Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – Bounce Back or Bounce Out

8-5-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

The deadline is over, now every team is either fully focused on next year, fully focused on positioning for this year’s playoffs or desperately trying to get into this dance. That’s the list.

When you’re in a race or slightly on the outside looking in depending on your vantage, every day has a very good chance of being an emotional directional sign. Even an off day like today can be seen as a “failure” simply by having competitive teams win while your Buccos sit idle stewing over their recent series flop.

You either have a stomach for this kind of baseball or you don’t, and that goes for players just like it does fans. It just doesn’t effect the team’s play for one side of that equation.

Lets do this!

1. Colin Holderman

About a month ago I thought Colin Holderman should have represented the Pirates at the All Star Game. He was simply incredible early on and thank God he was because for a time, he was the only thing we could trust in the back end of this pen.

Recently, not so much.

The Pirates manager has a problem and sometimes it’s simply just too much trust.

It’s not that simple of course, because sometimes, he’s been right, in fact, a lot of the time he’s been right. Just this year, Rowdy Tellez received oodles of patience when it seemed like it was the dumbest thing they could do. Now, not playing him would be insane right?

Aroldis Chapman and David Bednar received that grace, they also have track records that made the bet a fairly easy one.

Now, as we sit here at the beginning of August, you have to be willing to make big changes for the short term, even if they’re counter to everything you have believed for 3/4 of the season. If Chapman has a stretch of 3-4 games where he can’t hit the strike zone, you have to be capable of saying, ok Chappy, we can’t do this right now.

You want a manager that adjusts, but you don’t want a manager that acts like fans do either. Sincerely, a fan can watch one bad inning or at bat and let frustration boil over. A coach needs to be smarter than that.

A coach needs to know that Colin Holderman hitting 99 is a good sign his issues aren’t fatigue. He needs to know his slider isn’t getting the chases is did early on in the season, and more importantly, why. A coach needs to know his underlying stats have been predicting this coming for almost 6 weeks and started showing up against better competition 3 weeks ago.

A coach also needs his GM to recognize that because of weather and a short outing the bullpen options were critically thin and they entered that last game knowing they’d need 6 or 7 innings from Paul Skenes.

Maybe that’s a good bet, but in a pennant race, it’s a bet I wouldn’t make. Not against a team that hits like Arizona.

Colin Holderman is talented, he has great stuff. When he’s on, he’s damn near unhittable, when he isn’t, well, he’s a pinata.

I actually appreciate Derek Shelton’s patience, it’s worked out more than it hasn’t, but there’s a difference when coaching for the overall picture as opposed to the short term twists and turns of a pennant race.

In 1992, the best manager in my lifetime and recent Hall of Fame inductee Jim Leyland was faced with a real problem. his team was good, but the back of his bullpen wasn’t consistent. He was forced into believing in and using Stan Belinda who struggled all through September where he pitched 14.1 innings, surrendering 15 hits and 7 earned runs.

Who did Jimmy put on the mound on October 14th against the Braves, yup.

When you spend an entire season with guys, you start seeing the overall guy, and what he’s done for you, even as you’ve watched them fail in the near term, you remember instead the 2 or 3 months where they repeatedly got you big outs.

It’s not an excuse, it’s just some stuff to consider. Either way, a change must be made.

2. It’s Ovahhhh!

I mean, no, it really isn’t. Just like it wasn’t last time you told me it was.

Remember the 4th of July? The Bucs lost to the Cardinals and dropped the series. They faced a 4 game set against the red hot Mets, a 3 game series in Milwaukee and on to the pathetic White Sox.

The Pirates went 7-3 and crept back to .500. Even so, after the All Star break we all knew they faced a gauntlet. So they went out and took 4 of 6 from the Phillies and Cardinals.

Now it’s completely over because they dropped two tight series against the Diamondbacks sandwiched around taking one from Houston.

Fans are gonna fan, and they’ll do it however they like. I’m just saying, with 51 games left and a game over .500, if I’m a Pittsburgh Pirate, I’m excited I get the opportunity to directly take on those I have to catch or beat.

Do what you want of course, but I have not lost faith, if only because honestly, I thought they were a .500ish team, and I still think they’re a .500ish team. They’ve done what they’ve done with large periods of ineptitude from important players like Chapman, Holderman, Bednar, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Rowdy Tellez.

They’ve done it while Oneil Cruz has rarely looked close to the beast we hoped. They’ve done it with Henry Davis completely bombing.

Think about what just one truly scotching week of Oneil could do for this club. Hey, it might even help them win 5 or 6 of 7 some week.

Maybe it is over. History tells me other teams will hit their own speedbumps too.

I’ll watch regardless, I guess I’ll see you in a few weeks if they turn it around, if not have a great Steelers season.

3. Don’t Sell Yourself on Something…

The reason I don’t like projecting out a rotation or lineup out for a couple years isn’t because I or you might wind up looking stupid, it’s because when you do things like that you don’t leave room to be surprised.

