The Pirates have been on a bit of a hot streak, winning 4 straight games including their first series sweep since before the All Star Break – though, the visiting Kansas City Royals have won 5 of their last 7 following a 7-game losing streak.
The Royals have been this season’s Cinderella story as they rebounded from losing 106 games last season to being on the precipice of their first post-season berth since their World Series victory in 2015 led by future AL MVP-finalist, Bobby Witt Jr., who is playing elite defense and about to post the 2nd 30/30 season in team history.
Royals: Tommy Pham – Since being cut by the Cardinals and signed by the Royals as a free agent, Pham has been on a tear, posting a .317/.364/.512 slash line with 2 doubles and 2 home runs in just 10 games since signing with the Royals
Pirates: Andrew McCutchen – For being the oldest player on the team, you REALLY can’t tell sometimes. Cutch went off this week, going 5-for-10 with a double and two home runs over his last three games. Without a doubt, if he is healthy and wants to come back in 2025, he’s going to be offered a chance to play another year in black and gold.
Royals: Bobby Witt Jr. – Despite still having the best batting average in MLB (.333) and 4th best in OPS (.980), Witt is experiencing the closest thing to a slump that he’s had this year. Over his last 55 plate appearances, he is batting just .192 with a 62 wRC+ over a 13 game stretch.
Pirates: Rowdy Tellez – Rowdy has only 1 hit in his last 15 at-bats and just 3 hits over 25 ABs this month after posting a .310/.346/.533 slash line from June 1 through August 31.
Key Injuries
Royals: Vinnie Pasquantino (broken right thumb) had surgery recently to repair his thumb and likely will be out for the remainder of the season, ending a promising year for the Royals first baseman who had 19 home runs and 97 RBI before his injury.
Pirates: No new injuries
Team Notes
As good as the Royals have been, most of the damage has been at home. They are 45-30 at home compared to 35-37 on the road with a team .759 OPS playing in Kansas City compared to .690 OPS on the road.
The Pirates have only successfully swept one team in a 3-game series this season, taking all three games against the Chicago White Sox prior to the All Star break. However, they won all 4 games when they faced the Marlins in Miami to start the year and are poised for a rare season sweep of the Fish if they can beat them again today, facing spot starter Jonathan Bermudez.
The once-Top 30 prospect in the Astros system, Burmudez has struggled to break through to the majors, spending the better part of 5 seasons in the minors before finally breaking through with the Marlins last month.
The 6’2 southpaw has just 4.2 major league innings under his belt and likely wouldn’t be expected to pitch too deep into the game but it’s still important to know what to expect:
Burmudez essentially has three pitches: a high-80s 4-seam fastball, a low-80s changeup and a slider/sweeper pitch that ranges from low-70s to low-80s. He is a prototypical lefty pitcher with low velocity, strikeout potential and messy control.
Over his minor league career, he has a 26.2% K rate but also a 9.8% walk rate and those numbers have trended in the wrong direction with a 23.6% K rate and 11.6% walk rate this season between 17 games split between AA and AAA.
Similar to yesterday with Oller, Pirates will want to be patient at the plate and make Bermudez work into the zone rather than letting him expand it.
Look for the high fastball – which MLB opponents are batting .556 against in a small sample size – and attack them.
When I started writing about the Pirates I remember someone laughing about how hard it would be to come up with things to write about. Joke was on them, because this team makes me ask questions every day. Sometimes it’s as simple as why?
See, for many the answer is simply Bob Cheap or Shelton Dumb, or Cherington Failure, and those things certainly crop up as part of the solution, but they’re hardly as plain as people want to make them.
In fact, one of the things I force myself to do is steel manning the question. I may come down on a subject right where I started, but I love the exercise of playing the entire thing out. Maybe there’s something I missed or didn’t think of that clears the whole thing up, maybe I remain just as confused as when I started, either way, good luck surprising me with an angle I didn’t at least consider.
