Five Pirates Thoughts at Five –Big Day for the Big Guy

11-18-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

One of my favorite artists, John “Cougar” Mellencamp will be the feature today. Just in my lifetime, he’s gone from Huge Rock Star, to Guilty Pleasure you listen to on your own and don’t admit in public back to ok to appreciate rock icon with a catalog everyone has a hard time not singing along to.

He’s perfect for this, his songs have such meaning baked into them and just reading titles makes you think of something.

1. Wild Night

OK, so I’m starting with a remake, which usually would be a bad sign for an artist’s catalog, but if I did Jimi Hendrix I’d have All Along the Watchtower too ya know?

Tonight is going to be a Wild Night for Paul Skenes, and he’s spent more than a few with Livvy Dunne so, that’s saying something. No, it’s not official yet, but Paul Skenes winning the Rookie of the Year feels like the worst kept secret in sports and I’d expect after the announcement tonight we’ll find most of the people who spent their time making it into a contest will quickly relent and declare this the no-brainer it clearly always was.

I mean, he’s quickly become the face of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He twirled the Terrible Towel at Steelers-Ravens. He and Livvy made picks on College Gameday. They’ve been on red carpets for just about every event MLB was involved in and that’s just off the field.

On the field, he’s not just a Rookie of the Year finalist, he’s also a finalist for the Cy Young Award. I don’t think he’ll win that award, but being a finalist, well, it just about cinches the other doesn’t it?

Check out the award ceremony, or jump on the livestream that our own Josh from Bridge to Buctober is putting together.

2. Authority Song

Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton are both lame ducks. That’s an old term most of you probably know well, but just in case there are some youngsters around, Lame Duck status essentially means you have no assurances you’ll be in your position beyond the current term, if not overtly assured you won’t be in your position beyond.

Let’s talk about some of the things that being a lame duck can do to a manager and these really apply to other industries too, not just a sports team.

First, there are 3 distinct paths a person will take. One, they could just go into a shell. That’s the most boring outcome, but the theory here is don’t make waves and maybe you won’t get knocked off your perch. Nothing too bold, nothing exciting, nothing but “sure” bets and just about nothing but fear of failure that almost becomes paralyzing.

They could also bury themselves in the approval structure of their organization. In other words, they force supervisors or equals to camp on to decision scenarios before executing. Hey Bob, I can swing this trade, here’s all my information, are you on board? How about you Travis? OK, so when I do this, you both agreed right?

Lastly, they can get aggressive. There’s power in the knowledge you could be making decisions that won’t effect you because if they don’t work, you won’t be here anymore. I’m not here to tell you Bob and Travis would be cut out of these decisions, but in this scenario, Ben is banging his hand on the table, yelling that his job is on the line and he’ll be damned if they’re going to stop him from trying his best.

All of this is within reason of course. And all of this depends in part on how much Bob Nutting and Travis Williams are willing to allow.

Either way, this is the single biggest reason nobody knows exactly how Ben Cherington will approach this offseason. His comments so far lead me to believe he’s choosing option 1, essentially a doubling down that his internal growth model will eventually pay dividends and in his mind, it’ll happen before he’s fired.

We’ll see, but it’s important to recognize, when you apply pressure to employees, they’re not always going to react the same way. And they have some pressure too, if they put their thumb too hard on the scale in favor of not allowing him to do his job, what’s to stop him from telling others in the industry upon leaving?

Fight authority Ben, do what you can and let’s see where it lands.

3. Without Expression

This is not a radio song, if you haven’t heard it, check it out, this is one of John’s most beautiful songs.

I’m going to use it to talk about the addition of Brent Strom as Assistant Pitching Coach. See, without a single expression, he comes in here and lends credibility to what everyone sees as the biggest area of strength for this Pirates team.

In the last 8 seasons, Coach Strom’s pitching staffs have been represented in the World Series 4 times. Most recently with Arizona, and Houston before that.

Bluntly, Brent Strom has more of a reputation than Oscar Marin who will now be his boss, but if Marin is smart, he’ll take the help, advice and yes, criticism that comes with this hire and it makes them even stronger.

I love this hire. And I mean like there’s no gray area for me, it’s brilliant and so is the 79 year old Strom.

For Strom, “It’s all about beating the hitter’s swing plane in today’s game” and he’s done that expertly for years.

If you told me the Pirates were firing Marin and hiring Strom, I’d tell you it’s an upgrade. To convince him to push aside retirement for the second time to be an assistant here in Pittsburgh, well, to say this is unexpected is an understatement of epic proportions.

Even if this only serves to make Marin a better coach, huge win.

4. Small Town

Can the Pirates stop living in the box the league and indeed they have created for themselves?

Not without being bold, not without thinking differently, arguably, not with this owner.

There are transformative moments for franchises all the time and they come for different reasons.

Some are like San Diego. The owner decides enough is enough. Tired of being the whipping boy for the Dodgers and watching the Giants get theirs too. He wanted a win for his team, his fan base, his city and he decided the sensible, status quo of baseball economics were no longer going to be an excuse for his franchise’s inability to put anything together. They remade their franchise, but it started with one key decision. One player who “would never sign here” who did.

Other teams decide they’re going to build themselves out of it like Baltimore. They did, and it was great, tons of talent, but it became clear even that kind of incredible job rebuilding would eventually need to be supported by spending, and in this case, their owner decided to sell to someone who might do so.

Sometimes these franchises get better for a time and ultimately revert to what had them in the doldrums to begin with, but considering there has only been one team in the bottom half of payrolls to win it all, the truth is that franchises can change for a time, and usually revert to where they were.

San Diego is at that crossroads now. After the passing of their owner, new ownership will have to decide will they play ball with MLB’s structure and make money hand over fist or will they stick with what they had done and make less money but put a better product on the field.

There’s lots of buzz about forcing change here in Pittsburgh, and make no mistake, if it nets success and Bob Nutting sells, the impediments won’t change, just potentially the new owner’s ability to understand there is money to be made by spending some.

5. Cherry Bomb

I have a feeling Oneil Cruz is going to show up in 2025 and change the dynamic of the Pirates offense we’ve become used to.

Sure, new hitting coach Matt Hague will get some credit, but truly, Cruz showed a lot of promise as 2024 progressed that he was starting to figure things out. He’s shown power and it came with a ton of strikeouts, especially against left handed pitching. He adjusted from that to taking something off the swing and trying to achieve more contact. It was a success, but it cost him power, even as it drastically improved his K’s and Lefty approach.

This year, it’s time to put them both together and realize different situations call for a different Oneil.

Nobody on, 2 outs in the first, you don’t want Oneil Cruz taking the same type of at bat he would if he had 2 men on with 1 out in the 5th. One calls for taking a shot at popping one, and the other calls for making sure you make contact, and advance the runners.

The maddening thing about Cruz is in part what makes him so exciting. We’ve all seen him mishit a ball and still watch it clear the wall, and we’ve all seen him swing out of his shoes on a 1-1 pitch right down the pipe. Once Oneil realizes he doesn’t need max effort to succeed with every swing, it’s going to unlock everything for this player.

We probably all had unfair expectations for Cruz last year. through the prism of history, that’s easy to say and see, but it doesn’t make it less true.

If Oneil Cruz alone takes a step, this whole thing is closer than any of us can see in our mind.