DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Perils of prospects

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Perils of prospects

[Music] [Applause] Prospects are fun. I I’ll be the first to admit that. And I’ve had fun myself in following prospects. And then, you know, when they get to Pittsburgh, you say, “Hey, I was all over that guy when he was a grasshopper or whatever.” Good morning to you. Good Monday morning. I’m Dan Kawachi with DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into football andor hockey. I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this Brewers 10 Pirates 2. The Earth has returned to its rightful position on its axis as the Brewers are just that much better than the Pirates. And the Pirates stopped for once beating up on really good teams at PNC Park. Is what it is. Not so much as it applies to Bubba Chandler who after three pretty encouraging relief outings took his first turn as a starter in the bigs and yeah, he just got mashed. Two and two/3 innings, nine runs on nine hits and three walks. He did strike out three guys. And that’s the kind of thing that you end up hearing about though when he’s in the minors. When a prospect is in the minors, what you’ll hear is that they hit, you know, 105 on the gun or something and you’ll hear that they had seven wipeout pitches and they were able to have batters eating out of their hands. And because that that’s what gets everybody excited. you’re always thinking about the player’s potential, the player’s ceiling. And in the case of Chandler, I mean, it’s real. He earned the prospect status that he’s achieved. He rocketed up those charts and the evaluators didn’t even hold against him that he was in the Pittsburgh organization and undoubtedly at some point was going to take steps backwards and still will because everybody who’s not named Paul Ske will always be that way. But but what ends up happening out of these situations is that the prospect invariably doesn’t just get overvalued, they get overromanticized. And allow me to explain what I mean by that. The player who’s down there represents hope. A lousy player who’s down there represents hope. If a player is down there and doing even moderately well, he can still represent hope because someone in Pittsburgh playing for the Pirates surely will suck at a level that would make that player seem like a hopeworthy option. So here’s Chandler. He’s legitimate cause for hope. He throws hard. He has a full arsenal. He’s got starters build, starters durability. Get too excited about him. If you go back to Chandler’s 2025 season from the outset, and I do mean from the outset because he looked razor sharp in Bradenton, he goes on to Indianapolis and just mow down every Toledo mud in sight and starts to look like he’s banging on the door. And we’re even doing things like projecting Chandler into the rotation. Don’t deny it. you were doing it, too. I I might have mentioned it a time or two myself. You say, “Listen, if they do well, if they get off to a good start, Chandler could be that guy who is your big, you know, May or June surprise and the rotation’s going to be that much stronger. And oh, by the way, you can trade Mitch Keller and all the veterans and everything else.” Well, no, you couldn’t. And that’s because Chandler, he came falling back and in a big way. Not in the majors, but in Triple A. Why? I don’t know. I’m not down there watching them, and I’m not going to get into any kind of guessing game as to, you know, which scouts or instructors or if anybody else was responsible for his falloff. Might have just been on him. 100% on him. But it happens. You get through the summer and Ben Sherington, I you know my feelings on this one. Not just that he should be fired today and then rehired and then fired again tomorrow. It’s more about in this case how I believe he has called up two or three prospects just to try to show I don’t think it’s the public but more you know Bob Nutting and the couple of people over his head that hey you know I’m actually really good at this. See here look this is this is this kid who throws really hard. His name is Bubba Chandler. You’re gonna like him. a lot of other prospects came up to and I just don’t think that’s an accident. So to kind of ease Chandler in, they start him off with the relief. They don’t want him to, you know, blow up. They don’t want something bad to happen like what had been happening in Indianapolis for the better part of the middle of the summer. So things go well. Don Kelly says, “All right, well, we did this with Braxton Ashcraft. We did this with Thomas Harrington. We’re going to do this with you. We’re going to just go ahead and put you out there in a start. No big deal. We’re not going to get six, seven innings out of you or whatever. But, you know, it’s a nice test. Here are the Brewers.” And boom, boom, boom. There go the Brewers. you you people will actually describe prospects as if they’re already in the majors. Like they project them. Heck, Baseball America does this as an exercise. What’s the 2027 Pittsburgh lineup going to look like? Give me a break. You’re talking about the Pirates. It’s going to look like Who was that dude today that got the double? Chad something. never heard of him. I I think he he might have come in one of those lame giveaway trades that Sherington just had. Whoever he is, no one penciled him into anybody’s 2025 lineup. The point here is until you’re in Pittsburgh. No, no, no, not Pittsburgh. Until you’re anywhere in the majors, you’ve achieved nothing as related strictly to the majors. The number of major league ball players, current and past, who will back me up on this is, it’s 100%. It’s a different level. It’s almost a different game. Just from triple to the majors, not from double to triple, not from A to double A, but from AAA to the majors. Different world entirely. 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 checkck.