Alika Williams’ Ceiling
Despite what we’ve seen from any prospect or young player, there’s usually a very simple answer as to why you want to see more of a guy as a team, the player’s ceiling. Some guys have a perceived ceiling largely based on where they were drafted and it’ll follow them from organization to organization as front offices always think there is a chance others failed to unlock what they surely can.
Alika has that kind of pedigree, and defensively, he’s a dream. Now, the other night on the broadcast I heard Greg Brown propose that if he could only hit .260 he’d get All Star Game consideration.
When I was done laughing, I figured Greg just woke up that day feeling like it was 1983 and a short stop who did more than slap a single here and there was still a strange occurrence.
Alika has shown an ability to hit in the minors, a little. He’d found a little power in AA with Tampa, and he showed a bit more in Indianapolis along with average. Worth a shot last year, sure.
This year, he’s been a part time player regardless of where he’s been.
In other words, he’s not seen as a starter regardless of what level they have him playing.
So, why is he playing now?
The ceiling I talked about earlier? Well, I think that theoretical All Star Short Stop Greg Brown mentioned on the broadcast, not only do I not believe that to be an All Star any longer, but I also think it’s mighty generous.
I just want to know why him? Even if he hits his ceiling, let’s be real, you’d be looking to upgrade right?
I’m all for seeing what you have, and if the Pirates think they have room to keep a glove first, utility guy who’s value drops exponentially if he fills in anywhere but short stop and might at best become a single hitting small ball specialist, hey, keep going fellas.
Andrew McCutchen’s Knee
I admire Andrew McCutchen, for more than just being a baseball player, but being a Pittsburgher. He’s a leader and he’s showing it every time he plays on that gimpy knee.
It’s admirable and if this team were in a playoff race or if Cutch had come out and said this season is it for me, I’m totally on board with it. Go out on your terms big boy!
But that’s not the situation.
This team isn’t playing for anything but maybe Derek Shelton’s job if you believe that’s still on the table. Andrew has a stated intention to return in 2025 so this isn’t his swan song.
Couple things here.
First, this isn’t entirely on the team, clearly it’s what Cutch wants too, which I can understand from both sides, he is managing to be productive and Andrew has a finite amount of time to keep making his slim case for the Hall of Fame.
That said, if both sides plan to bring Cutch back, and every indication is that they will, let’s get the knee right so he can have a normal Spring unlike this year. If it’s going to require being scoped, let’s get it done and give him a shot at playing the type of game he wants to play next year.
Let’s also take advantage of the DH spot to see more at bats from guys we’ve called up, even if Billy Cook is the only one.
I don’t know, again, I have mad respect for what he’s doing. But nobody remembers that Kirk Gibson homerun and him limping around the bases if it happens in September and gives you 73 wins on the season.
Seeing Andrew struggle to run to first base isn’t exactly a memory I’m looking to bank.
Michael Taylor Plays A Mean Centerfield
That’s about it. Not even this team could have possibly thought they were going to bring in a guy like Mike and get the insane power production he showed last year. 21 homeruns and he only amassed a .720 OPS by the way.
This is what he is. Low average, low OBP, low OPS, great defender.
He’s had statistically the worst season of his career. .191/.249/.285 with a .534 OPS and somehow he’s a 0.8 WAR player. Well, that speaks to the very definition of Taylor as a player, he sure can play a mean centerfield.
We get this. We’ve seen this. If we were in a playoff chase and his excellent defense were a huge part of the reason, ok, keep playing him out there.
Now though, We have Oneil Cruz, clearly the starting CF in 2025 and just recently moved into the spot. Billy Cook is up here and has experience at the position so he can handle the right handed opportunities, even though Cruz has shown he doesn’t need platooned already long before the move.
So, aside from being a nice guy or some theories that he’s coaching up Oneil, what’s he still doing here?
Cruz has looked fine out there anyway and the things he needs to learn, lets face it, Taylor isn’t gonna get covered in 3 weeks of sitting on the bench 5 days a week.
This is all coming from someone who very much so wanted Taylor signed and offensively he even underwhelmed me who had him maybe hitting like .220 with 10 homers.
