The Pirates are on the 3rd (I think) iteration of the proverbial '5 year plan' to return to winning.  All is going to plan, except for the part about returning to winning.  The Pirates are a laughingstock, an embarrassment to the city and to the sport.  So I tend to ignore every move they make, and treat them with utter disdain.  So it's a little surprising to me that I'm actually going to write something about them, and this in a semi-positive tone.

One of the Pirates past failures is that they would start down the path of a particular plan, and for reasons known only to those in power, would stop moving down that path and suddenly jump to another one.  This led to the Pirates trading top talent - some for prospects, some for cash - and putting the fanbase firmly