There is going to be life after Operation Shutdown for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It's a life that won't include the CEO of Operation Shutdown, Derek Bell, who was released last Saturday.

And it's a life that probably isn't going to include any Operation Countdowns of any playoff magic numbers -- not this year, anyway.

	The Pirates no longer have to deal with the headache of Derek Bell.

But there will be life -- 162 games of it, half of them in one of the most gorgeous ballparks ever built, right up the block from where Jerome Bettis thunders off tackle.

We wish we could tell you life will be good for the 2002 Pirates. We wish we could tell you they will fill gorgeous PNC Park every night, that the NL Central will be there for the taking, that this will be the year they won't have a losing record -- for the first time since Barry Bonds skipped town.

Of course, we also wish we could tell you there will be eternal labor peace and that the Yankees will no longer be able to start planning their playoff celebrations the same day they report to spring training.

But some stuff, we just can't tell you.

Fact is, dealing with Operation Shutdown might be the easiest challenge on the Pirates' plate this season.

Owner Kevin McClatchy has told his new GM, Dave Littlefield, he can eat contracts -- just what the Pirates did with the $4.75 million of Bell's 2002 salary -- if that's what's best for the Pirates' digestive system. The Pirates essentially ate Bell's contract last season as well as he was paid $5 million and rewarded the club with 27 hits.

"It is a significant amount of money to just walk away from," says Littlefield, who left the Marlins eight months ago to take this job. "So you have to look at it from a lot of different angles and what your other options are, like the complications of not having that player and the complications that could result from keeping that player.

"So there are a lot of issues other than just reading what someone said and saying, 'That's a comment we don't agree with, and let's release that guy.' That's not the professional thing to do. The only thing I'm sincerely motivated by is to help this team get better."

And by "better," Littlefield doesn't mean "winning five or 10 more games." By better, he means "getting back to where this franchise was, to winning the World Series."

But Dave Littlefield also knows that to get there, the Pirates might have a longer ride ahead of them than the Griswold family.

His team is coming off nine straight losing seasons -- tied with the current Brewers for the longest streak by a National League non-expansion team since the 1953-62 Cubs. And the Pirates just opened their beautiful ballpark last year by losing 100 games and getting outscored by 201 runs.

They scored fewer runs (657) than any team in baseball except the Mets. They had a higher ERA (5.05) than any NL team except the Colorado Rockettes. Only two teams in the league committed more errors (133). And no team in either league had a worse stolen-base percentage (56 percent) or a lower team on-base percentage (.313).

Hoo, boy. Rough year.

"I don't know if you can get much worse," says catcher Jason Kendall, a man who has never experienced a winning season in six years as a Pirate. "I mean, I'm sure you can. But I would hope not too much. It was awful."

Fortunately, unlike last spring training, the Pirates' three best starting pitchers didn't get hurt this spring. Unfortunately, the only one of those three still in uniform -- emerging ace Kris Benson -- won't be back until May following Tommy John surgery.

So the Pirates' Opening Day starter this year was a pitcher they didn't sign until precisely three days before spring training -- Ron Villone.

In fact, Villone (29-32 lifetime) was the last free-agent starting pitcher signed by any team this offseason. And he led the Pirates into Shea Stadium on Opening Day against a Mets team with twice the Pirates' $48-million payroll. Amazing.

On one hand, this is a testament to just how open the Pirates' camp was during spring training -- and how open-minded Littlefield and manager Lloyd McClendon were in making decisions on just about everything.

On the other hand, even the GM acknowledges it tells you the Pirates aren't exactly the Yankees when it comes to stockpiling aces.

"I can't say that it's an ideal situation as a general manager to sign a guy three days before spring training and have him be the Opening Day starter," Littlefield says of Villone, who went on to be the losing pitcher in the Pirates' 6-2 loss to the Mets in the season opener on Monday. "But we're just looking to get the best guys out there in our situation, given the amount of inexperience we have in our rotation. ... Villone is the most experienced guy, and he's the best-equipped to deal with the hoopla of Opening Day in New York. And after Opening Day, who's No. 1-to-5 won't make a significant amount of difference."

