White Smoke from Federal Street: We have a CEO!
by Vlad on Sep 8, 2007 4:52 PM EDT
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PrintCoonelly is Major League Baseball's chief labor counsel, and draws high marks for his intelligence, with one executive describing him as a "phenomenal" choice." -Ken Rosenthal
If you're like me and you'd never heard of Coonelly, there's some interesting information on him here, here, and especially here.
From the look of things, this guy is a real heavy hitter, and there are some interesting (and also potentially disturbing) implications from his hiring. On the plus side, he's definitely a pro with some knowledge of the game and the financial end of things. As such, it'd probably be hard for a GM to sneak a bad idea past him, and he'll definitely be a step up from McClatchy in that regard. It's also unlikely that you'd rise to a position like his without being willing to get your knuckles dirty, which I view as a positive within this context. With an experienced guy like him at the helm, we might have more latitude to hire an inexperienced GM if one turns out to be the best candidate for the job, in the knowledge that Coonelly will be able to help handle things while the GM gets his feet wet.
Speaking as a paranoid fan (and what Pirate fan isn't, at this point?), I have two points of concern with this hiring. The first is that Coonelly has been intimately connected with the league office for some time now, and I worry a little bit about whether he would necessarily place our loyalties first in a situation where it's us against the league. This ties into the second concern, which is that Coonelly has basically been THE guy in charge of handling team compliance on bonus slotting and free agent deals. We have long lagged behind other clubs in both respects, and if he's not willing to alter his prior stances on such things, we could be at a further competitive disadvantage in the future.
Time will tell whether this was a good hire or a bad one. Right now, I'm just glad that we've got a set of hands on the steering wheel. It's an interesting time to be a Pirate fan.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.
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Nice catch, Vlad.
Rosenthal
by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 8, 2007 5:17 PM EDT up reply actions
Everything about Coonelly says
I hope I'm wrong. But....
Uhhhh
In other words, he's in charge of collusion.
Collusion and lying about it too
It looks to me like Nutting hired someone to run the Pirates just like Nutting would if he were to devote himself to the job.
collusion
Anyway, though this decision might work out for the worst, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Putting a PETA activist in charge of a pork farm may not be a good move, but this guy's not an activist for MLB. He's a paid lawyer acting on behalf of a client.
The collusion charges appeared a few years back
Actually, Coonelly wasn't just a lawyer with a client. He was a MLB employee who happened to be a lawyer. His job then appears to have been supressing player's salaries and draftee signing bonuses! Now, when do we get to the part when it's evident he was learning how to take a low-revenue team to the World Series? I've yet to find anything indicating he's qualified to lead a team meant to achieve that goal.
I'm adopting a wait and see attitude because, well, I don't have a real choice to do anything else.
Confirmation, sort of, from Nutting
interesting
interesting that no one really knows who the guy is...that could be good or bad, probably more bad than good, especially with the collusion comments I've been reading.
by Crosbyfan87 on Sep 8, 2007 9:02 PM EDT reply actions
Coonelly
Just trying to think positively.
by lgavind @ Bucs Dugout on Sep 9, 2007 12:08 AM EDT reply actions
Bud Selig.
This is so out of left field that it smacks of Bud Selig. I assume since the Pirates have been milking MLB's profit sharing for years this is a fig leaf to Bud Selig.
Nutting hires Selig's inside man who is a paper pusher and not a "baseball guy". He's an attorney!
Of course, that doesn't mean he will fail. It just means that Bug Selig is calling the shots.
And the whole slotting fiasco just means the Pirates won't be signing the top players. Which will obviously hurt their chances of improving.
MLB is a good 'ol boy network. And Nutting is simply a pawn trying to protect his family's yearly profits.
They need to institute a minimum payroll which will cure guys like Nutting from taking advantage of the system. And probably bring in new ownership that wants to win as much as they want to generate profits.
My guess is that Pirates are generating more profit for the Nutting family than their community newspapers. Who reads newspapers these days?
Quite a shocker.
by bigshotbob on Sep 9, 2007 1:24 AM EDT reply actions
Amaro
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