The 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates - Requiem For A Season

I made the following post on Facebook last week.  I thought that it was a perfect encapsulation of the Pirates season, and I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel when writing this post, so here goes.

"So we took ourselves down to PNC Park on Thursday to catch the Pirates final home game of the season, a 5-2 loss to the Brewers (for the record, the Pirates were 5-5 in the ten games that I attended this year). The really sad part was that when the Bucs fell behind 3-0 in the fourth inning, you just knew that there was no chance, zero, that they would be able to overcome that deficit and win the game. In his always riveting post game presser, Sheltie said of his team that "we just have to get better." Sheltie has been saying that for five years now , and the team has not gotten better.

"In a perfect symbol of the season, the bottom of the eighth inning ended when the Brewers recorded the third out as a result of an Oneil Cruz boneheaded base running blunder.

"The hot dogs were good though."

Since I wrote those words, the Pirates have ensured further enmity from their fan base by announcing that both GM Ben Cherington and field manager Derek "Sheltie" Shelton will be back in those same roles in 2025.  Over the five years of this regime, the team has finished last in the NL Central four times, and next to last once.  Their record in 2024 was 76-86, the exact same as in 2023.

So what else can you say about the Pirates and this recently completed season?  I think I will defer to a discussion that took place at our Cranky Old Guys breakfast a few weeks ago.   What were three positive things, and what were three negative things (only three?) about the Pirates in 2024?

Not sure if I'll limit it to three, but here are some thoughts from this seat in the Grandstand.

Positive  

• Number One on the positive side was the arrival, less than a year after he was taken as the first pick in the first round of the Draft, of pitcher Paul Skenes.  He started in the All-Star Game, finished 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA, and 170 strike outs (11.5 per 9 IP) in 23 starts and 133 IP.  When he pitched, he was must see, and he attracted huge crowds, not only at PNC Park, but on the road as well.   He was taken out of games (got to watch those innings limits) not once, but twice, after pitching no hitters through six innings.  He received a standing ovation in a game he pitched against the Cardinals in St. Louis.  He had a dominating presence on the mound, and he appears to be a genuine Ace #1 starter for years and years to come.  We in Pittsburgh will fully enjoy watching and cheering for him for the next four to six seasons before he becomes unaffordable for our penny pinching home team.
• Before the arrival of Skenes in June, another rookie, Jared Jones, showed the signs of being an ace pitchers.  He can throw 99 mph routinely and accumulates strike outs in bunches.  A mid-season trip to the injured list slowed him down a bit, but he did have some strong appearances in September.  Then throw in flashes of greatness from Mitch Keller, and positive seasons for Luis Ortiz and Bailey Falter.  The Pirates problems are many going forward, but starting pitching does not appear to be among them.
• Brian Reynolds had another good season.  .275 BA, 24 HR, 88 RBI, leading the team in all three categories.
• Andrew McCutchen had 20 HR and 50 RBI as a 37 year old DH, and he's, well, ANDREW MCCUTCHEN.
• Joey Bart hit .265 with 13 HR and 45 RBI and established himself as the guy to beat out at Catcher come 2025.
• Former first round pick Nick Gonzalez hit .265 with 49 RBI in 94 games while playing well in the field at 2B, SS, and 3B.  He appears to be a solid player.
• Oneil Cruz has 21 HR and 76 RBIand was moved from SS to CF in mid-August.  He has a lot of raw talent, but continues to make some head scratching mental errors, as well as the physical ones.  

Negative

Where to begin?   And I'm not going to give any details here; it'll be too painful.

• The Bullpen, led by two time All-Star David Bednar, that crashed and burned as the summer wore on.
• Henry Davis.
• Jack Suwinski
• Ke'Bryan Hayes
• Too many games with starting line-ups with multiple guys hitting below .200
• Knowing that when the team fell behind by three runs or more, there was a seemingly 99% probability that the game was effectively over.
• Blown leads (see Bullpen).  How many leads did the Pirates have and then give up during that horrid stretch after the trade deadline, including that infamous ten game losing streak that effective ended the season?
• Using Rowdy Tellez as a relief pitcher three times in eleven games during blow out losses.  Using a position player once to mop up in a blow out loss is funny.  Doing it three times in eleven games is an embarrassment.  I would have fired Shelton on the spot after that.

