pitch. They need to defend better. They need to run the bases better.

At the upper management level: They need to invest their money more wisely. They need to invest more money than they do, in general. They need to take the money they burn on older players and infuse it into real competition for real talent in Latin America. They need to draft the best player available. They need to make trades that bring high-ceiling prospects into the system, even if that means Class A guys, rather than run-of-the-mill Class AAA major-league-ready types.

At the manager and coaching staff level: They need to establish that players who do not perform or put up an acceptable effort will not play. They need to refine the fundamentals. They need to take more chances with the offense. They need to put their best hitters atop the order. They need to use their best relievers in the toughest situations, no matter the inning.

This could go on forever. You get the point, I hope.

It’s completely obvious that DK understands what needs to be done to fix the team, and that it has little or nothing to do with veteran presence, but here come the dozens of lectures explaining to him things that he’s already written (literally) hundreds of times.

Now, it’s not a great piece – he doesn’t develop his arguments much, and he leaves himself somewhat open to these misinterpretations – from people who haven’t read what he’s been writing for five fucking years. Come on, people. I know you hate Nutting Hostage, but let’s not pretend that DK is NuHo.

I’m all for spending some money on a right fielder until Tabata is ready to rock and roll as long as they don’t give any prospects away. That person should be signed as a free agent (no type A’s) and then they can be used to trade for more prospects when Tabata is ready to step in.

The Pirates would have to pay a small premium for that player, but we’ve seen when players like Freddy have large options that large market teams don’t necessarily balk at that.

IMO, They should target solid slightly above average players like Marlon Byrd. The Pirates should never get high impact players like Matt Holliday in free agency. Those will always have to come internally.

Ankiel might be worth the risk. He was hurt all year this year, but the way he plays is similar to Rusty Greer, and he eventually flung himself into enough walls to permanently put himself out of action.

Byrd has been very consistent the last 3 years.