Hot Stove: We will ... come up with a new slogan

Sunday, December 16, 2007
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Anyone taking jabs at the Pirates in 2008 will have to find a fresher approach than poking fun at the marketing slogan.

In other words:

We will ... find new material.

Yes, the "We will" slogan, born in early 2006 and stamped all over the team's broadcast advertising, billboards, PNC Park staff uniforms and even on a giant, oval sign outside the players' clubhouse -- perhaps they were supposed to touch it on the way to the field, Notre Dame-style -- is no more. Management has removed signs from the ballpark, the team's official Web site is without a slogan atop the home page, and all other traces soon will be obliterated, too.

The "We will" slogan was formed after an outside marketing group performed an intensive study of everything about the Pirates' business practices for several months, beginning in late 2005. The slogan was intended to be flexible, fun and, above all, it was intended to stay in place for years.

We will ... persevere.

We will ... work hard.

The only one the Pirates never dared use: We will ... win.

But, when former marketing director Tim Schuldt left for a similar position with a North Carolina speedway early last year, that took away perhaps the slogan's most ardent backer.

The Pirates do not have a new slogan yet, but one suggestion making the rounds: "Let's Go Bucs!"

Imagine that: A marketing survey conducted by opening one's ears at the ballpark.



Buried treasure

• Firm word surfaced in the past week that it was the Pirates, not the Cleveland Indians, who pulled out of that five-player trade involving Jason Bay at the winter meetings. The decision, made jointly through the entire chain of command, was that the value for Bay was not enough. The deal was Bay and Ronny Paulino for Franklin Gutierrez, Kelly Shoppach and Cliff Lee or a minor-league pitcher.

• Two players the Pirates recently designated for assignment, first baseman Brad Eldred and reliever Brian Rogers, yesterday became free agents. The Pirates immediately re-signed Rogers to a minor-league contract, but Eldred probably will pursue other options.

• Although management has strongly considered offering multi-year contracts to Freddy Sanchez and Matt Capps, no approach has been made yet on either front.

• Still available for bench help is Craig Wilson, who said this week he is healthy and swinging after his shoulder surgery in June. As for a return to the Pirates: "I would definitely be interested. I had a great time while I was there and never really wanted to leave." The shoulder troubled Wilson, 31, for nearly two years, contributing to his struggles with three teams since leaving the Pirates. Remember: Wilson hit seven pinch-hit home runs in 2001.

• Baseball America's No. 1-rated prospect in the Hawaiian Winter League after batting .299 with a .386 on-base percentage and tons of plate presence: Yes, Matt Wieters, the player Dave Littlefield bypassed in the June draft. Scouts compare him to Jason Varitek.

• The Pirates genuinely are enticed by the idea of Ryan Doumit as an outfielder, but only if he can get himself into peak shape this offseason.

• Andrew McCutchen might well open in Altoona. He has played only 17 games above Class AA, and the Pirates want to give him plenty of work going after outside offspeed stuff. Chris Duffy should be Class AAA Indianapolis' center fielder.

• Neil Walker, back home in the North Hills after 38 games in the Mexican Pacific League, batted .268 with four home runs and 17 RBIs. Sounds OK, but he had only six hits, no home runs and three RBIs in his final 42 at-bats. That start-fast-finish-slow trait has been ominously prevalent since his wrist surgery two years ago.

• Only 60 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com.
First published on December 16, 2007 at 12:00 am

Pirates can't change culture with talk

Sunday, November 25, 2007
By Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Bonds, Van Slyke and Bonilla...three big reasons why the Pirates won three straight NL East division titles in the early nineties.

The New York Yankees recently offered contracts to Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera that totaled close to $400 million. It was the largest potential team spending spree since last offseason when the Chicago Cubs paid out about $230 million to attract new players or keep old ones. The Cubs' willingness to spend was rewarded. They went from last place to first in the National League Central Division and joined the Yankees in the postseason.

On a much smaller scale, but equally telling, the world champion Boston Red Sox earlier this month exercised their option on pitcher Julian Taveras and agreed to pay him almost $4 million next season. They did this although Taveras barely figures in their plans, and proof of that was he was not included on any of their three postseason rosters.

The Red Sox, like the Yankees and Cubs, are doing what they feel is necessary to return to the postseason by exercising a well-known baseball rule: You have to spend money to win.

Which brings us to the Pirates, whose intent also is to win but not necessarily by spending much more money than they have in the recent past. This means they'll again have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. The Pirates have indicated they will not venture into the high-priced, free-agent market, not that any such players would agree to play for them. Nor does their current roster call for any significant pay increases.

Which means, the Pirates payroll will be about $50 million, with almost 20 percent of that going to pitcher Matt Morris.

This doesn't mean the Pirates don't have a plan. Oh, they have one for sure, and they're sticking to it. To listen to their new management team, turning a loser into a winner won't be hard. They're simply going to change the culture of the clubhouse.

When hired in September, president Frank Coonelly said there was a need to "change the entire culture" of the Pirates.

Earlier this month, when introduced as manager, John Russell said, "It is my responsibility to restore the culture of pride and passion in the clubhouse."

Oh, that that culture were so important or that it were so easily changed.

Jim Tracy made almost exactly the same point when he took over as manager in 2005. He thought his techniques, and those of his coaches, would have the kind of impact that turns a loser into a winner. Tracy was fired after extending the Pirates' consecutive losing streak to 15 seasons.

You don't change culture with talk.

Go back to 1993, the beginning of the losing. The Pirates were coming off three consecutive division titles. They had one of the best managers in baseball in Jim Leyland. No one could doubt the culture in the clubhouse was excellent. In fact, with the departure of Barry Bonds and the return of such solid baseball citizens as Andy Van Slyke, Jay Bell, Jeff King and Don Slaught, the clubhouse only figured to be better.

Yet the Pirates went from 96-66 in 1992 to 75-87 in 1993 and have not won since.

The culture in the clubhouse means almost nothing.

The players on the field mean almost everything.

The notion that a change in attitude will make a startling difference is a ruse, the only one left for the Pirates to keep the fans who value good baseball interested. If anything, it will be more difficult to change the culture in the clubhouse because the Pirates will have pretty much the same cast of players next season as last. These guys have been beaten down by the losing to the point it will be difficult for them to embrace any new program, no matter how convincing Russell might be

Russell understands the enormity of the task. He has been here before. He was the team's third base coach for three seasons, ending in 2005.

"We're going to compete," Russell insisted the day he was hired. "I know people are going to look at me like, 'This guy's stupid.'

"I've been here. I know what it's like. But that's my goal."

Player personalities are molded by many forces. When Jason Kendall joined the Pirates in 1996 he had an upbeat, positive attitude and he remained that way for a number of years. But the losing wore down Kendall. He turned into an unhappy player, whose attitude, although not intentionally, dragged down the clubhouse. Kendall played the game as hard as anyone, and he played it the right way. But he was defeated by the losing.

That's the culture that remains in the Pirates' clubhouse. There's only one way to change it, and it's not talk. It's better players. Better players cost money.

The same rule of baseball that applies to the Yankees, Cubs and Red Sox also applies to the Pirates -- whether they want to acknowledge it or not.

Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.
First published on November 25, 2007 at 12:00 am

Russell tiny part of Bucs' equation

By Joe Starkey
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Jim Leyland was between drags of a cigarette outside PNC Park a few years ago when the conversation turned to managers.

Specifically, to how much a manager can impact a team's record.

This was before Leyland wound up in Detroit, where the Tigers had conveniently bumped their payroll from $47 million to $82 million in the two years before his arrival. They'd spent nearly $100 million on free agents Magglio Ordonez and Kenny Rogers.

In other words, Motown suddenly was a manager-friendly place.

Leyland had experienced the opposite.

If he'd stayed in Pittsburgh for the 1997 season, for example, instead of quitting with four years left on his contract, he would have presided over a team with a $9 million payroll - or about what Alex Rodriguez makes while eating breakfast.

This isn't football, where coordinators can practically choreograph a game and where emotion plays such a critical role.

"Managing is multiple-choice," Leyland said. "Nobody really knows strategy. I managed a long time, and I can tell you this: When I had good players, I did OK. When I didn't, I wasn't worth a crap."

Which brings us to the newest Pirates manager, John Russell, who was introduced amid a flood of hyperbole Monday at PNC Park.

"Today is a great day for the Pittsburgh Pirates family," general manager Neal Huntington said. "John's positive energy, intense passion for the game and strong managerial experience set him apart from every other potential candidate."

Yeah, well, give him some good players, and Russell might do OK.

Otherwise, refer back to Leyland's last sentence.