The cherry on the sundae, though, was the Pirates decision to DFA Tellez with four games remaining in the season when he was four plate appearances short of earning a $250,000 performance bonus.   I shed no tears for Tellez, who made $3.2 million this season, and was, for the most part, not very good, but he seemed to be a decent guy and the proverbial "good guy to have in the locker room."  The Pirates were within their right to screw him out of those 250 G's, I suppose, but it was a cheesy and chintzy move, and when GMBC compounded the issue by saying that the bonus played "no role, zero" in the decision to DFA Tellez, well, that represented an new low for Bob Nutting and the front office minions who do his bidding.

We are now into the second week of the MLB Post-Season.  I haven't watched a much thus far, although I did enjoy seeing Shohei Ohtani blast one into outer space against the Padres last night.   I am sure that my viewing will pick up as teams advance to the LCS's and World Series, even though I know that the team for which I root, have rooted for since 1959, has slipped so deep into irrelevancy in the great scheme of things in Major League Baseball.

What a shame.

Sheltie's Future - What Should It Be?

As we all anxiously await the start of an NFL Sunday, let me take a few paragraphs to contemplate the fate of the woeful (is there any other word for them?) Pittsburgh Pirates and, more specifically, their field manager, Derek Shelton, aka, "Sheltie".

"What, me worry?"

A season that held such hope for a post season berth - right up until a dreadful ten game losing streak in at the beginning of August and has spiraled down ever since - will end one week from today with the twenty-eighth losing season over the last thirty-two years.  The management team of GM Ben Cherington and his hand-picked manager has yet to put together anything even resembling a winning season, and one could argue that this five year rebuild has resulted in nothing but the team running in place and with little hope for turning things around come 2025.

In almost any business, this would call for some significant, if not drastic, changes.  In sports, the obvious fall guy would be the manager or head coach.  We are looking at you, Sheltie.   One could make a case that in the analytics driven sport that MLB has become, the field manager makes very little difference.  His roster, his starting line-ups, and pitching rotation are dictated mainly by the Suits that sit at their laptops and tell the manager what the algorithms decree.  So, some say, Derek Shelton has very little to do with how the team is run, and even John McGraw, Miller Huggins, Leo Durocher, and Danny Murtaugh put together wouldn't be able to make chicken salad out of the chicken shit that the Pirates have put in uniforms over these past five seasons.  

I would agree with this up to a point.  Once the game starts, it is the manager who makes the in-game decisions, even though many may come from the binders that the analytics guys have given him.  It is on this point where I believe that Shelton has come up short.  Woefully short, in some instances.  Also, and I really think that this is the critical factor, at some point players just plain tune out and STOP LISTENING to whatever the manager (or head coach) is saying night after night.   That is what I believe has happened to the Pirates in 2024, and that is why a change needs to be made.  A fresh voce needs to be installed in the manager's office at PNC Park.

Of course, GMBC has already stated that Shelton will be the guy to manage the Pirates in 2025, so it would seem that the only way for Sheltie to go would be for Cherington to go as well.  Cherington's failures as a GM are also many, but that would require more paragraphs than I am willing to write as Steelers kickoff time nears.  The guy who would make that decision would be team owner Bob Nutting, aka, the worst owner in all of Pittsburgh Sports Franchises History.  Both Cherington and Shelton are in the midst of multi-year contracts, and the thought of Nutting firing them both and paying them multi-millions of dollars to not work  for him is, well, that just ain't gonna happen.

So we wait to see if the Pirates can go 4-3 over their last seven games (1 with the Reds, 3 with the Brewers, and 3 with the Yankees) just to see if that can EQUAL last season's dismal 76-86 record.  Then the season will end and we Buccos fans will have no real positive things to look forward to in 2025, other than the games that Paul Skenes starts.

The Katzenjammer Kids

 

The Cruz Affair, and A Humiliating Loss

 

The announcement from 115 Federal Street that Oneil Cruz would be moved from short stop to centerfield came in such  a wonderfully ham-handed Only-The-Pirates fashion.  Let me count the ways.