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the firearm industry trade association. Hey guys, if you’re planning to see a Pirates game, use the Game Time app to get your tickets. You can snag new ticket deals before anyone if you set it into app alerts. The app is easy to use. No surprise fees at checkout. You can see your seat view before buying. And you’re getting legit tickets delivered on time. Now, if you’re not much of a planner, you can get lastminute deals on tickets right up to the start of the event. Lowest price guarantee or game time will credit you 110% of the difference. Download the Game Time app and enter the code DK Pirates in your app profile for $20 off your first purchase. [Music] Today’s J1 Q comes from Dan, who says, “Hi DK, I’ve been encouraged by your reporting that Major League Baseball may push for a salary cap when the current labor agreement ends. My question is based on your sources, is there a sentiment that they would shut it down for as long as it takes even if it means no 2027 season? And related to that, have you heard that they’re pushing for a hard salary cap like the NFL and the NHL have? And Dan, taking your second one first. They can’t get into whether or not they’re pushing for hard caps, soft caps, uh, luxury taxes, and things like that. if they can’t even use the terminology. Baseball executives and I’m talking about with all 30 teams and at Major League Baseball’s headquarters in New York up to and including Rob Manford are not using the term. Manford has recently done a couple of interviews in which he wouldn’t even speak the two words. I spoke with someone in the local team’s management and he didn’t do it either. And initially I thought it was just like a a joke like haha, you know, not allowed to say the term. He actually wasn’t allowed to say it. So I’m not going to be getting a whole lot of information about specifics if they can’t even get to that. Now to your first question, is there any sentiment that they would shut it down as long as it takes? This is going to vary from team to team and the sentiment on it is going to vary from team to team because the circumstances are so different from team to team. The Dodgers might have one viewpoint. So, one of the challenges that Manfred and the owners who are in favor of a salary cap system, and my understanding is that is the overwhelming majority already. One of the challenges, actually, no, it’s not one of the challenges. It’s the challenge. It’s the thing that they face. They have to come together and they have to decide that they’re going to stay together. And they have to decide that they’re going to do that through thick and thin, through everything that Tony Clark and Scott Boris and everyone on the Major League Baseball Players Association side decides that they’re going to push uh buttons from here to there. They’re going to go to Congress with antirust exemptions. They’re going to go to the top of government and try to get some sort of intervention. So, if you think about it from that broad standpoint, it it stands to reason that they have to be willing to sit out for a season, even two seasons, if that’s what it comes to. I I don’t know how that’s going to be received. Not so much by the team owners in the bigger markets who are perceived as being, oh, they’d never be in favor of this. They wouldn’t be able to spend as much money on their teams as they’d like. Oh boy. Nothing could be more incorrect. Nothing. back when the NHL was having its move from a completely open system like the one uh baseball currently has to a rockhard salary cap and I covered that day by day by day for a couple of years for the local newspaper. You had a situation where the commissioner of that sport, Gary Bman, who’s still the commissioner, went to the owners of the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Canadians and the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins, the bigger money teams, the bigger market teams, and told them, “Hey, you guys know how much money you’re making right now? How’d you like to make more?” Now, see, I don’t mean to stereotype rich people, but rich people tend to get rich by not, you know, burning up their cash. They tend to hold on to it and they tend to want more of it. And it worked beautifully for Bman. He had one owner who spoke up against the work stoppage at the time. That was the owner of the Los Angeles Kings, Phil Anuts. And he fined an Schutz a million dollar. A million dollar. The payment, the check was actually written out to the National Hockey League for a million dollars. You know why? Because before the work stoppage, Bman made all of the owners, all of the NHL owners agree to exactly that. if you break the silence, if you go and you speak in public, and Antutz did, by the way, to the LA Times, you will pay me a million dollars. Well, after that, nobody else talked. The NHL hung tough. The NHL got everything that it wanted from its cap system. And oh, by the way, over the last 20 years, it’s been perfect bliss between the league and its member players. They they now sign agreements, labor agreements, without anybody even noticing. They just like get together for lunch one day and they go, “Hey, yeah, this is awesome. Can we just keep doing this?” Cool. Yeah. Who’s picking up the tab for the coffee? And that’s the end of it. I’m not saying baseball’s going to get there anytime soon. I’m certainly not suggesting baseball’s going to get there without a fight. Big, big, ugly, nasty, protracted, bitter, lawsuitfilled fight. But man, I I I’m I’m not about to project that this time is going to be the same as the other times. These owners are ready for a real change. And the names of some of those owners that have been shared with me, and I’m not at liberty to share them with you, would blow you away. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’re going to do another one of these tomorrow. [Music] over

The perils of over-romanticizing prospects.

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