Christina Kahrl of ESPN.com gives her take on what's made the Pirates better this year. It isn't simply that the drafting and minor-league pipelines are better, she says, but that GM Neal Huntington's series of controversial trades is paying off.
↵↵↵Rounding out the front five are three middling prospects picked up by Huntington in his various modest-yield deals necessarily tearing down Littlefield's weak, going-nowhere rosters: Jeff Karstens came over from the Yankees in the deal sending Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady to the Bronx in 2008; Charlie Morton from the Braves as part of the package received for Nate McLouth in 2009; and James McDonald from the Dodgers in last year's Octavio Dotel dump. Nobody expects any of these three to become world-beaters by themselves, but getting top prospects in deals would have required better talent to work from than Huntington inherited.
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Right. Not all the Pirates' trades have worked, but Huntington only had the core of a 67-win team to work with, and when all is said and done, he got three-fifths of this year's strong starting rotation from them. Who knows if these guys will be able to keep this up - I don't think anyone could have foreseen Karstens' 2011 success - but it might be time to start thinking about these trades somewhat differently.