Expected to dangle Mesa

Today the Chicago Sun-Times, reviewing the sadness that is the Cubs' bullpen, informs us:

Getting a quality closer in a trade won't happen before late June. And by then, there will be long lines in front of the few teams willing to deal. The Pittsburgh Pirates are expected to dangle closer Jose Mesa, but they won't get serious until right before the July 31 trade deadline.

Why are the Bucs expected to dangle Mesa? My guess is this: every year, in recent memory, the Bucs have dangled someone and thus turned July into the end of the season. Pirate fans have been somewhat cool with that since the Steelers start play in August. We will cooperate, more or less, with end-it-in-July gambits.

But not this year, I hope. We're stuffed to the gills with prospects. If anything, I'd like to see the Bucs trade not for prospects but for one of the arb-eligible guys teams often want to deal to make room for some hotshot minor-leaguer.

We know the team is about $5M under budget for the 2005 payroll. The GM swore he wasn't going to use that money on anything but the 2005 team. Bucco bloggers and off-season internet-talking fans were generally pleased when he failed to "blow" that money on what we regarded as bottom-of-the-barrel free agents like Jeromy Burnitz, Juan Encarnacion, and Charles Johnson. The Bucs should target a guy like Lyle Overbay. Not Overbay - we don't want to help out an NL Central rival - but someone like that, who has proven he can play at a high level, who stands to be dumped by his team because he'll make fairly large raises in arbitration.

Who should we deal to acquire players at the deadline? Prospects. Pitching prospects. We don't need all those young guys. If we deal one or two to get a legitimate starter for the rest of '05 and '06 - someone with a much more impressive resume than Ty Wigginton had when we acquired him - we will still have a lot of pitching prospects. And since they are lousy percentage plays, it would help to diversify the teams' holdings. Young pitchers are high-risk, high-reward holdings; we need a low-risk, high-reward player. He will be relatively well paid, but we can afford it.

One other thing about dealing Mesa: has he not sworn up and down that he would retire if the Pirates trade him? I expect we will continue to see beat reporters for other clubs proceeding with the assumption that the Bucs will be eager to deal anyone who is good and making more than minimum. If Littlefield plays his cards right, he could pull off a national PR coup with a dramatic appearance on the trading market as a buyer. I root for such things because I think the Bucs will sell out more home games when they have another team that makes the playoffs two or three years in a row. As the Cubs will tell you, there are bargains to be had in late July, and the Bucs are poised to take advantage.