A Comparison

[magnumo]

Just about everyone (including me) agrees that Dave Littlefield was a dreadful GM. During DL's 6 years at the helm, the Pirates record was 421-549 (.434).

During Huntington's 4 years as the Pirates' GM, their record has been 258-389 (.399).

For Huntington's 6-year performance to EQUAL Littlefield's 6-year performance, the Pirates will need to go 163-160 over the next two seasons.

There appear to be only two possible outcomes:

1. The Pirates will break their seasonal losing streak in 2012 or 2013, or

2. Huntington's 6-year record as GM will be worse than Littlefield's.

 

[element1286]

We all know the situation that NH took over, which was created by Dave Littlefield.

It's hard to say if NH is the absolute long term answer to take the Pirates to the promise land, but he looks like he has an idea how to build a foundation. If the insinuation of this post is that NH is a equal or worse GM than DL, then I completely disagree.

 

[Darkstone42]

Since the general manager is in charge of more than just the Major League roster, I think that the whole system needs to be taken into account. And while the Major League product is, indeed, the most important of all, it is clear to most observers that the farm system is in much better shape now than it was under Littlefield.

We must also consider how Littlefield achieved his winning percentage and what has contributed to Huntington's. Littlefield made a series of free agent signings to get middling guys of known production, which kept the team from ever being completely unbelievably awful (most years), but also allocated money away from areas which could set up the team to be genuinely competitive in future years. Basically, Littlefield's strategy left absolutely no hope for the team to ever become competitive.

Huntington, on the other hand, spent three years stripping the roster of these same sorts of middling players, which meant the team was going to be unbelievably awful, but which also meant that resources could be allocated to areas which would allow the team to be competitive in the future, or at least provide the possibility of achieving competitiveness.

At the very least, the players getting the majority of the at bats are somewhat interesting now. There is a chance these guys could become average to above average Major Leaguers. That didn't exist before.

I do, however, believe the next two years are absolutely critical for Huntington. The team needs to show marked improvement in the next two years or else this cycle of the plan will have to be deemed a failure.

 

[magnumo]

We all know the situation that NH took over, which was created by Dave Littlefield.

It's hard to say if NH is the absolute long term answer to take the Pirates to the promise land, but he looks like he has an idea how to build a foundation. If the insinuation of this post is that NH is a equal or worse GM than DL, then I completely disagree.

The only value judgement made in my post was that Littlefield was a dreadful GM. I'm not in the habit of insinuating.

However, I will add this assertion: If Huntington's 6-year record turns out to be worse than Littlefield's, that would be compelling evidence that Huntington is NOT the long term answer.

 

[magnumo]

Reply to Darkstone

1. Since the general manager is in charge of more than just the Major League roster, I think that the whole system needs to be taken into account. And while the Major League product is, indeed, the most important of all, it is clear to most observers that the farm system is in much better shape now than it was under Littlefield.

2. We must also consider how Littlefield achieved his winning percentage and what has contributed to Huntington's. Littlefield made a series of free agent signings to get middling guys of known production, which kept the team from ever being completely unbelievably awful (most years), but also allocated money away from areas which could set up the team to be genuinely competitive in future years. Basically, Littlefield's strategy left absolutely no hope for the team to ever become competitive.

3. Huntington, on the other hand, spent three years stripping the roster of these same sorts of middling players, which meant the team was going to be unbelievably awful, but which also meant that resources could be allocated to areas which would allow the team to be competitive in the future, or at least provide the possibility of achieving competitiveness.

4. At the very least, the players getting the majority of the at bats are somewhat interesting now. There is a chance these guys could become average to above average Major Leaguers. That didn't exist before.

5. I do, however, believe the next two years are absolutely critical for Huntington. The team needs to show marked improvement in the next two years or else this cycle of the plan will have to be deemed a failure.

I have numbered your paragraphs to facilitate replying to each:

1. I agree that the whole system needs to be taken into account. I agree that the major league team is most important. I agree that the farm system POSSIBLY is in better shape. However, the best rookie to emerge from the farm system over each of the past 3 seasons (McCutchen in 2009, Walker in 2010, Presley in 2011) were Littlefield draftees. (No, I'm NOT saying that Littlefield was better than Huntington.) What I AM saying is that it's time for Huntington's farm system to start producing.

2. I agree with your thought that Littlefield allocated money away from areas critical to future competitiveness.

3. My comment on this paragraph is that Nutting, Coonelly, and Huntington were widely quoted before both the 2010 and the 2011 seasons that they expected significant improvement at the major league level. As I have posted many times, I expected to see improvement by 2010. If I thought the 2011 improvement was real and lasting, I'd give Huntington a pass on 2010. But I expect the team to be significantly worse (record-wise) in 2012 than they were in 2011.

4. While Huntington has had SOME success with the players he has brought in through trades and free agency, I believe it's an overstatement to give him too much credit for bringing in a lot of interesting players with upside. We all remember the successes. But here's a list of some LESS interesting players brought in by Huntington who got significant playing time and had little or no upside/success.

- 2008: Doug Mientkiewicz, Chris Gomez, Jason Michaels, Luis Rivas, Brandon Moss, Andy LaRoche, Tyler Yates, Denny Bautista
- 2009: Lastings Milledge, Delwyn Young, Eric Hinske, Jason Jaramillo, Ramon Vazquez, Craig Monroe, Virgil Vasquez, Kevin Hart
- 2010: Bobby Crosby, Jeff Clement, Aki Iwamura, Ryan Church, Chan Ho Park, Brian Burres, Brendan Donnelly, Sean Gallagher, Wil Ledezma
- 2011: Lyle Overbay, Matt Diaz, Ryan Ludwick, Xavier Paul, Kevin Correia, Joe Beimel

The best I can say is that the 2011 list is the shortest. (I was tempted to add Derrek Lee because I thought his acquisition was inappropriate, given his age and clearly declining performance..... but at least he did well for the Bucs when healthy..... and Lee resulted in NH getting rid of Overbay.)

5. I agree completely.

 

[thedddd]

I agree with the last paragraph by Darkstone. These two years this team has to produce talent from within if not and the team is a less 70 win team there is no way anyone can ever state NH was better than DL. But if there is a new GM in two years they will have a way better team and farm system to start with than NH did.

The one thing that seems to get overlooked is the fact it seems NH has had more relative money to spend than DL did. Or is it he just allocated it better into the system?