There are a lot of moves you can point to that led to the Pirates being so competitive over the last few years. Several of those moves involved getting a lot of value from bounce back candidates, or guys who had skills that were undervalued. In the last week I was reviewing two of those value moves, both of which involved trades with big market teams. In that process, I noticed a similar trend.
I probably shouldn't say that I "noticed" it, because this is something I've noticed before. Instead, I started thinking a bit deeper about what worked when the Pirates brought in Mark Melancon and Francisco Cervelli from the Red Sox and Yankees, respectively.