Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – Outside Looking In

10-9-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

If the Pirates execute this off season, and get at least a little more lucky on the injury front in 2024, good shot the Pirates will at least get a taste of post season ball. I know that’s not the prevailing thought from the “this is never gonna work” camp, but honestly, they aren’t watching like you are, so I value their opinion almost as much as I’d value my 10 year old nephew’s views on inter-office relations in the work place.

Succeed or fail, the playoffs are in sight, and reach next year.

That said, if you’ve watched at all as the post season has rolled along, boy, it’s not a one game play in, but a 3 game series isn’t all that much longer.

Getting in is an ok goal for 2024, but they have to set their sites on the division in 2025.

1. You Know, Players Do Improve, Right?

I always knew this time was coming. I knew we’d get to the point where most of the roster was made up of rookies and second year players and fans would largely feel underwhelmed by the overall roster it created.

Thing is though, there’s a difference between a guy like Henry Davis putting together rather paltry numbers in limited MLB playing time and a guy like Michael Chavis doing the same. It’s the difference in their ceilings.

Folks, that’s what there is to be excited about, most of this roster hasn’t even sniffed their ceiling.

That was the point of this entire thing. Amass talent, and when some of them get close you loosen your discriminating restrictions on call ups a bit so you can get as much of the rookie beaten out of the talent as possible at one time.

This Spring, we’ll look for who improved over the off-season, and if players regress, it’ll open a hole for the next in progression.

Bottom line, what you see stats wise right now, is not what you should expect in 2024 because in theory the arrow is at least capable of pointing up for quite some time.

2. Do We Like the New Playoff Format?

I’m not so sure.

I like the increased field if only because at some point the Pirates are the exact type of team it’ll benefit, but overall, there are some things I just haven’t been able to force myself to accept.

A 3 game series is better than a 1 game wild card by leaps and bounds, but I don’t think it’s fair to a team like Milwaukee that won their division. There has to be in my mind some kind of advantage gained for winning a division and I’m not saying Milwaukee was going to beat any of the teams who got in, but a division winner to me deserves a full series, even 5 games to be dispatched.

That said, I understand that the baseball season is already insanely long, I’m not looking to have the World Series played at neutral sites because it’s almost Christmas, but when your season is 162 games, it simply has to mean something more than 2 losses gets you bounced.

One thing I do think is a positive though, smaller markets by in large try to open windows and earn an appearance, and this playoff set up could change what used to be 3 year windows into 4 or 5. The way I see it, you’ll likely get a shot at a bite at the apple earlier than you would have and maybe later too. One you likely wouldn’t have gotten on either end. So it could take these “windows” and stretch the plausibility out to half a decade when done well for some teams.

The best fix is to fix the game, and over time maybe my feelings on this setup will change, but for now, I guess I just don’t see enough benefit for regular season success.

At least if a top seed gets bounced in the NHL, they had to lose a 7 game series to the 8th seed. The Rays won 99 games and got bounced after two losses in the playoffs.

I’m also not sure if sitting around for a week is best for the teams who earned a bye. The Braves, Dodgers, Orioles and Astros all sat around for a week trying to stay sharp and ready to compete and all 4 looked like they hadn’t played in a week when they hit the field.

Again, I don’t hate it, cause at some point this is likely to help my Pirates, but I don’t think it’s executed in an ideal fashion.

3. Dark Horse Extension Candidate

This is sure to be taken badly by some, but refer to point 1 and keep in mind if a team like this waits to be 100% sure before trying to lock talent in, chances are they can’t afford the assurance that this is indeed a player.

Jack Suwinski.

OK, got all your yelling out of the way?

Let me start here, Jack has improved throughout the course of 2022 and 2023. Nearly every statistical category took a nice upward tick year to year.

45 homeruns in 906 plate appearances is the sexy stat, and folks it’s also the expensive stat. This guy is talked about like a player who barely deserves to play, and bluntly, for large swaths of the season he looked like a guy who barely deserved to play.

