Some Draft (and other) Thoughts

Before everyone goes all "Same old Pirates" on you, let's consider for a second that Tony Sanchez is universally considered to be the best college catcher in an admittedly much weaker draft than last year, and someone who by all accounts should contribute at the major league level within three years. This is not a situation where the Pirates passed up someone like super-mega-phenom Matt Wieters with a pick like Danny Moskos. They chose a bona fide prospect at a position higher than he probably should have gone. Keith Law's thoughts are (as usual) pretty accurate on this matter.

There's also some criticism being leveled by various sources regarding the Pirates being constrained by budgetary concerns, and wanting to conserve some money on their first round pick (again, in an admittedly weak draft), so that they can spend more money to sign other picks. This would seem to me to be sound business strategy, since the Pirates are short on minor league talent, and would do well by themselves to try and sign as many of their draftees as possible. However, it seems as though many fail to recognize the fact that the Pittsburgh are in fact a business venture. EVERY SINGLE TEAM IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL HAS A DRAFT BUDGET. I believe the Pirates spent more money last year in the draft than just about every other team, yet you still hear the same complaining that the club doesn't want to open its checkbook even before the draft and signing period are over. Can we at least wait to see what happens before we pass judgment? Please?

Part of my whining here stems back to the McLouth trade, so I should probably be a little more open about my motivation here: I'm sick of the constant complaining about the Pirates. I've been a fan of this team as long as I've been alive. I hated Dave Littlefield as much as the rest of you, and I've watched as my favorite baseball team was basically bludgeoned to death over the last decade and a half just as much as you have. I get why the vast majority of the people who follow this team are frustrated, and I get that there is a certain "guilty until proven innocent" attitude that they take with the front office as a de facto position, but the constant negativity and rushing to judgment by this fan base is, quite frankly, maddening.

Pittsburgh is a spoiled sports city. I say this as someone who has vociferously and unwaveringly supported the Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates for my entire life, despite the fact that I haven't lived in Pittsburgh since I was a small child. I've supported them in Columbus, for four years while I went to school in (of all places) Cleveland, and while I was wandering in the great Southwest. One thing has never changed about Pittsburgh fans: They feel that winning every game, every year is their birthright. They take losing as badly as any fanbase, and the current situtation of the Pirates has compounded that frustration to almost unimaginable levels. What it's created is an angry, pessimistic, almost wholly negative group of followers for something that is supposed to be an enjoyable diversion from the things that really matter.

After 16 years of futility, the fans of the Pirates are ready to criticize anything that doesn't produce immediate positive results. On a certain level I understand that, as I want to be in attendance for playoff games at PNC Park before I get my first Social Security check, but baseball is not the NFL or the NHL. Developing talent takes years, not just one training camp. Sometimes judging these decisions immediately is obvious, like Moskos over Wieters, but that does not apply to the McLouth/Nady/Bay trades, and it certainly doesn't apply to Tony Sanchez.

Personally, I think Neal Huntington and Frank Coonelly have earned at least a little bit of trust in their first (almost) two years on the job. Can we please put the torches and pitchforks away for a little while?