Afternoon notes: Nutting, Hurdle

Wednesday, 20 February 2013 16:46

Written by Bill Brink

BRADENTON, Fla. --  Busy day here today. We toured the renovated McKechnie Field this morning and a media briefing with Bob Nutting in the afternoon. Here are the highlights.

***Nutting said Clint Hurdle's contract extension was not an indication that mediocrity is rewarded, but part of a plan to stabilize leadership going forward.

"The idea that an extension was somehow a free pass is exactly the message I don't want to send, and exactly the message that Clint would not hear," Nutting said.

"We've absolutely shown we're more than willing to make a change if we need to, irrespective of contract terms. Everyone in the organization knows that."

***I asked Nutting if this could be the season the Pirates part with a talented prospect at the deadline, or acquire an expiring contract, to get an impact player, given the last two second havles and the core of the current team.

"What I hope we don't do is mortgage the future to make it a very short-term [success]," he said. "I really don't believe the Pirates will be best served by a build-up and a break-down mentality. To the greatest degree possible, we need to focus on infusing talent into the organization."

Will it be tough for Huntington to resist making those moves if it could help the big league team?

"I want him to do everything he can to make this team better," Nutting said. "Where we have constraints, where we have opportunities to preserve, whether it's chemistry inside the clubhouse, whether it's coming with the team that got you into that position, I think we've all seen and heard both sides of that from last year."

***Speaking in general about finances, Nutting said he preferred the team to spend during the winter and have the best team possible on opening day rather than save some money for the trade deadline.

"I think our responsibility, again, is to make sure that coming out of spring training, Day 1, we have the best team we can put on the field," he said. "We need to get to the trading deadline in a strong position. We are not in a position where we've held back and kept a big reserve. I don't think that would be a responsible thing to do. We're in a position now, we've got to take a run. We've got to push the chips in early in the seaosn and we've got to get a team on the field to compete as early to Day 1 of the season as we possibly can."

***The Pirates need to continue to build their minor league system, Nutting said, even as the major league team improves. Eighty-two wins is not his goal, which he said was winning a World Series.

"If [82 wins] had been the goal, honestly, Neal [Huntington] would have gone about his work the last five years very differently," Nutting said. "We could have patched pieces together for a short-term blip to pop us over .500. I'm glad we didn't do it because I think what we did was the responsible and correct things for the long term of the franchise."

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***A.J. Burnett will start opening day, Hurdle said. Wandy Rodriguez will start the second game. He has not planned more than that, indicating James McDonald's placement in the rotation is uncertain.

It will be Burnett's first opening-day start.

***Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Kyle Waldrop, Kris Johnson, Hunter Strickland, Vic Black and Erik Cordier will pitch in Friday's intrasquad game. Cole, Taillon, Waldrop and Johnson will go two innings, the rest one.

***Hurdle said Jeff Karstens (biceps tightness) felt the same as he did Tuesday. He did his conditioning and played catch.

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Among the changes at McKechnie Field:

***A 19,000 square foot boardwalk runs the length of the outfield wall, featuring seats and a bar.

***Bleachers in left field holding 570 new seats.

***The bullpens are behind the outfield wall and you can look down into them from the boardwalk.

***New roofs over the seats down first and third.

***The new 8,500-person capacity is now the fourth largest in the Grapefruit League, team president Frank Coonelly said.