DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Brace for the cap?

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Brace for the cap?

[Music] [Applause] The team’s been kind of struggling lately. You might have heard five losses in a row. In the last four losses alone, they’ve given up 47 runs. And this afternoon, they’re beginning a three-game set at Wrigley Field, where things don’t tend to go well for them. Good morning to you. Good Friday morning. I’m Dan Kvachovic of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It 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 the anger, the angst, the everything but apathy. The people who claim apathy, I I never buy that because they’re they’re like one four or five game winning streak away from being sucked right back in. And that’s been true throughout these 40 mostly miserable years. I got to tell you something, my interest level just in covering them varies in exactly that same spirit. But for the most part, in fact, I would imagine for almost everyone, this is a period of just flatout seeing red over this franchise. The way it’s being conducted from the top down. And when that happens, and I’ve noticed this trait for a long time now, that’s at least it feels like it’s specific to this fan base. You will flail. You will go all over creation. You will dig through media guides to find the names of all the minority owners. You’ll make calls out to Seven Springs to see what terrible things Bob Nutting did out there to the ski lifts. And even just casually, the accusations will go in all directions, if only because people are just trying to come up with some kind of answer, some kind of something that’ll make this end. And that includes theories about what’s actually happening. One such theory, one that you could easily put into that category that I’ve seen heard and read a lot within the past month for some reason is that Bob Nutting is looking to lower the payroll as much as possible in advance of the expected work stoppage in Major League Baseball following next season. You know, strip it down for parts. entering a period of immense uncertainty for when we’re going to see baseball again. And I’m only addressing it here because it just seems to be growing. I don’t know why because it actually doesn’t make any sense. But maybe if I explain what would make sense in this scenario as it relates to payroll and the potential for emerging from this work stoppage with a salary cap, maybe something useful can come of it. And rather than boring everybody to tears with all kinds of fine print type material about labor agreements and salary caps and everything else, I’m just going to say this. If you were managing this properly and ambitiously and you had intelligent people in your baseball operations, right, that’s strike three. What you actually would do right now is sign Paul skins to an extension, a huge extension. And the reason for that is that the biggest of big contracts in the majors are going to be grandfathered into the cap system. They always are in every sport that switches over. Every penny that is owed to every player gets paid. And you’d better believe that’ll include all of that deferred money that the Dodgers owe Shi Otani from now until what, the year 3000 or something. If you sign skins now to an unthinkable or previously unthinkable extension in Pittsburgh, you’re actually going to be better equipped to pay that player than most other teams are in the CAP system. That’s how you’d capitalize on this. Now, I got to throw up two big sets of parenthesis here. The first parenthesis is that absolutely positively no such conversations have occurred between the team and the pitcher or the team and the pitcher’s agent. There are no talks, zero, no nothing. So, I don’t mean to be getting anybody’s hopes up. Second set of parenthesis. And I would really hope this is obvious, but the player has to want to stay here. you know, the player has to have at least half the say in such a situation. And I don’t know that that would be the case right now. Sche says all the right stuff in every setting, but yeah, I mean, why would he why would he say, “Oh yeah, right now this is a great time to want to commit to playing for this team and this owner, never mind however long this GM is going to still be here.” But my point, the general point, even just casting schemes aside here, is that this is the time to actually commit to that kind of money if it’s smartly invested. And anything you put into skins is going to be a smart investment. But you do it now while you have the player under your roof. the player seeing that you’re putting forth something that would be and it would have to be I think beyond fair market value and not because they have to do something extra being the Pirates just because he’s a beyond fair market value performer and even then even then when you emerge from this stoppage and ideally into a cap world you are still not going to have many meaningful contract commitments. You’re going to have the rest of the