DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Good riddance

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Good riddance

[Music] [Applause] This is it. The final weekend of the home schedule for the club because in case you haven’t been paying any attention, like probably only 99% of our city. And I’m not going over the top here when I suggest that this is as low as I can remember everything about this franchise. 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 on very happy note as always. If you’re into football andor hockey, they’re going to be your only choices soon. I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. Pirates and Athletics will play three games tonight, tomorrow, and then the finale Sunday. Very few people will be on hand. That’s because one of these two teams appears to hate its fans and the other one doesn’t really have any anymore. And it’s terrible to note that you can’t really tell which one’s which at this point. But I’ve been at this a while. Whether it’s as a very very very young fan born and raised here and memorizing not only everybody’s names, but everybody’s batting averages and erra and practicing their distinct windups at the plate back when they used to have distinct windups in baseball. Same goes for the batting stances. And I’ve observed and experienced a lot of lows. Whether it’s just losing some tough games, losing to the Braves in the playoffs the way they did, losing Barry Bonds before he’d go out to San Francisco and increase his cap size, losing almost maybe possibly the franchise at the turn of the century, losing hope almost as soon as it was acquired. when Ramis Ramirez was just given away to the Cubs, losing 105 games in 2010. I covered that entire season. I covered that entire season. Evan Meek was the all-star selection. There was a degree of hopelessness that accompanied, oddly enough, the three playoff appearances in that you needed a legit ace to beat somebody else’s ace in that absurd format that they’ve since mercifully done away with. That’s when you could have used a Paul Skins. There was that odd 2019 period where it looked like Bob Nutting wasn’t going to fire Neil Huntington and Frank Counley and it took him almost two months from season’s end to finally get around to doing that once he sensed all of the blowback. But I’m not I’m not trying to force this here. I I don’t think any of those things are as low as this. The feeling was at its absolute lowest with the loss to the Braves. I’m not even going to mention the guy’s name. Like maybe never again in my life. But, you know, they were still going to play baseball the following year. They were still going to have a lot of really, really good players back. Bonds wasn’t going to be one of them. But even at the time, you knew salaries were starting to get out of whack and the Pirates weren’t going to be able to compete economically. But you didn’t know at the time. I didn’t know at the time the freakish extremes that that would reach eventually. This there’s nothing. There’s nothing. And hear me when I say that and include skins because if we’re all being honest with ourselves, what do we see when he’s actually on the mound? What do we see? Do we see someone who represents the future of the Pirates? Is that is that what’s going through your head when you watch him pitch? It’s a joy to watch him pitch. It’s a joy to have him here in Pittsburgh. It’s a joy to see him carry himself the way he has on and off the field. A deserving Clemente Award nominee. But every last bit of it feels like it’s on borrowed time. So even that feels like a cruel tease more than it is hope. What brings you hope? Is it the pitching staff? Everybody talks about the pitching staff, especially the starters. Here’s the truth. As we’re speaking right now, in terms of actual performance, recorded performance, there were two pitchers, two starting pitchers, regular starting pitchers, who will finish this season with an erra below 4.0. Skins, of course, is one of them. He’s at 2.03. The other one, if I gave you half a dozen guesses, you wouldn’t get it. It’s Bailey Falter at 3.73, who was given away for not a thing and still had multiple years of control ahead. Everyone else who’s been a starter on a regular basis is over four. Yes. Including Mitch Keller at 4.13. Now, offensively, where’s your hope? I’m using the term advisedly here, hope. If it’s on Connor Griffin, and that’s cute and all, but he’s never played above double A and he still has to deal with the toughest opponent he’ll ever face in his baseball career, and that’s the Pirates development staff, who are currently batting 000 when it comes to making people better at hitting. If you want to object to that, you’re going to have to come at me with names and it’s going to take you a while, as in like forever. Where’s your hope? Is it O’Neal Cruz? He’s 26 years old. He’s hitting 203. Is it Brian Reynolds? He’s about to hit the wrong side of 30. He’s at 241. Your most consistent hitter all these years later remains a 38-year-old Andrew McCutchen with a team leading 710 OPS among qualified hitters. Team leading. What else? Gave the closer away. The local kid Clemente nominee himself just gave him away. Payroll