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The Pittsburgh Pirates made two trades Tuesday, shipping disgruntled utility player Eric Hinske to the New York Yankees and dumping outfielder Nyjer Morgan and reliever Sean Burnett to Washington for reclamation projects Lastings Milledge and Joel Hanrahan.

The Pirates got the better of the deal in terms of upside. Morgan has proven to be a solid-but-unspectacular prospect and at 29, he’s probably showing you about what you are going to get from him. He’ll reportedly upgrade Washington’s defense while providing the fan base with a couple minutes of conversation before they nod back off to sleep while waiting for the Washington Redskins training camp to start.

He also appears to be miles more stable than Milledge, the centerpiece of the trade. Despite his head-case tendencies, at five years younger than Morgan, Milledge has the far greater upside of the two.

Don’t get me wrong. For a rebuilding team, I like young upside more than middle-aged mediocrity. Still, the deal perplexes me because it wasn’t a month ago that the Pirates traded away Nate McLouth, a young, All-Star outfielder, who by most accounts was popular with the team.

Sure, he’s a centerfielder too and the Pirates had Andrew McCutchen in the minor leagues putting up numbers that required his recall.

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Because I have to work so much on the weekends (welcome to the new economy), I tend to lose track of baseball for a couple days every week. I try to make a habit of spending some time with the standings every Monday morning to piece together what I’ve missed.

So, here I am with MLB.com open in front of me, reading about the final results of interleague play. It’s telling me something that most baseball fans have known for years. For all the talk of parity in baseball, it’s clear that the American League is head-and-shoulders better than the National League.

Numbers don’t tell the whole story (just go ask Danny Haren and his six wins), but they can paint a pretty good picture. The AL dominated the NL in interleague play this year. Again. Nine of the 14 American League teams had winning records against the National League, compared to five in the National. Using my barely adequate math skills (along with the assistance of my mildly annoyed 12-year-old daughter), I have deduced that the American League had 137 interleague wins this year, and the NL had 114. (It should be noted, just for the purpose of scratching my OCD itch, that the Cubs and White Sox had one of their games rained out. That game will likely be made up in September.)

Perhaps congratulations are in order to the NL, whose member teams raised their win total from 2008, when they went 102-149 against the AL. Unfortunately, they fell just short of their 2007 win total, when they won 115 games.

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Interleague play, to some the scourge of American culture, will end for the 2009 regular season on Sunday. To hear some baseball purists and radio talk show hosts (among others) speak, you would think that Interleague play is the single largest problem facing the game today, dwarfing the challenges posed by steroids, the economy and Scott Boras. I’m glad to know that there are people out there with passionate opinions about the game, but come on guys. Get a hold of yourselves.

At the beginning of IP this year, Jayson Stark went and found a group of players who don’t like it.  Aside from revealing Adam Dunn to be a complete whiner, Stark’s column tries to take an objective look at some of the things that make the players unhappy.

The major complaints seem to be that there are more “meaningless” series’ (i.e. Kansas City vs. Houston) than there are “rivalry” ones (like the Yankees vs. the Mets), it goes on too long, the travel can make things really difficult, and of course my personal favorite: “it’s not fair.”

I have some pretty strong opinions on the unbalanced schedule, and it occurs to me that we should explore that topic very soon. I’m the rare guy who is a fan of baseball’s schedule, and nothing gets me itchy quicker than someone telling me “it’s not fair”. Dude. You’re a professional ball player, playing at the highest level. If the New York Yankees had to play the New York Mets, and the Tampa Bay Rays had to play Edison Community College, I’d say that’s not fair. You’re playing another major league team. Stop talking and sit down. You’re embarrassing yourself.

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If you haven’t checked out MLBTradeRumors.com I’d recommend it. They’re constantly updating the site and they’ve got links to a solid number of facts and rumors of the day.

Still, the linked post on the Milwaukee Brewers bugged me a bit. The site cites ESPN.com saying the Brewers plan to hang onto top infield prospects Alcides Escobar and Mat Gamel, calling it a “refreshing change in club philosophy from last season” when they traded a collection of prospects including Matt LaPorta for CC Sabathia.

Two things jump out at me about that post. First, the Milwaukee Brewers are hardly known for frivolously giving up prospects to sign or trade for big-name stars. Second, last year was the “refreshing change in club philosophy” as far as I am concerned. The team had a shot to make the playoffs for the first time since 1982 and they went for it full bore.