With a chance to seize a series win today, the Pirates elect to throw a bullpen game against opposing starter, Adam Oller, who was initially a 20th round draft pick by Pittsburgh in 2016.
Entering play today with a 4.15 ERA over 4 starts with the Marlins this year, Oller has spent much of his career toiling in the minors, pitching just 115.2 MLB innings between Miami and the Oakland Athletics over 32 MLB games compared to 579 frames over 148 minor league outings.
He works with a mid-90s 4-seam, a mid-80s slurve, a low-80s curve and a high-80s changeup – none of them are located particularly well as indicated by his 12.1% walk rate in his MLB career.
None of his pitches have been hit at an alarming clip but, again, it more comes down to hitters not seeing pitches in the zone than Oller beating them with stuff.
Bucs bats need to be patient at the plate today. Take walks. Work counts. Jump on meatballs if he goes in the zone but don’t get aggressive and shoot yourself in the foot.
This is a beatable opponent and a winnable series unless the Pirates make unforced errors and squander it.
It’s been a race to the bottom for both the Pittsburgh Pirates and visiting Miami Marlins, though both have shown up a bit more as of late with each team having won 4 of their last 7 games.
Both teams have a bottom-of-the-barrel offense as the Pirates rank 27th in MLB with an 86 wRC+ and the Marlins are right behind them at 85.
Marlins: Connor Norby – Norby has been one of the best trade acquisitions at this year’s deadline as a prospect who, in 18 games with the Marlins, has a 329/.372/.671 slash line, 7 doubles, 6 home runs and 13 RBI in only 78 plate appearances.
Pirates: Yasmani Grandal – This is most likely the first time Grandal has appeared in this section but, to his credit, he’s earned it with the bat lately. He’s currently riding a 9-game hitting streak while reaching base in 13 consecutive outings dating back to August 10th, posting a .350/.490/.625 slash line in that span with 3 home runs and more walks (11) than strikeouts (9).
Marlins: Jake Burger – Burger was one of the hottest hitters in baseball over the month of August, posting a .282/.365/.609 slash line with 10 home runs but has struggled to get things going in September with just 3 hits in 18 at-bats and zero home runs.
Pirates: Bryan de la Cruz – Being the final out in both games of a double header puts a shadow on BDLC but his struggles have continued to get worse since his trade from these Marlins. He has just one hit in his last 23 plate appearances and has a 26 wRC+ since joining the Bucs.
Key Injuries
Marlins: Their entire pitching staff. This is essentially the same thing I wrote for the Marlins back in March and somehow, it’s still happening as they placed pitchers Max Meyer (right shoulder bursitis) and Calvin Faucher (right shoulder impingement) on the IL this past weekend, joining a long list of hurt hurlers.
Pirates: It’s one thing after another for Henry Davis (left hand inflammation) this season as he struggles to find consistency with the Pirates both at the dish and behind it.
Winning streaks haven’t really been in the Pirates bag of tricks often under Derek Shelton. Sure, he’s had a lack of talent to work with over the years, but even when things line up and he has the starters he wants and the matchups that should be a problem for the opposition we often see them fall short and ultimately find a way to not wind up stacking wins.
Thing is, even if that changed down the stretch, I’m not sure it’ll change the overall resume Shelton has put on paper.
There’s always a feeling of what looks like relief to me on the faces of everyone involved with a game to secure a sweep in a series. Players and coaches alike have a different demeanor in that last game, one that almost says, “we’ve done what we came here to do”, as though the sweep would be nice to have, but the series win already being in their pocket, hey, let’s not push it. Let’s get the rest for guys we wanted to get. Let’s not pinch hit here. Let’s stick with this reliever or see if we can get away with using him anyway today.
They haven’t avoided streaks all year because of bad luck exclusively, they’ve avoided winning streaks partially because they don’t show up on that 3rd day looking like they have to have it, and they certainly haven’t coached as though that 3rd win mattered more than any one of the next series games.
It looked like this trend might be finally reversing as the 2024 season started.
Always looking ahead, barely taking the time to consider the things they do or don’t do right now are always effecting that precious future they love to point to adversely.
