I've read plenty of comments from trollers over the last few days about how all of the Pirates' moves are salary dumps, and will kill the team, so I just wanted to do an analysis of all the major trades that Neal Huntington's made in his tenure as GM, to see how they've all actually worked out.

1. July 26th, 2008: Pirates trade Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte to the New York Yankees for Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, Dan McCutchen, and Jose Tabata.

How it's worked out for the Yankees: Nady's played a grand total of 66 games for the Yankees, batting about .270, 60 points lower than he was hitting with the Pirates last season before he was traded, and has been on the DL since mid-April needing Tommy John surgery. Marte has pitched a grand total of 32 games for the Yankees, with an ERA of 7.60, 4.1 higher than he had with the Pirates last season before he was traded, and has been on the DL since late April with left shoulder tendinitis.

How it's worked out for us: Ohlendorf has started 25 games for us, with an ERA of 4.81, 1.7 lower than he had with the Yankees last year before the trade. Karstens has started 19 games for us, and pitched an additional 16 games in relief, with an ERA of 4.26, as well as a near-perfect game last August against the Diamondbacks. McCutchen has had a solid year this year at Indy, going 10-6 with an ERA of 3.78. Tabata was promoted just yesterday to Indy after a solid stint at Altoona batting .303, and is one of the top 75 prospects in baseball.

Result: Huge win for the Pirates

2. July 31st, 2008: Pirates trade Jason Bay to the Boston Red Sox for Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen from the Red Sox, and Andly LaRoche and Bryan Morris from the LA Dodgers.

How it's worked out for the Red Sox: Bay's played 99 games for the Red Sox so far this season, just 7 fewer than he had with the Pirates last year before the trade. In these relatively same amounts of games, Bay has 10 more RBI's and 2 fewer homers batting in a much more potent lineup (although he could easily hit those 2 homers in the next 7 games to equal last year with us), and has 23 fewer hits, and a batting average that is 32 points lower.

How it's worked out for us: LaRoche has played 97 games for the Pirates this year, batting .256 with 37 RBIs. Moss has played 83 games for us this year, batting .250 with 27 RBI's. Hansen has been on the 60-day DL since April with nech spasms, and pitched poorly in 5 appearances for the Pirates with a 5.68 ERA. Morris has pitched poorly at Class-A Lynchburg this year, with a 5.70 ERA in 9 starts.

Result: Overall loss for the Pirates

3. April 15th, 2009: Pirates trade 2 players to be named later/cash considerations to the LA Dodgers for Delwyn Young

How it's worked out for the Dodgers: I could only find out one of the 2 PTBNL's online, and that was Eric Krebs, who has a 3.14 ERA this year at the Dodgers' class A+ affiliate. No idea who the other PTBNL was.

How it's worked out for us: In 71 games for the Pirates this year, Young's done a great job in somewhat limited time, batting .316 with 24 RBI's.

Result: A seemingly insignificant acquisition at the time it was made, but it's paid fairly big dividends for the Pirates.

4. June 3rd, 2009: Pirates trade Nate McLouth to the Atlanta Braves for Jeff Locke, Charlie Morton and Gorkys Hernandez

How it's worked out for the Braves: In an exactly equal number of games as he played here this season, McLouth has done a fair job for the Braves, batting .265 (9 points higher than he had here this season), with 6 homers (3 fewer than he had here), and 19 RBI's (15 fewer than he had here). Batting leadoff in Atlanta as opposed to 3rd here is the main reason for the dramatic reduction in RBI's.

How it's worked out for us: Morton's been solid for the Pirates overall, going 2-3, but with a 3.72 ERA in 8 starts. Hernandez  has done a fair job this year for us at AA Altoona, batting .249, but is the 62nd-ranked prospect in baseball. Locke has struggled at Lynchburg, going 1-4 so far with a 5.31 ERA. The trade also enabled us to promote Andrew McCutchen from Indy, who's been solid with the Pirates so far.

Result: Right now about even, although that could change depending on the development of Hernandez and Locke.

