Success Cycles

ShysterBall, one of my favorite blogs (and not just because he lives and lawyers in Columbus, OH, where I spent most of my life), chimed in on Neal Huntington's comments in the piece from Dejan that I linked to the other day:

It seems so obvious to those of us who have read Bill James and Baseball Prospectus and everything, but there is nothing close to a universal appreciation of things like the success cycle among general baseball fandom. Sure, most fans know that a team is old or young, rebuilding or not, but there are just as many out there who view every move a team makes in the shortest of terms. That may be especially true in Pittsburgh, as Pirate fans have been told that their team was rebuilding so many times in the past 15 years that they can be forgiven if they don't believe such a thing exists anymore.

Huntington, it seems, is setting the right tone here by signalling to fans that he has a long term plan. That mere contention -- and 82 wins has counted for contention in the NL Central in recent years, even if it may not this year -- is not a goal. That he's trying to build a foundation for long term success as opposed to hoping for a mirage season like 1997.

The chorus from the organization during the Littlefield era was that we had "promising prospects" or something similar, but rarely if ever was depth in the minor leagues discussed. Huntington has said time and again that building depth in the minor leagues, particularly pitching depth, is his first priority (as it should be), and he's the first Pirates GM in my lifetime to say that. It seemed that Littlefield was executing his job as though getting the major league club above .500 for one year was his biggest priority, and he failed miserably. Littlefield managed a baseball team like a golfer trying to hole every tee shot with only a collection of different sand wedges.

I'm due for a post on things I support, but one of them is Neal Huntington. He's the absolute wrong choice for the disaffected Pirate fans who just want to see one winning season as soon as possible, but I do think he was a very good choice for the organization. The Pirates most likely will have their 16th consecutive losing season this year, and that's both ridiculous and unfortunate, but rather than find a guy who will go out and try to assemble another "Freak Show" team in the hopes of realizing a winning season, I'm glad they got a guy who understands that the long-term best priority is consistent winning seasons over many years.

Unfortunately, that success cycle is going to take some time to get going in Pittsburgh.