The Pirates Have Some Big Problems

8-9-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

I’m different things to individual readers and listeners. I take pride in being called a Nutting Shill and a Nutting Hater right under the same piece, although I also know why it happens.

One of the first things I learned doing this is that people tend to read and hear what they want to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying anyone is dumb or even that they invent words that were spoken or read. I just mean things like me saying “hey, Shelton really screwed the pooch on that call” gets turned into “Gary agrees with me, Shelton is a disaster who should immediately be fired”. Now, I may or may not feel that way but until I’m ready to say it, I’d rather you not guess.

So when I do a piece like this, yeah, extra important to me anyway, if I didn’t write it, I didn’t mean it. If I did, I took the time to be confident I’ve said what I meant or at least believe to be true.

I’m going to list off some of the biggest issues this club has, and how they can fix them. Again, pay close attention to the words I actually write, “can” isn’t “will”.

This also isn’t ALL their problems, just some I think they can fix.

Let’s go and don’t expect this one to feel great.

1. Hitting Instruction

I’m going to say something here and I’m quite sure it won’t be received well but here goes. Andy Haines and what he teaches probably would have little negative effect on a roster full of veterans, but on a team like Pittsburgh it’s clearly a constant issue. The Pirates have been vocally stubborn on this front, and frankly, I’m not convinced they’ll move on after the season. I still hear far too much praise for someone who should be likely to be job hunting in the Winter.

I’ve said this probably a hundred times this year but there are three paths here. 1. Replace him. 2. Get him some skilled help. 3. Pretend 4 seasons isn’t enough to know better.

I guess there could be a fourth, admit you didn’t provide enough talent, but being that almost all the talent is here for the next several years I don’t see that as an easy swap.

When you have a category that has been bottom 10 if not 5 in MLB for 4 straight years, some of which is record setting bad for your franchise that hasn’t won in 40+ years, I’m not sure how you don’t make changes, that said, I had this same speech last year.

2. Small Ball Roster, but…

The Pirates have assembled a small ball roster, but they coach them like a club that hits homeruns like a top 10 team. One of those things needs to change. Derek Shelton seems to recognize that they need to bunt more, run the bases more, shorten up a bit, problem is, he doesn’t coach them to be ready for it.

If you want to be a team that bunts guys over, practice it. Decide which guys should and shouldn’t be asked to do it, make them practice it.

I should be less concerned about watching a guy trying to lay down a bunt than swinging away with guys on base, but unfortunately, I tend to just assume neither will work.

I shouldn’t feel that way.

Coaches who are sitting a mere 10 feet from these guys really shouldn’t feel that way. If they don’t see they’re asking guys to do things they aren’t training them to pull off I’m not sure they can be saved as a management team.

3. Young Players Making the Leap

The Pirates have for years struggled to get AAA players to MLB, and more than that, even when they get them to the league they tend to hit a wall. It’s super easy to blame Andy Haines for most of it, or the Pirates drafting over the years, but I think this is really a communication issue.

I have people I talk to all up and down the system. I’m not special, almost everyone who does this stuff does. The one thing I notice most, if I follow a guy from Bradenton on up, it’s like playing the telephone game all the way.

One player who’s still active but with another organization in particular was incredibly open through his entire journey. I won’t reveal his name, you’re welcome to guess, but it hardly matters and one day when he’s done playing, I’ll have him on the show to tell you himself.

He was a speedy contact hitter in Bradenton and when he got to Greensboro he hit some dingers. The dingers caused the team to believe he could be more of a power hitter. In Altoona he had minimal success on that front and his hitting instructor at that level didn’t really buy into what the team was telling him to do or be anyhow so they went another direction.

It hindered him being called up to the next level if only because he wasn’t checking off the boxes the team was looking for. So, that Winter he went off and worked specifically on the things he was told needed addressed. Came back, ignored his AA coach, checked boxes and got sent to AAA and ultimately, yeah, on to MLB. There he was met with even more contradictory things he was to be doing at the plate along with a booklet of data he’d never been presented.

Maybe talent was at play here, I make no claims that the team “messed him up”, I’m just saying, at every level he was presented with something to do that he didn’t know was wanted or needed.

The team has changed some of this stuff now, and it’ll be years before we really know how effectively they changed things.