Russell is a tiny part of the equation here. The Pirates' next hires - director of scouting, director of player development and the like - are infinitely more important.

Heck, the pitching coach will have more of a direct impact on the team's fortunes (and while we're on the subject, the Pirates' Triple-A pitching coach, Jeff Andrews, would be ideal. He developed the team's promising young pitchers and might be the only man on the planet who can resuscitate Zach Duke's career).

The most important players in all this are Huntington -- who reports directly to team president Frank Coonelly -- and owner Bob Nutting, whose future payrolls will tell us just how committed he is to winning.

The way things have been going for the past decade-and-a-half, Connie Mack couldn't have won here. Leyland sure couldn't. He presided over the first four years of what has become a 15-year losing streak.

Gene Lamont, who'd been the AL Manager of the Year with the White Sox only four years before replacing Leyland, couldn't win here. He lasted four years and was followed by managing novice Lloyd McClendon, who almost made it through five.

Jim Tracy came next. The Pirates paid Tracy $1 million per season, convinced he was going to be the greatest communicator since Ronald Reagan and the fiercest disciplinarian since George S. Patton.

"Effort," Tracy said the day he was hired, "is not an option."

That was before he shrugged off the famous Jeromy Burnitz jog to first base and turned his head every time Ronny Paulino played dead.

Tracy's biggest contribution was reminding us that even if a manager can't help a cause that much, he sure can hurt one. His tenure was marked by a stunning lack of discipline. The least Russell can do is make players accountable for their actions.

But the real issue won't be their attitudes.

It'll be their skills.


Joe Starkey is a sports writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He can be reached at jstarkey@tribweb.com

Pirates New Manager: Russell's energy with weak Class AAA team influenced Pirates' decision

Monday, November 05, 2007
By Paul Meyer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Pat Sullivan/Associated Press
John Russell, who will be introduced as the Pirates' manager today, spent three years as a coach with the team.

John Russell was the only one of the five interviewed candidates for the Pirates' manager's job who did not have a tie to general manager Neal Huntington.

But Russell ended up being the one who got the job.

"That says something about Neal," said Mike Arbuckle, Philadelphia's assistant general manager for scouting and player development. "In baseball [hiring], we all tend to lean toward those people we're comfortable with."

It also says something about Russell, 46, who coaxed 55 wins out of a terrible Ottawa Lynx team -- the Phillies' Class AAA affiliate in the International League -- and wound up becoming a big-league manager for the first time.

"I would say our process has concluded and we're excited to name the next manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates at a press conference [this] morning," Huntington said.

Russell, interviewed by Huntington around the middle of last week, is a name Huntington had on a list of people who made solid impressions on him during his career.

It didn't hurt Russell's chances that when Huntington, formerly a special assistant with Cleveland, did some scouting of the Ottawa team in August, Russell's club still showed energy and took infield before games.

Arbuckle also noted that when he watched Ottawa in August.

"We knew going into last season that our strength in the minor leagues was going to be from [high Class A] down," Arbuckle said, "and that our weakest team was going to be at [Class AAA] -- and it certainly was.

"But when I was there in August, John still had his team getting after it and competing with nothing to play for. You've got to be a pretty good manager to get a team to do that. John did a great job with a team that was extremely thin talent-wise."

The Lynx finished 55-88, the 55 victories being the lowest in the International League. They were last in the league in runs scored (553), home runs (59) and team earned run average (4.77).

This was Philadelphia's final season linked to the Lynx. The Phillies' AAA team in 2008 will be Lehigh Valley, which Russell would have managed.

Arbuckle isn't surprised Russell won't be managing Lehigh Valley but will be managing the Pirates instead.

"I felt personally he would manage at the big-league level," Arbuckle said. "And with him having been there as a coach and what they're trying to do in Pittsburgh, all the pieces fit real well. I can't say enough about John Russell. This is the kind of guy who has a chance to make them better."

Russell, a former major-league catcher with Philadelphia, Atlanta and Texas, ended his playing career in 1993.

He successfully managed for eight seasons in the Minnesota minor-league system before being picked by then-general manager Dave Littlefield to join the Pirates' major-league coaching staff as third-base coach after the 2002 season.

Lloyd McClendon was the Pirates' manager then.

McClendon yesterday declined to comment on Russell.

During his three years as a Pirates coach, Russell also was the team's catching instructor, working closely with Jason Kendall. Perhaps he'll do the same now with Ronny Paulino, the Pirates' defensively challenged catcher.

McClendon was fired late in the 2005 season, and his coaches were let go after that season.

Russell joined the Phillies organization and was named International League manager of the year in 2006.

Russell won the Pirates' manager's job over Chicago White Sox bench coach Joey Cora, Cleveland third-base coach Joel Skinner, Los Angeles Dodgers bench coach Dave Jauss and Class AAA Indianapolis manager Trent Jewett.

"I wish him luck going forward," Jewett said. "I care a lot about a lot of people there and hope they have success."

First published on November 5, 2007 at 12:00 am

The Remaking Of A Team -- Scouting, development will key any turnaround

Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, October 14, 2007

In the midst of all the excitement about the Penguins and Steelers, what little attention that's being focused on the Pirates concerns the search for a manager, and with it the hope that a new man can invigorate this comatose franchise.

Will we never learn? It doesn't work that way, at least not with the Pirates.

The losing began with Jim Leyland, who was regarded as one of the best managers in baseball. He had previous success and would have even more after leaving the Pirates. But Leyland couldn't turn around this mess and had a losing record in each of his final four seasons.

Gene Lamont, who succeeded Leyland, was 46 games over .500 in three-plus seasons with the Chicago White Sox, where he was American League Manager of the Year in 1993 and where his teams twice finished first. Lamont was 57 games under .500 in four seasons with the Pirates.

The recently fired Jim Tracy was 44 games over .500 in five seasons with Los Angeles, including a division title. He was 54 games under .500 in two seasons with the Pirates.

Here's the message:

Good managers don't turn the Pirates into winners; the Pirates turn good managers into losers.

The answer for the Pirates is not a new manager and it's not the free-agent market where the best players want to sign with winners and the leftovers -- Derek Bell, Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa, Tony Armas -- choose teams like the Pirates.

There's only one answer to what ails the Pirates and it's right out there for everyone to see as the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies play for the championship of the National League. Those teams advanced to this stage with low payrolls and terrific young players.

Scouting and development are the keys for the Pirates and any examination of the team's 15 consecutive years of losing is proof of that. That's why the most important hires made by general manager Neal Huntington will be the people he puts in charge of scouting and development and the people those men hire -- minor-league managers, coaches, instructors and scouts.

The Pirates player development system has been nothing less than a massive train wreck for more than a decade. They could not have drafted and developed players more poorly if they had tried. Clearly, something is wrong with those systems. Whether the Pirates don't have enough scouts or enough good scouts is something Huntington must determine. Same with the minor league staffs. If the Pirates aren't drafting the best players, they need the best teachers to upgrade that talent. If they start scouting and drafting better, good minor-league staffs will only further increase their chances of success.

The problem is this:

There's no university in the country offering a course in Baseball Scouting 101. Nor is there a graduate school with a program in Advanced Baseball Studies.

In the past, ex-major-league players frequently held many of the minor league jobs. But with the lavish salaries, for even borderline players, not many are willing to take on a life in the minor leagues where the bus rides are long, the hotels crummy and the pay less than ordinary.

The problem also is this:

There's little or no reason for scouts or minor-league personnel to make lateral movements. Nor would the Pirates be wise to get in bidding wars for scouts and instructors because it's a war they would not win.

"You can't just let 40 people go,'' Huntington said. "We have some good people in place. We need to enhance their abilities.''

Huntington said the Pirates were probably in the bottom half of MLB in terms of amateur scouts, a sad commentary that must be changed. If the Pirates aren't going to make the commitment to a significant increase in their major-league payroll, they absolutely must do so in scouting and development.

In case Huntington doesn't realize the enormity of the problem, here's the best team of position players the Pirates have drafted and developed since 1995, based on major-league productivity:

C: Ronnie Paulino; 1B: Chris Shelton; 2B: Jose Castillo; SS: Jeff Keppinger; 3B: Jose Bautista; LF: Rob Mackowiak; CF: Nate McLouth; RF: Ryan Doumit.

Bench: Tike Redman, Steven Pearce, Nyjer Morgan, Chris Duffy, Humberto Cota.

Such a team couldn't win 50 games playing a major-league schedule.

Contrast that to the teams playing for the NL pennant.

Of the Rockies eight starting position players, six have been signed and developed by them since 1995.

