The Pirates may have stolen the offseason, and could steal the NL Central, too

PITTSBURGH, PA - APRIL 08: Jameson Taillon #50 is doused with Powerade and bubble gum by Starling Marte #6 and Josh Bell #55 of the Pittsburgh Pirates after throwing a complete game shutout against the Cincinnati Reds at PNC Park on April 8, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images) (Joe Sargent/Getty Images)

Welcome to In Short Order, a weekly look at all the baseball that I like and can't stop obsessing over. We'll mostly live at the edges of the game; at the intersection of the weird, the fun and the esoteric. Oh yeah, and hair.

The greatest heist of the winter happened under our noses. While we praised the Giants and Yankees for winning the offseason, it was the Pirates that snuck in like a cat burglar on a moonless night and quietly stole it. We thought the trades of Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole were the start of a soft rebuild. We thought wrong.

Here's the thing: though the trades may have been massively unpopular among Pirates fans, they made the team better, deeper, stronger.