extensions for Brian Reynolds, Mitch Keller, and yeah, that’s it. You’re not going to be committing anything crazy to O’Neal Cruz. Before we go to break, I also want to address the reverse here. There’s no logic in cutting payroll in advance of a work stoppage. This isn’t CO. You might recall that the Pirates emerged healthier than most professional sports franchises out of COVID because they weren’t paying anybody. So when they were playing in front of empty stadiums in 2020, it hurt them, but it hurt them a lot less than it hurt the teams that were paying, you know, 2003 million. That’s not this. A work stoppage just means a work stoppage. Everybody’s off, you know. Nobody’s getting paid at the player level, and it makes no difference if you’re a Dodger, a Yankee, or a Met, or a pirate. 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 lockboxes, 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 J1Q comes from Randy who asks, “First off, DK, thanks for continuing to produce these daily shots of pirates.” You’re welcome. I guess Randy, I don’t know why you want to hear them. Randy continues saying, “You’ve talked many times about accountability for this nightmare. In my view, examples of accountability would include A. Bob Nutting selling the team won’t happen. B, replacing the person masquerading as a GM. But here is my C. What accountability do you see for Travis Williams? Sure, he can’t fire the GM without Bob’s okay, but shouldn’t he be in Bob’s ear pushing him to do it? At the end of the day, don’t you see him as more than just responsible for the bricks fiasco? Some of my listeners, Randy, will know that I have known Travis for a long time. Travis was with the Penguins when they were winning Stanley Cups. And Travis is a guy that’s been both respected and trustworthy wherever he’s been. Remember that before the Pirates hired him, before Nutting specifically went to Travis, because Nutting had a relationship with Travis beforehand as well, that the Islanders, the New York Islanders of the NHL, hired him to run a big chunk of their operation. He chose to come here. He chose to come home. and he chose to be a part of what I have no doubt in his heart was a wish to be part of a winner because that’s what he’d known in his previous capacity with the Penguins. Here’s where I clear up a couple of factual things that’ll come up on occasion. One is that Travis already is over Ben Cherington in the hierarchy. There are some who think that maybe because this is how it was with Frank Hunley and Neil Huntington that they’re at some same level. They’re not. They’re not. Travis has the authority in the most technical sense possible to fire Cherington. So why is all of my focus, and I do mean all of it, in ripping nutting for not firing Cherington? That’s because I know how they work. I know how the upper part of the Pirates works. It was Nutting who fired Derek Shelton, owner, firing manager. It was Nutting who began the firing chain in 2019 by firing Clint Hurdle. Here again, Nutting firing manager. About a month or so after that, also in late 2019, Nutting wanted to fire Huntington and not Cooney. Counley then tethered himself to Huntington. In other words, if he goes, I go. And Nutting was like, “Okay, then all of you go.” In every case, and I can go all the way back to the firing of Dave Littlefield, it was Nutting doing this. It will be Nutting doing it again. So, what we have here, and I love the fact that you brought this up, too, cuz it’s worthwhile when you ask, “Sure, he can’t fire the GM without Bob’s okay, but shouldn’t he be in Bob’s ear pushing him to do it?” The answer to that is a hell yes. It is a massive hell yes. He should be in his ear every single day. I don’t know if he is or isn’t. What I can tell you, and I’m not guessing at this, is that Travis is hugely frustrated with all of the losing. He didn’t switch jobs. He didn’t come to Pittsburgh to all of a sudden, for the first time in his life and career, be labeled as a loser or part of a loser. So, when I describe the people at the top who seem just completely comfortable with it, completely cozy, no issues, h we lost. Oh, we blew two nine-run leads or we gave up 17 runs to the Brewers. That’s okay. That’s fine. No big deal. Trust the process. That’s not him. Now, does that mean that he is deserving of keeping his job? Does that mean that he should be absolved of the awful bricks fiasco when he’s in charge of the business portion of the company? No. No. And I’m not doing that here. I’m trying to answer your question. as accurately as I can. And as such, I feel like the best thing I can say to you to close out the answer is that once more, yes, Travis should be in Bob’s ear pushing him to do it, to steal your line again. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’ll be back with another one of these Monday after things go completely smoothly all weekend long at Wrigley Field. [Music]

Why whacking payroll before a work stoppage makes NO sense.

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