Accountability: Just a Word? Have the Stomach to Actually Take Action?

8-14-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

The Pirates have come crashing back to Earth, and they barely just escaped gravity long enough to get a look at what lies beyond before suffering complete engine failure.

Ok, so that’s the Hollywood way of putting it anyway.

The Pirates are clearly not ready to make the playoffs, and they’re quickly putting a winning season out of reach. I’d love to pretend all of this was a week and a half of bad baseball, but in reality its more of a reckoning.

It’s what happens when you play poor defense. It’s what happens when your expected performers don’t perform. It happens when you have mental lapses almost daily and never hold anyone to account. And yes, it happens when you probably didn’t have the talent to be in the conversation you wanted to participate in.

Everyone wants accountability, but most people couldn’t define what that looks like to them beyond grunting some things and mumbling about firing everyone.

Let’s talk about that accountability. It’s never as simple as the word and spoiler alert, it’ll never be truly satisfied. It’s the drinking salt water to quench your thirst equivalent of fandom.

Lets start here, by being fundamentally honest.

Ben Cherington was hired in 2019, late 2019, like almost Winter Meetings late in 2019. Before any decisions were made at least outwardly, Starling Marte requested a trade. He didn’t want to be part of a rebuild and knew he wasn’t going to get a second contract. Largely because it was always going to take this long, and Starling would be, well, what he is now by the time they were in position.

2020, COVID happened. Any and all evaluation the team was going to do in the Minors or the Majors for that matter were essentially ignored.

No clue what might be in the system beyond scouting reports and a few in the Altoona training bubble. Regardless, at this point and by the math that makes this “year 5” after 3 months of offseason and 60 games of sorta MLB baseball he’s supposed to be a full year into his “plan” right?

The Plan probably always was to just about entirely blow up the team, stink, draft high and grow their way into being competitive again.

You can judge each trade individually, but all it ever turns into is a pissing match of some claiming everything was wrong, and others tossing out names of guys they’ve managed to turn out after acquiring them. Many didn’t work, a couple did.

Some will point to the extensions as proof he’s on track, others will claim some of them never should have been signed.

From the time he arrived to now, only a couple players have survived. Bryan Reynolds, Mitch Keller, and Ke’Bryan Hayes. They’ll be here.

When we talk about accountability, it’s incredibly hard when you don’t have a stated goal beyond “get better”. Here’s the thing though, that’s also exactly why you don’t ever get them from team officials.

When they started spouting off about being competitive this year for both the playoffs and the division, fans finally had something to sink their teeth into. A real goal, with a real date and a measurable outcome that would say succeed or fail.

So what does Accountability look like?

I asked, and here are some answers I received.

Having the willingness and professionalism to say, “What we’re doing now isn’t working. It was before. Now it’s not. The board has changed. We need to take a step back and reevaluate our strategy and change its execution. And that starts with me.” – @PGHPirateQueen

So for Queen, there is a spoken path out into accountability. She just wants someone to own it, and I get that. I think he’s said things like this in the past. You know, the whole “starts with me” thing, I know he said that for sure. Thing is, for every one time he does, he says all the other word salad stuff twenty times.

Accountability is stating when the team should compete for a WS, or at the very least when they should compete to make the playoffs. – @bangersnmash_0

Bangers here basically wants them to say a date where they should compete for the playoffs, and they just did that this year. World Series, all I can say is when a team executive tells you they’re going to compete to make the playoffs it also means World Series. To get into the playoffs by definition is to compete for a World Series. And before you correct that mentally, the Dodgers have only won it once with all the teams they’ve put on the field over the past decade.

To me, accountability means doing the things needed to move the team forward. Not just moves for the sake of moves, comprehensive and thought out moves, with a vision of what’s needed to be a contender. – @WaymooMoody

Wayne here isn’t interested in words at all, he wants action and smart action based on his own definition of what “smart” would be. His version of accountability is simply doing what needs done and he probably doesn’t expect to not need to hear any statements.

Take responsibility for your decisions. When one of Shelty’s moves backfires, he always blames the player “we need to make a better pitch there etc” – @Fenton_rich

This one is spot on. He isn’t always wrong when he does it either, in fact, pointing at the players to some in and of itself would be accountability, for the player not the coach, but still. He for sure does this. “We just need to execute there a bit better”, “Luis just wasn’t executing his slider today” isn’t the same as “I should have pulled him in the 5th”.

Good luck…it’s becoming a meaningless buzzword… when people say “accountability” what they are saying is that they want the media to embarrass the front office and aggressively push them on all fronts. Yell at them at press conferences etc… – @crmcnerney

Well, way to cut through the BS Clay. That is truly where most of it comes from, just like the word “unserious” some jackass used so now everyone who thinks they’re edgy spouts it in every tweet. Failing on 4th and 1, not hitting a game tying grand slam, having a pitcher get injured right after signing, all unserious, just like most people who think Twitter is real life. His larger point though, yes, accountability to some starts and ends with Journalists becoming part of the story by “calling them out” instead of reporting the story. Fortunately we now have a culture that has largely strong armed the profession into this being modus operandi.

Shelton needs to man up and say things like, “Yeah, I left Bednar in too long,” or, “Holderman has been great for us, but it’s a long season and he’s got some fatigue. So we’re gonna be more intentional about how we use him.” – Trb024

Trb focuses on words from Shelton, supposedly this would be followed by action. The action is unclear though. More intentional could be taken about 10 different ways, so if anything to me this kinda makes our new friend here qualified to write PR stuff for them.

