8/11/22 – By Corey R. Shrader @CoreyShrader on Twitter

The Pirates bullpen has been mentioned quite a few times on social media lately. Combining this “buzz” with the Pirates deadline acquisitions, I thought it would be worth taking a tour through the bullpen options currently on the team as well as some in the minor leagues.
The intent was to cover the players that I feel will most likely be a part of the 2022 bullpen as well as the 2023 season at minimum. Bullpens are notoriously tough to predict, so this could all look silly in short order, but yet we must try. Without further introduction, here are the current bullpen options for the Pirates.

Right-Handed Options

David Bednar – Most fans are well aware of the hometown boy and what he can do. Despite some rumblings at the 2022 trade deadline, Bednar should remain a fixture in the back end of the Pirates bullpen for some time, not even becoming arb eligible until 2024 and avoiding free agency until 2027.
Bednar has carried his 2021 dominance over to 2022. He is getting hit harder this year, but even that isn’t saying much for batters’ success overall. His four-seam fastball (FF) is getting hit more in 2022, but also inducing more whiffs. This could be due to a combination of adding horizontal movement to his heater (+1.3”) that may be impacting his locations and/or how it is playing in the zone versus the 2021 heater. Even though the 2022 version of his FF is not as dominant, his main secondary’s compliment it well making his full arsenal of FF/FS/CU a whiff generating machine. Bednar should be the guy slamming
the door shut for the next several seasons.

Wil Crowe – Crowe was converted from a starter to a reliver in 2022 and he has really begun to come in to his own in that role. The team tweaked Crowe’s pitch usage in this change and he now features primarily a slider & change up as really effective offerings garnering 35.5%/34.2% whiff rates. The repertoire is seeing him us the sinker as his primary fastball and it is working pretty well and getting soft contact. While I would be skeptical of Crowe having a ton of success in the closer role, he could likely fill
in well enough if needed given his ability to draw weak contact.
Crowe should be around for quite awhile too, much like Bednar, Crowe does not hit arb years until 2024 and free agency until 2027.

Yerry De Los Santos – De Los Santos has had a track record of being a successful relief pitcher all through the minor leagues. Seeing him having early success at the major league level is not particularly surprising. Armed with a hard slider (95.3 avg) and a put away slider (36.5% whiff), he should continue to have success given his ability to throw strikes, miss bats, and induce ground balls. Yerry is just getting his first taste of the MLB, but he has the look of a quality bullpen piece that could continue to develop in to a back-end RP.

Colin Holderman – Holderman came to Pittsburgh via the NY Mets in the Vogelbach trade prior to the 2022 deadline. Fangraphs had Holderman ranked as the Mets #10 prospect this season and as a relief pitcher he has flashed some ability in his limited MLB work. Sporting a 24.7/11.0 K%/BB%, he needs to trim some of those walks, but his effectiveness is evidenced by his 1.74 ERA (2.83 FIP, 3.44 xERA).
His pitch mix is reliant on a sinker/cutter/slider. His cutter/slider being the primary weapons thus far, sporting whiff rates both over 40% and limiting opposing wOBAs to .079 & .157 each (aka- obscenely good results for Holderman thus far). The cutter & slider mirror each other well from Holderman’s hand leading to a good deal of deception. The cutter also has a great deal more horizontal break than most, so it lends to way it plays off of his slider making for a very nice pairing. The sinker has got pretty good results thus far, he throws it hard enough that if location is on, it should be average at least but the
xStats on it show it will probably see some regression and start falling for more hits.
He should be around for a while and looks like a bet to be a productive bullpen piece.

