The Jury Is Still Out on the Pirates' "Horsetrading"

"Experiment," doesn't really describe what the Pirates are trying to do fiscally. "Revolution" may be more like it; if it succeeds, it will be deemed "revolutionary," and probably "highly disruptive."  If it fails, it will have been "doomed from the start." In a sense, what the Pirates are now doing reminds me of the farmer who bragged to his neighbor that he had weaned his horse off hay and was feeding him a diet of only sawdust. In advocating better treatment of veterans Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson, I've been using calculations of player value (from FanGraphs and other sources), which in turn reflect what teams have been paying free agents for wins over replacement value in the free market. For instance, based on what other veterans are making, A-Rod's estimated six wins over replacement is worth over $4 million per, or somewhere over $25 million in total; at $28 million he is overpaid, but not egregiously. But ...