Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – DMX

12-2-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and were able to spend plenty of time with friends and family. If not, I hope you were able to at least for a moment, find a bit of peace and quiet, or watch your favorite movie, or just sit back and drink your favorite beer.

The hot stove is rather quiet, I mean, there seams to be a sense of urgency from the Scott Boras clan to get his pitchers signed up quickly, but overall, aside from a few vague rumors, it’s been pretty quiet.

I saw someone write about “The Red Sox Audacious offer for Jared Jones” and the really funny thing is it was simply a Red Sox blogger suggesting a trade, not the Red Sox. LOL

Some of you need to stop acting like someone is trying to sell your daughter into slavery when a trade is suggested.

Let’s do this. Oh, and it’s our first Rap artist of the offseason as today we honor the late, great, DMX. I know this one isn’t gonna hit home for many of you, but I loved the guy’s music and his version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer still makes me laugh.

1. X Gon’ Give it To Ya

Arguably his best song. Now best known, but to me, the hardest hitter of them all.

For our purposes though, this is going to be about Oneil Cruz. I was thinking a lot about our expectations for Oneil in 2024, and through the prism of history, just how unfair they really were.

We, and by We I mean each and every one of us in some category or another, probably underestimated how very hard it was going to be for him to jump right back into MLB play and not only be what he was, but ultimately be the further developed player we hoped we’d see emerge in 2024 too. 40 Homeruns, 50 Homeruns, 50 stolen bases, 40 doubles, I’ve heard them all and because of how last year turned out, I’ve also seen almost everyone adjust their expectations down for the upcoming 2025 campaign.

Suddenly we’ve gone from having a sure fire offensive star to desperately needing one because he clearly no longer was one.

So listen, I’m not saying we don’t need bats, of course we do. I’m not saying those pre-2023 predictions are now entirely fair and we should just go forward with them. I’m just saying, this is a very talented player who went through a major injury to a part of his body that helped make him a freak in the first place.

Cruz is an X factor for 2024. If he increases his production, like a typical progression from healthy season to healthy season they’ll go from looking like they have way too many holes to fill to at least something that looks like it could be stitched together. He’s that key.

Truth is, I think moving to center and varying his approach depending on the situation and competition will help him quite a bit.

He’s a big piece, and bluntly, you already know they aren’t going to sign a player with more pedigree, here’s hoping.

2. Bring Your Whole Crew

There has been a ton of talk about who the 5 man rotation should be. Bouncing around in all that has been just about everyone deciding who they’d be willing to trade. It’s near impossible to list out all the possibilities without forgetting a name or two who could contribute, and it’s equally hard to admit or understand that some of those sure fire starters might wind up in the bullpen for this team.

It reminds me of a couple years ago when the team decided rather out of the blue that Carmen Mlodzinski was headed to the pen. He was a fast rising starter in the system and staying healthy was really his biggest issue, as well as getting deep into games. In hindsight, the bullpen was always possible for him, and still, when they made the move, it felt almost defeating in a way.

Braxton Ashcraft has almost the same profile. Health issues, difficulty getting deep into games, crazy stuff that doesn’t play as well the second or third time through. Makes total sense, but it’s also early.

The Pirates have Mitch Keller, Jared Jones, and Paul Skenes as close to locked in as you can get.

Then they have Luis Ortiz, Bailey Falter, Mike Burrows, Braxton Ashcraft, Johan Oviedo, Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harrington ready to fight for the 4th and 5th spots.

Of those, innings will be an issue for everyone not named Falter or Ortiz.

There’s an excellent chance, barring trade or injury of course, that all of these guys will wind up eating some innings for the Bucs.

I already told you my concerns, or more accurately, what I think is possible for Ashcraft, but the others have many reasons to wonder about their roles.

Burrows has had an injury plagued career, but he’s ready, arguably, he’s their most ready on day one starting prospect. He’d need his innings watched, but not as much as say Chandler, Ashcraft or Harrington.

Oviedo is returning from Tommy John, and that’s harder than anyone gives credit for. He might be pitching by Spring Training, but I can’t imagine they expect him to carry a very heavy innings load. Perhaps a step ladder approach that starts him in the pen, gives him some spot starts with an eye toward trying to fully stretch back out in 2026.

Chandler an Harrington, think Jones. Very hard to imagine an entire season of work for either of them. They’d have to think about a 6 man rotation again, which bluntly, they aren’t going to want to do with Skenes in the rotation or, a mid season break/demotion, if not overtly shutting them down before the season ends.

Falter and Ortiz are equipped to deliver full seasons. Falter stretched out last year, Ortiz did too, but he could still be held back a bit, if not return to the pen where he thrived.

It feels like they have too many, but they don’t have to use them all, many have options for one thing, and as I just walked through, I wouldn’t struggle to paint a picture of every single one of these players being used during the season.

Trade from this group if you must of course, but understand, trading a Luis Ortiz while believing Bubba Chandler is just going to jump in and take his innings, well, it’s safer to think he’ll take some of them.

We could also see them sign a guy, but seeing scrubs like Matthew Boyd get 2 years for 29 Million, man, I’d rather just not.

Having 2 rookies and 2 guys who weren’t built up into the types of starters who carry 175 innings led to a lot of ummm, creative thinking in 2024. This year, they have the potential to avoid that by asking the new or younger additions to do less than they had to last year.

I think we’re going to see an ensemble staff this year, and I’m really excited to see what shakes out when we beat the rugs.

3. Ruff Ryder’s Anthem

The players on this Pirates team do not feel the same as we (the fans) tend to feel.

It’s not just Paul Skenes saying they were going to win “a little differently than the Yankees and Dodgers”, it’s all of them truly believing they have the makings of a team that can get the job done.

Think back to 2012, here’s a quote about Clint Hurdle, who many of you now think of as an all time manager because of the 3 years that would follow.

“Clint Hurdle has been as good a manager as Pirates’ fans could ask for in his two seasons in Pittsburgh, but if you had to pinpoint the Pirates collapse on one person it would have to be the skipper.”

“There is no denying Hurdle has been a phenomenal influence for the Pirates, but his consistently poor managerial decisions have been the biggest reason for the team’s late-season collapse.”

This was from Bleacher Report, back when it was a bit more or a respected entity. I remember thinking things like this too.

What was really going on was a young team was trying to figure out how to win. They had good pieces, just not enough of them and that offseason they brought in elements that helped them get over the top.

The players felt they had a team starting to form and told fans to have patience, the winning was in there, they just needed to gel a bit and tack on some pieces.

History isn’t predictive, but it is educational. That 2012 team had just as much business predicting big improvement as the 2024 team does, maybe less considering they didn’t have a generational starting pitcher, yet.

I’m not here to tell you you’re blind and missing that they have a lot of what they need to have, I’m just saying they’re probably closer than we’re giving them credit for. Players of course always predict they can win, especially in Spring where hope is eternal for just about every team, but these players were talking like this in October while watching other teams who did make it to the playoffs compete.

Right or wrong, they really don’t think the situation is as desperate as social media would lead you to believe is clear and present.

4. Go to Sleep

John Baker was “promoted” from Director of Coaching and Player Development, to overseeing the performance team.

Now, c’mon, this wasn’t a promotion. This was an admission that they were asking someone to perform a duty they probably weren’t qualified for in the first place, and on top of it asking him to wear too many hats.

Previously, Baker was the mental skills coordinator and head applied mental skills coach with the Cubs. His hire was indeed considered a step up professionally for John, but the Pirates essentially asked him to perform duties he had never performed, and hey, do all that mental skills voodoo stuff too while you’re at it ok?

A guy taking a promotion opportunity is never going to tell you he’s being asked for too much or he isn’t sure how to proceed, but 5 years of results were too much to hide.