Johan Oviedo – Another new arrival to Pittsburgh, brought in the Quintana trade. I am aware that the organization wants to give Oviedo the chance to start again, and I think that I agree that it is worth trying. I am mentioning him with the bullpen group because I believe he would be a good option there.
In fact, he has already shown promise there in St. Louis, much like Holderman did in New York. Trying Oviedo makes sense given that he flashed a few high-upside starts in AAA this year, but I believe his control issues (10.3 BB% in 10 starts at AAA) will make him better suited for the pen. Oviedo is primarily a two pitch pitcher, working a four-seam/slider combo most often, but his curveball has flashed very nice results in its more limited deployment (31.8% whiff/.167 BA/.189 wOBA) he just simply does not throw it for strikes enough to use regularly. Oviedo’s fastball is particularly perplexing because he combines a low release point (5.3 ft from the ground) with well above average extension (7.1 ft from the rubber), but it does not yield quality results.
Oviedo’s FF traits (release height + extension) mean he SHOULD have a chance to have a very gnarly FF, but the shape of the pitch simply does not work well for him. I would like to see him throw his SL much more, like, a lot more, close to 50% of the time, develop a sinker or a cutter, and rely far less on his four seamer. I cannot see him truly finding success as a starter with his current arsenal & control issues.
Oviedo will be around for a while too, much like Holderman, it remains to be seen if he can take off as a starter or if he ends up in the pen again. I would wager on the latter.

Duane Underwood Jr. – DUJ is an interesting pitcher. Looking at his 2022 arsenal he throws three different fastballs, a sinker/cutter/four seamer complimented by his best overall offerings his change up and curveball. The sinker is essentially a new pitch. A cursory glance would show it to not a great pitch, but looking closer, it does generate grounders and modest contact as intended. One issue with the pitch is that he does not throw it for enough strikes (9.1 K%). The contact it creates is interesting with a low average EV of 83.2 and just a 4 degree launch angle, so taking that into account with the fact that DUJ’s xISO, xSLG, and barrel rates against are strong (88th , 71st , and 96th percentiles) combined with the fact that his FIP is 3.02, I think it is fair to assume that he is being plagued by both
bad defense and singles as of right now.
DUJ’s cutter, change up, and curveball are all effective in getting whiffs (30.9%, 45.9%, and 29.7%). Combine these with an improving feel for executing the sinker, hopefully better defense, and some more “luck” on batted balls, and DUJ could very well be a strong bullpen piece. He is under team control until 2026 and hits arb in 2023. I think he will almost certainly be given a fair shake to be a factor in this bullpen.

Chase De Jong – De Jong is sporting a 2.03 ERA, but under the hood things don’t look great. He’s got a 4.23 xERA, 4.78 FIP, and a .192 BABP propping that eye catching ERA up. There is not a lot to see here. De Jong has a pretty good slider, so it is not surprising that he has had success in the minor leagues. It is a good offering. At the MLB level it racks up whiffs at a 43.2% clip, gets weak contact, and performs really well in general against hitters regardless of handedness. Really not a lot to like beyond that slider.
His four seamer gets a lot of spin, but he has subpar extension and a fairly high release point making it not particularly interesting. Not certain he is much beyond a depth AAAA arm.

Tyler Beede – Former first round draft pick, was DFA’d by San Francisco early in the 2022 season and snapped up by the Pirates. To be completely honest; I am not certain what Beede can be. His time in Pittsburgh has been solid; 3.28 ERA and a 3.90 FIP across 35.2 IP. However, his K/9 is a paltry 5.80 and his BB/9 sitting at 3.53. He flashes some interesting things at times but also can be equally frustrating.
Beede has 3 offerings that feature whiff rates over 30%, which is quite interesting! But his fastballs (four seam/sinker) have both been sort of poor. However, I think Beede deserves a longer look in Pittsburgh due to the big velocity and interesting characteristics of his FF (high active spin, good extension, low release) and his secondaries flashing the ability to generate whiffs. I am fully ready to admit that I have no idea what will become of Beede, but there are some things there that make you go “hmm.”

Yohan Ramirez – Ramirez has a good slider and a fastball with interesting characteristics (great extension w/low release). He has only pitched 4 innings with the Pirates. With the Bucs Ramirez has seemed to have abandoned his four seamer and is throwing a hard sinker, which looks promising. The Pittsburgh sample size is small, but I think it is interesting at the very least.

