11-1-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
The Pirates brass is going to have to make a ton of decisions this offseason, and much like a wild animal, you never know how they’re going to react when they’re cornered.
Desperation and Baseball GMs don’t often mix well. It can sometimes cause throwing caution to the wind, taking the biggest swing that’s actually available to you, and frankly, sometimes it’s just not actually all that big in relation to what the team actually needs.
Conversely, some GMs double down on what they thought was right in the first place. Essentially saying, listen, I was right, you just don’t see it yet, it’s going to come together this year, and its going to be my way.
No matter what you think is right, this is the danger in forging ahead with an effort that at the very least is behind a bit, with all the same cast of characters in charge.
If he’s of the belief they’ve done the right things and we fans simply lack the patience and belief that it’s coming together I think we’ll see things like Jack Suwinski and Bryan De La Cruz platooning in right field. We’ll see Endy Rodriguez and Jared Triolo set up at first base. They’ll trust that all the poor performances from the bullpen last year were more of an anomaly than anything and return most of them expecting bounce backs.
If he feels like this is his last year without results and accepts patience is dried up, I think we’ll see him take a trade that he probably would have easily said no to in any of his previous seasons. Once you decide that you have to change your internal system for valuing trades, and you haven’t done so in recent history, the biggest fear is that you have no idea where your new found boldness crosses over from appropriate response to the need for urgency to oh my god, that’s half our farm for 2 years of a guy who had one good year what are you thinking.
Example time.
Neal Huntington during the playoff run added at the deadline, or more accurately the Waiver Trade deadline in some cases. He brought in players who could help, but they cost almost nothing to acquire. Marlon Byrd and John Buck were acquired for Dilson Herrera to help during a run and help he did. This was a move that matched the urgency of the moment, but didn’t change any plans the team had. On the other side, you have his most famous trade, the Chris Archer deal where he sent out two prospects with MLB experience and nowhere near their ceilings in an effort to recapture a winning team that he claimed would come after a “bridge year”.
Pressure had started to mount and this was his panic move.
I’m not saying this in an effort to say Ben Cherington shouldn’t consider something big, I’m simply saying when you corner a guy and push him to do something he’s clearly not been comfortable with in the past, who knows what they’ll do.
It’s my firm belief that when you as an owner feel your team needs to change course, it’s almost always better to let fresh eyes do it. A new set of eyes won’t care how guys got here, won’t be married to potential they saw 3 years ago, they’ll instead focus on what actually happened in those last 3 years.
In other words, a new GM might think there’s a shot that Bryan De La Cruz and Jack Suwinski can hold down right field, but they’d have nothing tied to it, and there’d be no reason for them to take the risk. They’d upgrade it out of hand.
I look at it like a hand in spades if you will. See, my Navy veteran Dad can just about bid Nil on any hand he doesn’t have the Ace of Spades and he’s got a very good shot of pulling it off. Now if my kids bid Nil, you better believe it’s going to be hard to set them, because they have to have a hand that makes it likely. Different sets of eyes and experience levels change the way you look at the same set of cards.
This is a gamble. And it’s impossible to predict how it goes. We can’t even really call back to Cherington’s time in Boston because first and obviously, he had far more resources at his disposal and the pressure there every single year was probably a lot more like what he’s experiencing this offseason in earnest for the first time with the Pirates.
No matter what, this season needs to be defining for everyone. I’m ready to get started targeting some trades and signings, but I figured I’d start by writing this because unlike the past 3-4 years, I see this offseason as almost completely unpredictable. I mean, they won’t sign Juan Soto, but they could potentially trade for a name that we’d have previously laughed at being brought up. We don’t know where they’ll limit themselves, or how far they’ll stretch their capabilities.
Almost nothing would completely shock me, so in a way, writing about this is going to be freeing, I can let my imagination run wild, all the while hoping they’re doing the same.
It’s do or die, lets see if they keep moving in the right direction or wind up like the White Sox minus the brief playoff run.
Steel City Pirates 
Why would the Pirates consider using Endy Rodriguez, who proved to be a very good defensive catcher and handler of pitchers in 2022, at 1B instead of Joey Bart, who is at best an average defensive catcher, there? It makes no sense to me.
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