Even with backtracking, Coonelly's recent message to fans is the wrong one

Sunday, February 27, 2011
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

Pittsburgh Pirates new manager Clint Hurdle, right, shares a moment with team chairman of the board Bob Nutting, left, and president Frank Coonelly after being introduced as the 39th manager in the history of the Pirates, Monday, Nov. 15, 2010. (AP)

As it is the comfortable inclination of this column to leave well enough alone, generally, and since that policy easily can extend to leaving bad enough alone, there recently has been only spare comment in this space about the Pirates.

The recent arbitrator's award of $2,025,000 to pitcher Ross Ohlendorf actually left me feeling sorry for the ballclub. The Pirates offered $1.4 million for the upcoming season, and I figured if the system is such that the Philadelphia Phillies have to pay Roy Halladay some $20 million in anticipation of a 20-win season, I guess the Pirates have to pay at least $1 million for a guy who won one (1) game.

If you've got to pay $2 million for a starter with one win, you're talking about a pennant costing something like $190 million. The Pirates like to come in somewhere under $40 million in terms of total team compensation, which is like showing up at the best restaurant in town with $3.

"What can I get around here for $3?"

"Give ya coupla olives to put in your pocket on the way out, howzat?"

In a division where the average payroll last year was $97.2 million everywhere but in Pittsburgh, the Pirates are the guy walking around with two olives in his pocket and seem perfectly unperturbed by it.

In fact, unless I'm misinterpreting team president Frank Coonelly (you can only hope), the baseball team around here will continue to be the culinary equivalent of lint-covered olives unless attendance spikes fairly considerably.

Asked this week if the club would be able to boost payroll to between $70 and $80 million if its core players and potential free agents merited it, the president said, "Today, no, but we will be able to support that payroll very soon if our fans believe that we now have a group of players in Pittsburgh and on its way here in the near future that is competitive. We need to take a meaningful step forward in terms of attendance to reach that payroll number while continuing to invest heavily in our future, but I am convinced that the attendance will move quickly once we convince our fans that we are on the right track."

The Pirates drew 1,613,999 people to PNC Park last summer. In their 124 history, they only have had better attendance 13 times. But, in exchange for clicking Bob Nutting's turnstiles, on average, nearly 20,000 times every night, the fans were rewarded with the absolute worst kind of baseball, the kind that wins 57 games and loses 105.

That followed on the heels of Coonelly's other vintage interpretation, coming as it did almost a year ago to the day -- last winter's infamous dynasty quote.

"Don't let people tell you that the Pirates have a great future but that it's not today -- today is our future," he said.

"2010 is the beginning of the new dynasty of the Pirates, for me. The message is that this is the group that's going to turn this franchise around. For the first time since I've been with the organization, I really believe that."

57-105.

So this is the guy you're supposed to believe, and, if you don't believe him, and you don't start showing up in "meaningful" numbers, there probably won't be any significant capital improvements to the track the Pirates are on, which, we keep hearing, is the right track.

Friday, Coonelly met with the Post-Gazette's Colin Dunlap to say that's not the case, explaining in part, "we are not asking for more support without demonstrating that we have a competitive on-field product."

Sigh.

Do any of the people associated with this ballclub understand the dissonance in this song?

When the shovels hit the dirt to start construction on the House Untruth Built, April 7, 1999, Kevin McClatchy had just spent most of the previous decade inveigling public money for this same idea. That if the new ballpark went up, the Pirates would be competitive within five years. That summer, they won 78 games.

In no summer since have they won 76. Eight times in the past 11 years, they have won 69 or fewer.

Again: Summer of shovel to dirt -- 78 wins.

Five years into PNC Park -- 67 wins.

Ten years into PNC Park -- 57 wins.

Last weekend, the owner told the players that "small bits of incremental improvements" will not be adequate. Giant leaps backward, I guess, are still OK. But, on a team that has consistently retreated from competence since 2007, I wouldn't be turning my nose up at potential improvements of any kind.

If they win two games in a row at any time during spring training, that will be an improvement.

If they get through a season without losing any games 20-0, that will be an improvement.

If they avoid getting outscored, 36-1, in a three-game series, that will be an improvement.

If they can get through the season using only 26 pitchers, that will be an improvement.

If their longest road losing streak is no more than 16 games, that will be an improvement.

If they use just seven leadoff hitters, that will be an improvement.

If they score 3, 2, 1, or zero runs in only 96 of their games, even that would be an improvement. They scored 3 or fewer 97 times last year.

Now that can't be the kind of product you're expected to be a lot more interested in than you've so far indicated, should you want a better product. That can't be what they're saying.

If it is, I mean, what olives.

Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com.

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