Series Preview: Brewers (14-8) at Pirates (11-11)

4-22-24 – By Ethan Smith – @mvp_EtHaN

Well folks, it’s time for the Pittsburgh Pirates to take on their first NL Central foe of the 2024 season, as the Milwaukee Brewers make their way to PNC Park for a four game set.

For the Pirates, they enter this series on a six-game losing streak, losing to the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox last week, both sweeps.

The Brewers meanwhile enter on a completely different tangent, winning four consecutive games and six of their last nine.

These two teams are practically night and day right now, especially offensively, as the Brewers enter the series with the second best OPS in baseball at a .789 clip, while the Pirates offense, which has gone ice cold like your favorite summer cocktail, rank 20th in the league in OPS at .675.

The Brewers also strike out considerably less than the Pirates, as the Pirates currently sit at 215 strikeouts, which is sixth in baseball, while the Brewers sit at 17th with 180 punch outs.

Stolen bases have also been a factor for the Brew Crew this season, ranking third in all of baseball with successful stolen bases with 27, while the Pirates, who haven’t tempted fate much on the base path this season, sit 22nd with 11.

As for pitching, Milwaukee’s staff took a massive hit in the off-season in losing Corbin Burnes to the Baltimore Orioles, but its been a group overall thats done well, ranking ninth in ERA with a 3.52. It’s a staff now headlined by Freddy Peralta, who has a 1.90 ERA entering this series.

Each team’s pitching staffs actually have the exact same WHIP(1.23) entering this series, so we could be in store for yet another low scoring affair for the Pirates, as the offense’s of these teams combined for 45 runs in 14 games, or 3.2 runs per game between both squads over the past seven days.

The Brewers won the season series in 2023, going 8-5 against the Buccos, so we’ll see if the Pirates can turn the tide, beginning Monday at PNC Park.

4/19
Pirates – Jared Jones(RHP) – 1-2, 23.0 IP, 3.13 era, 32 Ks/2 walks, 0.78 WHIP
Brewers –Joe Ross(RHP) – 1-1, 14.2 IP, 4.91 ERA, 14 Ks/8 walks, 1.64 WHIP

4/20
Pirates – Bailey Falter(LHP)– 1-1, 20.0 IP, 4.05 ERA, 10 Ks/5 walks, 0.95 WHIP
Brewers– Wade Miley(LHP) – 0-1, 7.0 IP, 5.14 ERA, 2 Ks/4 walks, 1.29 WHIP

4/21
Pirates – Quinn Priester(RHP) – 0-1, 4.1 IP, 8.31 ERA, 2 Ks/1 walk, 1.85 WHIP
Brewers– TBD

4/25

Pirates – Mitch Keller(RHP)- 2-2, 30.0 IP, 4.80 ERA, 25 Ks/11 walks, 1.47 WHIP

Brewers – TBD

Brewers:
William Contreras – Over his past seven, William Contreras has hit the ball well with a .861 OPS and 6 RBIs, continuing his hot start to the 2024 season that has seen him hit four homers, score 20 and have an OPS of .987 over 82 ABs.

Pirates:
Connor Joe – It is hard to find anyone in the offense who’s done well over the past seven days, but Connor Joe has remained a steady option in the Pirates lineup when needed, as his slugging sits at a .435 over his last seven games, including a pinch hit home run in Saturday’s loss to the Boston Red Sox.

Brewers:
Rhys Hoskins – Hoskins was a marquee pickup for the Brewers this off-season, but the past seven games haven’t been kind to the former Phillies first baseman, hitting only .154 in 26 ABs with eight strikeouts, so the Brewers hope they can get more of the power production they expected from Hoskins, who currently has four homers on the season.

Pirates:
The entire offense – In the last preview piece I did, which was for the Red Sox series, I said the entire offense was cold, and well, that hasn’t changed. The Pirates mustered four runs in the series versus Boston and the offense continued to look flat out lost at the plate. The Brewers pitching may not be what the Red Sox currently have right now, but its no joke, so things aren’t getting any easier for the lineup over the next four days.

Key Injuries

Brewers:

D.L. Hall – 15-day IL: knee, Christian Yelich – 10-day IL: back, J.B. Bukauskas – 15-day IL: lat, Taylor Clarke – 15-day IL: meniscus, Jakob Junis – 15-day IL: shoulder

60-day IL: Garrett Mitchell, Devin Williams, Brandon Woodruff

Pirates:
Marco Gonzales – 15-day IL: forearm, Ryan Borucki – 15-day IL: left triceps inflammation, Jason Delay: 10-day IL: knee, Yasmani Grandal: rehab assignment: foot

60-day IL: Dauri Moreta, Endy Rodriguez, Johan Oviedo

Who To Watch

This series, and any series versus an NL Central foe, are always unpredictable, seeing as the teams in the division are so close together. Currently, the Brewers are playing much better baseball than the Pirates, but the run production hasn’t been there for the Brewers either outside of a strong Saturday showing against the Cardinals. Whichever team gets an early lead will likely win the series here, seeing as both offenses have had their struggles and both pitching staffs have been relatively strong. Expect another low scoring series, but runs will have to come at a premium, and at some point, the Pirates offense has to wake up.

The Plan: How the Pirates Pivot, and Why it’s Rarely Fast Enough

4-21-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

There’s something troubling that has bothered me from the very start of the Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton era of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club. It’s endured every season and overcome all my understanding about the realities of rebuilding a franchise.

I think the Pirates are simply planning too far in advance.

More specifically, I think the Pirates are too prone to stick to that plan regardless of factors that should lead to adjustment.

Example? Let’s go hypothetical, but lets go all Law and Order on it and base it on real life.

The Pirates are 1-1 in a 3 game set and Ke’Bryan Hayes is not in the lineup against a lefty who he has great career numbers against on a Wednesday afternoon.

After the game, Shelton says something like yeah we just had planned with the off day tomorrow we’d get Ke’ down for a couple days here.

Well, I’d like to buy that. I get that Ke’Bryan has a tender back and it needs rest. So I can accept it, but when I look at the schedule, I see the Friday game they’ll be facing a crafty righty that has given Hayes fits through the years.

So, Why can’t we adjust said plan to give him a couple days down, by shifting it to Thursday and Friday instead of Wednesday and Thursday.

See what I mean?

Think on it for a minute, you’ll think of a ton of other scenarios when it feels like they could have pretty easily avoided a less than ideal situation if they were only willing to adjust their thinking.

This overriding thought process leads to an awful lot of stuff I think is counter to the very idea of trying to win in a 162 game season.

We can blame whoever we want for this, frankly, I don’t care, I just want it to go away.

They use this to form lineups, make roster decisions, bullpen usages, start to start starting pitching inning or pitch counts, and unless there are injuries that force them to change, they almost 100% of the time don’t alter it in any way.

Let’s do another hypothetical, just because I really want to drill home what I’m talking about here. In no way do I just want this to be seen as complaining about decisions, I’m specifically complaining about decisions that are made weeks in advance and won’t take in new data or information to adjust.

It’s Wednesday, and the Pirates planned to have Ryan Borucki not go back to back days in this particular week. He had gone back to back or at least had that availability all year long, but only was needed to do so 1 time a few weeks ago and yesterday he only needed 7 pitches to work his outing.

It’s the 8th inning in a tie game, you’ve already burned Chapman and Fleming, Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber are due up. You go with Roansy Contreras because according to your plan, Borucki is down.

All I’m saying is, far too often the answer about things like this is simply, Yeah, we had planned to keep him down today. Specifically not “he’s unavailable”, not “he couldn’t go”, instead, “we had planned” and while I of course get the though behind it, I don’t like boxing yourself into winning with an arm tied behind your back because you arbitrarily decided it a week ago.

You’ve all heard the team makes out their lineups sometimes weeks in advance. Lets be clear, that’s not some fan creation, that’s not a misquote of a Jason Mackey report, it’s directly from Derek Shelton.

Clearly they adjust, like when a guy gets hit with a homerun in the head during batting practice. But as you play out a season, you should start to see things not working in a certain way and do something about it.

Well, with this method, sometimes change to the plan can be as much as 2 weeks away, or as little as a day.

When a team is losing, you can nitpick anything you like and maybe that’s what you’ll see this piece as.

I hope it comes across as something that has endured every season of this regime, regardless of talent level, regardless of their options, regardless of the moment in time, the plan always wins.

I’m not ignorant here, there’s a lot of science that goes into what they’re doing or any team for that matter, they have far more data than I and these questions like I’m posing in these hypotheticals, you have to understand, they’ll never directly answer. It’s been asked.