Of the Diamondbacks eight starting position players, four have been signed and developed by them since 2002. The Diamondbacks have two players from the draft class of 2004 and one from 2005 in their starting lineup.

Sometimes, but not always, a smart organization can overcome massive spending with excellent player development.

It's the path the Pirates must follow. Too bad they're already so far behind most of the rest of baseball.

First published on October 14, 2007 at 12:00 am
Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.

Sanchez wins Pirates' Clemente Award

By The Tribune-Review
Tuesday, October 9, 2007


Second baseman Freddy Sanchez won the Roberto Clemente Award, which is given annually to the Pirates' most valuable player.

It's the second year in a row Sanchez captured the award, which is presented by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. The runner-up in was left-hander Tom Gorzelanny.

Sanchez is the first repeat winner since outfielder Brian Giles in 1999-2000.

This season, Sanchez batted .304 with a career-high 11 home runs and 81 RBI. He missed the last week of the season after having arthroscopic shoulder surgery, and sat out the first week of the season while recovering from a knee injury sustained during spring training.

Bay Looks Ahead After Long Season

10/05/2007 10:59 AM ET

Outfielder struggles with offense, health issues in tough year

By Jenifer Langosch / MLB.com

Pirates Headlines
• Pirates cut ties with manager Tracy
• Bay looks ahead after long season
• Bucs build core in inconsistent '07
• New GM considering many Bucs' fates
• Pirates season in review
• More Pirates Headlines

• Bay's career statistics

• Bucs season in review

• Shop for Pirates gear

PITTSBURGH -- Jason Bay didn't need to make one last glance at the statistics. He didn't need to hear the grumblings of a fan base when he popped up in his final at-bat of the season, effectively finishing his year on an 0-for-10 skid.

He knew what each would point to.

Or, maybe better put, he felt exactly what each was the result of. And he had felt it all season long.

"I was fighting myself the entire year," said Bay, taking a seat in the clubhouse to rest his bothersome knee on the final day of the season. "The first few years I went up there and did the exact same thing every time and it worked out well. And then this year, for some reason mechanically, which never happens to me, I was out of sync with my timing."

Actually, it had happened once to Bay before, back in his early days as a Minor Leaguer, an experience that Bay now calls "the best thing that ever happened" to him. But at the Major League level, Bay had been a model of consistency, not necessarily putting up All-Star stats every week, but never enduring drawn-out slumps.

Then came 2007.

And in that respect, 2007 provided an entirely new challenge, both trying and frustrating.
"I'll tell you, I'm not sad to see the season end, that's for sure," said Bay, who finished the year sidelined with right knee tendinitis. "I guess before things have come pretty quick and easy to me ever since I got there. And I think it was kind of a little reminder that it's not that easy and you still have to go out there and you still have to work hard."

For the first time in three years, Bay fell short of the 30-home run, 100-RBI marks. His .247 average, .327 on-base percentage, 21 homers and 81 RBIs were all career lows since becoming the everyday left fielder. His walk total was down by 43 compared to last year, while his 141 strikeouts were just one shy of his total in 2005, when he recorded 97 more plate appearances.

On the day the calendar flipped to June, Bay carried a .310 average and looked as if he had a solid chance to become the first Pirates player since Tony Pena in the mid-1980s to earn All-Star invites in three consecutive years. But during the final four months of the year, he hit at a .209 mark.

He tried everything.

Manager Jim Tracy dropped Bay to the sixth hole in the lineup for 20 different games to try and minimize the pressure situations the left fielder would hit in. Bay hit just .214 in that spot.
Bay tried taking extra batting practice. He tried taking a few days off from batting practice. He tried playing through pain, while other times taking periodic days off to rest himself mentally. Nothing seemed to work. Nothing seemed to translate to prolonged success.

Tracy attributed part of Bay's struggles to the growing pains of having to counter the adjustments pitchers make to players that have been in the league for a few years.

"I don't care where you are at, but at any point in a career you're going to be looking at things and say you are forcing me to tweak this or tweak that," Tracy said. "That's part of the beauty of playing Major League Baseball."

Bay, on the other hand, didn't completely buy that argument.

"I didn't really get pitched much differently," Bay said. "I was doing a myriad of things and I would go to fix one thing and another thing would happen. I never came back thinking, 'Geez, they've got my number.' I just knew that I had numerous times to get hits. I was just fighting myself, which is something that I've never had to do before."

Bay hesitated, maybe to a fault, to use his ailing knees as an excuse for his struggles during the year. But last Sunday, as the team prepared for its final game of the season, the left fielder admitted that at the least, the health issues he dealt with didn't help.

As a result, everything took a hit. His mobility in the outfield was compromised. His propensity to steal bases all but disappeared.

Bay committed eight errors in left field after making only nine in the previous three seasons combined as the club's regular left fielder. The four bases he swiped finished down from 32 over the past two years combined.

Minor left knee surgery last offseason slowed Bay down initially, while right knee tendinitis plagued him throughout the year. The latter, Bay was told by doctors, was a direct result of the former.

"I was overcompensating on the [right] one when [the left knee] was weak," Bay said. "It's an overuse thing. It's been looked at. I've been told it's perfectly fine. We just need to rest it up so now that my left one feels great. Hopefully I can get that one under control so it's a non-issue."

Fortunately, he will have the entire offseason at his new home in Kirkwood, Wash., to do so.
He will also have the offseason to eagerly watch the pending changes within the organization. Bay, who has been outspoken in support of making changes within the organization, may also be spending time listening to his name tossed around the rumor mill.

Set to make $13.25 million in the final two years of a four-year contract, Bay could be used as a chip to bring in younger players or prospects if new general manager Neal Huntington decides to move in that direction. Though Bay's disappointing season may have slightly diminished his trade value, he could still entice a decent return.

Limited to just a pinch-hit appearance in the Pirates' final game of the season, Bay didn't look at the at-bat as potentially his last in a Pirates uniform. That is, not until different members of the media approached him about the topic.

"I have not given it one thought that this is the last time I am in this locker room," said Bay, who has been traded among three organizations in his career. "I want to be here. I want to be with these guys. I want to move forward and win. I don't want to go anywhere and I think I'll be back next year."

However, as the second-longest tenured Pirates position player behind Jack Wilson, Bay has seen the passion of the fans and their frustrations with yet another losing season. And, in return, he is ready to do whatever -- or go wherever -- he has to in order to see the franchise turn around.

"If it takes me being traded to get the fans that, then I'd be OK," Bay said. "I'd like to be a part of it, but I'd also like Pittsburgh to be excited about the Pirates whether it's with me or not. It sounds a little weird, but having gone through what I've gone through here, people deserve that."

Jenifer Langosch is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Inside the Pirates: 15 extremes from 15th losing season

From the highs of Houston to the many lows, consistency hardly was a hallmark

Sunday, September 30, 2007
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In recognition of the 15th consecutive losing season that the Pittsburgh Baseball Club will complete this afternoon at PNC Park, a look back at 15 extremes from another long summer ...



Tom Gorzelanny

Top player: So much for those lousy spring statistics. As compared to positional peers across Major League Baseball, no one on the Pirates stood out like Tom Gorzelanny. His 14-10 record ranked seventh, his 3.88 ERA ninth, his 201 2/3 innings eighth among all left-handed starters.

Bottom player: Using that same criteria, no left-hander fared worse than Zach Duke, who won three games in 19 starts and allowed opponents to bat an astounding .359. Every hitter he faced, in essence, was Tony Gwynn.

Greatest leap forward: With all due respect to Steve Pearce taking the Lynchburg-to-Pittsburgh express, no one progressed quite like Nate McLouth. Beginning the day Rajai Davis was traded July 31, McLouth went from being a subpar bench piece to an effective everyday player, batting .280 with 10 of his 13 home runs, 26 of his 37 RBIs and 16 of his 22 steals.



Jason Bay

Greatest step backward: Who can explain the decline of Jason Bay? His .248 average is 40 points below his norm, and his 21 home runs are 12-15 short, too. All that, and his defensive play often was a liability.

Best game: Ian Snell matched Roy Oswalt strike for strike. Relievers left bases loaded every other inning. Xavier Nady homered with two outs in the ninth off Brad Lidge to tie. And, five hours after it began, Adam LaRoche's three-run shot sparked a five-run 15th to beat the Astros, 8-3, Aug. 24 in Houston. Manager Jim Tracy, his team on a 7-2 roll and pummeling the ball all month, was nearly moved to tears. "I'm proud of them," he said. "I am. I really am."



