Justin Morneau not an ideal fit for Pirates

I've been driving for most of the day, but I gather there's been a lot of discussion of whether the Pirates should acquire Justin Morneau.

Now, we don't know what the cost of such an acquisition would be, and pretty much any player who isn't abjectly horrible can fall into "Why not?" territory if there's space somewhere on the 25-man roster and the cost isn't great. But keep in mind that Morneau recently cleared waivers, which means that no one even wanted him for nothing if it meant they'd have to take on the $4 million or so remaining on his contract, which expires after this year. That's most of what you need to know.

Morneau is a 32-year-old, left-handed first baseman who has some power but doesn't have enough on-base ability and doesn't field well. Does that sound familiar? It should, because Morneau and Garrett Jones are virtually the same player. Jones is having a disappointing season, but there isn't much reason to expect Morneau to be better the rest of the year. And acquiring him to bump Jones to the outfield doesn't really solve any problems either.

If Morneau cost virtually nothing, then there wouldn't be any real harm in acquiring him. But I'm not sure the Pirates should be queueing up to acquire him either, given that they already have a player who's very, very similar, and the reason we're even talking about this right now is that his doppelganger hasn't been satisfactory.