I'm just floored by this.

I've staunchly defended what the Pirates did all season. While they became a laughingstock among the media and many of their fans for continuing to sell off players as soon as they became playable, I argued that this was different; now, for the first time in years, they actually had building blocks, and now was the time to get rid of players who weren't going to help the next good Pirates team in exchange for as many young guys as they could get their hands on who might. I was convinced that GM Neal Huntington, in stark contrast to, let's say, all his predecessors in living memory, actually knew what he was doing.

Trading for soon-to-be 31 year old second baseman Akinori Iwamura flies in the face of all of that.

Now, Aki is a good little player. He's capable at either 2B or 3B, puts up a good OBP, and he once hit 44 home runs in Japan, suggesting he might have at least a little more power than he's shown in his first two-plus seasons in the hemisphere. And at $4.25 million for 2010, he comes at the right price; his performance in his two healthy years has been worth about twice that much per.

But he's not a game-changing sort of player, just an above-average one. He's the kind of player that, oh, I don't know, say, the Twins might want to pick up to shore up their infield and add a couple crucial wins in a tight division.

The Pirates, though? They're not competing next year. They're probably not competing the year after that, but that doesn't matter, because by that time Iwamura will likely be gone anyway. He's theirs at a really good price for one year, but then he's a free agent. And they shouldn't want to bring him back; as I've said several times, middle infielders who aren't just overwhelming superstars have an alarming tendency to fall off drastically and without warning shortly after age 30. Iwamura's countryman Tadahito Iguchi, for instance, was solid at 31 and 32, and then done for at 33. Orlando Hudson has declined drastically (mostly on D) since turning 30. Roberto Alomar was an overwhelming talent, and his switch was flipped off at age 34.

Iwamura, like Nate McLouth and Nyjer Morgan, is exactly the sort of veteran in his prime that has no hope of being around and contributing when, three years from now or more, Andrew McCutchen leads this team to 85-90 wins and a potential playoff berth. He's the kind of guy the Pirates should be sloughing off, not taking in.

I suppose, to give Huntington the credit that until yesterday afternoon I thought he deserved, he may be investing in Iwamura hoping only to flip him to a contender for prospects in the middle of next season, or to offer him arbitration and get a draft pick at season's end. And in reliever Jesse Chavez, the Pirates really didn't give up much. But that's a rather high-risk, low-reward gamble for a team like the Pirates to make. Spending $4.25 million on that gamble (or that minus Chavez's salary, anyway, which I'm guessing was near-minimum) seems very un-Piratelike indeed. Huntington has earned a little bit of trust from me, so I'll wait and see, but I just don't see how this move makes any sense for them.

Then again, I really would have liked the Twins to pick him up, so maybe I'm just bitter.

After I wrote this, I came across some well thought out pieces by Dave Cameron and Bloguin's own Pat Lackey defending the trade. Good points, but I gotta say, still not a fan.

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