10-21-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
I just had Jason Mackey on my show the Pirates Fan Forum last week. That’s not some humble brag or meant to be promotion, if you listen, you listen, it’s not really about his appearance. The conversations we had before pushing record though, I found myself filled with envy. Envy that he got to take a break from talking about money, while he discussed sports as he now covers all Pittsburgh sports. You know, actual players, making plays.
He’s earned it, but I only cover the Pirates and it’s increasingly apparent you can’t have even the most baseball of baseball discussions without money, spending, economic imbalance, protest ideas, whatever, you know what I mean, anything but baseball.
I’d just ask that when I write about something that has nothing to do with money, please do me a favor and know, I’m aware it’s there, it just doesn’t need inserted into every single discussion we have. If that’s not good enough for you, it’s way easier to find what you’re looking for than what I and we are doing here at SteelCityPirates.com.
Oh, and this week is an homage to Nirvana, and that intro directly applies to that something in the way, and it’s the economics of baseball, and the fact it allows for an owner like ours.
Let’s go…
1. In Bloom
All teams have to play young players, with varying degrees of patience of course. All fans at some point have to accept the learning curve and the pain that comes with it at times.
In sports, you’re often seen as being as good as the last set of numbers you put on paper, and the younger you are, the fewer you have to look at. It’s why for most prospects, the height of popularity is before they’ve debuted.
People are blinded by the stats, and even people who purposefully try to smack themselves upside the head to remember that AAA isn’t the same as MLB can’t fully allow themselves to have it alter their expectations of what they’d see if the player was called up.
So they tend to come to MLB with the fan expectation that they’ll be awesome from the jump. Again, even the fans who do account for it and expect a bit of an adjustment to the jump.
It’s not a perfect science. Sometimes you do get a Paul Skenes, or Bryan Reynolds, but far more often you get a Jared Triolo or Nick Gonzales.
The very first thing I think we all need to see and embrace this offseason is, just because you saw a prospect perform a certain way last year, it likely will not be reflective of what he’s actually capable of.
That doesn’t mean the Pirates should rely on Jared Triolo to be the starting first baseman in 2025, it just means if he takes a step next year, YOU might want them to.
When you look at prospects, stick to the skills, and know it’s going to be some time before you really have numbers you can trust.
Bryan Reynolds just completed his 6th season. He’s had ups and downs of course, but somewhere along the line, you probably stopped wondering what he could be, or “if” he would finish evolving. Along that same path, most of you had a moment where you finally stopped wondering, and started accepting, this is Bryan Reynolds.
He’s in bloom if you will. It’s why signing players to extensions often winds up being so important. Most players don’t reach that magical green zone of trust until very close to the moment Free Agency becomes at least close enough that most players can taste it.
2. Come As You Are
When the Pirates look to sign free agents, they tend to be attempting to fill a hole. The problem is, they usually don’t fit quite right and the only thing that changes is the Pirates expect more from the signing than they should have.
This time, the Pirates need guys to just come as they are.
If you sign a guy to eat innings, let him and maybe don’t ask him to setup for the closer. If you bring in a guy to play part time, remember you had a reason for thinking that was his role.
None of this is to say a player can’t exceed expectations and earn themselves more playing time or responsibility. It’s just to say, the Pirates tend to allow necessity or scarcity to determine players need to fill a bigger role.
The best way to overcome this sort of syndrome is by bringing in better players in the first place. Bring in Rowdy Tellez and Connor Joe to play first, you’re setting yourself up for this scenario playing out. Bring in someone who’s been a starter successfully, and in recent history, and you probably avoid it.
This is the proverbial shopping in a different aisle we heard tale of last offseason. Here’s hoping increased pressure makes it so.
3. Dive
On of my favorite songs, and you’ll likely never hear it on the radio. Trust me though, this is a jam. It’s also a B-side to Sliver, arguably their best album.
I probably could have made this about the Pirates record diving after frothing fans into believing they were in the race, but instead, I’m going to make this about diving into this roster looking for players I actually think could take a big step next year and why.
Have to have some MLB experience for this entry. No fair pointing to Bubba Chandler in other words. This is all about the players I see taking another step.