Ian Snell

Worst game: The Pirates were flicked like a flea out of Yankees Stadium with a 13-6 battering June 10. With the national media on hand for Roger Clemens' return, the Pirates were miserable on and off the field, bungling at every turn and barking at each other and the umpires. That prompted the New York Post's Joel Sherman to type, "The Pirates are a major-league team like Lindsay Lohan is a NASCAR driver."

Best ownership move: The firing of general manager Dave Littlefield came as the result of Bob Nutting spending his first eight months as principal owner in doing exhaustive research -- he took up to 400 pages of notes, some say-- to make the move he felt would lead to a dramatic change in all facets. More is coming.

Worst ownership move: Until ownership explains how the Milwaukee Brewers, based in a market two-thirds the size of Pittsburgh with similar revenue streams, can have a $72 million payroll while the Pirates spend $46 million, questions will remain about commitment at the top.



Josh Phelps

Best personnel move: Josh Phelps getting claimed off waivers was no more than a footnote June 23, but he rapidly emerged as a powerful, consistent contributor.

Worst personnel move: Taking on Matt Morris' $13 million in full drew national derision, but nothing lit the local fires like passing on Georgia Tech catcher Matt Wieters in the draft. The Pirates' baseball people were leery of negotiating with Wieters' agent, Scott Boras, and turned instead to reliever Danny Moskos with the fourth overall pick.



Matt Morris

Best managerial move: Many doubted Tracy's decision to move Freddy Sanchez to second base, especially after a double-play takeout crumpled Sanchez's knee in spring training. He ended up being one of the National League's best.



Jim Tracy

Worst managerial move: Many in the PNC Park crowd of 30,677 gasped when Tracy summoned minor-league mop-up man Marty McLeary to face Arizona slugger Tony Clark with bases loaded and the Diamondbacks down by four in the seventh inning. But few were surprised when the ball sailed over the fence. The next day, McLeary was back in the minors.

Best quote: The always candid Snell, on July 24 in New York, as his season -- and the team's -- was unraveling: "I'm starting to break. I'm getting stressed out. I don't know about these other guys, but I just want to win. I don't want to be called a loser. Man, even my family calls our team losers."

Worst quote: Littlefield, chiding reporters for asking questions on draft day about the Pirates' choice of Moskos: "I have this sense that there's this desire to say we didn't get the No. 1 guy we wanted."

Best luck: Xavier Nady. Yes, really. He had a serious digestive ailment, a hamstring that never stopped hurting and, to top it off, was beaned by a fastball in St. Louis. But each incident nearly was much worse, and Nady somehow still clubbed 20 home runs.

Worst luck: Ryan Doumit reported in superb physical shape, eager to shake his injury-prone tag, and still wound up with another two months on the disabled list.

Most promising sight: A Matt Capps fastball.

Most discouraging sight: Jose Castillo moping. Management seemed determined to punish him for a poor attitude from the start of spring training, and he responded with ... a poor attitude.



Jose Castillo

Best swing: The highlight of LaRoche's salvaging second half was a majestic blast Aug. 11 off San Francisco's Tim Lincecum that landed in McCovey Cove. That made him the first member of the Pirates to hit a ball into the water on the fly anywhere, including the Allegheny River.

Worst swing: Atlanta manager Bobby Cox elected to pitch to Jack Wilson with a man on third, two outs and the pitcher on deck. And the insult multiplied when journeyman Buddy Carlyle came right at Wilson with three fastballs. All were strikes. That series sweep for the Braves began the Pirates' 2-14 free fall after the All-Star break, but Wilson, like LaRoche, rebounded individually.

Best pitch: Masumi Kuwata, still making headlines in Japan at the time, fanned countryman Ichiro Suzuki June 19 in Seattle with a curveball that might as well have dropped off Mount Rainier. "I surrender," Suzuki said later when asked about his rare, awkward swing.

Worst pitch: A 63-way tie for all the pitches Tony Armas threw April 20 in Los Angeles while swinging and missing through exactly two of them. The Dodgers went on to a 10-2 rout, and Littlefield went on to richly regret the $3.5 million he handed Armas.

Best play: Five days after making the catch of the day in the majors, Nyjer Morgan delivered what might have been the catch of the year Sept. 14 in Houston, a Willie Mays-style grab of a Ty Wigginton blast.



Nyjer Morgan

Worst play: Ronny Paulino walked right into a tag at home plate -- no slide, no crash -- June 7 in Washington, a display emblematic of the team's first-half fundamental failures.

Greatest sign of team unity: Seven players met with Tracy July 17 to set a goal of winning 82 games. That was knocked later by Littlefield, who was part of a front office that had set no tangible goals for the Pirates in the past half-decade.

Worst sign of team unity: Wigginton's malicious slide into Wilson Aug. 25 in Houston tore up his shin and might have called for retaliation from the Pirates' pitchers. None came. Not even a note of chin music. In fact, the next four times the teams met, Wigginton was so comfortable at the plate that he went 8 for 17 with four home runs.

Best statistic: The Pirates' 82 errors are fourth-fewest in the majors, thanks almost entirely to terrific infield play from Sanchez, Wilson, LaRoche and Jose Bautista. And their 98 errorless games are a franchise record.

Worst statistic: The hitters walked 461 times, third-fewest in the majors. That brought yet another meager on-base percentage -- .325, seventh-lowest -- that underscores a glaring organizational weakness in teaching the proper plate approach.



Freddy Sanchez

Reason to believe in 2008: Of the three professional sports teams to have 15-year losing streaks, two were snapped the following season. The Vancouver Canucks ended theirs in 1992, and the Sacramento Kings ended theirs in 1999. Those 1933-48 Philadelphia Phillies, of course, plodded on for another year.

Reason not to believe: Someone still needs to restore the pride in those seven letters stitched across the front of their jerseys.

First published on September 30, 2007 at 12:00 am
Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com.

Wilson waves to fans, but few other players do

Pirates' failure to acknowledge crowd in finale emblematic of fractured culture

Monday, October 01, 2007
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Keith Srakocic/Associated Press
Jack Wilson had to be carried off the field Saturday night, but he returned to the ballpark yesterday to say goodbye to the fans.

It was Saturday afternoon, and shortstop Jack Wilson was fretting yet again that he might be in his final weekend with the Pirates, given the chance the team could trade him.

But he was pleased about one thing ...

"The good part is that we're at home and I get a chance to say goodbye to the fans."

Hours later, he was carted off the field after his horrifying head-on-head collision with second baseman Matt Kata. Diagnosed with a concussion at Allegheny General Hospital, he spent the night there with blaring headaches and dizziness.

Some farewell.

Wilson was discharged from the hospital at 11 a.m. yesterday. The team arranged for his flight home to California, leaving a comfortable amount of time to get to the airport that afternoon.

He insisted on a detour.

A car took him to PNC Park while the Pirates were in the midst of losing their season finale to the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5, and he rushed to the clubhouse to don his full uniform. As the game was winding down, he joined his teammates in the dugout.

And, when it ended, he climbed the steps and spent the next 15 minutes -- as much as the travel itinerary would allow -- playfully flinging his cap and wristbands to children in the crowd, shaking hands and signing a couple of autographs.

"I just had to do it," Wilson said later by phone while hurrying to the airport. "Did you see the crowd we got today?"

It was 25,664, larger than expected, especially for a team that clinched the worst record in the National League at 68-94 and the second-worst record in Major League Baseball.

"Those people have been through a lot, and I feel like I've been through it with them," Wilson said. "I just felt like I needed to be there."



Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson leaps over Arizona Diamondbacks' Stephen Drew, left, and can't complete the double play in the sixth inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007.

Trouble was, few others did.

No more than a handful of Wilson's teammates joined him in what has become a Pirates tradition of engaging the crowd along the railings after the final home game. The other players simply collected their equipment, turned and left for the clubhouse. By the time the room was open to reporters, about 15 minutes after the final out, half the stalls had been cleaned out.

This scene, make no mistake, underscores one of the many failings of these 2007 Pirates, the 15th in a row to labeled losers:

Some players showed up.

Some did not.

And that, coupled with the myriad shortcomings in talent, is enough to make more than a few wonder if the players' roster might not be changing as much as the management roster by next spring.

Two players yesterday bluntly endorsed the idea.

"You have to have an environment where you're not just happy to be collecting a paycheck," utilityman Josh Phelps said. "You've got to have the kind of people who aren't going to accept losing anymore. Look, it's OK to get beat. It happens. But you've got to take it personally. You need the character to say, 'I'm sick of this.' If some of your players don't have that, hey, you've got to get rid of them."

Phelps was acquired in June off waivers from the New York Yankees.

"I've been on a winning team, and here ... it's like, 'Oh, well, it's just another day in Pittsburgh.' That's what you have to get rid of."

