From Pirates.com's recent chat with Frank Coonelly: brian921: I think you have done a great job locking in talent through their arbitration years with a free agency option and addressing the 2010 problem. How probable is it to think we will have a contender by 2012? Coonelly: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address how we're building this team. While we certainly have been and will continue to acquire young talent, we are not targeting 2010 -- or 2012, for that matter -- as the year in which we think we will win. Six of the eight players we acquired in the deadline trades last year are (or shortly will be) ready for the Major Leagues. We expect to win in 2009 and would not find it acceptable to attempt to build a team that will not win until 2010 or 2012. Nice to know that "2010 problem" is entering the discourse. Pretty forthright chat overall, by the way, even if not all the news is good. Coonelly states unambiguously that there's no room in the budget for Adam Dunn (which surely surprises no one) and voices his confidence in Andy LaRoche, Brandon Moss and Nyjer Morgan. There's some arbitrary-endpoint stuff going on in his defense of Morgan, but whatever.
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