I guess at my core, I’m irritated seeing 20 different lineups in 20 games with more established talent than we’ve had and then squaring that with the knowledge that they’ve every bit planned for it to be that way.

The former player in me (very amateur) can’t fathom walking in every day having no clue who’s hitting beside me, behind me, in front of me and I may never get past it.

The Pirates Hitting Issues, Trump All Others

4-20-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

I know, you could say this about any area of the team that isn’t performing but at the plate, this year, this group has to hit, there simply isn’t a plan B.

There is no Paul Skenes equivalent with a bat in his hand waiting to come up here and be the savior. They don’t have 3-4 guys that are good bets to produce, instead they have a couple interesting guys but that’s about all you can say.

No, this team has to hit, primarily the guys who are here.

We can get into the hitting coach and we can probably argue about whether it’s his fault or the hitters if you want, but the result is what matters. Or the lack thereof.

If you believe this team has some talented hitters who aren’t hitting, you probably blame the hitting coach. If you believe they don’t have talent you probably blame the hitters.

As usual, the answer is both. The hitting coach is just a hell of a lot easier to fire.

If you think I’ll solve this here in this article, head out to social media and emphatically state that Kenny Pickett sucked because of Matt Canada, see how settled it is, even as both are no longer part of the Steelers. Find out how Todd Reirden the Penguins assistant coach has turned one of the greatest players the game has ever seen into a mediocre Power Play performer.

Coaching gets blamed because Coaching is easier to replace, that’s the truth. It doesn’t mean it’s untrue that coaching contributes or even is completely responsible, but it is undeniably easier.

We could have all those conversations, but we’d be denying that this offense has looked pretty damn awful for the entire duration of Andy Haines time here in Pittsburgh.

The Pirates have no plan B on a lot of players, most teams are in that situation if we’re honest.

Oneil Cruz, Bryan Reynolds, and Ke’Bryan Hayes all have to hit.

There are others, but those 3 simply can’t be replaced on this roster, there is again, no plan B.

Say whoever you want is to blame, but at the very least a hitting coach should probably be good at keeping the most important players he has at his disposal from falling into funks at the same time. At least as routinely as it happens here.

Maybe all those players suck to begin with right? That’s gotta be it. I mean, it’s not like he’s coaching them to swing and miss right? LOL, my all time favorite comment, made only by people who assume you’re stupid enough to think it’s ever 100% on anyone.

Here’s the thing though, it is on everyone collectively.

Hitters, especially veteran hitters like Hayes and Reynolds, well, if they’re being coached to do things that don’t work, they need to own their own careers and push back. It’s not like the Pirates are going to cut them and eat their salary, even if they actually did have plan B’s sitting around.

Let’s pause here, because we keep having the Jon Nunnally story baked into this.

Who?

Oh, that’s the name of the AA hitting coach most of you think should be the hitting coach instead of being fired for helping Ke’Bryan Hayes.

Before I do this, understand, I like Jon Nunnally. Have spoken to him personally. Know for a fact he isn’t a fan of the overall hitting philosophy and that he tried to be a good soldier about it, but wanted more.

I agree with him. He wasn’t fired for helping Hayes, he was moved on from because it became clear he wasn’t instilling the principles this organization wants instilled. Hayes worked with up to 3 different hitting coaches last season outside of the MLB staff that I know of, could even be more. 2 of the ones I know about were members of the Pirates organization, 1 is now.

This is a story that has an awful lot of the stink of retribution baked in from the team to an employee, but in reality it was a lot more about not agreeing with or at least getting on board with the concept.

Again, good for Jon, good for Ke’, annoying that the team thinks they know what’s right despite evidence to the contrary, but bottom line, Nunally wasn’t fired for helping Ke’. He’s also unemployed, so it might be overselling it to pretend some white hot shooting star was cut loose.

Altoona had an OPS of .689 and a batting average of .236. They walked less than anyone in the Eastern League and it became very clear, the Curve were not hitting in the same style that was supposed to be franchise wide.

Not trying to make a case for Haines system being implemented, just pointing out it wasn’t at least not fully in AA. They also had several prospects flow through there and stall.

What Nunally was really good at was individual instruction. Hands on work that worked for several players.

Andy Haines works with his players individually, but he also administers the system for the entire franchise, from Pittsburgh to the Dominican Summer League guys. Imagine how much time he has to individually game plan, or mechanically work with individuals.

So you want to just dismiss everything and blame the players, fine, but this team has ignored now 2 plus years of ineptitude. There’s believing in something despite what you’re seeing, and that can have some value, but you better know when you’ve pushed it far enough and pivot.

Andy Haines system over time could work for some, but inevitably it will fail others. When you’re working in a business that typically makes 7 out of 10 prospects not pan out, it’s wise to not add extra reasons for failure, like being stubborn that everyone has to do things a certain way.

Do I think Andy Haines should be fired? Oh, only for like over 2 years now. Do I think players bear responsibility for their own careers and thus should take charge of their own success, of course.

More than anything, I know this team could have 3 Paul Skenes and 2 Jared Jones and not win with this offense.

They don’t have enough power to make this a successful approach. They don’t have enough flexibility to adapt to the pitchers they face game in and out. They don’t do enough to exploit the walks they do get when the system is working, because even with the bases loaded the approach calls for a deep at bat when contact would get the job done.

This franchise has failed to make the playoffs in all but 3 seasons since Bob Nutting took the reigns, and the most mystifying thing is how easily they convince themselves that something clearly not working is actually correct.

Here’s the thing though, if they go through 2024 and don’t hit the GM will either have to admit they’ve made a mistake with the hitting program or they’ve made a mistake with the players they acquired.

It’s still WAY easier to fire an assistant coach, so guess what this year will be, right, the last stand for Haines. It works or it doesn’t.

I’ve suggested they should bring in another hitting instructor to help guys, be another voice, trying to give benefit of doubt that Haines is pulled in too many directions. They just don’t see it as needed.

For those of you who want to dismiss this as just 20 games, and chill or whatever, I’m not basing my takes on Haines from 20 games, I’m basing them on his time in Milwaukee and here.

Bluntly, that would be more than enough for almost any franchise to do something different right?

Sure should be.

Until they hit, if they hit, nothing else matters. There is no problem worth discussing if they can’t score.

Quinn Priester to Make 2024 Debut

4-19-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

The path for every prospect is different.

Quinn Priester was drafted 18th overall in the first round of the 2019 MLB entry draft out of high school and he was supposed to come up here and lead this staff that a completely new management group was taking over. It so rarely works how it’s “supposed” to.

We as a society are very quick to go from seeing something promising to pushing them off to the burn pile as soon as we see something shinier, but MLB franchises that don’t buy everything they need on the market, can’t afford to play that game.

You can’t waste talent, even if you’ve picked and produced more around it.

I say all this because there are very real reasons to think Paul Skenes would have made just as much sense to call up, but Quinn has put in a lot of work, for a long time too. Paul could get outs at this level, I think what we’re seeing early on is it’s going to take 80 pitches to get through 4 innings, but he can get outs. I’m not making this a Paul Skenes piece though, because again, Quinn Priester deserves his own flowers.

I’m not going to go into a wall of stats here to wow you into thinking Priester is going to come back up here and make you forget about Paul or Jared Jones. Frankly, those stats don’t exist. In fact, I’d have to talk about Spencer Strider to try to do that.

This is about Quinn.

When he was drafted, he was an interesting high school kid with a very developed pitch mix for his age, largely self taught. Big fastball with not a lot of movement. 4-5 other offerings that all had some character flaw, but promise.

As he progressed so did his expectations, but nothing raised those expectations more than being invited to the Altoona Training site during COVID. It rocketed him up prospect boards, if only because he was one of the very few on display in any way and even then scouts were dependent on the Pirates crowing about how good he looked.

50 innings in 2023 and a whole lot of fans were ready to end the experiment.

They were not good innings mind you, but he’s hardly the first kid to come up here and get taken to school. He’s a victim of having some much more dynamic options around him, and being a pitcher selected in the first round for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Tonight, he’ll get his first chance at redemption and his shot at trying to create a foothold for himself as an MLB pitcher.

That’s step one. Proving you belong at this level. Believe it or not, long before it’s decided Quinn should be an MLB starting pitcher, he first has to show he can get outs more consistently.

Priester is a lot more like Mitch Keller than he is Jared Jones or Paul Skenes. Meaning, he throws a ton of different things. Any or all of his offerings could be really good on a given night, and if 3 or 4 of them are going he can be really effective. 1 or 2 working, he’s probably throwing batting practice if it’s the wrong 1 or 2.

