Dejan Kovacevic writes that the big Manny Ramirez/Jason Bay deal last week was a very close-run thing …
The Pirates had made up their minds not to trade Jason Bay six minutes before Major League Baseball's trading deadline Thursday, general manager Neal Huntington said, rejecting two firm offers on their table.
But they left open one exception.
"At 3:54, we made the decision that we're either going to wait for this Boston-Los Angeles deal or we're holding onto Jason Bay and walking away from a couple other deals," Huntington said by phone from Pittsburgh.
He did not divulge specifics, but one was known to be from the Tampa Bay Rays, offering shortstop Reid Brignac, pitcher Jeff Niemann and perhaps another lesser prospect. The Pirates preferred pitchers regarded more highly than Niemann.
The other was a variation of the deal that ultimately was struck, with Boston offering outfielder Brandon Moss and reliever Craig Hansen, Los Angeles offering third baseman Andy LaRoche and another prospect that did not satisfy the Pirates. By that point, the Pirates were communicating only with Boston, and it was the Red Sox who called to say that the Dodgers would include Class A pitcher Bryan Morris at 3:55. That sealed the deal at 3:59.
--snip--
Huntington credited his calm to the work done by his scouts and new statistical analysts, Dan Fox and Eddie Epstein, the latter armed with a database for every name tossed about in late talks.
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I'll note a slight sea change here; it's not until recently that a GM would publicly credit statistical analysts. In fact, many GMs didn't even want the public to know they talked to statistical analysts at all.
I wasn't thrilled with the
Xavier Nady deal, from the Pirates' perspective.
Jose Tabata's star seems to have fallen (though of course he's still young).
But I love the Jason Bay deal. When you trade a great (or near-great) player, you have to get back a player who's got a real chance of being great. In Andy LaRoche, the Pirates got that player. The Pirates could have kept Jason Bay for the rest of this season and all of next season at a reasonable price. After that he'd have been gone as a free agent. They'll control LaRoche's contract through 2013, and if you could assign a dollar value to Bay through 2009 and LaRoche through 2013, LaRoche would come out way ahead.
The Pirates also picked up Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen, who both have non-zero chances of becoming useful major leaguers for at least a few years. And Bryan Morris, while still a long ways from the majors, immediately becomes one of the Pirates' top pitching prospects. All of whom make the package the Pirates got for Bay significantly more valuable than what the Rays were supposedly offering.
Neal Huntington still has plenty of work to do. But he's on the right track.
Rob Neyer
