Saturday, September 15, 2007

Game 148: Pirates at Astros

Morris and Wandy Rodriguez starting soon.

Frank Coonelly in uniform. He'll stand in as the first-base coach. He'll help Ronny call the game, he'll steal the signs, he'll high-five all the players rounding first, and he'll try not to mix it up with the umpire calling the balls and the strikes.

Bernazard

John Perrotto on emerging GM candidate Tony Bernazard. Perrotto's source indicates that no GM interviews have taken place.

Coonelly goes to work

Frank's first CEO move is removing Armas from the rotation, Dejan Kovacevic reports. Coonelly is also the topic of the latest Q+A, in which Dejan finds the new CEO to be "loud, clear, and confident", and not your average bean counter.

Bay never met McClatchy?

New CEO Frank Coonelly boarded the team bus and introduced himself, mlb.com's Jenifer Langosch reports:

"He came on the bus and said hi before he left and wanted to show his face and meet everybody," outfielder Jason Bay said. "He said that he was going to be around more early on, to feel his way around."

Contrastingly, Bay said he has never met outgoing team CEO Kevin McClatchy.

How could the CEO in charge of day-to-day operations of the franchise never meet the franchise player?

UPDATE: sludgeworm found this nice picture of Bay and McClatchy chatting from an earlier story (by Jenifer Langosch).

Friday, September 14, 2007

Game 147: Pirates at Astros

Snell vs. Oswalt. Jack Wilson vs. Wiggy, round 2. Starts soon.

Bernazard and LaCava

Mets assistant GM Tony Bernazard and Blue Jays director of player personnel Tony LaCava have already interviewed for the GM job, SI.com's Jon Heyman reports.

Antonetti and Hahn have declined to be interviewed.

New GM will decide on Tracy

So says Paul Meyer.

After the general manager is hired, that person and Coonelly will take a hard look at people employed by the Pirates.

"I have a lot of contacts within the game who know who's good and who's not good and I've already begun that process," Coonelly said. "... We will figure out who the people are who are going to help us move forward and who the people are who have been holding this organization back."

My gut feeling is that Frank will find more not good people than good people.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Coonelly Era starts now

Today the Pirates will officially announce Frank Coonelly (pronounced COON-lee) as their new CEO, the P-G's Paul Meyer reports.

The Trib's Rob Biertempfel has a nice pro-Coonelly piece with quotes from Keith Law and an agent:

One prominent agent who has sat across the table from Coonelly during hearings described him as intense, shrewd and well organized.

"He's a barracuda," the agent said. "Very aggressive. He's not just throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. He does his homework. In that regard, he's a great choice for the Pirates."

I'm willing to give Coonelly a chance, at least until he announces his new GM. All hail the new CEO!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Game 146: Brewers at Pirates

Gorzelanny vs. Bush in twenty minutes. Bucs need one more loss to clinch.

GM update

Paul Meyer mentions Amaro, LaCava, and Wren but also says Amaro hadn't heard from the team as of yesterday and Frank Wren was a "stretch".

Still no official Coonelly announcement. Maybe Nutting wants to wait until after the Bucs clinch losing season #15.

New Dominican academy

Dejan Kovacevic reports. Overdue, but still a positive development.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Game 145: Brewers at Pirates

Bullington vs. Gallardo, starting now.

Pirates hire Coonelly

Paul Meyer reports, via Chuck Greenberg.

Amaro

Nutting is not the only one courting Ruben Amaro Jr., Jim Molony of mlb.com reports. (read Vlad's bio of Amaro at Bucs Dugout here.)

Monday, September 10, 2007

Game 144: Brewers at Pirates

Villaneuva and Armas in half an hour.

GM candidates

Perrotto's list. Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News claims that Ruben Amaro Jr. might be the frontrunner. Paul Meyer suggests that the 30-year-old D'backs Assistant GM and former director of baseball operations for the Red Sox Peter Woodfork is also a candidate. From the Arizona Republic:

"Woodfork has carved out an expertise in all matters financial and technical, including arbitration, contracts and the fine print in roster shuffling. But he says he still has a lot to learn, including honing his player-evaluation skills.

"It's definitely something I'm going to need to improve on in my game," he said.

Doesn't sound like the proven talent evaluator that Cory wants to see.

Vlad at Bucs Dugout has excellent GM candidate bios on Logan White and Chris Antonetti.

On Coonelly, don't miss Pat.

I'm fine with a Bean Counter CEO. Expert Bean Counter who loudly and nastily argues? Better yet. If, and only if, there's a Baseball Guy who can evaluate talent as new GM.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Game 143: Cubs at Pirates

Veteranosity abounds: Trachsel and Morris.

NFL week 1: Steelers at Browns

It's nuts how much the NFL changes Sunday. Last week I slept long and late. This morning I get up at eight feeling like Party Boy.

Here we go Steelers.