My case against Lloyd McClendon

No game today, so I suppose this is as good a time as any for this (this is pretty long).

What is happening right now in Pittsburgh blows my mind. Going into last fall, Bill Cowher went into training camp with a lifetime record of 115-76. He had made the playoffs 8 times in his 12 year career and taken one team to a Super Bowl in which they very nearly pulled off the upset of the decade. He did all this with teams quarterbacked by Bubby Brister, Neil O'Donnell, Mike Tomczak, Kordell Stewart, and Tommy Maddox. Despite this, there was a very real feeling in Pittsburgh that if the Steelers didn't perform, Cowher should be fired. He in turn lead the Steelers to the first 15-1 record in AFC history despite many key injuries and a rookie in the most important position on the field. Despite all this, people still called for his head after the AFC Championship game loss in January, a game where his team was clearly in over their heads.

In October 2000 Gene Lamont closed out Three Rivers Stadium with the Pirates. Over the past four years he lead the team to one season with 78 wins and one season with 79 wins, a team that finished only two games out of first place. In his other two seasons he won only 69 games, but for a Pirates manager, that isn't exactly substandard. He did this with teams lead by players Jason Kendall, Kevin Young, Kevin Polcovich, Al Martin, and only two years of Brian Giles. The best pitcher we saw in any of the four years? A 15-9 Todd Ritchie. The rest of the pitching staff was made up of the erratic Jason Schmidt, a very young Kris Benson, and a bunch of Latino journey men between the ages of 50 and 75. The only outcry when his contract was not renewed in November 2000 was that he hadn't been fired sooner.

This Spring Lloyd McClendon went into camp with what seems like full job security. Every time someone mentions firing Lloyd, the media screams "It's not Lloyd's fault! The players suck! Don't blame Lloyd! He tries harder than anyone!" In the four years leading up to this one, McClendon lead the Pirates to records of 62-100, 72-89, 75-87, and 72-89. A grand total of 281-365, a full fourteen games worse than Lamont's 295-352 record after four years. Lloyd's teams have been lead by Kendall, Giles in his prime, an Aramis Ramirez that put up 34 homers and 110 RBI in a year, Jack Wilson, a year with Reggie Sanders and Kenny Lofton, and pitchers like Oliver Perez (for a year), Kip Wells, an older Benson (healthy for 2 of Lloyd's four years), steady Josh Fogg (10+ wins each of the last three years). A fairly simple glance at the players shows that Lloyd has had much MORE talent to work with than Lamont, and yet has lost an average of almost four more games a year (not a lot, but add four wins on to each year of Lamont's years and he's over .500 twice with one division title). Maybe some excuse can be made for Lloyd in that he has no experience. That's fine, but after five years on most jobs you would expect to see some improvement, yet this year he seems to have taken 5 steps back. He has no concept of making a lineup and sticking with it. Maybe last year Tony LaRussa wrote out 100+ line ups, but just about every day after July you could find Walker-Rolen-Pujols-Edmonds batting 2-5 for the Cards, in that order. This year Jason Bay has batted any where from 3-5, Craig Wilson bats anywhere from 4-6, Tike Redman bats anywhere from 2-6 (except 4th), with no rhyme or reason to it, yet Jack Wilson bats second every day with his .182 average. There is no concept of continuity at all, and Lloyd feels the only way he can create runs is by stealing, bunting, and with hit-and-runs, yet all last year Pirates fans watched Lloyd cost us countless runs by taking the bat out of the hands of Jack Wilson and Jason Bay on mindless hit and runs and sac bunts because it was what "convention" called for, nevermind that Wilson got 200 hits, a great majority of which did not come on bunts, and Bay tore the cover off the ball from June through August. On top of that, Jason Bay batted sixth into July last year!!!

There's also no concept of how to manage a pitching staff. Some nights (like Tuesday) it takes 5 relievers to get through three innings, while on other nights Rick White or Ryan Vogelsong won't come out no matter how bad they are. He can't tell when a starter has nothing left, or when to leave a starter in for another inning. You will often hear Bob Walk say "Well, looks like Kip's had it for the night, Lloyd better get him out of there," only to watch him stay in and serve up a three run dinger. He pays no attention to meaningful stats like Rick White and Mike Gonzalez's splits against righties (see yesterdays game), and sometimes in a key situation with a power hitting lefty at the plate and Mike Gonzalez rested in the pen we see John Grabow on the mound.


They say a good manager only wins you an extra 5-10 games a year. Add 10 wins to the Pirates the last three years and we win 82, 85, and 82 games in those years. Each of those totals is over the magic number of 81, and in 2003 if those wins are over the right teams, 10 wins could have given us a division. I think Lloyd costs us more games than that. Not only can he not handle a pitching staff or put together a line up, he has no concept of chemistry. Last year the Pirates were 29-28 when Daryle Ward was called up. Ward played in place of Randall Simon every day, and the Buccos lost 21 of 24 games. Ward got injured, we won 11 in a row and stayed hot for most of July, staying within 3 games of .500 most of the month. Ward, in the meantime, rehabbed in Nashville. A team that was .500 before his rehab dropped 14 games in a row during his stint there. He was called back up to Pittsburgh, reinserted in the daily lineup, and a team that was 3 games under .500 and 4 games back in the Wild Card to begin August finished 72-89, 19.5 games behind the Astros. Would we have won a Wild Card without Ward last year? Probably not, seeing how hot the Astros got, but that isn't the point. The point is that over the last four years, Lloyd has been given plenty of rope, and he's already hanged himself. For some reason, people in Pittsburgh refuse to see it.