Pitchers like that take time to develop, and honestly, the Pirates won’t have the same kind of time or patience they had with Mitch Keller. The team isn’t in a place where they can afford to work with a guy for 3-4 innings and keep giving opportunity. That’s to the team’s credit and it changes the path a successful Priester would have to take to make a go of it here as a starter.

Meaning, he has to be effective. He has a small window here and short of injury, it might be the best one he gets aside from next Spring, and even then, the likelihood the Pirates leave a spot for someone who hasn’t latched on in a couple cracks is pretty low.

This year, Quinn has done ok in AAA, it’s only been 3 starts and what we’ve seen is a guy who is determined to use his entire pitch mix. At that level, that’s really always going to be at least pretty good for him. At the next level, you probably want a couple of those pitches to start rising to the top of his mix.

Last year I told you to look for Quinn to establish his fastball, and the reason for that is that’s what the team wanted him to do. Well, it led to a 7.74 ERA in his 50 innings of MLB work. It was bad, and it smelled like a guy who just isn’t ripe yet.

This year at least in the minors, I haven’t seen an effort to set the fastball on a pedestal, and maybe that’s because it’s not likely one of Quinn’s best offerings. It could also be that when they start him tonight they’ll go right back to trying to have him establish it to work everything else off of. If so, We’ll have direct evidence that this AAA team coaching and MLB coaching isn’t communicating. At least not well.

One thing Quinn is that his counterparts aren’t, he’s a guy who is stretched out to go well beyond 160 innings this year. What you’re seeing with Jones and Skenes as the Pirates struggle to keep their innings counts where they want them, well it doesn’t exist with Quinn, and that has value, even if he isn’t in the same class as a prospect at this point.

Years ago, this would still be an exciting day. A former number 1 pick who got a cup of coffee and struggled, ready to make his return to the MLB mound and stake his claim right? Well, timing matters, and honestly, the drop in hooplah might actually benefit the kid.

He’s been here, gotten shelled, gotten outs too. He’s eaten innings while nothing was working, he’s looked like figuring it out was on the cusp as he worked 5 scoreless. He’s had a pitching coach tell him to focus on something and complied to his own detriment, and believe it or not this isn’t a slap at Marin, it’s part of the process.

Point is, I don’t see this Friday night start against the Red Sox feeling like too big of a moment to Quinn, and that’s a good thing. They owe it to him to let him try to be himself more this go around.

If he’s going to fail, he ought to fail doing things the way he thinks he needs to do it. If it doesn’t work, maybe he’ll finally embrace the things the team thinks they need to see. If it does, hey, maybe you have yourself another pitcher.

We’re far too quick to dismiss guys as busts by in large. As we go through this process you’re going to find that guys have less time than they used to, and more value than you believed.

Series Preview: Red Sox (10-10) at Pirates (11-8)

4-19-24 – By Ethan Smith – @mvp_EtHaN

After a road trip that the Pittsburgh Pirates would like to forget, they come home for their second home-stand of the season, starting with yet another AL East foe in the Boston Red Sox.

The Pirates had success at home against the previous AL East team that came to town, besting the Orioles in two out of three games at PNC Park.

Pittsburgh enters this one losers of six of their last eight games, headlined by a series sweep from the New York Mets in Flushing, a series that saw the Pirates lead in every single game. The bullpen surrendered multiple leads over the course of the series, a unit that has started the season on fire but has since slowed down quite a bit over the past week and change.

The biggest issue the Pirates face right now is offensive inconsistency, as they only put up five runs in the Mets series on 13 hits over 27 innings. Its been noticeable that their offensive strategy can either work really well, or go south quickly for them, so we’ll see what adjustments they make against Boston.

As for their opponent, Boston enters exactly .500 going into this series after losing three of four to the Cleveland Guardians throughout the week, with Cleveland currently occupying baseball’s second best record, only behind the Atlanta Braves.

Boston thus far hasn’t been headlined by their offense, but it features Tyler O’Neill, who currently has seven homers on the year and is sporting a 1.209 OPS over 48 ABs, so his start couldn’t be much better.

Other contributors include Triston Casas and Jarren Duran, who both lead the team in RBIs with nine. Durran is also the team’s batting average leader at .301, and with an OBP of .366 and seven stolen bases thus far, he could be a problem over the weekend for the Pirates.

Star third baseman Rafael Devers has has a slow start to 2024, slashing .188/.328/.375/.703 with two home runs and 5 RBIs thus far, but he is always a threat at the plate when healthy and available.

Overall, pitching has been their strength thus far as Boston enters the series with the best ERA in baseball as a team at 2.70. That is helped by having two starting pitchers in the top-10 in ERA, those being Kutter Crawford and Tanner Houck, the latter throwing a complete game shutout just a few days ago.

Closer Kenley Jansen headlines the bullpen with four saves already on the season, so the Pirates could be in store for quite the low-scoring series in this one.

A matchup I want to highlight is the Pirates offense versus the Red Sox pitching, as the offense for Pirates has been slow as of late and the Red Sox pitching has played quite well, so if the Pirates can turn the tide in those departments, their chances of winning the series skyrocket.

It appears the Pirates will face all right-handers in this series as well, something that seems almost impossible with what they’ve seen to begin 2024.

The Pirates kick off the series against the Red Sox Friday night at 7:10 at PNC Park.

4/19
Pirates – Quinn Priester(RHP) – 2024 debut
Red Sox –Brayan Bello(RHP) – 2-1, 20.2 IP, 3.92 ERA, 19 Ks/5 walks, 1.21 WHIP

4/20
Pirates – Mitch Keller(RHP)– 2-1, 24 IP, 4.50 ERA, 21 Ks/7 walks, 1.46 WHIP
Red Sox– Kutter Crawford – 0-0, 21.1 IP, 0.42 ERA, 24 Ks/8 walks, 0.80 WHIP

4/21
Pirates – Martin Perez(LHP) – 1-0, 24.2 IP, 2.55 ERA, 16 Ks/7 walks, 1.26 WHIP
Red Sox– TBD

Red Sox:
Kutter Crawford – Kutter Crawford has had quite the start to his 2024 campaign. In his first four starts, he’s posted a 0.42 ERA with a 0.80 WHIP, striking out 24 batters along the way. He has also only allowed one extra base hit all season, limiting base runners pretty well to start off despite eight walks. Crawford gets the nod in the series opener.

Pirates:
Edward Olivares – Olivares has had a good start to 2024, but in his last seven games, he’s been one of the better offensive options the Pirates have had. A .280/.333/.520/.853 slash line with 2 HR and 3 RBIs over his last seven appearances is something manager Derek Shelton can look at as a positive in the offense right now that doesn’t have many positives to choose from over the past week and change.

Red Sox:
Ceddanne Rafaela – Rafaela is one of Boston’s prized young players in the outfield, but he hasn’t had the start he wished for. In 62 ABs, Rafaela has a .464 OPS, a number that is well below below average. Rafaela is only hitting .120 in his last seven games, so the Red Sox would like to see Rafaela pick it up at some point.

Pirates:
The entire offense – The Mets series was a forgetful one for the Pirates offense. After starting the season roaring on all cylinders, the offense has taken a massive step back, averaging only 3.2 runs per game over their past seven. The Pirates are also fourth in strikeouts as an offensive unit, and it seems when a couple players go cold, the entire offense follows suit. We’ll see if they can flip the switch this weekend.

Key Injuries

Rafael Devers – Devers was having a slow start to 2024, and that start has gotten worse as Red Sox’s manager Alex Cora announced that Devers has a bone bruise in his left knee after an MRI on Thursday. Cora mentioned it isn’t expected to sideline Devers long-term, but it is something to keep an eye on for the Sox.

Tyler O’Neill – O’Neill, the Red Sox home run hitter who’s had quite the season to start, hit the IL retroactive to Tuesday after a collision with Devers on Monday that required multiple stitches and a run through concussion protocol. O’Neill was replaced by outfielder Rob Refsnyder as the corresponding move.

Pirates:
Marco Gonzales – Gonzales had a good start to his 2024 campaign as a new member of the Pittsburgh Pirates, but with lingering nerve damage issues from last season, he sees the 15-day IL for the first time in 2024 with a left forearm muscle strain. He will be replaced in Friday night’s game by Quinn Priester, who’s had quite the start with the Indianapolis Indians in AAA, posting a 3.95 ERA in three starts.

