Cam Devaney’s Short Stint Raises SERIOUS Questions About Pittsburgh Pirates Coaching Decisions

Cam Devaney’s Short Stint Raises SERIOUS Questions About Pittsburgh Pirates Coaching Decisions

The Pirates traded a veteran for power, then gave the power 38 played appearances. Cam Dean’s pirate career was shorter than a Permany’s lunch line. Let’s talk about it. [Music] You are Locked on Pirates, your daily Pittsburgh Pirates podcast, part of the Locked On Network. your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Pirates, part of the number one ranked Locked On podcast network. I’m Gary Morgan, former editor at Steel City Pirates, covering the Pirates since 2019. Lifelong fan. I’ve seen it all, sometimes twice, maybe more. Thanks for making us your first listen every day. If you’re one of our everydayers, we appreciate you more than a walk-off win. So, perk those ears up. I’ll have a lot more information on our new Everydayer Club very soon for you. Let’s dive in. Today’s episode is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app. Create an account and use code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. So, let’s start with a move that felt like it had potential but fizzled out faster than a rain delay in July. The Pirates brought in Cam Deany at the deadline, hoping to inject some power into the lineup, but instead of letting him cook, they gave him a microwave minute and moved on. I mean, let’s unpack why this trade felt like a waste and what it says about the team’s approach to roster building. Frasier wasn’t a major loss. Okay, Gonzalez was going to take over his playing time anyway. Deainy had some power. 20 home run seasons in three of his last four MLB years. It’s only 38 played appearances in 14 games is just not a real opportunity. And I kind of questioned why they brought him in in the first place because even at the time, you’ll remember we were talking about Nick Gonzalez. We were all kind of like, we haven’t even seen Nick York yet. You know, I I mean, at the time we still had Cabrian Hayes, so it’s it certainly didn’t seem like third base was was something that we were considering. It just didn’t make an awful lot of sense on the surface unless, and that’s a big unless, unless you take into account this is a guy that hit some home runs in the miners, and this is a team that desperately needs power. So, you felt like, hey, they recognize the problem. At least they’re swinging at the skill set here. Maybe not the player. Maybe it’s not the right player, but they’re swinging at the right skill set. Well, all of that ceases to matter when you decide to only give them 38 played appearances. Don’t get me wrong, there’s something here with this kid. The Royals called him up and didn’t play him either. The Pirates chose not to bring him directly to the majors, which I felt was kind of a silly mistake in in and of itself. He was already in the majors. It made a lot of sense to just not, I don’t know, dash his hopes and have his first interaction with his new team be being demoted, you know? I mean, he hadn’t even gotten to have the sweet taste or reward of that first at bat to at least get it out of the way. It’s an older guy, you know? It probably felt it wasn’t ever going to come in the first place when when he finally got the call. So, immediately I think like I mean that’s setting him up for like a bad time at least. And then he goes to the miners. He does okay. Hey, I didn’t see a lot of power there. I I certainly I I know he hit a home run. He played better defense at shortstop than I think was advertised when they picked him up, but that didn’t end up mattering either because the Pirates didn’t use him at shortstop. In fact, they they showed very little sign that they were even considering it. Now, I don’t care that Cam Dean is gone. I don’t care that Cam Dean is in Japan. I didn’t know how he was going to if he was going to fit into this roster anyway next year. So, I guess my my problem is not necessarily like that he’s gone or anything. It’s just who scouted this guy for you and how could they have been so wrong that it took you 38 played appearances in 14 games to decide he was that bad you were not only going to not contest him wanting to leave in the off season, but you were just going to straight pull the plug in a season where it completely didn’t matter. anymore. You know, this isn’t like he got like the last 14 games of the season. They pulled the plug before the season was over on this experiment with Cam Deainy. You knew he was going to be blocked even at third by Triolo’s glove. And this team’s affinity for Triolo. The middle infield was already crowded. What was this trade? Do you get what I mean? Like this wasn’t a blockbuster. It was a chance to add some pop. Instead, it felt like, you know, your order at the drive-thru, you get all the way home and realize they forgot your fries and it’s just not worth the gas money to go back and get your three bucks, you know? So, you kind of just take it. Whatever. This was dumb. This was just a dumb experiment and a short-lived experiment. What’s what’s really funny is is guys go to Japan all the time from a lot of teams. I’m not saying the Pirates are special here, but they’ve got a special knack for picking up guys who not only were short an experience or opportunity at the major leagues, but often with cause. Because by the time they get here, it’s very