Let’s go!
1. Welcome Billy Cook!
OK, some new blood. What do we know, what do we think, how do they use him?
First things first. Billy is likely to get treated unfairly in relatively short order. He’s come to the Pirates from the Baltimore Orioles and the immediate supposition from fans and pundits alike was that this talented kid simply couldn’t crack the talent laden Orioles roster because they have such a crazy talented system.
That’s true of course, but it also kinda avoids the reality of Cook’s path to the Bigs.
Billy Cook is almost 26 years old and he was drafted in the 10th round of the 2021 MLB June Amateur draft out of Pepperdine University.
For perspective, the Pirates selected Bethel Park’s own Justin Meis 4 spots earlier in the same draft and he’s now almost 25 and pitching in AA Altoona to very little fan fare.
Point is, this isn’t a guy with undeniable pedigree.
He had a power surge in 2023 with Bowie, stroking 24 dingers and after starting 2024 at the same level, earned his promotion to Norfolk where he performed quite well hitting another 11 in only 304 plate appearances before being dealt to the Pirates and ultimately Indianapolis.
The bottom line on Cook, he can play corner outfield, first base and even a bit of center. I really see them leaving it there, but he does have some third and second in his history as well.
Power might play at first or corner outfield, but I don’t see him as a lock to hit 20. He’ll draw walks and probably strikes out a bit more than you’d like to see but the OPS should fall no farther than .700, with a high .800s capability if the doubles or homeruns tick up.
If you want a comp, I’ll give you one, but you probably won’t like it.
Connor Joe. Now, I’m just basing this on their minor league numbers and defensive positioning, Cook looks to have a bit more projectable power but their lines are eerily similar on the way up, including finally making his MLB Debut at 25, where as Joe was 26.
Likely an MLB player. Has room before he hits his ceiling, but enough track record laid to believe his MLB level is going to fall short of star and land on regular.
Now all we gotta do is watch it play out. The good news is, I really do think this guy can help. The bad news is, this feels like a role player to me.
Ultimately, he could be straight up a Connor Joe replacement. Having both on the roster probably doesn’t make a ton of sense as they’d compete for the exact block of playing time.
Watch this video, Trevor does a much better job of describing it than I could.
You don’t have to watch the whole thing to at least determine, Trevor is onto something here. You probably won’t be able to just watch a baseball game after it either without wondering almost constantly if you yourself are picking up on “tipping”.
That’s the danger of things like this. Slowed down frame by frame, I can probably pick something out for almost everyone, but identifying it as a pattern, have it observable in real time, that’s something that takes much more skill, and dare I say experience to see.
Trevor very plainly tells you himself in the video, he recognizes it because he himself did it.
He breaks down what Bednar has done this year against what he has done and makes a compelling case that it isn’t the stuff, it’s the tunneling and at least for me after watching this, a fairly easy to identify tipping issue.
David Bednar has been a franchise cornerstone since bursting on the scene. The team has stubbornly shoved him into the same role all year, regardless of what was happening, and somehow, it’s September 9th and the team has allowed this to proceed all year long. This isn’t like they failed to see Brady Feigl was tipping his fastball because he just came up and why would you even look, this is a 2 time All Star, throwing with more velocity and vertical break than at any other point in his career, and the Pirates spent all season long acting like he was just snake bitten.
Bad luck? Yeah, a little, but this shows at least, he’s making some of his own luck.
I’m left with one thought. Wow.
This stuff gets missed every year, I don’t blame the team(s) because there are factors involved in this coming up in the first place.
If you come up doing this, hitters don’t know you so it wouldn’t matter
This stuff will always crop up in your own division before it comes up around the league
If coaches are looking into it, you’ve probably already been a successful pitcher to merit the effort, but you’re also likely more resistant to changing what has worked for you
The Pirates have had this issue a few times just recently. Chad Kuhl was tipping his fastball, Kyle Crick had a massive tell for his sweeper, and just last year Dauri Moreta ran into a rough patch he attributed to guys knowing his fastball was coming because of his hand position.
