DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The final episode, for now

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The final episode, for now

[Music] [Applause] I’m not going to make a bigger deal of this than it is. And it’s not at all a big deal. I’m not important. What I have to say, even about sports, isn’t all that important. But this is going to be the last episode for real of Daily Shot of Pirates for the foreseeable future. Good morning to you. Good Friday morning. I’m Dan Kawachovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is what I just mentioned and this is going to go away for a while. It’s not a protest. It’s not getting pouty. It’s certainly not anything personal. But as I look back over the past 48 hours and the moves that were made by Ben Cherington with Bob Nutting’s blessing and Cherington still somehow being employed with Nutting’s blessing, all of it just gets laid bare again that this isn’t a sports franchise. That’s my issue here. It’s not about looking at the the trades and analyzing the prospects. It’s what I was talking about yesterday, and I know some of you didn’t like it when I brought it up. It wasn’t about the actual return for Krian Hayes. It was that everyone sat down at the table and said, “How do we whack salary?” That’s the foundation. That’s who they are. You’ve heard me say countless times on this program, “These are not competitive people.” When I say that, I’ll catch myself occasionally and remind that at least the owner is competitive when it comes to making sure that he makes as much money as possible out of any given situation. Well, yahoo for him because after an entire summer of hearing in one case directly from the man that all that mattered was getting better, staying strong through 2025. And then over the past month, magically Cherington is speaking every week on his radio show about 2026. It’s all about 2026 as if he’s going to be around for that. You might see more clearly now why I was so focused on that singular thing yesterday. There are people in a sports business who are not motivated by winning on the field of play. You have to understand that there’s no getting past that in analyzing them. There’s no alternate route to appreciating them. They shouldn’t be in this business. They shouldn’t be in the business where the baseball gods bequath them with Paul skins. And they spend the past 48 hours sending out five major league players for eight prospects, six of them in a ball, plus some cash considerations that they were afraid to mention in their press releases. Had to find that out from the other team’s press releases. And then all of that getting topped off by David Bednarf being traded for a far from certain recently graduated from double a catcher of all positions. As if to underscore how badly these guys whiffed on Henry Davis. But none of that none of that matters. What matters is what motivates them. What matters is the motive with which they sat down this week. And that’s all of them. I’m through singling out this person or that person or this guy’s to blame. That guy’s not to blame. They’re all in that room. They’re all contributors to this. They’re all party to this terrible season in this terrible tenure for this front office of Cherington and Travis Williams of these terrible blunders that have been made on and off the field of protests and airplanes flying overhead carrying banners, sell the team chants showing up from the fans who by the way care the most because they care enough to get off their couches and say something. And I feel terrible about this. I I mean it when I said earlier that this isn’t personal of the guys who were traded, you know, was I particularly close with any of them? No. Good professional relationships. Yeah. Nothing personal here. All right. But Bednar, you know, Bednar’s in addition to everything else that he is as a human. And let’s not pretend that the local thing doesn’t matter because it does. If you’re in Pittsburgh and you’re watching a Pittsburgger succeed, it matters. If you’re in Pittsburgh and you’re watching a Roberto Clemente award winner who’s legitimately giving the community everything he’s got, you have no idea the stuff that David’s done. And you see that he’s the one that’s going on the road trip wearing a Penguins jersey. And you see how emotional he was this past week after having had a chance to record that 100th save and do it at PNC Park in front of family and friends and of course the city. And then you see this guy just send him to the Yankees for way less than what other teams got for their closers. I It just multiplies on top of multiplying on top of multiplying. It’s not just that the Pirates suck, it’s that they suck at everything. There are some good good people in that clubhouse and there are obviously some good good players. One of them legitimately great. But this goes