Posted by Rob McQuown on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 3:21 am

Guerrilla Warfare is summarized on wikipedia as: “irregular warfare and combat in which a small group of combatants use mobile militaryfr tactics in the form of ambushes and raids to combat a larger and less mobile formal army.”  It’s from the Spanish “guerra” (war) and “-illa” (diminutive), translating literally to “little war”.  And throughout history, such tactics have allowed seemingly remarkable success by “underdogs”.  Afganistan, for example, is referred to as the land where “empires go to die”.  And our own country was founded after a successful stand against the vastly more rich and powerful English army.  But what does this have to do with baseball?

The Yankees, baseball’s own “Evil Empire” in the minds of many, is clearly the richest and most powerful organization in the “world” of Major League Baseball.  And many have long bemoaned the lack of a level playing field, moans which only increased in intensity with championship #27 in 2009.  But, like them or hate them, their mere presence in the game creates the opportunity for that which many people love… “Freedom Fighters!”  Or, erm, we could stick with “underdogs”, since we are civilized and Minneapolis didn’t really go to war with New York City this year, though someone may need to inform certain fans – such as Crazy Yankee Chick – of this distinction.

Anyway, some of the basic tenets of guerrilla warfare are:

1. Less resources

2. Trading space and time to choose the battlefield

3. Repeated “skirmishes” to reduce the support for the larger army

4. Populist support

5. Mobility

6. Blending in with the civilians

Okay, okay, so we risk taking this parallel too far, but consider how these factors apply to teams trying to unseat the Yankees, who have – year-in and year-out – been the team to beat.  As the kick-off to a multi-part series called “Bottoms Up”, the worst teams will be reviewed with an eye on what steps they need to take to become a title contender.  The Pirates had the worst 3rd-order win% in 2009, per baseballprospectus.com (62.7-98.3-1, with the Pirates mercifully getting a game off to avoid 100 losses).  In all such discussions, the presumed goal of the teams is to give themselves the best chance to win the most championships, within their constraints.  This is apparently not the goal of several MLB ownership groups, which appear to have the goal of maximizing profits.  Winning a lot may help the bottom line eventually, by strengthening the “brand” of the team, but we’re examining the situation with a sort of “zero profit” mindset, figuring that employees of the team will be happy with their salaries and knowledge of a job well done.  Idealistic, yes, but much easier to analyze then the hidden profit goals of the various owners.

The Pirates spent under $50MM on payroll in 2009 (all salary facts taken from mlbcontracts.blogspot.com, and the wonderful salary database found there), which should have allowed them to make a healthy profit (at least measured by ROI), and seems unlikely to increase substantially.  This is in contrast with the Yankees, who have averaged over $200MM/yr in payroll for 5 years.  Now, the Marlins have shown us all how this is done, right?  If a team can’t afford to pay players, they ruthlessly avoid paying players UNTIL they are poised to make a strike.  The 2011 commitments to players by the Pirates total $13.45MM, and it seems reasonable that Maholm, Doumit, and Pedro Alvarez will be worth at least that much, conservatively.  This could be likened to the “skirmishes” tactic, if you will.  By choosing the battlefield, a lesser team has a chance to surprise.  This is how the Marlins have 2 World Titles already, while the Cubs haven’t had one since 1908.  We give the Pirates full marks for understanding this concept, and as baseball purists, hope they have the will to make a championship push whenever they get close.

In combat, the tradeoff of space and time is self-explanatory, as the goal is to lure the stronger army into over-extending while lying in wait.  In a defensive action, the civilians whose homes get overrun are usually none too pleased, but can often understand the bigger picture.  And the same is usually true in baseball.  Local fans don’t want to hear about “5-year plans” and such, but unlike major markets, smaller market teams can often trade “time” to insure they have a high-level product ready to make something happen.  The Rays were the most obvious recent example of this… getting routed year after year allowed them to build up their resources with numerous high draft picks, and they made a trip to the World Series, where most picked them as the favorite.  Unlike many other American cities, the fan outrage over the years of awful baseball was tempered by a high degree of apathy.  In Pittsburgh, the apathy may have set in, since they’ve now broken the record for longest string of sub-.500 seasons in pro sports history.  But the sense is that it’s more of a simmering rage, since most Bucs fans (not to be confused with another team from Tampa Bay) can recall a time not so long ago when Barry Bonds was patrolling the outfield, and the team was a perennial contender.  But, as with the “stockpiling resources” strategy, Pittsburgh seems to have finally accepted reality under Huntington’s guidance, and is hoping that acquisitions of former top prospects starts to turn the non-competitive seasons in the present into “traded time”, as opposed to the all-out rout we’ve seen for almost 2 decades.