Who To Watch

I would watch the Pirates starting pitching again in this series. Priester, Keller and Perez will go against a Red Sox team missing O’Neill, a banged up Devers and a team overall that leads all of baseball in strikeouts and ranks 20th in walks. Expect the trio of starters to attack early and often against the Red Sox, limit baserunners and hopefully allow the offense and bullpen to get back on track.

Steel City Pirates Q&A – Off Day Questions are the best Questions

4-18-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

It’s been a while but you didn’t lose your touch, great questions, let’s go!

Question 1

Everyone loves Cutch and he brings some intangibles but is having a DH only guy on the roster hurt more than help? – PNC Yark

Hey, nothing like starting out on fire. Cutch is such an odd case. For instance, if he’s a DH who they’re playing 5-6 times a week, ok, it’s a spot on the roster, so be it. Instead, he’s been a DH they’re using 3-4 times a week at best and it renders his spot on the roster kind of useless 3-4 times a week, and that’s when he’s producing at the plate.

It’s part of why some of us thought it was key to get Cutch back out in the field a bit more, because it keeps him involved and it would allow you to carry one less outfielder in lieu of what I feel is clearly needed right now, an extra infielder.

There’s no delicate way to put it, Cutch is important here and I believe he’ll produce runs for this team, but he isn’t a great fit right now and his presence makes less sense the less he plays, even as I 100% understand the need to reduce his role.

I’ve heard now in a rather matter of fact fashion that he intends to play a couple more years, and while the last thing I want is a divorce that hurts this fan base, I don’t know how they could go into next year with a similar setup. And it’s not like next year he’ll show up ready to handle 60 games in the outfield.

Now, “more harm than good”, show me all the incredible bats he’s holding back and we’ll talk. At it’s most basic, the question is, by the end of the year will Cutch be one of this team’s best or most productive hitters? I’ll say this, he’ll be in their top 7 or 8 and that probably speaks to him having a spot and earning it.

Good stuff though, we can’t be afraid to discuss this stuff, even about legends.

Question 2

After the trade deadline, we saw young guys come up and create a spark, adding to our win column. Do we think there will be some shake-up earlier in the season to spark our slumping offense? – R.J. Jones

Yes we did, and we’ll see more of it this year. In fact, I could (and did) argue that Jared Jones should have gotten a shot last year, instead, he joined that early season spark instead. There will be a shake up, if only because they have a lot of guys with options and room to do so. They can afford to play the hot hand or give other guys a shot.

Thing is, those needs have to align with who’s hot. Like Triolo could be replaced, but he’s like 3rd on the team in batting average. Alika could be replaced, but he’s hitting over .300 and playing good defense, let’s not even drag in that he was a number 1 pick too.

You could replace an outfielder like Olivares or Joe, even Jack but your options right now would be Bae or Palacios, I’m not sure I’d make that call quickly. Davis has struggled, and certainly could go down but where’s the offensive explosion waiting to come up?

Most of the injections of spark this year in my mind come on the mound from Priester, Skenes and others.

And I think that could start as early as tomorrow, but 20 games, man that’s barely enough to even have much more than a concerned eyebrow raise from a baseball exec. The shear volume of position players, I just don’t see. This next wave is very pitcher heavy.

Question 3

With Skenes on the doorstep, Jones looking like the real deal, plus Keller, where, and Burrows being close. Where if anywhere do you see Priester fitting in – Greg Roland

Let me start here, I’m not sure where “Burrows is close” is coming from. In fact, I can see a world where he gets a shot in the pen late in the year but he won’t truly be a factor for this team unless they’re out of it and injury depleted come September, maybe then you could jump him and give him a run, but asking him to win pennant race games, man, I don’t see that. He was a promising prospect, not some guy who’s got a season in MLB under his belt and an established role to walk back into.

Jones, Skenes, Keller, man that sounds nice, but I don’t see the immediate need to toss Priester aside like it happens this year or it doesn’t. He has a lot of options, a lot of talent and he’ll get his first shot tomorrow.

When we start looking at all these pitchers, we somehow ignore how often pitchers get hurt. What looks like 10 may wind up being 6. I know the team won’t, but fans would do well to open their minds to what may make the rotation go. Priester could get 5-6 starts here in MLB and 18-24 in AAA. He could come up and go back 2 or 3 times. He could look so good you’re asking me how they fit Solometo next year. Perhaps he becomes the long man they need, all the others who could be that have been only used for 2 inning stretches most of the time.

We don’t need to flush guys before we have to flush them. I mean, he could even be a guy who by next year has like 15 MLB starts under his belt, looks promising but the Pirates just have too much to let him break through and then he becomes a valuable player to deal.

Question 4

Who’s your top 5 realistic targets with the 9th pick? – Jay Pagliaro

It’s super early honestly. And when the Pirates aren’t picking in the top 5, who the hell knows ya know?

Here are the 5 I like the best in that realistic zone right now.

1B/P Jac Caglianone from Florida, 1B/OF Charlie Condon from Georgia, OF Konnor Griffin from Jackson Prep (MS), OF Vance Honeycutt from North Carolina, and LHP Josh Hartle from Wake Forest.

There are only 2 pitchers in the top 15 projected right now and Hartle is the top at 13.

That said, this list will change, college players will shine, high school players will crop up and be dark horse for a top pick.

I feel pretty confident though, this is a very position player heavy top of the board, and unless he moves up Hartle will be a reach. I’d expect a position player and I wouldn’t be shocked if it was a High School player, they don’t need to be in a hurry for the talent to get here at this point.

This also is in no way my specialty, but you asked….

Question 5

Henry Davis – umm, what the hell? – David Stegon
1-10 level of concern with Henry’s approach and output at the plate. -Sully

Let’s start defensively. He’s been so much better than I thought he’d be that now we get to nitpick. That’s a good thing believe it or not, especially with a young catcher. 2 are kinda little and easy to fix things, and 1 maybe not so much.

1st of the small issues, he just lets the game get away from him at times in the moment and makes an emotional play. Tries to throw a ball he should just eat, panics and cant find a ball he just blocked. Experience is the only fix for this.

2nd small issue, he tends to feed off his pitchers energy, good or bad and he needs to be more of a steadying force. I’ve seen this more with the bullpen than the starters and that makes sense, he’s worked with them a lot less and they are less about their relationship with the catcher in the first place. But Henry needs to grow into being able to slow down the game for them. When he doesn’t get a call, don’t try harder to frame, it just makes it look more obvious and costs you calls. Just don’t let the game change your job, do your job the right way and let the game happen around you. Again, experience.

3rd and in my mind biggest, control the run game. I don’t mean when Chapman is pitching, a walk is a triple against Chapman, he ain’t holding anyone on and he takes a month to the plate. But the other guys, he has to do better. His pop time isn’t crazy good, but his arm is better than most. He’s getting the ball there, but not in tag position, his throws are coming in high and it’s costing him caught stealing stats. He’s beaten 6 runners to the spot with his throws this year but all of them were at the numbers and those extra seconds applying a tag from a chest high throw are too much. Experience, training and trust his middle infielders will keep it in front of them is a hard trifecta to hit.

Now with the bat. Yeah, he looks lost. Trapped between trying to be patient, wanting to contribute and having no clue what to do with about half the breaking pitches he sees on top of not catching up to the fastball. He’s trying to speed up to catch it, and the funny thing is when he does he pulls it, so he’s sped up so much he has no hope of hitting an off speed pitch in play, if he touches it at all. Fastball issue number two, if the fastball is up, he can’t catch it, well, he can’t get on top of it, so it’s a pop up, foul tip or he just can’t pull the trigger and takes a called strike. If you have zones you can’t touch, it will become your hot zone from pitchers. They win either way, you lose either way.

It’s super early, and when a guy is that out of sorts, in some ways it can be more quickly fixed than when a guy feels he’s doing everything right and not having success.

There’s nothing about Henry I feel time can’t cure. But if the bat stays like this into say late May or Early June, yeah, they may have to do deadline shopping for a catcher if they’re miraculously in it with an underperforming rookie at the help that long. I’d also say, there is value in every lesson he learns this year, next year he can’t be a huge question.

Question 6

Do you see Oneil Cruz being moved off SS in the next year or 2? And if so, where do you think he ends up? – David Wald

I see the possibility. Right field still makes a lot of sense, I don’t think 1B would suit him but who knows, he’s certainly tall enough. DH makes some sense, but he’s got some work to do to make his defense acceptable let alone insignificant.

If he hits, you might deal with SS longer, if he doesn’t, he’s just a guy and you move him wherever you want.

Cruz playing defense is a story, but only because so many of us have made his bat a foregone conclusion, well, it doesn’t look that way early on.