Again, it took Kuhl half a season of pitching before anyone noticed anything, Crick only threw two pitches, and his tell was so noticeable, a novice knew which was coming within a year of his usefulness and Dauri figured it out himself due to his own paranoia.
I’m positive there have been more, but it hardly matters. When it’s a guy you’re counting on, it can’t take a full season to notice.
3. Luis Ortiz
One player who has really done work to not only get himself into position to return for another season as a Pirate but potentially as a member of a crowded starting rotation is Luis Ortiz.
He’s taken a step this year and shown the ability even mid outing to adjust what he’s doing and provide length. Essentially, he isn’t perfect, but he’s shown an uncanny ability to clean up his own mess.
Between the bullpen and the rotation, Luis has carried 118.2 innings with a 3.26 ERA. 90 Strikeouts with only 37 walks and a recent bug for giving up homeruns (13). Most of which came in the past month. His WHIP of 1.112 is better than he’s ever produced at this level and it won’t be easy to remove him from the Starter mix, regardless of which prospects are ranked where.
Now, that makes Luis a pitcher who is probably going to finish 2024 with about 140 innings pitched at the MLB level under his belt. He’ll enter a mix of established starters next year along with Jared Jones, Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller and Bailey Falter.
It’s going to be hard to push Ortiz out of this mix, if nothing else, he’ll be more stretched out, he’ll have already shown what he can do and his ability to adjust at the MLB level and he’ll be coming off a successful season.
Ortiz confuses fans.
He was a phenom in 2022, an exposed prospect in 2023, a reclamation project in 2024 in the bullpen who eventually did the impossible and climbed back to an even better position than he carved for himself back in his rookie season.
Development isn’t linear, and sometimes, if flat out doesn’t make sense.
All that matters right now is, he’s a proven option heading into next year, and the team would do well to let him hold off challengers, even if he eventually relents.
I’m not saying he’s a lock, but I am saying, it’s not the open field it was when Jared Jones won himself a spot this offseason.
4. Is Don Kelly Really an Option to Manage
I have to say, not really.
If you want to make a change, make a complete change, not someone who has made most every decision you don’t like with Derek Shelton.
Part of the reason to make a coaching change is to shock the system. The team is returning the vast majority of players on the roster, and I for one would like to have a completely fresh set of eyes on them. Someone who won’t have the history of decisions they made over the course of 5 years to get here.
This would be like saying, we like how everything is going, we love the decisions being made, we just think it needs said by someone else.
Can I be really blunt with you? That’s about the last thing I want brought in here, let alone kept.
I have nothing against Don Kelly, in fact I think he’ll make a great manager somewhere, I just think there’s too much status quo that would hang out with him if he stayed. Too much familiarity with what would be a no from the GM to bother asking, let alone demanding.
Another aspect of his popularity is his close relationship with Jim Leyland, and all I can say is Derek Shelton has that too, it didn’t help. It never made him into the guy brashly speaking to and about players in the presence of the media. It also didn’t give him Barry Bonds or Miguel Cabrerra on his roster to play.
Lets move on, completely.
I could probably go into the insane requests that this new hire be an ex player. A rookie manager is a crap shoot, and one that used to be their teammate like Andrew McCutchen, well, I can’t even begin to tell you what a horrific idea that would be, but I won’t have to, because some jack ass will ask him about it and he’ll tell you himself how very little he wants to do that.
5. What Joey Bart is Doing is Crazy, Maybe Too Crazy
In 66 games and 203 at bats, Joey Bart has hit 13 homeruns, good for 41 RBI with a .271 Average, .502 SLG and an .848 OPS.
That’s crazy.
When things are crazy in baseball, there’s a good chance they’re an outlier, as opposed to a new normal.
This kind of power production has been there. Back in 2022 Joey played in 97 games, but he played for Gabe Kapler who loved to pinch hit so he only amassed 291 plate appearances and he racked up 11 dingers. Thing is, he struck out 112 times too, this year he’s only K’d 57 times.
Parts of 5 Major League seasons and his OPS+ of 134 is a full 61 points higher than he’s ever posted, his OPS a full 190 points higher.
