DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Go Blue!

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Go Blue!

[Music] Let’s set the record straight here before I even get going. I have paid not one split second of attention to Major League Baseball’s ongoing playoffs, nor do I intend to. And this, too, I really don’t care who wins. But maybe I should. Maybe everybody should. Good morning to you. Good Monday morning. I’m Dan Kvachovich 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 of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. The Dodgers pretty much need to win this thing. Even the Yankees doing it wouldn’t have the same effect. The Dodgers are the team at the top of the payroll table. They’ve been that for some time now. The current figure total payroll allocations according to spottrack.com is at $350 million. I’m going to repeat that for you cuz I don’t know that this has sunk in even with some knowledgeable baseball fans. $350 million on one baseball team for one year. The Mets are a little bit behind that at 342, followed by the Yankees at 300, the Phillies at 290 and the Blue Jays at 255. There are now 12 teams in the majors that are over the 200 million mark. 12 of them. And what you want, believe me, what you want is for one of those at the very, very top to win it all. The Mets can’t. They’re out. The Dodgers and Phillies most, unfortunately, are facing each other in the ongoing round. That doesn’t help. But you still have the Yankees and the Blue Jays. Well, they’re also facing each other. So, of the top five teams in payroll, four of them are facing somebody else in that group. Just the way things played out. But I’ll say it again, it’s the Dodgers that you want. Not only because they have the reputation now among the casual fans as being the biggest wild dispenser, but also because of the deferred spending, because of taking show Otani away from the cross town Angels, and because if it isn’t the Dodgers or if it isn’t one of these other handful of teams, what you’re going to see is an unprecedented push on the part of the agents who feed information to those reporters who don’t cover teams or cover actual baseball. They just cover contractual and personnel stuff. Occasionally, they get referred to, and it’s a misnomer, as national media or national reporters, even though no such distinction actually exists. They’re just people who deal with agents. That’s it. And they didn’t work their way up to that status. That’s what they’ve been doing all along. They can’t do their jobs without these agents. They’re they’re completely helpless to do their jobs without these agents feeding them stuff. I’m going to repeat this. It’s the only thing they do. And you’d better believe there are certain things you have to do back in order to, you know, continue being fed this stuff. I’m not acting like I’m above it. I did this for a long time when I was the principal beatwriter covering the Pirates at the local newspaper. I was in touch with agents around the clock and they led to my breaking I don’t even know how many stories. Lots of them. Lots of small ones, lots of medium ones, and enough big ones to make me remember this was where I needed to be most mindful at all times. These reporters, believe you me, are ready to go to war against a salary cap system. Why? Because the agents are ready to go to war against a salary cap system. And why are they against it? Because they don’t care, they’ll never admit this, but it’s the truth. What their lowest paid clients are getting. They care what their biggest client is getting because that’s where they get the most money. You can have a hundred Alexander Canarios in the fold. But if you have one Bryce Harper, he’s blowing up your bank account. They know that. It’s what they fight for. It’s what they bicker amongst each other for. They’re looking for the big splash. salary cap system does an infinitely better job of spreading the money around. That’s why players in other leagues who once they’ve already been in that system will continuously approve it without any sort of argument even because they become educated as to how it truly works and they understand that they’re not going to make anywhere near as much money as a Harper or for that matter someday a Paul skins. Well, all these people are waiting for these reporters and these agents is for the Dodgers or the Yankees or the Phillies or the Blue Jays or whoever to fall out of this. And their perfect scenario here is for the Brewers, based in one of Major League Baseball’s smallest markets, the payroll of 121, to somehow advance and face the Tigers who are at 157 on their payroll. And for them to say, “Ah, look at that. See, it’s such a fair sport.” And if you count up the number of different teams that have won the World Series, there have been more different teams than there have been winning the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup. But what they never say out loud, even though they know this is the case, is that the same teams, plural, make it into the playoffs year after year after year with very few exceptions. And the same teams are left out of the playoffs year after year after year. Now, is it immensely commendable that the Brewers are not only in the playoffs, but entered with the majors best record? They had the best regular season of anybody. Of course, it is. They spent everything that they could, and they have themselves a wonderful