Question 7

This is probably a dumb idea but if they are going to limit Jones and Skenes innings instead of handing games over to the bullpen could they start Jones and let him go his 4 or 5 innings, then give the ball to Skenes to finish the game? I know it won’t happen but wanted to see your thoughts. Hopefully the bullpen can improve. I thought it was going to be a strength this year and still can be. Thanks. – Don Jacobsen

They’ll want both of them to be starters. They might have shorter outings, but not for each other. The rituals and routines of starting in this league have to be learned and adapted to. Yes, you can plan to have a guy go every 5th day out of the pen, but you short the pen by an arm and that guy no matter how you try to manufacture it isn’t getting the same experience as the guy who started and you want both of them walking into 2025 filled to the brim with that experience.

Like what if Jones blows up and it’s 5-0 in the 4th. You go to Skenes and now the best he can do is give you 5 strong innings and likely doesn’t get to win anyway. You limit both when they need limited, not based off the other’s performance.

You’d be more likely to see one paired with Ortiz or Falter types.

Question 8

With the Marco Gonzalez injury, the likely candidate depending on how severe it is, Priester is the likely candidate to step into that fifth spot. Let’s say if Priester pitches well even by the time Gonzalez is healthy, could they use Gonzalez in the bullpen as a reliever? I ask because Priester didn’t have a poor spring, and he’s got nothing more to learn in Triple-A, take away that grand slam he gave up against the Phillies in spring training, his ERA would have been definitely lower. I’d also wanna ask, given the nature and severity of Marco Gonzalez’s injury from a year ago, I’m not sure he’s someone you can ask to throw beyond 80 pitches anymore? Am I right or am I wrong on that? Especially since now the bullpen, which is supposed to be the cream of our pitching staff, is in rough shape right now. – Neal Kokiko

OK. First, we now know Priester will be called up and start Friday. So there’s that.

If Priester pitches well and Gonzales comes back healthy, providing everyone else is still dealing, Priester goes back to AAA. That’s pretty easy, and it will be for them too.

Gonzales is not the same as Jared Jones or Paul Skenes. He’s pitching for a contract. He has to know the Pirates picking up his option for 2024 isn’t likely so he’ll very likely be a free agent. He won’t want to be held back in any way if he’s healthy and the Pirates for lack of a nicer way to say it, won’t care as much about his health. That’s not to say they’ll intentionally injure him, they just proved how quickly they’ll pull him off for the IL, but they also won’t put him on a pitch count. Let’s be very clear, those are for protecting your own investment, not someone’s career.

You don’t abuse guys, cause free agents see that, but guys who sign one year deals, they are here for opportunity, they need the innings. They want to show they’re a workhorse, they don’t want teams to see them as a project or a rehab guy. If he’s healthy they’ll let him go as long as he can.

He of course could go to the pen though, that is on the table for sure, we just have a lot of things that have to happen to see it. A lot more than 2-3 good starts from Priester.

Question 9

With recent bullpen issues do you see Mlodzinzki being called back up ASAP? – Drew Caryll

That would be rather reactionary. The bullpen issues you’re talking to are Bednar and Chapman blowing up a couple times and Mlodzinski won’t take their roles anyway. He’s in that guy who has options pool who could come up at any time in exchange for any number of guys up here who have the same beautiful bullpen gift of options. That’s the beauty of the Pirates bullpen this year, if healthy they have 4-5 fresh arms capable of going back and forth to keep them fresh and from being overworked.

Sounds like a cop out, but they’ve already shown you good players will be optioned and replaced, sometimes twice a week. I expect that most of the year.

Question 10

Do you think multi sport high school athletes should be preferences in drafting? It seems these baseball academy guys are throwing out their arms, and not just the pitchers. – Mark Graham

I’m not qualified to answer this. Reason being, the multi sport athlete is largely dying in high school, almost entirely in college and the few I’ve known anything about still went to all the camps and travel leagues and special trainers that the baseball only guys did.

I just don’t know enough of them exist to ever prioritize them over another. Like, is Bubba Chandler’s arm better because he threw a football instead of a baseball sometimes? How could I know? His story tells me he threw a hell of a lot of baseballs too, even while hitting. I will say he doesn’t have as much on his arm as many his age do though, but even so, it’s one guy.

Good question, I’m not smart enough to answer it and I question the data existing for anyone to tackle if fully.

Question 11

Who does Mlodzinski replace when he is ready? Skenes and Jones threw 128 and 126 innings respectively last year. Is the intent to keep them around those numbers this year or stretch them a bit? 150 should be a good number don’t you think? – Trib Bucks

Kinda answered the Mlodzinski part in Question 9.

Jones will top out around 150 if they do this exactly how they want, and Skenes could be in the 160-170 range. I’ve had these numbers since like January. I’ve written about them and I’ve always said, there could be play in them. For instance, Oviedo was to stop around 155 last year and he wound up topping 170. They’ll adjust if they think they’ve done their due diligence and maybe that experience guides them to err on the side of caution. That said, those are the initial plans and why you’ll see Skenes continue to creep up in innings and Jones get pulled from games he’s cruising in.

Question 12

Do you see the Pirates trading any of the players on 1 year deals before the deadline? – James Littleton

Sure. If everything goes great with health I could totally see them feeling they could move Gonzales, or Taylor, maybe even Perez although I think he’ll have made it pretty clear that would be dumb by then. I could even see them thinking they have enough depth and moving Borucki.

Yes, emphatic yes and not for salary dump purposes for once! Rejoice!

Question 13

What’s happen to Domingo Germán? I’ve seen where he was assigned to Indianapolis, but I don’t see him on their roster, reassign, or released. – Paul Swan

Last I heard, he’s in “development”. I get the impression the team wasn’t kidding about him having to prove a lot to them to get an opportunity. It’s why I feel this deal had more to do with the option they placed on next year than anything he might contribute in 2024.

Not that I couldn’t see him factoring in but because I think he received little interest and if they play this right, they could have themselves a really talented starting pitcher already signed for next year and a full season of working with him to know if it’s worth going forward with. In other words, he’s next year’s free agent flier.

That’s my guess because Paul without a lot of injuries and a lot of work from him, I don’t see it as an urgent matter this year.

Question 14

With the Pirates understandably managing Skenes and Jones pitches and innings, should they consider a modified 6 or 7 man rotation. I’m thinking Keller & Perez mostly pitch every 5th day but everyone else could be spread out and interchangeable. – Jim Maruca

Let me start with this. They won’t do this. They aren’t interested in it, and yes I’ve asked people who would know. I don’t use this card often, but in this case, I feel really solid about it.

Should they? Well, let me start here, it sure is optimistic to believe you have 6 or 7 healthy starters you just can’t imagine putting in a bullpen or back in AAA. Next, you’d never move the 5 other guys around as much as it would take to keep Keller and Perez on their 5 day schedules. You’re talking about trying to schedule something that would look like Cicada Brood charts.

Nah, it just isn’t a thing. And not that you doubt me, but if you need more proof, they’ve made a huge deal out of getting Skenes on an MLB schedule and panicked when Jones had to for the first time go on 5 days rest as opposed to 6. Zero chance they artificially create alterations to routine for most of these guys.

Question 15

Some recently discussed stats include BABIP, strikeouts, and exit velocity, all in a negative light. So you see any positives in the hitting results? – Douglas Smith

If the Pirates are facing a poor pitching staff their system works great. They can probably sweep or dominate most series against those teams. Unfortunately they don’t face a bunch of them.

I see some really good things from Cutch since he hit his homerun. Better swings, cleaner takes, more of the Cutch we know and love. Alika has been really consistent and productive all season. Olivares might be something, it’s early. Reynolds is locked in from the right side.

That’s the list. Hayes has numbers but I don’t like some of what I’m seeing with the pull numbers or launch angle. Feels like it’s slipping a bit.

Triolo has proven he’s semi productive even with normalized BABIP.

Question 16

If Perez continues to do well, is there any way he would extend with us or will we just lose him after one year? – Wilbert Matthews

There’s always a way. And they’ll certainly still need a veteran lefty next year. I guess it might depend on how real this Bailey Falter thing is, I mean they control him if they don’t DFA him.

Perez seems happy here and wanted to come so we’ll see. They’re already using him like an arm they aren’t concerned with saving for later though and we’ve seen what they do with those, they trade them. This is a different year if they’re in it, but if they aren’t he’s probably gone.

I’m not sure what to say beyond that. I mean Tellez could be too. lol

Question 17

With Pirates having only lost 1 of 5 series, being 1 game out of first and 2 out of the best record in the league, how many Pirates fans heads are going to explode before the season is over? The negative over reaction by Pirates “fans” seems to be way over the top, even for them. – Rick Bosworth

I mean, for one thing Rick, I think there are more people around who recognize even if they don’t come out of it all the way this year, they’re closer, so there are more people who care right now than there have been.