It’s hard to describe. Because outside lookers, we don’t hear anything not in the public light. But normally, results determine action. We don’t see players getting benched for bad play or pulled. So we don’t see any accountability. We perceive leaders not caring – @NeverDdntHaveIt

Steven here is being really honest. We don’t know what’s happening in the locker room, but we can see if it is happening, it isn’t working. I’m all for benchings, I also wonder how a team claiming to be in a playoff race (travel back in time, 10 days ago they were) probably doesn’t sit Oneil Cruz for 3-4 days. Right? Is the message more important than physically having a guy who can take 3 good swings out of 20 and effect the outcome? I’m asking, not telling.

Accountability starts from the top down. You can hire all the best people around the league, but it’s hard to hit home runs with one arm tied behind your back. That filters down through, clear to the field. – @LOngBeARdsLB

My man…The owner is the only place true accountability can come from. Fans have assumed from the start what their acceptable timeline would be, but they have no idea how long the owner thought it would take. He’s not selling, he’s not going to tell you how long he was sold it would take. In other words, he’s not going to take responsibility for missing something he never planned on and even if he did plan on it, he’d never admit it to you, psst, this is exactly why nobody from the team ever told you how long it would take.

So you see what I mean?

I was waiting for someone to say specifically what they meant when they say accountability. Some of you tried real hard.

A few of you would be placated by words, just your version of the “right” words. Some of you want firings and nothing short would or will equate to accountability.

Benching guys who don’t hustle all the time, well, ok, but that isn’t going to look like trying to win when Jared Triolo is starting at short stop for 3 games against the Padres.

Firing the GM very likely means instead of trying to build on and develop what he has here you’re probably going to see a different vision. Could that mean another complete tear down? Maybe.

One thing it won’t mean for sure though, it won’t mean the next guy gets to spend 140 million. Doesn’t mean he’s done everything under his constraints with the precision you’d need to see to be truly in the conversation for a championship by this point. Just means this owner is asking for a very hard job to be done in the hardest way possible.

It’s kinda hard to expect accountability from anyone when everyone and their mother knows where it really needs directed. That direction happens to be the one guy who could dish out some accountability, but see, if he fires people when success would have taken perfection how long would it be before some of those folks held accountable might make sure others hear how difficult he made it?

Probably depends on how likely it is they’re looking for another job. Looking for a job they shut their mouths so their potential new employer knows they can expect the same discretion. Run your mouth and coach Independent ball somewhere in Nebraska.

Accountability is a lot more than a word and honestly I’m not sure we have the stomach for what it actually is or when it could feasibly be applied.

Take Rowdy Tellez. He’s slow as hell and even slower now with his back issue. So his jog to first and scarcely making it to second on what for most would be a triple, that’s not hustle as much as limitation.

Should he sit, after all, he surely isn’t good enough to win a championship with right? I’ve heard that as the criteria for accountability. Recognizing someone isn’t good enough and moving on, being willing to accept they have to eat a bad contract.

All of that is true, it’s also true, they don’t have anyone who can play first base. Should now be the time for accountability? If not, I’m not sure why we say it 10 times a day for 100 days of the season. I mean, you aren’t going to get it, sitting him for Joe or Triolo at this point would be begging for someone else to meet up with accountability for making such a silly decision right?

How about “Why is Bae on this team?!” Accountability!!! Well, he probably wouldn’t be if Josh Palacios or Nick Gonzales were healthy. Bryan De La Cruz? They just acquired him, knowing he strikes out a ton and hits homeruns. He’s done one of them so far, but the reason they wanted to acquire him is because he has 3 years of arbitration. They can sit him now, but it would be for Connor Joe, or Ji Hwan Bae or Michael A. Taylor.

Maybe they should cut all three of them? The only games they won in the past 2 weeks were Michael hitting some homeruns for once. lol I mean, maybe its just better to understand what can and can’t be helped once the season is beyond the deadline.

Look, I want accountability too. I want Derek Shelton to be coaching under a condition this team manages to minimally win more games than they did in 2023. Next year I want them to have him charged with the playoffs or bust.

I want him to own Andy Haines and Oscar Marin. If either of them or both of them return, he doesn’t get to point at them when it doesn’t work. Let’s see where loyalty hits the road. You want Andy Haines still, ok, toss your job in the pile cause that’s what the bet costs.

I want players knowing that dogging it means no playing time, regardless of what you make and for how long the Pirates control you as a player. I also want the team to be more up front about a guy who’s hurting if only so fans can see and respect the fight as opposed to see what looks like not caring and assume the player simply doesn’t care.

I want the owner to simply and clearly put out an expectation that next year is going to be a playoff year or there will be changes.

The problem is, the change I want is him. I’d like him to promise that they either get over the hump in 2025 or he’ll step away as principle.

I also know when I’m asking for more than I’ll ever get.

Really want to know the accountability I want? MLB to admit they’ve created a system where not spending isn’t punished by anything more than having industry insiders make fun of you and fix it.

These players don’t deserve to see the team throw in the towel and send veterans packing for rookies, there are far too many players here doing their all just trying to improve and reach some form of consistency. They probably won’t reach their goals this year, but they sure as hell deserve the shot to finish it and know they as a group didn’t get it done as opposed to feeling like the team took away parts and made them try with zero experience kids.

That’s not accountability, that’s just quitting.