At some point the Pirates are going to have to quit crying poor and try to put a legit baseball team into the beautiful new stadium they call home. The team owner appears to have rejected a trade with the Braves that would have netted them four prospects including two that were major league ready. Still, Jason Bay has been the face of the franchise for a while now and the people of Pittsburgh deserve to see some major league players when they come out to the ballpark. Bay has played in 103 games this season for the Pirates and he is 108 for 380 (.284 avg, .907 OPS) with 69 runs scored, 22 homers, 61 RBIs and 6 stolen bases. Bay is a player to build around not a player to give up on.

The Pirates will be in full dumping mode until the trade deadline next week. Players that could be on the move are Jack Wilson. Doug Mietkiewicz, Luis Rivas, Chris Gomez, Ronny Paulino, Jason Michaels, Ian Snell and John Grabow. This has got to be depressing to the fan base of the Pirates especially with training camp starting for the Steelers as the Pirates won’t be getting much attention the rest of the season. It’s even possible that Jason Bay and Adam LaRoche could be moved if the Pirates like an offer they get for them. Hopefully the Pirates will do better in future trades than what they got for Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte.