Be Like Tike

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Neal Huntington and Frank Coonelly have preached a change in culture around the Pirates constantly since they were respectively appointed General Manager and President. They have taken away the pointless “We Will” slogan, fired Jim “The Blank Stare” Tracy, purged the 40-man roster, and attempted to build for the future.

Now, though, they have hearkened to the team’s past by appointing a ton of former Pirates to what are essentially figurehead positions in the organization. According to the PG, they have hired Chuck Tanner to be Huntington’s special assistant, added Sid Bream, Carlos Garcia, and Rich Donnelly to the organization, and invited Maz, Bill Virdon, Kent Tekulve, and Manny Sanguillen to be counselors in Bradenton this season.

My issue with all of this is that in an organization focused on the future and on building up a terrible minor league system, by focusing so heavily on the past the present may be somewhat ignored. The fact of the matter is this: The Pirates were not as bad as their record last season.

Now every other blogger out there may disagree with me as well as some newspaper writers, but if Jim Tracy had not been the manager, Jason Bay had not been awful for most of the season, Ronny Paulino had shown up before August, and Adam LaRoche had avoided a bad two month slump to start the season, the Pirates are probably a 77-win team, just a few lucky bounces away from .500.

With that said, they should also undoubtedly be looking to the future. If that means trading Jason Bay for what his value would have been before last season, that’s just fine. The team can afford to plug Nate McLouth or Xavier Nady in at LF right now and still have four legitimate major league outfielders with Steve Pearce preparing at AAA. If it means dumping Damaso Marte for a couple of decent pitching prospects, that is a good long-term trade. What should a team that is aiming for 81 want with a left-handed specialist?

Part of the future, however, is also deciding which players on this team could play a role. I would say that Tom Gorzelanny and Ian Snell are the two most likely. The two pitchers both developed into #2 types last season, but both also showed an ability to dominate that has simply not been present from Pirate pitchers over the last decade. Management also appears to believe that Adam LaRoche will play a role in the Pirates’s future. That makes sense because the Pirates simply do not have left-handed bats in their system, for some reason and LaRoche is still reasonably young at 1B, a position that causes very little wear and tear. They also have to make decisions about many of the other position players on this team, as they are becoming more expensive as they near arbitration and buying out those years may be a cheaper option for the club.

Coonelly and Huntington need to realize that fans are sick of hearing about The Lumber Company and Bill Mazeroski and Honus Wagner and instead want to know about what the Nuttings are doing to put a contender or at least a good baseball team on the field this year or in the very near future. The Pirates seem to have an overall direction, at least from the comments of Nutting and Huntington, but some of their personnel moves do not make that much sense (i.e. signing Dessens instead of Chacon). If the Pirates can continue to appear as if they are improving in terms of the on-field product, meaning that last year’s players will show up motivated and ready to play from the beginning of the year, then I might begin to believe some of the off-field propaganda.

I just hope that the Nuttings don’t try to sell me another plastic bobblehead of another Pirate of a bygone era (wait, they are selling six of them this year).

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