Putting A Wrap on the 2020 Pirates

At lunch after golf last Friday, my buddy Dan asked me "Can you list something, anything, positive about the Pirates this year?"  Now this is a team that finished 19-41, a pace that would produce a 51-111 record in a full season, so let's just leave it at that, and concentrate on what Dan asked me.  So, what did I like about the 2020 Pirates?

1. First and foremost, the debut and performance of third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes, pictured above.   Called up in mid-season, Hayes played in 24 games, and in 85 At Bats he hit .376 had 5 HR, 11 RBI, and had an OPS of 1.124.  He also played third base like a guy who will be adding multiple Gold Gloves to his trophy case in the years to come.  He seems to be the best Pirates prospect since Andrew McCutchen, and he will be a great joy to watch in the five or  six years he'll be in Pittsburgh before he will no longer be affordable for the Suits in the front office.
2. The emergence of Jacob Stallings as a gold glove caliber catcher, and a fair hitter (.248, 3 HR, 18 RBI, .702 OPS).  He appears to be excellent at handling pitchers and a popular and respected clubhouse leader.  
3. Mitch Keller, when he wasn't injured, seemed to emerge as the top pitcher he was touted to be over his last couple of starts, including throwing 11 consecutive no-hit innings in his last two starts.  That doesn't make him Johnny Vander Meer, but it does offer something hopeful.
4. The Pirates willingness to try Cole Tucker in the outfield.  He appears to be blocked in the infield, and trying him in the OF shows that the team is not willing to give up on a former #1 Draft Choice.  It's not like playing him there cost them anything in 2020, right?  He seemed to get better in the outfield as the season went along, but it's up it's him to prove that he can hit in the major leagues.
5. Several strong performances by Steven Brault.  I have spoken before of why I personally root for Brault, so I was very happy to see this for him.
6. Derek Shelton. He is a likable guy and a guy that, of course, we all want to see succeed.  He began his managerial career in a nightmare of a season like none ever before, and with the worst team in baseball.  He managed to get through it without slitting his wrists and jumping off of the Clemente Bridge, so good for him.  Insofar as his performance as a manager, it is far, far too early to offer any kind of judgement on that.
7. The attitude of the team.  The players all seemed to maintain a positive outlook throughout the season.  This was a breath of fresh air in contrast to the turmoil and sourness that was a hallmark of the team in the last half of the 2019 season.
8. The goofy stuff that the bullpen would do whenever a Pirate hit a home run.  This is the kind of organic stuff that can spring up in a team and make them easy to root for.  And it is something that cannot be manufactured.  I hope that the Pirates PR Machine doesn't try to do so.
9. They're getting the Overall Number One pick in the entry draft, presumably wunderkind pitcher Kumar Rocker.  Let's hope they don't screw it up.  (Can you say "Brian Bullington"?)
10. The fact that the Pirates and MLB were able to pull off any kind of season at all in this Pandemic Year.   Back in April, May, and even into June, I didn't think it was going to happen.

Okay, that's it.  There will be plenty of time to hash out the other not-so-positive aspects of the '20 squad, so we'll just leave it on a happy note.

And the sixteen team MLB Playoffs begin today.  In the great tradition of The Grandstander, let me predict that the Atlanta Braves will defeat the New York Yankees in the World Series this year.  A part of me, however, would perversely love to see the 29-31 Brewers take on the 29-31 Astros in the World Series, mainly because it will drive the Baseball Purists and Traditionalists positively batshit crazy!

Enjoy the post-season, and see you in Spring Training.

Oh, and one more image to give you some hope for the future....

 

Quick Hit Thoughts On A Great Sports Weekend

If you are a sports fan, you had to love the weekend just completed.  There was something for everyone.  

The Steelers 26-21 win over Denver yesterday is being categorized as an "ugly win" by most of the pundits in its aftermath.  Maybe so, and for sure it never should have been as close as it ended up being, but here is something that wasn't ugly - that 84 yard bomb from Ben to rookie Chase Claypool for a touchdown in the second quarter.  That was a jaw dropper.

And as they say in golf, "It's a scorecard, not a post card", and the Steelers are now 2-0.