nowhere, nowhere with this GM at hand. And I don’t think it goes anywhere necessarily with this owner at hand because this owner is showing us right now. Right now, not when he fired Derek Sheldon, but right now who he is and what’s important. A, by keeping this GM, and B, by being at least party to this GM, sending pretty much everybody out of here who was going to make some kind of money next year, whether through salary or through salary arbitration, and then allowing this clown, and I’m sorry to start getting nasty with this, but allowing this clown to somehow cling to his actual expiring contracts. You know, the guys that would actually make sense to be moving for spare part prospects, not Bailey Falter. You know what you do with Falter? You tender him through arbitration and you keep him in your rotation. You don’t send him out and keep your expiring contract in Heene. That’s either either incompetence or sabotage, which is so grossly over the top. I can’t believe I just spoke it. But that’s the way they make you think. They make you feel like you’re the stupid one. And you know what? Maybe to an extent, those of us who’ve ever taken any of this seriously are the stupid ones. Here’s what I know. I don’t have anything new for you. My Monday show, if I were to do one, would sound exactly like this. My Tuesday show would sound exactly like this because it’s not like I’m about to turn the page and say, “Oh, well, let’s just get on with it.” And, “Hey, how about that sweep of the Rockies out in Denver?” I’m not there, okay? And that’s not me. And one thing I’m tired of in terms of doing this part where I sit down in front of this microphone and say, “What am I going to what’s going to be different today? I don’t have anything. I don’t have anything. It’s the same story scripted by the same people perpetrating the same Here comes the word scam. That’s what this is. It’s a scam. It’s not a serious sports franchise. When you are involved in sports, whether it’s at the lowest level of anything, what fuels you or what should fuel you is a competitive spirit. These people have none of that. What they’ve done, and this obviously runs to the very top, is they have hijacked the 144 year old franchise of Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargel, Hannis Wagner, Ralph Ker, and yeah, Andrew McCutchen. And they’ve turned it into this. They’ve turned it into what they did this week, which was to show everybody yet again exactly what they are, who they are, and why they are so very much deserving of the scorn that’s being heaped upon them since yesterday. And yet so much more. When we come back, some of your thoughts will get shared. If you’re looking for a great dining experience, look no further than Northshore Tavern. Located directly across Federal Street from PNC Park, next door to Mike’s Beer Bar, Northshore Tavern is Pittsburgh’s home for steak on a stone. Enjoy your steak finished on a hot lava stone in front of you, where you ensure each piece is cooked to exactly your liking. or try their rotating selection of entre, hot sandwiches, salads, and burgers, all while enjoying the ambiance dedicated to the great players in history of the Pittsburgh Pirates all around you. Come see why everyone’s talking about Northshore Tavern and Steak on a Stone. It’s Gun Storage Check Week. Help prevent unwanted access to your firearms. No one wants their unsecured gun to be used in an accident, a suicide, or a crime. Use lock boxes, safes, and locks to secure your firearms. Learn more at gunstorage check.org. That’s gunstoch check.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the Firearm Industry Trade Association. [Music] In the time that we’ve been doing Daily Shot of Pirates, I’ve taken pride in at least attempting to make sure that your viewpoints, including when they collide with my own, get shared. Dave gets us started today by saying after dumping all these players and all this money, if Bob Nutting were to fire Ben Cherington in October, look, we all know he’s not a serious baseball owner and has zero competitive genes, but will that signal to everybody that Bob’s not actually a good guy and he held Cherington in to do his dirty work? Skip says, “This GM has contaminated everything he’s touched, and the owner is either too miserly or he simply doesn’t have the necessary capital to invest as needed. In spite of all that, they really were not that far off. Just a couple of actual hitters from being a contender. And with their pitching, they could have been very dangerous in any series. But these past two days, they just went backward again. It’s just a neverending cycle.” Dave asks, “I wouldn’t ask because I think it’s completely counterintuitive as a journalist to not cover a major league franchise, and I know covering every game is a point of pride for you, but with the Pirates being this naked about not caring