“They're trying to achieve winning baseball in Pittsburgh. The biggest question is: When is that going to be? When do things start turning around? It's just hard for guys who have been here and seen these exact same trades happen and seen it absolutely do nothing,” said Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson on Tuesday, their longest-tenured player, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Wilson described himself as “beyond, beyond tired” of trades like the ones that sent Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett to the Washington Nationals for failed prospect Lastings Milledge, and that sent Eric Hinske to the Yankees for more prospects.
“I've been here nine years. I've seen two or three of these trades every year and still haven't had a winning season.”
Of Nyjer Morgan he told reporters, "What you saw on the field wasn't even close to what he brought to the team. That's the type of player, guys of that caliber, like Jason Bay, Nate McLouth ..."
Earlier in the season the Pirates traded popular Nate McLouth to Atlanta—a deal that Adam LaRoche said made everyone in the clubhouse furious—and last year they moved Jason Bay to Boston in exchange for a whole lot of not much. And what’s especially frustrating for Pirates players is that the Pirates are, mathematically, hardly out of the playoff hunt (though, come on, it’s the Pirates we’re talking about…).
However, on Wednesday, Wilson backed down from his criticism of the team, according to a report in USA Today.
"Some of my comments were pretty harsh," he said. "I definitely don't want to be the guy who is butting heads with the organization or trying to cause any type of negativity, so I apologize.”
See, now to me, that’s fair. He didn’t back down from the criticism, he just—rightly—said that he shouldn’t be butting heads with the organization, no matter how many stupid moves they make. But then he added: “When you are here in the moment and you're talking to guys and everyone is bummed out, you maybe lose your head a little bit and vent. A lot of the things I said, I thought about ... and they were pretty inaccurate.”
Gah! Inaccurate?!? You had it, Jack, and then you lost it!