1. It comes only a week after GM Ben Cherrington announced that Cruz "is our shortstop."  We weren't paying close enough attention when GMBC added "for now" to his ringing endorsement of his then-shortstop.
2. It comes 131 games into the season.  Not try it out in winter ball or spring training.   Let's start RIGHT NOW.  This, effectively, turns the remainder of the Bucs' season into early spring training, at least as far as the up-the-middle defense goes.
3. It was offhandedly announced midway through another stultifying Derek Shelton pre-game presser.  Not to be confused with his always riveting post-game pressers.
4. Word is that Cruz is "unhappy" about the move.  So much for what might be best for the team.  I also read that when the Pirates did try Cruz in the outfield a couple of springs ago, he made minimal effort in trying to learn the positions.   So now we will have yet another disgruntled ballplayer who will be counting his days until Free Agency Eligibility.

No way do I see this ending well for our Beloved Buccos.

(And thanks to Tim Benz, whose column HERE in Trib today served as inspiration for this post.)

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And speaking of farces, how about that 18-8 loss to the Cubs last night?  Hey, lopsided games happen to everyone over the course of 162 games, but there was just SO MUCH to chew on in this one.  Again, let me count the ways.

1. The Cubs stole 8, count 'em, 8 bases on the Pirates.  This broke a team record that was set the year before the Titanic sank.
2. Mitch Keller struggled through four innings, throwing 97 pitches as the Cubs stole base after base.  Still, when he was pulled, the Pirates trailed only 3-2, and it was still a ballgame until.....
3. Domingo German came in and gave up 8 runs in the sixth inning, and effectively ended the game.  As was stated in a text chain conversation I was in during the game it was the worst performance by a German since their Army at Stalingrad.
4. Now down 11-3, Nick Gonzalez tried to stretch a single into a double and was thrown out by a mile.  As Greg Brown was incredulously saying "Gonzalez is headed to second", his colleague Neil Walker was heard saying "He'd better make it", and, of course, he did not.  Even the always rose colored glasses wearing Brownie was stunned that such a bone headed base running play was made when you're down by eight runs.
5. Not to be a "back in my day" kind of guy, but there was time in baseball when a manager would yank a guy out of the game right then and there and sit his ass on the bench to make an example and send the message that such stupidity will not be tolerated.  Guess that moves like that are not spelled out on the computer print outs that  so obviously governs Sheltie's decision making.
6. Then we got the Feel Good story of 33 year old pitcher Brady Feigl, who, after a journeyman career through the minors, struggling with injuries, and playing independent league baseball, got to make his first appearance in the big leagues, when Shelton finally pulled the plug on German, and immediately retired the first batter he faced on four pitches and ended the inning.  We got to see the proud parents and the tearful wife in the stands watching this long awaited debut.  Feigl then came out for one more inning and one-third of another and gave up six runs on seven hits.  This led to the ultimate embarrassment of.....
7. Sheltie asking first baseman Rowdy Tellez to finish the last inning and end the misery.  This, by the way, was the second time in three games that Sheltie did this with Tellez.  To me, having a position player come in and pitch in a blow out is the ultimate embarrassment for a team.  There is nothing cute or funny about it.  If I'm Rowdy, I march into Shelton's office after the game and say, "I've done you this favor twice now, but don't embarrass me like this ever again."   (Still, Tellez' ERA of 5.40 is a whole lot better than Feigl's 32.40.)

This is Year Five of the Cherrington/Shelton Regime, the year when it was ail to come together, and right up until August 1, the team was contending for a spot in the playoffs.  Then the bottom fell completely out and there were bad losses and a ten game losing streak.  Some sources are saying the GMBC really felt that 2025 was to be the year when it all came together.  Same old bullshit from the Front Office.

I never like to see anyone lose his or her job, but if it was up to me, after seemingly giving Gonzalez a pass on that base running gaffe and the Tellez pitching embarrassment, I would not have objected if Sheltie was given the pink slip before he even got to take a shower last night.

