All hail Kovacevic

It must be hard to be so right all the time. I'm not being sarcastic or ironic.

He does a little bit of everything in this week's Q & A. This is especially good:

An analysis of most successful teams would indicate that [what] the Pirates should be doing at this stage with extra money is setting it aside to ensure they can keep at least some of their young talent down the road. That is doubly true of those that do not spend much.

Also his observation that the team would strip down expenses prior to any sale.

The fan's worst nightmare would be this. Littlefield has been setting aside money to retain the worthy past their arbitration years. The team is sold, Littlefield is fired, and the new owners pocket the Jason Bay savings account.

I'm not rooting for a change in ownership for more or less just that reason. Littlefield strikes me as competent. I'd rather see him be the GM for the next ten years than see a new ownership haul in some new guy who will make his own rookie GM errors. Some internet writers are fond of licking the boots of guys like Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta, but I doubt they are really much better at what they do than Littlefield. There are some incompetent GMs. We all know that. But the differences between the competent ones are exaggerated, in my humble opinion. All they need is a reasonable plan, the patience to execute it, and the ability to hire other competent people.