He’s been incredible.
He also has 3 full years of arbitration starting next year.
I hear almost every day the Pirates need to extend him, and I’m here to say, I neither believe he’s the player he was in San Francisco, or the player he’s been here in Pittsburgh. To me, take full advantage of the Arbitration process. Pay him his 2 million or so next year, ask him to mentor your other catcher capable players and if he keeps doing this, ok revisit it next offseason.
If he doesn’t, take him as the veteran backstop he is and the most equipped backup you’ve had here since maybe Don Slaught.
I’m not predicting he’s going to fall off the face of the Earth, I’m simply saying, you don’t have to guess, baseball makes it entirely easy and in fact smart to just let the process play out a bit.
We spend so much time ensuring ourselves that if the Pirates don’t sign guys before their worth is apparent they’ll never sign anyone, and all I can really say is they just showed you twice that’s no longer fact. Mitch Keller and Bryan Reynolds were both very much so established and they were paid fair market value. Lets not make a rash choice here with a guy who just took advantage of a change of scenery.
It motivated him and helped him emerge this year, next year he’ll just be a regular old Pirate, let’s see what that looks like.
And independently of how Henry Davis and Endy Rodriguez progress too. His future and theirs may run concurrently but they need not dictate each other’s path.
After splitting a 4-game set with the Nationals, the Pirates will welcome the Miami Marlins to town. Their rotation has been ravaged by injuries throughout the year with rookie righty, Valente Bellozo, making his 10th start for the Fish, entering with a 3.78 ERA and 2-2 record over his first 47.2 innings of work.
It’s been a mixed start to Bellozo’s MLB career as he’s had 3 starts where he’s allowed 5+ runs in 5 or less innings but also had 4 games where he’s held opponents scoreless in 5+ frames.
He has a lot of blue on his ledger but much of his success rides off the mid-80s cutter, which he throws a quarter of the time and has garnered the best results with an oBA of just .154.
He mainly leans on the cutter paired with his high-80s 4-seam and adds in a high-70s sweeper when facing righties but pivots to a low-80s changeup and mid-70s curve as main secondaries against lefties.
Bellozo has some stark splits between day and night in a small sample size so far. He has posted a 2.20 ERA in 28.2 innings pitched under the lights but a 6.16 ERA over innings in sunlight.
Bucs bats will want to stay on his low-velocity fastball/cutter but exploit the weaker off-speed stuff.
Don’t let him get comfortable. Bellozo has a 1.45 ERA first time through the order but that sky rockets with subsequent rotations.
He isn’t overpowering and doesn’t locate particularly well but they’ll want to jump early and often to find success and get into the Marlins bullpen.
After dropping both games of a double-header yesterday, the Bucs will try to salvage a series split today against veteran lefty Patrick Corbin.
Corbin has been arguably the worst pitcher in MLB over the past few years as his 5.41 ERA and 5.64 xERA are both the highest among qualified starting pitchers.
His arsenal consists of a heavy sinker/slider combination with the cutter added in almost exclusively against right-handed hitters.
Corbin is only successful if he can generate ground-balls as he throws most of his pitches down in the zone but his sinker and cutter have a tendency to hang up and get CRUSHED with some high exit velocity numbers.
Additionally, Corbin has struggled when facing RHH (.374 wOBA) and when pitching away from Nationals Park (.394 wOBA).
He’s very beatable and, with Jared Jones on the bump, the Pirates have to take advantage and get the series split.
Lefty number 2 on this weekend as the Pirates face off against another rookie southpaw in Mitchell Parker, who has a 4.27 ERA with 117 strikeouts and 35 walks over his 132.2 frames pitched this season. Hopefully, they fare better than game 1 today.
He works with a low-90s 4-seamer, low-80s curve, mid-80s splitter and a low-80s slider. He’s not quite as deceptive as Herz but can still avoid bats and keeps hitters off base.
His fastball has been the most hittable of his offerings with an xwOBA of .359 – more than 60 points higher than the next highest.