about results, I just wondered what effect taking press coverage away would have on them.” I’ll jump in to answer, Dave, that I don’t care what effect it would have on them. I do care what effect it has on us. We at DK Pittsburgh Sports spend somewhere in the range of $120,000 a year to cover the Pirates, who are the third most popular team in town and the team with the third biggest impact on our company, which is my way of saying the other two teams who do care, who are competitive, who are overflowing with people who, you know, aren’t perfect, their decisions aren’t perfect, but you never have to wonder about their passion. So, I do know that there is such a thing as reallocation of resources. And you’re going to see that from us. You’re going to see it in particular for me. I’m a columnist. Columnists tend to drift to whatever sport they want to, whatever team they want to, whatever subject they want to, as long as it’s like the hot thing. Well, these guys aren’t that. When it comes to hot things, these guys are about as ice cold as you can get. So, I’ll be doing a whole lot of football and a whole lot of hockey. Gary writes, “I’m here dayon because I’m a Pirates fan for more than six decades now, and I’m sure I’ll follow them to the end, even though there seems to be no end in sight for this sad story. I’ve seen a lot as a Pirates fan in this time, but I have never seen anything like this or known of anything like this. a sports franchise with no passion to win anything. It is torturous to follow them, but I’ll continue. Old dogs, you know. Big Fitty writes, “The Pirates already punted on 2026. The lockout will be in 2027. This is Bob’s strategy. Minimal payroll until a salary cap is in place.” Rick says, “DK, this is so frustrating. always about money, never about winning. The final word goes to my man Wilbur who writes, “I hope the folks who were giving you a hard time over the intention counts point that you made on the Thursday episode now understand how correct you were. This travesty was an exercise in cynicism so brazen that I was taken aback despite my rock bottom opinion of these frauds. Trading the guys coming up for arbitration and not the ones coming off the books shortly. hitting a couple of decentish prospects, barely enough to pretend to gullible fans that they’re trying to improve when in fact they have sharply lowered their own talent level. Figuring that a few really gullible fans will expect an offseason spending spree because Krian Hayes’s contract is gone. You can’t even blame this on incompetence. These are just bad people. My own thoughts here before wrapping up. A, I’m not going to short anybody on content. I’m going to do Steelers and Penguin stuff, more of it. B, whatever we do as a website or company is to be determined, but there’s going to be less because again, we’re not in the business of covering whatever it is that they are. We’re in the business of covering sports. And C, you know, I hope it changes. And that’s not as simple as saying, “I hope Cherington gets fired. I hope Nutting sells the team. Or even, I hope Major League Baseball gets a salary cap system. I hope that the organization gets the allout enema that it needs. All of this has to go. All of it. It’s toxic top to bottom. These are losers. And they’re the worst kinds of losers because they don’t care that they are losers. their priority isn’t winning. It isn’t sports. And I also hope, and I don’t mean this in any kind of nasty way or whatever, I hope that people who recognize that Pittsburgh is the only city where all of our sports teams have the same first name and the same set of colors, that those people who’ve never reached out beyond baseball, who’ve never given a chance to everyone’s into the Steelers, but who’ve never given a chance to say hockey or the Riverhounds in soccer will expand their horizons a little bit. We have more teams. We have teams that care. They aren’t perfect. Neither the Steelers nor the Penguins have been perfect for a while. But even their most ardent critics would never suggest for a split second that they don’t care that they lack passion. I’ll still be here for you. I’ll still be here every morning. I’ll still be doing daily shots of Penguins followed by daily shots of Steelers. In the afternoon, I’ll still have a double shot of Steelers. And I might be coaxed into doing a double shot of penguins as well. But this I I I feel like you can just take this episode if you really really miss this show and I can’t imagine why anybody ever would and just play it again. Play it every morning because this won’t change until it does. I appreciate everybody who’s listened to Daily Shot of Pirates and I sure hope we’re in touch again soon when there’s actually something to talk about, you know, related to sports. [Music]

The final episode, for now.

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