Kovacevic: Seriously, what is wrong with these people?

Maybe Neal Huntington wants to get fired.

Honestly, that was my first thought as the Pirates' three trades at the deadline came across, first underwhelming then unimportant then flat-out unbelievable. It occurred to me, especially when that third one arrived, that maybe this general manager could be sick of his surroundings. That maybe he'd like to seek greener pastures and greater payrolls elsewhere and apply his methodologies in places like Boston or Chicago, as Theo Epstein has.

This crossed my mind. I swear it.

And then I cut off what must have been a temporary lapse in my still-partial sanity.

Because what's most necessary, I think, to describe this franchise's most disillusioning day since the Aramis Ramirez dump of 2003, is a step back for the bigger picture.



So forget for the moment, if you can, that on this day Huntington:

• Settled for a starting pitcher from the Yankees, Ivan Nova, with a 4.90 ERA that puts him right there Jeff Locke, Juan Nicasio and Jon Niese. You know, that 60 percent of the opening day rotation that was banished to the bullpen within half a season. But hey, at least he's 29 without much upside.

• Dumped Niese back on the Mets in exchange for the Mets dumping Antonio Bastardo back on them. Which, parenthetically, now boils the Neil Walker trade down to throwing him in the trash for a fringe reliever they already had in the fold.

• Gave away Francisco Liriano and, shockingly on so many levels, two of their top 10 prospects -- outfielder Harold Ramirez and catcher Reese McGuire, a former first-round pick -- for, uh, hang on, I'll look it up again ... oh, yeah, Drew Hutchison. I could go over Hutchison's scouting report in detail, or I could just share that the Pirates themselves are contemplating having a 25-year-old start out with Class AAA Indianapolis. And that they paid in prospects, their purported most valuable commodity, to have someone take money off their hands.

I mean, wow.

What was that?

What is wrong with these people?

Believe it or not, I'm not even talking about this debacle at the deadline. Not in isolation, anyway. That would be letting off this front office way too easy. And it would be, I dare say, fabulously missing the point.

No, what happened Thursday really was a symptom of what happened last fall. Because that's when this general manager, this architect of a 98-win team that would and should have been a legit contender for the World Series had it not been for Major League Baseball's silly one-and-done wild card format, this seriously bright guy who'll outwork anyone anywhere on a daily basis ... he froze.

He just froze.

He knew A.J. Burnett was retiring. He knew he'd be outbid for J.A. Happ. He knew Locke had lost his job that September. He knew, he absolutely knew, based on the information he had at that time, that he could only count on Gerrit Cole and Liriano for stability in the rotation.

I'm going to repeat this: He knew. He isn't stupid. He saw what we all saw.

When he added Nicasio and assigned the pitching coaches to convert him to relief, and even when Nicasio was running up double-digit strikeouts in Grapefruit ball, he knew this was a two-pitch guy destined to pinball right back to the pen.

When he added Niese, he had cause to hope a good groundball rate would help him at PNC Park, but he knew Niese would get crushed if the ball stayed up.

When he added Ryan Vogelsong, he knew he was getting a 38-year-old on the decline.

And you'd absolutely, positively better believe Huntington knew, when he added no one else from the outside, that this rotation would be bad.

Yet again, this is a lifer in the sport, a man who lives and breathes the game. He knew.

So how could it happen?

I'll be blunt: He wanted no part of the next step.

Whether that's a lack of conviction or courage or losing two of his top baseball men -- Marc DelPiano and Jim Benedict, smartly stolen by the Marlins in the winter -- I obviously can't say. I'm not in his head. But I can state without hesitation that Huntington spoke from reporting day of spring training about 2016 as if it were an afterthought. Everyone talks about the 'bridge year' remark, but it was much more common than that. Plain and simple -- and this I've heard myself -- he and his remaining lieutenants, none of whom exist in the same solar system as DelPiano or Benedict in terms of baseball acumen, essentially made up their mind that 2017 would be the year, primarily because Jameson Taillon, Tyler Glasnow and a couple other promising pitchers could heal the rotation.

And you know, maybe they'll be right in that regard. Maybe those kids will get it done.

But a funny thing happened in the interim: The 2016 Pirates were more than competitive.

Much more.

They were hitting the ball, even without Andrew McCutchen doing much. They were benefiting from the best bench in the majors. They were burying opponents once they had the lead, thanks to a superlative back end to the bullpen. And in a less tangible sense, they were rallying night after night, evidenced by that crazy string of nine comeback victories. They looked and behaved strong, confident, ready for more.

And so, so much of that was to Huntington's inestimable credit. He built this roster.

But it was equally obvious he seemed taken aback by it. Any time he'd be asked about the trade deadline, even a month or two ago when the Pirates were looking even more dynamic offensively than the 2015 team, he'd hem and haw about whether or not they'd be buyers or sellers. He'd talk about waiting to see more.

As if it were somehow incumbent on the team to compensate for his failure to address the rotation.

Still, that's what they did. There was one rough stretch against quality teams, the kind that slows even the best teams in a long season, but they kept battling back. If the opponent scored four, they'd score five. If the opponent rallied in the eighth, they rallied in the ninth.

The GM?

He did nothing.

He saw those three opening-day starters out in the bullpen and did nothing.

