Trying to dig beneath the mountain of blather about Manny and the Dodgers and Red Sox and get to what people think of this deal from the Pirates perspective:
LaRoche becomes the best truly young player the Pirates have, and with Andrew McCutchen on his way up and Pedro Alvarez entering the system, you can see what might comprise a championship-caliber core in three or four years. The Pirates now have players who may become stars, and stars win championships...If you throw out the three prospects, Bay for LaRoche is still a fair haul for the Pirates. They trade Bay at his peak, coming off of an injury, with just 800 PAs or so to free agency. LaRoche will be theirs through 2013, he plays a more important position, and he is just coming into his prime...Five-plus years of LaRoche is a better option than one-plus years of Bay, which is a better option than two months of Manny Ramirez with an option on future services.
- Jayson Stark at ESPN counts the Bucs as losers but does have this to say:
At least this year went a heck of a lot better than last year's Deadline Day (when they swooped in to trade for the disaster that was Matt Morris, who will be collecting the last two months of the $13 million the Pirates owed him on a beach someplace).
- Steve Henson at Yahoo doesn't give too much thought to things but likes the Bucs' moves.
- Danny Knobler at sportsline.com likes the Bucco Bounty.
- Someone at the PG needed to jump in and bash the Bucs, maybe Smizik and Cook were in Latrobe because this time it's Collier.
- Where Have You Gone Andy van Slyke vigorously defends the deal:
In the end, the return that we pulled for Bay was better than any single one of the rumors I've read online in the past two days. Andy LaRoche is real hitting prospect that was stuck in an awful situation in LA... Bryan Morris is a great buy low pickup. He's a very promising pitcher in A-ball...He's the type of pitching prospect this organization doesn't have and desperately needs. Moss's minor league numbers kind of remind me of Steve Pearce's, possibly with less power but more consistency... Hansen has electric stuff and hasn't put it together for the Sox...Seeing as he's probably the player I'm the least excited about in this trade, I think that makes it a very nice haul for Bay.
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