I was all set to give you my fantasy football draftm and corresponding thoughts on the upcoming season, but this afternoon, the Pirates traded away the team. I don't mean it literally, but removing Brian Giles from the equation of the team pretty much changes everything about the team. For years the experts have said how good Giles would be with a supporting cast. Well, San Diego will now find out, and Pittsburgh will find out how it doesn't even have a supporting cast.
As much as people like to say that Giles has been the most underrated player in baseball, I don't think they quite grasp the level of truth in that. If we take what people claim as the most useful stat (OPS), and take Giles career numbers, he ranks 11th all-time. Look at who he's above in that list, that's frightening. (Thanks, Joe, for pointing that out years ago.) More importantly for me, he's probably the best Pirate in the past 20 years. (I easily grant that Bonds has been a far superior player, but the majority of his career years were as a Giant.)
Do I think it was a good trade? It's hard to tell, because basically, there's no way to compensate a team adequately. Perez and Bay look like enough to make it a promising trade for 2004. The PTBNL will tell a great deal. The majority are projecting Corey Stewart, some are projecting Xavier Nady or Josh Barfield, which I'd prefer, but doubt. Nady could sit in at third, and we'd really have something. Right now I'm guessing the 2004 Bucs will look like this on the field.

C: Kendall, Humberto Cota
1B: Craig Wilson(finally given a regular position)
2B: Freddy Sanchez or Bobby Hill
SS: Sanchez or Jack Wilson
3B: No clue, hopefully Nady, possibly Hill
OF: Bay, Redman, Tony Alvarez, J. J. Davis, Matt Stairs (He's basically volunteered to be the veteran presence on the team for next year. The only other choice being Sanders, who is going to be a free agent, if not traded.)

I gotta admit it's a major rewrite of the lineup, and oddly, it sounds more promising than the opening lineup of several years past. However, they are going to a major learning curve, and it's going to hurt bad. The pitching will be less worrisome, we've got that coming through the pipeline in spades right now, and 2004 is supposed to be when the first batch of pitchers reaches the majors. So it's rebuilding again. We're used to it.