6-17-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
The very first thing I noticed on the schedule when it came out was how deep into the season the Pirates were going to go before having faced every team in their division. Tonight they face the Reds for the first time in 2024 and it’s safe to say, these two teams will play a huge role in how the other’s season turns out.
There aren’t a ton of differentiators here. The Pirates have an edge on the mound, the Reds have an edge at the plate and on the basepaths. The Pirates are 14-15 against teams over .500, the Reds are 12-19. The Bucs drag a -28 Run differential into this series, the Reds are +13.
In the division, the Reds are 8-8, the Pirates are 8-9.
These should be close series, these teams are in very similar places. Lots of young talent. Lots of inexperience and excitement and failure that wasn’t anticipated, and performances from guys who weren’t supposed to matter.
Tight division, I could do a breakdown like this for 4 of the teams.
Lets go!
1. Shocka Brah, Bryan Reynolds is Hot
It feels like we do this dance every year. Bryan Reynolds isn’t this, Bryan Reynolds isn’t that, and then by sometime in June, he’s every bit the hitter we’ve become accustomed to.
On the season he leads the Pirates in OPS at .768. Good for 24th in the National league. His 9 homeruns are second only to Andrew McCutchen as it comes to Pirates leaders.
In his past 30 games he’s racked up 40 hits, 5 homers, 21 RBI while hitting .310 with a .504 SLG.
He’s not the best player in the National league, but until someone takes the title by force, he is the best player on the Pirates roster offensively speaking.
The MLB Average OPS is at an all time low, .701. Last year, admittedly with a full season you can’t compare 1:1, MLB Average OPS settled at .734.
I say this because we don’t often recognize an OPS under .800 as “good” that’s why I point out the ranking, and the averages. I expect both his and the league’s OPS to climb right along with the temperatures, but at some point, we need to accept Bryan Reynolds for the player he is and start expecting the performance to come.
If Bryan Reynolds is the top offensive performer on this team, they probably don’t have enough offense. That said, his consistency and ability to always be above the line from a 50,000 foot perspective is exactly why you give a guy like that a longer contract. He’s the mortar that makes sure it won’t collapse, but he’s not the pretty things you hang on the walls that help you sell the house.
Kinda fits his personality no? He’s one of those guys who when he’s done playing you’ll look at his body of work and say, damn, that looks higher than I thought it’d be.
Novel idea, appreciate it while you’re watching it, instead of wishing he was more of this or more of that, he’s one thing the Pirates need desperately. Bryan Reynolds. A relatively healthy player, who plays 95% of his team’s games, plays well in the field, does everything above league average offensively and wants nothing to do with being the center of attention or the face of the team or whatever your Pirates fan soul needs him to be to earn his paycheck.
This is a good baseball player, and has more than proven he should always be the least of your worries.
2. The Part of Utility Man Has Been Recast
Remember watching an 80’s sitcom and someone new took over a role and it warranted nothing more than some announcer dude saying it quickly at the beginning of the show?
That’s kinda what’s happened with Jared Triolo. He was named the starting second baseman, his bat didn’t take to the title.
He has now played great defense all over the infield, and I’d bet if they wanted to try it he’d probably handle the outfield too. The bat, still a work in progress, maybe, we hope. Thing is, to be better in this role than Alika Williams. Similar bat profiles, although I believe Jared has room to improve his output.
A guy who can play just about anywhere can really help a team survive injuries or even pull back on the usage of an underperforming player for a spell here and there and this team has had to use Connor Joe a lot heavier at first base than I’m sure they planned on.
Alika gives you short stop and second base, and he does it well. Jared gives you every infield position right now.
I can see this being a deadline upgrade, a jack of all trades type the team can plug in wherever they want with a little more track record and helpful bat, unless of course Jared himself can become a bat you don’t say, “well he sure can field” when discussing.
He’s almost perfect for this role right now, if only because he’s here and at least as it stands he’s not the type of prospect you’ll panic over if he goes a week only getting 10 at bats.
What he is, well, it’s hardly a compliment, for his role he’s good enough for now. I’d want more heading into the stretch though. Very happy if that would wind up being Jared, even if it takes a few years to happen. There’s value in that on a baseball team.
3. Oneil Cruz vs Elly De La Cruz
The funny thing about stuff like this is, these two players will never “face” each other in any meaningful way. One might rob the other defensively, that’s about it.