While the team has produced some pitching, they still remain woefully behind on producing offensive talent.

It’s not all John’s fault, but it’s certainly not to his credit either. There seems to be a bit of understanding from this management group they were asking too much of a lot of guys as they’ve now procured help for Oscar Marin in the form of Rick Strom, and Matt Hague will solely be in charge of MLB hitters. His philosophies will flow through the organization, but not his hands on coaching.

These are steps in the right direction, steps that in my mind should have been taken a couple years ago.

I give them credit for making changes, but these problems have been emerging for a while and they did next to nothing to address it until now.

Whomever they hire, I promise, I won’t be able to tell you it was the “right” guy, but I’m all for guys they have wearing fewer hats and hopefully improving their situation. None of these types of moves will “save” Cherington, these aren’t overnight change type solutions, but they are things that can hopefully put the derailed cars back on track.

5. Money, Cash, Hoes

The Pirates want to bring in maybe a first baseman in his mid 30’s with some tread left on the tires, and a corner outfielder who they can feel sure is better than Jack Suwinski.

That’s not a big shopping list, nor is it something they can’t accomplish.

The trouble is, as you look around the league, it’s impossible to miss that there are 3 or 4 clubs actively courting every top name in the game.

Nothing in the game of baseball makes the competitive balance feel more off kilter than the offseason. Every thought is surrounded by money, salary cap talk, deferral payment discourse or the like.

Who’s signing who for how much? Do they really expect them to play that long? Can they really defer that much salary?

These are all conversations we see go by, knowing in our market we aren’t even within shouting distance of being relevant if we were to involve ourselves. It’s sad. Honestly it makes the offseason depressing as opposed to inspiring the way it’s supposed to be.

In other leagues, when a top player comes on the market, you talk about cap space, need and then you get to if the player might want to be there. In this league, you know 3-4 years before a player hits free agency the 3-4 teams he might sign with.

Where’s the fun in that?

I mean, New York and LA are having a fun time, Boston has decided to join the party this time too, but honestly, for everyone else, what fun is it to discuss where Juan Soto ends up? Think Kansas City has a shot? Yeah, they don’t either. How about Arizona? Yeah, I’m gonna guess the owner who wanted a big chip and forced his GM to being in Jordan Montgomery is just going to be quiet this year. Even the Padres are out of money.

Competitive balance is one thing, but if you want every team to be equally invested in the “hot stove” you probably need to make sure more than one burner works.

This season is fun for Jeff Passan or Jon Heyman, but for the rest of the league, it’s a foregone conclusion.

Do you think that Pirates fans are the only ones who jump a quarter of the way down the Free Agent list to someone who’s “realistic”, well, they aren’t.

The game is healthy. They make money, they’ve gotten eyeballs, they also simply don’t seem to care that most of those eyeballs are on the coasts.

I love baseball, and this is the best league in the world with all the best players in that same world. I’ll watch because I’m a junkie, but it doesn’t shock me at all to see almost everything we see offseason to offseason.

Arguing About Baseball Economics, from the Worst Possible Vantage Point; a Pirates Fan

11-30-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

The Dodgers continue to add talent, and they continue to add deferred payments to their methodology for doing so. Blake Snell, Teoscar Hernandez, and honestly, whoever else they want, do you truly think they’re out on Juan Soto?

We here in Pittsburgh, well we’d just like something like a 34 year old first baseman with some power and tread left on the tires for a year or two.

To pretend the Pirates can catch up simply by having the owner sell is to ignore the reality of this league at this point.

The problem is, because of Bob Nutting, the Pirates and their fans are just about the worst messenger for this reality.

There are teams trying as hard as they can out there in similar markets and they paint a very clear picture of not only how little Bob spends, but also a good approximation for how much more he could.

Those are the teams who should feel hard done by. More than that, the Dodgers contemporaries who seemingly have a ton of money themselves but lack the funding mechanism to defer dollars under the current MLB rules that state a team must be able to produce the entire amount of deferred money once every year.

The Yankees can’t do that. Sure, they can defer contracts partially, but they can’t afford to liquidate 500-600 million once a year. No, you’d need to be owned by a hedge fund for that type of thing. Lucky for the Dodgers, that’s exactly their situation.

In fact, as much as we know that Nutting could easily spend another 75-100 million, we also know they’d still be in the bottom half of payroll and with no respected ceiling, meaning essentially the faux cap, or luxury threshold, isn’t doing anything to restrict spending for the biggest of the big, we’re basically begging for Bob to get us to the point where we only lag the top spenders by 300-400 million. Oh, that’s right, with the deferred money, it doesn’t look like quite that much does it?

Listen.

Most of you don’t grasp this situation. I know that sounds harsh but I can only gauge it by what I see on social media or our own commenting section. So let’s do some learning.

It’s also not your fault, it’s not like the National media is going to tell you, they get a lot more out of just telling you 20 of the 30 teams simply don’t want to win enough. Again, we live in a market with an owner who does us no favors in this argument, but just because he is the worst example of a poopy owner, doesn’t mean the reality of what is happening in this league are false, it just means “we” probably aren’t the best people to deliver the message.

This League Needs a Salary Floor!

Yeah, it probably does. But you can’t have a salary floor in any league without the elements that make it possible. You need an entire system that includes a floor, ceiling and aggressive revenue sharing.

Yes, yes, the Pirates already get revenue sharing, and yes, they also don’t spend all of it on players. They live by the rules of this CBA, and this owner in particular does the bare minimum. Think league, not about how butt hurt you are over your own favorite franchise. It’s unproductive to focus on the bad apples, like I said, think through the lens of a team like Milwaukee who does everything they can just to stall at 1/3 the salary of the other division winners they compete with.

You can’t have a floor without the other two elements simply because you can’t ask teams to spend what they don’t have. More accurately, you can’t ask 1 owner to spend 75% of their revenue on payroll in a league that has teams where that same amount of cash would be 25% of theirs. Essentially, you can’t tell some owners they get to keep making a crap ton of money, while others have to operate a zero sum budget.

What this scenario would most likely create is a situation where most of the best players still go to the big spenders, but now the bottom feeders are forced to overpay for inferior talent just to make sure they eclipse the floor.

Would it help lower tier teams hold onto players longer? Maybe, but it wouldn’t help them compete, not in the way you hope.

Well What Numbers Would You Put on a Cap and Floor?

The numbers aren’t important, the spread is. From top to bottom there should be a relatively low spread. For instance, in the NFL teams must spend 90% of the projected Salary cap every year. Failure to do so is fined approximately 5 million per infraction and loss of draft picks, some punishments will go as far as voiding of contracts.

So again, the numbers don’t matter. Use percentages. If the cap is 400 Million, the floor should be somewhere around 375 Million, and yes, you have to have revenue sharing to make it possible.

MLB’s biggest challenge here is not having national TV, at least not enough. See, NFL teams don’t “feel” market size because Green Bay makes the same money from TV that the Giants do.

Regional cable distribution that we’ve watched slowly die over the past half decade or so, will need to completely die first, and the biggest spenders own their distribution channels, so convincing them to either share most of it or surrender to the will of the league won’t be easy, even if the Dodgers have pissed off the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs.

So no, you can’t just have a floor. Unless you just want to slap a little lipstick on this pig, but telling Bob he has to spend 120 million or whatever, I mean, look around, what difference is that making?

Other Teams Spend Because They’re Providing a Great Product and Making More

Of course this is true to a degree. The Dodgers have built an international brand, fortified by their Japanese superstar and surrounding him with a team that almost guarantees his inclusion in the playoffs every year.

They’re a bed example though. Again, they own their regional sports network, they’re owned by a hedge fund, and if you want to talk salary, they’re the only team that could pay him sand deferrals and still field a team of all stars around him.

