DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Sources say …

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Sources say …

[Music] [Applause] stuff comes my way and that’s kind of understandable for anybody who’s ever been in this business if they’ve been on a beat long enough. You don’t always have to go scraping around to find stories that’ll just kind of come to you. Good morning to you. Good Monday morning. I’m Dan Kajvich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way right 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. Had kind of a weird 3, four days as it relates to baseball following the last time we met last Thursday. And here’s what I mean by that. Initially, the teamfed report on ESPN about the Pirates being really into spending this off season and how they’re chasing Kyle Schwarber and how they chased Josh Naylor before he was brought back by the Mariners and how they’re open to having Connor Griffin start the season in Pittsburgh. that stirred a lot of nests that aren’t often stirred this time of year. I am never inclined to go chasing down other people’s reporting or trying to verify it or reject it. I just really don’t care. I either have the reporting myself. I have the knowledge myself or I don’t. No part of the job entails checking on anybody else’s work. At least not as I see it. I’m sure there are some who would see it differently. But what did come my way were a couple of things that are worth sharing even if they’re not necessarily related or even some kind of after effect of that report. The first thing and this was this was one of those you find something out and it runs counter to what you yourself have been telling people. So you immediately get a little bit defensive as a reporter. And secondly, you kind of hope you know that it isn’t true cuz no one likes going in front of people and saying that they were wrong. So my reflex when I was told this was ah I just don’t bother with it. But I couldn’t because I knew who I got it from and I knew where they in turn got it from and I also have a history in this particular lineage. So I was like all right just go ahead and do it. And what this was was that people have been getting told inside the pirates orbit and on the edge of the pirates orbit and I am not at liberty to explain what that means but it’s people who have direct contact direct direct business contact with the pirates and they have been getting told this off season that the pirates payroll could go as high as 110 million. Now, you don’t buy that. I don’t buy that. And for what it’s worth, the person I heard it from didn’t buy it. They were like, “Be serious.” However, what they were telling me wasn’t that it’s going to happen. What they were telling me is that the team is telling others this thing. So you can take that however it is that you want because it’s not one of those lies that has a very long lifespan. Obviously you’re either going to spend that money or you’re not going to spend it within the next two months and change. So everyone’s going to know. So on that count since it would have been my reporting I did go and check up on it and there really wasn’t any specific yes or no or confirmation or rejection on it. It was somewhere in the middle, nebulous. But I also know that in the past when I’ve asked about a possible payroll increase, it’s been like, “Wow, no, seriously, do you know who you’re talking to?” And that wasn’t the case here. So, I I went ahead and put it into the Friday Insider feature on the DK Pittsburgh Sports app. I didn’t lead with it. I didn’t put a headline on it. I’m probably the polar opposite of the clickbait type because I’m sure I would have gotten a gazillion clicks for this. Those really aren’t even worth very much if you want to know the truth. The whole click thing, it’s a rapidly fading industry clicks for pay. So, okay. Well, what about the Schwarber thing or even the nailer thing or even some other dude thing? Somebody who’s a proven hitter that could not possibly be screwed up even by the Pirates. Well, that part is real. And it’s real for the reasons that I’ve already laid out for you. It’s real because they have already cut a ton of money off the 2026 payroll. That already happened. That was David Bednar. That was Krian Hayes. That was Bailey Falter. That could still be Tommy Fam. Heck, it could be Andrew McCutchen for all we know. And there does remain the very real possibility, I find it to be probable, that Mitch Keller would be traded, in which case another 17 million would come off. So that’s around 40 million in free money. If you have a general manager who knows what he’s doing, you can get yourself a whole lot of hitting for 40 million. And if you have an additional 20 or 23 million in payroll by going from 87 million, which was the payroll this past season, to 110 next season, well, now you’re talking about 60some million to spend on free agents. That buys you like Dodgers level hitter if you want. It would also mean committing about half the payroll to one guy, but I digress. So, the final thing was the Griffin thing, and the Griffin thing ended up being virtually nothing, which is what I thought at the time. Meaning, to the original report, the Pirates have no intent nor a plan for Griffin to start the season with the Pirates. In fact, everything that they’re discussing internally, according to what I was told, remains fixated on Griffin, at least showing himself through the AAA level. Maybe it’s just a couple of months. Maybe it’s just Super 2. But that dovetales with what I’d been telling you last week, that