The Pittsburgh Pirates are in FREEFALL

The Pittsburgh Pirates are in FREEFALL

If you asked me to predict the absolute worst way this team could come out of the All-Star break, it would probably have looked a lot like what we just watched at PNC Park this weekend. Let’s rant a little next on Locked on Pirates. [Music] You are Locked On Pirates, your daily Pittsburgh Pirates podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. Welcome to Locked On Pirates. I’m Gary Morgan. How did we get here? This was the worst series that I can remember in recent memory, at least against a team that you didn’t expect it to be a terrible series. And even those, it’s not often that the Pirates get boat raced three straight times. You know, they’ve been playing some closer games and losing closer games. That’s kind of been the hallmark of this Don Kelly era of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball that’s been very short, but it it’s also become a lot more familiar looking in the last couple weeks. the the the last few series here, the last two series before the All-Star break leading into this series post Allstar break, they’ve looked like they have very little interest in being on this baseball field or any baseball field really. Some of them don’t even really appear to enjoy the game itself, let alone playing it here. Don Kelly has been given an impossible task. He was first asked to get his arms around something that was already going violently in the wrong direction. I can say that decision should have been made before the season started. I think we all said that before the season started. Many of us have been saying for a couple seasons that it wasn’t going to work under Derek Shelton. just didn’t seem like he was able to push back enough against the GM at certain times andor be creative with what he did have and it looked at least at the beginning like Don Kelly was going to be able to do that. Well, then he kind of does and gets his arms around it and kind of gets this team rolling on the tracks again. And now he’s asked to do his next miracle. when his next miracle is to oversee a team that very likely has about a full third of the 26 man up for sale in the in at the trade deadline that’s coming in 11 days. That shouldn’t be a big deal. These are all professionals, right? That’s what we love to tell ourselves as fans. These are all professionals. They should all know what’s going on. They should all come into this knowing that that’s the way it is. Well, okay. They’re also human beings. And I’m not saying that they think this mix of players can win. I don’t think you’d find anybody in that room that believes they have what it takes to do a whole lot more than what they’re doing. That’s part of the problem. But they’re also not entirely wrong. So there’s nobody in that room thinking that nobody deserves to get traded or they shouldn’t move on from anybody or they are very much so not blind to the fact that they are probably going to get worse not better at this trade deadline. And a lot of what Ben Sharington’s trying to sell right now is that everything they’re doing is now with an eye towards 2026. So, you shouldn’t be thinking about these moves in relation to helping this baseball team in 2025. Now, here’s what scares me about that, and it only scares me if Ben Cherington is going to dip his toe into selling something that has team control beyond this year. Cuz if he’s selling Reynolds, I don’t expect help in 2025. I just don’t. if he’s trying to get assets that can help in 2026. I kind of question that too. I think like this Deainy acquisition for Adam Frasier that happened, you know, right before the game really on Friday morning. I think that’s something that they could probably model again, especially if you’re moving like even the guys that are close to their term expiring like David Bedar and Dennis Santana. I think there’s a little bit more value there. You’ve got a chance to get somebody that could actually help this team in 2026, but 2025 at this point needs to be used for seeing what’s going to be part of 2026, right? Is that not what he’s saying? If he’s saying that he’s turning his direction to 2026, I’m I get it. But shouldn’t your team be doing that same thing? Like I I understand that you have some guys for sale and you want to play them. IKF comes to mind, you know, Andrew Heeney comes to mind, those types. But are you doing yourself any favors? valuewise by by continuing to shove Andrew Heene out there and asking him to to hand you innings that when he don’t have it. I don’t know. I think teams are smart enough to know like what you’re buying with Andrew Heene. It’s not necessarily his stats. It’s it’s his cumulative what he does in general. What he can bring to your to your rotation or what he can bring to your bullpen. I think he’s a pretty established commodity and I wouldn’t worry too much about his stats from the last few days, but it’s something to think about because you’re also not playing Tommy Fam who’s been hotter than hell. Okay? And you want to play him because you want to con some team into thinking that he’s having a little bit of a resurgence and he might help them a little bit down the stretch. I think that’s a tough cell, but I’m watching him every day, okay? I’ve watched the beginning of the season. Most most teams aren’t. Most players aren’t. Well, they’re not blind. They know what happens, and they can look at splits just as easy as I can and see when he started hitting and when he didn’t, but it’s been going on for a few weeks now, and they made enough of a big deal about it being partially