I'm inclined to take Littlefield's side of this. We expect the players to try hard; they don't get points for that. Wells has not been the ace this year. You are what you are, as Tony LaRussa says (I think that's a LaRussa line), and the players have to be mature about it. No one is attacking his character or questioning his heart if he says the Pirates need to get more out of their ace if they are going to win a championship.
That said, Littlefield has been pretty blunt in his assessment of the team as lacking. I read those comments as putting some spine in his demands for particular kinds of players: we need them, he's saying, we have to have them. They are a lot like the comments Jim Duquette made about not trading his "first-born son": you can't have them, he said, we won't give them to you. Littlefield can't expect the players to go along with whatever stance he's taking as he negotiates with other GMs for the best players he can get. These guys are living in the moment and no team can roll like this without believing they could beat up some teams in the playoffs.
High emotion is good when the team is winning. More fuel for the right kind of fire.
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