Some Q&A impressions

The PG has awesomely furnished us with video from Coonelly, Huntington, and Russell's first meeting with the public. I would've much rather been there in person, but I'll take what I can get. Anyways, here are my thoughts on each of our new fearless leaders:

John Russell: Lots of stress from him on accountability, doing things the right way, etc. etc. It's standard fare for a rookie manager with a long minor league track record, I think. Honestly, seeing him talk at length kind of confirms to me my initial suspicion: he's been brought in to manage a bad baseball team. Look at it this way- imagine you're the GM of a team you know is going to be awful. Who do you want talking to the media after the games are over? A whimsical, lackadaisical idiot that talks mostly to himself and doesn't really have any effect on the players? Or a straight-talking, no-nonsense type guy that gruffly demands accountability from his players? I think the second one will play a lot better in print and over the air, and I think that's why Russell's here. He'll be a lot easier to take seriously when he loses those glasses,

Neal Huntington- It really amuses me that he spends a ton of time playing the anti-Littlefield card. It's like some of the stuff Littlefield did personally offended him. I like that, because some of the stuff Littlefield did was pretty offensive. About 2/3rds of the way in, he starts talking about how he'll never sacrifice a player's development to win at the minor league level. That's probably giving DL a seizure, as racking up minor league championships at any cost was his specialty. Of course, this will all be rendered moot if Steve Pearce starts in AAA next year, because doing that would make Huntington a liar. And no one likes liars.

Frank Coonelly- He did the least talking of the trio, but he gave me the same impression that Huntington did- that he knows what he's talking about. He keeps reiterating that the Pirates are going to draft the best available players in June, just like Huntington hammered home the point that they would never sacrifice player development to win minor league games. Seeing that these guys know where the previous front office went wrong is a really encouraging sign for me.

One impression that I did take away from this clip that wasn't explicitly stated is that none of these guys actually expect the Pirates to be a contending team in 2008. They're hammering home the "underperforming in 2007" meme, but only because they can't say, "This team is going to suck next year." It's frustrating as hell to sit back and watch nothing on the major league roster change, but it's comforting to know that these guys don't expect their pumpkin to turn into a carriage without some serious work.

This kind of stuff is always going to be 90% fluff and so it's hard to draw any rock-solid conclusions from it. The questions that Huntington and Coonelly get from the general masses of Pirate fans are certainly not going to be the hard-hitting questions that we'd all like to see them answer (though I'd happily give them the chance to field and answer questions from myself and readers if they're up for it). It's nice to see these guys talk a good game, but it'll be even nicer if they can actually back the words up. Unfortunately, a little video clip from the Post-Gazette isn't going to tell us if they can do that.