Bucs fans reacted with anger to the Pirates' announcement on Wednesday that general manager Neal Huntington and assistants Kyle Stark and Greg Smith would not be fired, and it looks like manager Clint Hurdle is safe now, too. There were rumors about Huntington and company being on the hot seat due to the Pirates' late-season collapse, which saw them slip from 16 games above .500 to six games below.
The Cleveland Indians had a similar collapse, and they're reacting differently, by firing manager Manny Acta. (They've replaced him, at least on an interim basis, with Sandy Alomar, Jr.) Acta is, as far as I know, a smart, perceptive manager, but ultimately, PR matters more than competence in situations like these. The Indians didn't have as high a peak as the Pirates did, and thus their collapse has dropped them further, and now they're 65-91. That's not primarily Acta's fault, since he wasn't given the talent to sustain a winning team.
Of course, it wouldn't be as easy for Huntington to fire Hurdle, since Hurdle has only been around for two seasons, and Huntington has already fired one of his own managers (John Russell). Ultimately, though, I thought the different reactions Cleveland and Pittsburgh had to their late-season collapses were interesting.