For the second year in a row the Boston Red Sox have traded with the Pittsburgh Pirates to add a power hitting offensive threat. Last year is was a mid summer deal for OF Jason Bay and this year it is a deal for first baseman Adam Laroche.
The trade details are as follows:
Boston gets Laroche, while Pittsburgh gets minor league Short Stop Argenis Diaz, and minor league pitcher Hunter Strickland.
While this is a relatively minor deal were Laroche will back up Kevin Youkilis at first base in Boston and fill in for him with Kevin must play Third to spell Mike Lowell, the fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates should be outraged.
For the Pirates this is nothing but another salary dump, or what happens every summer in Pittsburgh. Over the last few years they have dumped enough salary to field a pretty respectable All Star Team. This seems to prove that the Pittsburgh ownership cares not to operate a Major League team and are content being the farm team for whichever contender feels like making a deal.
Laroche was due to make a little more than 7 million dollars for the 2009 season. Since the Pirates have only attracted 858,362 fans this season, not even 50% of their capacity they will claim that they cannot afford to keep Laroche.
The real story is this team simply will not pay to field a respectable team, and have not had a winning season since Barry Bonds was their starting left fielder. That is now 16 seasons without a winning record, soon to be 17th and the ownership wonders why no one bothers to come out to the ball park.