shows no signs of going anywhere and there can’t be any hope as it relates to a change at GM until it’s actually executed. I believe that it will be, but my belief doesn’t get him fired. There’s nothing. There’s nothing. There have been at times something. You had in that 105 loss season that I cited, you had Cutch coming up. You had Neil Walker. You had young players that you knew were going to become something. It was too early in Bob Nutting’s tenure to really know who he was or what kind of owner he’d be. And even when people thought they had that figured out, along come those three playoff seasons. He spends way above the norm. But now after all this time, you know, you know, you’re not about to be surprised by anything. There’s nothing. Just end this. End this miserable most miserable season I can recall in a lifetime around the Pittsburgh Baseball Club. 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. Hey guys, if you’re planning to see a Pirates game, use the Game Time app to get your tickets. You can snag new ticket deals before anyone if you set it into app alerts. The app is easy to use, no surprise fees at checkout. You can see your seat view before buying, and you’re getting legit tickets delivered on time. Now, if you’re not much of a planner, you can get lastminute deals on tickets right up to the start of the event. Lowest price guarantee or game time will credit you $110% of the difference. Download the Game Time app and enter the code DK Pirates in your app profile for $20 off your first purchase. [Music] Today’s J1Q comes from Dave, who asked, “Do you believe, DK, that the solution to this broken franchise is mainly to be found in the firing of Ben Cherington, as many are urging, or does the problem extend deeper, changing GMs did not work 6 years ago. So, what lessons might Bob Nutting have learned from that failure to change the trajectory of Pirates baseball in 2026?” It’s worth pointing out, and I’m going to say this in a positive sense, that the choice for GM in late 2019 when Nutting and Travis Williams were doing their search came down to 50% of hugely qualified candidates, meaning there were two people. One of them was Cherington and the other was Matt Arnold. I went public in pushing and I mean hard for Arnold because I’d known what he had achieved in Milwaukee. I had known what the Brewers were about. And I had known that what this team needed more than anything else was anma that would infuse a winning mentality as opposed to a losing one. It’s from there that Nutting and Williams chose the loser. He had one wonderful year in Boston where he won with someone else’s team. And I believe it’s much fairer to say that, by the way, about a GM than it is about a coach or a manager. And otherwise led the Red Sox to last place every other year he was there and lost his job very much on merit. He’s a loser. He fits in last place. He’s comfortable there. He doesn’t see it as an issue. He doesn’t see it as uncomfortable. He doesn’t see it as a reflection in any way, shape, or form of his own performance. As I referenced in another context regarding Nutting in the opening segment, we now know this. We now have seen this with our own eyes. We know who he is. He’s a loser. I’m not even saying that in some cheapshot way or some playground way. I’m saying it as in he is by every Marryiam Webster definition of the term a loser. He loses. That’s what he does. I try to answer your actual question, Dave. Would it be mainly found the solution to this broken franchise in the firing of the GM? Yes and no. Because you also ask, does the problem extend deeper? Of course it does. When you have terrible hitting instruction at all levels, when you can’t do anything to make any hitter better at any level, it extends deeper, but it originates at that position. We can say things like, well, the buck stops here with the owner or even the team president. Some people say, “Oh, the team president in this hierarchy is completely about the business side.” Not that that’s been some big winner either. But the way this is set up with the Pirates and with most major league baseball teams and with most professional sports teams is that somebody is in charge of the sports. That’s the GM. And that GM changing in turn changes the problems that extend deeper. You got to make the right choice. You’re asking me, Dave, what lessons might Nutting have learned? And I can’t know that. I wasn’t in those rooms for those interviews. I don’t know what made them pick Cherington over Arnold because nobody would ever discuss Arnold with me after that. But I do know, and I’ve made this case previously on this program and in writing, that the next GM’s principal trait, the thing that defines that GM is the ability to recognize talent, to have an eye for who can play this game at the top level and who can’t. If there were to be a secondary trait, it would be someone who cares about winning. Gasp. I appreciate the question, Dave. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’ll be back with another one of these on Monday. Have a really good weekend, guys. [Music]

Good riddance to this wretched season … and those responsible.

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