Tonight Linda and I head on down to PNC Park to watch this mess of a team take on the Cubs once again. It will be my ninth game of the year, and looking at the schedule and my calendar, it just might be my last visit to the ball yard this year.  The team is a mess, the manager stinks, and the team owner may well be the worst in all of professional sports.  Loyalty to a sports team is always a one way street, but it is an addiction that can never be shaken, I'm afraid.

Sporting Thoughts

As Howard Cosell used to say on his radio spots, "Speaking of sports...."

Obviously, the big sporting news these days is the 2024 Olympic Games that opened in Paris over the weekend.

Apart from the red ballcap people and he Fundamentalists getting their bowels in an uproar over the parts of the Opening Ceremonies (and, Surprise!, they didn't know what they were talking about), we have been enjoying these first three days of coverage.  We have watched basketball and soccer games, swimming events and gymnastics, but one sport that I have found to be tremendously entertaining has been the sport of Rugby Sevens.

I admit to being totally unfamiliar with he sport, although if you watch for a few minutes you can intuitively pick up on the about 80% of the basics of the sport.  To learn the nuances of the game, I have been furiously texting back and forth with Linda's stepson (does this make him my step-stepson?), Jeffrey, who was a club rugby player at West Virginia University back in his younger days, and that has been very helpful.  Here's the most amazing thing about the sport.  A match consists of two seven minute halves divided by a three minute intermission.  Yep, an entire match is over in about 20-25 minutes, depending on stoppage time.  Oh, and the action never stops.  The men's competition is already over with France winning the Gold Medal.  The Women's Sevens is currently in Pool play, and the USA has strong squad.

Like I said, it's great fun to watch, and I probably won't see it again until 2028, although Jeffrey tells me that Sevens is growing in the USA.  Can Major League Rugby Sevens be far behind?

********

This past Friday evening major league European Soccer  Futbol came to Acrisure Stadium when Liverpool FC of the English Premier League and Real Betis of La Liga played a "friendly" game match, we Yanks would call it a pre-season or exhibition game, here in Pittsburgh.  

We and over 42,000 others showed up at Acrisure to watch.  The crowd was decked out predominantly in the red jerseys kit of Liverpool, so it was decidedly a home field pitch advantage for the Liverpudlians, who won the game match 1-0 1-Nil.   I have to say that we enjoyed the evening a great deal, and one can appreciate the game much more in person than when watching on the telly, but, that is true of most sports.  Also, it is fun to see any sport when it is being played at its highest level, and Liverpool FC is at the top of the chain when it comes to European soccer.

As you can see below, I played my part in cheering on Liverpool, but if you look closely, you will see that my shirt paid homage to an even greater team that came out of Liverpool.

********

The Pirates.  

Our Pittsburgh Pirates acquitted themselves quite well with several series (Brewers, White Sox, Phillies, Cardinals) that wrapped around the All-Star break and found themselves 1 game out of the final Wild Card spot in the National League.  They then hit a bump in the road in Phoenix, losing two out of three to the Diamondbacks, one of the teams ahead of them, this weekend.  This morning, they sit in third place in the Central at 53-52, seven games behind the Brewers.  More importantly, the WC race looks like this:

Two games out of the final slot, with two teams ahead of them.  They lost a major opportunist by not winning that series against the D'backs this weekend.

More significantly than the losses have been HOW those losses have been occurring.  Mainly, by getting horrible production form the offensive side of the ball club.  Paul Skenes has been THE talk of MLB since he arrived in Pittsburgh in May, but in all of his games, the Pirates have been able to score more than one run for him only once.  All of his other games they've given him either 0's or 1's.  Perfect case in point was last Tuesday night against the Cardinals.  8.1 IP, 8 K's and a 2-1 loss.  His record is now 6-1 with 97 K's in 74.2 IP and an ERA of 1.93 and a WHIP of 0.87.  He has been unbelievable to watch in this amazing rookie season, and he goes tonight against the Astros.  Can't wait to watch.