As far as “populist support” and “blending in with the civilians”, those are more of warfare terms, but – as noted above – the Pirates should be able to win back their fans once the plan to stand and fight gets fleshed out.  Will that put more fans in the seats, more dollars in the budget, or convince players to play for slightly reduced contracts?  Only time will tell.  But, as the Rays showed in 2008, and the Phillies in 2009, the public will get behind the underdog team with a good story.  But, even without the “underdog” label, fans tend to love seeing players develop in their organization and rise to stardom.  If unestablished players such as McCutchen, LaRoche, Milledge and Garrett Jones can join with homegrown players like Doumit and Maholm and Capps and Alvarez (and maybe even Brad Lincoln?  Or is it too much to hope for a Pirates first-round pitcher to emerge?), the Pirates could have a very “homegrown” feel, and without the burdensome contracts past Pirates management doled out to Kendall and Wilson in attempts to keep popular players around.

Mobility – clearly a battlefield term – can also apply to business, albeit tangentially.  If “business is war”, as many powerful businessmen view it, the analogy to being “mobile” is to not get too attached to one concept, instead being adaptable.  As books as diverse as Moneyball and “Who Moved My Cheese?” point out, things change.  Often, and often without warning, they change.  Certainly, having vision and seeing what’s coming a step ahead of the competition is a huge advantage.  But sometimes, the key is just to react the fastest to the changes.  For the Pirates, who knows what that means?  Purely hypothesis, but what if Derek Lee gets injured in Spring Training, and the Cubs inquire about Garrett Jones, but the only player they offer is Josh Vitters, who happens to play a position where the Pirates have 2 guys already (LaRoche and Alvarez)?  Do they look at their depth chart, and decide they don’t need him, or do they figure that “assets are assets”, and the first 6 years of Vitters would be a nice valuable asset to have?  With Huntington’s willingness to trade away anyone with a pulse and a salary, we are assuming he’s “collecting assets” at this point, and wouldn’t be burdened by such considerations as positional logjams.  But this is just one form of “mobility” or “adaptability”… the gist of the strategy is to be ready for any opportunity which comes along, even if it requires more moves in the future.  The focal point in “Moneyball” was about OBP and the “market inefficiency” which was available to exploit with it for the early-2000’s A’s.

In conclusion, the Pirates get a light treatment in this first “Bottoms Up”, since they are already doing most everything a Pirates fan could hope for them to do.  They are becoming “lean and mean”, increasing their “mobility” in the baseball marketplace.  As Beane did with the easily-tradable Holliday and O-cab contracts last year, Huntington did with the Iwamura contract this year.  If “veteran” players are added, they need to be ones who are likely to help when the team is actually good again, and/or players who seem like good bets to be able to help a contender in a deadline deal.  They have a hole at shortstop for now, though Ronny Cedeno hit in the minors years ago, and it’s not inconceivable that he’ll become okay.  Grabbing a slick gloved shortstop in Rule 5 would be an option, as Everth Cabrera was for the Padres this year… or a minor trade for a Robert Andino, Osvaldo Navarro, or Pedro Ciriaco type – someone who can’t hit, but is reputed to be a fantastic fielder.  But those are details, and the Pirates are so far away still that getting mired in the details isn’t called for.  If everything breaks right, they could be a significant force in 2011, but it seems certain that they will be closer to that goal than they were in 2009.

Questions and comments for this article may be submitted to Rob McQuown at robmcquown@yahoo.com. Past articles for this author can be found under “Staff Writers” at the Baseball Daily Digest site.