"I'm not in upper management," outfielder Jason Bay said. "But you've got to be honest with yourself: We've had basically the same group the last four years, and to think that we're going to win 100 games or go the World Series next year with the exact same team ... it would be a little foolish. I'm not saying you need an overhaul, but something's got to change."

One veteran pitcher took specific umbrage with the scene this weekend, when the Pirates topped 90,000 in attendance but mostly went through the motions in being swept by St. Louis.

"You look at all these people still coming to our games, and you'd think that would get guys pumped up," the pitcher said. "Nothing. It had no effect. It's just another day."

And this on a weekend when the Pirates' players had two reasons -- beyond pride -- to perform well: One was that a new general manager, Neal Huntington, was evaluating the roster for the first time. Two, of course, was that manager Jim Tracy's job is on the line.

Afterward, a clearly downcast Tracy tried to maintain an upbeat tone: He spoke of seeing improvement, even though the team finished with only one more victory than it had each of the past two seasons. And he commended the players for their effort, even though many of the players themselves regularly questioned it.

"It didn't completely turn out in the manner we would have liked," Tracy said in what might have been his final postgame news conference. "I give an awful lot of credit to that group of players out there. They put it all on the line. In my opinion, as compared to a year ago, we had some brilliant moments and then some down times. ... They gave everything they had, and I tip my cap to every single one of them."

Bryan Bullington turned in his best major-league start, limiting St. Louis to two runs and five hits in five innings, but Juan Perez and Franquelis Osoria each was charged with two runs in the Cardinals' four-run sixth.

Steve Pearce, Jose Castillo and Nate McLouth had RBIs in the seventh to pull the Pirates within 6-4, and Xavier Nady's two-out single in the ninth made it 6-5. But St. Louis closer Jason Isringhausen got Jose Bautista to pop up to center for the final out of the season.

There are 163 days until someone -- Tom Gorzelanny, perhaps -- makes the first pitch of the 2008 season April 1 in Atlanta.

It remains to be seen how much changes.

Bob Smizik: It's same old, same old

Neal Huntington

Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pirates' much-maligned motto of "We Will" has been around for a long time and the subject of many jokes. It's time for a change. Here's the perfect replacement.

"Business As Usual."

It's short, snappy and, more important, it sums up the philosophy of the organization that is winding down its 15th consecutive losing season.

With the announcement yesterday that Neal Huntington will succeed Dave Littlefield as general manager, the face of top management totally has changed in the past nine months. Unfortunately, the policies of management have not.

It's business as usual for the Pirates. It's still baseball on the cheap, no matter how it is spun or who's doing the spinning.

The elevation of Bob Nutting to principal owner in January, the naming of Frank Coonelly as president earlier this month and now the hiring of Huntington has placed new men at the top of the organization, but nothing more.

This is not a criticism, it's a fact.

Coonelly was hired by Nutting to implement what appears to be the identical philosophy the club has operated under for much of the past 12 seasons or since Kevin McClatchy, with considerable help from G. Ogden Nutting, bought the team in 1996. Huntington, who previously had served as an assistant general manager with the Cleveland Indians, was talking pretty much the same game Littlefield did when he took over in July 2001.

We know it's all about player development. We know it's important to get a strong foothold in Latin America. We know the Pacific Rim is teeming with talent. And we know that other small markets -- Cleveland, Minnesota and Oakland, to name three -- have been successful.

Oh, that it were so easy.

It's entirely possible that as Coonelly and Huntington met with Post-Gazette reporters yesterday they thought they were preaching a new gospel. After all, they haven't been around for these 15 losing seasons. But there was nothing new in their spin. It was the same old, same old.

What ails the Pirates is not so minor that it can be cured by replacing McClatchy with Coonelly and Littlefield with Huntington. There need to be major changes in the club's spending policies. It's easy to remember Littlefield for a serious list of major blunders and hard to remember that he, too, once was a bright, young star.

Littlefield's resume was spectacular. He had a background both in scouting and player development. He had worked in small markets, Miami and Montreal, and, of real significance, he had been mentored by Dave Dombrowski, the certified genius who took a downtrodden Florida franchise to a World Series victory in 2003 and who took an even more downtrodden Detroit franchise to the American League pennant last year.

Of Littlefield, Dombrowski said, "He really assisted me in everything. There wasn't anything -- not an area -- he was not exposed to. He's a very intelligent individual, well-rounded, extremely personable. He has progressed so much more quickly than you'd expect."

It's easy to say Littlefield failed in Pittsburgh. It's just as easy to say he, like Cam Bonifay before him, was defeated by the broken system that has kept the Pirates on the bottom.

Huntington appears to a bright guy and well versed in the ways of baseball. But he comes with a lesser pedigree than Littlefield. What's more, his resume reads like he was demoted from the inner circle of Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro. His most recent duties have been advance scouting on the major-league level, not usually a position of high influence in an organization.

Huntington strenuously maintained otherwise. "I never lost any role in terms of strategic planning or long- or short-term decision making," he said.

Just as Coonelly said on the day he was hired, Huntington insisted the Pirates can win with a Bob Nutting-payroll, which is the lowest in the National League Central this season.

"I have full conviction and full commitment from Bob and Frank that the resources I believe are necessary to do what we want to do in scouting and to do what we want to do in development will be there."

But will the resources be there when the time comes -- and it has to if a team ever threatens to be good -- when salaries will dramatically escalate?

None of this is to suggest the Coonelly and Huntington might not be the people to end this losing. Maybe their player-personnel decisions, their draft choices, their free-agent signings will trend toward being successful instead of too often catastrophic. Most certainly, the Pirates' luck on such matters is due for a change.

But let no one forget this: Despite the new faces, for the Pirates it's business as usual.

First published on September 26, 2007 at 12:00 am
Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.

Bob Smizik, a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and Peabody High School, began his journalism career at The Pittsburgh Press in 1969. He covered high school sports for two years, the Penguins for one year, the Pirates for six years and Pitt football and basketball for five years before becoming a columnist in 1983. He joined the Post-Gazette in 1993 as a columnist.

Sanchez turning heads league-wide

09/13/2007 3:41 PM ET

Second baseman is gaining recognition from peers and media

By Jenifer Langosch / MLB.com

PITTSBURGH -- Freddy Sanchez had just come off another multi-hit game. His defensive prowess had been showcased on another scintillating diving stop. And with the Pirates playing in St. Louis at the time, one of the Cardinals' reporters took notice.

"What about the game from Freddy Sanchez?" the reporter innocently asked manager Jim Tracy afterward.

Tracy smiled. It was like the reporter was three months late.

"Ask these guys," Tracy responded, pointing to the small contingent of Pirates beat writers. "They've seen it all year.

"These guys have seen him a lot and they can tell you how appreciated he is as a Major League player, and how far he's come and what a remarkable job he's done," Tracy continued. "We've seen the best of it here over the last couple of months."

What Sanchez has done over the last couple of months has been on par with what he did a season ago, a season in which he became the first Pirates player since Bill Madlock in 1983 to capture a league batting title.

Take a look at this -- there have been seven National League batting champs in the past 13 years. Among them is a current Hall of Famer (Tony Gwynn) and the home run king (Barry Bonds). There are household names, like Albert Pujols and Larry Walker. Then there is Sanchez.

He has to be one of the best-kept secrets in baseball.

"That's the bad part about being in a small market," said Jack Wilson, Sanchez's middle-infield partner. "Some of these guys don't get the attention that they deserve."

Well, in that case, it's long overdue.

The batting crown finally started to turn some heads, as did a second consecutive All-Star nod earlier this summer. And with one of the best second halves the Majors has seen this year, Sanchez has convincingly shown that neither was a fluke, nor were either unwarranted.

Sanchez insists that he is driven more by his loyalty to Pirates fans than a desire for national attention. And he said that he remains motivated not by duplicating the success he had last year, but by striving for the lofty personal goals he sets.

"I put more pressure on myself than anyone else can put on me," said Sanchez, who finished the 2006 season with a .344 average. "I want to come out here and do well for myself. Like I said, this is baseball -- you're not going to win a batting championship every year and that's just how it is."

No, but his credentials haven't exactly been lacking this season either.

Only one NL player -- Colorado's Matt Holiday -- has a better average since the start of last year than Sanchez (.330 compared to .328). No one has more than Sanchez's 94 doubles during that span, and since Aug. 1, no one in the league has tallied more RBIs than the Pirates' second baseman, who has 40.



"What else can you say about this guy?" Tracy asked.

Regardless, he tried.

"He's a gamer," the Pirates' manager continued. "He's a winner. He wants to win. It's what you look for."