The Padres did though, and legitimately. They have a smaller market than LA by a country mile and recent developments have made them the only team in town professionally speaking. The Padres made two decisions, one, build up around the park and improve revenue streams to be able to put a better product on the field, and second, their dearly departed owner put the money up first. In other words, he spend money to make money.

Bob could do this too. He could buy up parking near the ball park. He could invest in real estate near the park and profit off the rent business proprietors pay. But to get the rent and parking revenue to a meaningful place, he’d have to invest in the team to try to increase traffic around the park.

I’m not smart enough to put numbers to this, or talk about roadblocks the city might put up to this type of investment. I just know it hasn’t happened enough to matter. Not that I trust him to allocate the dollars anyway.

The Brewers have done all this stuff and they’re going to have to let Willy Adames walk, they had to trade Corbin Burnes, you know, it hasn’t exactly helped them “compete”.

Now that San Diego’s owner passed, we’ll see what the new one does but I’d expect them to stop trying to flirt with the luxury threshold in a division with a team that can lap them without losing a dollar.

How can you compete with a franchise that won’t ever write Ohtani a check that wasn’t funded by interest from the deferred money they have sitting around making more money. In other words, they can’t compete with a team that won’t pay a dime for the services of the best player in baseball.

It would be like you buying a car, deferring the payments for 5 years. You drive it for Uber and every dollar you make you throw in an interest bearing account and when the 5 years are up, you pay it with nothing more than interest earnings, keeping all the profits you made during those 5 years. Now make it a whole fleet, a Chevy Snell, and a Ford Hernandez along with a Porche Betts.

Now tell your friend with poor credit about your brilliant idea and see if they can pull it off too. Yeah. It’s like that.

Well, the League Has Great Parody, So Who Cares?

Well, mostly teams that accept the parody of who wins the championship in exchange for damn near assurance they’ll make the playoffs most years.

In other words, everyone accepts that once you make the playoffs anything can happen, but the top spenders, they accept this premise based on the fact they’ll be in that dance a whole hell of a lot more and the law of averages will take over.

I can’t argue that the World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers is exactly what most of the casual baseball viewing world probably wanted. Two all star squads facing off, hell, even I was intrigued, but those casual viewers, well, they probably don’t show up in April hungry for more ball.

Like here in Pittsburgh, even if this team takes a big step this year, fans will watch on opening day, and for a few weeks to see what kind of team they think they have, but if the team falls off, they’ll file out in droves. And under this structure, there will never be a day for 15-20 teams in this league where they come north from spring training and honestly believe they can stand toe to toe with the Dodgers or Yankees. You might believe you have an element like a starting rotation that can compete, but never will you line your team up next to them and think you’re the favorite, barring injury of course.

I can’t speak for every fan base, but this one, even in my most insane fever dreams of Bob selling to an altruistic owner willing to front his own money to improve our lot in life, trust me, I’m not taking it all the way to believing Juan Soto is considering wearing Black and Gold.

Conclusion

This isn’t meant to be some class on how you get to a cap system in baseball. It’s meant to be a tool to help understand the actual issues and why the solution is never as simple as pretending you can just legislate someone into not being cheap and wash your hands of the issues.

Spending big doesn’t guarantee you a championship, it never has, and it never will, you still have to play it on the field and there will always be young players like Paul Skenes who come along and help temporarily spread the talent to the dregs of the league.

That said, baseball has a developing Globetrotters VS Generals situation. The Savannah Bananas VS the Firemen if you will. They can put their heads in the sand and ignore it, just like they have for decades, but eventually, fans will stop paying for the hope their team gets the one crack they get every decade or so, less if you follow some teams of course.

I wrote this more to illustrate why it’s difficult to implement, even while it in my mind is unsustainable to leave it this way in perpetuity. I don’t think MLB is positioned to go into a full cap system when the CBA expires after the 2026 season, but I do expect them to clean up the deferral situation, even if it’s just to count the dollars against the luxury tax threshold. I do expect them to at least add in some conditions for how the revenue money is spent. I expect them to institute an international draft system, and the funny part is it’ll be because the big clubs are losing too many quality players to the system as it’s currently constituted.

They’ll make changes, they always do, but at the end of the day to the national media, it’ll always be as simple as these teams want to win more, and it’s evidenced by their brilliance in continuing to bring in great players. You know, because you thought that Hyundai you could afford was as good as your neighbor’s Land Rover all along.

It’s a problem, and I don’t have to have a solution to talk about it. Neither do you. Our general discontent is probably our best weapon.

The big boys need willing patsies, and the more they spend, the more they defer, the less willing the patsies become.

Same for their fans.

Pirates Near Future in the Multiverse

11-29-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

It’s so hard to predict how this Pirates team is going to go.

It was easy to talk about the beginning of this new regime because it was very unlikely they’d do anything that didn’t resemble a standard tear down and build up battle plan.

Well, despite where they are, they’ve very much so done that part, and figuring out what’s next, well, it’s near impossible. So I’ve decided today, let’s look at the near future in a multiverse way. You know, multiple universes where each one starts with a different choice and where they likely lead. Or, at least where I think they’d lead.

We won’t come out of this knowing what they’ll do, but we might come out of it knowing we like a few paths, as opposed to just one. Hey, maybe we’ll find so many potential good paths we’ll feel it’s insane to expect they’ll fail. LOL, ok, probably not, but lets have some fun here and see.

Pirates Timeline 1 – Status Quo

In this timeline, Ben Cherington doubles down on being right. He thumbs his nose at all of the pissing and moaning around him and says, nope, I’m right, we’re finishing the race my way.

So this means some low tier free agents, some smaller trades, but he retains his farm system as is for the most part, especially all the young pitching and decides, these guys are going to play better baseball, period.

He could of course be right or wrong. If he’s wrong, he and Derek Shelton are likely fired and the next GM and coach inherit a team that still has some nice pieces under control, and a clear mandate to take it the rest of the way. There would be next to no chance he or she would avoid trading some of that top talent, probably would want to swap out a bigger piece on the actual roster too. Change would come, but it would take at least a year longer than fans wanted.

If he’s right, it might depend on how right he was. Let’s say they make a wild card and bow out quickly. There could be enough equity built up there to allow him to stay on the path he’s decided on and allow slow progression to continue. Ideally, additional talent starts making its way here from the system and he potentially keeps the window open for half a decade.

Pressure would build to push in at least more of the chips to kick it over the edge as early as the next offseason, but perhaps fans would at least believe more in the foundation being built on.

Pirates Timeline 2 – Pushed Into Action

In this timeline, Ben Cherington and crew feel the pressure of narrowly surviving to see a 6th season and push aside their cautious nature to use the assets they have right now to maximize the time they have Paul Skenes.

I say it that way because quite simply, even in this alternate reality, there is a limit on what this team will spend. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve changed Ben’s heart, his heart doesn’t hold the purse strings. So I paint a picture that Paul Skenes is gone after his rookie deal simply because I see him selling off prospects and pushing in as many pieces of silver as he’s given to win with him, completely eliminating the plausibility of retaining him beyond.

This is unhinged Cherington. He goes scorched earth here and trades everything, bringing in salary and talent for now. Bubba, Harrington, Johnson, Griffin, Barco, whatever it takes. I won’t name players here but let’s say he lands a power hitting lefty first baseman, a corner outfielder with power and a short stop too. All of them have control for 2 or 3 years.

The rotation is good, the overall roster is good, and many of the pieces are still internally grown youngsters. It’s a good looking team ya know.

You’d like to think in 3 years, they make the playoffs, if not all three years right? You’d hope you have a division in there too, just to get that monkey off the back. That’s as far as I’ll go, get in the dance, anything can happen. Could that be a championship? Sure. Would they be favorites? Um, no, not while LA is a team.

