DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The hole deepens

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The hole deepens

[Music] The following was spoken in the fall of 2024. Quote, “I believe we’re going to go into 2025 with as strong of a major league roster as we’ve had since I’ve been here. Just as importantly, I think we’re going to go into 2025 with as strong of a baseball operation as we’ve had since I’ve been here. And we need both. Ultimately, proofs in the pudding. Got to go do the work and get the results on the field. I’m excited about what’s ahead in 2025 and beyond because I do believe we’ll go into 25 in the strongest position we’ve been in all of those areas. Good morning to you. Good Monday morning. I’m Don Kvachovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you’re into football and or hockey, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins. in the same place that you found this Cubs four or Pirates three yesterday in Chicago that concluded a series in which the Cubs took two of three, a road trip in which the Brewers and the Cubs took five of six. And that left Ben Cherington, the author of that quote and the architect of this monstrosity, continuing to reap the rewards for the best thing he’d ever put together. Now at 52 and 73, 21 games under 500 in mid August. If you’re curious, the season worst the team’s been was 22 games under 500 after that ignaminious sweep by the White Socks a few weeks ago. But hey, along come the first place Blue Jays to take care of that beginning tonight at PNC Park. Maybe, maybe not. Paul Skins is pitching tonight. We’ll see if they can avoid matching the season low. Here’s what is certain. The lows in general continue to get lower. Where we initially found it offensive that the Pirates ranked in the bottom five on most offensive categories, they’re now dead last in nearly all of them. In fact, they’re now dead last by such a broad margin that they need a telescope to see the 29th best team. As one fun example, the Pirates have 88 home runs, which ranks dead last. the team that’s above them in home runs, it’s the Padres’s because the Padres’s are always down there because they have this bizarre atmospheric pressure thing that hits Petco Park at around 7 or 8:00 p.m. every night and it beats the baseball down. It’s been documented by meteorologists for years now, and the Padres’s still have 105. The gap between the Padres’s and the Pirates in home runs is now 17 in OPS. That’s on base plus slugging percentage. I’ve believed for a long time that it’s the most complete offensive statistic that you can come up with. The Pirates are at 649. The team above them, the White Socks, is at 666. This too is a 17 wide gap. It’s remarkable. It’s not that they’re the worst. It’s that they’re the worst by far. Completing my hat-tick here. Plain old runs. The measure by which all teams have been defined since the beginning of the sport. The Pirates are dead last at 439. Next to last, this one’s also the White Socks, except they have 467. So, your gap there is 28. My friends, I want you to understand that if they made you, I’m looking directly at you here, the GM of this team, you could have put together an offense that finished dead last in home runs, OPS, and runs. You could have done that. But the lows keep coming, and they keep getting lower. And who knows how many other players or prospects or whatever are going to get dragged down along with those lows over the final six weeks. Yes, they still have six weeks of this to go. Could you blame some of these lows for Skins not being himself of late? Could you blame them for Mitch Keller not being himself of late? He’s set to go tomorrow. He’s been struggling. It takes a toll on everybody in that clubhouse, in the coach’s office, in the manager’s office, actually throughout the system. That wasn’t important, at least not theoretically, to Bob Nutting when he decided to keep Cherington at the time that he unilaterally fired Derek Shelton. Who else gets caught up in it? Who else gets damaged? Who else gets dragged? You want to know something? I’ve never said this out loud before, but I’ve been thinking it for a while. I’m going to share it in part because I’m going to guess a lot of you have been thinking the same thing, and that’s this. Fine, go right ahead and lose. Lose tonight, lose tomorrow. Get swept by the best team in the American League East. Lose the games after that. Lose on the road trip that follows. Lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. I don’t mean intentionally. I mean just through simple osmosis, through whatever would normally be occurring, keep right on losing and give the owner of the franchise zero room to wrigle out from doing his duty, and it really is a duty at this point, to fire this GM and to change everything about this team’s baseball operations. I’ll reiterate that I have no new information since I was told at the time of Shelton being fired that Cherington’s as good as gone come season’s end. I’ve heard not one thing new in either direction. But I do know that if you give Nutting 10 choices and one of them is status quo, he’ll take that one every time. He hates change and he really really really hates giving up on those with whom he’s trusted a certain level of responsibility. Well, to repeat it, that responsibility ultimately falls on him. And if it takes losing, I don’t know, 30 of the last 35 games or however many they’ve got left to prove the point, to fortify it, to pour cement all over it, whatever. When we come back, J1Q. This portion of Daily Shot of Pirates is brought to you by our friends at Northshore Tavern. That’s directly across Federal Street from PNC Park. It’s home of steak on a stone, an eating experience underscoring the word experience. The steak is brought to you partially cooked on an 800° stone and you do the rest. It’s a ton of fun. It’s a great meal and it’s a baseball atmosphere like no other in Pittsburgh. Northshore Tavern right across Federal Street from PNC Park. 