S'anyway... While I was out, the trading deadline hit, and the Pirates and Mets swung the deal. On the surface, given I was expecting everything from Justin Morneau to Laynce Nix as possibilities, I can't really think it was a great deal for Benson. (Before you think I'm a screaming homer, the Garcia deal looked pretty comparable.) Looking deeper, I guess it was a reasonable trade, but stupidly executed.

The Pirates have three massive holes, 1B, 3B, and CF, and the possibility that they can improve at almost every position, and let the improvement cascade down to a second position, since most players could swing to another slot. There's so many C/1B/OF and 2B/SS/3B on the Pirates right now, I'd swear Mike Mularkey is running the offense. So I guess Wigginton is ok, though I have to admit that outside of giving me a Marcus Giles moment, I find him somewhat indistinguishable from Rob Mackowiak, whose job he's going to take. Peterson seems to continue the perpetual Pirate chain of, trade a pitcher, get a prospect, groom him, get him good enough to trade at the deadline, of which the classic sequence is Smiley->Neagle->Schmidt->Vogelsong. The part I can't figure out is the recovery of Jose Bautista. Basically we lost Bautista in Rule V, tried to get him back when he was cut, watched him bounce to another team, watched him bounce to another team, deal Ruben Mateo to that team for "future considerations", which we all considered the secret code for returning him after Joe Randa came back from injury, then finally, we find out that we dealt our best lower level hitter to recover a guy whom we then can't send back to the minors, lest we might lose him again. Why did we deal Keppinger? Ostensibly because he's blocked at his position (2B/SS/3B), and Bautista won't be...except of course by the guy he was JUST TRADED WITH.

Still these are small considerations. I could be a Met fan.