This can’t keep happening.

It’s a fact of life that some players simply aren’t ever MLB talents. When that happens you can squarely blame scouting. When guys get here and they’ve done massively well in AAA, there’s an adjustment period, but you shouldn’t see guys just overtly fall on their face.

The Pirates see a problem and they chase the problem. To succeed under the constraints they place on themselves, they have to win on more than they do. If they develop a league average player, he needs to make it and at least become tradable excess.

They don’t spend money, so they need to cultivate currency of a different kind. MLB players at the very core of the definition.

Take it a step further, because this is very much so what the Rays do. Get them to MLB, and as soon as they do something uncharacteristic like hit 25 homers, or steal 40 bases, or hit .285, boom, the Rays trade them. See, the Rays know what false looks like. They know that 25 homers won’t likely happen again, or 20 of those 40 stolen bases were on the back end of a double steal.

They’re brilliant and the Pirates are hoping to be like them but they wanna skip Summer School.

4. Fundamentals

There is an awful lot you have to overcome when you’re a team that isn’t going to try to buy their way out of being talent deficient. One of those shouldn’t be hustling. One of those probably shouldn’t be shortening up and making contact.

This team in 2020 was statistically one of the best defensive units in baseball. Derek Shelton’s first year as manager for what it’s worth. Joey Cora might not have been much of a Third Base Coach, but as it came to a defensive instructor, hey, he got through to these guys, clearly.

I mean that team had Josh Bell at First Base, Gregory Polanco in Right, and somehow they always were in the right place, and made the right decisions with the ball. Errors happen, but positioning and execution, those should be much less likely. And the overall team stunk out loud, so let’s not pretend this is about just not having good players.

I’m not going to pretend I have the knowledge to outline what or who needs to do what, I’ll simply say Derek Shelton is the top of this pyramid, he’s overseen good defense and fundamentals at this level and he’s overseen 4 times as much of the opposite. It’s on him to fix it, and young players isn’t enough of an excuse.

Guys should be flying out of the box when they make contact. If Bryan Reynolds isn’t loud enough in the outfield, I’m sorry, hire him a voice coach. I’m kidding but just a little. Fix this stuff.

If Cruz won’t stop feeling the need to throw 110 MPH to first base inaccurately, hey, do what you gotta do.

This team can’t afford to keep allowing the minutia of baseball to keep the team from having a chance to compete. Fire who you have to, replace them with the Dewey Robinson of their specialized field.

That is money Bob Nutting will and has spent. Derek Shelton can either be friends with his coaching staff or bring in guys that help him succeed.

Be a winning coach and you can buy friends.

5. Payroll is a Constant Impediment

The payroll will increase. It’ll be near impossible to avoid finally going over 100 Million for the first time in close to a decade next year. I said this on the Pirates Fan Forum last week, but I don’t believe I’ve written this in quite some time.

Bob Nutting doesn’t budget based on current team earnings, he budgets based solely on cash in hand. Meaning, it’s not just that he’s cheap, he’s also extremely risk adverse. All those Paul Skenes inspired sellouts, well, they’ll help the team in 2025 but having them cause Bob to feel adding big this year was simply never going to happen.

It’s short sighted. Hell, it’s just about everything you want to say it is, but the most important takeaway here is, this is what they do.

Another part of this that I just have to make clear, Ben Cherington’s deadline approach was very much so effected by this policy. He was asked to add talent but not payroll.

I’m not going to get into it too deeply here if only because some of what I could say would probably reveal who told me, but I can sum up what he was dealing with in one quick quip.

I’ve been told Ben quite literally couldn’t complete the Bryan De La Cruz deal until he completed the Martin Perez deal. Even as they retained half the salary owed Mr. Perez, it was just enough to keep payroll from increasing in 2024.

He really is that cheap.

Now, for me, I always knew he was, and I’ve followed this whole thing and viewed it through that lens. Payroll will increase, they will continue to extend players, they’ll still sign people, but if and when they do this successfully, the Pirates will absolutely try like hell to do it on the cheap.

The CBA comes up again in 2027. Pray. And if you don’t believe in anyone who’d listen, just hope. The economics of this game, and or the shitty things the game allows their owners to do changing is a lot more likely than this one guy.