On Friday night Pirates pitcher Mitch Keller no-hit the Cardinals for six innings and was then pulled after throwing 84 pitches.  He left with a 2-0 lead, which was expanded to 4-0 in the Pirates half of the sixth inning.  The Pirates bullpen then proceeded to give up five runs in the seventh with an assortment of walks, hit batsmen, and hits that plated five runs in what seemed to be the blink of an eye.  The Bucs ended up losing 5-4.

The predictable uproar of "they should have left him in to go for a no-hitter" arose almost immediately, but putting Keller on a strict pitch count and pulling him when he reached it was absolutely the right thing to do.  He remains the #1 pitching prospect that the Pirates have, despite some mixed results in his time with the Big Club.  He has also shown some "china doll" proclivities insofar as injuries are concerned.  Friday was only his second start since spending a few weeks on the injured list in this shortened season.  Maybe leaving Keller in would have yielded a no-hitter, or, at best, would have prevented another Pirates loss, which would mean finishing the season with 16 wins instead of only 15.  Big deal.  The Pirates need a healthy Keller for 2021 and beyond.  His six innings on Friday showed great promise for the future, and insofar as the Pirates are concerned, that is all that matters in 2020.

Speaking of the Pirates, a note in the paper this morning said that on his radio show yesterday, GMBC indicated that the complete lack of box office and in-stadium revenues in 2020 means that teams will have to readjust their way of thinking in terms of spending money in the pursuit free agents in the coming off season.  By "teams", of course, he meant "the Pirates", so really nothing will change much in the S.O.P. of our Pittsburgh Pirates as we head towards the 2021 season.

Golf's United States Open was head this weekend and was won by Bryson DeChambeau.  He shot six under par and was the only golfer to finish in red numbers for the tournament.  He deserved the win, no question about it, so congratulations to him.  He also comes across, and maybe I'm wrong about this, as a guy who feels that he is the smartest guy out there on the course with his extensive use of analytics in planning his on course strategy, and other golfers don't seem to like him.  He also takes FOREVER between shots, especially putts, by constantly consulting that little notebook he carries and pulls out of his back pocket on, it seems, every shot.  Maybe that does make him the smartest guy out there, and his way will be the norm for every golfer on tour within the next five years.  Then golf will become populated with a bunch of analytical mumbo-jumbo, just like Major League Baseball has.  Won't that be fun?

I made some comments on social media over the weekend about the USGA's tendency to trick up their US Open courses so as to provide a "true test of golf."  You saw the results: one guy finishes under par, and the best golfers in the world hack it out of the hay for four days and slog in at eight or nine or double digits over par.  I don't like it, but apparently a lot of people do.  If that's what the Blue Jacketed Stuffed Shirts from Far Hills, NJ want, so be it, but I'd hate to see that week after week on Tour.  

To those of you who beat the shit out of me on Facebook over the weekend for this opinion, no need to do it again.  I just managed to stop the bleeding.

With no NBA presence in Pittsburgh, I don't often write about it, but the Association is currently in the midst of its Conference Championships, and there have been some pretty good stories in this little bit of sports theater.  Foremost has been the Denver Nuggets twice coming back from 1-3 deficits against heavily favored teams to reach the Western Finals.  They currently trail the LeBron James/Anthony Davis Lakers two games to zero, but both games have been close, and would you be willing to count them out?  Not me.

In the East, the Miami Heat lead the Boston Celtics two games to one, and they are led by Jimmy Butler.  I have listened to Michael Wilbon sing the praises of Jimmy Butler seemingly forever to the point where I'm saying, "yeah, right", but in watching some of these games, I have to say that Wilbon is 100% correct.  Butler is and has been the driving force behind the Heat reaching this point, and he is the best player on the court when he is out there.  He is a really fun player to watch.

Finally, I stayed to the end of last night's Seattle - New England game, won by the Seahawks, 35-30.  I hope that you did too, because that was one terrific football game.  I won't recap it here, you can look it up, and then the picture I posted above will have some context for you.  I will leave you with just two conclusions:  (1) Russell Wilson is absolutely fantastic, and (2) don't count out the Patriots just because the Golden Boy is no longer at QB for them; they're still good.  Oh, and here's a third conclusion: (3) Julian Edelman is amazing; it wasn't just Tom Brady that made his so good. 

