Huntington extended, Russell's option may be picked up

Here’s a working link:

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/pittsburgh-pirates-need-to-make-decision-on-manager-john-russell-061710

A 19th consecutive losing season is 99.9999999999% certain

With his drafts and his plan, he should not only get “1-2 more years”, but at least 3-4 years to see this through.

I am indifferent to Russell’s option being picked up. He doesn’t have a lot to work with, especially as it relates to a pitching staff. However, he doesn’t help either, by way of his constant line-up changes, his affinity for bad players (Church, Crosby, Iwamura, Donnelly, Lopez, etc.), and his curious use of his bench/pitching staff in-game.

If Russell is sent packing, I won’t be disappointed, although, like McClendon, he most assuredly isn’t the main reason why we have been losing.

Neal, on the other hand, needs extended and supported. People in the know around baseball love his plan, love his drafts, and love his philosophy. While the execution has been sometimes lacking, that is to be expected, as Charlie’s long post about a week ago reiterated.

Good stuff….I hope little Rosenthal’s sources are correct.

…I think 99% of us here know that the win/loss record isn’t Russell’s fault, not even close, so no one that’s against Russell (Myself included) would advocate a switch in manager’s would propel us to the division, or even respectability.

To me though, JR has had head scratching move over and over during his time here. First of all his lineups often make very little sense, even from an “out of the box” perspective. There’s really little excuse for Church stealing at bats from Milledge.

Secondly, his in-game management almost always leaves a lot to be desired. I remember one instance in particular earlier this year where he left Duke in to hit in a high leverage at-bat late in the game, only to have him walk the leadoff man the following inning and get yanked.

Third, this team hasn’t done the little things a growing team should be able to do. True, JR can’t make Milledge hit a HR, but he should be able to coach him well enough to understand baserunning. There’s alot of mental mistakes on this team that I personally put on the coach. If we say the coach has no influence on the finer details of the game (baserunning, effort, throwing to the right bag, moving a guy up) then we’re essentially saying the coach has no influence at all.

Fourth, JR has shown that he isn’t ever going to be passionate. I know that sentence makes most here cringe, and I’m not looking for a pop your top off Piniella or Bowa type. Part of this is still going back to Duke not retaliating when Cutch gets beamed. JR had to demand that, and when he apparently did call for it and Duke did nothing, we never heard another thing about it.

JR really is a scapegoat in this whole situation, but in my opinion he’s a pretty good scapegoat. He hasn’t done a good job in a number of areas, not to mention the PR boost the organization would get from canning Russell and bringing in someone competent, who shows he actually wants to be there.