Left-Handed Options

Dillon Peters – Felt the need to briefly mention Peters because he is one of the few LHPs in the pen and he is under team control for a long time (FA 2027/ARB 2024). Truth be told, to me, he looks like a lefty specialist arm only at this point. Does not have any particularly effective offerings vs RHH besides his curveball. LHH however are held to a .160/.246/.260 and a .231 wOBA against him. He is currently on the IL with elbow soreness, so it remains to be seen what his status will be rest of 2022 and even 2023.
Should the team be willing and able to acquire the services of another lefty pen arm, I think they will and could safely move on from Peters should they choose to.

Manny Bañuelos – Former Yankee, former Brave, former Angel, former Dodger, former White Sox, former second time Yankee, and now Pittsburgh Pirate. Had a pretty poor July in Pittsburgh posting a 8.10 ERA, 5.21 FIP. In just 3 August appearances he has looked better in just 3.2 IP with a 0.00 ERA, 2.57 FIP. To be quite honest, I am not sure he will be with the team beyond 2022 unless he performs exceptionally well rest of season, so I am not going to go too deep on him beyond saying he is a lefty and they don’t have many.

Eric Stout – Eric Stout appears to be a LOOGY, but we haven’t seen a whole lot of him, just 6.0 IP. But his results against LHH seem to be fine (.182 BA, .167 OBP, .118 SLG, .137 wOBA) I do not think he should be part of the team’s long-term plans, but I guess he could be? I do not assume he will be.

Minor League RPs

Blake Cederlind – Cederlind flashed some interesting potential back in 2020, but since that time he has had Tommy John surgery and just underwent another elbow procedure to remove loose bodies from his right elbow. If he is ever healthy enough to contribute, perhaps there is something there. At this point, I would not count on much of any contribution from Cederlind, but would absolutely welcome it.

Nick Mears – Mears owns a big fastball & big time extension on the offering. Peripherals like Mears and it is easy to see that he has strikeout stuff (12.91 k/9 in AAA), but he is also coming back from an elbow injury. Maybe we will get a shot to see Mears late in 2022, but hard to count on it.

Jeremy Beasley – On the 40 man roster, it’s hard to know what he could be, but being on the roster makes him at least someone to consider.

Tahnaj Thomas – Thomas has moved to the pen and has had a pretty good season at AA. It would not be surprising to see him quickly excel in that role given his quality stuff. May be an option as soon as 2023.

I must admit that I kind of like the potential of this bullpen. Predicting bullpen success year to year is difficult, though. Outside of Bednar, really anything could happen. However, I think there are enough other pieces that read like they are for real here. It is unwise to bet on everyone taking a step forward, but I think the overall depth of options should see a few of these guys emerge and/or take a step forward.
The obvious defect is a big lacking in quality of left-handed options. With this organization it is not a good idea to rely on them signing free agents as a big part of the strategy, but I refuse to think the team will go in to 2023 with Peters, Banuelos, Stout, Beasley as their only LHP options. But hey, crazier things have happened.
Pittsburgh has a chance to have a solid or at least fun bullpen. Let’s hope it is one of the strengths we are talking about for an improved 2023 Pirates club. If not, maybe we can come together again in article format to talk about where it all went wrong!

8-9-22 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

Let’s not waste time, to me, yes.

Some of you have followed me from the time I started writing about the Pirates back in 2019 at Sports Illustrated, others have just found their way to stuff I write recently, but almost all of you have by now seen the road map I laid out and stuck with for what is going on 4 years now.

2020 – Bad team, evaluate, trade those who don’t fit your vision of success.

2021 – Worse team, evaluate, trade anyone else you can who doesn’t fit, try to catch lightning in a bottle or steal a given up on prospect.

2022 – Start to see some prospects trickle up resulting in more of a fun end of season. Big Trade season is over.

2023 – Flirt with .500, keep adding prospects to the MLB club. Trades become baseball trades as opposed to talent searches.

I’ve had this ever since 2019, and no I’m not pretending to be Kreskin the Great, its just that obvious. I left them vague because anyone trying to pick move for move what this team is going to do is simply lying to both you and themselves. The broad strokes though, yeah, they’re right where you’d expect.