I just had someone ask me the other day, and I’ll paraphrase to protect the innocent… What does next year’s rotation look like? Skenes, Keller, Jones, Chandler and Oviedo?

Now, how could that be I’m thinking?

Did Bailey Falter die? Did Luis Ortiz hurt himself doing dishes? Is Chandler truly ahead of Harrington? Oviedo will be ready to start the season?

What happened to Braxton Ashcraft or Mike Burrows?

Guys, they have too many pitchers, but you’re watching this year how “too many” doesn’t always stay that way.

What this type of thing sets up is having the red ass when things don’t go how you thought they might. I mean, after all the crying and complaining we did last offseason about signing more starting pitching, all the dire predictions about how derelict of duty the front office was for believing Bailey Falter might be something, all I’m saying is, let’s look at the list of possible help and just hope between the group they put together another really strong season.

Predicting crap is half the reason we fight online. Someone says they think Ashcraft will be in the rotation next year, and you can see there’s no way that happens unless someone currently in it, well, isn’t. Boom, stupid, pointless fight.

When someone poor wins the lottery, they tend to spend it quickly and within a year they’re back at the Giant Eagle buying more tickets hoping lighting strikes the same spot twice.

When someone rich wins the lottery, they donate half of it to charity to handle the taxes and store the rest away to let the interest double their winnings.

Pirates fans have no idea how to handle having a glut of pitching and therefore they think they have so much they can and even should trade 2 or 3 of them. I’m just suggesting it might be smarter to just bank what you have, open your mind and let the rotation in 2024 and beyond take shape all on it’s own.

Tommy John strikes often, and so does regression.

Good players come along and push aside players who used to be good or were above average contributors. It’s hard for fans who get attached, but just looking at the rotation options, I’ll go ahead and predict right now, someone you decided is a lock will be replaced by someone you guarantee can’t make it in the next 2 years.

Enjoy!

I’d recommend that’s easier if you just let it come to you and seek comfort in the options over the expected.

4. Derek Shelton’s Record is a Silly Way to Judge Him

The guy was hired to oversee losing. Sure, they wanted him to get them to play hard and to get the most out of what he was provided, but everyone knew what he was working with.

My first car was a Subaru Justy. I bought it for $250 dollars, it was a standard, missing the driver’s seat which I replaced at a junk yard, 5th gear was stripped and the clutch cable had so much play in it, to get it started on a hill you’d be better off sticking your foot out the door like Fred Flintstone.

I was the first in my friend group to get a car, so everywhere we went, we piled in that piece of junk and went. My friends would often make fun of how I drove but they all knew it was in part because I wasn’t staying under 50 MPH because it was what I wanted to do, I did it because I had no 5th gear, AND the damn thing would overheat if you got it going faster than that for more than a couple minutes.

In other words, they didn’t assume I was a terrible driver for life, they knew I was a victim of circumstance.

4 years of losing is a lot of stink to ever truly wash off, but to me, there’s almost nothing worth learning about Derek Shelton from 2020-2022 and beyond that, he’s had some actual talent to play with.

I haven’t seen nearly enough to think he’s as bad as the vast majority of fans do. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to convince you, believe whatever you want, I’m just saying, THIS is why I don’t camp on.

5. Is it Time for Henry Davis to Get Another Look?

In 156 Indianapolis at bats, Henry has 11 home runs, and an OPS of 1.024.

Joey Bart has taken hold of the starting catcher gig here in Pittsburgh, the Pirates just went out and got a starting Right Fielder, Henry hasn’t played first base and even if he had, Rowdy has been really good.

Andrew McCutchen has struggled for a while so maybe there are some at bats available as a DH.

Now, one thing you really don’t want to do is bring up a 1:1 who struggled so mightily you sent him back down and give him sporadic chances. If he comes back, you have to give him a real shot, I’m having a hard time believing during this stretch is when we should try it.

Don’t get me wrong, if this is real, this team could use someone swinging a hot bat, one that’s capable when he’s going of taking over games. How long do you try if you do it?

If your answer is 3-4 games, I have news for you, that’s barely enough time in MLB to pick the right belt to wear with your uniform let alone overcome a terrifyingly slow start.

Part of me thinks we’ll be looking at an injury of some sort as the most realistic way this kid gets another shot in 2024. Grandal gets a whammy in his hammy, yeah, you might go with Davis. Even then, they’d have to have a real plan for getting him at bats, Bart isn’t just going to become a backup, if only for the pitching staff.

I’m happy as hell he’s doing well down there, but I’m also afraid his window for getting a foothold in 2024 might have closed.

I also can’t say for sure that Billy Cook or even Nick Yorke might be a better call.

Sure would be nice to get a punch in the arm from an unexpected source.

Henry sure as hell has the plausible ability to do so, I just see it as a bit of a risk almost no matter how they approach it.