DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Rotation excellence?

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Rotation excellence?

feels almost reflexive anymore to just blanketly state that the rotation in 2026 is going to be excellent. Let's look into it. Let's see if that's accurate. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. Dan Kavaj of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates presented by our friends over at the Northshore Tavern. Comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're into football andor hockey, I also offer daily shots Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this obvious starting point of excellence, actual excellence versus more excellence, is that Paul Skins is part of this rotation. I don't need to tell anybody who he is or what he's done and why if all five guys were just like him, it'd be the greatest rotation that ever existed. So, let's progress from there and let's presume within that that Mitch Keller doesn't get traded. Every day that goes by, incidentally, without a hitter or hitters being signed, is one day closer to not having any reason whatsoever to trade Mitch, which as I've been saying for months is a good thing for the Pirates. You don't just want someone like him to be part of a successful rotation. You need someone like him. You can say what you want about Mitch's second halfs. You can look at the 4.19 erra. You can say, "Yeah, but he hasn't been whatever." It doesn't It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. There is very real, very tangible value in getting 32 starts out of a guy year after year after year. And to do that consistently in this setting where the team stinks, where there's no offense, there's no support, there's no relaxing, there's something to be spoken for that additionally. So, we're at two. I'm still looking at someone to be a three. Not based on natural skill, not based on potential or anything like that, but on this on reliability, on being a real part of this. And as such, the guy I'm looking at next isn't Bubba Chandler. Isn't Braxton Ashcraft. It's actually Mike Burroughs. Burrows made 19 starts this past season. 3.94 ERA, 1.24 whip. Nothing to get super excited about in the statistical sense, but if you go back over last season's top five guys for number of starts, it goes in this order. Skins and Keller 32 each, Andrew Heane with 23, Bailey Falter with 22, and then Burroughs with 19, and then you drop all the way down to Carmen Majinsky with 12. And I'd imagine after the last couple of seasons and the various experiments done that Majinsky as a starter might be out of the equation. Whereas with Chandler, with Ashcraft, and don't forget about Thomas Harrington and Hunter Barco, you've got guys that are going to need to be built up in the majors innings-wise, consistencywise, performance-wise before they can be in that class. You just can't snap your finger and hope that that happens. Even with Chandler, for everything that he's got in front of him, the bright future, the triple digit heat, everything else that he has, you can't just put his name down and say he's in. He's it. He's going to be a guy. He first has to be a guy. He has to live through it, and he has to do it through an entire season. And I'll tell you what, I'd be not only surprised, but also disappointed if that specifically isn't made clear when the team gets to Bradenon. Not that you're handing a spot to Burroughs, but that you're acknowledging that he's closer. So, what do you do with the rest? Well, Chandler, if he's healthy and doesn't somehow crumble in Grapefruit Ball, is going to be part of this as well. And he should be. And Ashcraft, he's been kind of a funny case. If you look at what he actually did in the 2025 season, he had 26 appearances, eight of them were starts. 2.71 RA, which is pretty nice. 1.25 whip, also pretty nice. 71 strikeouts, 24 walks, and 69 and 2/3 innings. What's more, when he started, which was only eight times, he had a 2.16 ERA and a 1.14 whip. So, he took to those assignments. Well, he didn't have some kind of weird effect from starting. And that makes sense cuz he's been a starter his whole life. One catch though, and I'm going to keep coming back to the same subject. In those eight starts, he totaled 33 and a3 innings. Obviously, around four innings per start. He never once pitched in the seventh inning. And down the stretch, just looking at his September game log, his five starts saw him last in order. Three, three, four, three, and four and a third innings. You can pump him up, you can believe in him, and you can be right, but you can't artificially build up the stuff that I'm talking about. So, is there something there worth being excited about? Absolutely. No doubt about that. Is there plenty of evidence to support the idea that this could be actually something truly special? This rotation? Yes. Is it there? No. Can it get there in 2026? 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. Today's J1Q comes from Chris who asks, "Is there any world where Bob Nutting wakes up late February, sees no significant upgrades to the roster, and says, "That's it, Ben. You're out of here." You know, normally I'm not a big fan of hypothetical questions and fake scenarios and stuff like that, but I've got a real answer on this subject that might surprise you. That GM drives everyone nuts in that building. And that includes I can say safely with confidence the only two people over his head in that structure. One of them of course being nutting the other Travis Williams. There have been multiple occasions, most of those within the past year, where a specific expectation was laid out for Cherington to get aggressive, to go get something done in various forms here. I'm not just talking about, you know, free agency or whatever. And he either couldn't do it or wouldn't do it. And I know how that sounds. That sounds like career suicide. When the boss tells you, "This is what I, the boss, want," it tends to be a pretty good idea to at least go through some masquerade that you're attempting to get it done. He won't he won't budge. A year ago, a little less than a year ago, around this time of the year, I was sharing with you stuff that I'd heard directly from inside the pirates, from people who would know that they were intending to hike their payroll. People still get mad at me over this, by the way, because it ended up not happening. Terrington would proceed to spend five million on Andrew Heene and then just nothing else. He wanted to go with some Jack Suinski Josh Palazzios competition into the spring. There were other players that he really wanted to get a longer look at. For example, seeing more out of Jared Triolo if all of his fielding fundamentals could translate into a better bat and a more complete player. and he just disregarded it. He is, and they will tell you this through gritted teeth, unbelievably slow to move. Unbelievably, I don't even know if you want to call it patience because if you're putting yourself, your own job in peril, there's got to be a less kind word for it than patience. If you're putting all of the staff that you've accumulated over time and these people that you recruit and of course the one magical math wizard that they stole from the Guardians last year and were celebrating it behind the scenes. If you do all that, but you don't ever get aggressive, you don't ever make the steps that you need to make, that's not patience. That's something else. And I'm going to tell you, Chris, that the day that Nutting does fire Cherington, whether that's, you know, the way you played it out here, late February or later in the year or two or three years from now, it's going to be, I'm going to guess, something related to this based on my working knowledge of all three of these gentlemen. I appreciate the question. And it was probably a better question than even you knew when you typed it up. I appreciate everyone who listens to Daily Shot of Pirates. We'll be back with another one of these tomorrow.

Can rotation excellence really occur in 2026?

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