Bob Smizik: Pirates' McClatchy needs help

Sunday, October 08, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In a self-congratulatory news release last week, the Pirates applauded their attendance success during the past season when they sold 1,861,549 tickets, the fifth-highest total in team history. What the Pirates didn't announce was people bought all those tickets to see a team that had the franchise's fourth-worst record in the past 50 years. Think about that for a second. Considering the Pirates history, achieving the fourth-worst record in the past half-century is not easily done.
In view of such a season -- and despite some of the recent spin it was a hugely disappointing one -- you might think changes were afoot. Ha!
The Pirates don't work that way and that was never more obvious than with the other announcement made last week.

Kevin McClatchy, the man who sits in the chair where the buck is supposed to stop, was given not just an extension but what amounts to the title of CEO For Life. Only with the Pirates are people rewarded in such a grand fashion for leading the team to 11 consecutive losing seasons.
Chairman of the board Bob Nutting, the man who controls the club's financial decisions, didn't have the guts to make a public appearance to hail his latest decision. He sent a press release instead.

It said, in part: "We have great confidence in this group and are especially pleased to have Kevin as our Managing General Partner and CEO. He will continue in that position as long as he desires.''

Wonder how managers Gene Lamont, who led the Pirates to their two best seasons in the past 14 years, and Lloyd McClendon and general manager Cam Bonifay feel about that? All three were fired after significantly shorter losing tenures.

The difference: Those three honorable gentlemen were not partners and friends with the Nutting family.

A word about McClatchy. He is a frequent target of the media, including this column, and fans because he is the public face of the Pirates and has been since he bought the team in 1996. He is the one constant in all those losing years where there have been four managers and two general managers. The Nuttings, Bob and his father, G. Ogden, own the largest share of the team. They use McClatchy to stand between themselves and the public and to take all the criticism.

I like Kevin McClatchy and take no joy in frequently criticizing him, which is why I have attempted to point out recently that the Nuttings are the real owners of the Pirates and the people with whom the buck should stop. McClatchy is a great guy and a first-class gentleman. He wants to win as badly as anyone and if he had the money, he'd pour it into the team. He doesn't.

But to give him such an all-encompassing vote of confidence when he has overseen 11 consecutive losing seasons tells us all that is wrong with this franchise.

It's true, the team was successful off the field this year, but a large part of that is due to the fact Major League Baseball threw the Pirates a life preserver called the All-Star Game. Without the additional 2,500 season tickets that were sold almost totally because of the All-Star Game, attendance would have declined, as it should have. But Nutting looked right past that fact to take the easy way out and reward his pal.

Judging from discussions with people who work under McClatchy on the business side of the Pirates operation, he is held in high regard. He is considered a good boss who challenges his employees. But he's over his head on the baseball side, where the Nuttings allow him something close to total autonomy. Even after 11 years with the Pirates, he is not nearly steeped enough in the details of playing the game and winning at it to be the man in charge.

Where was McClatchy when general manager Dave Littlefield was throwing money -- about $17 million -- at free agents who almost any knowledgeable observer knew were not the answer?
The Pirates got nothing out of Sean Casey, Jeromy Burnitz and Joe Randa that they couldn't have received from players already on the team that would have cost considerably less.
The money could have been so much better spent on player development either within their own system or in Latin America or Asia. But it was showered on unworthy free agents by a baseball operations staff that clearly lacks the necessary evaluating skills.

Since McClatchy is CEO and managing general partner for the foreseeable future, he needs help on the baseball side. It's time for the Pirates to divide his duties. It's time to bring in someone over Littlefield who actually knows baseball.

The San Diego Padres, for example, have a first-class general manager in Kevin Towers. But that wasn't enough for San Diego ownership. Last year they hired Sandy Alderson as their CEO. Alderson had previously worked as the highly successful general manager of the Oakland A's. If Towers is threatened by Alderson, it hasn't shown. The Padres have made the playoffs the past two seasons.

Such a person would not come cheap, a real turnoff to the Nuttings. But if the Pirates want to end this 14 years of failure, they need bold new initiatives. If Littlefield is their man, and they claim he is, they need someone with more baseball savvy than McClatchy overseeing him.

(Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com. )