The remainder of the trades occurred within the last month or so, so it's really to soon to tell how they will work out.

5. June 30th, 2009: Pirates trade Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett to the Washington Nationals for Joel Hanrahan and Lastings Milledge

How it's worked out for the Nationals: Morgan has been excellent for Washington, batting over .400 with a 77.78% stealing percentage. Burnett has a 0.75 ERA with the Nationals, and has 1 Hold and 1 Blown Save.

How it's worked out for us: Hanrahan has a 3.00 ERA with the Pirates, and 1 Hold. Milledge was rehabbing a hand injury, but was excellent at Indy, with a .333 batting average in 17 games, and was recalled to the Pirates on Wednesday,

Result: As Milledge hasn't played for the Pirates yet, it's too soon to tell the impact of this trade.

6. July 22nd, 2009: Pirates trade Adam LaRoche to the Boston Red Sox for Argenis Diaz and Hunter Strickland.

How it's worked out for the Red Sox: LaRoche has batted .263 with 1 homer and 3 RBI's in 6 games.

How it's worked out for us: Diaz is batting .286 in 6 games at Indy. Strickland is 1-0 at West Virginia with 6 shutout innings.

Result: Happened just last week. WAY too soon to tell.

7. July 29th, 2009: Pirates trade Jack Wilson and Ian Snell to the Seattle Mariners for Jeff Clement, Ronny Cedeno, Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock.

What the Mariners are getting: Wilson's an average hitter who's a spectacular defensive shortstop and makes plays time and again. Snell has talent, but just lost it this year, even admitting he contemplated suicide and was demoted to AAA. He dominated AAA hitting before the trade.

What we're getting: Cedeno's a defensive specialist who can play multiple positions. Clement was the 3rd overall draft pick in 2005, hit .237 in 75 games with Seattle the last 2 seasons, but was hitting .288 this year at their AAA affiliate. Pribanic was 7-6 with a 3.21 ERA at Seatte's Single-A affiliate. Adcock was 5-7 with a 5.29 ERA at Seattles A+ affiliate. Lorin was 5-4 with a 2.44 ERA at Seattle's Single-A affiliate.

8. July 29th, 2009: Pirates trade Freddy Sanchez to the San Francisco Giants for Tim Alderson.

What the Giants are getting: Freddy's a former batting champ and a solid defender, but has had naggin injury issues the last few years, and will be a free agent this offseason unless his 600-AB option vests.

What the Pirates are getting: Alderson was ranked the 4th best prospect in the Giants' system, the 9th best RH pitching prospect in the country, and the 45th overall prospect in the league.

9. July 30th, 2009: Pirates trade John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny to the Chicago Cubs for Kevin Hart, Jose Ascanio and Josh Harrison.

What the Cubs are getting: Grabow's a solid lefty reliever who has a knack for preventing inherited runners from scoring. Gorzelanny won 14 games in 2007, but was apparently overworked and hasn't been the same since, although he had shown signs of progress this year at Indy.

What the Pirates are getting: Hart pitched just yesterday for the Cubs against Houston, throwing a quality start (albeit barely), and getting the win. Ascanio was 2-4 with a 3.16 ERA at the Cubs' AAA affiliate, but has struggled somewhat at the major league level so far. Harrison is a speedy middle infielder who's batting .286 at the Cubs A+ affiliate this year, with 10 steals and only 1 caught stealing.

Although we can't judge the final 5 trades on this list as it's too soon to be able to judge their impact, 2, possibly 3 of the first 4 trades have turned out better for the Pirates than the team they traded with. That's a 66 or 75% success rate, something I'll gladly take compared to Dave Littlefield's success rate when it came to trades and Free Agent signings. Yes, all of  these trades have saved us a lot of money, but they're not straight-up salary dumps, as some people are inclined to say.

Sorry for making this so long, I just had a fair bit of time on my hands, and wanted to put some actual statistics together to try and scare away the trolls who've been coming here so often the last few days.