Pirates Trade Rumors: What Trade Partner Was GM Neal Huntington Talking About?

Pittsburgh Pirates GM Neal Huntington joined Greg Brown in Cincy for his weekly show.  We captured a few notes for you.

Greg asked about the All Star Game and Huntington mentioned that it’s a tremendous honor and notable recognition for the players involved.

The question regarding the Bucs failure to produce (heading into the game) with runners in scoring position (0-for-24) was brought up by Greg who also added that the Bucs have only 12 sacrifice flies, which is the lowest in Major League Baseball.

Huntington had a solid answer when he said that it’s typical that ‘…good hitters hit with runners in scoring position.  Bad hitters don’t.  Jay, Jeff Branson and Clint have talked about situation hitting,’ and what the opposing pitchers are trying to do.  Its the art of continued refinement.

The Bucs GM mentioned that ‘… we believe this team can do it.  We have more guys under their career norms.  We have a handful of guys who just  haven’t produced when you look at it subjectively and objectively.’

In the most obvious answer of the day, Huntington said….

"We have guys we need to get rolling."

Greg Brown asked about acquiring bats at the deadline and Huntington stated that the challenge is that we have a limited match of guys we think that can help us. He also joked about MLB Trade Rumors, which makes it nice to know that it’s not just us stopping by their site consistently.

The glowing quote of the interview was the bluff from Neil.

"There just isn’t a lot out there."

He did add that there is another layer of players that he would think would be available, but there are clubs are making a run.  In one of the most interesting quotes, Huntington stated that he was speaking with a club (not the Phillies, he said) that said they were willing to engage in trade discussions, but the club started playing better and now the team wasn’t willing to trade those same players that Huntington had been in discussion about.

So we looked at the teams playing well in the past ten days…  St. Louis is so damn hot, but no.  The New York Mets are 7-3 in their past ten, but… nah..  stop drooling over Byrd.  The Dodgers are hot, but come on, they aren’t moving anybody.  Nobody else in the NL matches up.

Nobody outside of the Rays and Orioles are hot in the AL right now.  So, looking at the second tier, we conclude that Huntington had to be talking about the Mariners?  7-3 in their last ten games after another series sweep, this time of the Houston Astros behind Nick Franklin and King Felix.

The upcoming Mariners schedule includes games with Cleveland and Minnesota before Boston right around the deadline.  Go, Tribe!  Now, where did we put that Kevin Correia jersey?