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January 20, 2008

Every Given Sunday

Reconstruction in Slow Motion

by John Perrotto

A quick glance at the Pittsburgh Pirates’ roster might make it seem as though Neal Huntington has been asleep at the wheel in nearly four months on the job as general manager. The Pirates have only seven players on their 40-man roster who were not with the organization last season. Five are waiver claims, one is a Rule 5 Draft pick and the other is much-traveled utility infielder Chris Gomez, signed to a one-year, $1 million contract as a free agent. However, while that seems like a minimal amount of reconstruction on a team that went 68-94 and had the worst record in the National League last season, it doesn’t mean Huntington has been slacking.

“It may not look like we’ve made many changes on the surface, but we’ve been very busy trying to change the structure of the organization,” Huntington said. “We may not have done much in the way of player moves, but I’m very confident that we’ve done a lot of work in an effort to put this franchise back on course toward becoming a winner again.”

Huntington fired manager Jim Tracy and the coaching staff while also jettisoning player development director Brian Graham and scouting director Ed Creech. John Russell, manager of Philadelphia’s Triple-A farm club, has been brought in as the new skipper, while Kyle Stark was hired from Cleveland, where he was the assistant player development director, to oversee the farm system; former Detroit scouting director Greg Smith is on board in the same capacity with the Pirates.

Nevertheless, the lack of player movement has been disappointing to a fan base that has suffered through 15 losing seasons since the Pirates won three straight NL East titles from 1990-92. However, Huntington and Russell firmly believe a roster overhaul is necessary for the Pirates to show improvement in 2008. “I think almost any analyst you would talk to would tell you the 2007 Pirates underachieved,” Huntington said. “I’m not about to say we’re going to win a championship or a certain number of games with the team we have. However, I do feel this team should be more competitive than last season if for no other reason than it would be hard to believe that so many players would underachieve for a second consecutive season.”

The Pirates finished 12^th in the NL in Equivalent Average last season, and 15^th in both RA+ and defensive efficiency. Yet Russell feels the Pirates will be improved in all areas in 2008: “I think we have a solid team,” Russell said. “If you look around the diamond, we’re pretty much set at every position with a proven major league player. We have a number of good young starting pitchers who have shown they can provide innings in the major leagues. We have some questions like every other team, but I don’t feel we have that many questions. I like what we have right now.”