Five Pirates Thoughts at Five

5-29-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

Take a breath.

Yup, they still aren’t playing good ball. A historic great start, immediately followed by a historic bad May.

Things fell off quickly, adjustments haven’t worked. Players that played great, suddenly can’t even play league average. Players that were underwhelming, well, they just flat out bombed out.

Listen, it’s late, it’s Memorial Day, and I’m a bit cranky from people I have always respected acting like children about a baseball team.

Here we go.

1. They Just Don’t Care

Venting. Hate Tweeting/commenting. Whatever, it is what it is.

This has been a thing for years now, and it’s something I’ve talked about from the very first word I typed.

They do care, they just aren’t ever, and I mean ever, going to “care” the way these people want them to. They aren’t ever going to sign that big free agent sure fire stud. They aren’t ever going to call up that prospect before he’s where they want him to be, or they get the extra year, or Super 2 or whatever you all have decided they’ve done to Travis Swaggerty when you get together in your conspiracy theory meetings.

This team entered a rebuild in the Winter of 2019. You can rightly say they sucked before that, and tell me when they should have started this process, or you can do all your magic math with no real published numbers to show me exactly how much money Bob Nutting is bathing in while not spending on his major league roster.

I won’t dispute a blessed word.

But this rebuild, the one we are currently watching them try to come out of started in the Winter of 2019 with the Starling Marte deal. he was shipped for two very young but very gifted prospects.

One of those prospects hasn’t stayed healthy for much of any of his time here, and the other is in AA, still trying to prove all the scouts are right.

Every deal, every waiver claim, every call up, every signing, has been about this rebuild.

What I hear when you say they don’t care, is that for you it is impossible to see “care” while not winning or competing for a playoff berth.

I get that entirely, I just disagree with it on it’s face.

So, tonight, let’s do this thing a little differently.

2. 2020

In 2020 the Pirates really made very few changes. They traded Starling Marte partially because he wanted to be traded, and partially because, entering his age 31 season in 2020, it wasn’t bloody likely he’d be here when the team won anything meaningful.

They could have kept him. It would have been more money on payroll. Some of you might have said they “care”. It’s not like I can sit here and tell you either prospect they received have helped the cause.

That said, the idea was, this guy won’t be here when we really think we can be good, he wants out, lets get some needed talent in this system because I don’t see much here on the surface that helps.

Then COVID hits.

None of the prospects get to play save a select few who this new management group and the few holdovers thought were guys they could use immediately.

Nobody knew what to do here. Nobody had enough familiarity with anyone to really judge many players, and now, nobody was going to play in 2020, so lets punt the idea, if you will, to 2021, that’s when actual, tangible system evaluation has to start.

The idea of keeping Adam Frazier, Josh Bell, Kevin Newman, Gregory Polanco, hell, even good ol’ Chris Archer was going to get a shot before he got hurt and the whole band was meant to be a good long half season of watching them play. Maybe Josh Bell, would impress and show himself a piece. He wanted it after all.

Terrible season. Everyone who was supposed to be a hitter, wasn’t. Everyone who was supposed to pitch, stunk. Nobody had time to warm to the task, epic failure of a season, all in the course of 60 weird, silent games, not even able to meet face to face with guys for fear of spreading something at the time everyone was freaking out about.

Nobody knew anything.

To say the least, 2020 didn’t go to plan, well, except the losing part. Not adding was purposeful. He knew the team stunk and I’m quite sure intended to clean house at the deadline of the season.

Never got the chance, so on to the off season.

3. 2021

Still not enough talent on the team or the system to really feel the team was going anywhere organically.

They could have spent right? The players said they wanted to keep the “core” together.

That Starting Rotation though, folks, I just don’t think it was going to happen. Coupled with just about the worst bullpen I ever saw, there was just too much to buy, and nothing to pull up.

But Cherington probably felt a bit antsy to do something. 2020 wasn’t really his ideal intro to the team and you’d have to imagine he probably feels a year behind.

After a terrible year, Josh Bell is traded. I could argue it was selling low, but teams have been doing that dance now with Josh Bell ever since. Is he Great? Is he just Good? Maybe he’s just a DH who slumps for 2 straight months every year.