Now, before we go onto the next steps, I think it’s important for me to explain why I’ve always left it here. Meaning why I haven’t decided this forecast needed to extend to 2024 or beyond.

The simple answer, Bob Nutting. I’ve never trusted him to spend one dime more than he has in the past, even giving him the generous assumption of keeping up with inflation. Now he might of course. The GM certainly seems to think he will, maybe, depending on how you parse his already parsed words.

That’s why my initial prediction was so damn easy. I knew they’d spend little money until the team forced it by becoming hard to ignore.

This is where we deviate folks. This is where the predictions of when they should spend get screamed from the rooftops. OK, so it started last season with some. This off season you’ll hear it much louder than last. See, that “flirt with .500” thing I predicted, well it’s simply not going to be enough for most. Especially those who just recently tuned back in to see the freak playing short stop.

Anytime the team wants to do so now that we’ve seen the first few prospects come up they could certainly add from the outside. I’m not predicting it, because I don’t believe they will until at least 2023 is played out.

They’ll enter next season with players who really didn’t get much of a shot if any, probably will. They also have some youngsters who will be expected to take a jump, even if some of them will fall back and look like everything fell apart.

Players like Jack Suwinski, Oneil Cruz, Tucupita Marcano, Michael Chavis, Cal Mitchell, Bligh Madris, Roansy Contreras, Diego Castillo and even Canaan Smith-Njigba will all return and at least fight for a spot on the team, if not find their way into locking down a spot for good.

Others like Travis Swaggerty, Ji-hwan Bae, Michael Burrows, Johan Oviedo, Cody Bolton, Blake Cederlind, Nick Mears, all have a genuine chance to significantly contribute in 2023. Even Malcom Nunez or Mason Martin could find their way to the league.

Finally others will at least have a shot at getting a cup of coffee, like Henry Davis, Quinn Priester, Nick Gonzales, Liover Peguero, Matt Gorski, Matt Fraizer, Carmen Mlodzinski, Omar Cruz. If not, they’re likely going to get their chance in 2024.

Point is, even if they don’t go out and add, which again, as I wrote in Five Thoughts on Monday, they could and virtually have to at a few spots, they’ll still be adding in more talent. More questions will get answered. More spots will be populated.

After that, there simply isn’t anything more to say. Sure they’ll have more kids on the way. There have been other drafts of course, other trades for “guys who will never pan out”. Hell I didn’t even mention everyone who’s got a shot in the early wave here. You also may have noticed there is nowhere for ALL these players to play. that’s because they won’t all make it. Not even this list of heavy hitters I listed. It’s still far more likely that over half of them simply never become a factor here in Pittsburgh.

I can say that and remain confident because if that whole group of players only produces 4-5 MLB starters the team is easily back to .500 or better in 2024 without one extra dime from our friend Bob.

They SHOULD spend either this off season or next. And I don’t mean crazy amounts, just normal spending for real players to fill real holes. They SHOULD extend some players they already have in the fold. I could go on all day with SHOULD. Does that entertain you or inform you though? All it really does is send us into a death spiral of trying to pretend we know exactly how cheap Bob Nutting is by making up fake equations, populated with fake data, and try to make an impassioned argument about how the only thing separating the Pirates from the Dodgers is one guy who hates baseball, his team, the city of Pittsburgh, every fan who’s ever donned the black & gold and spending one dime more than he has to.

I prefer to focus on what I feel removes a variable like that from my evaluation, while making no bones about the fact that the likelihood that this thing finishes in a World Series Championship, you know, the goal, doesn’t happen unless this owner at least allows this GM to reach at least a little beyond his comfort zone.

It’s not about right and wrong, good or evil. It’s about what is as opposed to what should be. I can honestly say, they have enough talent that I think a competitive team that has the capability to hang with anyone is in there. Regardless of what they spend on outside sources. I’ve just watched baseball too long to believe that will ever result in the ultimate prize without true investment.