Of note is the fact that the MLB trade deadline is tonight and thus far the Pirates have done nothing  - NOTHING - to add some kind of offensive punch to a lineup that desperately needs it.  With the pitching that they have shown so far, they are definitely in the chase for a WC spot, and with starting pitching led by Skenes, Mitch Keller, and Jared Jones they would be dangerous for any team to take on in a short series.  If Ben Cherrington ends up doing little or nothing at the trade deadline, the heat will get hot, very hot, in his kitchen.

Things Pirates

I am off to PNC Park shortly to take in a getaway day matinee game between the Pirates and the Mets.  The Pirates are six games into a critical ten game stretch with games against the Cardinals, Mets, and Brewers.  All are teams that are divisional opponents and/or teams with whom the Bucs are embroiled with in a battle for a Wild Card Playoff slot.  Thus far, the Pirates are 2-4 in the games that have been played, so things haven't gone exactly as hoped.

Here are the Wild Card standings as of this morning:

Not only are the Pirates 4.5 games out of the last WC slot, there are also three teams ahead of them in the standings for that spot.  Maybe, just maybe, if they beat the Mets today and sweep the Brewers in Milwaukee this week, they can get back into this race, but otherwise, things are not looking good, and the chances of GMBC making any significant moves at the trade deadline to improve the 2024 team grow slimmer by the day.

There is more to be written about this team, and I will get to it in the days and weeks ahead, but until then some happier Bucco news:

Both Reynolds and Skenes are fully deserving of making the All-Star team, so congratulations to them both.

Paul Skenes has easily been the Story of the Year for the Pirates, and one of the biggest stories throughout all of MLB this season.  If Major League Baseball had any sense of the dramatic, or of what the People Want To See, Skenes would be the starting pitcher for the National League.  The fact that it does make so much sense is probably why it won't happen.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised of the Pirates tell the Powers That Be specifically NOT to pitch him in the game.  Gotta keep those innings limits in tact, you know.  

Off to PNC and root, root, root for our Home Team.  

#letsgoBucs

The Pirates at the 20% Pole

Regular readers know that I usually wait until thirty games have been played in a new baseball season before making any serious commentary on how our Pittsburgh Pirates are doing.  By that time, batters have accumulated enough AB's and pitchers enough IP's to make some reasoned judgement on "how they're doin'."

As in 2023, the Bucco started off hot and after eleven games, they were at 9-2 and in first place in the NL Central Division.  Twenty-one games later, things have balanced out, to say the least, and here are your NL Central standings as of this morning:

A 5-16 record after that hot start, and ensconced in last place of a division that appeared be eminently win-able coming out of spring training.

Surprisingly, the pitching, especially the starting pitching has been quite good, and the story of the season so far has been the performance of 22 year old rooking Jared Jones.

As he has been routinely serving up pitches at 100 mph and being among the league leaders in strike outs, Jones has indeed been fun to watch, even if his last start against the Giants this week didn't go so well.  He has given fans something to excited and optimistic about.

Then there are the Pirates bats.  Simply stated, the Pirates offensive output has been truly offensive in these thirty-two games.  In their last game against the Oakland A's on Wednesday, the Pirates started guys with BA's of .162, .168, .205, .212, and .217.  Ke'Bryan Hayes, Brian Reynolds, and Oneil Cruz, the guys who were to be the offensive core of the lineup, are batting .264, .248. and.239, respectively, and Cruz has been striking out a prodigious rate.

Andrew McCutchen, who appeared as a pinch hitter yesterday, and has been used as a DH all season is hitting .188.  Cutch, easily the best and most beloved Pirates player of this century, appears at age 37 to be finished.  The team will be needing to make a hard call on his future soon, it would seem.

Over the winter, my friend Dan made the frequent comment that went along these lines:  "If the Pirates are really serious about wanting to win and compete in the National League, they will need to sign a first basement who can still play, and can hit."  The name Rhys Hoskins was frequently batted around amongst our crotchety breakfast group.  But the Pirates didn't do that.  Instead, they signed Rowdy Tellez.

In 31 games and 83 at bats, Tellez has 1 home run, 7 RBI, and is batting .205 with an OPS of .552.  In other words, he stinks, and he becomes just another name in a long line of washed up players (Jeromy Burnitz, Derek Bell, Lonnie Chisenhall, and others that have long been forgotten, with good reason) whose biggest attribute was the one that the Pirates value the most:  They all came cheap.   It's nice that Tellez appears to be a decent guy, a team player, and good guy to have in the locker room, but that ain't winning any games for the Pirates these days.

