SBNation.com asked me to write a short piece about the Pirates' trade deadline plans, and here are the results:
↵↵↵But really, there's very little for the Pirates to trade. They control most of their top performers in 2010 (such as Andrew McCutchen, Garrett Jones, Evan Meek and Maholm) for several more years, and most of the rest of their players have been so bad that no one would want them anyway. If history is any guide, Huntington won't hesitate to pull the trigger on a trade if he gets an offer he likes, but it's doubtful he gets many he will be happy with.
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Essentially, don't expect anything like the past two trade deadlines. That might be different if some of Neal Huntington's offseason acquisitions had been better - Akinori Iwamura would have been an obvious trade candidate if he'd play well - but since they weren't, the Pirates will probably be pretty quiet unless someone makes them an offer they can't refuse for Ryan Doumit or Zach Duke.