	Aramis Ramirez, right, is one of the few bright spots on the Pirates' roster.

That's not necessarily a good thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just a reflection of where the Pirates are, as they prepare to run a rotation out there with fewer wins combined (58) than Jose Lima.

But this team is not hopeless. It has Brian Giles on the payroll. And Kendall. And Benson. And Pokey Reese. And Aramis Ramirez, whose .300-34 HR-112 RBI eruption last year (at age 23) represented a combination of numbers even Bonds never matched in any season in Pittsburgh.

The question Littlefield faces, though, is this: Does he keep all those players and build around them -- or does he use them as a different kind of building block, by trading one or two of them?

Well, if you paid attention, you know he answered that question over the winter. He almost dealt Giles to the White Sox, and talked with Oakland about him, as well.

"If they trade Brian Giles," Kendall says, "then you can trade probably half the other guys here, too, because Brian Giles is one of the core guys on our team. He's a damned good ballplayer. So if you're going to trade him, you'd better get two guys who can hit 30 home runs, two pitchers to win 15 to 20 games, a left-handed power bat -- and get me a couple of cases of beer. Then you can trade him."

But Giles -- who has joined Willie Stargell and Ralph Kiner as the only Pirates ever to hit 30 homers three straight years -- admits he wasn't shocked by those rumors. In fact, if you read between the lines, it's clear he wasn't even particularly upset by them.

"When you have as bad a year as we did," he says, "anything can happen. They would have to listen if they get the right deal."

And Littlefield admits he would -- and is. But not just on Giles. On Kendall, too. And just about everyone else.

"From my standpoint," he says, "when you have as many holes as we have, I think the appropriate thing to do is to look and see what's out there. I'm not out shopping. But at the same time, I'll listen and think about what fits."

And if they want to listen to offers for Kendall, too, don't bet on his standing in their way, either.

"I'm sick of losing," says the man who has been a Pirate longer than anyone around him. "I don't want to do it anymore. I'm not in this game to be 30 games out of first every September. It's not fun. I want to win, and I want to win here in Pittsburgh.

"But," Kendall says, "I want to win now. If that doesn't happen, then we'll see what happens down the road somewhere else. ... If that's not going to happen for another four or five years, then maybe they have to make some changes."

And Giles' song has almost the same lyrics.

"We've used all the excuses," he says. "We've used 'new stadium,' 'young talent,' 'injuries.' We've used every excuse there is. Now we're out here to put up or shut up. My evaluation is, this team's a lot better if we all stay healthy, if we can keep the core group together the whole year. We haven't had that one year I've been here."

But what if that doesn't happen and it's another one of those years?

"Then they've got some decisions to make," Giles says. "They've definitely got to be realistic about the situation. I totally understand."

Asked about the prospect of trading his best player, McClendon jokes that if Giles had been dealt last winter, "I probably would have packed up and left with him."

"Brian is certainly a part of our future, and we want him here," the manager says. "Somebody would really have to just blow us out of the water for us to trade Brian Giles."

Nevertheless, as Littlefield points out, the Pirates need starting pitching, too -- and they just traded their best starting pitcher (Todd Ritchie) "because we needed pitching. Not just quality. We needed numbers." He got three useful pitchers (Kip Wells, Sean Lowe and Josh Fogg) for Ritchie. So why would he rule out trading Giles or anyone else?

"I can't imagine ever thinking any guy is untouchable," Littlefield says. "Now some guys are harder to trade than others. Aramis Ramirez comes to mind. ... And Giles and Kendall are hard to trade. But we're a team that was at the back of the pack in hitting, in pitching and in defense. So we've got a lot of holes to fill. And we've got to look at whatever it takes to fill those holes."

They also have to look at whatever it takes to fill the seats of PNC Park, where season-ticket sales were down about 40 percent as of mid-March. Everyone acknowledges there are explanations for that drop beyond baseball. But baseball is the only part the Pirates can address.

"The biggest thing we can do to get those people back out," Littlefield says, "is just win."

So for the Pittsburgh Pirates, it's goodbye, Operation Shutdown -- hello, Operation Shape-up. And not a moment too soon.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.