driven by this contact solution, right? or the new contacts that he got that I think you could probably con a team into thinking there’s something there, but you’re not getting a major piece back for him. So, part of me is like, well, what’s the purpose in playing them anymore? You get what I mean? Like, if everything’s about 2026, well, it’s time to quit having the the same lineup every day, right? If everything’s about 2026, let’s be real. The best version of this team has O’Neal Cruz playing every day and hitting right in the heart of the order, right? It does. Look at his stats. He’s still got a good shot to be 3030 this year. He’s coming back next year. You should be happy about it. The overall Paul of this team has has painted O’Neal Cruz as some kind of dark horse this year, but he he’s he’s going to put up the numbers that I think we were hoping he would. At least close. Think about it. He only needs 14 more home runs and he’d be 3030 this year. There’s there’s just not a world where you’re looking at that and calling it a bad season. You can look at it in comparison to what you think that man’s capable of and then okay, yeah, you can you can say that he didn’t he didn’t shoot for the for what you think he could do. But you can’t say that’s a bad season. You want that back. That’s coming back. Brian Reynolds is having a terrible season. He is coming back. So you got to play him. Brian Hayes, unless they move him, is coming back. You got to play him. I can’t for the life of me see Joey Bart coming back. So you should be playing Davis every day. You should be playing Horwitz every day. They are, but you should be. You traded for him. You sold him as a solution at first base. You owe the rest of this season to find out. No if ends or buts. Let’s see it. Let’s hope that he recovers fully from the wrist thing and it really starts coming on. You sold him as a solution. And I got to be honest, I don’t want to go into next year wondering about first base. Let’s get Let’s get it out on the table and see what it is. Play whoever in left field. You did Canario for a while. The people that talking about like Jack getting another chance and everything. I get it. I totally get what you’re saying, but if you bring Jack up here, I’m just telling you what’s going to happen. If you bring Jack up here and you play Jack once, twice a week, he’s not going to hit. That’s his history. Jack’s not going to hit. He’s too streaky to to play once or twice a week and do anything productive. You have to ride the roller coaster with a guy like Jack. And if you do, he’s going to suck an awful lot. But at the end of the year, if you played him the equivalent of 150 games, I bet you probably get 25 home runs out of him. I bet you probably get 200 strikeouts. I bet he looks pretty bad, but I bet he plays good defense. He hits a decent amount of home runs for you. I think that’s what would happen, but we’ll never know because this team calls him up and plays him here and there. Okay. All they’re going to do is just frustrate that situation and the fans having him called up. Every time he gets in, it’s just a continuation of the same bad story. And I’m sorry, that comes from just not pushing through it and doing what you have to do with young players. When we come back, I’m going to pick up talking about Nick Gonzalez because Nick Gonzalez to me is a perfect example of what Ben Cherington’s hitting philosophy overall does to the development system and the actual baseball team itself. Get the supplies you need from the site made for the skilled trades supply house. Whether you’re in plumbing, HVAC, or electrical work, supply house is the reliable way to order products online. Their easytouse website is packed with helpful source resources and the latest product info to help you get the job done right. Plus, with a complete inventory of over 200,000 parts from over 400 top brands, you’ll find exactly what you need delivered fast from coast to coast. Join the Trademaster program today at supplyhouse.com and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code SH5 for 5% off your first order. That’s supplyhouse.com. All right, welcome back to Locked On Pirates and a slightly upset Gary today. I understand. I had to watch all three of these games. I didn’t get to just shut it off because I had to talk about it. I mean, so, um, give me a little bit of grace for being a little edgy today. I’m not happy about what I just watched. I I look I felt like I watched a total systemic failure, a total collapse of this team. I didn’t see the effort. I didn’t see people wanting to be there. I don’t see scrappy guys trying to win a spot or earn a spot or keep a spot. I see a collection of guys waiting to find out who’s coming or going before they get serious about starting to look forward themselves. And you can’t win that way. And worse, you can’t find out what you got that way. Nick Gonzalez, I promised I would pick up with though, here, Nick Gonzalez is a is a poster child for what Ben Cherington’s development system does here. Okay. I I think when you watch the games, it’s apparent that there is no more truly aggressive hitter in this lineup than Nick Gonzalez. You could make an argument that if Alexander Canario is in there, he is right along that same path. And what Nick Gonzalez has done to kind of combat his own aggressiveness is he has taught himself to recognize what guys are going to try to do to you when you get to two strikes, which is usually try to get you to go fishing. And he’s learned to not go fishing as much. So basically, he earns himself a third bite at the apple, a