Then it’s over unless you’ve become much better at drafting and developing in this timeline too. 3-4 years from now they’d have to move on from much of what they brought in, and yes, it would be time to be dealing Paul Skenes, and Keller, and Jones. Maybe you extend Jones or something but for the most part, you’re moving on from this “window”. Reynolds, Cruz, you know, this generation.

One way or another, it’s back to a rebuild. I can be done well, but, I mean you just watched him do this one. The best argument is he’d have better players to move to get it started.

This is a depressing end to what would be a golden age of Pirates baseball for this generation. You have to pay the price in baseball, especially if your owner won’t stretch and truthfully, there are only like 10-15 teams who wouldn’t have to perform some variation of this periodically. That’s the system, even if you want it to be as simple as some spend and some don’t.

Pirates Timeline 3 – Earth 1

In this timeline, Ben Cherington accepts at the very least the organization needs new eyes and ears with experience and heeds their advice to shoot for serving two masters. Winning now, and for a while.

Structural changes to the organization have already been made. Hitting coach replacement, with a different philosophy on how to reach players. Replacing John Baker as farm director, they can call that whatever they like but it wasn’t done because he was super successful. Bluntly, Baker had never done the job at the MLB level before, and now he’ll get help and moved to a more appropriate spot.

They’ve reinforced the pitching coach with an experienced stud whisperer in Brent Strom. Replaced the head of analytics with someone who has a much more digestible (reportedly) method of relaying the findings. And they’re handing them to a new hitting coach who is again, reportedly, very good at understanding and applying them.

All that said, many of those moves don’t pay immediate dividends, so to win now they’ll still have to make moves, and sign players.

In this timeline they limit the prospects they’re willing to part with, but not so much that they’re paralyzed. In other words, they’re willing to part with Bubba but only for a piece that helps for a while. Even then they’d try to talk you into someone else.

But they get one done, because they have to. You still have the feeling of a “pitching factory” but have also strengthened the team. And yes, you sign a guy or two.

At best, this is a wild card run team in 2025, but it looks a lot closer, gets you over .500 for damn sure.

To take this approach, you’d have to know your owner believes that kind of progress is enough to keep your job. You’re still making long range changes like replacing the International Head Scout on the ground in the Dominican Republic, and if that record in 2025 don’t keep you employed, well, you might wish you were in our first reality ya know?

You’ve at worst, handed your replacement a good situation. They’d be walking in with a decent situation in the farm system, some decent pieces to deal if they so choose, or the ability to take a ton of paths. For the organization, this would be doing a solid. Again, it’s asking a guy to be very altruistic if he thinks he’s getting canned unless this overachieves.

Pirates Timeline 4 – Festivus Reaction

In this reality, the Pirates do very little. They sign a decent outfielder, maybe an old first baseman and some relievers and they decide this team can win and improve together.

But….

They pay attention to and answer some Festivus grievances too.

The decent outfielder they sign, lets say they answer the they never sign anyone for more than a year thing right here and give this dude 3 years.

Next, let’s show everyone why we aren’t spending more on free agency and extend Paul Skenes for 10 years, and Oneil Cruz for the next 6 or so as well.

Explain to fans openly and honestly how you plan to grow payroll via these extensions. You’re trying to keep your own players here longer, instead of paying more for lesser players on the free agent market.

Hire a communicator to help, cause I don’t see the skill set in house.

These types of moves, coupled with young pitching still bubbling, it would start to change opinions on the trajectory at least.

They’d still have to do it on the field of course, and much like our last timeline, this would be little more than besting .500 and competing for a wild card unless they overachieved or some guys took bigger steps than we thought they might.

It’s not “all in”. But in many ways, it’s more of an investment than we’ve seen this club make in showing us some long term planning than they’ve mustered since the onset of regional tv money having influence on the game.

Slow and steady progress, but hope that it will last, signed right in front of you by some pieces you hope are a big reason for more, piled on top of the others they’ve retained.

Pirates Timeline 5 – Nutting Sells

A big part of me is writing this simply for the people who comment it without actually reading the damn piece. lol

Anyway.

Yup, pretty simple, Bob Sells the team. Don’t worry about to who, just someone who has the money.

This year, I mean like this pretend it’s breaking news today ok, nothing changes. A new owner isn’t coming in and at this stage of the offseason blowing things up or cleaning house. They might have their own advisors who start noodling in on things, or being the devil on the shoulder throughout the organization but functionally, I bet almost everyone survives.

For this year.

It would be an audition year for them, and the new owner. He or She might well want to make a splash and direct his new and sure to feel the axe over his neck GM to target a big free agent, get it done. Set a record, I got you.

Or, they could just ask what the budget was and increase it, leaving it up to the GM to decide how best to spend it as opposed to directing his energy into a prize.

Maybe they just come in and essentially say “as you were”, completely hands off witnessing the operation in an effort to diagnose the issues, and implement changes once they’ve seen a cycle. You know, like the team isn’t going to get purchased by someone who somehow avoids having Bob explain to them exactly why he runs it the way he does. Maybe he’s pretty convincing ya know?

Either way, I don’t think this year we’d feel it. Unless he or she is a good talker. They could talk fans into accepting their vision for the future almost regardless of how the team performs in 2025. Most fans would accept they got here and wanted to look around first, again, so long as the message was something direct like, there’s no reason we can’t increase payroll here in Pittsburgh. Say something vague like this, well, if you’re starving and someone gives you your least favorite food, you’ll bite.

Long term, you’d of course hope it gets better, again, they’d be purchasing a franchise that legitimately has one of the biggest draws in the game, that in and of itself is a great starting point, especially if you’re willing to take the types of risks that keep a player like that here so your lucky lottery pick turns into a legacy of success.

My guess is Ben and crew are done either way after 2025, if for no other reason than baseball people know baseball people and just like presidential administrations, new regimes bring in their own people, so shake ups are almost assured.

It would truly be the unknown, which alone is appealing to a fan base that has for 40 years now almost always known what was coming, and when.

Hope you enjoyed this alternate universe look at the Pirates. It’s really how you have to think about this team, because there’s one thing for sure, where they are isn’t great, time to pick a tunnel and go.

Lets Really Talk About Jared Jones

11-27-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

I’m a big fan of Jared Jones.

Many of you who’ve been reading my stuff for a long time remember he was my favorite draft choice in 2020 and as closely as I followed his progression, I can’t say I expected him to start on the 26-man roster for the Pittsburgh Pirates last year.

We’ll get into his rookie campaign here in a minute, but I first wanted to simply say, I love this kid, and I really think his future is bright, I also think I’m starting to see some projections for him in 2025 that I’m sorry, are simply unrealistic.

If you really look into Jared’s pitch mix you’ll see he has 4 pitches. If you actually watch him pitch, you’ll see he really has 2. A fastball and a slider, both plus pitches, together more than enough to miss bats and collect outs at the MLB level. Look Jared is an MLB pitcher in every way, but unless that 2 starts looking like 2.5 or 2.75 or dare I suggest 3, he’s going to struggle to hold onto a starting role.

I can already hear you correcting me. Yes, again, he throws a curve ball, about 9% of the time, and yes he also has a changeup, and he uses it about 7% of the time. In baseball, and more accurately MLB, you can have pitches, or you can HAVE them. Jared has them. For now.

In those 16% of his pitches thrown, the devil lies.

He threw a total of 178 Curveballs last year, hitters raked .348 of that juicy pitch. It’s not just where it goes, it’s how well he knows where it’s going. If you can’t put a pitch like this where you want it, its likely to get smacked.