quickly identified by whoever gets eyes on them that didn’t have eyes on them before acquiring. It definitely gets ingrained here real quick. Oh, those other teams were right. Now, you understand something like that on a roll five attempt. You know, you pick up a guy on the roll five, that’s kind of how you expect it to go. And you trade a veteran on an expiring contract who’s kind of had a pretty uninspiring season. And Adam Frasier, I’m sorry. You expect to get some kind of lottery ticket or a chance for the future back or reliever, something that like it’s it’s something that you’re going to have to work for a little bit to bring something out of it. You don’t expect like somebody to come back and like be a a major contributor in the bigs immediately. And I guess that’s probably what we all should have thought like for what the Royals are planning to do with Adam Frasier. Here they are giving away a guy that we’re sitting here pretending could be a regular power contributor for this team. Maybe we should have kind of just known right away what this was. A salary dump. That’s all this was. A salary dump of Adam Frasier. and he barely made enough to to care. I’m not even getting on them about it. But in the future, if you’re making deals like this, get me a lottery ticket. Get me a high A pitcher that I don’t got to think about protecting for three or four years that’s got some kind of a pitch that at least is peing your interest. Get me somebody who’s stuck in double A, still trying to be turned into a starter when it’s clear they should be a reliever and you can take them and turn and burn them into something else. Like, don’t try to get me somebody that’s going to fill in at the major leagues because you’re not going to find that. You’re not. You’re not. You know, if you want a guy like Cam Deainy, I mean, I think you need to be in a position where that is where you’re going. You got no prospects coming. You’ve got no veterans in the way. You just you’re desperate for somebody that you think can handle the position pretty well. They’ve got a little bit of a pedigree for power. You’re going to give them a little bit of runway because you don’t got anything better anyway. And hey, why spend a lot of money for it? and lightning in a bottle. Yay, it happens sometimes. Let’s see. But if you don’t have the opportunity or you’re not going to give or force the opportunity, then there’s no reason to bring in a player that’s this close to the majors in theory cuz all they’re going to do is clog up the works. If you’re not going to give them an opportunity, it was a pointless exercise. The whole thing was. That’s where I land. a pointless exercise. That’s upsetting. So yeah, if Cam Deanny came and went faster than a September call out, power potential wasted, roster fit ignored, and now he’s off to Japan. It’s the kind of move that makes you wonder if the Pirates even knew what they wanted out of him in the first place. But hey, maybe the answers aren’t on the field, they’re in the dugout. Let’s take a quick break and when we come back, we’ll talk about some fresh faces on the coaching staff who might just help this team stop repeating the same mistakes. And yes, I’ll probably bring up the Everyday Club again because if you’re listening Everyday, you probably deserve a little bit better than uh the stretch the Pirates gave Cam Deany. The NBA is back and there’s no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game or want to ride that hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score next to the fourth quarter big comeback. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. It keeps every game interesting, especially when your team’s making that late push. Right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So, head to fandle.com and sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Hey, welcome back to the number one podcast network and Locked on Pirates. Now, while the Deainy situation left us scratching our heads a little bit, the Pirates have made some moves off the field that might actually help solve some of these recurring issues. Let’s talk about Christopher Negron, Tony Beasley, and what these hires could mean for the future of this team. Negron uh was hired as the bench coach. Um he’s got a developmental background. Um he’s been aa manager. He’s got some fresh eyes. Tony Beasley uh replaces Rebello, returns to Pittsburgh with deep coaching experience and uh we obviously know about Bill Murphy, too. This is a younger bench overall and hopefully that helps more innovation. And I think something really important about Christopher Negron is, you know, he started out after his playing career was over being hired as an assistant to the developmental vice president. And I think that that experience is something that this team has sorely needed on its bench for a minute. We have on this show over the course of the time I’ve been doing it anyway talked repeatedly about the missing link between AAA progression and making it in the majors. There seems to be that disconnect. There’s something that doesn’t take performance from AAA and translate it to the majors. There’s a disconnect on how they provide information to players. There’s just something off there. Something is missing. They’re either overloading them or not giving them the right sets of information or in some cases simply just not preparing them for the differences that