And perhaps most infuriating of all is the case of pitcher Paul Skenes, chosen by the Bucs with the first pick in the first round of last years draft. 

Despite limited use last season and in spring training this year, Skenes looked to be the Pirates best pitcher, if not the best player in the entire organization.  In 23 innings pitched at Indianopolis, Skenes has struck out 41, while allowing one earned run (0.39 ERA), and WHIP of 0.87, while frequently exceeding 100 mph with his pitches.   Yet he remains in Indy as the Bucco Brain Trust continues yammering about checking boxes and "the plan" that they have for Skenes.   Skenes has shown that he has nothing to prove or learn at the Triple-A level, and the major league team is floundering, so there is no reason that Skenes should NOT be in Pittsburgh right now if, that is, you care about winning baseball games in 2024, and not just saving dollars by putting off Skenes arbitration and free agent eligibility an extra year or two.

But, regardless of who the manager of general manager may be, it has always been thus on Bob Nutting's Pirate Ship of Fools.

As I often say, it ain't easy being a Pirates fan.

Opening Day 2024

I cannot recall a time in the fifteen years (!!) that I have been writing this blog where I have spent a spring time where I have written less about baseball and, more specifically, the Pittsburgh Pirates than I have in this Year of Our Lord 2024.  So, on this Opening Day, the day in which all things remain possible, as JFK might have put it, let us begin.

Before getting into the Pirates, a word about what will be, if it isn't already, Rob Manfred's biggest nightmare, the Shohei Ohtani Affair.  Baseball's biggest star has found himself smack in the middle of some questionable affair concerning illegal bookmaking and betting on, maybe, possibly, baseball games to the tune of a measly $4.5 million.  The Dodgers and Ohtani have already fired the guy set to become the Fall Guy here, Ohtani's interpreter, but this thing is far from over, and Manfred has to be sick with the thought of having to suspend or even ban the sport's brightest and biggest star over these matters.

As the saying goes, we'll see how it all plays out.

Now, on to the Pirates.

Of the twenty-six players coming north with the team, here are the players about whom I am excited:

SP Mitch Keller

SP Jared Jones

RP David Bender

C   Henry Davis

SS Oneil Cruz (especially him!!)

3B Ke'Bryan Hayes

OF Brian Reynolds

OF Jack Suwinski

OF Michael A. Taylor

DH Andrew McCutchen

Ten out of twenty-six, and only two of them are starting pitchers, and therein lies the biggest question mark and/or weakness of the team: starting pitching and the lack of depth therein.   This is especially frustrating when one realizes that the team just might possess an outstanding starting pitcher, one who shows all the signs of becoming a legitimate Ace Number One starter, and he will be starting the season in Indianapolis.  I am speaking of course of Paul Skenes, last year's over all first pick in the draft.  He has pitched all of three innings in spring training, but according to all reports, he is Major League ready NOW, but the Bucs are not bringing him to Pittsburgh to start the season.  Gotta protect that service time...gotta put off that arbitration eligibility date....gotta put off that free agency eligibility season (by which time, there is a good chance that the team will already have traded him for prospects).  Yep, can't spend any money if you don't have to on the Bob Nutting Ship of Fools.  What a tiring story this has become.

In 2023, the Pirates improved by 14 games over 2022, and won 76 games.  A similar improvement in '24 would produce 90 wins and put the Pirates in the thick of playoff contention, but alas, I don't see it happening.  FanDuel set the Over/Under on Pirates wins for the season at 75.5.  I put $20 on the OVER, if only because I don't want to be rooting for them to lose as the season winds down in September.  I think 75-80 wins is about the outside limit for the team this year.  As always, when it comes to the Bucs, I hope that I'm wrong in this gloomy forecast.

My own goal is to see at least twelve games at PNC Park this season.

Oh, and I also know that we are all looking forward to 162 more of Derek Shelton's always riveting post game pressers.

Raise The Jolly Roger!!