Looking Into the Future

The new broke today that the Pirates are leaning towards not picking up the option for Paul Maholm for next season, not wanting to spend $9.75 million for his services. Nothing has been made official as of yet, but it appears they have at least told Maholm of this fact.

Maholm will then hit the free agent market to see what he can get in free agency. Whether he gives the Pirates another shot to sign him, is another matter all together.

Not brining back Maholm leaves a fairly sizable hole in the rotation. He has been the anchor for sometime and not brining him back signals one of two things: one, the Pirates think that they can perhaps bring in someone better or they think that they can have someone in house replace him.

As we witnessed last season, the Pirates are not very good at luring valuable free agent talent to Pittsburgh. Their best signing was in getting replacement level All-Star Kevin Correia to come to Pittsburgh. Maholm is more than replacement level.

In house there really is no one that is ready to step up. Sure there are tons of arms that they would like to get innings, but no one is ready to replace Maholm, not even the men who were in the rotation is a sure thing to take a step forward.

But in reality the decision to not bring back Maholm is simply that they want to bring in some of the younger arms. With Maholm they would not have a rotation spot to take, with him gone Rudy Owens, Jeff Locke and others have a spot to compete for.

Like it or not the Pirates are perhaps again not improving for next year, but are perhaps again looking to improve down the line.