DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The Milwaukee chasm

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The Milwaukee chasm

[Music] [Applause] There are so many similarities between Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, meaning markets. There are almost no similarities between their respective baseball franchises. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. I’m Dan Kavaj of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into football andor hockey. I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins, other two teams in town that I cover. Brewer 7 Pirates won last night in the House of Horrors up in Milwaukee. There was nothing remotely interesting about the game. There tends to not be things that are interesting about these matchups. And this one, Andrew Heeney was hit hard again. Six runs, nine hits over four innings. Couple of those hits left the yard. That happens to him a lot. He’s really, really found the pumpkin. The offense, if you want to call it that, managed three whole hits. One of those was a home run by Joey Bart, who otherwise was just horrific. And I’m talking about behind the plate. couldn’t catch anything that came his way from any of his fielders. Threw the ball all over the place. Just wow. Wow. This team is so bad. Wow. Those other guys are so good. In fact, they’re the best right now. The Brewers are the best team in Major League Baseball at 74 and 44. They’ve won 10 in a row. They can pitch, they can catch, they can really, really hit. And yet they’re based in a market, the Milwaukee market, that is 23 the size of the Pittsburgh market. Moreover, their payroll is at 113 million. The Pirates are probably going to end up a little bit over 90. And you might think, “Wow, that’s a pretty big gap there.” It isn’t. It isn’t. 23 million isn’t much in this game, and it’s not what’s made the difference. It’s not what’s had the Brewers qualify for the playoffs, six of the past seven years. And of course, this one will be seven in the past eight years. It’s not what had the Brewers at 92 wins a couple of years ago, 93 wins last year. Who knows how high into the ‘9s they’ll go this time. What’s made it happen is that they’ve got an owner, Maranasio, who is committed to winning. He’s committed to finding winning people, making winning decisions. And no, his payroll is not all that high either. But as I’m saying all the time, the list of Bob Nutting’s shortcomings doesn’t have the payroll anywhere in the top 10, at least in my view. Well, the same would certainly apply in the reverse to Atonacasio in Milwaukee. In late 2019, the Pirates general manager opening came down to Ben Cherington and Matt Arnold. Nothing chose wrong. He chose Cherington. And the Brewers kept Arnold, found a way to kick him upstairs, if you will. and he has been the architect of everything that’s happened there following in the footsteps of David Sterns who was lured away by the Mets. Arnold’s got some analytics to him. He’s got some evaluation to him. He’s got some big boss type of presence to him. He was the right choice. I’m not saying this when it’s convenient and in hindsight. I put it into print at the time and in emphatic terms that the pirates needed to hire Arnold. So Nutting hired Cherington. And in his words at the time, he did so because he saw Cherington as an organization builder, not valuing, at least not enough obviously that the other guy was coming from a place where they’d already built this. They already knew. They already got it. They already felt it. Nutting was looking for a mechanic. The Brewers were looking for Mario Andredy. This is the chasm between the two. It’s what’s created the chasm. Anyway, to repeat here, it’s not the money. It’s how the money that they have has been spent. They do really well in the draft. They do really well in Latin America. The Brewers do. They do really well on the international scene. When they do make a big move, and they’re not afraid to make those, as they’ve shown, they don’t miss, at least not for long. Christian Yelich signed a 9-year extension in Milwaukee for $215 million in Milwaukee. And it wasn’t all roses early on. He was a pretty big mystery to a lot of people with the Brewers when his hitting just suddenly fell off. Well, turns out it suddenly fell off because he had Andy Haynes as a hitting coach. At which point Cherington hired Haynes after the Brewers made him the only member of their staff that they fired after the 2022 season. Incredible stuff. like it’s like a Saturday Night Lives skit. When the Brewers needed some power at a corner position, instead of going through all this silliness that you’ve seen Cherington try, they just said, “Yeah, we’re just going to get Reese Hoskins.” And they put in 3 years and 39 million. Not a massive contract by baseball standards. the yellowish one was. But they identified a very plain need on their field and said, “Man, we feel like we’ve got a pretty good team here and we feel like we could win if we would address that need.” They went and addressed the need. Nuts, huh? Now, Hoskins, to be fair and accurate here, hasn’t