Baseball fans struggle to come to grips with this, but most people like baseball and tell people they like it and to them that means they watch 1-2 games a week, and if those two are losses, well next week it might be 1.

Oh, they watch the scores and jump in on conversations but they aren’t reading about them or listening to podcasts or, well, there aren’t any radio shows really. They’re already in joke about the Pirates mode, and working with like 15% of the actual watching of the games you are much of the time.

If you want the truth, it’s this way because the expectations have been raised. There are people here right now who only came back because they heard about Jared Jones and then they tuned in and saw him get yanked after 59 pitches.

Now, you might understand that. I might explain it really well. I’ll talk about it, I’ll write about it, the team will talk about it. They’ll never see it. They’ll just race to a message board, yell Fire Shelton! 59 Pitches something something, Nolan Ryan something something. They’ll be agreed with in spades by people just as tuned in as they are.

Like Jesus said, forgive them, they know not what they do.

By 2026, some of these same people will have decided they are super plugged in, because honestly by then they might be and they’ll start more dumb podcasts and silly sites and half will evaporate like bad farts.

My advice, engage with people who you know want to actually talk about the sport, the Pirates and do so honestly. Think you can’t find any, well, here are 17, 18 if you count me. It’s not your job to correct the record, or help them see that something like miscolored uniforms isn’t Bob Nutting’s fault, just let them be. Let them play in the pool with all the other people who aren’t ready to dive all the way in and when curiosity and paying attention add up to them suddenly wanting to talk, hey, open those arms up big dog and let them bask in what you know.

It’s just not worth anyone’s time to fight these fights.

I’m on two podcasts a week minimum, I write 6-7 pieces about the Pirates every week, I’m all over social media and I engage with just about anyone. I haven’t even made a dent. People that actually want to think about this team as deeply as I and sounds like you do, well, they learn cause they want to. That’s step one in learning, wanting to.

These folks just want to see that tall guy who hits ’em homeruns n’at, now where’s he play? Man he sucks they should make him a first baseman for that fat guy.

Just ignore it and eat your nachos Rick.

Jared Jones has Been Electric, and the Pirates are Being Careful

4-17-24 – By Ethan Smith – @mvp_EtHaN on X

Early season storylines can always cloud the judgment of fans as something concrete, so you have to be careful not to fool yourself into taking the bait on certain things.

But something feels different about what Jared Jones, the Pirates No. 3 prospect via MLB Pipeline, is doing through his first four starts of his career.

To address the elephant in the room first, Jones was pulled after just 59 pitches, 50 of which were strikes, in the Pirates loss to the Mets on Tuesday evening. His only hit allowed was a blooper from Pete Alonso that Bryan Reynolds just missed, and along the way, Jones struck out seven, which put him in the history books.

Jones has struck out seven or more batters in each of his first four starts, joining some elite company that includes Stephen Strasberg, and anytime you’re in a conversation with him as a pitcher, that’s a good thing.

Not only was Jones dominant last night, but he’s been dominant throughout his four starts.

Jones currently ranks in the 94th percentile or higher per Statcast in chase rate, whiff rate, strikeout rate and walk rate, an indication he’s missing bats while limiting the free pass and striking out batters at an elite rate. His fastball-slider combination, one we knew had the potential to be great, has been so far, as both pitchers are allowing an opposing batting average well below the Mendoza Line, with the fastball sitting at .171 and the slider sitting at .156, so there should be no worries about his two primary pitches.

Now, the decision to pull Jones after just 59 pitches was met by tons of scrutiny from the Pirates faithful, and I can understand it to a degree, seeing as Jones was absolutely dealing again and showcasing his elite stuff against a solid Mets offense.

Here is the thing, take a breath. Its going to be ok that Jones got pulled after that amount of pitches, because the Pirates see the value this kid brings to the table and they don’t want to make the same mistake they made last year with a young pitcher, that pitcher being Johan Oviedo, who is now on the shelf with Tommy John Surgery after pitching more innings(177.2) in 2023 than he had in his entire first three years at the MLB level(142).

It is also no secret that pitchers across the league, from Sandy Alcantara to now Spencer Strider, are dealing with arm soreness that eventually leads to Tommy John Surgery, specifically pitchers with high velocity numbers, a category Jones fits right into.

For context, Jones pitched 126.1 innings last year in the Pirates farm system. He’s currently at 23 this season through four starts, an average of about six innings per game. Seeing as pitchers go every five days, the average pitchers would get about 32.4 starts per year if they played an entire season(this does not factor in off day changes or injuries).

So, do the math there, and 32.4 starts multiplied by six innings per game would equate to about 195.1 innings, which would be 69 more innings than what Jones has ever pitched in his professional career. It’s not to say that Jones couldn’t do it, but we saw Oviedo slow down as the summer months passed by, and that isn’t a phenomenon, it’s just human anatomy.

Jones even knew going into his Tuesday start that his pitch count was limited, as he and Derek Shelton both voiced it publicly postgame to reporters.

Trust me, I know it was frustrating to see Jones leave so early after being so dominant, but this is a process that team doctors and many other individuals with more knowledge on the growing arm issues across baseball tell Derek Shelton, and he abides, because Jones has been and will likely continue to be one of the Pirates top pitchers in the rotation not only this season, but for years to come.

If Jones keeps up his impressive play, the Pirates may have a Rookie of the Year candidate on their hands, even if he doesn’t pitch an immense amount of innings, and I am here to tell you he flat out won’t because the team is treating him like the expensive Christmas gift you got from your mother, and they should treat him that way, carefully.

As I stated earlier, what Jones has done is no joke, the kid is as talented as it gets, his stuff plays, he’s confident on the mound and everything in between, but what is more important, getting the most innings out of a 22-year old pitcher possible or his availability for the entire season? I’ll let you answer that one yourself.

The Pirates Start Fueled by Unexpected Sources

4-16-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

When the Pirates lose, the message boards almost always look post apocalyptic, and when they win, they often look like Championship parade planning sessions. This is as old as time.

The day to day nature of baseball creates a roller coaster of emotions for all but the very few teams who win 100 plus games, and even those fan bases have had 55-60 horrible, earth shattering, season ending losses.

The thing is, with 11 wins vs only 6 losses, this team has had some performances we need to not just brush under the rug. Truth be told, many of the best have come from players that weren’t expected to deliver them and that’s why in my mind, so many fans still feel this whole thing is tenuous at best.

Like, I could make a pretty strong argument that Connor Joe has been the best player on this team in 2024. And yes, I did see that throw yesterday!

For real though, he’s been incredible. He leads the team in AVG, OPS, SLG for qualified (enough at bats) players. Ke’Bryan isn’t far behind him, but Ke’ is the only “star” player, or “core” player, however you want to refer to them, who’s really been leading the charge.

Michael Taylor has hit like never before in his long career. Edward Olivares is tied for the team lead for homeruns (3) with Oneil Cruz, in roughly half the at bats.

These are unfamiliar names, or at least guys that most fans weren’t expecting to win a bunch of games for this team.

You can look at this as an indication many of those performances will come back to Earth, and it probably will for most of them, or, you could look at it as evidence that they can win with role players while the stars or core players find their swings.

Either way, when you enter a series with a team like the Mets, you’d feel much better if you could say, Cruz and Reynolds are going to take this series over, than you do saying Conner and Triolo are gonna walk twice each and one of them will come up with a key hit.

Both are wins, one makes you feel great, one makes you feel lucky.

The truth is, all of the most maligned parts of this pre-season roster are the parts delivering and the sure fire stars or guys we’d at least get X amount of homeruns from are really struggling to get their footing. Again, with the exception of Ke’Bryan Hayes.

I hope this doesn’t come across as a complaint. I’m really enjoying the season and I am one of those fools who think when the role players fade the stars will heat up, in fact I bet we’ll see them overlap a bit first.

But even I predicted 84 wins, that’s not ever going to look like a put your feet up and coast into the post season come August club. This is going to be a dogfight. This division is going to be a dogfight.

We’ve forgotten, Oneil Cruz has still not become more than a promising kid. We got a nice taste in 2022, he was robbed of almost all of 2023 and the lessons he was supposed to learn last year, he’s learning now. He’s paying for it in strikeouts and poor pitch selection and he will until he adjusts. Think back to 2022, he didn’t forget, he just needs to recapture it.