Pay particular attention to how much the edges of this profile look. The more irregular this shape is, the less you’re throwing the ball repeatably where you want it.

One major flaw in this is that I have no data to compare it to. I don’t have 2023 to show you that he’s improved or stayed the same. I also don’t have plot points for when he and the pitching coaches tried to implement changes.

The pitch is a work in progress. One that quite frankly, he doesn’t have to complete, IF he gets the changeup nailed down.

But he does need one of them.

Here’s why. Because as sexy as it was when he first came up and piped 100 past everyone right down the middle, over time hitters will find a way to hit that, and he’s shown that 100 is not a velocity he can carry for a season. If you’re really honest, you knew that even as he was doing it. If all you have to offset it is a slider, well, that can work, but you better be able to land that slider in the zone or hitters will pick up spin of any kind and spit on it.

And that’s if the slider is working. If it drifts up in the zone, well, look for yourself.

To right handed hitters and lefties alike, that slider is deadly down in the zone on the edges.

Drift up or leave it center cut, there’s a whole lotta red on that chart.

It’s a swinging strike pitch for Jared, certainly something you want to have, but it’s also not a pitch that is going to get a ton of takes.

Around the edges, or down in the zone, he’s money, with just about everything.

It’s year 2 for Jared, and he won’t carry the weight of being THE exciting young pitcher who nobody can take their eyes off of considering his rotation mate Paul Skenes. He doesn’t need to be the steadying force who eats 200 innings, that role is supposedly taken by Mitch Keller.

No, Jared just needs to take a step, even if it’s a small one and he’ll be a valuable member of the rotation.

I think that’s doable, but I also think more is plausible. It’s just incredibly hard to watch someone progress normally when they’re pitching next to a freak who defies all of that stuff, and it will eat into the patience some fans have for what in any other environment would be seen as normal progression.

If Paul Skenes weren’t here, Jared Jones would have been the brightest point of light for Pirates in 2024, a definitive reason for hope. Someone we could build a rotation around. Well, he’s still all of that, he’s just not Paul Skenes. Instead, he’s potentially on a track like Spencer Strider, which again, before we had Skenes to measure next to seemed like an incredibly sexy comp.

Development is not linear, but it has been for Jones. He’s been on an upward trajectory since he was drafted, expect that to change this year while he continues to learn and add to his mix. Be excited about him, but be reasonable too, he isn’t Paul, he’s Jared Jones.

Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – Paradise City

11-25-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

Just about every time I’ve sat down to write during this offseason my mind has been filled with the same thoughts. Essentially, here are the places they need to add, here’s how I think they might attack it, and after that, there’s really precious little to discuss that isn’t at least a little predictive.

That’s fine, prediction is part of all this of course, but where the Pirates are right now, I think you’re lying to yourself for the most part. There’s a lot of bad bets out there, some based on little more than the near constant drum beat that for some reason the Pirates are going to do less this offseason than the last one.

Logically, this seems silly to me, but I’m not spending my every waking minute thinking I’m convincing the owner to sell or fire people either, so I really see no reason to expect such a happening.

Thing is, I might think it’s silly, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

It’s make or break time for this club and the truth is, no matter what they put together this offseason, we probably won’t know what it’s going to look like until it starts playing out.

So Happy Thanksgiving week everyone, and let’s do my all time favorite band too, Guns N Roses.

1. November Rain

Yeah, I was humming this to myself walking around a very wet Light Up Night in Pittsburgh this weekend, but this would probably be more accurately put November Reign, because Termarr Johnson has absolutely ruled November, with excellent stints in the Arizona Fall League and now for Team USA.

In the AFL he didn’t put together a high average, but nobody wanted to pitch to him either. 54 plate appearances, led to only 40 at bats. A .250 average but his extra base hits combined with 14 walks created an OPS of .919.

It’s important to remember, this kid is only 20. Fans have largely forgotten that as he’s been around for a while, but the frustration with his development, well, it’s overblown, again, he’s 20, finished the season with AA Altoona and he’ll very likely be 21 in AAA.

Far too early to pretend you or anyone else knows what he’ll be, but he’s certainly not the bust many have decided they already see.

The Pirates have pitching they can deal for help, but anyone who wants Johnson in my mind should be refused. This organization doesn’t have enough bats like this to pretend they can deal from it.

Yes, the team needs to improve right now, but they can’t afford to make moves that hurt their ability to produce their own hitters, especially the ones that are close. Termarr is that, close, and his swing has never looked more pure.

I for one think he’ll take a spot on this roster before the end of the season, and when he gets here, we’ll again have to force ourselves to remember just how young he is. Every level he jumps is another level he’s the youngest or close to the youngest player there, some kids thrive in that, others wilt, Termarr has more of the mental game down than most will achieve in a career.

Get excited about this one, I really think it’s safe, and I don’t think you’ll be waiting all that long to see it at PNC.

2. Double Talkin’ Jive

There’s a chorus line in this song that plays in my head just about every time I hear a team official speak. “Double Talkin’ Jive get the F out Mother F’er cause I’ve got no more patience”

It’s almost too perfect, maybe Axl was a Pirates fan.

Way back when the Pirates were first shopping for a new GM, my one hope wasn’t for some talent evaluation expert, or an analytics wonk, or even someone who had a ton of success with trades. No, what I wanted more than anything was a communicator, specifically one who didn’t act as though he was smarter than everyone else watching. One who admitted mistakes, and clearly outlined how they’d fix them.

Someone who could clearly articulate the challenges of managing this franchise in this system without making it sound hopeless or that the problem is our failure to be patient.

I’ve been disappointed by this and considering they have Travis Williams to in theory help in this department, I’m doubly disappointed.

At the end of the day, the only communication that will change hearts is the action of winning, but had they done a much better job of explaining the process on the way here, perhaps patience wouldn’t be at the depth it currently sits.

Look, it’s easy to say you want to hear the truth, but there are reasons that’s off the table for certain things, for instance, a GM by MLB rule is not allowed to comment on a free agent player negotiation. They can say they talked, but they can’t confirm or deny any amounts, they also can’t disclose medical information or anything else that might have led them to not signing a guy.

That’s one reason and one situation, but these types of things are littered all throughout baseball.

That still doesn’t excuse how just simple English could help fans buy in more. Instead, this team chose to hang their hat on the “get better” phrase and visibly not do so.

Again, do we want the truth? What if they had come out and said the first 3 years were about buying time for prospects to get here, not trying to win. It’s what happened, none of us are dumb, we know that, so why didn’t they just say it?

By choosing to pretend they had a chance to really improve in say 2022, it makes saying it this offseason less believable.

When you’re selling a process, you better be pretty clear about when and how it plays out. We simply have not been given a lot of reason to believe they’re telling us what’s what, and even if they actually do come through this year, many won’t forget the 4 or 5 times they were mislead.

3. Welcome to the Jungle

The Pirates decided to non-tender Connor Joe, Bryan De La Cruz and Hunter Stratton last week, and while I already wrote about this, I guess now I’m going to write about the reactions a bit.

First thing to say here is, Hunter will likely re-sign on a minor league deal. The other two, well, maybe it’s best if we just talk about some suggested reasons these moves were made I’ve heard since the news dropped.

They Chose to Keep Ji-Hwan Bae and Alika Williams over Connor Joe and Bryan De La Cruz – I mean, technically, yeah, but they aren’t in 40-man trouble. Meaning, these moves weren’t made to make room to keep anyone, they were made independently. Bae and Williams weren’t up for arbitration, if they were, solid chance they too are on the unemployment line.

Why wouldn’t they at least try with De La Cruz? – Well, they could have I guess. 3.8 or 4 million is a lot to spend on a player you almost for sure have to upgrade on entering the season. If they don’t bring in someone better, this argument becomes valid, especially if he does what he did in Miami before being traded. That homerun total would get people talking regardless of all the other stuff he clearly didn’t do well.

