Neal Huntington Is Not Messing Around

As expected, the Pirates just announced that manager Jim Tracy will not be brought back for the 2008 season. To say that everyone saw this coming would be an understatement. What was not expected, however, was that Neal Huntington also announced the firings of senior scouting director Ed Creech, director of baseball operations Jon Mercutio, and senior director of player development Brian Graham, who also served as interim-GM after Dave Littlefield's firing. From the Bucs' official release:

"Since my appointment as general manager I have worked diligently to gather information about the inner-workings of the organization," Huntington, who met with Tracy and members of the coaching staff earlier in the week, said in a statement. "After a systematic evaluation of that information, I have come to the difficult conclusion that to transform the culture and to chart the course for future success, these changes needed to be made."

If you want to know the difference between the old regime and the new management in Pittsburgh, look no further than the front office shakeup today. Last off-season the Pirates actually added the term "Senior" to Creech and Graham's titles despite more than ample evidence that they were not good at their jobs. Today, they were both fired fired. This won't make the Pirates automatically better, but if any organization needed a restructuring from top to bottom, it was certainly the Pirates.