If you are a regular reader of The Grandstander, you know that I usually write this post before Opening Day, but the timing just didn't work out, so here I am, a day late.
So I watched the Pirates 5-3 win over the Cubs yesterday and enjoyed it immensely. The highlight, of course, was what you see in the picture atop this post: Ke'Bryan Hayes' first inning two run home run that gave the Bucs a lead that they never relinquished, thanks in large part to lousy pitching from the Cubs (11 walks) and stellar relief pitching from the Pirates (6 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 9 K). We will gloss over the fact that the game took an interminable amount of time to play, that the Pirates could manage only 5 runs when given 11 free passes, and that the Ghost of Starling Marte will apparently still haunt Pirates baserunners, and just revel in the victory.
But have no illusions about this team. They are going to be bad, and they will struggle to avoid losing 100 games, but that is not necessarily a bad thing, as Ben Cherrington (GMBC) is doing the right thing. Unloading marketable players for prospects to rebuild the farm system and develop a team that will come 2023 or 2024 bear fruit and contend for championships. with current players like Hayes, Mitch Keller, Kevin Newman, and Brian Reynolds being the centerpieces. That's what the Astros and Nationals did; that's what the Brewers, Blue Jays, and Padres are now doing. It's the way to go.
Intellectually, I get it, but the cynicism that the Nutting Administration has built up inside of me wonders what will happen when the time comes to, as they say, Go For It. Will the team pay the piper with the current core of four above (assuming all goes right in there development), and pay to bring in missing pieces? Because we have heard this all before, and we were told that players like Josh Bell and Jameson Taillon and Austin Meadows would one day be the centerpieces of contending championship-caliber teams, which they may very well be with the Nats, Yankees, and Rays.
In the meantime, try not to think of the season long slog that this Pirates team will experience, but enjoy each individual game that you watch or attend. If you just happen to catch a game that the Pirates win with Mitch Keller pitching a two hit shutout, or Brian Reynolds going 3-for-four with a home run and four RBI, consider it as you would a record album: It might be lousy, but it has one or two terrific tracks on it.
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"The Pirates Project"
What, you may ask, is The Pirates Project? It will be a season long wagering experiment, and idea that began when my pal Dan asked over the winter, "If you bet against the Pirates, who are going to lose way, way more games than they will win in 2021, will you end up making money?" I tested out this theory by taking the worst team in the NBA, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and made small bets against them every game over a long period of time, and wrote about it back in February.
The Timberwolves Experiment ended after thirty games on March 31. Over that thirty game period, the T'Wolves were bad. Through twenty games, they were 4-16, and I was making a profit equal to 11.6% of my total wagers. However, in games 21 through thirty, that team crossed me up by going 4-6, and reducing my ROI to a mere 2%.
Still, this proved to me that with a bit of study and attention, and over a larger sample size, you can make some money by betting against a crummy team all of the time. Hence....The Pirates Project.
The plan is to make a bet on the Money Line for whomever the Pirates are playing that day. The amount bet will vary by the odds for any given game. I categorize this as a hobby, not a plan to bet rich. I doubt that any given bet that I make throughout the season will be higher than three dollars, and most of them will be closer to one buck a game. I know that there might be stretches where the Pirates might go on a hot streak and win, say, nine of twelve games (even bad teams do that), and screw up the profit margin, but over the long haul, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
One thing about this that makes me squeamish is that it puts me in a position of rooting against the Pirates, the team that I have loved for over sixty years of my life, but I don't think that that will happen. I was cheering hard for them yesterday, and was excited for the win, even though it put me $1 in the red to start the season. When I am watching them play, I'll never root for them to lose.
Will I be able to stay with this over the course of a 162 game season? That's the big question. Right now the plan is to get through the month of April. Then the month of May, and so on. I will be on vacation - public health protocols permitting - in North Carolina for a week at some point this summer, and I don't know if my Fan Duel account will work in that state, so I may miss ten or so games there, but I am hoping that I can stick with it for over a hundred games. Until then, one month at a time, and of course, I shall keep all Loyal Readers updated on the progress of the Project.
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