third decent pitch that he can take a swing at most at bats if things are going normally. Well, this hitting approach is something that Nick has held on to while being coached to do the opposite just about his entire trip up here. Now, I don’t mean like they’re yelling at him for getting hits or swinging early or whatever, but I can tell you the approach that he takes to an at bat is not what Ben Sharington wants and it’s not what Ben Sharington wants coached and it’s not the way he wants hitters to approach at bats when they’re up here. Nick had a few things happen on the way here injury-wise, and he was a draft baby of the CO era. So, it took him a little bit longer to get here for some reasons that have nothing to do with Ben Harrington, but they did slow walk him coming up here and getting his feet wet primarily based on the belief that he was not taking at bats the way Ben Sharington wants him to. I say that because I think it’s the same problem Leo Pguero has quite frankly. It’s why he doesn’t come up here and get a lot of shots because he’s never really adapted his hitting approach to match what Ben Cherington is looking for up here. And I think the thing that’s most frustrating about that is the one thing that you should recognize from having Nick Gonzalez up here. You basically got embarrassed into having to use your number one pick. You had to give him a real shot because he was the number one pick. And because of that, he comes up here and his bat looks different in this lineup. Why does it look different? Because he’s doing something different. That’s what’s important here. Look at that. Realize that it’s more successful than a whole lot of what you have in this lineup. Look where your coach is trying to use him at cleanup. Why? Because Nick’s going to get a freaking swing off. That’s why. So, do you think maybe we would change our approach as far as what we want to call up to this league? Do you think that would maybe change what you want to see approach-wise in this lineup in general? I would think so. I would truly think so. But who has he acquired? He’s acquired Isaiah Ker Falefa who is the quintessential Ben Sherington prototypical hitter. takes a lot of pitches, makes contact, makes the opposing pitcher work, gets the swing off to, you know, and and does something with it when he does. Some guys have a knack for that. Some guys can actually hit like that. Isaiah is one of those guys, but there aren’t a lot of those guys. Most guys hit more like Nick Gonzalez. They have to take advantage of the opportunities they get. Look at how often Nick takes a cut at that early fast ball that’s in the zone. I’m not saying he hits it all the time. He’s certainly not a perfect player, but he takes a cut at it. He gets a swing off. He takes a chance. When he needs a fly ball to score a run, he goes after something that he can hit a fly ball on. Whether it’s a strike or a ball, whether the count is 2-1 or one two, if Nick thinks he can get it in the air and get that run home, he takes a swing at it. They have precious few players that hit like that. Brian Reynolds is in a a whole world of mess right now, but he’s another guy that has traditionally done a lot more of what Ben Cherington wants to see. He’s drawn a lot of walks. He’s taken advantage of counts and he’s gotten himself into long at bats. And in the past, it has not led to as many strikeouts cuz his eyes very good. This year, not so much. A lot of calls going against him, a lot of balls being taken that never should be taken. He’s in between on everything. He’s late on the fast ball, early on the breaking stuff. He’s just offkilter. He’s a guy that needs to talk to somebody else because Matt Hey ain’t working for him. Okay, I believe they’ll get Brian Reynolds fixed. But the best thing that you could possibly do for Brian Reynolds and any of these hitters is to get this overriding hitting philosophy the hell away from this baseball team. If you watch any baseball at all beyond just the Pirates, Pirates games don’t look like other teams. They just don’t. I’m not saying that other teams are great. There’s a lot of teams that aren’t. But the hitting approach just looks different. You don’t get away with fast balls right down the middle three or four times in an at bat. this team. You do this team goes up there with the intent to try to walk. When you have that in the back of your mind that a walk is a great outcome and it’s a better outcome than a strikeout, the problem is most of the time when you are the type of hitter that we have here that’s going to miss in zone, they’ve got a high inzone whiff rate this year, worst that I’ve ever seen. You can see them miss strike, miss fast balls right in the middle of the zone when they do take a cut, right? So they get to this point where it’s like two to one, two in one count and they just everything in them screams, “Go for the walk. You’re only two away from it. Go for the walk.” And what happens nine times out of 10? Boom. Strike in the zone. 2-2. Now you’re fighting to save your at bat. Completely different mentality. You’ve gotten on your back foot. You don’t know what’s going to come because you’re reacting to them. You’re trying to draw a walk. The very last thing that pitcher wants to do, they they want to throw a strike. They want you to put a swing on it. They want you to force the action. You can’t do it. And you give them a whole extra layer of ways to get you out. This baseball team needs a systemic change. That’s what that’s where I’m at on Ben Chrington. And the thing I worry about most coming up to this deadline, it’s not necessarily