Collier: Even with backtracking, Coonelly's recent message to fans is the wrong one
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As it is the comfortable inclination of this column to leave well enough alone, generally, and since that policy easily can extend to leaving bad enough alone, there recently has been only spare comment in this space about the Pirates.
The recent arbitrator's award of $2,025,000 to pitcher Ross Ohlendorf actually left me feeling sorry for the ballclub. The Pirates offered $1.4 million for the upcoming season, and I figured if the system is such that the Philadelphia Phillies have to pay Roy Halladay some $20 million in anticipation of a 20-win season, I guess the Pirates have to pay at least $1 million for a guy who won one (1) game.
If you've got to pay $2 million for a starter with one win, you're talking about a pennant costing something like $190 million. The Pirates like to come in somewhere under $40 million in terms of total team compensation, which is like showing up at the best restaurant in town with $3.
"What can I get around here for $3?"
"Give ya coupla olives to put in your pocket on the way out, howzat?"
In a division where the average payroll last year was $97.2 million everywhere but in Pittsburgh, the Pirates are the guy walking around with two olives in his pocket and seem perfectly unperturbed by it.
In fact, unless I'm misinterpreting team president Frank Coonelly (you can only hope), the baseball team around here will continue to be the culinary equivalent of lint-covered olives unless attendance spikes fairly considerably.
Asked this week if the club would be able to boost payroll to between $70 and $80 million if its core players and potential free agents merited it, the president said, "Today, no, but we will be able to support that payroll very soon if our fans believe that we now have a group of players in Pittsburgh and on its way here in the near future that is competitive. We need to take a meaningful step forward in terms of attendance to reach that payroll number while continuing to invest heavily in our future, but I am convinced that the attendance will move quickly once we convince our fans that we are on the right track."
First Published February 27, 2011 12:00 am