the major league game offers. You know, there are a lot of different things that occur in the majors that don’t happen in the minors. Like a catcher throwing behind the the runner at first base or even third for that matter, is something that you’ll rarely see in the minors, at least in the upper levels. You might see it in single A before somebody has that kind of brashness beaten out of them or they’ve thrown one too many away and the coach makes them put it in their pocket. But you you won’t see it when you get to the majors. You see a little bit more of that kind of flex. You see pitchers that have pickoff moves. You see um things that would have definitely been gap shots in in the minors that are getting run down by superior athletes into the gaps. Things that fell don’t fall. Things that used to go out don’t go out. Things that used to, you know, be your bread and butter are no longer your bread and butter. How do you navigate all that? Well, it takes I think somebody that’s got that kind of a a skill set. And to be frank, that was never really what Don Kelly was as a bench coach. He was more of a guy who took the overflow assignments from Derek Shelton. Basically, the stuff he didn’t feel like doing or didn’t feel like he was as well equipped to do. Let’s be honest, it wasn’t all just like, “Hey, do all the crap work.” But he did a lot of that stuff and he would take on extra responsibilities for things that were suffering like, “Hey, we’re really really doing terribly fielding, Don. How about you take an extra step into that? I know it’s not your your job, but get in there. Hey, we’re having guys just take the worst approach ever at the plate for some reason for a stretch of three weeks. The the hitting coach we hired can’t seem to solve it.” Don, can you take a look? I’m not saying that he was super successful at all that stuff, but you’re talking about a guy that’s working 15 jobs taking a 16th and 17th and wondering why he’s not doing great, you know? So, I I like stretching that out a little bit. And I think Don tried to take a little bit of too much of that maybe into his actual manager position. And having a guy like Gene Lamont around is probably good for advice, but it’s probably not the best for, you know, doing something different or seeing something a different way. If anything, he he’s maybe seeing things the way they used to be and recommending going back to that. And and in some cases, I’m sure that was helpful, but I don’t think it helps you onboard kids. And since this team, whether you want to admit that it’s a young team or not, is at least in an experience standpoint, it’s a young baseball team. You need that everywhere. So, I really like bringing on Negrron. And and I know that I’m talking about a younger bench while I’m talking about like what a 60-year-old in um Tony Beasley, but Tony Beasley brings other things. Experience experience managing younger kids on boarding too with Texas. So there’s I think a good foundation there for some strategic changes. And let’s add it all back in with Bill Murphy. This is another younger guy. A younger guy who had a ying to his yang in Houston and now he’s looking to be the whole shebang here. Okay. I don’t believe that you can say, well, Bill Murphy was 50% responsible for everything that happened in Houston. There’s no way we could possibly know the division of labor that Houston had for their pitching coach situation. But I think we can say that Bill Murphy was wanted by others. I think Paul Ske actually referenced this when he was talking about this hire. Uh it’s it was basically there’s two types of people that are attracted to Pittsburgh. Guys that will take the job because it’s the Pirates and I need a job. And there’s guys that could take a job in a lot of different places and choose to take the Pirates because they want the challenge. That’s what Paul feels Bill Murphy is. That’s what I feel Bill Murphy is. I think I think it’s a a little bit of a risk on both parts. I feel like he’s taking a risk on the Pirates that they’re going to actually try to invest outside of the the stable of young studs that he’s going to get handed. And I think it’s a little bit of an investment or and a chance on the Pirates part that Bill Murphy wasn’t like 15% of the good stuff that happened with Houston’s pitching. And I think that’s a fair bet on both parts. I really do. But it’s a younger bench. I do think that’s important. I just think for relatability sake to Don Kelly, not that he didn’t get along with older veteran coaches. Clearly he does. But I think that might be one of his worst tendencies is is that that fall back on the old school as far as like going back to what used to work when I think you really do have to look at the landscape of today’s major leagues when you’re making some of these decisions on how you’re going to move forward and who you’re going to play and how you’re going to deploy your talent. I just I love the new set of voices that are going to be there for Don Kelly. think it’s going to change the dynamic in that dugout a little bit. I do. I think we I think we can look forward to some some good things coming out of this. I mean, so with Negron, Beasley, and Murphy in the fold, the Pirates are clearly trying to inject some new energy into the coaching ranks. it. It’s a younger bench overall, more development focused staff and maybe, just maybe, a sign that they’re