Coonelly's Wrap-Up

Frank Coonelly and his end-of-the-season take on the Buccos, from his monthly chat:

"We have made tremendous progress in terms of adding talent to the organization over the past two years and are now in a far stronger position than we have been in years.

The 2009 season was one in which we continued to acquire talent and significantly upgrade the talent level across the entire organization. We are very pleased with the talent we were able to add through the 2009 First-Year Player Draft, international signings and through trades at the Major League level. 2009 was also a year in which there were tremendous development strides taken by individual players both at the Major League and Minor League levels.

Nevertheless, our objective is to win in Pittsburgh and we fell far short of our expectations in this regard.

We will aggressively look to supplement this core through free agency and the trade market as we continue to develop players in our system. The good news for Pirates fans is that the days of wholesale changes are over and, with a far superior talent base, the Pirates organization is poised to return to its rightful place in the National League."

Just in case you were wonderin' what 2009 was all about.