I have and have had confidence in this timeline for one simple reason. It never took anything more than my eyes. If they were to have done something like decide Reynolds was a trade piece, I’d have no choice but to adjust. It would set them back, and there’s just no denying it. The package could be Soto like and I’d still have to adjust the timeline most likely. Even if it was a perfect trade and ultimately would produce a better ultimate product out of this roster just 4 years later. Even if that weren’t itself a best guess. The timeline would have to adjust.

Through all the moves they made, Kuhl, Moran and Brault being non-tendered. Frazier, Bell, Marte, Musgrove, Taillon, Quintana, Vogelbach, all being moved, nothing changed with my timeline. Because I never had any of them in it, and even if they chose to surprise me and lock one up, like say they decided Bell is just too good, let’s extend him. OK, now they have a first baseman power hitter, a huge hole filled right? It changes nothing but one of the potential holes I think they’ll ultimately have to fill via Free agency. Not the timeline.

Now, if you listened to some people tell you that Nick Gonzales, drafted in 2020 was going to be here on opening day in 2022, I suppose I see why it seems off track.

Maybe if you listened to those same folks telling you Henry Davis was so “evolved” he’d likely start during 2022 for the Pirates, you could see it as off the rails. Oh, if you’re looking for those folks, they’re hiding behind Henry’s injury to invalidate the claim they were wrong. If they aren’t there, I’d imagine you could find them hiding under claims that Termarr Johnson will be here on opening day 2024.

This stuff never ends, and it’s why I started doing this work. Pirates fans have plenty of real things to be frustrated and disappointed by. You really don’t need to be fed, pardon me, bullshit.

Optimism is an incredible thing. Some people can drum it up out of thin air, others have to have something real to point to as a North Star in order to bring it to the surface. That’s why so many have to have a definitive time when this team will be “competitive”.

So pardon me if I don’t abide people that constantly tell you dimwitted things. On either side of things for that matter. I despise things like assuming prospects will fly from draft to the league, almost as much as I hate pretending a guy making above league minimum is a guarantee a player is to be traded. Or trying to sell fans that the intention of the GM, or even so far as “the plan” is to never see the payroll go over 60 million.

From here on out, it’ll go up increasingly until and if they start this whole ugly ass process over again.

I won’t begin to predict when that is, too many variables, too many unknowns. I’ll just say this, if they again sign a CBA in 2027 that doesn’t fix or at least work in a real way to even the playing field in the league, the next time we see this “process” again probably won’t be too far behind, unless you think they’re smart enough to be the Rays.

I’ll leave it there, cause that’s a whole other discussion.

8-3-22 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

I don’t know when every move is coming, but I’m sure later today someone like Tucapita Marcano will replace someone like Yoshi Tsutsugo or Josh VanMeter on the roster. That’ll of course be welcomed by everyone with open arms, if not frustration that it took so long, but it’s also not the change that this team needs most.

Today, I’d like to take a look at some things that simply have to be addressed, specifically beyond players, because the easiest thing in sports is to simply say get better players. Of course that’s true, but making sure those improved talents will have a place to thrive as well as play needs to bubble to the surface.

The Hitting Program

The Pirates have been an offensive mess for the vast majority of Derek Shelton’s tenure here in Pittsburgh. Now, that of course can’t be said without acknowledging exactly what I said we’d avoid, the improvement of the talent, but it’s bigger than that.

Derek Shelton came up as a hitting coach, and he has input over the entire hitting plan here in Pittsburgh as the Manager. Maybe that’s why it was so strange to me that when he got here they decided to retain Rick Eckstein.

Not because Eckstein was someone I thought was a poor coach, as much as I couldn’t fathom Shelton wouldn’t want to put his own stamp on it.

Well, turns out, he did in fact want to own the process a bit. Hiring Mike Rabelo to be the Assistant Hitting Coach afforded the newly constructed staff to bridge the span. The 2019 Pirates weren’t good, but they did hit, so it made some sense to keep someone like Eckstein around for consistency.

Well, in the shortened season of 2020, they performed awfully, but 60 games was hardly enough to decide anything so even after moving Josh Bell, one of the main reasons for keeping that consistency around, they decided to hold steady into 2021.