ready to finally bridge the gap between Triple A and the bigs. I think that has been the biggest problem. And this so far, according to at least the reputations of these hires, to me is a big sign that they’re actually finally addressing it. This is stuff that you probably should do when you’re going full youth movement. So, they’re probably two years late on addressing some of the coaching changes that needed to be made in order to keep this ball moving forward. If you ask me, which you are, you’re listening to the show, right? You want to hear what I think? So, listen. Uh, when we come back, I’m answer a question that I get all the time. What happened to Steel City Pirates? And yes, I’ll talk about writing again. And it’ll give me an opportunity to talk a little bit about this every day or club that we’re going to be launching soon and how you can stay connected with me on social media. NFL season is back and honestly there’s nothing better than being in the stadium surrounded by fans cheering on your team. But let’s be honest, getting tickets can be a real hassle between K’s long login screens and prices jumping at checkout. It’s frustrating. That’s why I use Game Time, the app that gives the advantage back to fans. Game time is fast, easy, and backed by Game Time guarantee. You’ll always get 100% authentic tickets delivered on time and at the best price. Plus, all fees are included. So, the price you see is the price you pay. I pulled up Game Time for last night’s Steeler game uh just a couple hours before it started. Saw tickets on there for about a buck 50. Good luck getting those in advance, right? Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, that’s promo code locked on MLB for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go download game time today. Hey, welcome back to Locked On Pirates. Before we dive into the AMA, let me remind you if you’re not already following me on X. You can find me on there at Gary Mo20007. I also have the locked on Pirates handle there. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook. Really, just look anywhere you’ll find me. I where I share my updates, thoughts, and sometimes I’ll just vent like a true Pittsburgger. So, especially if you follow the other sports and want to hear what I have to say about them, whether you should or not, social media is where you’re going to see that. Um, now let’s get into the story behind Steel City Pirates and what’s next for my writing. Uh, yeah, you know, I kind of probably owe you guys this story anyway. Um, it’s not something that I’ve wanted to talk about because it was painful for me to shut down Steel City Pirates. Uh, I’ve been writing for a while. I think 2018 is the first time I really took a crack at doing it professionally. Uh I started out with Sports Illustrated’s local affiliate here for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Uh in 2019, covered Ben Sharington getting hired and Neil Huntington getting fired and all of that uh transition. And it was a a good gig. I really enjoyed it. And then COVID hit and Sports Illustrated pulled the rug out from all of that. Um, and I was writing with my good friend Craig Toth who used to host uh, Bridge or not Bridgetober, that’s Josh. Um, used to host U Bucks in the Basement. Really good podcast. Loved listening to it and everything. Great friend of mine. And we both still wanted to write. We wrote together at SI. We wanted to keep writing together. So, we started this website and let’s just say when you first start a website, you can go a couple routes. One, you can start charging people to hear what you have to say. But I guess Craig and I always felt like why would anybody want to pay to hear what we have to say until they know that it’s worth hearing, right? So, we we figured right away we’re going to do this for free for a while, whatever. And we did. And then, you know, as time went on, Craig kind of got busy with life and pulled out of it. And I started bringing some other people in that were like-minded and just wanted to start getting better stories out about the Pirates, just more well-rounded, more different angles on things that we didn’t feel people were taking. And we were all doing it pro bono and running the website pro bono, you know, at a net loss. actually, you know, you got to pay for the hosting fees and everything. And I did for a really long time. And when I started doing Locked On, I started to realize very quickly, I don’t have the time to do this anymore. I don’t have the time to do this in the way that I want to do it anyway. Okay? I could give you little snippets of stories. I could give you updates of news. I could give you opinions on everything that happens every single day, but man, I’m doing that anyway. And it just starts to feel redundant after a while. You know, I’m writing what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what I’m writing about. And to a degree, that works because some of you listen, some of you watch, some of you read, and you know, you don’t necessarily all cross paths. Some of you do. And the ones that you do, well, that can be frustrating to hear the same thing you just read. Or even if I change it for the show, well, now I’m a hypocrite. Now I’m going back on what I just wrote so passionately to you, right? So I can make it a little bit different, but I I I it’s going to be the same basic takeaway. And it just it started to