As Smizik notes, any suspicion of such a thing has to be balanced by consideration of how stupid it would be. $250K is a bucket in the ocean when it comes to running a ball club.
My take on it is this: the Pirates’ minor-league system is crammed with quality second-tier and third-tier players. Every one of the minor-league teams made the playoffs. There’s no way the Pirates could protect all the quality players who might help a club like Detroit in a back-up or back-of-the-pen role, so why mess with the big-league roster or the overall development plan just to protect guys like Rich Thompson, whose upside is Kerry Robinson, the kind of player you can pick up any February or March for something like the minor-league minimum? It was an oversight to not protect Shelton but, with the way the Pirates are developing hitters these days - slowly, patiently - he was several years away from playing at PNC. If you put a player on the 40-man to protect him, don't you have to burn an option, or put him on waivers, to return him to the minors? After what happened with Chad Hermansen, I sympathize with efforts to preserve a player's options.
I think Smizik has been rattled by the Cubs-loving national media. Just because the beer-guzzling children at Wrigley field think Aramis Ramirez is Eric Chavez, that doesn’t mean he is Eric Chavez. Me, I can't erase the bad memories this guy seared into my mind over the last two years.
Aramis Ramirez was not the top talent in the Pirates organization when Littlefield sent him to Chicago. That’s an absurd assertion. He had one good, then one awful season, and his defense at third was miserable last year. I mean, really bad. He is not a leader, and he is not a player a team can build around. Good riddance I say. If he can live up to his mediocre potential as the sixth-best starter on the Cubs, more power to him. He couldn't do that here. The Pirates were unable to grow him as a player, and, most important, he was due $6M this year. Lofton was a two-month rental and the Bucs wanted to move him to give some playing time to Tike Redman, a quality talent the Pirates will start in centerfield this year.
Right now, it's tough to “win” trades with the Cubs and the Red Sox because they have so many fans nationally. They are the darlings of the national media. The “smart” analysts think the Red Sox can do no wrong because Bill James works for them, and the sentimental fans root for the adorable and hapless Cubs. By comparison, the Pirates have very few fans nationally. They never have and they probably never will. So, no one presents their side of the story in the national media, and no one demands it. If the fans of either team want to believe they plundered Pittsburgh, or that Pittsburgh's medical staff is incompetent, there's no defense of the Pirates. Guys like Smizik are our only line of defense and we see here what Smizik thinks of the current ownership and front office.
All that said, so long as Pittsburgh fans have patience and realize they belong to a relatively silent minority, the Pirates can work this bias in their favor. Pittsburgh teams always go farthest when they come in under the national radar. Let the Cubs and Astros and Cardinals see their home games with Pittsburgh as a chance to relax. I'm sure Mac would like that a lot.
Let’s revisit one other aspect of that Cubs trade: Bobby Hill could win that trade for Littlefield. One mediocre, uncoachable player bent on burning bridges and one two-month veteran rental for a prospect with Hill’s upside and $6M to sign other players is not that bad a trade. It's too early to say, especially since only a portion of that $6M was used to acquire Mondesi, Simon, and Stynes, players who will contribute a still-undetermined amount on the field and/or in trade. Finally, if you want to bitch about Littlefield’s record in trade with Hendry, don’t overlook the fact that he nabbed Ray Sadler, a AA centerfielder that Nate Silver’s PECOTA system compares to George Bell, George Hendrick, and Felipe Alou, for a two-month rental of Randall Simon, at the same time that he took Bobby Hill as the PTBNL.
We love spring training because, like spring itself, it is the season for renewed hope and surprisingly vigorous growth. I don’t understand why now is an appropriate time to join Cubs fans everywhere in irrational gloating about the so-called poor quality of the Ramirez/Lofton deal, and unless Smizik has evidence he is withholding about the Rule V draft, his allegations aren't productive or welcome. If the Pirates were that strapped for cash, why would they spend some of the Ramirez loot on Raul Mondesi? Why offer so much to Urbina? If they were only interested in saving money, they could have promoted Rich Thompson and Chris Shelton to the head of a line of better players and saved the money they spent on Raul Mondesi and Randall Simon.
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