Kovacevic: Trading Cutch would be wholly about kicking the can

Trading Andrew McCutchen is very much a concept the Pirates should consider. But, as I wrote in a late-September column from Milwaukee, this current front office can't be trusted to do it for the right reason and, thus, with the right result.

That's what turns my stomach, if you must know.

That alone.

As a lifelong Pittsburgher, as a career-long journalist in this city, as a columnist entrusted to share news and views from the inside and, yes, a human being who's been privileged to know some of the proud men who have worked for this franchise, the increasingly clearer picture that Cutch will soon be shipped out sickens me in a way I'm not wholly comfortable trying to explain.

Because this isn't about baseball. Not at its root.

It's about right and wrong.



And to repeat, it isn't just about whether trading Cutch would improve the team in 2017, 2027 or at some point when only Wall-E and a couple of cockroaches are roaming our planet.

It's about right and wrong.

Here, to engage in an extreme hypothetical, is how this scenario might look if Bob Nutting, Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington could be trusted to do this for the right reason:

• Cutch's value has never been lower. He's coming off a down-then-up 2016, one that wound up with a slash line of .256/.336/.430, plus 24 home runs, 79 RBIs and six steals. None of it was up to the high standard he'd set. The steals, in particular, powerfully suggested he's lost some speed, not all that encouraging for an athlete turning 30. His defense, too, continued a slight albeit steady decline.

A serious management team, one that genuinely held winning as the No. 1 priority, might weigh the possibility that Cutch could climb back closer to career norms for the start of 2017. One potential benefit, if he did, would be his value rising anew and, with it, the trade return. Another would be that he could help the team compete next season toward a playoff berth.

Yeah, I know. Call me nuts for even bringing that last one up. I've spent too much time around the other two teams in town lately.

I'm not suggesting this scenario should be a must. Not at all. But I am stating, based on voluminous precedent, that these gentlemen never even had it enter their minds.

Because that isn't what this is about.

• Cutch would be traded for a starting pitcher who could step into the rotation right away, somewhere in that mix behind Gerrit Cole among Jameson Taillon, Tyler Glasnow and so forth.

You're about to be inundated these next few days, especially once Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings begin Monday in Washington, with all kinds of front-office-fed nonsense about how the Pirates aren't being offered any serious returns for Cutch. Some of it was already out there Wednesday. That's very much the MO with this group, and I know that first-hand. They love to "manage expectations," to borrow one of their favorite phrases. And they'll never have had a greater challenge than this one, so it's about to reach new heights -- or lows -- in that regard.

Starting pitching is at a premium. And no, teams won't give up an ace for Cutch. But a No. 2 or 3 is exactly what a serious management team would demand. Nothing more but also nothing less.

That won't happen here.

Because that isn't what this is about.

• A serious management team would recognize, even embrace -- that windows of opportunity are very real in professional sports. There's no such thing as this silly endless "cycle of success" that this front office preaches. When a team has 98 wins one year, you don't look at the next as a "bridge year," much less find the gumption to declare it publicly. When a team has 98 wins one year, you don't enter the next with two proven starting pitchers and Ryan Vogelsong, Jeff Locke, Jon Niese and a converted-from-relief Juan Nicasio.

In that context, then, a serious management team might look at 2017 as a legit chance to contend.

Yeah, the Cubs are loaded for more bear. But baseball is the most fickle sport when it comes to repeat champions, even at the divisional level. Too much can go too wrong too easily. One or two guys clutch their elbows in the spring, and any team is toast.

If a serious management team were to take a serious approach to 2017 and 2018, the final two years of Cutch's contract at $14 million and $14.5 million, and they'd be beyond ecstatic to have a player of his caliber  even the 2016 version -- for a fraction of the going market rate.

Stop and think about that for a second: Cutch, if he had gone to free agency when eligible, would easily be earning $20 million-$25 million a year. The Pirates, to their credit, wrapped him up early and reaped a good amount of the biggest bargain in baseball. But not even two more years of that entices them.

Because that isn't what this is about.

No, they'll tell all of us that they find more value in whatever prospects they'll be able to procure than in two full seasons of a still-productive Cutch at a still-considerable discount.

And why is all this, exactly?

What is it about?

Most will cite payroll or being cheap, and that's part of it. But to me, that's letting them off the hook way too easily.

It's about kicking the can down the road.

That's what turns my stomach.

The people who comprise this front office are rampantly insecure, as so, so many who've dealt with them can attest, most notably inside the baseball industry. None of them arrived at their current posts through conventional paths. Not Nutting, who is woefully under-capitalized to be a big-league sports owner. Not Coonelly, who'd been a legal counsel in the commissioner's office and had never run a company of any size. Not Huntington, who was the No. 5 baseball man in the Indians' hierarchy and was demoted to designing minor-league complexes shortly before getting the GM job here. And certainly not Kyle Stark, Huntington's somewhat unhinged right-hand man who was hired at age 28 after -- get this -- playing volleyball in high school, spending two years as pitching coach at St. Bonaventure and worked in the Cleveland system for four years.

Wow, you'd be shaking in your baseball shoes, too.

That's their foundation, at least psychologically. That's who they are. That's apparently who they'll be even after commendably being part of three consecutive playoff seasons, though it's also painfully evident that other men who've since left the organization played huge roles.

That's who'll be trading Cutch.

And that's why they'll be trading Cutch.

Because when they trade Cutch for prospects, those kids won't make it to Pittsburgh for years, if at all. And by then, far too many people will have forgiven and forgotten. Just as it seems far too many people have already forgiven and forgotten that this same front office pitched in two top-10 prospects so that the Blue Jays could please, pretty please take Francisco Liriano's salary off their hands.

That really did happen, you know. And rather than being remotely honest about the most blatant salary dump since Aramis Ramirez, they tried to sell you that a 26-year-old minor-league righty was the sizzling prospect they just had to have back. And if that weren't enough, they pledged that the $17 million in savings would go toward "financial flexibility" to help them add to payroll in 2017.

Until, of course, October rolled around, and Huntington, ever the loyal soldier, resumed poor-mouthing. He spoke about how payroll was already above where it should be. He called Pittsburgh a "small market" that just doesn't generate enough attendance revenue when, in fact, its revenue issues stem entirely from Coonelly's comically negotiated local TV deal with Root Sports, one that pays a pittance compared to what the Penguins receive.

They lied about Liriano.

Not just to reporters. To you. And they'll do it again at PirateFest this month right to your face.

They've lied for years about winning being their top priority.

I know for a fact that the single most iron-clad policy at 115 Federal Street -- and I'm not guessing at this -- is that the Pirates "will never engage in deficit spending." I don't criticize owners or any American for aiming for a profit, but I'm damned comfortable criticizing a sports owner who holds that as a higher priority than seizing upon real shots at a championship.

They'll lie about Cutch, too.

Because this trade, no matter its particulars, won't be about baseball. It'll be about kicking that can. It'll be about trading one of the greatest players in the Pittsburgh Baseball Club's 130 years primarily so that you can keep giving them chance after chance to kick it again.