9-13-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
The Pirates are 70-76 and with 16 games left we’re left with little on the goal list that doesn’t require a lowering of the bar.
The Pirates would need to go 13-3 to finish over .500, seems unlikely.
7-9 and they’ll best their record from 2023.
Either of which would have been considered less than the “competitive” team the front office portrayed coming our way in 2024.
So there’s no way of avoiding that the bar has been lowered.
Truth is, the Pirates almost always referenced the Arizona Diamondbacks 84-78 record from 2023 and eventual run to the World Series, we probably should have understood, that was the kind of “competitive” they were talking to, not looking up in the last week of the season knowing they’re in and coasting.
I don’t see them winning 14 of 16 on the way out to match that record, but I could see them bettering their own mark from last season and having enough room to think they can sell it as their favorite word, Better.
It’ll be true when they say it.
Their miscalculation was that fans would be more than happy with the team only managing a marginal improvement and taking it right in stride. They always make this mistake don’t they?
Some will of course. For some, 2024 was a wishing well season and they long since spent the quarter for the wish, never thinking they’d get it back or expecting their wish to be answered if they’re being honest.
Some wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything short of an NLCS, believing the team should have seen Skenes and Jones not only coming, but that they’d both perform the way they have, these fans believe the team not being in the conversation for the World Series the entire duration of Paul Skenes time in Pittsburgh is an utter failure.
All of that is fine. Fans are always going to see things how they need to, to suit their own needs.
Some call it “Copium”.
Like, I’m sure you could find a Browns fan who has some kind of positive spin on how the Deshaun Watson trade and sign has gone for their franchise. When you do, Copium.
Pretend it’s ok that Jack Suwinski fell off the face of the Earth or that Ke’Bryan Hayes is arguably the team’s biggest question heading into 2025 and you my friend are taking the drug.
Some will tell you “it was always going to be 2025”, and even have the receipts to prove it. That’s fine, but instead of Copium, you’re taking a healthy dose of acceptance.
You’re a happier person than those on Copium, but you’re also part of why this team thought one small step for the Bucs would hit as hard as one giant leap for Pirates fans.
I have no doubt they’ll improve on their record next year. Before free agency, trades, roster shuffling of any kind. Before I see what a single competitor in or out of the division does. I had little doubt this year too, long before I knew Jared Jones would make it out of camp or Paul Skenes would be more than just good looking. I also have yet to see if I was wrong this year, I mean, they won’t make my predicted record most likely of 84-78.
This is where reality always was.
This is an internal improvement first front office, executing an internal improvement plan with an eye toward sustained improvement. And so was Huntington, Littlefield, Cam Bonifay, I mean, in the modern baseball era, AKA post the Yankees Cable Deal of the Early 1990’s, General managers of the Pittsburgh Pirates under three different ownership groups have operated like this.
The difference is, at least so far, Cherington is the only one who didn’t feel the heat of taking too long and change the plan. None of them were all that strong at development which would seem to be the key to pulling this dream off.
I say it’s a miscalculation, and that’s being kind, because really, it’s just that they know you’ll be back. Year after year fans say they’re done and year after year they come back for more. Especially when the arrow is still legitimately pointing up. In other words, it’s easier to pretend you’re out in 2017 than right now. And they know it.
It probably will be seen as an improvement, but it won’t be seen as enough of one, to anyone. Including the team if we’re being honest, the difference is they’ll have to make sure you see it as positive, and you have no such obligation.
We’ll see what changes they make after the season. The things they say now don’t matter much, it’s what they do after the season that will really tell us their level of shame for what they put out in 2024.
Again, even a meager improvement won’t be seen as a tragedy, unless someone, namely Bob Nutting believes they fell short due to stupid decisions, or didn’t deliver what they assured him they’d deliver.
Either way, we’ll have to watch it play out. It seems insignificant, but they can find a way to sell a 1 game improvement, good luck selling improvement at all if they fall short.
Steel City Pirates 