feel weird to me. And then you know the other thing too is I had a bunch of guys doing great work on my site. Michael Castroano was basically editing the site and writing more than anybody. And Bridge from Brook was writing and Ethan Smith former host here wrote on Steel City Pirates totally free. Well, when you’re kind of like acting as their editor slashboss and you’re writing like once a week and they’re writing like four or five times a week, I just started to feel like it was really unfair because I’m to the point where I’m starting to ask them to do things that I can’t get to and I’m writing once a week at this point. That’s where it went. Honestly, even as a free website, I felt like there was a standard I needed to hit. Um, that said, writing is my first love. I wanted to write way more than I wanted to talk. I, as you can tell, I have the face for writing, and I don’t necessarily have a radio voice either. So, even if you’re an audio listener, sparing yourself from looking at me all day, writing is what I wanted to do more than anything. That’s where I felt like I could really take the time to to think through concepts and not be reactionary and and make sure that I was looking at every angle of something before I hit that publish button. And I’ve learned to do that same thing in podcasting. You know, I I do think about things a little bit more. I probably research a little bit deeper before I I speak to you guys than I than I necessarily would if I was just making Tik Toks or something. But yeah, I I mean it’s kind of been replaced by basically reading my own writing. I’m still writing. You get what I mean? I’m just talking too. And you have to be able to talk, you know, without a script a little bit in podcasting. And I I think I handle that aspect pretty well, but it’s not as easy to get some of the metaphors to come through when I’m writing versus talking because it can sound really confusing, but if you read it, it’s not. So, there’s definitely been some things I’ve missed. And the good thing is we’re going to have this new everyday club here on Locked On, and they’re giving us a little bit of freedom for the host to kind of decide what that’s going to be. I know there’s going to be a Discord um where you can go and we’ll do some exclusive chats. Um we’ll probably do some some Discord exclusive AMAs. You know, it’ll be an easier place for you guys to come and drop your AMAs. Right now, you guys just drop them kind of wherever and I find them and react to them like I did this one. But we’ll be able to put those on Discord. I believe I’m going to have a place where I can actually write and post some of my content. I believe I’m going to get back to writing some version of five thoughts. And it might be one daily thought. You know, I might do one every day. Instead of doing one big piece with five big concepts, I’ll do one every day. and and maybe I’ll try to make sure that whatever I bring up in that forum isn’t necessarily show content. You know, I I think that’s what it’s going to lead to is something along those lines. This is all going to launch in early December. I’ll know more as I figure out more of what I’m going to do. And yeah, that’s the long and short story of Steel City Pirates. Will it ever come back? I still own the domain, maybe. Um, I mean, I still have the the site up because the content’s all still very good. Um, I’m very proud of what we did there, and that includes everybody that contributed, even some of the writers that only did one or two pieces in the entire time that they were involved in it. Really good stuff. And I was proud of it. But you can’t ask a whole bunch of people to dedicate that much time and effort to doing something for free, especially when the team doesn’t feel like it’s putting in the same amount of effort as you are at times. And I think that’s kind of led to everything. And Locked On has been a great platform for me. I’ve loved being here every day sharing with you guys. And again, most of my thoughts, if you think about it, I’m coming up with three topics every single day. And in many ways, it’s more challenging than what I was doing trying to run the website as far as just like having three things you might actually want to hear about every single day. That’s harder to do than you might think. It really is. That’s it for today’s episode. If you’re an Everyday Dare, thank you for sticking with us. We’re serious about Pirates baseball because somebody has to be. Let’s go Bucks.

Pittsburgh Pirates take a swing on Cam Devanney for power, but his MLB stint fizzles out after just 38 plate appearances. Was this trade a power play or a costly misstep in roster building? Gary Morgan scrutinizes the Pirates’ approach, questioning the scouting process and their handling of Devanney, as well as the aftermath of Adam Frazier’s departure.

Christopher Negron, Tony Beasley, and Bill Murphy headline a revamped coaching staff aimed at bridging the gap between AAA talent and big-league impact. Gary Morgan spotlights how a younger, development-focused bench could reshape strategy and help the Pirates break out of old habits. The show also covers the fate of Steel City Pirates writing and previews an exclusive Everyday Club for dedicated fans. Are the Pirates finally ready to build a contender by blending youth, innovation, and better player development?

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