At the crossroads

I have to admit, I didn't think it could get this bad this quick.  I suffered through a 99 loss season in 2009 and over 100 losses in 2010.  The teams placed on the field were terrible.  I enjoyed rooting for the guys though and I thought Andrew McCutchen would turn into a superstar.  I was right.

For four straight seasons (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015) Cutch would be a Top 5 MVP vote getter, winning the award in 2013.

Last season he looked lost in the outfield as the team tried some new alignments (playing shorter).  It earned him the Sabremetric stat of worse defender in baseball.  If you watched Cutch you could tell he wasn't the worse, but he was also far removed from being a Gold Glove outfielder.

At the plate, he still managed to drive in almost 80 and hit 24 HomeRuns. His batting average slipped to .256 though.

I really thought the Pirates and Cutch would have bounce back seasons.  Every game early in the season they were one timely hit away from winning.

After watching last night's game though, I look at the starting rotation, the bullpen, the position players and wonder to myself "How many of these guys could get us bigger pieces at the trade deadline for something to build a team with more than 3 winning seasons"

If we are going to run John Jaso out as an everyday right fielder and cleanup hitter, please commit to tearing everything else down.  It was hard to swallow seeing Jason Bay, Jack Wilson, and Freddy Sanchez leave, but there was a plan to build it correctly.  It made the 99 and 105 loss seasons following easier because we had something the team was building towards.

And for three short seasons the team was one of the best in baseball.

A lot of those guys are gone already and many were All-Stars during that time (AJ Burnett, Mark Melancon, Pedro Alvarez, Jeff Locke) and a few were really really good everyday grinders (Neil Walker, Russell Martin)

"Plunder the Lox"

Sell the Cutch, JHay, Cole Train, and ElemenTONY Watson.

Let's build this team back up.

Congrats to AJ from the Lost Collector for correctly guessing that Andrew would get 0 hits in yesterday's game.  You played the odds and as a prize will be getting the 5x7 Pujols I showed.