Bryan Reynolds is a natural right handed hitter but he takes far more at bats left handed. He’s started the season completely on fire from the right side. It’s going to take work to get his left handed swing back where he wants it. We’ve seen him struggle to balance his sides in the past, he will.

Henry Davis is a virtual rookie, learning to catch and hit at the MLB level. He’s largely done well behind the plate, but he has a tendency to make some poor decisions in the moment. Baseball always punishes a rookie who thinks he can make an impossible play or worse improvisation in the heat of the moment. At the plate, he’s frustrated, visibly, audibly and what he’s always done best, hitting the fastball, is not his friend early on. There’s work to do here, and odds are, he’s only going to come so far this year. Frankly, he’s already come quite a long way as a backstop.

See those underperforming “star” things are much more to dig into than, gee, I hope Connor keeps swinging a hot bat.

They’re also hard to write about. Take a guy like Michael Taylor, should I ignore his decade plus career and tell you this hitting .300 thing is the new him? Hey, if he’s doing it in July I might try! But here in April, it’s a hot start, and because with him his stats are so damn consistent with the exception of last year’s homerun total, it’s very hard for me to believe. In fact, when they signed him I told you there’d be times you can’t imagine him sitting, and times where you can’t imagine playing him.

Connor started hotter than hell last year too, honestly, look back he was the straw that stirred the early drink along with Reynolds.

The starting rotation is no different. Many analysts and “experts” there are no such thing by the way, preached all off season that they were woefully short in the rotation and they’ve largely been excellent. Even Bailey Falter! How many people are out there crowing that Bailey Falter is untouchable?

Mitch Keller had a couple nice starts in a row, and you can feel the sigh of relief there, but that’s because he was supposed to be good. Jared Jones was supposed to be good too, because you wanted him to be, because he throws 100 MPH, but he is a rookie too. For now, he’s our Spencer Strider and people are more than happy to say so.

When we get into June, all of this stuff will even out. Most of the guys we thought would lead the way will probably lead the way, and most of the role players will probably settle back in to their roles.

Until then though, let’s stop putting brakes on every conversation by saying it’s too early. It’s too early for a lot of long range predictive stuff, but it’s not too early to be excited about someone or worried about another.

The truth is players will swap most of the year on and off those lists. The ones that stay in the excited category all year, probably had a really good time on the All Star Red Carpet.

Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – Ain’t Lost a Series Yet!

4-15-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

The bill always comes due.

It’s tax day in America and it always hurts paying the piper, but baseball is no different, no matter what lucky bounces you receive, chances are bounces in the other direction are hiding in the bushes waiting to pounce.

The Bucs have started out really well and it has them sitting tied for the top of the league with 11 wins, yet somehow still trailing the friggin’ Brewers in the standings because they have a better winning percentage in less games.

The Pirates have done this with more road games than anyone else so far. They’ve gone 7-2 against teams not seen as playoff bound and 4-3 against those who are.

It’s Jackie Robinson Day and the Pirates are in New York, so I’m looking forward to everything that surrounds that today, it’s always a good reminder that we didn’t get where we are without pain, perseverance, bravery, and yes, forcing some people to at least shut their mouths if not change their minds. We shouldn’t ignore that where we are is a hell of a lot better than where we were by way of trying to express a need to improve further. That does a disservice to great men like Jackie to pretend things remain at the starting line, they just don’t.

Now, lets rock!

1. So What Happens When/If Grandal is Healthy?

To me, this is still a big if. I think fans saw the report that he was supposed to start baserunning drills this week and forgot we heard this even as Spring was wrapping up too. I say this because, before this becomes something we have to figure out, we first have to officially have something to figure out.

That said, they don’t have a ton of appealing options here.

If Yasmani Grandal is deemed healthy and ready to go, Joey Bart has no options and I can’t see them wanting to move on from him, he’s been quite good in a limited role backing up Henry Davis.

Henry doesn’t have great offensive numbers, but he’s done fine behind the dish. I think we’ve seen some signs he’s starting to see it better, taking some walks and making better contact on the fastball, which has been the issue all season long, catching up with the fastball.

You could of course send Henry down, but I can’t see the long term benefit. Feels like you really need to keep the foot on the gas all year, regardless of how it looks because Henry needs to not be a question mark heading into 2025. And, bottom line, I don’t see Grandal as a more likely contributor to winning.

I could add in Jason Delay who is on the IL, but he too has options and could just go to AAA.

The biggest issue is, if you just DFA Grandal when he’s healthy, you lose that professional depth at the position. Until Delay is healthy, you’re looking at Abrahan Gutierrez or Carter Bins should something happen, and let’s face facts, Grandal isn’t going to shrug and just be a AAA catcher.

I think the best thing to do is DFA Grandal, but I will leave room for thinking they might want to go with 3 catchers for a while. Maybe use Henry as a DH, see if they can get him to focus more on the offense for a minute and then work his way back into catching more than a time or two per week.

If they went that route, they’d almost have to consider sending down an Outfielder and I have a very hard time seeing who that would be. Olivares has been really good, Taylor is clearly the starting CF, Jack just showed you yesterday why he gets to keep trying, Reynolds is going nowhere, and Connor Joe just saw the team win the first game he didn’t play in.

To me, you consider yourself lucky you fell into Bart and wash your hands of Grandal. I’m sure some of you will suggest making him a coach, but these are proud players, not many of them are going to pull a Jake Taylor from Major League 2 and turn into a coach.

Again, it’s not a messy situation until it is. That doesn’t mean we can’t prepare for it mentally.

2. Marco Gonzales to the IL

When you acquire a guy like Marco Gonzales, coming off what he was dealing with, you accept that any slight twinge, any odd feeling, even a slight numbness could and probably would cause you to shut him down quickly.

That’s what the Pirates did. Marco had a great outing against the Phillies on Saturday and after the game Marco said he felt great, best he’d felt about his stuff all season. Later that night, he felt some tightness and without hesitation the team placed him on the IL and back to Pittsburgh for an MRI.

It could be nothing, it could be season ending.

The Pirates already brought Ryder Ryan back as the corresponding move, in fact he’s already pitched.

So why a reliever instead of a starter? Well, they don’t need a starter…Yet.

The Pirates are in New York Monday through Wednesday and then they have an off day on Thursday. That Thursday would have been Gonzales’ next turn, so they can just skip the spot and go right back to Mitch Keller on Friday at home against the Red Sox.

The next time it comes up would be the following Tuesday against the Brewers at home. If they make a move, this would be where, and it is really in part dependent on what they find with Gonzales.

He won’t be eligible to return yet, but they should know if this is a longer term thing, or if just missing a turn or two is fine, and the caution paid off.

If he’s out longer term, The Pirates could really call on anyone they want, it would be entirely appropriate to even have that be a guy who needs a 40-man spot.

If it’s shorter term, we could see them try to just use the bullpen, or I’d suggest Quinn Priester who’s off to a good start this season and is already on the 40-man.

Why no Paul Skenes? Well, for many of the reasons I told you the other day. They don’t have him built up yet, but if they wanted to, they could cripple through here with a couple bullpen games and get to the beginning of May where Paul should be at least very close to where they want him to get.

Bottom line, a whole lot of things are on the table, we have to fully learn the severity of this injury and the Pirates will for the first time tap into their depth for the rotation.

3. Let’s Talk About Giving a Player a Fair Shake

It’s really easy to look at Liover Peguero and Nick Gonzales in AAA hitting .356 and .362 respectively and start wondering why Jared Triolo and his .268 AVG gets to stay in MLB.

Alika Williams is every bit a bench player. A bench player who’s hitting .294 by the way, but more to the point, a player who only has 20 Plate Appearances so far. That number right there is why Nick or Liover can’t be put in that position, they both have 63 PA in AAA already, and it’s exactly why they’re down there. Just to round this out, Jared has 62.

Almost sounds planned doesn’t it? In order to consider Alika a swap for one of the 2 AAA middle infielders, you’d have to believe it would come with a reduction in role for Triolo and in that case, you’ve gone from regular ABs for 3 of them back to 2, one of which (Alika) you already showed you aren’t looking to get them for.

The first thing to say here, you all really already know, your brain just won’t allow you to accept it. AAA and MLB aren’t the same thing. Jared is doing, I’d say, OK. Not special, not really shining anywhere. He’s not leading some small ball revolution, he’s not hitting for power as they hoped would come with his stance change. In fact so far he’s really just looked a ton like last year with a little less exit velocity, a more normalized BABIP and a few more K’s.

We’re also 15 games in.