this has never really been a thing for them. Now, why would it have come up in this report? Well, I mean, don’t make me say it, but when you’re giving stuff, giving information like this to someone who doesn’t normally cover the team, they don’t have the same background. But there’s also another thing, and this was never ruled out by anybody. I can tell you unequivocally that Jared Jones was not supposed to make the Pittsburgh roster out of spring training in 2024. And I can know that for a fact and Jared knew it as well. What Jared did was bulldog his way on the team to his great credit. He was amazing in Florida and then he continued being amazing in regular season games. They aren’t slamming the door on Griffin being able to do that and nor should they. I think if Griffin just rocks everybody’s world in Bradenton, if he does the same kind of hitting that we’ve seen from him at every level and you can see plainly that he has no business spending another day riding buses, go ahead and do what’s right. But that’s not something that you brace for. That’s not something that you expect. So, what was in the report had just nothing to do with anything on that count. Anyway, J1Q when we come back. [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 J1 Q comes from Ed who says, “DK, my only realistic question Pirates payroll is, does it make sense for Paul Ski to approach the team on an extension due to the fact that a salary cap would most likely reduce his future earnings potential? For example, he won’t be signing some 10-year, $600 million contract with one of the big spenders. Getting something proactively done now could work to his benefit and possibly even management would see the upside in this. Is this a ridiculous premise? No. No. And also, no. Let me explain why. And I’m really glad Ed brings this up. I’ve mentioned it a time or two and I don’t know that I’ve ever invested a full segment in it. Ski like every other player and that applies to show Otani and everyone else who’s making the gobs and gobs of money that you’re referring to the crazy money. No matter what kind of system gets installed, no matter how badly the union gets scarred and savaged and broken between now and 2027 or whenever it is that they bring baseball back, they get every penny. They get every bleeping penny they’re owed, no matter who it is that’s doing the paying. Now, you can ask, “Well, how is that? That doesn’t seem possible.” Because if you just put all of the Dodgers players out on the open market right now, all of them, including Otani, Freddy Freeman, you name them, anybody, how many would really be in the game of trying to land those players at their current contract? It’s still a really short list. Well, guess what? The list gets a lot longer. And the list, and I’m not saying this as if it’s a pipe dream. I’m saying this as if it’s happened in every other sport already. Ends up being headlined by the teams that have the largest amount of space between where they’re currently spending and what happens to be the salary cap range, which is really how we ought to talk about those dollar figures. It’s not a ceiling. It’s not a floor. It’s both. There’s a cap range. There’s an area in which you are required to spend. I’ve been making the fake number that the range would be somewhere between 180 and 200. And I can already hear the uninformed snickers on this one. Nothing will never spend to 180. He’ll have no choice. He’ll have no choice. Well, they can’t afford to spend to 180. Sure they can. Because the third component of a salary cap system is that there’s expanded immensely expanded revenue sharing so that everyone can afford to be in that range and no one has an excuse to be out of it. Everyone everyone everyone is in that range. So what ends up happening is a team like the Pirates stroll into this system being required to add X number of tens of millions to their payroll and they become that team while the Dodgers end up having to kind of clean their house up a little bit. But yeah, everybody gets paid. So if I was Ski and I was Ski’s agency, and for that matter, if I was the Pirates and I had myself a GM capable of doing some forward thinking of his own, yeah, I would have both parties at the table right now trying to put together baseball’s very first cap busting contract. set it up so that skins can get paid at a level that’s immune to any effects after the fact from the range that would emerge in a cap system. Now, am I predicting anything here? Nope. Am I reporting anything here that might happen? Wow. No, not at all. That would be in very, very large headlines on our app if I had that. But am I affirming for you, Ed, that it’s a thing? Yes, unequivocally it’s a thing. I appreciate hearing from you, Ed. I appreciate everybody who listens to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’ll be back with another one of these tomorrow. [Music]

Sources say … let’s talk more payroll.

#Pittsburgh #Pirates #LetsGoBucs #MLB #DKPS

Hear award-winning columnist Dejan Kovacevic’s Daily Shot of Pirates every weekday morning!

SUBSCRIBE TO CHANNEL ► https://www.youtube.com/@DKPS_Pirates?sub_confirmation=1

MEMBERSHIP TO CHANNEL ► https://www.youtube.com/@DKPS_Pirates/join

OUR APPS ► https://DKPS.net/apple | https://DKPS.net/android

OUR WEBSITE ► http://www.DKPittsburghSports.com

ABOUT US ► DK Pittsburgh Sports is the proud, pioneering, fully independent venture begun in 2014 by award-winning reporter Dejan Kovacevic and featuring a professional staff covering the Pirates year-round and everywhere they go! This is where it all started!