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DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Is Rowdy really remedied?

  • June 26, 2024



DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Is Rowdy really remedied?

[Music] [Applause] so rowdy tles is back everyone is stoked his season’s been resurrected everything’s going to be just fine or you know maybe not good morning to you good Wednesday morning I’m Dan kovachich of DK Pittsburgh sports and this is daily shot of pirates it comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into football Andor hockey I o offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this Pirates nine Reds five last night in Cincinnati Brian Reynolds extended his hitting streak to 22 longest active streak in the majors also homered Jared triola homered Nick Gonzalez with three hits Mitch Keller toughed it out didn’t necessarily have his best stuff but four runs three of those earned on six hits over five and 2/3 Innings two and a third solid Innings of relief from Carmen linski probably not to be ignored regardless of the final score and yes Rowdy was involved too two for four an RBI walk and a steal how about that and after that his batting average is up to 228 I’m not not sharing that to be you know taking shots at him or whatever that’s his actual average it’s 228 and in the month of June which he’s accounted for pretty much all of his actual offense he’s batting 352 with a 407 on base percentage and yeah so there it is he’s back nice contract let’s see what he’s got no okay no no no no this isn’t it this isn’t it they’re trying to make it it including in direct conversation with me and I’m not having it because Rowdy was signed to be guess what a first baseman and as such to provide Power when he was signed and I was there for this Ben cherington brought up the 35 home runs he’d hit for Milwaukee a couple of years ago and said that he felt that there was something there that they could still unlock he knew about rowdy from his days in Toronto and that’s where they were going to get their power from that was their justification for having Rowdy be their primary target at that position entering the off season I’m going to repeat that to you for emphasis because I don’t know that my reporting on that has made it to oh exactly 100% of you but Rowdy was the main guy he wasn’t a second choice a third choice he wasn’t oh no Carlos Santana might get swept up somewhere else they didn’t want Santana Santana’s having an even better June by the way and a way better season they wanted rowdy they wanted to see if they could somehow outsmart everybody and recreate that 35 home run output for the Brewers and say look at us look at how smart we are even though Rowdy had a down year 2023 he was banged up a little bit had a hand injury they thought this was it he’s healthy now he’s ready for the big bounce back even though the Brewers themselves let him walk away so that they could invest three years and $39 million into reys Hoskins who’s been really good for the Brewers because he’s just a really good ball player you get what you pay for and the Brewers based in a market that’s 2third the size of Pittsburgh aren’t afraid to add because their primary motivation up there is winning and in turn that’s why they’re in first place in the Central Division Vision by a country mile at the moment but but Rowdy’s back and everyone who’s even peripherally associated with charington at 115 Federal and throughout PNC Park is going out of their way to somewhat playfully and gently wag fingers about Rowdy’s big comeback see what would have happened if we gave up on Rowdy all of you meaning media fans whoever wanted him gone but he’s still here and look at what we’re getting out of him as if two months of getting absolutely nothing out of him in the lineup just get magically erased and as if he’s producing even now the power that you sought when you acquired him I love his June I don’t have a complaint about somebody batting 352 with a 407 on base percentage but I’m also not going to just you know gloss over the fact that even when he’s going this well for the month he’s got five whole extra base hits one of those a home run and 11 RBI that’s not a middle of the order bat I don’t even see that as a six or seven I guess maybe a seven but really where you want somebody who’s just swatting singles all over the field when they’re sizz Ling in a good lineup is somewhere down low the power that he was supposed to bring that was the main reason for acquiring him the main reason for making him the number one Pursuit at the position as I’ve been told conclusively both then and even now was that he’d you know put the ball over the fence once in a while or off the fence and that hasn’t happened and that has me thinking all kinds of things about whatever might have happened to his power maybe it’s injury related maybe they didn’t get the full or best read on his swing whether it’s bat speed launch angle you name it but even now that he worked with his dad and commendably got back to making regular contact with the ball he’s only struck out 11 times all month by the way that’s very good but that also means that he’s making this much contact and the ball still really isn’t getting very far it’s going over infielders heads for the most part and by no means should anyone in management least of all charington himself be looking at tles and thinking all right there it is now we don’t need to address first base we’ve got our guy no no you definitely don’t we come back [Music] j1q this portion of daily shot of pirates is brought to you by our friends at Northshore Tavern that’s directly across Federal Street from PNC Park it’s home of steak on a stone an eating experience underscoring the word experience the steak is brought to you partially cooked on an 800° stone and you do the rest it’s a ton of fun it’s a great meal and it’s a baseball atmosphere like no other in Pittsburgh Northshore Tavern right across Federal Street from PNC Park 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 lock boxes safes and locks to secure your Firearms learn more at gun storage check.org that’s gunstor check.org brought to you by nssf the firearm industry trade [Music] [Music] Association today’s j1q comes from Bob who says DK your J1 Q’s tend to center a great deal on the ineptitude of Andy Haynes as hitting coach which is deserved the Brewers had the wherewithal to rid themselves of hannes the Pirates saw haynes’s availability As Good Fortune after firing Rick Xin my question does the manager recommend new coaches for hire or is he told who will be on his staff by the general manager is Derek Shelton keeping his hitting coach employed or is Ben cherington avoiding embarrassment by keeping hannes on board and not going with a third hitting coach in five years Bob I love you that’s the first thing that I have to say to you today there’s so much smart observation from afar obviously in your question that I’m tempted to just say yeah all that but I’m going to go ahead and try to answer the stuff that you asked anyway to maybe keep you on the correct path the general manager charington hired the hitting coach the general manager cherington fired exin who was the only coach he’d kept on from the previous administration the reason for firing EXT which happened at midseason I should add was that he Andor his analytics Department didn’t see eye to eye with xin’s approach exin had been kept on because players like Josh Bell Adam Frasier Brian Reynolds and some others had really no pun intended gone to bat for ex time they loved what he had done for them charington who believes in a passive approach I don’t care what he calls it that’s what it actually is wanted to have a hitting coach who went along with that who would run up opponent’s pitch counts who would be extremely selective at the plate to the point of just a lot of the time you know you’ve seen it standing there watching pitches go by which is how Jack swinsky can go from 26 home runs to just watching third strikes but that’s the GM’s Choice hannes was the GM’s guy and hannes is still employed because of well a scenario that’s pretty similar to the one you yourself laid out with speculation and that’s the the GM doesn’t want to be changing hitting coaches because he doesn’t want to look like he was wrong we’ve seen that pattern in play WoW on more scenarios than I can count but since I opened the show today with Rowdy tles that one might stand out more than any other any any any other team in major league baseball sends Rowdy packing after those first two months and by the way none of those teams goes boasting about Rowdy’s June when he’s supposed to be hitting for power and he isn’t coming close to doing that to answer your question about Shelton Shelton was a former hitting coach himself and I’d like to think that in my role as reporter this is my 20th year of covering the Pirates I’ve got a pretty good feel for the relationships and the respect level between managers and head coaches and their assistants and their coordinators depending on the sport and every time hannes has come up in any kind of conversation with Shelton it’s brushed aside so quickly that you don’t really get a sense for it I I don’t know how else to put that you don’t get anything negative but you don’t get anything positive either you just don’t get anything but what you also don’t get and this is kind of the part that I don’t like Shelton was a major league hitting coach for a while with some pretty decent result results why hasn’t he just taken over Clint Hurdle did this and Clint Hurdle spoke about it openly said I don’t like the results we’re getting right now I used to be a hitting coach in this league for a long time I’m going to be keeping a closer eye on things he’d find some diplomatic way to put it but he’d also be honest about it none of that happens none of that happens in this scenario I appreciate the question I appreciate everybody listening to daily shot of pirates and we’re going to to do another one of these tomorrow [Music]