general manager in Matt Arnold. Great. Awesome for them. Are they representative of the teams that go into the playoffs and have success? No, of course not. How do we know that? Because the Brewers themselves don’t succeed in the playoffs. Maybe they will this year, but they haven’t yet. As well as they’ve been run for a long time now, their next World Series championship will be their first. Not in some recent stretch ever, but early on. early on and I was able to pick up on some of this via social media and stuff that some of you sent me cuz you knew it would interest me and it does commentary from people who are in these positions that I’m talking about, the ones who don’t cover teams but who cover agents pointing out things like, “Wow, isn’t it amazing what parody there is in baseball because the Reds made it or that the Guardians made it?” And the answer to that, of course, is no. The Guardians got eaked out by the Tigers. They’re in the same division. They’re in similar markets. Everything is similar there. And the Reds got their brains beaten out by the Dodgers, which they should have. Look at the respective rosters, but they always leave that part off. They carry the narrative out right up until it’s not convenient for them. The Dodgers need to win this thing. 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 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 J1Q comes from Jerry who says, “Hi DK. I’ve been listening to your podcast. I appreciate the insights. You have mentioned of late that the Pirates don’t care how you feel in your podcast, and I assume that’s putting it mildly given your stance on the team’s owner and general manager. Is there a possibility that the team would restrict or eliminate your access to the team given your unfavorable assessment of these individuals? Every once in a while, this question or some version of this question gets sent this way. I’m happy to take it. It’s not the only beat in which it comes up. It comes up uh quite a bit with the Steelers, which is a little bit curious. There’s this mythology out there that the Steelers will rip away your credential if you ask Mike Tomlin a tough question. It’s just Listen, I don’t pretend to know about other people’s jobs, so I would hope that they don’t pretend to know about this one. But that’s not how it works. In fact, Jerry, I’ve been in this business a long, long time, like my whole life. I can only recall a single instance in any sport of credentials being revoked for critical coverage. It was a few years ago. there was a new management with the NHL’s New York Islanders and they didn’t like something that was written and they had no idea what they were doing and they tried to take away this individual’s credentials at which point the Professional Hockey Writers Association leaped into action, defended the individual, and that was addressed instantly and corrected because that’s not how this works. The same would happen if it were the Pro Football Writers Association. And you’d better believe the same happens anytime there’s any such issue with the Baseball Writers Association of America, which is the oldest and strongest of all of the writers associations. This was the one that was the granddaddy of them all, so to speak. I am currently one of the longest tenur members of that association. as it relates to being active, meaning, you know, involved in the beat as opposed to having graduated from it and just continuing to hold what’s called an honorary status that allows you to keep voting for the Hall of Fame and so forth. But if I had just been on the beat for a single year, there’s nothing the Pirates can do. There’s nothing they could do if they wanted to. Now, if I go in there, hypothetically speaking, Jerry, if I go in there and just, wow, I have myself a day, like I burst around the facilities yelling out racial epithets and swearing at people and dropping my pants or whatever else you would consider to be really outlandish, borish behavior, yeah, go ahead and kick me out. But when it comes to just being critical, when it comes to saying, “Wow, this is a terrible general manager. This is a terrible.” There’s nothing the Pirates can do individually if they wanted to. Nothing. And they know that without getting into any specifics, they’ve had a couple of situations over the years where they did have some pretty borish behavior. I’ve been around there a long time and I’ve seen some of it. And they wanted to do something to get rid of this person or that person. And I’ll say it again, it wasn’t because they were critical of the Pirates, but it was because they weren’t conducting themselves in a professional way in a professional setting. And that’s never acceptable, including to the Baseball Writers Association of America. We don’t want that. But even in those cases, they couldn’t pull it off. So, no, this is not a thing. This is a a pure piece of fantasy that gets drumed up. And I’ll say this again, it’s mostly around here Steelers fans who say this stuff, even though there’s no basis for it. There’s no precedent. I’ve been part of covering the Steelers since 1997, and not a single person has ever lost their credential over there, like for anything. I appreciate the question nonetheless. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’ll be back with another one of these tomorrow. [Music]

Why we all should pull for the Dodgers.

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