A friend who's a Pirate fan has asked me what to make of Kerrigan's hiring--whether it's good or bad for the young, bottom-dwelling, pitching-challenged Pirates; what to expect right away and in future; etc.

Your thoughts on this subject most appreciated.

Joe has never really had a long chance as a manager of team. He he was 17–26 with the Red Sox before he was replaced by the greatest manager in history. He has had decent success as a pitching coach, but players still win games, so I would not expect this to effect the bottom line much for the Pirates.

As the guy who does the yearly Pirate thread here, here is my two cents.

1) Kerrigan has had success with a fiesty Pedro Martinez, and I think the Pirates are looking to see if he can help Ian Snell round into form too. Snell is a hard throwing righthander with a bit of a temper. He did not work too well with former pitching coach Jeff Andrews. In fact, Snell said his biggest break through this year was watching CC Sabathia on TV. That should tell you something.

2) Kerrigan is from out of the organization, so a fresh persepective should be a good thing. Snell has some talent as does Tom Gorzellany, who admitted to not coming into camp in the best of shape. Kerrigan will have some knowledge of Ohlendorf and Karstens from his time in the Yankee organization. That may help.

3) GM Neil Huntington worked with Kerrigan in Montreal and I believe Kerrigan may have worked in the Philles organization the same time Pirates manager John Russell was managing there in the minors. This may mean something, but maybe not. More importantly though, Huntington is trying to get a "plan" for the Pirates organization. A philosophy on teaching the game like working the counts and such. I think Kerrigan has a "plan" approach that will work with Huntington's larger organizational objective as he tries to build a contender.

4) No matter what Kerrigan does, the Pirates pitching was horrible last year. Paul Maholm was their best pitcher and he may be just a #3 or #4 guy on most MLB teams. Kerrigan does not have much to work with. The starting staff has potential across it, but I dont think they know how to pitch. Nobody is really dominating. Kerrigan has his work cut out for him. The Pirates are in the middle of a major rebuild and Kerrigan could be a key factor in that rebuild. I see the Pirates contending for the wild card around 2010 or 2011 depending on how the staff evolves and how some pieces develop. I think the offense will be there by '10 or '11, it will be if the staff is ready or not.

EDIT: cause my head was up my ass

I thought Snell was from Delaware?

You are right. I dont know what the hell I was thinking. Seriously. My head was up my ass. And I knew Snell was from the Sates. My bad.

It will be interesting to see what - if anything - Kerrigan can do with Craig Hansen.

I think it will do wonders for the Pirates. Based solely on the successes of guys like Saberhagen, Garces, I figured Kerrigan probably had something to do with it. Obviously this is a bit flawed, but they had some quality pitching at times during his reign here.

Did someone just refer to Grady Little as the greatest manager in history?

Wasn't the knock on Kerrigan during his Sox days that he was great at squeezing more out of retreads, but never really developed young pitchers?

Dunno if that's on him or on the organization for not coming up with any good young pitchers during the late 90s though.

Expect to see teams run on the Pirates like crazy unless the manager differs with Joe. Joe K was always very focused on getting the man at the plate even at the expense of holding runners.

Don't get mad. Get glad.

see, I'm mad because I didn't execute on my chance to make a Joe Biden/Fidel Castro joke there.

Sarcasm my friend, Jimy Williams was clearly the greatest.

Yup. I was gonna remark about that and Kerrigan's emphasis on being able to pitch inside. Remember his "Pitcher's Pal" dummies that he'd set up when pitchers were throwing in between starts so they'd get more and more accustomed to throwing inside just off hitters' elbows.

The players hated Kerrigan so much they destroyed the pitcher's pal with bats after he was fired.

I always thought that one of Kerrigan's biggest failings was that he never seemed to connect with his pitchers as people. He has his "Pitchers Pals", formulas, philosophies, etc but I never got the impression that he really knew the players he was coaching. It makes sense that he got more out of journeymen and retreads than he did from the younger guys.

The Nutty Professor lives!