How 'bout them Giants?

[W3WN]

Speaking of the Pirates, what happened in the second half?

Officially, nobody knows. The team owner (Bob Nutting) has promised a "thorough investigation" and promises "it won't happen again." Of course, that's what they said last year.

My guess is that when other teams improved at the non-waiver trade deadline, the Pirates essentially tread water. Some of the moves are questionable from the standpoint of trying to win a pennant... but their goal wasn't to win the pennant. At least, that wasn't the front office's goal. Their goal was to put players under long term contract, ie, get them cheap.

What was supposed to be their big acquisition, Wandy Rodriguez, fell flat on his face at first... though to be fair, I think he was trying too hard to impress everyone. And in the course of things, they gave up a starter who should not have been relegated to the bullpen, and was (Brad Lincoln), and sent their most effective starter for the previous month there as well (Kevin Correia) -- which has guaranteed that as a free agent, he's looking elsewhere.

Come the end of August, it became pretty clear that the front office had written off the season, and they spent too much of September trying out players for next year's team, instead of trying to win a few games. So even though the #2 Wild Card was there for the taking, they took a pass instead. And since the front office didn't care about whether or not the team made .500 or better this year... and they've been saying as much... well, the rest is pretty obvious.

On top of everything else, we have ANOTHER price hike for our season tickets for next year, AND we just found out that our rep forgot to tell us about a "pick your seats" event, so our current seats may have been reallocated to someone else. They should be glad my wife doesn't care as long as we get tickets; if it were up to me, I'd tell them to go to hell.

[VE3FMC]

They came back from near-elimination twice during the playoffs then swept the much-favored Tigers four games straight.

That was an impressive display of pitching during the World Series. They held the Tigers at bay with strong starters and some awesome bull pen relief. Well deserved win by the Giants.

[NQ6U]

That was an impressive display of pitching during the World Series. They held the Tigers at bay with strong starters and some awesome bull pen relief. Well deserved win by the Giants.

Great pitching and a damned lot of excellent defense left no doubt about which was the better team in this year's World Series.

[WX7P]

Great pitching and a damned lot of excellent defense left no doubt about which was the better team in this year's World Series.

Totally. Pitching and defense beats power hitters any day. Take that, W1GUH. (He'll probably whine about being "attacked"- deal with it Paul, your guys lost) Seriously, the Gigantes have an incredibly selfless approach to pitching. Tim Lincecum put his pride away and pitched incredible relief. Barry Zito stepped up (finally) and showed what he's worth. Barry was finally worth his 18 million. Lincecum is the first baseball player in a long time (since Jim Bouton and Joe Rudi) that I always root for. Gregor Blanco was phenomenal in left field. Did you see that potential wild pitch that Buster Posey caught? Brandon Crawford was equally great despite that one error. I was hoping for another Bay Bridge World Series, but maybe next year.

[WX7P]

Officially, nobody knows. The team owner (Bob Nutting) has promised a "thorough investigation" and promises "it won't happen again." Of course, that's what they said last year.

My guess is that when other teams improved at the non-waiver trade deadline, the Pirates essentially tread water. Some of the moves are questionable from the standpoint of trying to win a pennant... but their goal wasn't to win the pennant. At least, that wasn't the front office's goal. Their goal was to put players under long term contract, ie, get them cheap.

What was supposed to be their big acquisition, Wandy Rodriguez, fell flat on his face at first... though to be fair, I think he was trying too hard to impress everyone. And in the course of things, they gave up a starter who should not have been relegated to the bullpen, and was (Brad Lincoln), and sent their most effective starter for the previous month there as well (Kevin Correia) -- which has guaranteed that as a free agent, he's looking elsewhere.

Come the end of August, it became pretty clear that the front office had written off the season, and they spent too much of September trying out players for next year's team, instead of trying to win a few games. So even though the #2 Wild Card was there for the taking, they took a pass instead. And since the front office didn't care about whether or not the team made .500 or better this year... and they've been saying as much... well, the rest is pretty obvious.

On top of everything else, we have ANOTHER price hike for our season tickets for next year, AND we just found out that our rep forgot to tell us about a "pick your seats" event, so our current seats may have been reallocated to someone else. They should be glad my wife doesn't care as long as we get tickets; if it were up to me, I'd tell them to go to hell.

Your guys need to find a Billy Beane.

I think the biggest problem with the Pirates is they spend WAY too much on marginal players and don't spend what they should on the farm system.

Good Grief, remember the Jay Bell contract? What an albatross that was. Or Jason Kendall, at least they were able to dump that contract on the A's. It's those kind of things that kill a franchise. It's the same problem in KC with their Gil Meche fiasco and others.

I think a well managed franchise needs to NOT spend big money on middling players and develop the farm system. A team like Pittsburg, or Oakland for that matter is never going to spend it's way to the top on crappy talent. The A's spend their money wisely and have a great farm system.

[W3WN]

It is clear that the philosophy of the ownership of the Pirates is to turn a profit. On the cheap. Regardless of the on-field results. It's how they run their newspaper chain for decades, and it's how they've run their resort (Seven Springs) since they took it over a few years ago.

Nothing will change with the Nutting family in charge. And they don't plan on selling.