Nick Gonzales – Nick hit .270 on a team that just about nobody hit for average but his OPS of .709 shows room for improvement in both on base percentage and power. Nick is a guy who has a ton of power, so the hope is he captures a bit more of it even as he finds a way to draw a few more walks. He’ll enter his 3rd year, and he’s the likely starting 2B when his cleats first touch grass this Spring, but he’s also got competition all around him and repeating his 2024 won’t keep him there. Time for a step.
Henry Davis – This is arguably the easiest player I’d mention, IF we were only talking about improvement. That’s not what this is though, this is about taking a step. I believe Henry will do exactly that in 2025. He focused on defense last offseason, and this year he’s been dispatched and told to think about offense all offseason. I expect him to become an MLB player this year, and even if that’s a league average player, it’s a step.
Paul Skenes – Yeah, I know, he’s already been great. Taking a step doesn’t always come from being bad and suddenly being good. Paul is going to take a step in 2025, and its going to come first and foremost from throwing a lot more innings. I expect many of his cumulative numbers like WHIP and ERA to head in the wrong direction to achieve this goal, but the overall body of work will take a jump. He showed us in year one how quickly he learns lessons and attacks his progression, expect that to be in overdrive next year.
In the comments, give me some of yours, and tell me why? Tell me what they showed you that makes you believe a jump is in there.
4. Lounge Act
My all time favorite Nirvana tune. It’s a “radio song” that never became one really, but everyone and there mother loved Nevermind, and maybe having it not be on the radio constantly like so many other tunes from that LP is the very reason it became my favorite.
Small market, low spending, cheap leaning, teams all seem to forget they’re in the entertainment business.
Fans, like us, are supposed to just accept that because our teams can’t spend like the Dodgers or the Yankees, we should be ok with taking 4 or 5 years minimally every time our team manages to be ok for a few seasons to work their way back to being ok again.
The part they forget is that every time you replicate this cycle, especially if you fail to even reach OK in some of your attempts, the fan base suffers.
There is no entertainment when there is no chance of competitiveness and unlike the cap leagues where a bad team can at times completely remake their franchise in one offseason, a failed attempt in baseball equals a solid 4 or 5 years of paying for it or worse, trying desperately to make it happen despite evidence it isn’t happening.
A salary floor might at least force teams to field something that attempts to entertain, even if it’s not a solution that really fixes the situation entirely either.
Baseball teams being run like businesses as opposed to entertainment troops is a big problem in this game. Fans like us are guilty of laughing at teams like the Angels who for years had Ohtani and Trout together, yet never managed to field a competitive team. It’s true, but those fans were entertained, and they showed up.
Thinking like this isn’t in Bob Nutting. But it would be nice if it were in Travis Williams a bit, because new shit for kids to climb on in the outfield isn’t ever going to be the main reason fans show up at the ball park, fun players who might hit a homerun once a week do.
There is no cure for not spending in baseball, and there’s no cure for not understanding why you should either.
5. Territorial Pissings
I’m happy the Pirates fired Andy Haines. Long past due if you ask me, but I also wonder if Derek Shelton and Ben Cherington have perhaps marked their territory a bit too well to hope for the big time change this club really needs.
In other words, is the fix really just replacing the person delivering the message or is the message being delivered the real problem? More than that, with the retention of Shelton and Cherington, is there actually enough Christmas tree air fresheners to cover the stink and give someone a better shot at actually helping the hitters or should we expect they truly believe Haines just didn’t say it the right way?
I was completely dissatisfied with Ben Cherington’s answer when asked what would change with the approach. Honestly, it’s mostly because it really wasn’t coherent, but it also didn’t seem to leave room for A. what Haines did poorly, vs B. what a new hire will do much better.
The biggest concept put forward was that they needed to simplify the message, and while that’s true, it’s pretty clear the message itself probably needs work too and it was barely referenced.
By choosing not to cut deeper than the assistants to the assistant, this club is telling us the plan is fine, it just took them 3 years to see it wasn’t being applied correctly.
That to me is reason number 1, 2 and 3 they should have moved on from more.
Again, I’m not going to harp on this all offseason, but if my job was on the line, I think I’d start with more harshly examining where we failed and I’d make sure I cut as much of that failure as possible.
Steel City Pirates 