He made the call, it wasn’t a good trade, hasn’t worked out, but again, Bell wasn’t in his eyes part of the solution.

Talent out, two guys back. One Wil Crowe, one a very young prospect with a big arm and a LONG way away if ever.

Joe Musgrove after a ton of work finally looked like a real starter, and coming on the end of team control The Pirates could have chosen to try and extend him. He was only 27 but again, this team in the mind of the general manager after moving Bell and Marte needed to focus on acquiring as much talent as possible.

They moved Musgrove instead. I could argue here had they extended him, they’d have a 30 year old, probably number 2 starter honestly, in his prime right now. If they didn’t make this move, they don’t have Endy Rodriguez or David Bednar. David is of course an all star closer and Endy is the Pirates number 1 prospect and hope for the catching position in the immediate future. Omar Cruz looks like a reliever at this point and Hudson Head, honestly, who knows quite yet.

The team stunk. Bryan Reynolds was good, and Tyler Anderson was good, and David Bednar was good.

The Pirates went shopping on the waiver wire and filled Spring training with Non-roster invites. Again, they could have decided, hey, let the fans have fun, let’s bring in some MLB talent and at least not make them suffer while we develop.

But he wasn’t done moving players. He knew it, and he knew it’d be nice if they got another high draft pick too.

You can hate that thinking, but it’s what this team was doing.

I’ve told you already several places I’d have at least considered breaking with the actions taken, or at least alternate ways to go, but this map was about as clear as a 1995 Trip Map from AAA.

4. 2022

OK.

Hey fans! Here is a signing of a guy you really liked watching in 2020 and hope wasn’t hitting the same because he was hurt in 2021. He’s like, a super awesome fielder and we really think he will hit again. We locked him up for a long time. See, we care, but about guys who we think will be here.

OK, well, that’s what the Ke’Bryan Hayes signing felt like to me.

The rotation had more promise this time. There was hope Mitch Keller was finally becoming the pitcher we hoped when he debuted way back when. JT Brubaker looked like a guy with a ton of plus pitches, and he was an innings horse, here’s hoping right?

Hey, they had Roansy right on the cusp too!

They brought in some other guys, traded a few more. More NRI’s. More little deals. Adam Frazier out for a package including Jack Suwinski, Marcano, you know, more guys who might be here to help when this team is better.

More than anything, Oneil Cruz was finally ready.

Could they have brought him up earlier and won more than 62 games? Probably.

Could they have spent some money and finally been easier to watch? I guess. I still think they weren’t close enough for it to be much more than adding extra people to trade, which has merit, but they chose what they chose.

It was a terrible season. Even Reynolds didn’t hit most of the season. Most nights you’d look at the lineup and wonder how they saw themselves scoring even a run. Most nights they showed you they didn’t see it either.

Bottomed out. 2021 was bad, but 2022 was bad with guys who were supposed to matter. Supposed to be here when it mattered.

5. 2023

Nothing was going to be better. They were going to stink, punt, tank, whatever you want to say, right?

We were staring down the barrel at a rotation with Mitch Keller who had shown some significant proof that he had figured out some things in 2022. JT Brubaker who was if nothing else good enough to eat innings and be this team’s number 5 starter. Roansy Contreras entering a year with no innings restrictions, ready to pick up where he left off. Rich Hill and Vince Velasquez were both brought in as vets, but we all had them as stinking or out by the deadline anyway so let’s skip the the AAA level!

Mike Burrows is as ready a pitching prospect as the Pirates have had since probably Contreras. Boom. TJ.

Luis Ortiz has a big arm, but control isn’t his friend and he needs a third pitch. Seems to have worked on it a ton in the off season.

Quinn Priester, a top prospect who might finally be getting close to a shot.

We were going to get a full season of Oneil Cruz! A full season of Castro and Suwinski getting even more at bats to show how that power translates.

Bae was going to get a chance after exciting the masses in 2022 when he was called up.

They decided it was time to put some veteran help around what’s here and coming soon.

