Ronald Uviedo Traded

Bryan Morris made his home debut Sunday and got lit up; more on that sometime tomorrow. Jared Hughes shut down New Britain for another Curve win last night; I doubt I'll ever get to doing a recap of that one. Sorry.

But the important news from yesterday is that the Pirates traded Curve reliever Ronald Uviedo to the Blue Jays for 26 year old starting pitcher Dana Eveland. Eveland has already bounced through several organizations; once upon a time he was a good prospect, but that was years ago, and now he is what he is: a replacement-level starter that won't help the Pirates now and won't help them later. I don't understand this trade at all. Uviedo was striking out over a batter an inning in Altoona, and PNC Park would have been gentle to his flyball tendencies. He's unlikely to be a star, sure, but those are the kinds of guys you keep around, because they can turn into useful middle relievers. Which every team needs. Ask the Cubs. Or the Royals. Or about 25 other teams.

'Tis a sad farewell to Uviedo, who was pitching very well for the Curve; between his departure and Danny Moskos' imminent call up to Indianapolis (and possibly Mike Dubee's, too), the Curve bullpen, and with it their pennant hopes, just took a massive decline. By the time the Curve return home next week, it's likely Tony Watson will be the team's ace reliever, and we'll be seeing a lot of Corey Hamman and Dustin Molleken in close games, which likely means an uncomfortable number of close losses.

Of course this this the way it is for minor league teams. The Pirates have to look out for their own interests, and the Curve's roster is subservient to that. It's still hard to see such a crucial part of the pitching staff depart the team. But we still have an excellent team, and more pitching will come from West Virginia and Bradenton. The Uviedo trade is, though, great news for the rest of the Eastern League (and especially great news for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Uviedo's new team.)

From the Pirates' perspective, losing Ronald Uviedo isn't cause for ripping of garments and gnashing of teeth, but it's worrisome because it would seem to highlight a certain inconsistency of plan in the Pirates' front office.

To wit, the only reason to acquire Dana Eveland is to improve your major league rotation (which, sadly, Eveland probably does; the Pirates' ace pitcher remains in Indianapolis until they can be sure he won't be a Super Two.) But the plan, as I understood it, was to accept losing now in the name of winning later. Here they've traded a guy that might help them win later for a guy that, if they're lucky, might help them win two or three games more in 2010 than they otherwise would have. They traded Uviedo for a chance at an upgrade from 65 wins to 68. Frankly, that's doubly dumb because you should want to lose 65 games rather than 68; that can be the difference between Tony Sanchez and Stephen Strasburg.

What's the plan here? Because it looks very much like either the front office or the owner felt desperately pressured to try to improve the 2010 team.