Maybe nobody won the Jesus-Pineda trade

Soon, it may be up to the good jurists of Buffalo to vote on who won the Great Jesus-Pineda Trade of 2012, which has come to carry the historical magnitude of Freedom Fries, WIN buttons and Dennis Hastert. If winter ever breaks in upstate New York, Jesus Montero will be resurrected with his newest team, the Pilates - I mean Bisons - of Buffalo, and frankly, if he hits a lick, he could still win this personal duel with Big Michael, the patron saint of pine tar.

I know what you're thinking: I'm being too hard on Michael Pineda, who notched the W last night - (Talk about an earned victory: We had to score 16!) But Pineda committed one of the worst cardinal sins known to pitching. We scored six in the first - cold night, game over, go to bed, right? - yet he personally invited Houston back into the game in the very next inning. Merle Haggard had a better day.

Maybe Alphonso is right. (You know, stopped clocks?) Maybe Pineda is one of those eternal prospects, always on the cusp, always within one pitch of escaping the jam - always throwing the gopher ball. Maybe when he's 32 and with his fourth team - (Jose Contreras, the Bronze Titan, comes to mind) - a light will come on, and he'll learn to pitch. It just won't be with us... as it wasn't Jesus in his sojourn through Seattle.

There is such a thing as Bigfoot, the Yeti and the delayed prospect, and nobody knows this more than Brian Cashman. His whole strategy during the Food Stamps Steinbrenner era has been to give ex-prospects another chance: Dustin Ackley, Aaron Hicks, Nathan Eovaldi, and Starlin Castro. I'm surprised we didn't take a flier on Jesus, though if you look, our new 1B in Scranton is Chris Parmelee - a faded former first rounder.

So today, we are suspending our projections in the Great Jesus-Pineda Deal. Nobody won. Sometime around 2025, the last prospect standing - by then, probably in Milwaukee or San Diego - will take the coveted prize: An order of Freedom Fries.