Pirates continue ghetto party

Dejan Kovacevic has this long report today about the Pirates' strategery for winter meetings.

I do not understand the hang-up, if genuine, about Adam Dunn's strikeouts. He has a career OBP of .380. He gets on base, so there's little reason to be concerned about the low batting average or the strikeouts. He hits for tremendous power. What's not to like?

As for the Pirates having a lot of strikeouts in 2006, the team leader was Jason Bay. Because we have Jason Bay, we can't have Adam Dunn? Uh, that can't be called "reasoning." After Bay, the strikeouts came mainly from Tweedledee (Craig Wilson), Tweedledum (Jose Bautista), and Tweedledummer (Jose Castillo). There's no indication that the Pirates are building around either one of those clowns. Paulino is here to stay, but Burnitz and Duffy, also big-time strikeouters, are gone or show little to no promise of being an asset next April. To say the Pirates already "have" lots of strikeouts is bit like saying the Pirates already have little to no hitting talent on the roster. Because we have no hitting talent, we cannot acquire hitting talent?

Let's be clear about this. The Pirates have, more or less, nothing in the hitting department. Nothing! Jason Bay and an 850-OPS third baseman who rarely strikes out. There's nothing else of much consequence or impact. Adam Dunn or any of those guys Kovacevic names are something; any one of those guys would become the team's best or second-best hitter.

So the talk about whether or not this or that hitter "matches" the team's current roster is silly. It's like the Pirates have a big empty loft with two pieces of quality furniture. The rest of the room is filled with hand-me-down junk and stuff picked up from the curb. In this setting, why cavil about whether or not Adam Dunn "matches" the existing decor? The existing decor is terrible. If the addition of Dunn or some other high-quality slugger makes the curtains look shabby, you can't blame the good stuff for that contrast.

Unless you love to live in squalor. If this is the case, you punctuate your half-baked rants on acquiring major-league hitters with a piss in the corner and a compliment for the curtains, which really aren't half bad considering they were free.

It's been Down and Out in PNC Park for many years; why should we expect change? I predict the Pirates mumble something about making some high-impact moves. And then do nothing or little. Real sluggers are expensive. Cardboard boxes are free, and they actually look good in what dirty light filters through the high-strikeout curtains.