Cam Bonifay or Dave Littlefield: Which Is the Lesser of Two Evils?

As Neil Huntington's first year as General Manager of the Pirates came to a close, one would struggle to call it anything but tumultuous. Despite the Pedro Alvarez saga, the failure to sign second round pick Tanner Scheppers, and the struggles of many newly acquired players, Huntington is still saved in the eye of public opinion based on one fact: He is not Cam Bonifay or Dave Littlefield. 

Bonifay and Littlefield represent a very dark period of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball. Their tenure, 1993-2007, netted zero playoff appearances and zero winning seasons. They were recently lumped together on a list of the all time worst GMs and placed sixth. 

While it is unfair to lump them together, both men certainly belonged on the list. Both men were terrible in very different ways.

Let's start with Bonifay.

Cam Bonifay took over as Pirates' GM after the sudden death of Ted Simmons.  He inherited a team that had only just lost, what many call, the most crushing defeat in baseball history against the Braves in Game Seven of the NLCS, but that's another article all together. 

The odds were stacked against him as the Pirates best player, Barry Bonds, had just signed a lucrative deal with the San Francisco Giants in the offseason. However Bonifay only made the situation worse.

One of Bonifay's biggest flaws was that he was a terrible judge of talent, and this was demonstrated in the countless drafts where he failed to net a good number of prospects. In 1994, Bonifay drafted Mark Farris, a young shortstop out of high school. Farris was only able to reach double-A before his career was over. 

The three players selected directly after Mark Farris were Nomar Garciaparra, Paul Konerko, and Jason Varitek. In 1995, Bonifay selected Chad Hermansen. Hermansen did make it to the majors and played for about five years, but he was never very productive and was taken before Roy Halladay.

In 1996, the Pirates owned the first pick the draft and Bonifay used it on Kris Benson.  While Benson proved to be a solid starter for some years in the majors, he was never the star that the Pirates expected him to be when Bonifay took him first overall.

In 1997, Bonifay took first baseman J.J. Davis over fellow first baseman Lance Berkman. Let's just say that Berkman's been slightly better than Davis. In 1998, Bonifay took Clint Johnson, a first baseman who never made it past double-A.

Some of the players taken later in that first round were CC Sabathia and Brad Lidge. In 1999, Bonifay took pitcher Bobby Bradley, who only made it to triple A before ending his career.  The three pitchers taken right after Bradley were Barry Zito, Ben Sheets, and Brett Myers. 

In 2000, Bonifay selected pitcher Sean Burnett.  After years of injuries and struggling, Burnett finally made his mark in the majors as a reliever in 2008.  Burnett could serve to be the saving grace of Bonifay's drafting reputation. 

In 2001, Bonifay took, with his last pick ever, pitcher John Van Benshcoten. While Benschoten was always dominant in the minors, he was never able to translate that to big league success.  The moment Benschoten left Pittsburgh in 2008, he immediately became one of the biggest busts in Pirates history. Bonifay was fired just seven days after the 2001 draft.

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?