May the coming week in sports give us as much as this week just concluded has.

My Week With The Pirates, and Other Comments

 

Well, it's not actually a whole week with the Pirates, but rather the three game series with the Cleveland Indians at PNC Park this week.

Tuesday, Indians 6 - Pirates 3

The Pirates lose this one in the tenth inning when Carlos Santana hits a moon shot of a home run down the left field line with two runners on base that breaks a 3-3 tie.  The Pirates argue that the ball was actually foul, and it probably was and the replay officials at MLB HQ screwed it up (imagine that), but no matter.  The game was really lost in the bottom of the ninth when the Pirates had runners on first and second with no outs when Jarrod Dyson (more on him later) gets picked off of second base by the catcher.  The Pirates went meekly in the rest of the inning after that.  Yes, shit happens in baseball, and the Indians catcher made a nice play, but in a situation like  that you SIMPLY CAN'T ALLOW YOURSELF TO GET PICKED OFF OF SECOND BASE BY THE CATCHER.  You just can't.

Wednesday, Indians 6 - Pirates 1

Steven Brault starts for the Pirates and pitches brilliantly for five innings, allowing two hits and no runs.  He is pulled after those five innings with the score 0-0 and in comes Doyvadas Neverauskas with his can of gasoline.  Twenty-two pitches later, Carlos Santana hits another moon shot of a home run, this time to right field, over the seats, and probably into the Allegheny River.  No question as to whether this one was fair or foul.  It's now 3-0, Cleveland adds three more in the eighth.  Cleveland pitcher Aaron Civale throws a complete game five hitter, giving up one meaningless run in the ninth inning.

I watched both of those contests, and I vowed that I will not subject myself  Thursday's game.

Thursday, Indians 2 - Pirates 0

I stay true to my vow and do not turn on the television.  However, at about 9:20 or so when I switch it on, and I see that the Pirates are losing 1-0, and I see two Bucs strike out in the sixth inning and hear Greg Brown tell me that those were the tenth and eleventh K's for the Pirates so far.  They ended up striking out 16 times and losing meekly, 2-0.  I turned the the game off before it finished, switching to the Joe Biden coronation instead.

So how awful was this three game stretch?  That leads to the "Other Comments"....

• The Pirates record is now 4-17.  Over 162 games, that pace would produce a 31-131 record.  100 games UNDER .500.  10 games worse than the 1962 Mets (40-120).
• The Pirates regularly field a lineup with seven guys currently batting below .208 and four of those guys are below .200.
• The Pirates have used twenty-six (26!!) different pitchers in 21 games.
• Neverauskas, who has appeared in 8 games (8 IP) has an ERA of 9.00 and a WHIP of 2.00.  Why is he on the team?
• Jarrod Dyson, a washed up retread in the tradition of Pirates signings of the PNC Park Era, has played in 16 games, has 45 AB's and is batting .137.  As I was watching on Tuesday, my thought was that he should be used only as a late inning defensive replacement or a pinch runner.  Then he got picked off of second by the catcher, so he apparently isn't even good for that either.
• Cole Tucker has been used in the outfield and is learning as he goes, but I am fine with that.  For a team that is going nowhere, they SHOULD be playing Tucker, a former #1 draft pick and find out for sure if there is a spot for him on a major league roster.  With Tucker, there is at least the possibility of a future, which there certainly is not with Dyson.
• Gregory Polanco has played in 14 games and is hitting .070 (that's not a typo) and was struck out 22 times in 43 AB's and has looked pathetic in doing so.  He appears to be done.  Yet Jason Martin (for whom the Pirates traded Gerrit Cole) and Jarod Oliva, a couple of outfielders who might have promising futures, are kicking it around in boot camp in Altoona.
• On the bright side, on the rare occasions when Polanco is getting his bat on the ball, he is, according to the team's Analytics Gurus, hitting the ball HARD.  But he's still batting .070.

Okay, we all know that one of the big reasons that Dyson and Polanco are still playing is the money that they are owed by the Pirates.  Doesn't it always come down to money for this gang?