Sanchez's .313 average ranks 13th in the Majors and second best among the league's second basemen. Twice this season, Sanchez has recorded more than 40 hits in a month. In comparison, Phillies second baseman Chase Utley, who currently holds a slight edge in the league's batting-title race, hasn't had a single one.

However, just reaching the .300 mark earlier in the year seemed like it might prove to be too formidable a challenge. Sanchez sprained his right knee early in Spring Training, and though he sat for just the first week of the season, its effects lingered.

"For that month, month and a half, I just couldn't feel good," said Sanchez, who was hitting .224 when April came to an end. "I just couldn't get it down. It wasn't a lack of preparation or work -- I was in the cage every day doing what I needed to do. I just wasn't seeing the ball well and wasn't feeling good."

Little about Sanchez's offensive jump-start since those first six weeks needs to be said. Four multi-hit games in April gave way to 11 in May. And from there, Sanchez's offensive tear began.

But it wasn't just his comfort level at the plate that took a hit. After playing the majority of 2006 at third base, Sanchez was working on the transition to second. However, the number of reps he could get was greatly diminished when he went down with the knee injury.

It'd be impossible to tell now.

Recognized last year for his offense, the recognition is coming as much for his defense this year as anything else. And considering his current average of .313 isn't too disappointing a follow-up to last year's output, that's quite a statement.

Wilson, who has watched 18 different second basemen come and go during his tenure in Pittsburgh, including the likes of Pokey Reese and Pat Meares, recently called Sanchez the best to stand next to him.

"I don't think there's been a better one," Wilson said. "Day in and day out, he's been the most consistent every day on the field."

It took time for that knee to heal. And maybe even more telling, it took time for Sanchez to believe the knee was healed. Once he was convinced, there was no looking back.

"I've always been one when I was younger and in high school to put defense first," said Sanchez, who had 10 errors as an infielder a year ago. "I definitely don't see myself as an elite second baseman. When you're talking elite, I think one of my favorite players to watch is Orlando Hudson. I think when you can get to his level, I think you can call yourself elite."

If Sanchez's measuring stick is Hudson, he doesn't come up short. Though Hudson's zone rating, which measures the percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive "zone," is slightly higher, Sanchez has made fewer errors (six to 10) and been a part of nine more double plays than Hudson.

"It doesn't surprise me because he's an athlete," Wilson said to Sanchez's quick emergence as a defensively sound second baseman. "If you're an athlete out there, you can do anything. With the way that he played third base last year, you knew it wasn't going to take him very long to get on the right track at second base."

Though he likely won't take home any hardware this season, Sanchez won't go unnoticed in the NL Gold Glove Award discussion after this season. He joins a shrinking fraternity of current players who excel on both sides of the field, one who will compete perennially for batting titles and Gold Gloves.

"We know what he is with the bat, and he's shown that this year," Tracy said. "But the progress that he's made defensively and the job that he's doing overall with his game, he's a greatly appreciated player in this clubhouse. Believe me."

After watching him all season, how can you not?

Jenifer Langosch is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

His wide range of credentials tempered by a narrow view

The Pirates have announced that Frank Coonelly will serve as their new president today.

Friday, September 14, 2007
By Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

There's a lot to like about Frank Coonelly, the Philadelphia lawyer who was formally introduced yesterday as president of the Pirates. For one thing, he's a smart guy. He graduated with "high distinction" from Penn State in 1983. At Catholic University law school in Washington, he graduated with the highest grade point average in his class. Intelligence cannot be overestimated.

For another, he's been at an excellent vantage point for much of the past decade while working for Major League Baseball. He was in frequent contact with all 30 teams, lending support, giving advice, discussing the issues of the day. He saw what worked and why it did. He saw which staffs got it and which did not. He learned which young executives might make good general managers and which would not.

More than that, he's a personable, well-spoken guy who has the rugged looks of someone who once played competitive athletics, which he did as captain of his high school hockey team. He's brimming with confidence and optimism that the job of turning around the worst franchise in MLB is not the daunting task so many believe it to be.

"To me, Pittsburgh was the ideal opportunity," he said. "I believe I can assist this club in getting over that hump and putting a winning product on the field. This is my dream job."'

In his job with MLB, Coonelly was the godfather of the slotting system for first-round picks in the June draft. Clubs were told what to pay their selections, and Coonelly was there to twist some arms to see that it happened. That makes his new stance all the more heartening.

He emphatically let it be known that the Pirates' concern will be drafting and signing the best player and not about adhering to the slotting system.

So what's not to like?

How about this, and here's something probably no one ever has said about Frank Coonelly: He's naive.

This bright lawyer who can easily command a room with his presence and his words is walking into a job he doesn't seem to fully understand. That's not good.

Coonelly said one of his most important tasks is to "change the entire culture' of the Pirates' steeped-in-defeat clubhouse. There's no question that is an important challenge, although one an observer might expect would fall to the manager.

"I'm going to ask [the players] directly: 'What do you need to succeed? What haven't you had that will allow you to succeed on the field?'

"Then I'm going provide them with the tools they need to succeed."

If that makes you think Coonelly intends to deliver a power-hitting third baseman or a top-of-the-line right-handed setup man or a defensively gifted center fielder who can lead off, you'd be wrong. Those were not the kind of tools he was talking about. The tools he cited were, and these were just examples he mentioned, a nutritionist and a chiropractor.

Sorry, those are not the tools the Pirates need. If Coonelly believes those are the answers to 15 years of losing, he's wrong.

He's taking the same approach Jim Tracy took when he replaced Lloyd McClendon after the 2005 season. Tracy acted as though McClendon didn't have a clue as to what he was doing, and Tracy and his staff would soon change that.

Turns out McClendon has a pretty good idea of what he was doing, but didn't have the players to do it. Neither does Tracy. Former general manager Dave Littlefield had a lot of shortcomings, but he gave the Pirates most of the tools they needed to win, except the only really important ones -- better players.

Coonelly also dismissed the popular belief that high payroll offers a better chance of winning.

"`I disagree with that premise," he said. "I think there are things more important than how much you spend."

That's when he cited "instilling the proper principles of winning," and talked about bringing in a nutritionist and a chiropractor.

High payroll does not guarantee victory. The Baltimore Orioles are a prime example, but hardly the only one. There is no denying, however, teams that spend more have a better chance of winning. That's just common sense.

Coonelly pointed out how long it has been since the New York Yankees have gone to the World Series, despite their enormous payroll. What he ignored is the Yankees' payroll has allowed them to become the winningest team in baseball and one that contends for the World Series every year.

To emphasize his point about payroll, with owner Bob Nutting sitting beside him, Coonelly said, "I'm convinced [the Pirates] can win with a payroll of $45 to $50 million."

He hedged that by saying the Pirates' youth would allow them to do that and most teams, which have players with more service time and are, therefore, eligible for higher salaries, could not. He also acknowledged that as the Pirates get older, payroll would have to be increased.

He talked about teamwork, leadership and passion. Those also are important attributes, just not as important as a guy who can deliver a three-run homer when the Pirates are down by two in the late innings.

Coonelly has been away from the competitive fires too long. He needs to settle into the job, understand what he can and cannot do, hire a good general manager and, possibly, a new manager, and give them the tools they need to win.

It can be done. You read it here first: The 2008 Pirates will have a winning record.

First published on September 14, 2007 at 12:00 am
Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.

Analysis: Littlefield's low-risk style netted low rewards

Saturday, September 08, 2007
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Dave Littlefield talks on the cell phone against the left field fence during spring training last year at Pirate City in Bradenton, Fla. Littlefield was fired yesterday as the Pirates' general manager, a position he had held since July 2001.

When Bob Nutting spoke of creating a "culture of success" for the Pirates on the day he fired Dave Littlefield, it might have struck some as laughable.

The Pirates a success?

After 15 years of failure?

Who could blame anyone for disbelief of such a statement, especially when ownership still must hold up its end by increasing payroll to the level of the team's revenue peers?

At the same time, Nutting's words, as well as his firm tone when he said, "I am going to do everything in my power to make this team a winner," were unmistakably bold.

And that, in and of itself, might have best defined the decision he made yesterday that could alter the organization to the core.

Critics tend to focus on high-profile trades when evaluating any general manager, but those make up only a fraction of the job. That is doubly true when overseeing a low-spending franchise that must outsmart and outhustle the competition with the fatter wallets.

It takes boldness.

And the Pirates displayed little of that trait under Littlefield.

As one employee in baseball operations put it yesterday, "We need a winner. We need someone who wants to win, who's not afraid to win."

Start with the trades ...

