According to this rumor site, Nutting recently nixed a trade of Jason Bay to the Braves for prospects. Assuming Nutting made his decision in order to address non-baseball considerations, it'd be hard not to conclude that he did it so that the Pirates might 'Drive for 75' this year.

Given the return for Bay as reported, which featured Lillibridge and Jones, I'm grateful Nutting killed the deal. The Pirates can dump Bay's salary in the winter. I say this because the return was not enough for Bay.

I expected Willie Randolph would be a decent manager. But it’s difficult to succeed in a market dominated by a successful team like the Yankees. Whether it’s the Knicks, Rangers, Giants or Yankees, one of the New York teams seems to be the marquee franchise for the metro area while the others must always be the bridesmaid but never the bride. The Mets try harder but never win many championships. Ask Joe Torre; his record as the manager of the Mets was poor, to put it kindly.

So, the pressure on a Mets’ manage must be great. Failure is not tolerated for long. Willie deserved better than this.

Neal Huntington interview

In this interview, Huntington states:

Once we acquire a player we will focus all of our resources on maximizing that player's ability-mentally, physically, fundamentally and personally. Mentally we will work to equip the player with the ability to perform with confidence and let his natural abilities take over. Physically we will educate and provide the player with the proper nutritional, strength, conditioning and medical resources. Fundamentally we will provide the player with a systematic, long term oriented plan for his on field development. Personally we will work to provide the player with life skills programs both theoretical and practical. We believe that we can improve a player's performance through our development program but statistical analysis will play an important role in our evaluation of our players and our programs.

Sounds like a Stepford Plan!

A Pirates' version of DiamondView makes a lot of sense. It should provide value to the team long after Coonelly and Huntington have moved to greener pastures.

Check out #28 in this list of sports blogs: Most Valuable Sports Blogs

This is a real achievement given the sorry state of Pirates baseball. It's not as though the subject matter makes for compelling reading!

Burning issues in Pirateland:

• McClatchy: Boob or Antichrist?
• Are Pirates pitchers cursed?
• Littlefield: Tool or fool?
• Do the Pirates get more out of their bullpen than other teams?
• Ogden Nutting = Scrooge McDuck?

Clearly Charlie must be getting something right if his blog is getting this level of traffic!

Paul Meyer reports the bad news. It's always sad to see a career end on this kind of sour note. But Morris will get a $10M pad on which to land once he becomes a civilian. So, it's not as though he'll need to work at KFC to make rent next month.

This trade was nearly as bad as the Aram gift to the Cubs. The irony, of course, stems from the fact that the Pirates gave away a possible HOFer when they traded Ramirez because he would have cost too much but then ate a $10M contract by releasing Morris.

*       *        *

UPDATE by Charlie: Phil Dumatrait heads to the rotation, which may not work out well, but at least he's not Morris; John Van Benschoten joins the team and will be in the bullpen, at least for a day or two. Anyway, I don't feel like writing another post about how terrible Morris is, and I don't feel like eviscerating Dave Littlefield for the millionth time, either. That horse is dead. You can check out what I wrote at the time of the acquisition.

ESPN report

The only thing worse than instability at the top is having stability coupled with incompetence. Pirate fans know all about the latter.

I'm unconvinced that Walt Jocketty would be the best man for the job. He's not shown he has the draft and develop mentality needed in a place like Cincinnati. If my suspicion proves to be accurate then firing Krivsky could amount to a downgrade for the Reds, especially if Jocketty needs to win now or soon.

These were the crucial acquisitions for the organization this off-season:

Director of Player Development: Kyle Stark (Cleveland)

Director of Scouting: Greg Smith (Detroit)

Director of Baseball Operations: Bryan Minniti (Pittsburgh)

The link: http://tinyurl.com/27smxu

Clearly, there are no big names here. This need not be a bad thing.... But the lack of a big name makes these hires a bit opaque. It also suggests -- but does not prove -- that money was a factor in these matters.

Time will tell if these were the right men for the jobs.

...who consider the protest a bad idea.

The worst probable outcome: The protest fizzles; this reinforces the belief that nothing can be done about the Nutting partnership.

In short, then, we should do nothing about the Nutting partnership because nothing can be done about the Nutting partnership! This is, of course, a self-fulling prediction.

Those critics are just silly.

Then there are protest critics who support the Nuttings! What must I say about them?