1-22-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
Bob Nutting spoke last week to Jason Mackey, and while most people have their minds made up about him, this time, he said a lot of what you want to hear.
As is course, people ignore everything they know and think about Nutting (because they agree with him this time) and rush to point fingers at the same guy he did.
It’s significant what was said, and the actions that follow it will be too, unless full scale mutiny is taking shape. We’ll talk more about this, but from the jump, nothing bigger happened in the Pirates world last week, so of course, we’re gonna talk about it.
1. OK, Mom and Dad…
Before I start, this is all from Jason Mackey’s exclusive interview with Pirates Chairman Bob Nutting last week in the Dominican Republic.
Here’s the first quote from the piece, I mean Jason didn’t bury the lede.
“I wish we were further along in this offseason than we are,” Nutting told the Post-Gazette on Saturday during an exclusive interview at the team’s Dominican Republic academy. “I’ve seen how hard [general manager] Ben [Cherington] has pushed. I’ve seen how close we’ve gotten to some deals. But we’re only halfway through. I think there’s still time. There’s still a lot of work to be done. I think Ben understands the expectations.”
Umm, wow right? Here’s Mr. Cheapskate talking about how his GM knows his expectations, and that they haven’t been met.
I’m not going to get into other people’s takes on all this, just purely my own. This stuff is fairly subjective and opinions are everyone’s right, personally though, I can’t avoid what I know.
I’ve told all of you, I’d been told a budget of 85-90 million is the working number, so my first take immediately was, you’re the one making it so hard, or, at least, you’re making him feel he can’t stretch things to get the deal done.
He continued…
“We need to make the team better now and make sure that we’re not mortgaging the future going forward,” Nutting said, “that we’re not making decisions where we’re giving up so much talent in a trade that we end up watching former pitchers thrive elsewhere.”
So, there are budgetary restraints, even if for some reason my number is off or they’ve changed their minds and upped it, how high are we thinking here? 100? 110? Maybe? Now, we see he’s still stuck on the same thing he started with when he decided to fire Neil Huntington, he doesn’t want to see former pitchers kill it elsewhere. So we’re restricting payroll, and clearly not comfortable paying in prospect capital, at least not what had been asked for.
Let me relate this to another industry for you.
In the restaurant industry, there are metrics that are tracked daily. Food cost has to be here, labor has to be here, hit all those and profits should be here. Well, another metric they add in there is customer satisfaction. To hit the numbers on food cost, portions are controlled tightly. To hit the numbers on labor and make them work with higher priced employees, you have to restrict how many are on a shift. If it takes 10 people to run a “good” shift, well, sometimes that labor numbers is going to require you to do it with 6. Then when you get negative comments from guests, well, nobody cares that you hit that labor number. Get it?
In other words, if you block every path to success with contradictory metrics that must be met, I find it laughable he’d be shocked it was a struggle.
All sounds to me like the beginning stages of Mom and Dad not seeing eye to eye. I know which one usually wins here, but these statements, likely made to make himself look a little better to a reporter and his readers, man if I’m Cherington I’m hanging him with them. I’m painting it as a promise to fans and I’m asking for more to get this stuff done, because what Bob did is make it impossible to not do more, period.
He even went so far as to say…“Ben has room to make moves that we need to make,”.
I mean, to put all this more concisely, I’m not happy with where we are, and recognize it’s not enough to reach our stated goal, but my GM has the money and permission to get what he told me would be needed to do so, so I expect him to do it, and that when he does, it’ll result in what he told me it would.
As a fan, you want to hear things like this from your owner, pushing on his GM to make the team better. As a fan who’s watched this franchise closely for however long all of you have, it likely made you spit out your coffee, before thinking if it’s ok for him to hit the GM, hey, I’ve got a mallet too.
Bonus points though for Nutting here. First he was pretty open and forthcoming about where the team is, and where and when they expect it to take a step forward. More than anything though, I give him points for recognizing something he said earlier about not seeing pitchers perform elsewhere and slightly amending it by addition.
“We have to find that balance,” Nutting said. “We have to get over that concern and be willing to make trades that add value and add performance immediately and going forward.”
Hey, I get it, you don’t wanna hear this dude. Well, I’m sorry, it’s newsy, important, and despite popular belief, the dude is just cheap and dresses like he shops at Gabriel Brothers, not Satan.
2. One Big Thing
I think most players have a list of things they want or need to improve on to take a step. Every year, there are guys who leave at the end of the season, and come back better at something they focused on.
Let’s talk about some bigger named players and what that one thing should be.
Jack Suwinski – Expanding the zone with 2 strikes. I could add in, not getting to two strikes by watching hittable balls go by, but that’s not in the Spirit of this entry. This means, outer third, you don’t get frozen, you get aggressive, and see what you can do to at least buy another pitch you could do something with.
Ke’Bryan Hayes – Resisting the urge to tinker. Ke’ had his swing looking the most comfortable I’ve seen him look, and all I’m asking here is that he doesn’t show up needing to learn about how launch angle only helps if you hit the baseball.