By the end of that season, it was clear that the two weren’t speaking from the same pulpit any longer. So the Pirates removed Eckstein and allowed Derek Shelton to create a “staff” to fill the role for the last stages of the season. The offense experienced a bit of an uptick.

Enter Andy Haines.

He was an assistant hitting coach in Milwaukee, and that offense did little more than hit homeruns or strikeout, sound familiar?

2022 has been a mortal struggle. Rookies have come up and experienced success, but it’s rarely been sustainable. They’ve looked much different on day one than they did right before being sent back down.

The stars have struggled periodically, the rookies have just about all regressed, and adjustments seem to be daily.

If I had to guess right now, Haines won’t be here in 2023.

Recently, I had opportunity to discuss the hitting instruction with players, and for understandable reasons, they’d like to remain in the shadows.

“He changes everything, wants me to make a smaller move, says I should use a heavier bat, game plan and approach changes and wants us to hunt outside of our strengths”

Tweaks are well within the purview of any hitting coach folks, but some of this constitutes wholesale change. The Pirates promote a “hitting plan” and it’s intended to be organizational. Meaning, when guys come up from AAA they shouldn’t require massive changes because they should be instructed in the same manner as they’re working through the system.

Here’s some more.

“It’s operation overload here with information and it floods us.”

Anyone who’s ever hit baseballs at any level will tell you thinking too much is kryptonite in the box.

Listen, when guys are struggling at the plate, they’re going to not be pleased with many aspects of everything around them, up to and including their socks. I get it.

One thing I can honestly say as someone who watches guys in the minors and MLB, I can physically see the change in approach these guys are trying to employ as early as 2 or 3 days after being called up.

That shouldn’t happen. Stance changes, swing changes, where a hitter stands in the box, that’s formative stuff, not tweak at the MLB level stuff. Ask Chad Hermansen what that sort of coaching does to a kid.

Someone needs to grab hold of this program and reinvent it. Maybe the way they addressed the pitching disconnect from Marin to the minor leagues by adding Dewey Robinson.

All I know is when your entire franchise is depending on developing talent, you best be better than this.

Public Relations

This is an area I have professional experience in so I’ll try real hard not to get too deep in the weeds.

The first thing to acknowledge is really that PR isn’t going to save you from selling a bad product. At some point people just aren’t going to accept what you say if they see the same bad play game after game.

Way back in 2019 when I first started covering the Pirates for Sports Illustrated, my second article was about needing to find a GM and team President who could effectively communicate with the fans. So far, that’s been an epic failure.

Here’s why. You can’t continue to go to the we’re getting better well when it’s painfully apparent you aren’t getting better. If you constantly talk about bringing in more talent yet refuse to bring up said talent and or refuse to cut failed veterans to make room for them, fans aren’t going to buy it.

The Brewers put on a master class recently after trading Josh Hader their All Star closer while leading the division at the deadline.

First, lets start at the top. The Brewers have earned this by providing their fan base with winning baseball. They’ve also physically tried, putting just about every red cent they could into payroll.

That’s not PR, but it makes PR much easier.

I asked people on Twitter who were praising this to try to craft something similar for the Pirates to explain their “state of the franchise”, or at least why they moved a guy like Quintana.

See to me, I don’t need that explanation, I knew from the minute he was signed if he performed even decent he was going to be traded. I’m sure I’m not alone in that, but how could the Pirates do better here?

Transparency.

“Get Better” is vague. It means something, but it means something different to everyone who hears it. More importantly it means something different depending on outcome from he who spoke it. If the Pirates finish this season with 2 more wins than in 2021, did they “get better”?

Sure, technically they got better. But realistically, or in any meaningful way, probably not.

Do they maybe have a more exciting group of young talent to build on? Sure that’s probably fair, but that too isn’t what the team tells us. Instead they focus on the need to keep bringing in more talent, and simply get better.

3 years of that isn’t going to age well, especially when you’re set to finish in the bottom 10 at least for the 4th straight campaign.

PR can also be unspoken.

