Less than one year ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates gave a six-year extension to Jose Tabata with several option years tacked onto the end. The idea was that if Tabata became a useful regular, he'd be locked up at below-market rates. At the time, Tabata was already a fairly useful player, and he was just 22. Seemed like a hard contract to dislike.

But the qualifier up there is important. Useful. Which Tabata has not been this year, not in the slightest:

After a half-season, the Pirates figured out he wasn't going to help himself or the team in the majors:

#Pirates recall Gorkys Hernandez and option Jose Tabata.

— Michael Sanserino (@msanserino) July 3, 2012

The contending Pirates could really, really, really use a productive outfielder, but Tabata wasn't the answer this year. Unfortunately, Hernandez probably isn't either, as he's a year older than Tabata, but he wasn't hitting that much better than Tabata in Triple-A.

Hernandez and Drew Sutton will likely pick up the bulk of Tabata's at-bats.