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In case you missed it earlier tonight, the Pirates appear open to trading Justin Wilson. The Nationals, who need lefty relief help, already seem to be interested.
Relief pitchers are fungible, so if the Pirates can deal Wilson and get help at another position, trading him might make sense. (Baseball bloggers have to type the words "relief pitchers are fungible" at least eight times a year. It's in our contracts.) I'm also not sold on the idea that Wilson should transition back to starting, since he had significant control problems in the minors. So what the Bucs are left with is a good, controllable, hard-throwing lefty bullpen arm. That has value, but if Neal Huntington thinks he can walk down to the ol' relief pitchin' tree, as he's done many times before, and pick another fruit off the branch, you can hardly blame him for taking advantage if his next-door neighbor really, really wants one of the apples in his kitchen. That's a bad metaphor, but I wrote something like 20 posts for MLBTR tonight and I'm exhausted.