Successful teams in the Pirates' spending range make a habit of buying low, selling high. Players are dealt at peak value, usually as they approach their free-agency years, in exchange for a bounty of prospects. That restocks the system and, eventually, pays off much more than the departed player could.

Littlefield made two such deals -- Todd Ritchie for Kip Wells and Josh Fogg, and Brian Giles for Jason Bay and Oliver Perez -- and, no coincidence, they still rank among his best.

But those came early in his tenure and never again.

Was it a lack of confidence that his scouts would identify the right prospects?

Was it concern about public backlash for moving a popular player?

Littlefield's other trademark regarding trades was his propensity to ask for absurdly high returns.

A National League executive recently told the tale of calling Littlefield last winter to inquire about center fielder Chris Duffy. Littlefield asked for "the moon," the executive recalled, and talks halted. A few weeks later, Littlefield phoned back, this time with a lesser request, and the executive replied that he no longer trusted that Littlefield was negotiating in good faith.

The tactic sometimes worked, though: Littlefield tested the patience of Atlanta's front office for six months in discussing the Adam LaRoche-Mike Gonzalez trade, and that has turned out quite well.

The absence of boldness also applied to amateur acquisitions.

One of Littlefield's first moves in 2001 was to replace scouting director Mickey White, a brash type who had three fine drafts, with Ed Creech, a former co-worker in the Montreal system. The Pirates' drafts under Creech emphasized safe picks, college players whose potentials are easier to project. A glaring exception was 2005 first-rounder Andrew McCutchen, a raw high school player who, by no coincidence, is the system's only star-caliber talent.

This year, Littlefield and Creech bypassed highly touted Georgia Tech catcher Matt Wieters with the No. 4 pick because agent Scott Boras was thought to be seeking a $10 million signing bonus, three times Major League Baseball's recommendation for that slot.

The money was there, but the Pirates' baseball staff told ownership they would prefer Clemson reliever Danny Moskos. He was signed to the slot recommendation -- to the penny -- while Baltimore, which took Wieters at No. 5, called Boras' bluff and brought his bonus down to $6 million.

The Orioles were hailed by their fan base for taking the risk, while the Pirates earned a figurative pat from the commissioner.

The North American scouting system as a whole is seen as insufficient, particularly because of a minimal presence in key regions such as Georgia, California and Texas.

"We have one scout for Georgia and the Carolinas, and the Braves have 20," one team executive said. "We're getting killed there, and there's no reason for it."

Littlefield was late in setting up Latin American scouting operations, waiting until 2003 to hire Rene Gayo as director. Even then, Gayo's pool of money to sign players was not considered competitive, and a rare setting in which the Pirates could compete evenly with the New York Yankees was being wasted.

Largely as a result of those no-ambition, no-depth drafts, the Pirates' minor leagues are all but void of impact talent, particularly at the lower levels, just as they were when Littlefield arrived. Baseball America ranked the organization 19th in the sport in the spring, but that was before 2006 first-rounder Brad Lincoln had major elbow surgery. McCutchen, Steve Pearce and Neil Walker are the only universally projected major-league starters.

Was money an issue?

Immediately upon arrival, Littlefield installed a strict scale for major-league players with less than three years, and he strayed little even after Bay, Perez and Zach Duke had excellent seasons, a practice that rankled players throughout the organization.

The team was frugal, too, in other capacities, also with no obvious benefit. That ranged from keeping players in the minors an extra day or two to save on major-league salary to the extreme of sending former catcher J.R. House a bill for $19,000 to pay for shoulder surgery after he was hurt in the Pirates' employ.

One agent said yesterday, "You never had the feeling that Dave cared about the players, and people in our business knew that. I'm glad to have his number out of my Rolodex."

The contradiction, of course, was that Littlefield would part with huge sums for veteran free agents such as Jeromy Burnitz ($6.7 million), Joe Randa ($4 million), Roberto Hernandez ($2.75 million) and Tony Armas ($3.5 million). In the case of all but Hernandez, no other team was bidding for those players' services.

Small wonder that, on the final day of the 2006 season, Burnitz approached Littlefield in the clubhouse to shake his hand and say, "Dave, I can't thank you enough."

Littlefield's last trade fell into that category, too. It came July 31, when he phoned the San Francisco Giants the morning of the deadline and offered to pick up all $13.5 million left on Matt Morris' contract. No other team offered half that much money.

Nutting approved that deal, but he said yesterday, "I have to trust my baseball people. That was the move Dave wanted to make."

Littlefield always was professional, well versed, and had an impeccable work ethic, often going from sunrise past midnight.

But that poise never translated into boldness, either.

He was overly cautious in all assessments, famously predicting on the day No. 1 overall pick Bryan Bullington was drafted that he could be a "No. 3 starter." He was careful never to set specific goals for the Pirates, always using vague terms such as "improvement" so nothing could come back to haunt him.

Above all, perhaps, through all those years of losing, he never once publicly displayed a sliver of frustration, something that might have sent a signal of accountability.

That might be why Nutting, while underscoring that his new general manager must be "an excellent talent evaluator above all else," also stressed the intangibles.

"What we need is to have everyone believing in what we're doing, the moves we're making," he said. "There has to be a positive mindset, a winning mindset."

First published on September 8, 2007 at 12:00 am

Sanchez leaves Cincinnati red-faced in doubleheader sweep

Capps earns two saves as Pirates sweep Reds

Wednesday, August 29, 2007
By Paul Meyer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



John Heller/Post-Gazette
Closer Matt Capps, left, puts the exclamation point on the Pirates' Game 1 win last night at PNC Park. He also had a save in Game 2.
Matt Capps had a night to remember.

"That was fun," the Pirates' closer said. "It was a blast."

And it wasn't Sky Blast.

Capps got a save in both ends of the Pirates' doubleheader sweep against Cincinnati, striking out pinch-hitter Adam Dunn with two runners on in the 6-4 first game, then finishing the 3-2 second game by striking out pinch-hitter Ken Griffey Jr. with a runner on to earn his 15th save.

"Getting both of them was pretty awesome," Capps said. "But to get Griffey on three pitches? He's a guy I grew up idolizing. Awesome."

Before we get too far here, let's mention that Freddy Sanchez had a lot to do with the sweep which moved the Pirates to within 81/2 games of first-place Chicago.

Sanchez, hitting .386 in August and .312 on the year, went 3 for 3 in the opener with five RBIs -- four coming on his first career grand slam. In the second game, he tripled in the eighth and scored on a single by Adam LaRoche to break a 2-2 tie.

"Freddy's been a model of stability," Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. "He's hitting more and more like the batting champion of 2006."

Playing pretty good defense at second base, too.

"He's improved in all areas defensively," Tracy said. "He's a very attractive player at that position."



Cincinnati Reds pitcher Elizardo Ramirez, right, waits as Pittsburgh Pirates' Freddy Sanchez trots home after hitting a fourth-inning grand slam.

Capps threw 27 pitches in his first-game save.

"They taxed Matt Capps pretty much," Tracy said.

But not enough.

"My arm felt all right [in the second game]," Capps said. "But my legs were pretty much gone. I got kind of wobbly a couple times."

Still, he was fine after yielding a leadoff single to Alex Gonzalez.

Pinch-hitter Javier Valentin flied harmlessly to center. Josh Hamilton lined to left field. Then Griffey Jr. was next -- and last.

Same with Dunn in the opener.

"There was a lot of left-handed thunder on that bench," Tracy noted.

But Capps quieted it.

With runners on first and third and two outs, Dunn stepped to the plate in the ninth.

"Just a little bit of a sticky situation," Tracy acknowledged.

Tracy jogged to the mound to confer with Capps.

The message boiled down to this: "Be aggressive, but don't let him beat you. Yeah, if you walk him, the tying run will be on second base, but we'll take our chances with the next guy."

That would have been catcher David Ross, who also would have been up as a pinch-hitter and been the last position player on Cincinnati's bench.

Thing is, Ross has hit Capps -- 2 for 3 lifetime with a double and home run.

Hence, the "sticky situation."

Capps navigated it well.

He got ahead of Dunn 0-2, threw two balls and then struck out Dunn swinging with a 96-mph fastball.

"Capps is real good right now," Tracy said. "But he has a chance to get even better. There are some things he can do with his pitches. He's not finished yet. But he's awfully special."

The Pirates fell behind, 2-0, in the nightcap when pitcher Bronson Arroyo doubled in a run, then scored on Norris Hopper's triple in the second.

Paul Maholm, who allowed seven hits in the first two innings, steadied and got the Pirates through seven innings.

"Just another fabulous game for him," Tracy said.

