DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The circus never ceases

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The circus never ceases

[Music] All those times I’ve told you about how tonedeaf these people are, how unaware, like thoroughly unaware they are of anything that happens outside those walls at 115 Federal. Picture. Picture the gall. Less than 24 hours after this owner allows this general manager to come back for a seventh season to say, “Hey, let’s go ahead and make our big firing of the off season the one guy at any level of the organization who made players better.” Good morning to you. Good Wednesday morning. I’m Dan Kvachovic of 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 on the two teams in town that care. Marine was fired. Mike Rebello, the third base coach, was fired. The team made known that Brent Stum, who’s 76 years old, was the assistant pitching coach under Marine, is not going to have his contract renewed. He’s going to be contemplating retirement, which one would think he would have been doing a lot earlier than at age 76 to his credit. I have not always been in Marine’s corner. I did not like the way his tenure with the Pirates started. Specifically, I didn’t like seeing players just kind of flatline under him. Well, that changed as I’d further end up acknowledging. We would see acquisitions that were, you know, the typical Ben Harrington nonsense that would show up and the next thing you know, they were actually producing decent results, better than the results of where they’d been previously. And in total for this past season alone, Marines staff finished seventh in all of Major League Baseball with a 3.76 erra, fourth in whip at 1.22, 236 batting average against that was eighth. The third fewest home runs allowed 153. Seventh fewest walks 473. And let’s not discard that Paul Skins is outrageous historic legitimately historic season occurred under Marines watch. Now players are going to have issues with coaches. Coaches are going to have issues with players. At the end of the figurative day, what matters most are the results. No one anywhere could take issue with any single facet of Ski’s results. If you want to get on him for Mitch Keller having his standard second half drop off, you can do that. If you want to get on him for Andrew Heene falling apart, I guess you can do that. But there’s somebody to even out all of this stuff. David Bednar was so bad early, remember, that he actually had to go back to the minor leagues. Then he ended up dominating everybody for two months. Now, the people that Jose Negron, our beat writer at DK Pittsburgh Sports, is communicating with are suggesting that there’s more to come. That is pretty much positive to happen in the very, very near future, as early as today. But mark my words, this isn’t based on reporting or info or anything like that, but mark my words, it’s going to be all field level people because that’s how these types of executives operate. I have always been an advocate of advanced analytics in any sport, but especially baseball since baseball was the pioneer in this regard. But what I don’t believe in is swearing by them and never conceding that they could be wrong, that the criteria are wrong, that the data chosen was wrong, that the person processing it or the people processing it were the wrong ones. Nope. Never, ever, ever. We got nothing but perfect players for you. And all you numb skulls did at field level was mess them up. or I guess in Marine’s case, not make them more excellent. I’m gonna use that all winter. I’m sorry. More excellent. The guy said on the day he was able to somehow preserve his job. After a sixth straight losing season and a huge backward step that his aim for 2026 is to be more excellent. Well, the path to more excellence is obviously taking the one area that you had that was within even a billion miles of excellence. That being the starting pitching, firing that guy, and then saying, “See, you might have thought we were excellent, but we can be more excellent.” It’s a circus. And the circus, like the old original days, big tent days of the circus, never takes a day off, my friends. Never. They’ll just occasionally change a few clowns. When we come back, J1Q, [Music] 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 gunstorage check.org. That’s gunstoch check.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 J1Q comes from Brian who says, “DK, maybe I’m hoping that something could happen like this. But could the city of Pittsburgh and/or Major League Baseball force Bob Nutting into selling the team by refusing to extend the Pirates lease at PNC Park or Major League Baseball refusing to let him move the team? You’re taking this several hypothetical layers into the future, my friend, and you’re going way too far. However, as was reported exclusively on DK Pittsburgh Sports yesterday, city council woman Terresa Kale Smith introduced to council yesterday a postaggenda plan to formally talk about the ownership of the Pirates. And it’s not a coincidence that she did this the day after the team made known that Nutting is not going to fire Ben Cherington. Now, what does that mean? I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination in Pittsburgh city government or really any government, but that includes our own here in the city proper. Smith said, and I quote, “As elected officials, we have a responsibility to listen to our constituents and facilitate a constructive conversation about what’s best for the city and its residents, the Pittsburgh Pirates are more than just a baseball team. They are a vital part of our city’s identity, history, and economy.” Now what the post agenda is, it allows council to receive public input to engage with stakeholders to explore potential solutions and all kinds of other fancy terminology for allowing the citizens. Again, when I say the city proper, I’m using the term like in old English since I just came back from overseas. It doesn’t mean what everybody’s definition of Pittsburgh is. It means the actual city, actual Pittsburgh, which has official borders and that sort of thing. So the people that live here in the city, as I do, can just walk up to a podium with a microphone and speak their mind before council. Now, what comes of that, I don’t know. I mean, they’re going to make it on TV, and it makes for a nice, easy TV story, which is really the only kind of story the TV does anymore anyway. And beyond that, I I guess it could lead or contribute into council and the presumed mayor elect, Cory O’ Conor. And I say that because he’s the Democratic nominee and the Democrats registration in our city is it’s it’s like got to be nine to one. Once he’s in office, the council can start talking with him. And for anybody who doesn’t know this, PNC Park is owned by an entity called the Sports and Exhibition Authority. That’s a government agency. That agency also owns Acer Stadium, PPG Paints Arena, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The leases on the baseball and football stadiums both expire in 2030. So, there’s all kinds of stuff that’s going to show up both here and in Philadelphia. It’s going to involve state government. I know for a fact that there have already been meetings held at that level, meaning at Governor Josh Shapyro’s level in Harrisburg. Oh my god, I’m probably boring the tears out of you here at this point, but you ask. And rather than coming up with some sort of fantasy land scenario here, I’m giving you the stuff that’s real. Where it goes, I have no idea. I do know that there is sentiment within local government officials and that means at the Pittsburgh level and at the Alageney County level to find some way somehow to tie anything at all that the pirates get from government to some uh performance or expectation clauses. But I don’t know how you do that. And I especially don’t know how you do that a year plus out from what could be and very likely will be a work stoppage where the owners will be pushing for a salary cap for the first time. Oh, and before I let you go, Brian, this this moving the team stuff, you know, I think a lot of you have probably picked up on my frustration in covering this team. It’s not all related to the team. It’s related to how many times I have to say the same things again and again and again. And I I look, I’m not pretending that I’m the, you know, preeminent or whatever, the only person anywhere who’s qualified to speak on this stuff. I’m not. But there are factual things that I bring up. Mostly salary cap stuff, but payroll stuff, too. Well, it could never be a fact that the pirates won’t move from Pittsburgh, but it is as close as you can get to being a fact. What you see and what everybody sees right now when they look at the Pirates is, you know, the the Cherington catastrophe. What Rob Manford and the people in New York see, and I know this because Manford brought it up again, the All-Star game this year, is that Pittsburgh that we saw from 2013 to 15. that Pittsburgh, which has somehow incredibly maintained really high TV ratings through a lot of really down years. So, I’m going to say this to baseball fans here the same way I said it to hockey fans back when they thought I was nuts. Major League Baseball needs Pittsburgh a lot more than Pittsburgh needs Major League Baseball. Never forget that. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. And we will have another one of these tomorrow. [Music]

The circus never ceases with this franchise.

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