Somebody's gotta go!

I have against JR is that he stays too calm. Thats a great characteristic to have but every once in awhile you have to challenge your players, go out there, get in there face, tell them to get better or they are riding the pine. call them out on bad play, do something to make them seem accountable for there mistakes, instead of acting like they are doing nothing wrong in every post game interview.

on Long and Kerrigan, i would fire them both. yeah they dont have much to work with but both the pitching and hitting is horrible, players approaches at the plate are horrible, some pitchers location and pitch selection/location if bad. this far into the season it has to start falling on the coaches for not getting on the players enough in practice and in games to make them accountable for being so bad. you cant fire the entire roster, but you can fire the coaches.

get us some guys that coach with a passion to win, i like the managers that go out there and defend there players and get in their faces when they make a bonehead play. young guys, they need that kind of disipline, JR doesnt give them that.

First off, I hope the Pirates are the worst team. I hope they get the first pick in next year’s draft, which will be Anthony Rendon. Stop pissing around and being second- or third-worst; being worst two years ago would have meant Strasburg and Harper this year. Time for a stud, a can’t-miss prospect who will be in Pittsburgh within 12 months and contributing alongside Tabata, Walker, Alvarez and McCutchen.

You ask how Coonelly and Huntington see Russell as the man to lead the next winning team. Thing is, they don’t. Russell was never viewed as the long-term answer, just the placeholder until FC and NH had a chance to implement their plan and get enough pieces into the majors to get a real manager. No sense in using up someone halfway decent when you can run the inept sucktitude that is JR out there for three or four years; plus, they probably like having Mrs. JR around at team functions, because she is some serious eyecandy.

You also mention putting guys with power in the 3-hole. Typically, you would want a guy with significant contact skills and good gap power in that spot. I’m not arguing with you that the guys that JR has plugged in there haven’t been miscast, but I’m not of the mind to place power there. IMHO, McCutchen is the perfect three-hole hitter on this team; it just blows that he’s got Jones and a whole lot of nothing after him in the lineup.

As for Long and Kerrigan, in one breath you write that they need to be held accountable, but in the next, you write that they don’t have much to work with. If they don’t have the right players, then what is changing the coaches going to accomplish other than showing the fans that they mean business and accountability is for real with the Pirates? Who is going to come in and make a difference with the dross that currently litters our roster? Changes for the sake of changes are pointless because the results are going to be the same; you yourself wrote that Kerrigan isn’t throwing the pitches and Long isn’t swinging the bats, so without new players to do those activities, why would you expect new results?

Lastly, Fredi Gonzalez is not coming to Pittsburgh regardless of what they offer him. As soon as Bobby Cox has his last day in Atlanta, Gonzalez will be named the next manager of the Braves shortly thereafter; you can take that to Vegas and make book on it.

I was shocked and disappointed that JR was given an extension. I didn’t think he had done anything to deserve it, even after last season. This year has been the most trying. Whether it’s JR making the “shinanigan-like” calls or NH through JR. It’s left me very confused. It seems like some of the lineups that have been made were the kind you’d see in ST, not the regular season. It’s as if JR is trying to figure out how to be an effective MLB manager. At this level it’s OK to tinker, but not through an entire season. He just doesn’t know how it’s being received by the players. I’ll tell you – just like with the fans, they are confused, and it shows.

Having said all of that, I think Kerrigan has done a decent job at helping a number of AAA pitchers convert to the pace and demand of the MLB, and Long has done pretty well too, to improve some players overall stats. At the same time we can’t help but wonder what’s happened to LaRoche and Milledge this season, but perhaps Long’s not to blame for them. Meanwhile the lineup that left ST has changed dramatically since then, and I don’t think you can blame long for Aki and Clement having such bad starts.

This team is fine with it’s current staff, but IMO for the Bucs to improve to a .500 team or better, they’ll need some stronger, more demanding management. Which means they’ll need to say goodbye to Russell, and hello to the new skipper. It’s my hope that this all occurs in the offseason.

And see if that helps.

When a team regresses there has to be a reason for it, this team is nowhere near as good right now as it was in the beginning of the year even though it has better players playing.
The underachieving is monumental on this team, there has to be a reason for it.