DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: To what end?

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: To what end?

[Music] I’m not a big fan of black and white stances on almost anything in life, let alone covering sports. If only because I feel like whenever I do take a black or white stance, that I haven’t done a good enough job of digging deeply into something. Hear me out on this. Good morning to you. Good Thursday morning. I’m Dan Kavachovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into the two teams in town that care. I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins that I hope you’ll take the time to check out. I want to invest a second day into Oscar Marines firing, but I want to do it with a clarity that I might not have offered in discussing it yesterday. I’m going to make it plain as day that I’m not necessarily taking a stance on his having been fired because I can’t know all of the circumstances. None of us can on the outside. We can speculate whether or not the players, the pitchers, Paul skins had something to do with it. We can speculate whether or not Marine might have overvalued himself and asked for some big raise and they’re like, “No, man. There’s Pittsburgh. There’s the door. The only actual point that I was making on yesterday’s show was that there’s an immense and hilarious irony in Marine being fired by the guy who is the epicenter of all of the franchise’s failure within baseball operations. That of course being Ben Cherington. whereas Marine by any reasonable standard had himself one hell of a 2025 season. So my point was to underscore the humor in this, the obvious humor. But today I want to take it from a baseball standpoint and nothing else. Let’s presume, though this is never a smart thing to do, that the Pirates real priority in 2026 is to make the playoffs. Let’s presume that that’s their actual goal as opposed to something that’s business related. Well, the only way that the Pirates can make the playoffs in 2026 is if, duh, they become a much better overall baseball team at the only level that matters. Meaning, of course, Pittsburgh. There’s no other pathway for that to occur. There has to be improvement. There has to be marketked, no, no, no, dramatic improvement. So from there, if you’re serious about getting to the playoffs, if you’re serious about getting there, you have to look at the areas where you can make this improvement happen. So let’s do this coldly and mechanically. The Pirates just finished this season with a 3.76 staff erra under Marine. That was the seventh lowest erra in all of Major League Baseball. That’s pretty good stuff. The staff recorded 19 shutouts, number one in Major League Baseball. The staff had a 1.22 whip. That’s walks and hits per innings pitched. It’s a wonderful catchall stat that just tells you how good of a job a pitcher did in keeping people off the base paths. number four in all of Major League Baseball in that area. The Pirates pitchers walked 473 batters. That was the seventh fewest in all of Major League Baseball. Good stuff. Lots of good stuff, right? Not breaking any news here. You watched all of this. You saw the pitching. You also saw that it wasn’t just skins. Okay, so repeating yet again, this is not some sort of defense of Marine or questioning whether or not he should have been fired. I’m getting into motive, just motive. If you’re trying to improve your team, you’re trying to get to the playoffs, there’s not much room to do that here. who whichever pitching coach you bring in, you can only pray for results at this level. And if you want to tell yourself that, all right, Skins is going to have that kind of season again, never doubt Sk. I’ll buy that. But if you want to tell yourself also that Bubba Chandler is just going to magically crank out 30 starts in his first full season in the majors and have it all happen without a blip, I’m not buying that. If you want to tell yourself that Jared Jones is going to come back and just be everything that he was before the Tommy John and I’d love to see it, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. If you want to sell yourself similarly on Mike Burroughs, Braxton Ashcraft, Johan ODO, you can do that. If you think they’re keeping Mitch Keller with the money that he’s making while at the same time thinking that they’re going to go out and try to get hitting, you’ve got another thing coming. But now add into that a new pitching coach who is undoubtedly going to come here with a new philosophy, a new way of doing things, all of which is going to get ingrained and take time to get ingrained. Bottom line is whatever you get out of firing marine, it does not have much chance to benefit you in 2026, which one would think in a normal setting would be a do or die year for this management team. That’s been my point here. If you want to come back at me with whether or not uh the players liked him or rallied behind him, I couldn’t care less. The job of the coach is to get the most out of their players. You want to know who the players really, really, really like? Matt Hey, the hitting coach. Do you want them to stick with those same hitting results because they like the hitting coach? This is my point. This move on his face is not remotely attached to any goal of having the team win enough games to make the playoffs next year. This staff’s numbers already were way good enough for that. Proof of that, the Pirates were the only team among those in the top 14 for team ERA that had a losing record. Never mind being 20 games under. These aren’t very smart people. 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 Michael Mahoney who says, “DK, this is my first J1Q submission when Ben Sherington says that the Pirates need to get better at quote the types of hitters we’re making a bet on” end quote. Do you think that’s a tacit acknowledgment that ownership refuses to compete in the open market or an admission that he has personally whiffed over the past few years? Given the situation, it seems like an ill-advised time to take a shot at his boss. This is the best question I’ve been asked all year because it brings up not one but two wonderful subtopics within all of this. Yes, Cherington made not one but multiple references in his Holy Mother of God, I can’t believe they’re keeping me here press conference from Monday to what he sees as a scenario in which any money that the Pirates spend on the outside on hitting is going to be minimal. I don’t recall the other one off the top of my head. Maybe you do, but I do seem to remember that it involved yet another cheap shot at our city by saying in a place like Pittsburgh, as if somehow we’re the deficiency in his process. No, I do not believe payroll will go up in any significant way. No, I do not believe that this GM should be trusted with additional payroll, but then I don’t believe that this GM should be trusted to do virtually anything in an executive’s role. So yeah, to use that phrase quoting directly the types of hitters we’re making a bet on, that’s him saying, “We’ll have free agents. They’re going to be Tommy Fam. They’re going to be Adam Frasier. They’re going to be people in that price range. And given Cherington’s exhaustively documented inability to recognize hitters in any form at any level of the sport, with the exception of however it is that he and they wound up with Connor Griffin, this reeks in advance of the excuse making that you’ve been hearing from him all summer long. Everything is somebody else’s fault. Most of that in his eyes happens at field level. We talk about Marines firing. We’ve talked a lot less about Mike Rebello, Brent Strom, whoever else might go. It’s it’s going to be at field level. It’s going to be at field level. Sometimes this gets confused when I will make remarks about advanced analytics and so forth as if I’m somehow opposed to math. I really genuinely appreciate what advanced analytics have brought to the game. I deal with the players and the coaches. They appreciate what those bring. They’ve passed on to me why they appreciate this. I’m not numb to it and I’m not stuck in some other era. What I have never appreciated is when they’re treated as if they’re gospel or as a religion. That’s where some of this stuff gets taken. That’s where Cherington is when he says that the Pirates need to be more excellent at some things. He sure as heck isn’t talking about on the field. That’s his lameo way of saying the analytics need to be even more excellent than they’ve been. They’ve been in fact by every objective measure catastrophic. But he can’t see that. He can’t accept that even if he does see it because it flies in the face of everything that he believes, which is that the numbers, the way he sets them up, the way his staff set them up, are pristine and they don’t get blemished until they get human hands on them. And unfortunately, they still have to employ humans in the dugout. and everything that does go wrong. Michael, to go back to your your quote, the types of hitters we’re making a bet on, that’s the way he justifies it. We got it right. We got the right hitters. We got them for you. We brought them here. After that, all we can do is make a bet on them that you don’t screw them up at field level. Guys, if you knew how many people inside the organization, currently employed by this team, share with me observations that sound a whole lot like what you just heard from me. You You wouldn’t believe that this guy is still working there. I appreciate the question, Mike. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We will have another one of these tomorrow. [Music]

Even if Oscar Marin’s firing might be justified, who’ll benefit?

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