All I can say here is if you just let him play 2024 on the last year of his rookie deal, and he does even what he did in 2023, which of course you’d hope he’d do better, his 2025 Arb number will probably knock some sense into the team and the fan base, cause this kid will get PAID.

If I’m the Pirates I approach him this offseason and try to get him interested in a 6-7 year deal that buys into his free agency and avoids the arbitration process to control costs. This isn’t instead of someone else, for instance if they extend Keller they certainly could still do this and vice versa.

I understand the fear of locking down a Tabata or Polanco, but without risk this team will simply not keep this thing together in any meaningful way and maybe we forget it’s also why we got so much time with Marte.

Look at how hard the Reynolds extension was. I can honestly say had they gone through that process before 2022 when they signed the 2 year extension to avoid arbitration hearings they’d have gotten it done cheaper, and never would have had to deal with the public scrutiny the situation caused.

Develop a top of the rotation starter, you best lock them up, same goes for a slugger, especially on a team that just finished next to last in the NL in Homers.

4. What if Keeping Andy Haines is Wrong?

I mean, I think I’ve made very clear I think it is, but what does it mean to the club if they’re wrong?

It could stunt development, it could cause the Pirates to dump a talent that thrives elsewhere, but most important to me, it could prevent the Pirates from prying open a playoff competitive season.

That’s the risk. Say what you want, this club has decided they’re smarter than we are and whether we agree or not we’ll enter 2024 waiting for either Haines to prove us wrong or right.

That’s really what frustrates a fan base like this. Some of us accepted long ago how long this was going to take, and how much pain we’d absorb on the way there, how hard the job is even if everything is done well, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to sell those of us who have on ignoring 2 years of evidence that the Pirates offensive approach at the very least doesn’t maximize the talent on the roster.

None of us thought there was a competitive collection of talent on the 2022 team, but we also watched night after night as they underperformed even what we were watching. 2023 was much of the same, with more talent.

As we discussed earlier in this very piece the youth needs to improve and creep closer to the ceiling in development, so underperforming based on the talent involved doesn’t exactly instill us with hope.

Many of you feel the same about Derek Shelton, and I have a list of things I don’t like that he does too, but for me, Haines is his biggest and most visible noose that will surely be used to hang him should this wind up being a 3rd season in a row of finishing in the bottom of the league at the plate.

5. Termarr Has a Shot

Next year, we’ll enter the season with an all out battle for playing time at second base. A ton of players will be involved and they’ll probably keep fighting into the season. That’s healthy, but someone better jump up and take it pretty early on or Termarr Johnson is going to start making his case.

He’ll likely start in AA Altoona, but if he hits like he did in 2023, it’s going to be very hard to avoid giving him a crack at jumping those competitors.

One thing this team is lacking is superstar talent. Keller could get there, Reynolds is probably someone who will attend his fair share of All Star Games but superstar, maybe not. Cruz has that potential, but it’s not a lock.

When you have one ready, and your team is actively looking to get somewhere in that calendar year, most of the manipulation crap goes out the window. It’s the same reason a guy like Paul Skenes has a real shot to make it next year, to really get into the next step territory, it’s gonna take star power, and when it makes itself apparent and nobody on the team is blocking them, I think you’ll see them take some risks here on call ups looking for a spark.

In this same spirit, I think this is why we could see some pitchers get a call that normally wouldn’t. Even if the starting rotation is killing it, should the team be in the race, I think we could see a guy like Jared Jones brought up and asked to start in the pen, maybe even an Anthony Solometo. When you flip the switch to go, it changes the way you think about your development system. Now it’s feeding the beast as opposed to hoping you pile them all together and create a beast.

To me, Termarr and his natural contact skills might just be that guy, but he and all of his top of the prospect ranking teammates should be in play. From here on out the goal has to be squeezing every drop of talent you can out of everyone, and you don’t worry about a contract in 2031 when you’re trying to win in 2024.