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They gut his team in mid-season, basically taking away his two power bats......then they say they are going to evaluate his job???

Its a yearly evaluation. The Pirate Freshness Check. Just to give the fans a straw of possibility ...

Hire a scout from Europe ?
SOMEONE TELL THAT "TWERP" (A person regarded as insignificant and contemptible.)THAT THEY PLAY BASEBALL NOT SOCCER.

Jesse Flores ? didn't he die in 1991... ( Cubs Pitcher) must be someone else but with the Pirates anything is possible ... Great photo of John Russell above ...Maybe his phone reception from Europe and Asia isn't working too well !!!

When, oh when, will we see a headline that says, "Pirates Will Evaluate Owner"?

This is Milwaukee from a few years ago. Get a new stadium (at mostly taxpayers expense), nice revenue sharing cheques and trade every guy making going rate. Atleast KC is trying (in vain) to improve and does spend a few bucks here and there.

Pittsburgh's owners should be ashamed. They haven't fielded a winning team since the days of Bonds and Bonilla, yet they string along their poor fans with "coaching evaluations" and meaningless off-season free-agent acquisitions and stupid, STUPID trades (Morris, Aramis Ramirez, etc.). Any player they develop worth keeping will be gone by the time they're arbitration-eligible, and any player producing during any given season will be traded by the end of July to feed their hope of acquiring a 'diamond in the rough' prospect. Selig's stooges will never force the owners' hand to sell, but the current state of affairs in Pittsburgh baseball is an embarrassment. John Russell is about as much of the Pirates problems as the brand of hot dogs they sell at the games. 'Common! How about adding $30-40M to the payroll and field a team that compete in the N.L. Central instead of taking those revenue sharing checks and lining the owners' pockets. Where I come from, taking money for a specific purpose, and pocketing it instead, is called STEALING. At least when the Marlins owner blew up the team, he did it by trading exceptionally well and fielding what could essentially be considered a AAA All-Star team. They have youth and talent, while the Pirates just have a farm system packed with a lot of maybe's and a MLB 25 man roster full of guys that would be role-players on most other teams (and would likely rather be reserves than perennial losers).

Neal Huntington's evaluation at the end of the season is nothing more than good ol' Neal being a puppet to his masters, a mouth piece to pacify the fans left of Pittsburgh baseball. Nothing will change, and it has zilcho to do with his manager and coaches (who, by the way, did a great job of making lemonade out of lemons in 2008).