He saw Vogelsong's eye socket shattered and did nothing.

He saw his relievers run up the second-highest inning count in the majors and did nothing.

He'd simply get on the phone to Indy, ask whose turn it would be to start on a Tuesday night, call up that warm body and send him out to start for a contender.

And he'd wait.

And wait.

For the inevitable failure, as if by self-fulfilling prophecy.

Two months ago, in a striking interview with several reporters, Huntington acknowledged that his pre-spring inaction regarding the rotation was a mistake, saying, "We have to have a better off-season as a big picture as we go forward." He even vowed to learn from it immediately, saying, "I need to do some things better this summer."

Quite the opposite, of course, was what eventually took place.

It's embarrassing. Really is. Not just for Huntington but for the Pirates as a whole. They really have, as Clint Hurdle loves to preach, 're-bonded' with at least some of the city, though the palpable passion remains far below the other two teams in town. They've also done their share of winning. And now, thanks to these past eight months culminating in this mess, so much of that, I'm guessing, will be undone.

Bob Nutting is going to bear the brunt of that blame. He'll get some here, too.

I was told on this day -- by people I trust in every way -- that he had nothing to do with these trades, in particular Liriano. I believe these people, as I've never, ever had cause to feel any other way. I've learned enough about the man myself to know he's actually an over-delegator, meaning he stays miles out of areas where he should be intervening.

At the same time, Nutting presides over the operation. He's responsible for it all, not just payroll. He's responsible, more than anyone else, for the philosophies and thought process. He's responsible for defining what constitutes success.

And I'm here to tell you he's going about it all wrong.

Some cringe at any comparison between the Pirates and the Steelers or Penguins, mostly because baseball doesn't have a salary cap. From a purely economic standpoint, that's fair. But there's nothing money-related toward a mindset that's aimed at a championship and not this far-fetched 'continuing cycle of success' that the Pirates always espouse. On this count, they're all on board, too: Nutting, Huntington, Frank Coonelly, everyone save perhaps the manager. They believe that the playoffs are like a card game and that, each year, they'll just play the odds based on how much they like the hand they've been dealt. They see the whole thing as luck.

And yes, the one area where the Nutting cynics are damned right is that the 'continuing cycle of success' is good for business. People will turn the turnstiles to see a winning product, no matter the ending. Heck, last season, they didn't fill PNC Park for any of the final 18 games during an outstanding pennant race. They already liked the Pirates, they already came in July and August, and the revenue was collected.

That's where the separation comes, my friends. Not in any cap.

When a team is nine games over .500, as the Pirates were May 27, or even when they took those two big-time uplifting Ws from the visiting Cubs as part of a 9-1 tear, those in charge of this team get skeptical, cynical. They wait for more evidence, more data that they should offer help.

When the Steelers reported to Latrobe this week, Mike Tomlin, Ben Roethlisberger and everyone else within earshot talked about the bleeping Super Bowl. As Ben put it, "If you're on any team anywhere thinking about anything else, you're in the wrong business." It's more than just talk, and it's more than just the NFL allowing for quicker turnarounds. Even in their down years, the Steelers have never rebuilt and would never have dreamed of looking past a full year on the calendar.

That emanates from the Rooneys. They've got six rings to show for it.

When the Penguins were too old, too slow last summer and very few in the fan base, under those circumstances, would have faulted them for pausing a year or so to get younger, Jim Rutherford traded his top prospect -- no, his only prospect at the time -- Kasperi Kapanen to the Maple Leafs for Phil Kessel. He didn't moan about 'extreme acquisition cost' and other such nonsense. He saw the player he wanted, he went and got him, and Kessel would produce a team-best 22 points toward winning the Stanley Cup.

That emanates from Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle, winners on and off the ice.

What emanates from Nutting and works its way to Huntington is that everything is OK so long as the cycle isn't broken. That's the expectation. That's the bar. It's not putting an end to what Kent Tekulve still rightly calls "the real streak around here," meaning the one that dates back to his final pitch in 1979.

This is what's most saddening -- and I'll use that term rather than maddening, as that threshold was crossed long ago -- about this management team. They know how to get there. They really do. But they act like it's some kind of juvenile risk to try to push a little further, like they're somehow outside or above that, like it's more important to look intelligent in how they push rather than just kicking the door down.

I could parse through all of Huntington's justifications in the aftermath of this deadline, many of them bizarre or contradictory. Maybe some other day.

But here's one I found representative: “Given the incredible difficulty in acquiring even moderately established pitchers, we felt this was a good acquisition for us. We want to continue to push forward."

He was talking about that 25-year-old non-prospect from Toronto. That's his 'push.'

Look, the owner won't change. Nutting wants to keep the Pirates in his family for generations, and that's very much in tune with his and his father's legacy. It's how they go.

The GM won't change, either. At least not yet. Nutting and Coonelly have faith in his strategies, and they aren't about to switch so soon after a 98-win season.

But here's the deal: All concerned, including Nutting, have now put themselves in a position where they had damned well better kick that door down in 2017. Because they don't hold parades for teams that hoard prospects or cash. They don't hold parades for teams that tiptoe. They hold them for teams that bring out the boot.

If these guys can't or won't, find someone who will.