Dave Littlefield

David Littlefield (born June 16, 1960) is a former Major League Baseball executive, who is currently the vice president of player development for the Detroit Tigers. Littlefield was employed as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a position he held from July 13, 2001 to September 7, 2007. He took over as GM for Roy Smith, who had assumed the position on a temporary basis after the firing of GM Cam Bonifay on June 11.

Littlefield received a large amount of negative publicity after the Pirates lost five prospects from their minor league system with the first six picks in the 2003 Rule 5 draft, even though they had unused spots on their 40-man roster and could have protected several of the players if they had chosen to do so. Chris Shelton, who had recently been honored as the team's minor league player of the year, went with the first pick, and he was followed in short order by Rich Thompson, Frank Brooks, Jeff Bennett, and José Bautista. Baseball executives present at the draft laughed openly at Littlefield's embarrassment, and the laughter intensified after the Pirates declined to make a pick of their own. The Cincinnati Reds, picking seventh, had all five Pirate players listed on their draft board and were frustrated to see them all go too soon, and an anonymous executive from another American League team said that his team had also planned to take a Pirate prospect, refraining only because in his words, "There wasn't anything left."

Littlefield acquired a reputation throughout MLB as a difficult trading partner, in that his demands during negotiations were often seen as grossly excessive. It was rumored that Littlefield turned down a trade offer in 2005 with former GM of the Philadelphia Phillies, Ed Wade, in which the Pirates would swap pitcher Kip Wells for the Phillies' Ryan Howard. There were also unconfirmed reports that Littlefield turned down trading Howard for pitcher Kris Benson a year earlier.

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