Mitch Keller – Consolidating his pitch mix. Mitch has by some counts 7 pitches he throws, and some of them, need to just go. They’re too similar in action to others, or just not effective. Final rough edge to chip off the statue here.
Henry Davis – Obviously catching. The hitting will come, but his defense behind the dish is crucially important. The fall out of trying to force his bat into a lineup where he doesn’t catch is mighty unappealing.
Bryan Reynolds – End his blood feud with umpires, cause he’s not going to win. A hitter like Reynolds can’t chase, but he needs to cover more of the plate than he is, especially with runners in scoring position. In those situations he walked 17 times unintentionally and struck out 27 times. Even just flip those and you probably win a couple more games. Fine tuning when you get to this level for some guys.
3. Cutch at 1B for Rest?
Jason Mackey brought this up last year, and I kinda just laughed it off. I still see no indication of it happening. Yesterday I got an interesting question for my Q&A and didn’t get to this one but it’s interesting. “Cutch question: why not give him a 1B glove. Not permanently but it’s a lower stress position on the body and it gives him a chance to get on the field and let someone else get a partial “rest day” as DH.” – Bill Buck
I still, again, don’t see it, but that’s not the part that got me thinking as much as the “partial rest day”.
Let me be blunt and shock you a bit, there is no such thing in MLB. If a guy is going to play in the field, or, could play in the field if called upon, they do all their game day work. Stretches, lifting, cardio, timing exercises, field practice, and then they play the game.
When a guy is getting “a scheduled day off”, he does just about nothing. He’ll dress for the game, he’ll cheer on his teammates, and if something crazy happens, he might have to hit, but the coach is going to pull all the stops to try to keep said player shut down.
There’s a reason, and no, it’s not just some goofy Pirates thing. Analytically speaking, there is evidence that a player who takes a day off but has to get up and in even for just a few innings has lost the benefit of being shut down all together.
While we all hate seeing Derek Shelton sit guys after they’ve been hot, or whatever, and we watch Atlanta ride their starting nine harder than a horse headed to the glue factory, the simple truth is, this and close to 25 other franchises in MLB believe firmly in this method of keeping players fresh. Originally made popular by the early World Series Astros clubs, this copycat league has almost universally adopted it, and until the Braves make it through the playoffs, nobody is going to believe they know better.
All that said, this ignores how hard it would be for a lifetime outfielder to transition to first base, not impossible, just hard. Further, if it’s in an effort to help him rest, may I suggest standing on dirt is worse for knees than grass, and first basemen NEVER get a play off.
4. Maybe its Not Just Management Seeing What We’re Missing
ESPN+ recently published their top 5 breakout teams for 2024, and that’s right, your Pirates clock in at number 3.
Here’s how they define it.
“A breakout team is a team coming off a losing season that beats its established level of play by at least 10 games and winds up with a winning record.” Read the article if you like, it’s fun, and it does require a subscription.
ESPN comped them to the 2008 Rays (From 66 Wins to 97 and an AL East Title) , and the 2022 Guardians (From 80 Wins to 92, an AL Central title and a berth in the ALDS). Much of their score was based on youth and organizational rankings.
I don’t know if I buy this stuff, could just be a bunch of hooey, but it’s also the first National piece I’ve seen that at least attempts to quantify what the Pirates leadership has been trying to sell.
I still don’t see it. Statistically the 3rd youngest team in baseball as we sit here today, leaves a ton of room for growth and performing toward the top end of their talent, but we’ve all seen it go the opposite too. Still, it was cool seeing someone think it could happen, and even have the balls to write it.
I’d also say, part of the youth those two teams had were in their starting rotations. The Pirates have plenty of that, problem is, they were already MLB seasoned for the Guardians and Rays.
5. Let’s Spend Bob’s Money!
My favorite pastime! Honestly Bob wants to do more, so let’s do more. I think they have 25 million before he gets queasy, so let’s stick with that and see how much we can fortify.
Michael Lorenzen – (10-12 Per, 1-2 Years) SP/RP – This one to me fills out a much needed rotation piece. He’s reliable, won’t blow your doors off but he eats his innings and hands off a winnable game more often than not, and he give you room to do more elsewhere. Yes, I know, shocker coming from me, I’ve only wanted the guy for 3 seasons.
Carlos Santana – (7-8 Per, 1 Year) 1B/DH – He was great here, and a terrific defender, he’s clearly holding out for more money than the 6.5 he played for last year, but the market is only going so high for a 39 year old. Eventually I can see him coming back.
Michael Taylor – (7-8 Per, 1 Year) CF – Defensively, he fills out the outfield and ensures some pop at the bottom of the order too. He’s not great at the plate, but he does his share of damage and he’ll save runs in CF, probably make both Jack and Bryan Reynolds better in the process.
If we go all free agents, this is how I’d go. Does it equal a Division title? Hey, probably not, but folks I could suggest Snell and Bellinger and still maybe not make that prediction. These signings fill holes and leave room for kids, that’s what 2024 is, aside from all the compete stuff, identifying kids, having them put a foot in the ground and improving.
Steel City Pirates 