DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: How long a leash?

19 comments

1. Good Morning DK..What’s going on with Cutch?

2. Your lack of impartiality and anti Pirates bias is starting to make you unlistenable. Maybe try to leave your weird vendetta against the organization out of your content.

3. They will not finish above the Cardinals.

4. John670 is right, DK. December's grey skies and the Jersey Drones underscore your bah hum bug message, I'm afraid.

5. What good player would want to come here for a bargain basement deal

6. Based on the schedule they may be out of it by memorial day

7. Don't expect any meaningful FA signings or trades for better and more expensive players. SS a payback for "Sell The Team Bob" he's going to show the 106 remaining die hard Pirates fans just how low that payroll can go which is a lot lower than it has been in recent years.

8. Do you mean to tell me the 2025 season is over? Here o thought we had a World Series team.

9. Imaging trading 10 man-years of Bell Taillon Frazier Marte Musgrove and not getting a single good hitter back

10. Raygun Shelton can't win with an easy schedule….. Da'wreck can't win, period!! This is just wasting time….They will fire Raygun, and he will never manage again in the majors!

11. (A long post– feel free to ignore!)

    The Pirates are seriously between a rock and a hard place in regard to acquiring and keeping impactful talent (I'm referring to "positive" impactful talent). It's not just the inability of Ben Cherington to assess — without it being accidental — which specific players would be the best fit for the team in terms of truly elevating it. There's also the parallel issue of Cherington not keeping players he should be keeping long enough. In addition, there's the conundrum of talented MLB players potentially not wanting to play for the Pirates organization at all. Bob Nutting, Ben Cherington, Derek Shelton, etc. have clearly demonstrated during the past five years that guiding a franchise into becoming a very successful and consistent "winner" clearly isn't in their wheelhouses. Otherwise, there would've been very solid and sustained improvements, and visibly promising team results overall by the end of the 2024 season.

    As an example, the failure of Cherington in letting go a talented and very professional leader like 1B Carlos Santana was mind-boggling to me– particularly when Santana indicated he'd like to return (one of the critical reasons being that he wanted to continue mentoring the younger Pirate players). Cherington has zero aptitude for legitimate and proactive team building, especially when he couldn't even prioritize keeping a player as valuable as Santana was to the Pirates (for a variety of reasons). There would've been no reason for Cherington to acquire Rowdy Tellez , and then recently give up Luis Ortiz and others to acquire Spencer Horowitz — a question mark right now — to play 1st base in 2025. That's NOT straightforward and competitive team building.

    Imagine if Cherington — in a frantic attempt to save his job — had decided to go after a player like Pete Alonso or Christian Walker to play 1st base in 2025 and he had the money to do it. As highly motivated competitors, would Alonso or Walker really want to play for this franchise? I just don't see  how any talented, smart, and competitive MLB player could take someone like Cherington seriously. He's far from a visionary, he's not particularly competent, and I don't how see he could convince any rational person that he's genuinely motivated to win, and that he suddenly has an intelligent and cohesive plan to do so.

    The fact that Cherington is oblivious to the reputation that Pirates ownership and management currently have in MLB — and is also oblivious to what he HASN'T accomplished during his tenure — shows such an amazing lack of awareness. In my view, he doesn’t deserve more time because he hasn't demonstrated enough competence doing what he's still being paid to do. That goes for Derek Shelton as well. They've more or less been coasting (in my opinion), and they've gotten away with it.

    The NL Central is going to be much more competitive as a whole in 2025, which means the Pirates are going to have to elevate their game like they never have before. I'm not convinced that Cherington and Shelton will be up to the task– there's just been too much team volatility for too long. That includes poorly constructed rosters, player underperformance, player regression, and continued deficits in hitting, defensive skills, baserunning, and erratic game planning. When declining execution is occurring among multiple players over the course of a season, there's a MUCH larger problem that desperately needs to be addressed.

12. MLB must really hate the pirates fans to give them such a klller schedule while giving the Yankees a bunch of Bakery items cup cakes and cream puffs.

13. I give until the All-Star break!

14. Shelty feels strong the Bucs are returning to the “ Glory Days”. How about breaking the longest playoff drought in the NL first. Only the Angels have a longer one by a year. This season is it for Shelty and Ben. Playoffs or Bust.

15. Maybe Cherington can sign some guys like Roberto Perez or Austin Hedges. Literally the worst hitters in mlb.

16. The NL Central is the weakest division in MLB. The Porayes finished last in this divosion. Don't expect any improvement in '25. Tje Reds and Cards are working to imprpve, while the Pirates are NOT!

17. Looks like another 100 loss team

18. There may be a plan.. New Bullpen coach Perez takes over by All Star break if not sooner!!

19. Thumbnail on point! #AbandonShip