DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Dennis Santana and … who?

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Dennis Santana and … who?

[Music] [Applause] One funny thing about baseball fandom, and I do not exempt myself from this, is that we don’t think about the bullpen until opening day. Come on, admit it. You don’t. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. I’m Dan Kbachovic of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates presented by our great friends at the Northshore Tavern. 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. Dennis Santana is the only real name you might need to know heading into this off season as it relates to the bullpen. Santana, of course, finished the 2025 season as the Pirates closer. Fared quite well across 70 appearances, 16 saves in 19 opportunities. That’s a little bit of a cold number to try to assess. More impressively, 0.87 whip, 179 opponents batting average, 60 strikeouts, 17 walks over 70 in the third innings. good pitcher. He’s 29 years old, so he’s obviously got a fair amount of baseball left in him theoretically. Is he some big time lights on thumping the AC/DC level closer? I don’t know. I don’t know. Nobody can know that. Nice relief pitcher now who has some backend results to his resume. And that my friends is close to the end of the discussion. Due respect to Caleb Ferguson who was hit with some injury issues. Isaac Matson who came up late and was really just a wonderful story in terms of how he attacked the strike zone and of course having been in the pit program originally from Erie. All that good stuff not a known commodity at all. Kyle Nicholas he was in the mix. He he doesn’t throw anywhere near enough strikes. A lot of these other guys who were kind of the new entries were more starting pitchers being utilized as relievers either to manage their innings count or to manage some expectations upon arrival. And I’m talking of course about Carmen Machinsky, Braxen Ashcraft, Mike Burrows there for a bit. That part of it is kind of wavy. And then you get to the one really who was the most deeply disappointing and that of course was Colin Holderman. Holderman had all kinds of things keeping him back. Injuries, demotions, only 24 appearances, 7.01 ERA, 1.95 whip, 327 batting average for the opponents. I don’t even know which of those figures is the worst. All three are so awful, certainly by the standard that he set at times for himself in the majors. So, let’s climb back up the ladder to that one guy that you think you can count on, and that’s Santana. And recognize that he’s a secondyear arbitration guy who’s projected by Spotrak to make 4.5 million in 2026. He’s got two years of control. This I’m not being dramatic here. This is it. This is it. You can talk about your Johan Ramirezes and other fringe guys. This is it. This is your bullpen right now because David Bednar was traded. And Bednar, by the way, has a projected $9 million arbitration salary coming his way. So again, don’t ask why he was traded. But for Santana, that’ll represent a raise of $3 million. So, when I keep sharing with you that I have been told that the Pirates payroll is not going up, you’re going to see other guys like Mitch Keller get traded out to create payroll room. And I’m sure you’re going to see some attempts to add hitting with the room that results. But when I keep saying that it’s not going to be all that much, part of the reason for that is I believe you’re going to have to commit around an additional 10 million or so to the bullpen. And not one of those signings is going to excite anyone, which in turn is why we really don’t talk about the bullpen. What happens? You get a bunch of cheap arms. You bring them all into spring training. You have them get into what’s branded as a competition. They go at it. They try to throw really hard. A bunch of them get some zeros all stacked up in a row in grapefruit ball. And everyone thinks, “Whoa, what a bullpen competition we have going on here.” The bullpen competition plays itself out. You’re convinced that the winners of it are just royalty at this point. And then opening day comes along, somebody’s actually got to throw strikes and get outs in stadiums that have second and third decks. And that’s not ideal. And that’s why even if you are one of those executives in baseball who is of the belief that bullpening from the executive’s perspective is largely a luck-based situation. Even the most established, venerable relievers tend to have career trajectories that are less predictable than starters. So you think you’ve got yourself a bullpen, you pay up, you keep them all, and then you find out next year you really should have just changed out more than you thought. So this might be the right way to approach this. This might be the wrong way to approach this. Only reason I’m bringing it up today is so that we don’t forget that you still have to ultimately approach it. You can’t just pretend it’s a problem that doesn’t need a solution when it comes to money. 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 gunstoch checkck.org. That’s gunstoch checkck.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the Firearm Industry Trade Association. [Music] Today’s J1Q comes from Jim, who asks, “If there was a general manager in place who could identify hitting talent.” What a way to start a question. What a program. Wow. Is there an opportunity to frontload year one of a three to fouryear contract for a free agent this off season if larger market teams are more tentative and mindful of the upcoming cap beyond this year anyway? Is there in other words a way to find a market inefficiency? I know what you’re saying Jim. It’s it’s really hard to get past that opening of yours though because you don’t have a GM who can identify hitting talent. You don’t have a front office in general that can do anything well in regards to hitting. That’s how the roster in Pittsburgh in 2025 finished so far below dead last. It’s not enough to say that they’re dead last. That it’s remarkable really that you could hit so negatively as a team. That even the players on the team who can hit didn’t hit that in a couple of cases people who had hit their entire lives couldn’t hit. That I say this respectfully renders the remainder of your question moot. But we’ll take it anyway because it is an interesting scenario. There are almost certainly smart, really smart moves that can be made by teams in parenthesis other than the Pirates who can outthink everybody else who can say, “Hey, we’re going to pounce on so and so free agent. We’re going to find a way, some way to bring them here, to show them what we got, and to pay them. Of course, frontloading isn’t something that’s done a whole heck of a lot. Ultimately, the way teams and agents go back and forth on deals. It’s average annual value. The only sport that really sees frontloading of any kind is the obvious one. That’s the NFL because the NFL doesn’t have guaranteed contracts. So, the more you’re paid upfront, the more obviously you’re going to be assured of keeping. But maybe there are other ways that you can think of, you know, getting really creative, really outside the box in your thinking. But that said, to really kind of fully drive this nail in, they don’t have that much money and they’re not going to have that much money because they’re not raising the overall payroll. I hate to keep saying that again and again and again, but the way Ben Cherington painted this a couple of weeks ago at the general manager meetings in Las Vegas about having additional flexibility in how they’re going to be talking to more teams, that doesn’t mean payroll is going up. It means they traded David Bednar and Krian Hayes and Bailey Falter and a couple of other guys that would have made at least some money and they’re going to trade Mitch Keller. That’s it. That’s your flexibility. Now, that’s a fair amount of money and it’s way more than the Pirates usually have heading into an off season, but framing this properly is everything. Don’t, please don’t be getting your hopes up for some big signings for a bunch of reasons. They’re going to try to get a couple of bats. They still have to put together a bullpen. I appreciate the question, Jim. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’re going to have another one of these tomorrow. [Music]

Dennis Santana and … who else in this bullpen?

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