Internal Improvement: Pirates Players Proving Management Right?

7-10-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

There have been more than a couple instances of team officials saying that they needed to see improvement from internal options. More than that, they said they expected it.

Fans always take this stuff weird, especially in Pittsburgh, and they’ve earned every bit of that skepticism too. To fans, when the team talks about needing or expecting internal improvement, it always gets tied directly to an unwillingness to spend either prospects or money to improve the team.

Again, the Pirates as a franchise have a reputation and it’s on every iteration of the management team to change that reputation by doing things differently. This reputation spans multiple owners, GMs, Presidents, and until someone does something different, it’s going to be very hard to expect different for most.

You don’t have to believe a word they say, that’s completely your well earned right as a Pirates Fan, I’m simply saying, in this case, they have been right many times over and it’s probably time to acknowledge it.

That doesn’t mean everything they touch is golden, it means exactly what it means, they told us they had enough starting pitching, I can’t think of one person who agreed in the media, me included. Tonight, Quinn Priester who’s probably 8th on the imaginary depth chart of Pirates Starting pitchers pitched 6 scoreless with 8 Ks in Milwaukee. They have 3 expected opening week starters on the IL. They have had more 6 inning performances from starters than any team in baseball.

They were right.

Like, way right.

They told us they were going to be patient with Rowdy Tellez. They “just had to get him going” Derek Shelton would say to raining down boos. Rowdy Tellez in his last 30 games, 95 at bats, he’s hit 7 homeruns, is hitting .347, with a .392 On base and a .621 Slug. He’s raised his season OPS to .698. He’s quite literally the hottest hitter in the National League, slightly outpacing his teammate Bryan Reynolds.

Reynolds now has 17 homeruns and finds himself 10 dingers shy of his career high mark of 27 before the All Star Break. They told us the best of Bryan Reynolds was yet to come too….

Oneil Cruz has been slowly and steadily taking steps this season, and things are starting to look up for him at the plate. Much more contact, better patience, putting much more convicted swings on pitches he can handle.

Internal improvement has become a dirty phrase to us and really, it should be the goal. It should be a separate conversation whether they add or whatever, but internal improvement should always be hoped for, hell, when you have a young team, you better AIM for it. If you don’t get it, YOU screwed up.

More slumps will come, so will injuries, and we’ll forget in a heartbeat that there were any gains at all, but they’re still happening. They’ll keep happening too.

I appreciate the team having patience with guys, they certainly have more than I do, I’d have cut Rowdy a couple weeks before he ever started showing signs of coming out of it. I Never would have started the season with Bailey Falter in the rotation and I’d have absolutely signed another veteran starter. I thought Liover Peguero was ahead of Nick Gonzales. I didn’t believe until like halfway through Spring that the team was seriously considering starting Jared Jones out of Spring.

And I’m happy as hell about how every single one of those things turned out. To me it’s a very easy equation.

Team Doing Good > Me Being Right.

The Team was right on quite a few fronts, that doesn’t mean they don’t have work to do. It just means, they weren’t totally misguided or delusional when they kept telling us at least a decent portion of the answer is already here.

They’re starting to look like a team, and they’re missing some pretty big pieces on the IL yet. This could be fun.