I might be a little late, but kudos to the Brewers for making last year’s ballsy move. Sure, they ended up losing Sabathia to the Bronx Bombers in the offseason, but I commend them for making the push they did. And most would say it paid off - they did make it to the playoffs before bowing out.

Smaller market teams need to make the runs when they have the chance. While it’s probably good that they’re planning to hang onto Escobar and Gamel this year (if for no other reason than they could replace Bill Hall and JJ  Hardy respectively next year, if not sooner) MLB Trade Rumors is incorrect in its assessment that last year’s move was a mistake - or that this year’s approach is a change in club philosophy.

The Brewers over the past handful of years are clearly an example of a smaller market team doing it the right way - and they’re getting better at it from year to year as well.

Donald Fehr, the legendary – some would say infamous – executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association announced his retirement Monday. If you are one of the three regular readers of this page, then you would expect to see some rejoicing right now.

We here at Brushbackpitch.com have been extremely critical of Fehr. He is one of the five or six people in baseball most responsible for the financial inequities of the game. His attitudes begat Scott Boras, which is an absolutely unforgivable sin. And although baseball now has a comprehensive drug testing policy – or at least that’s what Bud Selig says – Fehr has fought the idea of drug testing at every stop.

From illegal narcotics to steroids, Fehr has consistently maintained that drug testing is an invasion of privacy. If Fehr had had his way throughout his 25-plus year tenure, baseball players today would resemble the Looney Tune Monstars from Michael Jordan’s mid-90’s movie Space Jam. They’d be ‘roided up beyond belief, hitting 861 ft. home runs and sliding head first when they stole a base so as to not break the vials of cocaine in their back pockets.

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Manny Ramirez and the Los Angeles Dodgers are making plans for the suspended outfielder to return to the team after spending several games in the minor leagues.

Ramirez is eligible to return to the Dodgers on July 3. But according to Major League Baseball’s rules, he’s allowed to play in up to 10 games in the minor leagues before he returns.

Why? How can a guy who was suspended for 50 games as part of baseball’s performance enhancing drugs policy have the right to do anything to sharpen his game skills BEFORE his suspension ends? How is it in the league’s best interests to let a guy suspended for these reasons return to baseball, albeit the minor leagues, before his suspension ends?

If the Dodgers want Ramirez to play a half-dozen games in the minors before he returns to the big leagues he should. But that should start on July 3. Otherwise it’s not a true 50 game suspension. Part of the penalty for the clowns that continue to abuse performance-enhancers and cheapen the integrity of the game should be the requirement that they work themselves back into game shape AFTER the suspension ends.

Part of the penalty for using performance enhancers should be that the player is put in a situation where his performance can be hindered upon his return. He either comes back cold or he loses more time getting back into game shape.

Suspended players should not have any opportunity to participate in any kind of sanctioned league activities, major or minor, before their time on the sidelines is up. Otherwise it’s not a full 50 game suspension. And it’s just one more reason people can continue to question the voracity of the league’s efforts to stop this problem in its tracks.

What a joke.

We’re somewhere between one-third and one-half of the way through the 2009 Major League Baseball season. When I checked my local newspaper this morning, Joe Mauer was batting .420-something, Zach Greinke’s ERA was below 2.00 and five of the league’s six division races were within three games.

But the main news on the baseball page was about the New York Times’ story indicating that Sammy Sosa tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003.

So, now each of the three players to break Roger Maris’ record of 61 homers in 1961 - Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sosa - have been implicated in the steroid era. Those allegedly fantastic days when McGwire and Sosa chased each other to the record have been flushed down the toilet along with vials and used steroid syringes.

Once again, this comes down to Major League Baseball itself, the MLB Players Association and the players involved in letting these stars get away with these infractions against the game. Bud Selig said on the Dan Patrick Show Tuesday that he didn’t think it was fair that Raul Ibanez’ accomplishments of the early 2009 season get questioned because of the acts of players past.

Ibanez said the same a few weeks ago, angrily dismissing the accusations of a blogger that his tremendous start had anything to do with performance enhancers. I believe Ibanez, though I think someone should take him up on his offer to provide drug testers with hair, blood, urine, stool and whatever else they want to test.