that I think he can’t make any trades or like I think this Deainy kid could be pretty good, but the problem is what you do with these players when you get them. I think what Deain’s done in Triple A this year is great. I’d love for him to get here and bring it up to the majors and put it into practice. I mean, he strikes out a little bit too much, but he swings the bat. I mean, all the things that make his numbers attractive. The first thing I fear the Pirates will do is send him down to Triple A, which they already did, and try to work on getting some of those strikeouts out of the way. And let’s see if we can’t get him to be a little more patient at the plate and draw a few more walks. And before you know it, those 18 home runs that he hit in TripleA turn into, well, Indianapolis is a really big ballpark and so that’s why the power’s not showing up. and then they’ll bring them up and oh well you know PNC Park’s not real fair to you see what I’m talking about it’s always something else the approach is the problem the offensive approach is the issue and the offensive approach no matter who you hire no matter who you talk to no matter what is coming from Ben Chrington and all of his analytics are driving the the ship in the direction of what Ben Cherington wants to do offensively. And for the 9 billionth time, it doesn’t freaking work. It’s not so much that he’s not adding talent. Look around this diamond. Most of it’s coming back. Most of it is coming back. You’re going to have Henry Davis catching next year or Andy. I wouldn’t even roll out Bart yet, even though you should. Horwitz is going to be here. Gonzalez is going to be here. Yeah, we don’t know who the shorts stop is. Brian Hayes is probably going to be here. Brian Reynolds is going to be here. O’Neal Cruz is going to be here. Most of the starting pitching options that you can think of are probably going to be here except for Heene. They should probably get be getting close to making a call on Falter. You know, I think you’ve probably gotten an extra year out of him. And even when they let him do the best he can, they only let him go five. We’ve got better options than that, right? So, I mean, most of this team’s coming back one way or another. And even a new GM is not going to look at this team and think, if I trade Brian Reynolds or O’Neal Cruz, I’m going to be better in 2026. Why? They could never answer that question unless Bob Nutting cut a big check, a bigger check than he’s ever cut and this GM was smart and you convince a free agent to come here and be the new face of the franchise offensively. Or you look at Brian Reynolds and O’Neal Cruz and you go, there’s a better chance that they come back here next year and improve andor bounce back than there is I’m going to replace that talent. Most of this team’s coming back. What needs to go right now is that offensive philosophy. And it’s mindboggling to me that they’re going to let him conduct the the trade deadline mostly because he’s bringing guys in that fit his offensive philosophy. Yeah. Mind blown, right? Mind blown. Uncertainty is the enemy of progress. And that’s exactly where we’re picking up in segment three. I warned you I was animated today. Summer sports are in full swing. And whether you’re all about baseball under the lights, golf on the green, or highstakes soccer action, FanDuel is the best way to make every game even more exciting. You’re already following the action. Why not make it a little more thrilling with FanDuel? You can get in on the game while your friends are getting sunburned at the beach. Whether I’m placing a same game parlay or watching a bet ride into the ninth inning, FanDuel makes it feel like I’m part of the action. I just never bet on the Pirates. New to FanDuel? New customers can bet just $5 and get 150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Open the FanDuel app today or visit fandle.com to get started. All right, welcome back to Locked On Pirates. Uncertainty. Yes, it’s the enemy of progress to me. When you don’t know where your overall company is headed, it’s really hard to show up to work Monday to Friday, do the little part you do, keep your head down, and ignore the fact that the company itself, well, it’s falling apart. At some point, if you care about your job or you see that as the place you’re going to, you know, hopefully file for retirement from, well, you have a vested interest in that entity staying open and being productive and doing better. Right? When you’re uncertain about it, you get discouraged real easy. What am I even doing this for? I don’t know if I’m going to be here next week. Then you start hearing rumors about layoffs, right? Well, geez, I’m going to lose all my friends, too. I heard like half half of the shops getting laid off. And then you start walking around the office and wondering, well, that person I know doesn’t pick up their phone when I call, right? And you start pointing fingers over there. That guy, he’s not working hard enough. That girl, she doesn’t even come into the office more than once a week. and you start trying to protect yourself and make sure this is what’s going on in this locker room. They know on the surface exactly what I just explained to you in segment two. A lot of these guys are coming back and they know it. They’re not stupid. They understand how baseball works and they know exactly why guys get moved. And it isn’t all the reasons that you see Jeff Passan and John Haymon and Rosenthal talk about. Everything that you hear come out of their mouths comes from agents or trying to talk about how the big teams are going to get