And arguably at the time he left, Kendall was damaged goods. At his peak, he was still kind of weak defensively and had little or no power with the bat. On a good team, he probably would’ve hit 6th or 7th and hit for a good average

Peanut Butter goes good on everything. Howabout sushi?

In other words, both players were superstars.

So when you’re talking about the Pirates organization as a whole, is it any wonder it’s taken them 6 years to build up a worthwhile small market team? I mean, they essentially went close to 15 years without drafting an impact, star level player. Furthermore, during much of those years they were unable to acquire any legitimate prospects via trade. Now, that’s no excuse, every squirrel finds a nut now and again, so the management in previous years bares much of the responsibility in the matter.

I just dislike comments pertaining to Neil Huntington making it seem as though he’s been in charge since ’93. Maybe you’ve wanted more success in the short term than what’s been seen, and that’s debatable. However, there’s a basic equation with baseball in regards to talent that was extremely unbalanced for a long time in Pittsburgh. If you put good in, you get good out. What’s important to remember is that the output is only going to vary relative to the input. That means, if you’re starting off with Bay as your primary trade asset, you’re probably not going to end up with as much as you might expect in the long run. Yes, he was a very solid player at the time, but in reality, if he was going to a playoff contending team, he was by no means going to be the best outfielder. Then, once you factor in that all the other pieces they had were lesser in value than Bay….it’s no wonder there was very little return for all of those guys from the early/mid 2000′s.

It all comes down to amateur player acquisitions, player development, and making the right trades. A lot of those things are arguably still up in the air in regards to NH’s management of the team. However, I would argue that the team continues to be headed in the right direction, and that maybe this slow, but steady pace is something that will benefit the organization in the long run. For the time being, at least for this season, I’d prefer to not throw away a GM who might actually be doing right by this organization in the long-run.