Adios Raul Mondesi

All's well that ends well. Bob Smizik is right today when he notes that the Pirates are in good position to take advantage of the opportunity created by Mondesi's departure.

I wouldn't go as far as to criticize Littlefield for signing him in the first place, however. A team can never have too much depth. The Bucs rented Mondesi for a few weeks at a very reasonable cost and he helped the team win some games. There was no harm done by signing him. In hindsight it's easy to say we could have done without him but going into the season we didn't know if Kendall would be here, we didn't know if Craig Wilson would hit well enough to atone for his boneheaded defense, we didn't know if either of the second base options (Hill or Castillo) would sink or swim, we didn't know if Redman could hit enough to play center every day, and we didn't know who would play third base every day. A lot of those situations are unresolved, but some are resolved, and having that additional stability gives the Bucs the chance to platoon and tinker in the other positions. Mondesi brought some stability in a chaotic lineup.

There has to be a balance of veterans and rookies, full-timers and platoons or a "rebuilding" team is going to lose 100 or 120 games. That's not an option: there is no such thing as "losing to win," there is no heroism in losing, and losing only tends to further losing. If someone starts telling you that the Pirates can only win again by doing things with the roster that would cause them to lose 100 or 120 games, laugh in his face until he stops talking because if that's not stupid coward talk it's evil dissembling. No doubt the Cubs-loving national media thinks that losing 120 games today is the best way for the Pirates to win later. And when that debt company calls you and says you can only get rid of your debt by giving them $1000 (and thus going into more debt), double down and give them $2000 so they work twice as hard to restructure your debt.

There are other reasons to be glad Mondesi was with us. When he finally got paid, he spent a bunch of his salary on gifts for our players. So a good portion of his relatively small (by baseball standards) salary actually went to augment the relatively small (by baseball standards) salaries of the other players. That's great. I'll miss his arm too, that's for sure. When you play a bunch of close games, outfield assists are huge and provide an enormous lift for the team and the fans.

That said, I look forward to seeing what Rob Mackowiak and/or Ruben Mateo and/or J.J. Davis can do with some additional PT in the outfield.