even bigger. They don’t know what’s actually goes on in these small market. They they know. They just don’t talk like they know. But they understand why people get traded. They understand why people with like one year of arbitration are popular for getting moved for instance even though they act like I can’t believe they to try to to tra to trade Josh hater. That’s the kind of stuff that they do. They know exactly why they’re getting moved. They know exactly why they’re getting moved. Well, people in this room do, too. They know. They know the list of people just as easily as you or I can rattle them off. They know. They know. And they hear the rumors about Keller and Reynolds and Hayes and they they and they hear all that. They know all that and they sit there and they wonder what’s going on. And you have a coach get replaced in the early part of the season that many of them apparently tried to pass messages about in spring and here you are looking at the trade deadline coming. You’ve got a GM that you have no idea whether he’s going to be back next year, whether he should be back next year. Should I even bother trying to talk to him about extending? What if I have a concern just about like, “Hey, listen. I’d really like to stay here. I know I’m having a down season, but are you going to go have a talk with him?” No. No. Cuz you don’t know if he’s going to be here. And you don’t know who he’s hired that’s going to stick around either. And you don’t know if the coach is going to stick around. Oh, sure they’ve said nice things. And sure, Bob made the hire. And sure, he’s done okay, but you’re not exactly putting out like an ad that he’s doing awesome these last couple weeks, you know? So, you’re feeling the pressure of like, now I’m letting down this guy that I really do want here. And you still don’t know what’s going on with the GM. You don’t know if they’re going to do something crazy like go into a rebuild. Why would you think they might not? You hear all the same stuff. You got people coming to the ball games when you do have a rare sellout and every single time it turns into a plane flying over your stadium telling your owner to sell and then chants start in the crowd. And that’s not about you. That’s not directed at you. But that’s the team you play for. That’s the team you play for. I can tell you truthfully, there’s a bunch of those guys that got very close relationships with him. In fact, the only reason they’re here is him. So, I’m sure it’s not a comfortable situation for that room. But nothing is worse than just not knowing. Like let’s say they get through the deadline and then I guarantee there’s going to be a whole new narrative that now they can go ahead and fire Ben Sharington because the deadline’s over and that’s what they were holding on to him for. Well, I would immediately have some questions for Bob Nutting. If if it was that clear that you were firing him, why did you even let him pretend to be in charge of the deadline? Because clearly he wasn’t if you moved on from him that quickly. Did you just need him to make phone calls? If so, who was monitoring his phone calls? Because I can’t imagine he didn’t know if you knew if it was that if it was that sure that it was coming that you were able to make that call right after the deadline. I tells me you’re you’re you’re trying to get to the end of the season at this point. And if you’re trying to get to the end of the season, well, the next thing that comes is like literally the playoffs start and then you’re right up against it. Now, the next thing is you got to you got to make your decisions for December and protecting guys from the role five draft and tendering contracts to arbitration eligible players. And there’s always going to be a next thing that the GM has to be involved in at some point. The longer you kick the can down the road, more of this uncertainty grows. And I’m telling you, as long as it feels like this, this team will not grow. And there’s too many of these Reynolds on this team, they need to clean house. I’m talking like if you can’t get a buyer for Andrew Heeney, DFA him, move him to the bullpen because you cannot afford to let it get in the way of seeing what you have for 2026. Everything you do from here on out should be about 2026. If you’re truly approaching the deadline that way, it shouldn’t be a problem because your mentality should switch. The problem is the guy saying it doesn’t even know whether he’s going to be here or not. It’s a bad weekend to be a Pirates fan. It’s been a bad season to be a Pirates fan. But the thing that has sucked most about being a Pirates fan under Ben Sharington has been offensive ineptitude. They have not had even close to a reasonable offense this entire time. entire time. You have to try to get that many decisions wrong. He should be fired. He shouldn’t be here for this deadline. I’m tired of hearing about it. I’m tired of talking about him. I think we all have a vision of what this team needs to do and we all don’t want the guy here doing it. I would love to tell you tomorrow is going to be a happier show, but they’re facing Detroit and they’ve been struggling recently. So, who looks like great tasty medicine for the Detroit Tigers, right? At least we’re throwing Paul SK out there. So, maybe we’ll only lose one nothing tomorrow or tonight. It’s all I got today. Sorry I was so fired up. Let’s go Bucks.

Uncertainty is killing this team, and so is their overall hitting philosophy, today Gary unloads on the state of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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