Tracy thanks his players for two great seasons
At 3:30 PM, the Pirates will announce the latest in their season-ending purge of management, cutting Gentleman Jim Tracy loose. Tracy will be the fourth manager to have his name etched on the Pirates' near-record losing streak of 15+ consecutive seasons, joining the likewise uninspiring Lloyd McClendon, Gene Lamont, and lest we forget, four seasons of Jim Leyland's managerial brilliance.
Tracy's records were 67-95 in 2006 and 68-94 in 2007, and say what you want, but in my book that's improvement. One game is one game, and at that pace you could pencil the Pirates in the 82-80 category by 2021. Firing him is simply a case of impatience.
You'd think a guy coming off a 71-91 season in Los Angeles would be the perfect person to turn around the Pirates' fortunes, but it didn't exactly play out that way. Now, the onus is on Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington to fill the shoes of the .417 Man.
I heard Joe Bendel suggest Tony LaRussa as a replacement yesterday, making the point that if LaRussa asks for $5 million, the Pirates should do it, since they've given as much or more to players like Jeromy Burnitz. You can hire LaRussa, you can hire Joe Torre, you can dig up Casey Stengel, it doesn't matter. If they have to manage players like Tony Armas and John Vanbenschoten, you can expect at least 15 more seasons of the same.
9 comments:
Just heard that Creech and Graham have been given their walking papers as well.
New broom sweeps clean, let's just hope they get competent replacements.
Really Graham too? That's a shocker since Huntington and Graham were close back in the day.
Firing all these losers, and i mean losers, is the perfect first step towards turning around this organization.
Well you were right, Huntington is cleaning house.
As I said over at WHYGAVS, just like Michael Corleone ordering the heads of the Five Families killed. Absolutely cleaning house.
If this was like Corleone having the heads of the 5 Families whacked, I think firing Tracy is more like in part II when they had Fredo whacked
They both have that "incompetant rube" thing going for them.
The highlights of being a Pirates fan - seeing what mediocre prospects we'll get at the trading deadline, looking forward to our yearly top 5 draft pick (woohoo, a middle reliever), and getting excited over the manager getting fired because he couldn't guide Tony Armas and Ronny Paulino to 82 wins.
Firing Creech and Graham is FAR more important than letting Tracy go, but I'm on board with sweeping all remnants of Littlefield's regime out the door. If only Matt Morris could get fired too.
The bigger question is do they have the capital to bring in good people, and will those people have the resources to attempt to rebuild? It all comes back to the Nutting family once again.
I heard that Chuck Tanner's agent called, and said that he is available for only $300,000. Even less if we go back to the gold 'we are fam-a-lee' uniforms. Think of the savings. This would free up some loot to put towards the 9 million they we will spend watching Morris keep his era under 5. This also frees up some cash to woo Jose Hernandez again. One has to wonder how long until Scrap Iron Garner's name surfaces...
Why do you Listen to Bendel & Benz or as I call them Dumb & Dumber
Post a Comment