DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The exclusive club

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The exclusive club

Picture [Music] [Applause] me with my most evil expression and digging into the depths of some cartoon catalog for a true evil voice and saying it’s all going according to plan. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. I’m Dan Kawach of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into football and or hockey. I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. The World Series participants are now official. The Dodgers of course will be the National League representative as we knew and last night in Toronto. The Blue Jays defeated the Mariners by some score or other in game seven. And they and Isaiah Ker Falefa will be heading to the World Series. And man, it it almost couldn’t be better. It almost couldn’t be better because what you have is the team with the highest payroll taking on the team with the fifth highest payroll. You have the team that’s based in the United States second largest market against Canada’s largest market. And if you picked up Toronto and plopped it into America, it would be the sixth largest market. Glorious, I say. Just glorious. According to my friend Mike Dorsy of Sporting News, this is now the fifth straight year in which no team outside Major League Baseball’s top 10 markets will be in the World Series. In the past 10 series, 10 of them now, three of the 20 teams, three of them, that’s it, 15% were from outside that top 10 respective payrolls. The Dodgers, depending on what you do with their deferred money, are either at 350 or 400 or who knows what it is, some astronomical figure. The Blue Jays are at 280. It’s an exclusive club and most of the rest of the United States is not invited, is not allowed. Even if you come politely knocking on the door, we might let you valet the cars, but that’s about it. And I’ll say it again, that’s just it’s ideal. It really is. The only thing that could be better is for the Dodgers to go right ahead and win this series. The more convincingly the better, but one way or another, win the thing. Because if that happens, in all honesty, I don’t know that the next World Series will matter that much in this context that I’ve been citing for a few days now. You’re already going to be way too close to the end of that season. the beginning of what’s expected to be just an awful battle between the owners and the players association. When I say awful, I’m not saying I don’t welcome it. I absolutely welcome it. I mean in terms of how much they’re both expected to hunker down. And this occasion gives rise to me bringing up a subject I haven’t often brought up as much as I’ll discuss the next labor agreement and the salary cap system on this show and that’s this. Why would these top earning teams, these top winning teams go along with the push for a salary cap system? In other words, if LA is making it year after year, if the Yankees or the Mets, and the Mets aren’t the best example, but if if they’re competing every year, if they feel like they should be in the playoffs every year in large part because of their ability to spend, why would they go along with this? Why would the Red Sox go along with it? Why would the Angels go along with it? Why would the why would any of those teams uh to go back to Mike’s reporting who are in that top 10, why would they want this system to change? Now, I’m not going to have anywhere near enough time in this episode to cover all 11 billion reasons that they would. But I’ll start with this. Do you remember the old Gray Poop TV ad where I don’t know there’s some kind of discussion in a limousine or something where somebody says in regards to this rich guy acting cheap, how do you think he got to be so rich? And the intimation or the punchline there was he got so rich because he was careful with his money or he wanted more of it and was able to get more by being smart. One thing I’ll never forget when I covered the NHL’s really, really, really rancerous labor dispute with its players association 20 years ago that resulted in the installation of the salary cap in that league was that Gary Bman, the commissioner, went to the various owners that were spending the most on payroll. Some of those were based in the biggest market. Some of those just happened to have the biggest revenue stream. For example, nobody thinks of Detroit as a big market anymore, but Mike Illich, the pizza magnate of Little Caesar’s Pizza, was the owner of that team, and he just poured cash into the Red Wings back when they were winning Stanley Cups. Bman went to these people, New York, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, the biggest spenders in the NHL, and asked them, “Do you like being rich?” to which they would all respond, “Of course, yes.” He would say, “How would you like to be a whole lot richer?” And that was pretty much as far as he had to go cuz he could show them what the dollar figures would look like for them, meaning as entities and of course as people in the salary cap system. The same thing would happen with the owners of the Dodgers. This is something that nobody out there wants to even consider. They don’t even want to hear the term salary cap. They just close their ears and go show hey. But when it comes to the incredible amount of revenue that the Dodgers bring in through that insane local TV deal that pays more than 300 million a year all to one team. Yeah, of course there’s going to be resistance to giving up that kind of revenue. But let’s say that this salary cap system which always has a ceiling, a floor and expanded revenue sharing so that everybody can pay into that fairly tight range. In other sports it’s around 20 million 25 million. Not that big a deal. Let’s say just for argument’s sake that it’s