exactly been a great find to date. He’s batting 242 with 12 homers and 42 RBI’s. You would take all of those figures on the Pirates in a moment. But he also hasn’t been healthy. He isn’t healthy now. He’s got a thumb injury. But then because they have actual depth because they know how to identify talent at all levels and all ages, they moved Andrew Vaughn into his spot after acquiring Vaughn from the White Socks. And all Vaughn has done, talk about the Milwaukee effect in the month and change since then, is to bat 352 with a 1045 OPS, seven home runs, 29 RBI’s. My friends, I’m talking about a month here. And I’d be remiss if mentioning the Milwaukee effect and not bringing up yet again that they were the organization that figured out Quinn Priest who’d been a firstround pick of the Pirates. priest had been in Pittsburgh and in the Pittsburgh system, if you think about it, for nearly half a decade, any idiot sitting in the stands or even one particular idiot sitting in the press box as Pastor was coming up through the system could recognize that he was terrified to throw his fast ball. I would even ask the kid about this. The pirates kept insisting that he throw this terrible pitch that was getting terrible results. So, they gave up on him. They sent him to the Red Sox for two nothing hitting prospects, who by the way are at least in their mid20s, so they had that going for them. The Red Sox didn’t figure out anything either. The Brewers picked him up and he is currently 11-2 with a 3.49 ERA, a 1.24 whip, and 95 strikeouts in 118 and 2/3 innings. Saturday night live skit. That’s what this is. 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 gunstorage check.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the firearm industry trade association. [Music] Today’s J1Q comes from James who says simply, “Why is Andrew Heene still part of this team?” The best thing about your question, James, is that the most obvious answer of all, which is that he’s been really bad for a long time and there’s no justification for it. Then you’ve got Bubba Chandler, who hasn’t been great in the minors, but at least might benefit from getting a look or some experience in the majors. You have Johan Oedo knocking on the door back. And Haney, for anybody who doesn’t know, is on an expiring contract, which means his chance of being here in 2026 isn’t exactly good. No one really seems to know why Heene is struggling the way he is. Last night, Jose Negron, our reporter from DK Pittsburgh Sports, and by the way, the only reporter for any Pittsburgh media outlet to make the trip to cover this team, ask Don Kelly afterward. Well, here, listen for yourself. Seems like these this these struggles have kind of gone back to that June start against the Tigers where you up seven runs, back toback starts, you up seven runs. Have you seen any commonality in what has kind of gone wrong for him over maybe this last nine appearance stretch? Yeah, you know, he’s he’s had some good ones in there. And I think that for all of our guys, just the fast ball command, you know, being able to locate that, especially for him on that inner rail and pitching up and in opens up his change up and and his breaking ball and uh you know, maybe a little bit of that tonight, but I thought um you know, more so in other starts, the command really had is what eluded him. After that, Heene out in the clubhouse came back with a series of one or twoword answers for everything that he was asked. Whole thing lasted about 20 seconds. And still, no, that’s not the dumbest part of his being here at the moment. Rather, it’s that it comes at a literal no gain for the Pirates, for the players, for anybody, especially when you consider that it’s Heene, it’s Tommy Fam, it’s Isaiah Ker, Falefa, all on expiring contracts and they all were retained, which stunned even them, maybe especially them. And all of this happened on the same day that Cherington just gave away Bailey Falter, whose rights the team would own for another couple seasons. And just perfectly serviceable, professional left-handed starter, helps keep uh the other team’s hitters from getting too locked in on all the good righties that you have. and Cherington just hands him to Kansas City for nothing, for three piles of nothing that came back. To this day, I’ve only yet heard one word, and it came from one of our commenters in our community on the DK Pittsburgh Sports app. I wish I’d thought of it myself, selfishly, but they called it sabotage. And I went, sabotage. And after getting the Beasty Boys thing stuck in my head, sabotage. Now that makes sense. Like you’re you’re just dropping a match in the lobby on your way out of the building for the last time. You’re going all Milton on Initech in office space. Just take your red swing line stapler, walk outside on that grass hill, and watch it burn. What a franchise. I appreciate the question, James. I appreciate everybody who torments themselves by listening to this show. There will be another one tomorrow. [Music]

Similar markets, extraordinarily different methods/results.

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