The Pirates chipped away, scoring a run in the fifth on Jose Castillo's single and adding a run in the seventh on pinch-hitting sensation Matt Kata's two-out single to left on an 0-2 pitch.

That set the stage for the eighth.

Sanchez tripled on an 0-2 pitch into the notch in left-center field with one out. Then LaRoche softly lined a 1-2 pitch from left-hander Bill Bray into center field for the winner.

Sanchez's slam and Jason Bay's solo home run in the first game gave the Pirates 43 home runs in August. That ties the club record for most home runs in a month, set by the 1947 Pirates, who featured Ralph Kiner and Hank Greenberg.

Tom Gorzelanny got the first-game win, battling his way into the seventh inning.

"A very gritty performance by Tom Gorzelanny," Tracy said.

"I had to fight myself and fight the Reds," Gorzelanny said. "I'd get into jams and then have to fight my way out of them."

Gorzelanny's 13 wins are the most by a Pirates left-hander since Denny Neagle went 14-6 in 1996.

The Pirates have won 14 of their past 20 games to inch to within 81/2 games of the lead in the National League Central crawl.

"We're still playing significant baseball," Tracy said. [Eight and half games] is not an insurmountable task. Obviously, we've got to win a lot, but we've been playing our best baseball of the season over the past three weeks."


First published at PG NOW on August 28, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Paul Meyer can be reached at pmeyer@post-gazette.com.

From Adam Bomb to bombs away

Pirates' Adam LaRoche surges in second half, while already thinking of ways to avoid another awful April

Tuesday, August 28, 2007
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Peter Diana/Post-Gazette'
First baseman Adam LaRoche's second-half surge in both power and batting average has given the Pirates' offense a huge lift.

No matter how miserably his baseball life was going back in April and May, no matter how many boos he heard or how many third strikes zipped right by him, Adam LaRoche never dragged his bat home.

Not all the way, anyway.

The way he tells it, he would pause at the door, take a deep breath, squeeze out a smile and turn the knob.

"I'd never take it inside," the Pirates' first baseman was recalling the other day. "Even if I was really upset, if I really wanted to yell or scream or whatever, I'd leave it outside."

Trouble was ...

"My wife ... oh, man. I'd walk in there and look at her, and I could see it was driving her nuts. I hated what happened back then more for what it did to her than what it did to me, the team, the coaching staff, the fans or anybody."

LaRoche had become one of the worst everyday players in Major League Baseball in those first two months with the Pirates. April 24, his batting average was .098. May 25, after a microburst quickly was exposed as a mirage, it was at .191.

Moreover, he had struck out 43 times in 157 at-bats, an astounding 27 percent.

That was well short of the messianic expectations that accompanied his arrival from the Atlanta Braves in January as the main piece of the Pirates' highest-profile trade in years. And the predictable result was a public backlash, mostly in the form of steady booing at PNC Park.

For LaRoche's wife, Jenn, it was too much to bear.

"I used to go to every game when Adam played in Atlanta, and I mean every single game," she said by phone from the family ranch in Kansas. "I stopped going in Pittsburgh after two weeks."

Why was that?

"I felt like I just wanted to fight the whole crowd. I knew it didn't bother Adam, but I couldn't handle the idea of anyone saying or doing anything to hurt him. He's such a great person, a great father, and I just can't imagine anyone booing him."

So, she sat at home, stewing.

"I knew he'd come out of it. But it was still so hard, seeing that, and trying to understand it."

Bombs away

It was hard for baseball insiders to figure, too.

It gets no easier now that LaRoche has recovered dramatically to get his key numbers up to .266 with 19 home runs and 77 RBIs.

Those strikeouts?

He has only six in his past 67 at-bats, 103 in all.

"That's the amazing number, to me," manager Jim Tracy said. "From where he was ..."

Wait, there is more ...

LaRoche has batted .346 with 11 home runs and 37 RBIs since June 28. In that span, the only better mark among all first basemen in the majors is the .349 of the St. Louis Cardinals' Albert Pujols.

As an added bonus, LaRoche has shaken his long-cumbersome platoon-player label by batting .301 against left-handers. His previous career mark: .228.

So, what did it?

What converted LaRoche from a strikeout machine into, finally, the left-handed power bat the Pirates so long have needed? LaRoche described the solution as "90 percent mental."

"If you don't step into that box with 100 percent confidence, more times than not, nothing good's going to come out of it. I was pressing. And it didn't help that I was in a new city, trying to make a good impression."

His first step was to expunge the statistics from his life.

"I guarantee you I went a month without looking at them, from late May until just before the All-Star break. Somebody would ask me what I'm hitting, and I'd say, 'All I know is it's between .200 and .240.' Honestly, I didn't care. I needed to have fun again."

He gave credit to his new teammates for keeping him cool and, away from the clubhouse, to his father, Dave, minor-league pitching coach for the Toronto Blue Jays.

"He just made jokes about it. He doesn't take a whole lot too seriously, and that helped."

The fun resumed -- for real this time -- a bit before the break, when LaRoche went on a 16-for-32 tear. By no coincidence, he had just begun hitting the ball to the opposite field. And that was where the other 10 percent of his solution, the technical aspect, was pivotal.

All through April and May, LaRoche stood so far off the plate that pitchers routinely painted the outside corner and retired him without a swing. Combined with LaRoche's naturally docile body language, it must have made him look to some as if he were forfeiting at-bats.

Ugly with a capital K.

His response -- again, just before the break -- was to move a full 6 inches closer to the plate, in effect altering his strike zone.

"I wasn't hitting the ball the other way," LaRoche explained. "So, I said to myself that I'm going to try to pull everything."

Say what?

"I had to get back to hitting that pitch on the outer corner. And, to get that, I needed to have those pitches look like strikes to me."

But that means ...

"Yeah, I know. If they painted me inside, they had me. But I had to give up something to get back that pitch away. That pitch suddenly looked like a strike to me, and I started swinging full-bore again, just like I do when I pull the ball. So, I started driving the balls in the middle to center field and the balls away to the opposite field."

None of which has a terribly fundamental sound to it.

"Don't try this, kids. It's not something I'd ever teach anyone."

And now?

"I've moved back a little. But I'm still up on the plate pretty good."

That showed Friday night in Houston, when LaRoche stayed with Travis Driskill's splitter on the outside corner and sent it the opposite way for that three-run home run in the 15th inning.

The one aspect of LaRoche's approach that never changed, by every account, was the long, powerful swing that has drawn praise across baseball for years.

"People talked about his swing when things weren't going well, but we talked about nothing but rhythm," Pirates hitting coach Jeff Manto said. "There was nothing -- nothing -- wrong with his swing. He just wasn't comfortable. I told him back in April, 'Man, you are going to be a great story by the end of September.' And he's made a hell of a comeback. He really has."

Defusing the next bomb

Despite the let-life-happen exterior, LaRoche admits to some serious anguish in April and May.

"It wasn't the comments that hurt or the booing. It was the facts," he said. "It was looking at the numbers and saying, 'Man, I am 0 for 20.' That's what gets you. You know you're good, but you see the facts and ... those numbers hurt."

Now that he has remained in a good groove for quite a while, fresh off a six-RBI weekend in Houston, he insists every aspect of the slump is behind him.

"I've forgotten about it, really."

But then, he quickly corrected himself.

"Well, except one thing: How many more games would we have won if I started better? We probably wouldn't be in first place, but how much closer would we be, especially with how we've played lately? You can't erase that part of it."

No, but he can try to change that slow-starting trait -- he is a .184 career hitter in April -- when the Pirates reconvene in 2008.

"I'm already thinking about it," LaRoche said. "I need to change something. I've always been a guy who hasn't done really well out of the gate, but I always just shrugged it off like it's a coincidence. Not next year. This can't happen again."

To that end, LaRoche is pondering doing less work on his 2,500-acre ranch, the duty that dominates his offseason. He might take fewer at-bats in spring training, too, this after regularly adding minor-league games to his docket for extra swings.

He also might stop thinking about numbers altogether.

"I need to get rid of this idea that I'm going to have career highs in everything. The team goal will be the same. The team goal will be that we're going to win the division. But, individually, I set the standard so high that, if I get zero RBIs one week, I need 10 the next week. That's it. No goals. Have fun. Win games."

Sounds like a formula to get the wife back to the ballpark.

Jenn LaRoche has been back on the North Shore more often lately, but it seems that she, unlike her husband, still has some healing to do.

"Everybody's cheering for him in Pittsburgh now, and me ... I just want to say, 'Um, excuse me, weren't you guys just booing him?' Believe me, you don't forget. It's a shame but, even now that he's doing well, I still go there and think about how it was for those two months."

First published at PG NOW on August 27, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com.