Sunday, September 9th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
And The Fallout is Frank Coonelly
The firing of Dave Littlefield is clearly taking shape as a strategic move on the part of Bob Nutting, as reports leaked today that the Pirates are planning on naming MLB’s chief labor lawyer, Frank Coonelly, President of the team. The firing of Littlefield is looking more and more like it goes hand in hand with the hiring of Coonelly.
Either Nutting didn’t want Coonelly to even be able to consider rehiring the bumbling ex-GM or Coonelly did not want his first move to be firing Littlefield. Either scenario makes sense, as Littlefield is obviously holding the franchise back (and Jim Tracy along with him) and Coonelly would not want to be on the bad side of the players almost immediately coming into the position.
Coonelly is described as being “one of the most powerful men in baseball” and obviously does carry something of a big stick as he would, in his former position, help dictate signing bonuses and free agent salaries. This is clearly someone with a better understanding of the business end of baseball than the Pirates have had in quite some time. He should also have excellent connections throughout baseball to help him hire a solid (yes, that would be a huge improvement) GM.
Also, he is apparently willing to commit pretty much any act to help his organization (MLB at the time of that article).
As for the open GM spot, it seems odd that the Pirates have already interviewed a significant number of candidates and even more odd that these candidates seem to be from predominantly large-market teams. The obvious candidate is Tony LaCava, considering that he comes from the Pittsburgh area and is the Blue Jays’ answer to Paul DePodesta.
Let’s hope they get that hire right. The organization seems to be one-for-one to this point.
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