The Comps are superficial. They’re both tall, they’re both Dominican, they both play short stop, huge arms, hell both their teams use them as designated cut off man, and they’re both fast, although Elly uses his speed much more effectively on the basepaths.
Elly is a switch hitter, but much like Cruz, against lefty’s he’s neutralized to a degree. Both have big power, and sample size to sample size Oneil has produced more homeruns and doubles in fewer at bats.
They get on base comparably, but Elly has 71 career stolen bases to Oneil’s 18. If they ran a race Elly might win unless it was long enough for Oneil’s longer stride to make up for the sprint difference.
And here’s the think almost nobody mentions in this comparison, Oneil is 25 and Elly is 22. Elly got here a lot quicker and by nature, he’ll likely have a longer career to amass numbers.
In other words, you don’t have to drag one to think one is better, in some ways, they’re both very flawed players with ceilings they may never reach, what’s intoxicating is how much room there is still from the effective but flawed players they are today and the MLB sensations they could be if either of them dared to reach their potential.
They’re both about potential. But their floors are pretty damn attractive too.
4. Andy Haines Philosophy?
Many fans felt like the code had been cracked. It was the most useful thing Wil Crowe had done for Pirates fans since being traded for. In one tidy soundbite Wil had outlined for fans Andy Haines entire philosophy.
Right?
Eliminating pitches.
It was all there in black and white. Well, sound waves and facial expressions I suppose. Fans immediately pictured Haines cornering Jack Suwinski in the locker room telling him to ignore fastballs at all cost.
Listen, I’m gonna do this, but I’m not doing it because I want to. I think this team should move on from Haines, or at the very least get them some better hands on coaching and move him to administrative duties. But this is such a gross oversimplification of what he does, and at the same time misunderstanding of why this advice would have been given to Mr. Crowe, I just had to talk about it.
Wil Crowe was so afraid to throw his fastball in the zone, it had become a near certainty he wouldn’t do it. Hitters never swung at the pitch and ambushed every offspeed pitch he threw. This was Andy Haines telling a pitcher on his team who asked why this is happening to him.
That’s it. He’s telling Wil he had become predictable and rendered every fastball he threw little more than a waste pitch.
Not his hitting philosophy. Certainly not all of it.
Now, are there pitchers in this league that warrant such advice? Oh for sure there are. But nobody is being told in some overlying way to avoid hitting any pitch in particular.
He may tell Oneil Cruz that Chris Sale is never going to throw him a slider that stays in the zone. Well, I’m sure it’s not never, but it might be like 5% of the time it’s a called strike. That’s kinda useful information, it’s also incredibly rare and specific to a matchup.
Like, Bryan Reynolds may need to know how rarely a certain pitcher lands his backdoor slider in the zone. It’s a chronic chase pitch for Bryan and knowing a pitcher doesn’t tend to have that kind of control with it can help him stay back or look out over the plate a bit more for a mistake.
Again, this isn’t a defense of Andy Haines, it’s more a defense of the profession. It’s just not that simple, and at the very top level, meaning overall philosophy.
You’ll never be told what any team’s hitting philosophy is in a nice tight word box, because at their core they’re all the same.
- Be Athletic and “ready to hit” – This is basically be where you need to be in the swing to react to what you recognize. You’ll hear this called “be on time” by players a lot. For a coach this will be introducing timing mechanisms, or balance techniques. At the professional level, meaning all the way back to A Ball, it’s not like you’re teaching someone to hit baseballs.
- Understand your zone – For Juan Soto this is pretty easy, it’s called the strike zone. It’s why he’s so good at drawing walks too, if he can’t reach it with damage it’s a ball. Most players don’t have this advantage, and it can be improved with experience for many, to a degree anyway. For most players, this is coming to realize there are zones they just can’t cover, at least not for expected results. Some players will try to make adjustments here to expand their good spots, a coach helps make sure they aren’t doing so by shrinking it elsewhere. Where this goes too far for some is when they develop blind spots to these areas, not even defending the territory if you will. Then their heat map becomes the equivalent of Wil Crowe’s problem from the other side. This is an area I feel Haines doesn’t pick up on fast enough, and doesn’t do a great job helping them expand.
Now, you can get cute beyond that, but that’s the base that everyone works with. Scouting reports are what prompt things like what Wil was talking about and those are delivered to players on a daily basis. Some guys like to try to adjust in between at bats, others like to stop taking in information once the game starts. A coach has to know what guys respond to, and I suppose needs to know when it’s really best to just leave them alone too.