Is Rowdy Tellez really remedied?

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17 comments

  8. He's back to what he is, a barely passable ML hitter. Before his 2 for 4 last night, he was 1 for 12 in the previous 4 games. He sucks.

  10. I get the banging on Rowdy for his April and May, but claims that Hoskins was a real good signing is crazy. Forget that he’s hitting .197 for June. He’s got a .8 offensive WAR and -8.1 defensive WAR, for a total of .1 WAR in 2024, essentially a replacement player first baseman for 2/ 34M. Bad choice to try to make that fit your Brewers narrative. We’d be bashing management for spending $34M on a replacement level first baseman, wouldn’t we?

  12. Shelton isn't managing anything, simply carrying out what upper management is asking him to do. He wouldn't be a major league manager for any other major league team. He's a perfect fit for the Pirates.

  14. So much for Taylor's defensive upside making amends for his no bat. Also, I agree about Tellez. That said, I'll take any player not striking out at this point over power on this team if it's not in the 30-40 HR range. Stringing together hits and moving runners along the bases to score like they did last night should be their focus right now. Save the power thing for when you at least have the hitting in general thing sorted out. The whole league is suffering from the all or nothing, exit velocity and launch angle sickness that's adding up to no runs, and historical strikeout levels. And becuase it's a fundamentally bad approach, the Pirates are the best at it. And in addition, it makes the game an uninteresting snoozefest. FYI: The last time there was a game in which no one struck out was in 2017. Before that, and especially before the mid-90's it happened a lot more often than people think.

    It would be like basketball when no one can hit a single uncontested jump shot, and it's all about dunks. Yawn. How about football games where every play is a hail mary long pass from mid-field and no one runs with the ball anymore let alone worries about just moving the sticks? Sound fun? Hitting in baseball is becoming that, and I blame the newer analytics element that has been taking over the game from a management/coaching/development level that is trying to turn it into a glorified HR contest. A contest that no one is any good at.

    Young players aren't rewarded for just being a good hitter anymore, their only way to get the big money or go very far is to focus on the exit velos and angles because that's what all the scouts and GM's are looking for anymore. That's how you get paid. If you're ever seen choking up on a bat jsut to make good contact you might as well pick another profession. Over half of the great hitters never would have made it to the big leagues if they used they same scales they use now to filter young hitters with now. Honus would have been a coal miner for life and Rose would have been a traffic cop or a gambling bookie.

    What's sadder is all these players who simply can't hit anymore, will eventually be rewarded for their tunnel vision when they lower the mound yet again (like some people are clamoring for), and put the onus on neutering pitching to make run totals go up and fix the problem by ignoring it. I mean, they already added the DH to both leagues to try bringing up the offense, might as well make the rules changes that any pitch over 95mph is a ball too. Hey I know… 5 strikes is an out and 3 balls is a walk. That'll fix things. Legal PED's anyone?

  15. I did not like Clint Hurdle but boy do I miss him. You know what I wish someone would asked Shelton? When someone asks him a question why is the first word out of his mouth every freaking time "yeah"

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