The Pirates gave up 2 top 20 prospects for him! – Well, yeah, but neither are anywhere near MLB, and if you ask me, neither will be. A worthy shot, especially when you take into account Miami wanted more and asked for it from every team interested. Trades like this don’t work out all the time, but these types of deals are things a team like this has to try on occasion.

It’s not like they’ll actually upgrade, this was just to save money – OK. I mean, what do you want me to say? I personally think both of these players can be upgraded on and fairly easily. I also think Nick Yorke, Billy Cook and Jared Triolo essentially made Connor Joe expendable. Even if he’s an MLB average player, these 3 could all easily be that too. At the end of the day, these players are yes, cheaper, but also, far more room before reaching their ceilings. At this point, the Pirates essentially decided Connor and BDLC had both already reached that point or at least were close enough to it that another year wasn’t likely to change their opinion.

Back at the beginning of the offseason, I told you this team was going to have to cut from somewhere or there simply wouldn’t be anywhere to upgrade, well, welcome to somewhere. Now it’s up to them to show us how much better they can be.

4. Bad Apples

The Pirates chose to make very few staff changes after finishing with the same losing record 2 consecutive years, so they better hope their issues were due to a couple bad apples and that they disposed of them before they spoiled the whole bunch.

Andy Haines wasn’t the guy standing there with a bat on his shoulders but this team is full of kids who have known nothing else and honestly, while I have hope Matt Hague will bring in a fresh set of eyes, I also fear he’s going to have to spend time breaking bad habits before he can instill new ones.

My fear is that they waited too long to make this move. Nick Gonzales has improved, but he’s had Haines in his ear from the first official at bat he took as a prospect. He knows nothing else professionally speaking anyway, and it makes me wonder how he’ll react. After all, he did fight through and manage to reach the league, then hold his own. In other words, it was at least to a degree working for him. Yeah, we all saw the shortcomings too, and I’m sure he’s not satisfied with what he accomplished, but he’s been slowly building and when you have that working, it can be really hard to change things. Or, maybe more accurately, be mindful to not change too much.

Others like Jack Suwinski are highly impressionable. He’ll take lessons he’s taught and even if they contradict, he’ll do everything he can to follow all of them. He also does his best work developing in the offseason and here he is with a new coach that I’m sure will try his best to gather information and understand what he is, where he’s been and what he could be, but that’s a tough job, for both sides of this equation.

A big part of what Hague brings to the table is supposed to be distilling information and presenting it in such a way as to keep the hitter free in the box.

He’s got his work cut out for him. Some of these guys probably like all that information, think it’s helping them and might still ask for it, regardless of what Hague thinks is the right way to go.

It was obvious if nothing else, Haines wasn’t helping many players reach a better version of themselves, here’s hoping Hague has more success, because that success will breed more trust, and he’ll desperately need that to actually achieve his goals as the new Pirates Hitting Coach.

5. Don’t Damn Me

When you’ve been writing and talking about the Pirates for as long as I have, it’s near impossible to hide your opinions.

Yet almost every day someone reads a Facebook post or Tweet and decide they know everything I believe.

I have almost 2,000 articles published on various sites, and close to 500 hours of audio out there, I couldn’t hide my opinions if I wanted to. LOL

If you want to have a conversation about baseball, I’m more than happy to. If you want to start by telling me a list of things I clearly believe, don’t expect me to just accept the false accusations and pretend it’s ok. It’s not.

See, I can say that the Pirates did a great job managing Paul Skenes first professional season and it doesn’t have to mean I think they’ve done an equally good job with anyone else, let alone everyone.

I can say it’s perfectly fine to decide Bryan De La Cruz isn’t good enough or worth the money and it doesn’t mean I’m predicting they have a sure fire All Star in their sites.

It’s not just me, we do this to each other on social media every day. Try reading what people actually say, not assuming you have the key to decipher every intended word in between the lines.

I have one goal and it’s to call Balls and Strikes, even if I personally expect more balls than strikes when it comes to this team.

The argument that something can’t happen because it usually doesn’t, well, that’s ok, but isn’t Paul Skenes an example of something that quite literally doesn’t happen here? Maybe let’s start talking about what is, instead of what was. It’s not like it’ll change where this whole thing goes anyway, might as well judge every situation individually and try to use the information we currently have.

I want to talk about baseball, and I’d like to do it in such a way as to entertain any thought that might be even considered crazy. That’s a lot more fun, if you start deciding what will and won’t happen based on history. Sure, history should inform us, but if we use it as uncompromising gospel, where the hell is the fun of talking ball going to come from?

The only thing you have to fear is being wrong, and honestly, who cares? Be wrong, have fun, talk about the game like I don’t know, it’s an actual game.

How Do the Pirates Show Urgency, and Still Give Opportunity to Youth?

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

There is a definitive aura in the fan base right now, and it’s best boiled down to, enough is enough. Fans want a winner, and there isn’t much desire to hear about plans, or improvement or growth, development, whatever you can think of that doesn’t have impact like tomorrow, next to nobody wants to talk about it.

That’s fine for fans, they can do whatever they like and believe they know better, that’s their job. A team executive though, well, he better make sure he looks at the landscape of his team and properly evaluates the difference between hoping a guy improves and real tangible signs that a guy is actively improving.

This team has a ton of this all around the diamond, truly. Even performers who lean a bit toward the proven side have a trend, or things they struggle with, or position uncertainty, it’s all over the place.

I mean, think about this, the Pirates All Star, extended, proven and consistent starting left fielder, quite literally might be moving to first base. If he is, the team is going to be placing a bet that he can do it well enough that defense over there isn’t an issue. They’ve already cut one of the safety net players over there in Connor Joe. That means as we sit here, first base is Endy Rodriguez, who’s played there a bit, but has not played in MLB in over a year due to injury. He’s also a talented catcher and not to add to the murky depths here, but the “starting” catcher Joey Bart, well, he’s only really had 1 solid season in MLB, and it was last year after the Pirates acquired him. Health has been a big issue for Joey and let’s be real, he did next to nothing to control the running game along with his pitchers.

I can do this all night.

If you pressed me to do it and made up a 26-man out of the existing 40-man members, I promise you, I could absolutely talk about every single player on the team, bring up their question marks, talk about how they effect two or three other players and cast doubt on the entire team.

This is not uncommon on a young baseball team and yes, the Pirates are that, a very young baseball team.

Like, let’s circle back to Reynolds moving or not. If he moves, ok, in theory it fills a big hole, and for years to come at first base. A problem this team has had for, well, most of my life. So, I can get behind this move, plus, while I don’t feel Bryan is a poor fielder, I can’t avoid that defensive metrics certainly do. I say this while acknowledging I’m not a fan of these metrics, I think they leave a lot to be desired as it comes to accuracy, but I also can’t pretend that the baseball world feels the same.

So he’s at first. He’s going to play just about every day. They’ll rest him and have him DH here and there, but this is a player who plays north of 155 games every single year.

That takes first base away from some of the things you could potentially do to get Endy Rodriguez or Henry Davis, or even potentially Joey Bart opportunities over there. Look, of those 3, only Endy is a ready made option over there, but you have to think they’d at least consider seeing what the other two look like over there.

Even if it’s not Reynolds there, say they sign a free agent, the position is filled, and now 2 outfield spots are too, because Reynolds would be back in the outfield.

I bother talking about all that primarily because, I don’t really love any of the free agent first basemen out there and it’s super hard to plan on a trade. You can pursue one, you can fancy one, even target one, but it’s super hard to leave something virtually empty while you try for a move that could take into Spring Training to complete.

