Bob Nutting: 'Like every fan, I was angry'

Rob Biertempfel's full report on Bob Nutting's meeting with the press on Tuesday suggests that Nutting "considered firing the entire front office" following the Pirates' collapse down the stretch. In the end, though, he held back.

"We will not ever, nor should we ever, fall back on scapegoats," Nutting said. "I will continue to be willing to make changes in personnel when appropriate and necessary. But in anger at the end of a season is the wrong time to judge someone’s body of work and make decisions."

I don't completely agree with the end result, but the way Nutting portrays himself here is pretty familiar to us by now: deliberative, cautious. He doesn't want to become a Peter Angelos or a Drayton McLane, messing up the organization by letting his emotions dictate its ultimate path. Nutting is, after all, the same guy who let Dave Littlefield trade for Matt Morris just weeks before firing Littlefield.

Nutting will, however, put a stop to Kyle Stark's Navy SEALS-style drills, noting that the Pirates aren't "a paramilitary organization." That's got to be awkward for Stark, and one wonders how much longer Stark will be in the Bucs' employ. If Nutting hasn't already made the decision to dismiss the front office (there's been some speculation around here that even if he wanted to right now, he couldn't, for fear of having it look like Dejan Kovacevic is running the team), I expect him to continue to strongly consider it.