But Ibanez needs to understand that he and every other player who didn’t stand up and demand drug testing when rumors of infractions were popping up earlier this decade played a role in what went on, whether they used or not.

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I was packing for my trip home this morning with Mike and Mike in the Morning on television. They were discussing the Major League Baseball draft with Steve Phillips, former general manager of the New York Mets and current ESPN talking head.

It was a compelling conversation during which Phillips said he thinks there’s likely to be about a $35 million difference between what the team will offer and what Scott Boras will demand for the top pick in the draft, Stephen Strasburg.

Rumors have spread indicating that Boras and Strasburg will seek $50 million in a deal that would more than quadruple the highest bonus ever paid to a draftee. Mark Prior, the previous record signee, received $10.5 million.

And the injury-prone Prior illustrates why no player who has never tossed a professional pitch in the majors or the minors should get a $50 million-plus deal.

Though acknowledging that he is an extremely gifted player, Phillips said Strasburg is likely not Major League ready, indicating that college players swing and miss at a lot of pitches outside the strike zone that professional hitters will take for balls. He said he’d spoken with Strasburg’s college coach, Tony Gwynn, and Gwynn had suggested Strasburg should not only not start in the major leagues right away but should be started off at high class A ball.

The biggest news to me was that this negotiation between Boras and the Washington Nationals could change the draft. He didn’t indicate how, but he said the $35 million gap ultimately will likely end with Strasburg going unsigned and re-entering the 2010 draft.

The Major League draft is already flawed. How some players get picked in the draft while others from outside the country get to sign as free agents to the highest bidder is ludicrous. Boras’ efforts to knock the cover off the ball with this negotiation is just one more of the league’s problems being further exposed.

And the Washington Nationals and, as usual, the fans, are the ones getting hosed.

As expected, the Washington Nationals made San Diego State University right-handed pitcher Stephen Strasburg the first overall pick in the 2009 draft, giving them the opportunity to likely pay him $50+ million, thanks to Scott Boras.

But I heard an interesting take on Strasburg on the local sports talk radio station today–one caller said that, while talented, he is being vastly overrated, due to the competition level in the Mountain West Conference.

Granted, it was just a caller to a station in Minnesota–but the caller was apparently from Vegas, and apparently had an opportunity to watch Strasburg pitch in person.  He went so far as to add that the no-hitter that Strasburg recently threw–the first of his career–was not even that impressive, as it was against Air Force–the worst team in the conference, whom the caller suspected that there were several other pitchers that could also no hit.

So, while I’m not ready to say that Strasburg won’t make the bigs, and might not be a solid pitcher–but if I’m the Nationals, I’d also be pretty hesitant to throw away $50+ million on a guy who has thrown a lot of quality pitches against some pretty mediocre competition.

I generally don’t pay a lot of attention to the All-Star game or the voting that selects its starters because, as I’ve mentioned in this space before, I think the game is a fraud.

I’ll mention again that there is no way this game should decide home field advantage in the World Series, in part, because it’s not a game featuring baseball’s best players but an exhibition populated by the fans’ favorite players.

There’s nothing wrong with having an “All-Star” game where fans pick the players. But there shouldn’t be anything more important than bragging rights riding on the results.

Most years, the popularity contest features New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox at or near the top of every position. Sure, those teams feature many stars, but it’s been common for starting lineups to feature several of those teams’ players who are past their prime and no longer deserve starting billing.

It was surprising to me, then, when I glanced at some news stories about the early vote totals that so far those teams would only have three starters between them - Kevin Youkilis (good player, but over Miguel Cabrera’s amazing start?), Derek Jeter (I’d rather see Jason Bartlett, but there aren’t that many great shortstops right now - it’s defensible, but he shouldn’t be contending for the overall vote lead by a long shot), and Jason Bay (hard to argue that one right now).

The team whose fans have done the best job of stuffing the ballot boxes so far this season is surprisingly the Milwaukee Brewers. While just one guy would be a starter right now (Ryan Braun in the outfield - again, hard to argue this one), the team is in the top three at each infield position including catcher and has three outfielders in the top eight.

I believe Braun is a legit pick. And Prince Fielder is running second to Albert Pujols - he deserves to be selected and likely will make it as a reserve, I would imagine.
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