My biggest fear when I look at this roster is the lack of safety net at the positions of need. Moving Reynolds weakens the outfield, but potentially sews up first base. Move Reynolds you probably need 2 outfielders. Don’t move Reynolds you need a much more elusive target. Unless you want to trust an untested rookie, or I guess you think Jared Triolo should get another crack at holding down a starting spot somewhere.

Short stop is a position fans seem to have just accepted will be Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and hey, I get why, they’ve made it seem like that’s their preference too, but man, I don’t really feel settled in the entire infield.

They have Ke’Bryan Hayes, we all know the issues there, IKF, Nick Gonzales, Liover Peguero, Jared Triolo, they kept Ji-Hwan Bae and Alika Williams for the time being so you have to count them, and if you really want to dig deep, they have Termarr Johnson having a very busy Winter playing baseball for the AFL and Team USA.

That’s some pieces. Some pieces I kinda like too, but you can’t lock in those positions and feel super good can you? Now, they can upgrade, either via trade or free agency, but I’d imagine they want to give Hayes every chance to at the very least make himself valuable again. they are paying IKF more than Hayes, so let’s not pretend he’s just going to sit. Nick Gonzales had an ok rookie season, but he has some things to prove yet, including is the power going to come?

You can replace him of course, but man, now you’re asking him to keep getting better, on the bench. You probably have to look to move Peguero, the others are largely fodder anyway right? Termarr isn’t going to happen before mid to late season if at all.

I can’t tell you this team should enter 2025 without upgrading 2B or SS. I won’t say both, because I don’t think they need both, but one sure fire player at either spot would deepen this lineup. I do think though after looking at this, we should expect them to do just that. It just feels to me like it almost has to be that way.

Oh yeah, I guess I should have mentioned Trey Cabbage in the first base mix, but bluntly, I don’t want to go there, I want to believe that’s simply a clone of Jake Lamb last year.

This team needs to fill spots all over the diamond because no matter how you slice it, they have holds. They also have some flexibility on where those holes will be the biggest.

I’ll be real with you, more than any other metric, the fact that I can’t go around the diamond and tell you 5 or 6 spots with locks to start is a problem. Good players get locked in quick, and we simply aren’t at a place with this roster, yet, where you can do such an exercise.

It’s a lot to trust a GM with, and I mean that even if you trust the GM. It’s impractical to go around replacing every maybe when you’re supposedly trying to build 90% of your team internally, at some point you have to trust your development, the thing is, you really want to see things like this in like year 3, not 5 or 6. I’m not going to rehash how we got here, but I am going to say it all comes to a head this year.

Predictions are just about out for me. There are far too many variables, and as I touched on earlier, that’s the very last thing I wanted to see at this stage. All along this journey what have I constantly pointed to at the beginning and end of every season? Right… the questions.

The questions they needed to be answering while we were wasting time with Josh Van Meter. The things we needed to see while we had no chance of winning and no solid shortstop and Liover Peguero played in AAA.

It’s make or break this year, and folks, it was going to be whether we were pissed off or not. We’re to the point of the game where all the Monopoly properties have been purchased, everyone has hotels on everything they can put them on.

This offseason we roll the dice and see what happens.

They’ll sign guys. They’ll make moves. But they’ll very much so enter this season with some hopes and wishes too. I just don’t see any way around it.

Pirates Make Non-Tender Decisions

11-22-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

We’re well into the offseason and with it comes procedural moves. Today, the “Non-Tender Deadline” rears it’s usually interesting head.

Let’s just explain what happens here, just in case we have folks checking in who haven’t bothered to learn all of MLB’s silly rules, procedures or deadlines for performing the actions they outline.

Earlier in the year you probably saw a lot of chatter about players getting “Qualifying Offers” that’s a bit different. That’s for pending free agents, the team is essentially saying, “we want you, we’re willing to pay you this large amount based on MLB formulas for payment” They go from there and negotiate with everyone including the qualifying offer team and if they ultimately don’t sign with anyone, they can just take the QO deal for a year, or they can sign a long term and rip up the QO, of course they could sign elsewhere in which case the QO team gets a draft pick as compensation for being pillaged.

This is the Non-Tender deadline. In other words, teams have to decide today not what they’ll pay these arbitration eligible players, only that they are willing to pay whatever the arbitration process produces should they have to actually take it to arbitration. Many of these players will sign actual contracts for 1 season to “avoid arbitration”, but make no mistake, arbitration is still guiding what those offers are and both sides would prefer to avoid the process as it is quite literally just players being told how little they’re worth and leads to hard feelings.

If a player is actually Non-Tendered, they become a free agent.

Lastly, the reason you don’t see names like Nick Gonzales, or Bryan Reynolds, or Mitch Keller, well, they either haven’t reached arbitration yet, or they have a signed contract with no arbitration eligibility.

In many cases, you’ll see actual contracts announced on Non-Tender deadline day, sometimes the decision itself is very much so about the player agreeing to take this path. meaning, let’s say they don’t want to pay David Bednar $6.6 Million, a very valid thought right? Solid chance they announce they’ve signed him to like $5.8 Million for 2025 and they’ll avoid arbitration. Just an example, and it’s valid no matter what outcomes I write down there for explaining how these things come to be.

This deadline can also shake free some guys you didn’t have in the Free Agent pool. I’m not saying we should want him, but an example here is Austin Hays, an Outfielder from Philadelphia and formerly Baltimore. Again, not a suggestion, just an example. In that case, you’ll often see some of these decisions become about the 40-man spot, or a DFA of a player who isn’t even on this list to make room will happen.

Lastly, you’ll also see some guys non-tendered and then re-signed. Someone like Ben Heller fits this profile, it’s an effort to keep him but not lock in on having him on the 40-man. In this case it has more to do with being unsure of the player than the price tag.

Sorry if that’s repetitive for some of you, but I often get told by readers that some people need a bit more of the procedural explanation stuff I’ve come to take for granted.

Lets move on.

Non-Tendered Pirates

Hunter Stratton:
Hunter won’t be healthy to start the season, but according to Noah Hiles of the Post Gazette, the team is interested in signing him to a minor league deal.

Connor Joe (3.136): Estimated Arbitration Award $3.2MM
Connor played 2 full seasons for the Pirates after being acquired from the Colorado Rockies. A versatile player, Joe showed the ability to carry the team during spells in each of those seasons, only to fall on tough times in the second half. When he was hot, he was hard to sit down, by the time you noticed he wasn’t hitting anymore, you’ve already burnt a month waiting for it to come back. This is a good sign the Pirates plan to upgrade as cutting ties with Joe weakens the depth at both 1B and the OF.

Bryan De La Cruz (3.056): Estimated Arbitration Award $4MM
This one comes as a bit of a surprise to most fans. Not because he deserved to be tendered, but we just watched Ben Cherington send out two prospects for his services with the main selling point being that he came with years of control. The power he showed in Miami simply didn’t follow him to Pittsburgh and if Bryan De La Cruz isn’t hitting homeruns, he really offers precious little else. Again, no matter what you think of him, he’ll sign and play Major League Baseball somewhere next year, the Pirates are parting with depth here too. Signing an Outfielder or two is all but assured as Jack Suwinski until they add to their roster becomes the opening day starting right fielder as we sit here.