a $200 million ceiling. I’ve not done any math on this, so don’t hold this against me in any way. Let’s say it’s a $200 million ceiling and $180 million floor and all 30 teams because of the expanded revenue sharing not only can spend into that range but are required to. Okay, now let’s look at the Dodgers overall revenues which are in 2024. The Dodgers had a total revenue, that means all of the money that they make in all forms of $752 million. If you add the playoffs into that, I’ve seen estimates that it’s right around a billion. Hear me out. If you tell the owners of the Dodgers that their payroll is hardcapped at 200 million and you have all of that other revenue, believe you me, they can afford to part with a lot of it while the owners themselves, the people, the teams partners all collect infinitely more money Then they’re collecting now. Kind of gives it all a different hook, doesn’t it? Follow the money, as the saying goes. 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 gunstorage check.org. That’s gunstoch check.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the firearm industry trade association. Delete me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance, and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, data brokers can compile your name, contact info, social security number, home address, even information about your family members, and they can sell it online. Have you ever been a victim of identity theft, harassment, doxing? If you haven’t, you probably know someone who has. Delete Me can help take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Our listeners get a special discount. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeme.com/hit. Use promo code hit at checkout. That’s hit. The only way to get 20% off is to go to jointdeleteme.com/hit and enter hit at checkout. That’s joined me.com/hit code hit. [Music] Today’s J1q comes from Mike who says, “Hi DK. Leader among the Pirates position players in war is none other than Jared Triola with a 2.4. He was 50% higher than the next closest Spencer Horwitz at 1.6. Triola was far ahead of Nick Gonzalez’s minus0.7 and he accumulated this in 50 fewer at bats. Now, while Warren Incorporates defense, his OPS of 667 was higher than Gonzalez’s 661. So, my question is, why is Triolo viewed as a fringe player on this team and Gonzalez is viewed as an acceptable regular? Is it just because of batting average? I know this is an exercise in choosing who sucks the least. It is more of an indictment of the pathetic state. I was waiting for you on this of the hitting on this team. But okay, Triolo is going to be viewed as a fringe player to quote you because he is a fringe player. Let’s start with that. Yes, I see that you acknowledge that near the end. Triolo was hitting so abysmally that he somehow still managed to stand out on the 2025 Pirates in that regard that it earned him a demotion to the minor leagues the year after winning the gold glove. That’s that’s a heck of a thing. So Triola goes down to the miners and whether or not this was connected, you can draw your own conspiratorial theories, but he goes down there, he gets his confidence back to a degree, hits the ball because it’s easier to hit the ball in the International League. And then Krian Hayes and his contract get traded to Cincinnati. Triolo’s back and Triolo hits a little bit better. No, actually I take it back. He hit a lot better late in the season. He is still hard a fringe player. Okay, I mean by that I mean like that is a a hard emphasis on that phrase. Now if your point is what would be the gap in the perception between Triolo and Gonzalez and that Gonzalez should be seen as a lesser thing. You know, Nick is a a firstround pick. In fact, he was Ben Cherington’s very first first round pick as GM in Pittsburgh. He arrived with the pedigree as possibly being the best bat in that class. And Nick has at times appeared to be someone who’s capable of a good bit more. He’ll I I know we shouldn’t be dissecting the nature of home runs. All you got to do is put it over the fence. It doesn’t matter if you O’Neal Cruz it or if you take Redmond it, but there’s an effortlessness to Nick’s swing at times where you can see the kind of contact that he makes. He’s not the only one who’s in this category who isn’t necessarily as productive as you’d like. I’ve seen a lot of that in Leo Pagarro over the years, not just the one magical night when he popped three at Kors Field. There can occasionally be something extra about the way the ball comes off his bat. Maybe that’s it. Maybe perception just gets ingrained in large part because Triola was demoted to the Miners, but I really don’t think Mike gets any of those things. I think it’s just a team that’s just god awful at hitting in an organization that’s god awful at hitting that we’re even talking about I almost started laughing when I was reading your ops numbers out loud that we were comparing oh his 667 is better than’s 661 as if either of those is even remotely acceptable and they’re not they’re not it’s a terrible hitting team a terrible hitting organization and that’s because it has a terrible terrible GM who hasn’t been fired yet by a terrible owner. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. reminder here today that this is not a franchise to be taken seriously and that any and all things that I say about a potential salary cap system being introduced to Major League Baseball should never be interpreted as my putting forth some notion that the cap would fix the Pirates. The pirates would actually be only further exposed as incompetent within a cap system, barring a wholesale change in management. Let’s do this awesomeness again tomorrow. [Music]

No. 2 payroll vs. No. 6 in the World Series? Ideal!

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