Today was one heck of a busy day for the Bucs as a whirlwind of activity came and went in what was a matter of hours, and this is without the game that happened as well.
The long await trade of Jack Wilson finally happened, and when it did, I almost did not believe that it actually happened. I really never though that he would ever get traded, let alone be included in the same deal as Ian Snell. If that was not enough excitement, shortly after the Pirates extra inning loss, they announced the trade of Freddy Sanchez to San Francisco.
First the Seattle deal. I cannot believe that we got a great quantity and a decent amount of quality for both Wilson and Snell. It was no secret that we were not going to bring Jack Wilson back, so any team knows that he is not valued all that much and is going to essentially be a rental player. Ian Snell as well is known by many around the game, that the prospect of him ever wearing black and gold again were extremely remote. We then traded away these two devalued quantities and got a pretty good return.
Jeff Clement is the short term key, as he will go to AAA to work at firstbase, and will more than likely be the future at first base. He brings something that is sorely lacking in Pittsburgh, some pop from the left side. Pitcher Brett Lorin may be the most exciting as he is a young live arm that has a good deal of potential. The other pitchers in the deal, Nathan Adcock and Aaron Pribanic also bring a great deal of potential with them as live arms in the lower minors.
Immediately we will see Ronny Cedeno, who may be familiar to many as he was a Cub for a few years. Cedeno will fill in for Jack Wilson, at least for the rest of the season, but may if he plays well, stick around. As a stop gap we could do a lot worse than Cedeno.
The Sanchez trade came quick and brought top pitching prospect Tim Alderson. Rated number 4 by Baseball America in the Giants system, Alderson will go to Altoona, a short trip from Pittsburgh. He is a big, tall, young righty with plenty of upside and is perhaps the gem of the trades on the day.
On top of all of these new acquisitions, Dejan is reporting that there are strong indications that Lastings Milledge will get called up for Friday and will man left field with Garrett Jones taking over in right. Delwyn Young will move to second base.
With these trades anyone not paying attention will now surely know that the Pirates are rebuilding and doing so quickly. Huntington has essentially replaced the entire starting nine from when he took over. Ryan Doumit is the only hold over, though he was splitting time with Ronny Paulino at the time.
Only time will tell if these trades are going to end up making the Pirates better, though at first blush, I must say that they look good to me. We took three players that were decided to not be a part of our future and made them into two that will likely help now or soon, and 4 that will help down the line. All of them have some sort of pedigree and I feel pretty happy about all of the new Pirates.
I also want to say that in trading Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez, we lose two players that played the game the correct way. Regardless of how you thought they performed they played it the right way and were model players off the field. Hopefully the current Pirates and the new guys can take that lesson from them.
I am sure I'll have more once I get time to get caught up, but right now it is overwhelming.
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