Justin Morneau Is a Pirate

Here is what yesterday's Pirate trade for Justin Morneau - and the trade earlier in the week for Marlon Byrd and John Buck - means.  

It means....

• ...that the Front Office has lived up on it's promise to do what needs to be done once all of the building blocks were put in place in the franchise infrastructure
• ...that Bob Nutting opened up his wallet and spent money, significant money in the case of Morneau, to put the pieces in place for a serious post-season run
• ...that maybe, just maybe, Neal Huntington has been right all along in his "plan" to make the Pirates a contender (and regular readers know that The Grandstander has been a huge NHR critic in the past)
• ... that in terms of the 2013 season, Nutting, Coonelly, and Huntington have done their jobs
• ...that the Front Office has given Clint Hurdle, to the largest extent possible, the tools he needs to succeed
• ...that it is now up to the players on the field to finish the job

So, I would suggest that everyone quit bitching about the timing of these trades ("should have done it on July 31") and just enjoy these last 28 games of the season.  Wait until the World Series is over to fire up the Hot Stove and put Nutting, Coonelly, Huntington, and Hurdle on the griddle.

Right now, there is a pennant race to enjoy. 

The Big Announcement from Captain Nuts

It's hard to come up with words for Bob Nutting's (aka, Captain Nuts, Commander of the Ship of Fools) big announcement this week, which, in true Pirates fashion, was made on the same day that America was going about electing a President, no doubt hoping that it would be lost in the shuffle.  Dejan Kovacevic, Bob Simizik, and others have written some great stuff on this, but the best analysis I've seen came in Gene Collier's column this morning, and I recommend it highly:

 http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/gene-collier/whole-lot-of-nothing-from-nutting-661133/

Read the whole column, by all means, but I cannot resist printing one paragraph here.  What a terrific metaphor:

Huntington took the car keys from Nutting near the end of 2007, drove a junky 68-win team down into a 57-105 ditch three years later and has now steered teams cruising toward the postseason hard into the guard rails in consecutive summers.

I wish I could write like that.

If I Was Bob Nutting....

....here is the VERY FIRST question that I would ask Frank, Neal, and Clint as I begin my "investigation" into the second half collapse of 2012 that not only duplicated, but eclipsed the second half collapse of 2011.

"Well, FrankNealClint," I would begin, "you know how we are always bragging about how we have built up the farm system, how we have established that baseball academy in the Dominican Republic, and, most of all, how we have been so aggressive in paying above slot signing bonuses for our draft choices?  Tell me, please, what have I, Bob Nutting, and it is MY  money that you have been spending here on MY team, gotten for all this money of MINE that YOU have spent?"

We can bitch all we want about Bob Nutting, but I think that he does have a right to ask that question, don't you?

Of course, if FrankNealClint point out the ever increasing amounts of cash coming into Nutting's coffers, maybe that will be OK for old Bob.  If he cares about winning as much as he says he does, then maybe the answer to that question might lead to something, anything, happening that might improve the lot of this ball club.

Or, maybe not.