The Pirates and Frank Coonelly have mutually agreed to part ways, according to Jason Mackey of the Post-Gazette and confirmed by multiple other reports.
Editor’s Note: My First Pitch article was running long today. I originally had two articles planned — one for today and one for tomorrow — but they worked better as one big article. I was about to wrap that up and post when this news came out. So I’m saving that article for tomorrow, since this is much bigger news.
This is also the daily discussion thread, so it feels like a good spot to include this info. I’ll update this with my thoughts in a bit.
UPDATE: I think you can sum this situation up by lumping Coonelly in with the rest of the Pirates front office, and saying that all of them are justified in being replaced right now. That includes Bob Nutting, but this won’t happen, as he won’t sell the team.
So the challenge for everyone under Nutting is to try and win in a league where small market teams are at a disadvantage, and where the owner puts this team at a further disadvantage with his strategy on how much to spend when the team is actually contending.
Coonelly obviously didn’t meet that challenge. And you could argue that he made it more difficult for the organization with the last TV deal, which was signed long-term just before MLB’s local TV rights boom, and signed at a rate that ended up being well below what other teams received in the coming years.
Beyond that, I can’t honestly say that I know how much of an impact Coonelly has on the structure of the team. He was technically above Huntington, and now this raises a lot of questions about the future.
is Neal Huntington’s job now in question, up to the fate of the next president? Or, will the Pirates follow a trend that a lot of successful teams are using, and make Huntington the president while hiring a new GM? That would put a baseball man in charge at the top, essentially giving the team two GMs to make decisions.
The other question I’d have is this: Why did the team agree to a new local TV deal before finding a new president? How much was Coonelly involved in this round of negotiations?
I’ll have some more thoughts on this later today in terms of the potential it could have for the team. For now, the Pirates have confirmed the deal, and issued the following statements from Bob Nutting and Frank Coonelly.
SONG OF THE DAY
DAILY QUIZ
I was going to be disappointed if I didn’t get all of these. I wasn’t disappointed.
THIS DATE IN PIRATES HISTORY
By John Dreker
Three former Pirates born on this date, including a Hall of Fame pitcher.
Jim Bunning, pitcher for the 1968-69 Pirates. Pittsburgh gave up a lot to get the future Hall of Famer after he finished second in the NL Cy Young voting in 1967 with the Phillies. By the time he left via trade late in 1969, the Pirates were only able to get two marginal minor league players and cash in return. Bunning went 14-23, 3.84 in 316 innings with the Pirates. That looks like a decent ERA, though it came during a time of low offense in baseball, so it was actually a good deal higher than league average. Bunning pitched until 1971, finishing his 17-year career with 224 wins and 2,855 strikeouts.
Billy Sullivan, catcher for the 1947 Pirates. Due to WWII, Sullivan had not played in the majors since 1942 when he joined the Pirates. He hit .255 over 38 games in 1947, in what ended up as his last season in the majors. When he played in the 1940 World Series with the Detroit Tigers, he became part of the first father-son combo to play in the World Series. His father, also named Billy Sullivan, was a catcher for 16 years in the majors, and the starter for the 1906 Chicago White Sox, who went on to win their first WS title that year.
Lave Winham, lefty pitcher for the 1903 Pirates. Winham pitched five late season games for the first World Series team in NL/Pirates history. He went 3-1, 2.25 in 36 innings. His only other big league experience was a three-inning relief appearance for Brooklyn in 1902. Winham has a dubious Pirates team record that will likely never be broken. In his final big league game, he committed four errors. That’s a team record for errors by a pitcher and it has only been exceeded once in baseball history by a pitcher. That was Ed Doheny, who was a teammate of Winham’s in 1903. Doheny committed five errors with the New York Giants in an 1899 game.
On this date in 1981, the Pirates purchased minor league pitcher Manny Sarmiento from the Boston Red Sox. Sarmiento had previous MLB experience, but he spent the entire 1981 season in the minors and saw limited big league action in 1980. It turned out to be an excellent short-term signing, as he had a 9-4, 3.39 record in 164.2 innings during the 1982 season, making 17 starts and 18 relief appearances. Sarmiento did well as a full-time reliever in 1983, posting a 2.99 ERA in 84.1 innings over 52 appearances. That would be the end of his career though, as he was injured for all of 1984 and lasted just one season in the minors when he returned to action.
