Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – Simple Twist of Fate

10-14-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

Oh man, it’s a Bob Dylan week for Five Pirates Thoughts at Five, so I’m sure it’s gonna be soulful and filled with meaning, even as you struggle to decipher my words. lol

Bob is one of those artists you either appreciate because you grew up listening and just get it, or you’re one of those people who’ve heard his great songs performed by others and had no clue he had anything to do with them.

Sounds like a minor league coach to me.

Let’s go…

1. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

A perfect example of a Dylan song that was picked up by another band, Guns-n-Roses and popularized for a new generation. Many kids my age grew up thinking GNR created an incredible and totally original piece, but some of us art student types, well, we knew better, even if we liked both versions.

The Pirates used the Arizona Diamondbacks last offseason as an example of how close they were. 84 wins and a trip to the World Series, and look how close we were to that? They spent most of Pirates Fest bringing it up, pointing to it, holding it up as a reason to believe you should ignore what your own mind was telling you as you looked at the roster.

I expect they’ll do it again this year with the Royals and Tigers, and that’s kinda my point.

We’re likely not going to be as accepting of this message again. Sure, those two 86 win clubs didn’t make it as far as the Diamondbacks got, but they got into the dance and again they’ll be able to show how close they are.

Here’s the thing, they’re right, they aren’t all that far away from sneaking in, but the part they never seem to get is that fans don’t want to hear your goal is to sneak into contention, we’d like to hear how you plan to be in contention and hold off the other teams who felt they had the same chance.

Aiming for the lowest bar of success is not a winning strategy, and I simply don’t want to hear it framed like that in any way this year, even as I’m nearly 100% convinced it will be their focus.

2. The Man in Me

Dylan fan or Big Lebowski fan, good shot you love this song.

This segment is going to be about Jack Suwinski.

Nobody more than Jack is in need of discovering exactly what he is, not what they tell him to be, not what they give him to work on, but what he himself feels makes him a good player.

Spare me all the Jack shouldn’t start stuff, I get it, and I’m not trying to tell you he should be named the starter before Spring Training, or that they should even leave a space for him, he has options after all and the point is that Jack needs to discover himself and show the team what he’s found.

If he thinks he’s a guy who can hit 30 homeruns and strike out 150 times, fine. Go get it. If he thinks he’s a guy who should shorten up, strikeout 80 times but only hit 20 dingers, OK, that can work too. What he can’t be anymore is a guy who’s caught in between delivering nothing of value.

The first couple years of a guy being promoted goes differently for different players. Jack is a pleaser and he tried to be affable to every suggestion the team made. Many players will wake up and snap out of it somewhere during that process, but Jack just tried to try harder to accomplish what the team asked.

He’s on his last leg here in Pittsburgh and for a guy who’s shown incredible and easy power at the MLB level, I’m of the belief Jack is his own last best bet. I believe Jack needs to find his own game, more than that, he needs to find his belief in himself.

Jack could be a complete non-factor in the ultimate playing out of the 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates, maybe that’s the most likely outcome, but this power starved team would be wise to leave the door cracked.

Jack would be wise to find a way to be in position to kick it down.

3. Forever Young

Teams that don’t spend much money tend to start out with the belief they’ll be able to trade off their team, build up their system expertly and essentially create a pseudo fountain of youth that never allows the team to age out.

Thing is, almost nobody can actually do it. The Rays can’t even do it without a stumble.

The truth is you’ll always need veterans, either veterans you cultivated yourself or new ones you bring in. The Pirates bring in veterans, and they bring plenty of experience and wisdom with them, the problem is, they’re usually a bit too long in the tooth to lead on the field.

Admitting you have to eventually add a different class of veteran leadership is hard. You look around the room and you see character leadership like Bryan Reynolds and Andrew McCutchen, but you have to be honest about what you’re seeing on the field.

This team has a lot of youth, and they play like it, with very little noticeable irritation from anyone who’s been here for half a decade or so. Rowdy Tellez did a bit of it with Oneil Cruz this season, but again, he was producing nothing but fan ire this year, so when Cruz let his words and animated action on the field directed at him roll right off his back.

Look, Oneil might well have had the same reaction to someone like Paul Goldschmidt over at first, but you have to try. You have to create some kind of accountable leadership structure, especially if you’re not going to require it come from the coaching staff, and frankly, if they’re expecting that, they haven’t been watching.

They have a few holes they can fill, regardless of how they do it. I’m simply saying they need more than just players, they need players who have been on winning teams and are painfully aware of what a losing culture looks like.

By retaining this staff, they’ve all but ensured any culture change is going to need to come from changes they make, which to me puts even more importance on the type of players they sign and the charter they give them when they’re hired.

To be effective, it would be great if said player(s) didn’t feel they might be gone at the deadline, so maybe a couple year contract could help.

The Pirates need to step out of their comfort zone. Something they’ve done very poorly through the years, but when you leave very little room for change, you better make the few you create meaningful.

4. I Shall be Released

Making hard decisions is part of the gig when you decide to be a baseball executive, and frankly, this team hasn’t created all that many really difficult ones.

Connor Joe, Alika Williams, Joshua Palacios and Ji Hwan Bae are 4 players who the Pirates have team control over who could very well be let go.

These shouldn’t be very hard.

Bae has gotten multiple chances to allow his speed to show it’s value at the MLB level, and it simply hasn’t happened. Maybe a new hitting instructor would allow him to be what he could be as opposed to what they wanted him to become, but something tells me the hitting coach had little to do with his failure to have it translate to the Bigs.

Connor Joe has proven over two seasons he doesn’t have the stamina to last all season. Perhaps if he was used as a bench player in the strictest sense of the word he wouldn’t wear out, but just as likely, you wind up simply not getting “hot” Joe at all, instead replacing it with no real path to do much of anything more than hold down a spot when needed.

Palacios had energy, power and a penchant for a big hit in a big moment, unfortunately, he’s also probably not good enough to represent THE lefty you call off the bench. He was a nice surprise, but on a team masquerading as a playoff contender probably can’t afford this being on your 26-man.

Alika Williams, man, the glove is exceptional, the bat isn’t. He’s hit in AAA, he hasn’t hit in MLB. Can this team afford to carry a glove only SS on the bench? Would he start in AAA even? Not likely. I think it’s time, nice try.

5. Like a Rolling Stone

Like a complete unknown.

That’s how it is for Pirates fans who don’t pay a ton of attention to the minor leagues. Jared Jones was someone that nobody saw taking the jump he did last year and he was a rookie. 2nd year players tend to take a step back or a leap forward, you rarely see them put the same performance out in each of their first two seasons.

The Pirates have a lot of these types of players coming back in 2025 and if they can get more leaps than steps back the Bucs might just wind up “shocking” the baseball world, but there is no path to where they want to get without it.

They need Nick Gonzales to go from mildly impressive rookie to a second year player who really looks like a player others would want on their team. Not good enough for the Pirates, good enough that any team who doesn’t have a nailed on starting 2B would too, hell, maybe even some of them might see him as an upgrade.

Those are the kind of leaps they’re going to need from some guys. Realistic or not, it’s what has to happen.

They don’t all need to, that’s just not fair to expect or ask for, especially again with the coaching we’ve all decided should be gone, but they do need to see it. Endy, Henry, Jack, Bryan De La Cruz, Oneil Cruz, hell Ke’Bryan Hayes, they need step up seasons from guys or they can simply never add enough.