<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14620803#post14620803 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Mitsuko
The team is so desperate they signed two winners from a game show in India. Did anyone else see that?
For what they signed them for, I can't say it wasn't a bad gamble. You figure, people may have laughed at the first players signed from the Dominican Republic at one point too...now look at them.
"The Pirates problem reaches back to their minor league system. They simply take too long moving players through their system. Teams without big budgets can't afford to go out and purchase top "MLB proven" talent. So they need to rely on a constant crop of young talent moving through their system.
I don't know how their farm teams fared last year, but they used to win their divisions or finish near the top every year. Sure having successful farm teams is nice, and it says something about the talent you have in your system... but wouldn't you rather have a .500 farm team and a winning pro club?"
This is part of the problem, but not the whole thing by any means. One of the things that the Rays had so much success with was drafting top tier talent with their high 1st round picks, and then signing them. The Pirates have always been afraid to take the risk, since high round talent means high round money, so they took guys who would've normally fallen into the 20's, paid them accordingly, then sat around scratching their heads when it didn't pan out. The trades that Littlefield made were sometimes head scratchers too...anyone remember the Aramis Ramirez for Bobby Hill deal? Who's Bobby Hill you may ask? Exactly. Of course, how can you be competitive in a league where your team makes less than 1/6th of the New York Yankees. A-rod and CC Sabethia make more than the entire Pirates team by a pretty fair margin. Of course, they could probably beat the Pirates by themselves with the other 7 guys sitting in the dugout, so maybe they're worth the money.
