Does GM Dave Littlefield have a plan?

A few points come up again and again as I read the pre-season essays on the Bucs. As Matthew Namee writes over at The Hardball Times:

Does GM Dave Littlefield have a plan?

Sure doesn't seem like it. In an MLB.com chat on February 28, Littlefield said, "In general, we're looking to put a competitive club out on the field. I'm like everyone here in attendance. I want to win more games."

For truthfulness, specific detail, and candor, an MLB.com chat must rank right around an NFL coach’s Friday press conference. When a seasoned reporter asks, “How will you attack this #1 ranked defense?” he doesn’t expect the coach to photocopy the play chart and make time on Saturday to explain what all the X’s and O’s mean. He only expects some platitudes or, on occasion, some intemperate or rash comments with which to make scandal. Namee cites an MLB chat as a place where one could reasonably expect to learn about the method behind a GM’s madness, and that’s absurd or naïve or lazy or all three. I worry that Moneyball has spoiled a whole generation of baseball analysts. Never again will a GM provide such access to the plan.

Well, that's a heck of a nice goal, but his actions don't really support it. In 2001, Littlefield traded his ace, Jason Schmidt, to the Giants, and has since watched Schmidt emerge as one of the best pitchers in baseball.

First of all, the snarky tone (“that’s a heck of a nice goal”) typifies the condescension that runs throughout the essay. He pretends that he’s not enjoying it, but it’s obvious that he found a way to have some fun with the essay. It's too bad that mindless ridicule was the only way he could find.

Seriously, though: the Schmidt trade? Where to begin. First of all, Schmidt was not an ace at the trade deadline in 2001. He wasn't even "the" ace of that staff - the closest thing to an ace the Bucs had in 2001 was Todd Ritchie (who Littlefield dealt to the White Sox for Kip Wells, Sean Lowe, and Josh Fogg). Schmidt made 66 starts in 1998 and 1999, won 24 games, and broke down. He was good but not damn good. He struck out about 310 batters and walked about 155 in 430 innings - ratios that don't approach what he did last year for the Giants, the only year Schmidt has ever deserved the name "ace."

Schmidt got bombed in 2000, and in 2001, he was a fragile pitcher who seemed a bit obsessed with the number of bullets left in his gun – like maybe there weren’t too many. Like Benson more recently, Schmidt impressed me - I'm an ass for saying this, but it is frustrating to experience such loss - as a malingerer, as a player filled with fear, or as a player with more contempt for his club than respect for his teammates. (I sure hope Benson has the patience and the ability to prove me wrong.) The Bucs coaxed 14 starts from Schmidt and dealt him at the deadline. He went to the Giants and they doubled his salary to $5M per year, a price the Bucs would not pay but expected him to command.

When he dealt Jason Schmidt and John Vander Wal for Armando Rios and Ryan Vogelsong, at that same deadline Littlefield also traded Mike Williams to the Astros for Tony McKnight, and Terry Mulholland to the Dodgers for Adrian Burnside and Mike Fetters. At the time, McKnight, Burnside, and Vogelsong were decent pitching prospects. Later Burnside went to Detroit in the Randall Simon deal. As with Mike Williams in 2001, in 2003 Simon went mid-season for a prospect (this time, the promising CF Ray Sadler) before Littlefield re-signed him in the next off-season, probably hoping to deal him again. When a GM does the same thing twice, is this evidence of a plan? Maybe. It could also be coincidence.

At the deadline in 2001 the plan at the time was clear to everyone: Littlefield would rebuild around pitching. The Bucs were thrilled to get Vogelsong, and even McKnight looked promising. If the Schmidt trade still hurts the memory of most Pirates fans, you have to remember that Rios blew out his knee in his first game as a Pirate, and Vogelsong went down not much later. We also had an inflated opinion of Vander Wal's value (which reminds me, a little bit, of the high regard we now have for Craig A. Wilson). Now that Vogelsong looks ready for a #4 or #5 spot in the rotation for 2004 and 2005, it would make sense to reserve a little judgment on that trade, especially given Schmidt's fragile health. Finally, any examination of the state of the Pirates should confirm that Littlefield has remained focussed on starting pitching as the foundation of the next winning team.

Littlefield’s draft and trade strategy hasn’t changed much since 2001. What has changed is the willingness of analysts to remember it, or do their homework when it's time to revisit that subject. Anyone who can’t see a plan behind his consistent practices isn’t looking or worse, doesn’t want to see the plan in the first place.

He shipped the team's only star, Brian Giles, to the Padres last season. Those moves might make sense if Littlefield was in rebuilding mode, but he seems to think the Pirates are contenders right now.

Namee knows that financial considerations pushed Giles off the roster, so it's dishonest to cite this as though it was a trade Littlefield wanted to make. And if Oliver Perez starts 30 games in 2005, it's possible the trade won't look so bad anyway. Littlefield has signed veterans to avoid another Chad Hermansen disaster - all the veterans have bought time for the minor league players. Sanders was, I think, a good investment in J.J. Davis. Regardless of that, what is up with ridiculing a GM for talking - or acting - like his Pirates can contend right now? This is the Pittsburgh Pirates, not the Arizona Cardinals.

He keeps going out and signing the sorts of players a contending team signs to help in a push for the pennant -- veterans like Kenny Lofton, Reggie Sanders, Raul Mondesi, and Randall Simon.

Reggie Sanders had a great year and was well worth one million dollars. Lofton went in the trade that unloaded Fernando Tatis Aramis Ramirez, whose contract, attitude, and performance were not pleasant. As with Schmidt, Ramirez's status in Pittsburgh did not raise his trade value, and as with Schmidt, the team that took the Pirate looked good in the short run. Randall Simon fetched Ray Sadler; I don't know why we should complain about acquiring Simon. It remains to be seen what Mondesi will do for the club. Whatever they mean, these signings are not the damning evidence that Namee makes them out to be.

Problem is, the Pirates aren't a Mondesi away from competing; they're a Bonds plus a Prior away from competing.

This isn’t fantasy baseball we are talking about. “Stars and scrubs” kicks ass in 5x5 roto leagues, but when do we see it on the field? With the Yankees, maybe, but that lineup looks more like stars, stars, stars, and Enrique Wilson if someone is hurt. What did A-Rod do for the Rangers? OK, they didn't have a stud pitcher. Still: what team has botha Bonds and a Prior? (And how can we possibly talk about Bonds and Prior like there is more than one of each?) And what of the Marlins? Who was their Bonds? Who was their Prior? This is an thoughtless conclusion to an incompetent summary of Littlefield’s tenure.

The sooner Littlefield admits this to himself and starts behaving like the GM of a rebuilding team, the sooner the Pirates can begin the long road back to respectability.

The hubris. At least it's good for a laugh. The sooner Matthew Namee pulls his head out of his ass, and sees the Pittsburgh Pirates as a franchise that is, like all the franchises, bigger than him, the sooner he’ll have something careful, accurate, and meaningful to say about them.