Pirates Steal Justin Morneau

Justin Morneau is a Pirate



The Pittsburgh Pirates just made me very very happy.  Happy days are here again after acquiring Justin Morneau for a slim jim aka Alex Presley.  Words cannot describe how happy I am about this trade.  There were months of speculation about this deal and it finally happened.  I'm just surprised by how little we gave up for him.

Morneau is a former AL MVP and a former AL HR Derby winner.  He is no where near that caliber any longer but he is still good with the bat.  This season he is hitting .259/.315/.426 OPS .741.  He has also clobbered 17 homers and 74 RBIs on the year with no protection.  He also has hit 9 of the homers in the month of August.  So he's hot.  The best part about Morneau is that he hits the righties very well and will actually hold up his end of the platoon, which Garrett Jones has not.  He has protection now too.  All he had was Joe Mauer in Minny.  Now he has Cutch, Pedro, and Byrd hitting in front of him.  He's gonna see better pitches so he's going to hit better you would think.  He also has a shorter porch in right field.  And of course, he's moving to the NL.  Everything points to him having a better time in Pittsburgh.

The best part about this trade is that we gave up basically nothing for him.  Presley was going to be DFA'd next season anyways and we have tons of depth in the outfield.  Giving him up does nothing to our future and will not come back to bite us.

This trade is a trade the Pirates didn't have to make but really bolstered the lineup.  For all you people out there yelling about Nutting being cheap look dumb.  He's going to pay Morneau, an unnecessary upgrade, $2.5 million the rest of the month.  This lineup has now surpassed the Reds in my opinion and is right up there with the Cardinals.  There is no one place where you can say the lineup is weak and there is an easy out.  Teams with those lineups win in the playoffs.  If the pitching holds up, this Morneau trade could be the difference between an early playoff exit and a world series appearance.  Bravo Neal Huntington.