DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Can they afford to wait?

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Can they afford to wait?

[Music] [Applause] Day one of Major League Baseball’s winter meetings came and went without any moves from the local team. They did talk a bit though with uh couple of formal interview sessions. One with Don Kelly, the other with Ben Cherington. We’ll talk about that a little bit today. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. I’m Dan Kavich with DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes to you courtesy of our good friends at the Northshore Tavern. It also comes to you bright and early every weekday if you’re into football andor hockey. I also offer daily shots of Steelers Penguins in the same place that you found this Cherington session with reporters never should have been expected to be enlightening. Nor should it be with any GM really. They’ve got little to gain, actually almost nothing to gain from putting stuff out into public in a setting like that at a time like this. Cherington essentially reiterated the clear glaring really need for offense. Pirates of course having finished dead last in home runs, slugging percentage, OPS, everything across the board. And all of that’s led to them being dead last in runs. So they’re going for whatever they can find. And by at least my calculations, they’ve got somewhere in the range of 35 million to 40 million to spend, barring that little extra thing that I reported exclusively a couple of weeks ago where Cherington might be allowed to stretch it in the event that there’s some extraordinary acquisition that can be made. Most of what Cherington addressed was that the need and the conversations and more about the need and more about the conversations. Jose Negron, RB reporter on the scene in Orlando, asked Cherington this. Are you confident that there can be execution and, you know, obviously you made the efforts to, you know, try and, you know, acquire these players, but do you feel confident there’s going to be some execution in terms of, you know, getting guys that will help the lineup in 2026? Yeah, I am. I am very confident we’re going to be able to execute um you know between now and spring training. I I don’t know that when it’ll happen. You know, I don’t I don’t think there’s any I don’t have a sense of it’s going to happen in the next 3 days or next week or next month, but confident that we’re going to be able to land some stuff that um makes us feel better about the the team and specifically the position player group and the depth of the lineup going into spring training. believe that the best way to do that is to be engaged on as many fronts as possible. Um, you know, you chase down 100 things and three, four, five land and that’s just the way it works. So, that’s still the stage we’re at. I’d like to think that there’s accuracy in that answer. I I’d like to think that everybody from Cherington on down in baseball ops has surveyed the entire scene, scanned out how many free agents would be plausible and helpful. It’s not just a matter of signing somebody. He wants to sign somebody who could actually make a difference. Not to mention the potential trades that could be executed. Cherington himself acknowledged that some of the stuff that they’ve discussed with other teams has gotten out there, meaning it’s become known. He also threw in there that some of it hasn’t. Also par for the course. All of this is part for the course. Here’s my thing. The help that’s needed, and I would imagine everybody agrees on this, is monumental. It’s epic. This team, no matter how magnificently it pitches and and it could be very very good, certainly with that rotation, has to at least be ordinary offensively. It can’t be well, it can’t be anything close to what it was this past summer, but it’s got to make it somewhere into that range of the the median in Major League Baseball. So, let’s let’s take a look at that. The Pirates hit 117 home runs last season. 117. The next lowest total was 148 by the Cardinals. 31 more home runs. They’d have to hit 31 more home runs next season just to move to 29th. Now, the gaps aren’t as big above that because I mean, let’s face it, the Pirates created that ridiculous gap by themselves. So, if you go all the way up to 15th, dead center, the actual median in the majors, you’ll find that the Red Sox hit 186 home runs, almost 70 more. Which is to say, if you bring in Kyle Schwarber, you just empty out every pocket known to the Nutting family. I’m being facitious here. Owners don’t get players from their personal finances. Doesn’t happen anywhere in professional sports except with the New York Mets. But I digress. You find a way to overpay Schwarber to get him to lose his allegiance to the Phillies. probably get him to lose his will to win a World Series. Not to be a jerk, but he’s got a better shot on that side of the Commonwealth than he does on this one. Even Schworber and his 56 home runs added don’t get you to the median. You still got to get another 14 or 15. And you got to do it while replacing at least a couple of players who hit some home runs. So, the math isn’t even forgiving in that regard. But you say the game isn’t just home runs, even though it it pretty much is anymore. What about OPS, the catch-all stat on base plus slugging percentage? Perfect stat summarizes everything. The Pirates 655 OPS was of course dead last. The next lowest belonged to the Guardians at 669. If you go up to the 15th ranked team in this category, there were actually two teams that tied for 14th. That was the Astros and the Rays, each at 714. That would require roughly a 60point jump in OPS. And to all of that, I say this, I don’t know how long you can wait. I know how the pirates have tended to do business when it comes to free agency for a very very very long time now. And that’s to not do it at all. They wait. They wait some more. They wait until you’re positive they’ve got to be done waiting and then spring training starts and nobody was signed other than a handful of middle relief options. Well, this very obviously can’t be that. And while I get Cherington’s sentiment about how many of these players can be available, I also get that there is a benefit to signing free agents over making trades. An obvious one. You don’t have to give up anything from your talent pool. You don’t have to give up prospect. You don’t have to give up one of your pitchers. All you have to give up is gasp money. And even that money, being realistic here, doesn’t feel as costly as it can in a salary cap system because you don’t have a ceiling, which is why it seldom comes up in a baseball kind of conversation. If there’s a free agent in mind, whether it’s Schwarber or somebody else, and they’re going to be really expensive, I’m going to say this again, they at least come here without anybody else going in the other direction. Those players don’t tend to hang around through January and February. What’s the date again today? 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 check.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the Firearm Industry Trade Association. [Music] Today’s J1 Q comes from Ron in referencing Ben Sharington’s media session yesterday writes, “Dude is in his seventh year and he’s talking about building the culture of the team.” What? Ron, I I swear I went into yesterday promising myself to at least attempt to be an adult about whatever it would be that Cherington would say. He is not adept at being interviewed. He is not adept at public speaking. And because of that, he will say things that I sure he’s thinking, and I’m sure he’s thinking they’re fine, but they aren’t in a lot of cases. And it doesn’t seem to dawn on him or there isn’t a filter in play that keeps him from, how do I put this? He he doesn’t go outside and touch the grass. He’s not aware of what it is that people think about the pirates or him or his work. That’s how and why he can continuously repeat ridiculous phrases like in a place like Pittsburgh. He he at least somebody could tell him how much damage that does every time he opens his mouth and utters it. But I don’t think they do. And I don’t think he has any contact with the outside world to pick up on that himself. So yeah, I I did notice the culture line. He talked about, well, I’ll just be fair and read the entire quote. He said, “We believe we have the foundation. We’ve got to add to it. We believe we can win in 2026 if we do the necessary work to do that. Part of that is going to be roster building. Part of that is going to be building the culture of the team and just executing well. It’s your seventh year. Culture building building the culture. Yeah. I I don’t even know that that requires a rebuttal, but it is probably revealing that he apparently, and this is according to people who know him way better than I do, genuinely believes that all of this needed to take this long, talking about phrasing that he uses a lot. He will say, and he’s going to do this at Pirates Fest, mark my word, he’s going to use that line that he uses all the time about how the winning hasn’t happened as fast as everyone would want, as fast as we would want. That Is that sound familiar? You’ve heard that. Okay, good. That’s that He thinks that everything has just gone swimmingly and he’s just waiting for it to all get more excellent. [Music] [Applause] I appreciate hearing from you, Ron. I appreciate everybody who listens to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’ll be back with another one of these tomorrow when after nothing happens on day two, day three, we’ll close out the winter meetings and there will be a rule five draft and we’ll still have a whole bunch of stuff to talk about. [Music]

Can they afford to wait on these signings, as if it’s any other year?

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