Kyle "Mystery Salary" Farnsworth just gave up two homers to the Rays in the eighth inning, losing the Tigers' hard-won lead, cementing himself (Farnsworth) in the basement of Tigers fans' regard.

We now have the Hurry Up signal from the Tigers' bullpen, to get somebody in to replace Supposedly-First-Rank Farnsworth. 4-3 Tampa, entering the ninth inning.

We might as well have Jason Grilli. I would rather have our Mr. Rozema back on the roster.

and why the hell don't i see it?

I remember him since high school when he pitched for the Orioles.

Back when the Orioles were good.

The world I knew is dead...

JRoth95 It's hard not to look at that fact and think, we need pitching.

Yeah, well, teams tend not to give away good starting pitching, or even trade it for a guy like Jason Bay. And so what if the Pirates were over .500 and even contending for the division now. I understand it's been a long time, but I like the statement that .500 is not the goal. Build a contending team for the long term, not just one that can steal the division in a down year.

pcv2006 King, you're right that this trade looks great for Pittsburgh on its face, but you're completely ignoring the fact that Pittsburgh has been in a perpetual "rebuilding phase" since 1993.

No, they've been in a perpetual incompetence phase since 1993. That appears to be changing.

Astros weren't listed.

Weren't listed!!!

Dunno why the Astros were listed as a trade deadline winner, what with their blockbuster acquisition of LaTroy Hawkins.

King, you're right that this trade looks great for Pittsburgh on its face, but you're completely ignoring the fact that Pittsburgh has been in a perpetual "rebuilding phase" since 1993. Whichever 2 or 3 of these prospects actually develop into solid major league starters, they almost invariably will be traded in about three years' time.

Not too long ago, Bay was tagged to be the franchise player of the future. Aramis Ramirez was destined to do big things, and the second he started making good on that pledge, we shipped him out of town with Kenny Lofton in return for a new batch of "prospects", Jose Hernandez, Matt Bruback and Bobby Hill. Jason Schmidt develops into a top-notch starter, and we give him to San Francisco for Armando Rios and Ryan Vogelsong.

I could go on, but the fact remains that prospects only matter if you intend on keeping them to form the core of a winning club in the future. The Pirates have basically devolved into a farm system for pennant contenders, and I don't see that changing unless we get a Roman Abramovich-type owner willing to dump wads of cash on the problem and keep some of these guys around when they hit their prime.

I understand where rupertmonkey's coming from - one legit veteran (not even a Sabathia or a Santana, just a healthy #2) starter and one non-terrible year from Gorzellany or Snell, and the Pirates would be contending for the division this year (over 50% of their starts have come from guys with ERAs over 6, over 25% from guys with ERAs over 6.5; it would've taken almost nothing for them to be over .500 right now). It's hard not to look at that fact and think, we need pitching.

But that offensive powerhouse of a team is gone now, and sheer volume is the way to go. At least one of these AAA pitchers will pan out (right? please?), and presumably one of the position players, and the others will be useful as warm bodies or trade pieces in the next couple years. Meanwhile, no one on the team (except Jack Wilson) is making over $5M, and should the Pirates ever need to be buyers, they can afford to be.

My biggest fear is putting together a Brewers-like team - a few studs, a few nice players, but not quite the talent, and not quite the resources to go big. CC's gone next year, and where will that leave Milwaukee? Back to 3rd place, I suspect.

OK, my biggest fear is that we just traded for Jimmy Anderson, Ryan Vogelsong, Bobby Hill, and John Van Benschoten II. It's easy for me to see this team sniffing at 100 losses for the next 5 years.

rupertmonkey Folks who know way more about baseball than I do, including you, tell me the Pirates did well. But I'm not really happy. What we need is some starting pitchers, and we seemed to get some promising relievers, as well as some guys for our until-recently-crowded outfield.

The Pirates don't need starting pitchers. What they need is young healthy bodies. Look at how the Rays built themselves into a winner. They didn't concern themselves with what position guys played. They just collected prospects through the draft and trades. Then, when they'd collected a big enough pile of them, last year, they said, "OK, it's time to build a team," and began trading some of those prospects for the pieces they needed.

The Pirates are too early in the process to say things like "We need good starting pitchers." Good anything will do. As Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus likes to say, the best way to get two good prospects is to get 10 prospects. dhadbawnik just made a similar point.

It's an inexact science. The guy you're lamenting, Jason Bay, appeared on the Baseball America Top 100 prospects list once, in 2004. He was No. 74. Greg Miller, Adam Loewen, Josh Barfield, Jeff Mathis and Chin-Hui Tsao were all at least 50 spots higher. Any of those guys better than Bay?

And as for getting a Longoria-type prospect, times have changed. Those guys don't get included in trades nearly as much as they used to. The Mariners were laughed off the field for asking for top prospects for guys like Jarrod Washburn and Raul Ibanez. That's exactly the kind of trade that used to happen all the time, but not anymore.

"He's slipped this year, but fans, pitchers, and opposing managers still arguably perceive him as the Manny of old: a nightmare to face with the game on the line."

Unless you buy into the theory that Manny decided to sit out the games against Chamberlain and a couple other pitchers he didn't care to face. I'm not sure if I believe that theory myself, I've gone on record as a big Manny defender prior to his latest meltdown. But I'll bet folding money that Manny's "knee injury" won't bother him quite so much in Chavez Ravine.