Can you sense my frustatuon?  I mean, why am I doing this to myself?  The best line I saw about this team came from a gent named Rick Bergman on the Pirate Chat Facebook group when he said "I wish that they would allow fans into the ballpark this season so I could make a point by refusing to go."

Looks Like We're Going To Have Baseball

A month ago I didn't think that it was going to happen, but Opening Day for an abbreviated Major League Baseball season is set for one week from today; one week from tomorrow for your Pittsburgh Pirates.  Whether MLB will be able to complete the sixty game season and play through to  a World Series still remains a question, but let's hope.

I have to say that despite low expectations of the Pirates. I am excited at the prospect of watching a live played-in-2020 baseball game as soon as tomorrow night when the Pirates play an exhibition game with Cleveland at PNC Park.  (An ASIDE:  I noticed that one night earlier this week, AT&T Sports had scheduled one of those "Pirates Classics" reruns.  The game to be shown was a 2019 game between the Pirates and the Marlins.  Now I ask you, in what stretch of anyone's imagination, could a game between the 2019 versions of the Pirates and Marlins be considered a "classic"?)  And I especially am looking forward to watching games that count in the standings, however bastardized this season will be.  Despite a horrendous 2019 season and a pre-shutdown offseason of bitching and moaning about the state of the team, I am, like I am every season, glad to have them back.

So, how will the team that lost 93 games last year do in 2020?  Well, they traded their second best player (Starling Marte), have lost a key starting pitcher for the season (Chris Archer), their slated closing reliever, Keone Kela, is on the ten day IR, and Gregory Polanco has been confirmed to have COVID19.  So, if you take last year's winning percentage of .426 and apply it to a 60 game season, you come up with  a record of 26-34.  Sounds about right.

Also, the Pirates first twelve games of the season are against the Cardinals, Brewers, Cubs, and Twins.  It's going to be a tough stretch.

Still, I'm excited for new manager Derek Shelton.  He's waited forever for this chance, only to be dealt the blow of a pandemic that has....well, you know what it has caused.  I've listened to him many times on his weekly radio interview with Ron Cook and Joe Starkey on 93.7 The Fan, and he seems to be a pretty good guy.  I'm hoping for good things for him and the Pirates, but probably not until at least 2021 or -22.  In any event, I shall be cheering them on, as I have every year since 1959 (that's seasons in eight different decades!!!).

#letsgobucs

GMBC Acts - Finally

New Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington made his first significant move, player personnel-wise (the signings of two sub-.200 hitting catchers and an outfielder DFA'd by the Rays don't count), as Bucco GM when he traded outfielder Starling Marte, 31 and scheduled to make $11.5 million in 2020, to the Arizona Diamondbacks for shortstop Liover Peguero and pitcher Brennan Malone, both players are highly touted prospects in the D'backs organization and are both 19 years of age.

Marte, the last remaining Pirate from the 2013-15 playoff teams, is coming off of his best season, and he should bolster the Arizona line up, but, at age 31, he could soon be hitting the wall and starting to see a decline in his skills.  Peguero and Malone, if they end up helping the Pirates at all, don't figure to be able to do so until at least the latter half of the 2022 season, at the earliest.

It is a trade that makes sense, kind of, for a team that knows it's going nowhere in the immediate present and needs to build for the future.  The Pirates, of course, aren't saying that.   The new regime is telling us that they do not need to go into a rebuilding mode, that they feel that they can compete now. Yes, the team that lost 97 games last year, they are ready to go to the post with THAT team, minus Marte, of course.

And that $10 million in salary that they jettisoned yesterday (the Pirates agreed to pay $1.5 million of Marte's '20 salary) will pretty much cover what Bob Nutting owes Clint Hurdle and Neal Huntington over the next two years, so that's good news for BN's bottom line.  No small consideration down there on Federal Street.

One of my gripes with Neal Huntington was that he always thought that he was the smartest guy in the baseball universe, and that we, the Pirates Fan Base, was stupid, so he continued to insult our intelligence with his wordy pronouncements.  I really and truly want to keep an open mind about the Williams-Cherington-Shelton team, but please, please don't tell me fabrications about the prospects of this team NOW, in 2020, if the real plan is to start from scratch and rebuild for a better future two, three or four years down the road.

