The New York Mets have the best of all possible situations. They don't just have the National League's best record, but they also have a scapegoat that even the Big Apple tabloids can accept, just in case things go wrong.
Dave Littlefield.
During the run-up to this year's major league trading deadline, unnamed sources in the Mets' front office were using the city's sports scribes to accuse the Pittsburgh Pirates' general manager of one of the most serious trade-deadline offenses.
The Mets, it seems, would have liked to get Pirates' pitcher Kip Wells to round out their pitching staff. But Littlefield was reportedly asking for two top prospects well along in the New York system.
New York's front office's counteroffer consisted of a top Class A prospect, which was probably closer to Wells' actual worth, but Littlefield balked, and the trade never happened.
Littlefield did make some trades, but those were deals for fringe players — guys like Craig Wilson and Oliver Perez — even by Pirates' standards.
Wilson will be a free agent after the season and, since he probably realized long ago that he would never get a chance to be an everyday player in Pittsburgh, there was no chance they would re-sign him.
The Pirates might have undersold Wilson just to get something upon his departure.
Perez, who was among the league leaders in strikeouts per nine innings as a rookie in 2004, never regained the form of that season.
Before he was sent to the minors, he was one of the worst performers in a starting pitching rotation that, going by its performance in the first half of this season, was composed entirely of weak links.
Pittsburgh's two most marketable players, Wells and shortstop Jack Wilson, are still with the team, and if the Mets' sources are to be believed, it's because the Pirates' GM put Tiffany's price tags on Wal-Mart merchandise.
Actually, though, the analogy is a lot closer to that of a garage sale than department stores. If I have a roll-top desk sitting out front some Saturday morning with a $100 price tag and some interested person comes along, the bargaining can begin.
If the other guy starts off at $25, I might move to $80 or $90. Eventually, he might go as high as $50.
But I might have already decided that I'd rather put the thing in my own study if I can't get $60 for it. So it's no sale and we both walk away.
That's pretty much what happened with Wells and the Mets. At the end of the day, Wells was more valuable to Littlefield — if not necessarily the Pirates — than he was to New York.
Littlefield decided that if he couldn't get a player who was ready to play in the Major Leagues now, or next year at the latest, he was better off keeping Wells and Jack Wilson.
For either of those two players, he needed to get a player who could help the Pirates to a .500 record next season and into a pennant race by 2008. Class A players, even top prospects, need not apply.
Since the last time Pittsburgh made the playoffs in 1992, its management had hatched nearly as many five-year plans as Josef Stalin, with nary a winning season to show for it.
That alone would be enough to convince any GM that the clock is ticking. But Littlefield has hardly had an auspicious tenure in Pittsburgh, even if you don't consider the team's won-lost record.
After the 2003 season, Littlefield decided not to protect Chris Shelton in the Rule Five draft and he was snapped up by the Detroit Tigers. Shelton is in the minor leagues now, but he has the potential to be a superstar.
Following 2002, he traded pitcher Chris Young, now 9-5 with San Diego, for Matt Herges, who was released without ever pitching a game. Littlefield also traded slugging third baseman Aramis Ramirez to the Cubs for virtually nothing.
If Pittsburgh goes to another five-year plan, Littlefield won't be around to see it. And a guy who is now in Class A won't help Pittsburgh in its current one.
Trading Wells for a prospect in the low minors could only have helped Littlefield's eventual predecessor. So the Pirates' GM decided to hope Wells lives up to his potential and blossoms into a legitimate top-two starter.
With a possible pink slip in his future and no immediate help coming over the trade line, Littlefield is left with little choice but to hope that his current hand — which appears to be a 6-4 offsuit, in Texas hold 'em-speak — magically transforms into a royal flush.
In fact, he's betting his job on it.
August 9, 2006
Mike Round:
Kip Wells was traded to Texas before the deadline - at a Piggly Wiggly price.