DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Lies, lies, more lies

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Lies, lies, more lies

[Music] [Applause] There’s lying and then there’s lying in backto back sentences where the second sentence lies about the first sentence. Good morning to you. I’m Dan Kvachovic of DK Pittsburgh Sports and yes, yes, this is Daily Shot of Pirates and yes, it comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you’re into teams that care about winning, about their fans, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this and highly recommend checking those out. Pirates nine, Rockies five yesterday in Denver, avoiding I I don’t want to say this would have been like the bottoming out or whatever, but losing to that team, getting swept by that team after blowing all those leads all weekend long. Yeah, I can’t I just But somehow still the general manager ends up stealing the show with something that he speaks. This was of course on his weekly radio program that his team produced in which he’s interviewed by a team employee. And when Ben Cherington was asked about the Kabrian Hayes trade, saving the pirates money, this was the entirety of the quote. I think it is important to emphasize first that if we make a trade involving a player on a contract as we did in the case of Krian, we’d never make a trade in order to save money. Period. Pause. It’s just a pause because there’s more to it. Insert laughter. Do we have a laugh track or something? It’s there’s no other reason to move him. This concept of clearing key out from third base so that you could make room for guys who can hit is based on a hypothetical notion that there is someone who can hit, you know, waiting in the wings or in Indianapolis or at any level of this organization. And there isn’t. There’s a kid who looks like he can really hit at shortstop in Connor Griffin. And that, as far as the human eye can see, and keeping this realistic, is it. You know, and I know that this was done to save money. Lots and lots of money, tens of millions of dollars into the future money. Just as you know and I know the key was moved and that he’d be replaced by exactly who replaced him and that’s Jared Triolo who literally cannot hit his own weight but plays for minimum wage. You ready for the funny part? All right. I already read you the first part of the quote. This is the same quote. This is continuing here. There was no pause, no nothing here. This is still Cherington. quote, “There’s never part of the calculus, but using that payroll space that is opened up through that trade in addition to that talent that we get back, using that payroll space on other things can really help the team, especially if we feel like we have alternatives in house.” End quote. So, first half of the quote, he says, “We would never make a trade in order to save money.” second half of the same quote. He says that we would use that payroll space that is opened up through that trade to to how how does this happen? How does something like this come out of somebody’s mouth? How how is he to be taken seriously? How is this organization to be taken seriously? He says we’d never make a trade to save money. And then he says that they’d be using the payroll space that’s opened up through that trade to get other things that can really help the team. So Hayes was traded to save the money that they will then apply to someone else. And even that’s not the case because he ends up lying if you really want to get down to this for his natural hattrick in the final part of this by saying especially if we feel like we have alternatives in house translation triolo he’s the alternative in house and he plays for minimum wage. See, here’s the thing. This isn’t Cherington’s fault. This isn’t even Bob Nutting’s fault for continuing to employ Sherington. This is entirely 100% your fault for being party to this. I tried. I tried to quit. I wasn’t allowed. I wasn’t allowed. I can show you all of the stuff that we got from people. No, don’t quit. We need somebody to yell at them. All right. Well, I’m here and I’m yelling at them, but you you you still care. You still watched those games over the weekend. You still were like, you know, let’s go Bucks. You think this is just going to turn around. You think they’re just going to have a good day and they’re going to wake up and say, you know what? We’ve been all wrong. We’ve been misguided. We’ve been prioritizing profit over winning. That’s really not who we should be. We should be better stewards of this franchise. Heck, we should just be better people. And you know what? Beginning today, that’s that’s what’s going to happen here. They are what they are, my friends. We can be mad about it. We can get mad at the guy who threatens to stop doing the podcast because he’s tired of saying the same things over and over and over again. He can be a pathetic softy and come right back Monday morning. And none of that changes this. Could Nutting hire a competent GM? Sure. I guess he could stumble into one. He stumbled into Clint Hurdle. Could the Pirates someday soon operate within a fairer economic system in Major League Baseball? I’d say that’s pretty likely. But the reason that I spent the final two shows of last week focusing on the salary dump component wasn’t to break down each one of those individual trades and say what happened here, what happened there. Oo, look at the value they might get in this guy and what’s his war and what’s his prospect ranking and stuff. is because I know that these guys and I ended up being proven right on this one. Completely right. Sat down with one objective above all others. That was to save money. That tells you who they are. That tells you what this operation is. And you can make a difference. But respectfully here, you don’t. And for all those of you who were wagging a finger at me over the weekend, I’m going to do some wagging back here. here and I hope you take it in the right spirit. If you think that leaving that ballpark empty or not buying tickets to games amounts to some sort of boycott that’s going to make an impression on anybody, you’re out of your mind. The default mode is an empty stadium. Tonight at PNC Park, the Pirates and Giants are going to be playing to roughly 30,000 plus empty blue seats. That won’t be because of any protest or boycott. that’ll be just because that’s what their season ticket base is and it’s a Monday night and they stink. No message gets sent. None. Whereas when we’ve seen fans in there and they’re chanting sell the team or they’re organizing in other ways or they’re flying banners behind planes overhead, that makes a difference. It makes the people running the franchise nervous wrecks. I’m not guessing at this. I have seen it. It makes them consider change. Has it occurred yet? No. But backing off on it and pretending just because you’re on your couch that you’re exercising in some boycott. No. No. And the most ridiculous notion of all within that is I’m not giving my money to nutting. He gets it either way. Look up Major League Baseball’s revenue sharing agreement. Whatever the Pirates don’t get in local revenues, they get compensated by the other 29 teams. They couldn’t care less if you come or not. So, as long as that’s the landscape, why not just show up and make yourself heard? It doesn’t have to be just me. And in fact, as we’ve already witnessed, just me doesn’t have any impact. While I appreciate all the the kind words, and I’m going to talk about that after the break that I got, my importance here legitimately gets inflated. I’m a reporter. I’m one reporter. I have no sway, no authority, no nothing as far as getting the pirates, getting nutting specifically to affect change. You do. and you or at least a very very small portion of you figured that out this year and what happened in return the rest of you thought it’d be cool to make fun of them. Well then take what you’ve got coming in that case. Don’t try to affect any change and get ready for a lot lot lot more of this scam. It’s a scam. They’re posing as a sports franchise. They’re profitering. That’s a scam. When we come back, J1Q. 