As for Starling Marte, he was and is a talented player, although he never reached the Five Tool heights that were predicted for him, and his tendency to suffer mental lapses and appear lackadaisical way too often were maddening.  The case can be made that he was the Pirates best player this past season, and they are a poorer team today than they were yesterday now that he is gone.   Still, the Pirates finished in last place and lost 97 games with him last year, so they can easily do the same without him this year.

However, they don't play a game that counts until March 26, so who knows what rabbits Cherington may be able to pull out of his hat between now and then, but a wise gambler should probably take this opportunity to head on down to the Rivers or Meadows Sports books or one of his online gambling apps and bet heavily on the UNDER for Bucco wins in 2020.

The Week 13 GPR , plus Pirates and Pitt Thoughts

As you have all no doubt been on the edge of your seats awaiting this, here are the Grandstander Power Rankings for the NFL after Week #13:

1. Ravens
2. Seahawks
3. Saints
4. 49'ers

Knocking at the door....Bills, Chiefs, Packers, Patriots, Vikings.

No change in the Top Four teams from last week, but the Saints and 49'ers swapped places.  I wanted to put the Steelers as a team "knocking at the door", but I'm just not ready to do that quite yet.  If I was going on defense alone, they might be in the Top Four.

My pal John Frissora has his FGE top four as follows:

1. Saints
2. Ravens
3. Seahawks
4. Patriots

********

The Pittsburgh Pirates were in the news last week with the announcement that Derek Shelton will be their new manager.

In a manner that was so typically Pirates-like, they made this announcement on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving when most people, if they were thinking about sports at all, they were thinking about football, and they did it via a press release, and Shelton wasn't even here in town for the announcement.  

Way to get the maximum publicity bang for the buck, Bucs.  Why didn't they just wait until Christmas morning to make the announcement?

Shelton will be formally introduced to the media and to Pittsburgh at a presser on Wednesday (tomorrow) of this week.

Shelton spent the last two years as bench coach of the Twins and, prior to that, was the hitting coach of the Rays for several years.  He combines, according to the press release, both old school baseball knowledge and familiarity with new age analytics/metrics 21st century baseball acumen.  Personally, I am glad the the Pirates went outside of the box and brought in a new face and not some retread who has been hired-and-fired by several teams (Jeff Bannister, e.g.).  Is he the right guy for the Pirates?  Who knows?  

The former Best Management Team In Baseball has now been overhauled and replaced and the BMTIB 2.0 (Williams, Cherington, Shelton) is now on board, but Bob Nutting is still the guy steering the ship and controlling the purse strings.  One thing that the Nutting Administration has done is make me a complete and total cynic when it comes to the performance of the Pirates.  I hate that this is what they have turned me into, but there you are.  I hope, I really, really hope for good things ahead for the Pirates, but I am no longer accepting anything from 115 Federal Street on blind faith.  They've got to show it to me.

********

Pitt ended it's 2019 football season by laying two colossal eggs, a 28-0 did-they-even-show-up? loss at Virginia Tech (when a chance for the division title was still there) and a 26-19 loss to Boston College at home on Senior Day. They finish the season at 7-5 with some nondescript to-be-announced bowl game ahead of them.

This is the year-by-year W-L record for Pitt in the Pat Narduzzi Era...8-5, 8-5, 5-7, 7-7, 7-5 = 35-29 (.555).  In ACC play, they have fared slightly better under HCPN...6-2, 5-3, 3-5, 6-3, 4-4 = 24-17 (.585).  

They have won more games than they have lost, they have more often than not put an entertaining product on the field, and there was that ACC Championship game appearance last year, but... Yes, there is always a "but", and it was posed by Joe Starkey and Ron Cook on The Fan yesterday, and that is..."Has the Pitt program improved or moved forward under the HCPN regime?"

I guess it all comes down to what you want your University and its athletic teams to be.   I wonder if even the staunchest Panthers Fanatic out there would like his or her University to surrender its soul to the likes of Nick Saben or Urban Meyer and all that that entails just to have a string of double digit wins seasons.  Be careful what you wish for.

And bring on the Mienecke Car Care Pizza Pizza Weedeater Bowl!