So how long do you let those guys perform, or not see Jared perform to make a change? How do you pick winners and losers in advance, almost like they did with Alika, because again, look at those plate appearances, he’s not in this story, not really. In fact, he may have the firmest spot on the roster out of these 4 players because of it.

Jared gets bonus points for being an excellent backup 3B when Ke’Bryan Hayes needs a blow.

Early on, here’s been the main thing effected by the way Peguero and Gonzales have performed, Ji Hwan Bae’s rehab has been almost entirely in Center Field. I believe he’s just about all the way out on the 2B conversation.

I always like to look at 100 plate appearances. Especially if they come in a reasonable time frame. For instance, Alika’s 100 PA threshold could come as late as the second half of May, while all these other guys will be there before the month ends.

I can’t speak for the team, I just know stats are really hard to dismiss after you get to that first 100. There’s usually enough there to start forming opinions, maybe even establishing split tendencies. The underlying stats start to mean more too. Anomalies are usually starting to prove themselves legit things to keep your eye on or evidence we were indeed looking too soon.

There are exceptions. You can’t ignore a straight up tragedy playing itself out in front of you if you have legitimate options. So if Jared had come out hitting like .075 and he’s striking out 35% of the time, ok, maybe you pull the trigger before you see that 100. You almost give him a pat on the back, a list of things to work on and a plane ticket if you’re up around where he is now, but that’s not been the case. Instead he’s been a positive WAR player and deserves an opportunity to prove it out a bit more.

Now, Nick and Liover’s numbers will continue to matter more too and even if they are in AAA, guys hitting over .350 100 PAs in is very hard to ignore. Especially if it starts coming with power, nobody in this group has more than 1 dinger so far.

In fact, right now, I could make the argument the differences in their performances is akin to the difference in levels.

Need more evidence. Which means need more time.

4. Speaking of Bae…

Listen, take this for what it’s worth, but I had assumed Ji Hwan Bae would finish his rehab assignment and be optioned to AAA. Turns out that’s exactly what they did today, but I’ve been told the team really wants to get Bae’s skillset on the roster.

I mentioned this a bit in the last point, but the team is having him play more CF than 2B. A development I love because out of all their 2B options, I think Bae is the worst defender of the lot. He can get to everything, he can make all the throws, I just don’t believe he can turn the double plays, at least not as well as all these other guys.

Center field was a work in progress but the Pirates do need more left handed options on their roster and having one more could really help everything come together better.

My thing, I have no clue who this would be for.

I can’t see it being Olivares, he’s just been too good. Taylor, and Reynolds are obviously safe, so is Connor Joe. I highly doubt Jack Suwinski, but I guess I can’t rule it out

So, I guess from the Outfield group, I give you maybe Jack but I doubt it, especially because that would eliminate the extra lefty thought.

I guess it could be Alika Williams. Bae may be to the point where they no longer want to see him get a certain number of at bats, so they could potentially go in that direction, but you’d have to accept he’s going to play second base some and Jared Triolo would have to be your backup SS, kinda seems like a stretch to me. Maybe too many moving parts to force in a guy who hasn’t shown you he should get the lion’s share of playing time anywhere.

He remains interesting, and that’s about it. I’m not sure this roster has room for interesting right now.

That said, when you hear things like that, from the right people, you force yourself to think it through, because it doesn’t just come up for the purpose of giving idiots like me story ideas.

5. These Next Two Series

These two series against the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox are weird. Both of these teams are capable of looking and playing incredible baseball, and they’re both capable of the polar opposite.

All teams are of course, but these two in particular have some Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in them. The Mets started out 0-5 and came on to win each of their las three series. Riding pitching that on paper has no business of performing as it has. I can’t make sense of it, and I’ve tried.

The Red Sox are a relatively young team, with some star power still there too. They have the inconsistencies of youth and not often enough do their veterans overcome them when they crop up. They too have a pitching staff that on paper looks like it should be vulnerable.

The Pirates are a tough matchup for both of these clubs. Both have bullpens ripe for the picking if it’s not right at the back end and both have starters who throw inefficient games. That’s a recipe for the Pirates cracking your bullpen in the 5th a couple times and that’s what I expect to see play out largely.

The Mets and Sox are both capable of hitting the long ball, in fact, you won’t be able to avoid it all series, but if the Pirates starters continue to not give up free passes, you’ll deal with it.

Some series are measuring sticks, some are series you’re supposed to win, but these two are more, don’t let your focus slip and you should take them.

I worry mostly about the lefties Martin Perez and Bailey Falter against the Mets right handed power. To me that’s the most obvious key matchup in this series. I also love the matchup of Oneil Cruz against Adrian Houser, so much so that I really hope he’s leading off tonight.

Andrew McCutchen Hits His 300th Homerun, but He’s So Much More than His Milestones

4-14-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

When I saw Andrew McCutchen swing at that hanging breaking ball and toss his bat aside, it looked awfully familiar. I mean we’ve all seen him do this hundreds of times, and in many ways, he’s done it under the radar.

Part of that is expressly because Andrew chose to spend most of his career here in Pittsburgh, a team that hasn’t garnered much MLB attention, even when they managed to build something that brought them to the playoffs, there was always going to be an air of circus sideshow to the Pirates being at the top of the league, and by the time the national MLB media finally realized what was going on and who was winning MVP on the way there, Andrew’s contract extension here in Pittsburgh was nearing it’s expiration date.

Let’s key in on that first part….Andrew Chose.

He chose to take less than he could have gotten on the open market and stay here in Pittsburgh to see through what he himself had helped build. He’d become a Pittsburgher in every way, loved the city, lived in the city, or near it anyway, married a girl from the city, and damnit, he was going to win, right here, in HIS city.

Now, I’m only going to speak for myself here, but I had never in my baseball life seen a star player come along and choose to overlook all the dumb moves, all the cheapness, the salary dumps, the everything and make a conscious decision to stay here.

I watched my favorite teams from the late 80’s and early 90’s sold off or allowed to walk away one by one. I saw them laugh at the idea of signing with the Pirates with all the new Cable TV money floating around the league. I watched every player I held dear leave and finish their career somewhere else.

Oh there was Jason Kendall, but they never won anything that mattered and while a very good player, he wasn’t MLB elite.

Suddenly, here’s this guy who was the first cement block laid in the foundation of this team that would go on to return this franchise to the playoffs, and being talked about in the upper echelon on MLB players and he WANTS to stay?

When that extension was signed in 2012, I can’t tell you how shocked I was.

I’ve always loved baseball, always watched, but I had given up hope that this team would ever extend a star. I never saw it happening. I hoped they’d find a way to win, build a team and have it work out, but by 2012, I felt they had until 2014 to get it done, because surely Andrew McCutchen would be gone the next year.

Instead, he bet on himself, and this team, this city and signed a team friendly deal to extend 3 years beyond his arbitration years.

Then the Magic came.

You know what happened after that. They climbed the mountain and came up short. Wound up trading Cutch for a current core player Bryan Reynolds and Kyle Crick.

It hurt, both us and him. I figured the story was over, we’d hear from him one day at alumni stuff. We’d cheer when he came back. We’d still see him around in the off season.

Instead Andrew shocked me again. The same man who allowed the last winning team to come up short and Cutch teamed up to have him return and play out his career here.

It’s led to milestone after milestone being reached. None bigger than this 300 homerun mark.

I don’t know if Andrew will make it long enough to see this team climb that mountain again, maybe we’re seeing that first few gravity defying steps taking place right now, but I do know, this player, this man CHOSE us.

He chose to make us his city, his famalee, his home, his team and his fans. This stuff matters to him, and doing things for you matters to him too.

He said something today after the game that struck me, and I think illustrates a lot about who Andrew McCutchen is. When asked about the fans in Philly where he played for 3 seasons, and I’ll paraphrase here, essentially he’ll always love them because he was making almost 20 million dollars and not producing, and they stood by him.

He’s so Pittsburgh, every time he positively spoke about Philly he quickly referenced how much more whatever emotion he was discussing was for Pittsburgh up to and including being giddy he hit that baseball to the only two Pirates fans sitting in that section.

We’ve been lucky in Pittsburgh, we’ve had some incredible athletes come through this city, and become even better citizens. I’ll never have Roberto, or Willie, or Dave Parker just for me. I have their legacy, and I love the history of this game, but Andrew is the single greatest Pittsburgh Pirates player in my lifetime as a fan.

Yeah, I’ve loved watching him, but to know he’s loved US watching him here just as much is a big part of what makes Andrew such a special player.

Congrats on 300 Cutch, I’m sure whatever you do next will amaze me just as much as the rest of your incredible career.

See ya dahn at Market District n’at!