He has also been AWFUL playing away, as his home ERA (3.04 in 77 innings) is nearly three runs lower than away (5.98, 55.2 IP).
Pirates hitters will want to stay on the heat, try not to chase junk out of the zone and get ahead early so they can get back into attack-mode against the Nationals bullpen.
As exciting as this young rotation has been to watch grow here in Pittsburgh, there’s been a constant and at times easy to ignore drumbeat underneath the whole season.
Inning counts and the process of stretching out arms at multiple levels.
I think it’s completely fair to say once it became apparent Jared Jones and Paul Skenes were both going to pitch for the Pirates this year that the team was going to have to handle it delicately.
More than that, the Pirates according to them, planned to also be competing for a playoff spot.
Now, as soon as this was the stated goal, and we knew it would not only include these two hurlers, but feature them, it started to sound like trying to drop a handful of change on a store counter and having it match the total due without going over.
Ok, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but it at least was a narrow path, I think we can all agree there.
The Pirates, a franchise that tends to not do simple things like pinch hit when it’s obvious or use bottom 5 in speed players to hit leadoff was now going to be tasked with a delicate dance.
The Goals as We Know Them
Give Paul Skenes and Jared Jones room to completely acclimate themselves to MLB life
Ask both pitchers to stretch themselves out and be ready to finish the job in 2025
Manage the entire rotation in such a way as to make finishing the season in the Majors was possible
Now, all of that in and of itself, makes total sense. In fact, they’re all mostly unavoidable things to try with rookie pitchers.
Add in the 4th goal, and things stop making quite as much sense. 4. Compete for the playoffs.
As soon as that was part of this, I started to question what that might look like. I pictured Paul Skenes leading the staff into the playoffs like just about everyone else did, but then I started wondering how many innings he’d be at by the time they got there.
Nevermind though, it wasn’t worth worrying about until the situation actually came up.
Obviously, it never did, so in one way, I’m happy I didn’t waste energy sweating it, even so, as I’m watching this rotation now and how they’re handling the effort, I have a new question, if they were in it, how likely is it they’d be ready to go and not shells of themselves anyway?
Skenes is at 141.1 combined innings, Jones is at 122.1. Many of you remember me writing back in April the team would like to see Skenes eclipse 150 this year and Jones 140, so both of those figures are on track, at least as it comes to finishing the season.
Thing is, there’d still be a potential playoff to contend with. Now, lets be real, from there you take it series to series of course and this team no matter how hopeful we were multiple series probably not the likeliest of scenarios.
What’s really bothering me right now though the constant shuffling of this rotation, the delay tactics, the stop gap starters, the bullpen games, all of it, is creating a very hard to adjust to rotation mix. Sure, it makes sense to give these guys plenty of space, push them back here and there, pull the out of a game early when it makes sense, but everything being viewed through the prism of stretching these guys out.
Next year it’ll be easier.
Mitch Keller will be good for his 175-200, Jones should be easily in the 175 area and Skenes I’d imagine will be hard to keep from hitting 200, if healthy of course.
I don’t believe this 6 days rest thing will continue into 2025 either, but that could be a hurdle they have to deal with. The innings will be available, but they’ll still have something hanging out there like this that “they’ve never done before” to contend with.
The point is, I think they’d probably have played it different down the stretch if they hadn’t played themselves into it not mattering. If they hadn’t changed course, fans would have had some questions when Luis Ortiz started the first game of the Wild Card.
The issue isn’t going to go away entirely for these guys next year, but it’ll fade into the background. For them anyway.
Johan Oviedo will return and face innings restrictions, Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington, and Mike Burrows will all be held back to a degree, but it won’t be quite the same, the horses of this rotation will already be here, stretched out and ready to carry the majority of the work load to support them.
Being competitive, with these pitchers, this year, are probably 3 things that didn’t ever fit together as well as our wishful thinking wanted it to.
I still think it could have been managed differently, but not much. I’m sure you’d rather just assign blame to Derek Shelton, but this was going to be an issue even if Earl Weaver’s reanimated corpse were in charge this year.
Steel City Pirates 