The last point I want to hit here aside from reminding you again that I really believe an upgrade is needed here, is that almost all players seek and regularly work with outside of their team sources. Pitchers do too, but once the season gets underway, they’re much more tightly watched. Meaning, Jared Jones can’t just head off to Driveline over the weekend and throw 150 pitches trying to add velocity. But a hitter can always call dad and take some swings. A hitter can always reach out to that coach who first helped him find his way. Hitters routinely go home over the All Star Break and work with some hometown “dude” they trust or a player they’ve befriended who lives nearby. It’s news here because for the most part we hate Andy Haines being the hitting coach and have decided he should be fired.
This is entirely team sanctioned, encouraged even. I know it’s been implied Jon Nunnally being dismissed was about some weird retribution over Ke’Bryan working with him, but people, he still does work with him, to this day.
We can all want them to make a change of some sort here, but let’s have a bit more respect for the job than to assume he’s calling out a pitch to not swing at, clapping his hands and sitting back on the bench.
5. Priorities Becoming Clearer
To me the Pirates deadline priorities are starting to really take shape. I won’t say they’re set in stone, but I think they’re becoming clear things to start digging around for. I’ll talk about each one here, and what would need to happen to change it from need to want.
Left Handed Power Bat – I think ideally this is still a first baseman, I also don’t think I see it out there, even with some borderline teams falling back. The Pirates have two who are drastically underperforming, Jack Suwinski and Rowdy Tellez. Recency bias aside, the whole picture isn’t good and that’s the only thing that could change this from a need to a want, these two performing. I think the Pirates need to keep this generic, in other words, I don’t think you can look for a certain position for this bat, it needs to be a wider net to catch something here. These two would have to go on a tear from here through the All Star Break to change this. Even then they’d need Reynolds or Cruz to be hitting more homers than they are. Hard to see this one coming off the shopping list.
A Back End Reliever – I don’t want to acquire another reliever to be the middle, I want more options for the back and to force someone with that pedigree into the 6th if need be. More than anything, I don’t want to go into a game 3 feeling like I’m missing my 7-8-9 guys because they’ve gone 2 straight games. Let’s get another variable or two in there. Now, what can change this? Well, health for one thing. Borucki, or even Martin Perez and Marco Gonzales along with Quinn Priester could all combine to reenforce this bullpen. Maybe it allows them to focus Nicolas or Mlodzinski. I’ll just say this, it’s rare for any team trying to make the playoffs to not try to grab some type of reliever, so if you’re going to get one, let’s get someone who was already carrying leverage and bolster the part of the pen our starters tend to hand it off to.
A Catcher – I know, I know, they have a bunch of them and one of them is a 1:1, but a team trying to make the playoffs can’t get this type of production from the catching position. Obviously there is a way this can change, and it’s so simple, if Henry hits, this becomes moot. Pray and do voodoo or whatever you think might work, because that’s the best thing that could happen to this team. If he doesn’t though, they need help. A healthy Bart won’t be enough, I’ll be shocked if Grandal is healthy by then and as much as I like Jason Delay, a starting catcher he is not. This would need to be a rental, or in this event Henry hasn’t emerged, it’d be nice if they had another year, it’s not like you can assume Endy will jump right back in, he himself is not proven offensively. A playoff team with a hole at catcher is just not fun for anyone. Henry is the only one with the potential to make this moot, and he himself can’t be here to try at the moment. Tic Tic Tic.
I could probably go on, if I did I’d probably have to look to center field but I’m starting to think they might have to turn back to Bryan Reynolds. Their best offensive alignment based on current performance probably doesn’t have Jack Suwinski or Michael Taylor in it. At some point you may have to ask Bryan to make right your GM’s wrongs, especially if he doesn’t fix them or of course Jack could start hitting and kill a couple birds with one big Nordic looking dude’s bat.
Steel City Pirates 
Considering Nick (the player you had slotted in the minors behind Peguero) has a higher batting, slugging, and on base percentage than Reynolds. That said, Nick is the better hitter this season.
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If they can get another corner OF with a bat (and the key being their bat) then I think you just have to live with Taylor. Even with his arm strength, Reynolds is -7 OAA which puts him in the 1 percentile. (Jack, not to be outdone, also at -7)
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