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 and 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 gunstoch checkck.org. That’s gunstoch check.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the Firearm Industry Trade Association. [Music] Today’s J1Q comes from Nick Patton. who says, “DK, my question would be if Ben Sherington were fired today, and he certainly should be, if only because you could check out the Marlins rebuild over one and a half years compared to the Pirates.” Who, which GM would take this job if Bailey Falter was deemed too expensive by the owner? We have reached the point where a number five starter is too expensive. Nick, you’re going to dig into what I believe is the real scab to be picked at this past trade deadline, and that is the Falter trade. Now, for those who don’t know, Falter avoided salary arbitration for the 2025 season. He and the team agreed on a one-year $2.2 $2 million contract. If he’s retained again through arbitration, that figure would likely double. It would be somewhere in that range. Now, this is where I hope that those of you who say you can trust me, whether it’s something positive about the organization or negative about the organization, trust me on this. This is not territory where nothing would jump in. Not from his biggest critics on the inside, whether it’s under this front office or prior front offices, have I ever heard him or talk of him getting involved at a contract that’s at this level. If a general manager went to Nutting and said to him, “I have a guy that I want to keep on arbitration and we’d still have a couple years of control of him and he is going to still be making way less than the average starting veteran left-handed pitcher. That’s not something that’s going to get pushed back, especially not with Tommy Fam and Isaiah Kiner Falefa and the rental types having been retained. Use a little bit of common sense here. A lot more money would have been saved by just dumping two guys that weren’t about to mean anything to them for the rest of the season than what gets saved with Falter. So, what happened with Falter? Oh, well. Now, if you want to talk about something for which there is voluminous precedent, that’s Cherington and his statistical minions, the white collared analytics army, getting way ahead of themselves and thinking that they’re a lot smarter than they actually are. And it’s them convincing themselves that they’ve seen some signs from concern in some of his peripheral metrics and that he’s not really as good as they thought and that he’s not going to match up with that contract for next year. So, let’s show everybody how really smart we are and get ahead of it and go ahead and trade him for whatever anybody sends us. That right there, my friends, is exactly the scenario that makes sense there. That’s not me sheltering the owner. I’m going to call for him to sell this team here and now for the millionth time. He has not been a good owner. He should have fired this GM last October and then he should have fired him again Friday for the way these trades worked out. And then he should have been fired yet again after what happened in Denver on Friday night. So this is no defense of the owner. Please get that part through. There can be things that are true about people you don’t like. Meaning true in the sense that not everything lines up with the narratives. This to me in my eyes, the falter deal is all about uh-oh, here comes Johan Oedo, and he’s by the way going to get the start tonight against the Giants, need room in the rotation. And incidentally, Cherington acknowledged that as a factor on his show yesterday. And also all of my resident geniuses, who by the way, he praised on the show yesterday. They’re smart people, he called them. smart people I say that should be walking around with Brian Dela Cruz t-shirts. But I digress. So he views Falter as a guy on an expiring contract since his white collared army tells him, “Nah, we’re done with him. Too many negative peripheral metrics.” And I’ll keep digging into this, but there’s no chance that I’m misfiring on this one. Listen, you, Nick, and I appreciate everybody who listens to Daily Shot of Pirates. That’s not just a line that I recite at the end of every episode. Now more than ever, it means something. I hope you’ll take my word for it that I meant every syllable of what I spoke to you last Friday. I was done with this. Not out of any protest or pouting or anything. I just don’t have anything new to say. And you know what? I didn’t have anything new to say today either. But when I’m getting emails, comments on social media, when people stop into our downtown headquarters asking me not to stop. When you hear from subscribers, members, readers, listeners, viewers who’ve been with me for a long, long time who consider this silly really in terms of it’s pointlessness program to be part of their morning commutes to work or their dog walks or their uh exercise runs or their coffee as they’re getting going for the day. That hits different. that hits different. And you know what hits even more differently than that is when you hear from people who do care about the franchise, who do have hope for it, who do have an attachment to it because of something from the well, in most cases distant past, and they’re still trying to cling. And at the same time, they’re they’re not stupid. They can see what’s happening for themselves, just hoping that something something changes. It was around, I’d say, late Saturday afternoon that the whole thing hit me that I was the one being uh selfish in thinking of my own boredom with the subject before anything else. And that’s not okay. Thinking about it from a business standpoint as well. If I dropped doing this show and I did another Steeler show, believe you me, we’d bring in a lot more revenue off of that. But that’s also selfish. So, this thing is here for better or worse. And we we really will have another one of these tomorrow. Appreciate you guys. [Music]

Lies, lies, more lies … and stats sprinkled on top.

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