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 J1Q comes from Steve in San Antonio who says, “DK, I agree with everything you’ve ever spoken or written about Ben Sherington, but isn’t the absolute hitting collapse of the team’s two best hitters, Brian Reynolds and O’Neal Cruz, just as big a factor in the disastrous 2025 season?” For anybody who might be new to these shows, I know you’re not, Steve, or to any content that I produce in any forum. I’m not real big on singular blame when it comes to something as broad as a professional sports team. The reason that I focus so much on Cherington is that everything points to him at the end of the day. I mean, it of course points to the owner. There’s nothing you can do about the owner. So, I’ll say my piece about the owner, but I don’t sit here and waste anybody’s time by advocating for him to do something that nobody can force him to do, which is to sell. Also, I believe that changing the GM would have the single greatest impact potentially. You still got to get somebody good, whereas, you know, changing the left fielder or the center fielder isn’t comparable to say the least. Now, I have criticized Reynolds. I don’t enjoy doing that. I think a lot of the young man. I think a lot of the work that he puts in. I think a lot of the passion with which he approaches all aspects of the game, not just hitting. But he has not performed. He has not been up to par. And he has not really gone into one of those rebounds that, to be honest with you, I’d been expecting all summer. I still think it’s possible. I still think he could have himself some sort of September surge that’ll kind of disguise the overall numbers by season’s end. Hasn’t happened yet, though. Did have a couple of hits yesterday. And Cruz, who’s now out with the concussion, does have the 18 home runs, does have the careerhigh in steels, 34 out of 38. But I’m sorry, he shouldn’t be hitting 207. That shouldn’t be happening. And to what I think is your focal point here, of course, a big chunk of the blame, however it is that you choose to divvy that up, goes on the player. Underperformance in general, goes on the player because that player has done it before to be underperforming. That player is doing something less than he had done in the past. Unfortunately, and I’m not picking on you here, Steve, but we’re now in a society, I feel like, where whenever you talk about blame or whenever you criticize somebody, it gets interpreted as being just universal. And most of the responses that I get back, no matter what the subject is, no matter who the target of the criticism might be, is, “What do you mean it’s all him?” And I’m like, “Whoa, hey, easy there. I never said it was all that person or even when describing something that happens in a game and you pick out a certain play because you want to spotlight it. You want to get into some details of what might have happened and the feedback will be, “Oh yeah, well what about that god awful pitch that so and so threw?” Or how about the manager going out there and getting that guy when he did? So my solutions here would be either to make these shows like you know an hour and a half long and get into every single thing or to just focus on something that said there is a hierarchy in place. There is a structure in place and anywhere else we’d be talking a lot more about accountability very very specifically from the GM. Why don’t we see that among say the more common fans? Well, I’d say there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that Nutting is villain number one among this city’s sports fans, not just baseball fans. So, some actually see it as if you’re criticizing the GM, you’re letting nutting off the hook, you nutting supporter or defender. But also when you’re watching the games, you know, and most people watch these things on TV versus in person, the individual that you see on your screen when things are going bad is not the GM. It’s the manager standing there in the dugout. That’s where the camera goes. Also in related, that’s whose face and voice you’re getting after the game, after the tough loss. That’s who you’re looking at. That’s who you’re listening to in trying to explain how you blow two nine-run leads in a game in Denver. So, to me, there’s a more natural direct path of anger between the fans and Nutting and the fans and Kelly than there ever could be or the guy who actually made this mess. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. Be back with another one of these tomorrow. [Music]

The hole deepens … to the point of what return?

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