Extend Ke’Bryan Hayes for 7 years and fans think “OK, here we go, now we start to lock some of our talent down”

Follow it up by taking Bryan Reynolds to arbitration before your owner steps in and forces you to abandon that idea and fans think “In what way does this make sense next to extending Hayes?”

Look, fans aren’t collectively as stupid as you see represented on social media daily. Most fans understand what the Pirates are trying to do, even if they have a healthy understanding of how near impossible it would be should they never spend money in the effort.

I’m not saying they have to throw a dollar figure out there for their maximum budget, but as a Pirates fan, wouldn’t it be easier to understand the plan if you knew 150 million was their ceiling. Wouldn’t it be easier to digest trades if you knew the bottoming out of payroll isn’t in an effort to stay there but instead an effort to build the system and remake the entire team with youth?

As a GM, the last thing you like to do is speak in absolutes. If you say you don’t plan to bottom out again, before you know it you’re Neal Huntington trying like hell to use super glue and twigs in 2018 to try to recapture the magic you let slip through your fingers instead of properly rebuilding. Or, you do it anyway and accept the moniker of liar seeing your words printed everywhere you go.

Already Cherington slipped, and I have to believe that’s what it was, and said the Pirates would be “good earlier than most expect”. A dangerous comment because it’s the wrong kind of vague. To me that may mean 2024, to Joe in Glassport that may mean 2023.

When/if they don’t sign anyone of note this offseason, Joe is going to be fit to be tied, and I’ll still feel ok with Cherington’s statement.

Point is, PR is hard, and it’s possibly the hardest job there is when you have little positive to sell. It’s why they spend so much time talking about Pirates Charities or the Miracle League fields. Great stuff on its own, but fans know it’s not the positivity they seek.

They want more than “We’ll have the payroll when the time is right”. Because again, to Joe or I that time could probably be right now damnit!

Fans want a real commitment. Actually tangibly admitting that not enough was done in the past, and a vision for how to not have the same mistakes repeated. Fans simply aren’t going to trust that Nutting is spending this time, they need to see it. This fan base needs a signing. A message that things are different.

We got one with Hayes signing a record setting deal, but it was a backhanded record. If anything the very fact that 70 million over 8 years set a record is embarrassing on its face.

Not to sound ungrateful, I’m thrilled they did it, but I’m also nowhere near willing to pretend fans should now believe the game has unquestionably changed and we can now expect the trajectory to point upward in perpetuity.

This past off season the team had more than a few giant holes. They addressed them to a degree. Signing Jose Quintana for 2 million to provide a veteran starter, Yoshi Tsutsugo for first base at around 4 million. Daniel Vogelbach for what amounted to 800K, and Roberto Perez at catcher for 5 million.

None of those raised an eyebrow, some of them really performed. Others clearly didn’t. It’s not that they won’t spend anything, it’s that they rarely will spend on someone who won’t be leaving after the All Star Break.

Roberto’s injury prevented us from likely seeing his name at least being a constant rumor. If Yoshi had managed to do anything at all he’d have gotten some attention I’m sure. Now as it would turn out, Quintana was probably the only one of those who you’d have liked to see much longer. Had they signed him preseason for say 3 years, I’ll be honest, at the time I’d have questioned the sanity of every single one of the Pirates Management team.

That’s still what they need though. The Pirates need to find someone of value, and sign him to a meaningful deal. One where fans can feel reasonably assured they can bother vesting in the player, caring about what he does and for once not through a lens of what he may fetch come time to trade him. That’s gonna take years, likely 3, and even at that, it’s just a start.

Keep extending, keep improving.

All of that is going to mean a hell of a lot more than words, even if it’ll need followed up with those too.

As it stands, fans are starting to disbelieve in the plan, and how could you blame them, when the plan has never been uttered publicly, instead being left to observers to guess and estimate for themselves.

The realities of MLB’s economic system are nebulous at best. It doesn’t really matter by how much you believe Nutting underspends, as much as recognizing his top end is still short at least of directly competing with the biggest of big spenders.

Fans don’t expect that, even the dumbest of them. They do expect you to try though, and if you aren’t going to for 2 or 3 years, you do owe them telling you when you will. Better yet, show them.