Sunday, November 25th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
Why Neal Huntington is beginning to lose my trust
In Sunday’s Post-Gazette, there are finally two noteworthy pieces of news about the Pirates, one involving a mediocre pitcher who is injured most of the time and the other involving the two faces of the franchise.
According to the PG, the Pirates have contacted Matt Clement about potentially joining the team. Clement, a Butler, PA native, has always been a mildly intriguing pitcher who could end up being Matt Morris without the, you know, $9 million salary. In other words, he is an experienced pitcher who is, at this point in his career, a back of the rotation starter. Clement is coming off of serious shoulder surgery, which could drive his price down. He has, however, shown that he is a decent pitcher in the past and could be an interesting addition to a rotation that already includes Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, Paul Maholm, Morris, and, tentatively, Zach Duke.
Signing Clement would allow the Pirates to start the season with Duke in the bullpen. Duke could work out the various kinks in his mechanics until the team is finally confident that he can start without making every opposing hitter look like Ted Williams (opponents had a .394 batting average against Duke last year). Of course, the article says that “it is far from certain that [the Pirates] will be a serious bidder.” Great.
More important to the future of the franchise than a 33-year-old pitcher coming off of massive shoulder surgery are the fates of Jason Bay and Jack Wilson. According to, again, the PG, the Pirates are aggressively shopping Bay and may be looking to trade Jack Wilson. Huntington denies that the Pirates are trying to get rid of either Bay or Wilson, stating that, while every player on the team could be on the market, the team has “outrageous” asking prices for some players that are unlikely to be matched.
If Huntington is going to lie through his teeth like this, however, he must stop saying that the Pirates are looking to increase the “depth in their system.” That statement is utterly outrageous, as a player like Jason Bay should net at least one major league ready player, one top of the line prospect, and one solid prospect instead of the multitude of mediocrity that Huntington seems interested in. Bay is not the type of player you trade to make your AAA team better.
For that matter, I find it suspicious that the one team that keeps popping whenever Bay is mentioned is the Cleveland Indians, Huntington’s former employer. Cleveland does not have a particularly strong farm system and most of their good prospects are pitchers. The Pirates do not need any more pitchers. At this point, they need to make sure that they have some star-caliber players on offense and Bay is the only proven star that they have on the roster. Trading him, particularly to Cleveland, would be an unmitigated disaster for not only next season, but for the long-term future of the franchise.
If Bay is traded to Cleveland, it will appear as if Huntington is helping out Mark Shapiro, his old buddy and former employer and the fans will lose all faith in their newest General Manager. Furthermore, if Bay is traded at all this off-season, an already annoyed fan base will become irate and the franchise’s attendance rates will drop from 26th to dead last, with PNC Park looking more like Dolphin Stadium than ever before.
If Huntington expects fans to sit through another rebuilding period, he does not understand just how sick Pittsburgh is of having an embarrassing baseball club. He keeps referring to a “culture of winning,” something that Pittsburgh is predicated upon, from its football to its college sports to its hockey. Baseball has been the only sport missing from that culture over the last fifteen years and Pittsburghers are beginning to get sick of seeing management pretend to try while they are blatantly pocketing a huge amount of money.
We have seen the Five Year Plans, the Number One Draft Picks, the Phenoms, the 1.82 ERAs, the Speedy Outfielders, and the Trade of the Star. We have all seen the string of mediocre (or less than) prospects, the trips to Dr. James Andrews, the Warren Morris dropoff, the Zach Duke implosion, the Chris Duffy obsession, and the Oliver Perez disaster. We are sick of it and do not want to see any more of it.
Now, all we want to see is a winner or at least a team that is making progress in an area other than public relations.
It is beginning to look more and more like Neal Huntington and Frank Coonelly are not winners, but just more infuriating, nonchalant, money-grubbing, selfish disasters waiting to happen.
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