Ji-man Choi, Carlos Santana, Hill, Velasquez, Hedges, Cutch and Joe all come in along with Garcia in the pen.

It’s a more talented team, a more experienced team.

They come out swinging, and running and pitching and feeding off each other. Beating everyone, good, bad, great, whatever, you ran into the Bucs, you were meat.

Then May.

Everything opposite.

You’d think Choi, and Vince and Cruz, and Brubaker, and well, you’d think all that happened on April 30th, but nope.

This is a team that experienced belief. They were all feeling it, all believing it, everyone had a role, everyone was important.

Guys who weren’t hitting, who cares, we need the glove and everyone else is killing it!

Guys who weren’t pitching, hey, who cares, it was just Crowe, he always stunk right?

They signed Reynolds to an extension and almost immediately, everything fell apart.

No, I’m not trying to draw any correlation. Reynolds extending didn’t cause the team to freefall.

That’s a lot of injury to sustain for a good team. It’s an overwhelming amount for a team destined to be in the .500 conversation if they played well.

So call up all these kids right? Where’s the cavalry?

Well, Ortiz is here, and because Vince is hurt again, he’ll stay here. The Pirates were just going to put Contreras in the pen to retool a bit (like they did with Keller in 2022) but they’ll now have to keep him in the rotation I’d imagine.

Quinn is likely not ready to debut, but folks we’re one twisted ankle away from seeing something like that, or, we’ll start to see MLB scrapple for a minute.

I know, you want Endy, and you want Davis.

Fine.

As I’ve written before, that’s ok with me. I don’t even care if they catch and aren’t good at it. How’s that? I mean it, I’m all for calling up kids, but y’all have a bit too much faith that they’re going to come up here and just dominate MLB. Like, have you watched this game? You know how rare that is right?

I can’t even pretend to know they’d stick. Not on their first call up anyway.

Again, I’m all for giving them a shot to help out here. But, I have much less faith that two bats are going to make someone swing a bat when they have a runner at third and less than 2 outs. Tangibly, they can only replace one each.

One will be Hedges, so, even if they stink, probably a win right? The other will likely come at someone in the outfield like Joe, or Bae, maybe Marcano, perhaps Cutch at times. Big deal, that’s fine too.

I just don’t see 2 guys being called up as the barometer for caring. In fact, if this mofo came out in public and told us hey, I’m calling up Henry and Endy right friggin’ now. Enough of this losing, time to turn this ship around and these two will get that done.

Folks I’d laugh out loud.

Yet that’s all anyone spews on social media. Call up these guys or you don’t care. Maybe they just don’t think it’s really going to help enough, or stick with me here, maybe they think for some of the guys they have pitching it just might do some damage.

What else can they do though? They’ve had their depth decimated by injury, and most of what they have is at least less than a sure thing upon call up. I mean, we can be that honest right?

Trade? To whom? Oakland? They’re about the only team ready to say they’re out right yet. Come July, maybe.

I just want to know, without going back to the preseason because that’s just being captain hindsight, what exactly is caring?

A month ago that was signing Reynolds. In Spring it was bringing Travis Swaggerty and Ortiz and Endy North with the team, cause yinz said, that’s why.

Now it’s Endy and Henry. Next it’ll be Priester (give him one more good start, you’ll see). Then it’ll be Peguero, cause he’s been good for a couple weeks. Then it’ll be Gonzales because his K rate is now below 30%.

Get the point?

It’ll always be something. And that’s what this year is going to be.

Seeing kids get chances. Seeing kids fail or succeed at chances. Wondering who is and isn’t a part of this.

This is a very extreme path to .500, and it is step one on the way to learning how to win.

So is the losing.

Here’s what happened.

The team had a historic hot streak to start the season. Then they turned south directly. If that hot streak came say July 13th through the 26th, um, you can have all the do they don’t they care conversations you want, because “doing something” would be very much so right there as both obvious and plausible.

On Memorial Day in 2023, baseball trades aren’t fixing this.

The team has shown you, and themselves how good they can be. They followed that by showing their floor. Look for them to find a way back to the middle and hope Oneil Cruz is this year’s best Deadline acquisition.