Pirates Morning Report: Basically Uneventful Trade Deadline For Pirates

Here we are the day after the trade deadline. The Pirates are essentially the same team as they were before. They dumped Bednar and Hayes. No surprise there. They traded Ferguson and Falter. They traded Taylor Rogers who they just acquired. All for prospects that are not Major League ready. The closest is Rafael Flores who is a catcher with some 1st base experience. He just got promoted to AAA playing just 10 games. It was very surprising to me that they did not trade IKF or Pham. It is really hard to say what all of this means. It just continues the process of wondering what the Pirates are thinking? Rather than write about what the Pirates should be doing, I will take a crack at their thought process.

Since they did not trade them, they might be thinking of signing Pham and IKF. This team is 35-36 under Don Kelly. Dare we dream after the Rockies series that they will be over .500. If they could have played the season like this they would be 54-55, 6 games out of the last wild card spot. They may be thinking of making a bigger splash in the off season. This Pirates team despite all of its problems has played close to .500 ball for almost half a season. This will keep you at least in playoff contention. They have to be thinking this team just needs tweaked not over hauled.

If the Pirates continue to play or God forbid even better than .500 ball the rest of the season, then I think the management team will stay the same. Ben Cherington will be back. Don Kelly will be the manager. Cherington staying on will drive the fan base crazy. This was a man that did not approach the trade deadline like his job depended on it. As a last place team in the division the Pirates did not do that much selling. They did more dumping with not much concern what the return would be. The Pirates do not have to bring up any new position players from July 30th. I sure as hell would have lost that bet. They will have to bring up 2 or 3 new pitchers. I am not even going to begin to speculate who that might be. I will just wait till game time and shake my head.