Here’s The List of Players Offered Arbitration

Dennis Santana (4.126): Estimated Arbitration Award $1.8MM

David Bednar (4.076): Estimated Arbitration Award $6.6MM

Johan Oviedo (3.079): Estimated Arbitration Award $1.5MM

Joey Bart (3.020): Estimated Arbitration Award $1.8MM

Colin Holderman (2.144): Estimated Arbitration Award $1.4MM

Bailey Falter (2.138): Estimated Arbitration Award $2.8MM

NL Central Top Prospects – Down On The Farm

11-19-24 – By Corey Shrader – @CoreyShrader on X

With the Major League offseason in its infancy, now felt like an appropriate time to take a wide scope view of the farm system landscape across the National League Central. It is important to consider that prospects are the lifeblood of organizations. Not just because a good developmental system can help sustain competition windows, but because they are capital, for lack of a better term. Having access to a deeper pool of controllable talent is both the brick & mortar of building those sustainable teams and it is a well from which to draw from to add to a team via trades.

For the sake of attempting to not go too far into the weeds, I wanted to limit this exercise to just a top 10 for Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, & Cincinnati. There will be no inclusion of the Pirates prospects here because I am going to assume anyone who embarks on reading this is familiar with their hometown farmhands. Furthermore, there is no shortage of Pirates specific writing on this. The aim is more along the lines of providing some familiarity with what the other divisional organizations are working with. I am not going to talk about each and every player, writing 40 individual blurbs seems like overkill for this exercise.  It is my hope that this overview will be stimulating or at least discussion provoking.

Before getting into the lists, I would like to put my cards on the table and say these are my own personal rankings based on my own preferences. The rankings you will see are how I feel as of November 2024 and once the Minor League season begins will become quite fluid. There are many, many high quality outlets that put out content on prospects all year round with rankings that might be quite different from what you see here. I am by no means a professional scout, so I welcome any differences of opinion and would love to talk about them. If this sort of thing interests you, I’d recommend going on X, The Website Formerly Known as Twitter, and seeking out folks that cover these teams on a daily basis, it is a great way to get to Know Your Enemy.

I think that is enough preamble, let’s start.

Milwaukee Brewers Top 10:

Jesus Made, SS

Cooper Pratt, SS

Jacob Misiorowski, P

Jefferson Quero, C

Yophery Rodriguez, OF

Luke Adams, 1B

Brock Wilken, 3B

Josh Knoth, P

Logan Henderson, P

Eric Bitonti, OF

The Brewers have a supremely interesting farm system. For me, it is headlined by DSL standout, Jesus Made. Admittedly, ranking a 17 year old who has not surpassed the Dominican League #1 is risky (this does seem to be becoming a consensus in the industry though) but Made is viewed as the best player in the DSL in 2024. He is a good candidate to jump straight to A ball at just 18 ala Jackson Chourio. Pratt had a standout campaign making it to A+ at just 19. Misiorowski’s profile remained about the same, electric but little command. Quero missed most all year, but is still a premium C prospect. Luke Adams is a personal favorite of mine and despite an unconventional swing, has done nothing but produce. Watchout for Yophery Rodriguez to be a big gainer as he held his own in A ball at just 18 after skipping the Complex altogether. Eric Bitonti finished in A ball and flashed enormous power potential. 

Chicago Cubs Top 10:

Matt Shaw, 3B

Kevin Alcantara, OF

Owen Caissie, OF

Moises Ballesteros, C

Cade Horton, P

Cam Smith, 3B

Jefferson Rojas, SS

Brandon Birdsell, P

James Triantos, 3B/2B

Jonathan Long, 1B

Matt Shaw has a puncher’s chance to break camp with the Cubbies as he laid waste to AA & AAA in 2024. Alcantara made his debut, but it was so small I’m keeping him on the list, he has electric tools. Owen Caissie is another favorite of mine and slightly underrated. He strikes me as a prospect in a similar mold to the Twins Emmanuel Rodriguez with prodigious power potential and on base skills. Cade Horton was poised to join the upper tiers of pitching prospects but was slowed by a shoulder injury, tbd on where he will be for 2025. Cam Smith tore through 3 levels of MiLB ball and finished in AA after being drafted 14th overall in 2024. Brandon Birdsell enjoyed a breakout at AAA and has put himself firmly on the radar to debut in 2025.

St. Louis Cardinals Top 10:

Tink Hence, P

Quinn Mathews, P

JJ Wetherholt, SS

Cooper Hjerpe, P

Chase Davis, OF

Darlin Saladin, P

Chen-Wei Lin, P

Sem Robberse, P

Rainiel Rodriguez, C

Jimmy Crooks, C

The top 3 for St. Louis could be ordered in any way you see fit. I placed Tink Hence and Quinn Mathews at 1 & 2 because they both have front of the rotation potential and could get Big League experience in 2025. JJ Wetherholt was the 7th overall pick in 2024 and tuned up A ball in his debut, his ascension will be fun to watch. Chase Davis had a supremely disappointing start to the season in A ball, but finished strong at A+ & AA. Darlin Saladin has some of the most gnarly looking stuff in the organization & Chen-Wei Lin is not far behind. Rainiel Rodriguez put up a performance up there with anyone at the DSL and needs to be watched carefully.

Cincinnati Reds Top 10:

Chase Burns, P

Alfredo Duno, C

Sal Stewart, 3B

Chase Petty, P

Cam Collier, 3B

Edwin Arroyo, SS

Sammy Stafura, SS

Tyson Lewis, SS

Adam Serwinowski, P

Zach Maxwell, RP

With pick 2 in the 2024 the Reds took Chase Burns the electric RHP out of Wake Forest. He’s got frontline potential. Alfredo Duno performed admirably in A ball at just 18 years old & he boasts enormous power. Sal Stewart looks the part of a professional hitter. His power began to tick up at A+ in 2024 and that will really round out his game should it continue. Chase Petty had some ups and downs but finished in AAA and has great stuff. Still extremely young Cam Collier showed his big time bat in A+ and looks like he has a bright future. Adam Serwinowski showed some very exciting potential in 2024 and has very promising stuff. Zach Maxwell has nuclear grade stuff and looks to have the “closer of the future” designation in Cincinnati.

Whew! Well, that was about as brief as I could be in trying to capture my thoughts on these organizations’ top 10 prospects. Did I miss anyone? Was I off the mark? Let me know in the comments.

Paul Skenes caps off historic 2024 campaign with Rookie of the Year Award win

11-18-24 Ethan Smith– @mvp_EtHaN

Well, all the hoopla is on the wayside.

Paul Skenes, who was drafted and signed in the summer of 2023, has been named the 2024 Jackie Robinson National League Rookie of the Year.

https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1858653069975724390

Skenes received 23 of a possible 30 first place votes for the award, beating out San Diego Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill and Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio for the nomination. Chicago Cubs pitcher Shoto Imanaga also received votes.

https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1858654086163558640

Skenes 2024 campaign was already special, and well, historic, and the Rookie of the Year award win makes it even more historic, as Skenes became the first pitcher in MLB history to win Rookie of the Year, start and All-Star Game and post a sub-2.00 ERA and 10.00-plus K/9, and not just in the same season folks, no one has done that across their entire career, ever.

The right-hander also became the first Pittsburgh Pirates player to win the award since outfielder Jason Bay won in 2004.

https://twitter.com/MLBNetwork/status/1858653632037634450

Skenes was revolutionary already in his short time with Pittsburgh, breaking through multiple Pirates rookie pitching records after debuting on May 11 versus Chicago, posting a 1.96 ERA with 170 strikeouts and a 0.95 WHIP in 133.0 IP.

Skenes joins pretty good company with this win as well, becoming the first National League starter to win the award since Jacob DeGrom in 2014.

The Rookie of the Year Award is the start for Skenes, who was also nominated as a finalist for the NL Cy Young Award alongside Atlanta Braves southpaw Chris Sale and Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Zach Wheeler, and although he is not the odds on favorite to win the award, one could assume it won’t be the last time Skenes is a finalist for the Cy Young.

Congratulations of course to Paul Skenes on winning NL Rookie of the Year and if there was ever a time to consider extending the fireballer, what better time than now?

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.