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Golf: Fault No. 5

Standing too far away from the ball is fault no. 5. The reason standing too far away from the ball is such a common fault is that it just feels good. Your body feels nice and stretched out, giving you a sense of freedom, and in a powerful position that enhances your confidence at address. However, this comfortable feeling can be deceptive, as it often leads to poor mechanics. It seems like the fault gets worse when we get to the irons and the short game, where precision is paramount. When you get too far away from the ball, this has a tendency to get your weight on your toes, the big no-no discussed in the previous blog. This improper weight distribution can cause a variety of swing issues, including inconsistent contact and loss of power. Fortunately, there is an easy drill to get you to stand the proper distance from the ball, and it works with every club in the bag, ensuring you develop a more reliable and effective setup that can greatly improve your overall performance on the course.

Just take your normal address position. Once you feel you are in your address position, simply take your right hand off the club and let your arm dangle straight down just swing back and forth about 6 inches each way. It’s vital to allow your arm to relax, as tension can affect your swing. Once you feel it is in the straight down position, simply bring it back to the club without maneuvering it at all. When your hand returns to the grip, if it goes right back into the proper grip position, then you are at the correct distance from the ball. If you find that you are standing too far away from the ball, then your right hand will make contact with your left hand at a higher position on the club shaft, indicating an adjustment is necessary. To get back to the optimal grip position, you will have to move a little closer to the ball, allowing for a more aligned and effective stance. On the rare instance that you are too close to the ball, your right hand will make contact with the shaft about an inch or two below the left hand, causing imbalances that may interfere with your swing. In order to get back to the grip position, you will have to get a little further from the ball, ensuring that both hands can work together harmoniously throughout your swing sequence. Proper positioning and adjustments are essential for striking the ball effectively and can significantly enhance your overall game performance.

This drill is easy to do anywhere or anytime on the golf course or the range. Once you get used to standing the correct distance from the ball, you will find that many times you can just picture the drill in your mind and instinctively know that you are at the proper distance. Getting the right distance from the ball is crucial; it will not only improve your balance in the swing but also enhance your overall performance. Moreover, it helps your swing stay inside the line and curb that tendency to come over the top, which can often lead to inconsistent shots. Although often overlooked, standing too far away from the ball can lead to a plethora of problems with your golf shots, such as mis-hits and loss of power. Once corrected, many things just go right automatically with the golf swing, making your practice sessions more productive. As you continue to refine this essential aspect of your stance, you will likely notice an increase in confidence and even a newfound enjoyment of the game.

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Golf: Fault No. 6

This one is one of the more interesting faults because there are so many opinions about how to distribute your weight along the bottom of your feet. There is one thing that everyone is 100% in agreement on: do not let your weight get on your toes in the address position. This is fault no. 6, allowing the weight to get on the toes at the address position. According to most instruction, there are three ways you can have your weight distributed under your feet. Having your weight on the balls of your feet is still the most popular. The second one that is gaining traction is to feel that your weight is heaviest just below the arch of your foot. The final advice is to have your weight mostly on your heels as you address the ball. This is by far the least popular recommendation, but the major advocate of putting your weight toward the heels was Ken Venturi. I am just glad the foot is not any bigger so there is not a fourth way to distribute the weight.

The big fault here is letting your weight get on your toes. You have a tendency to do this because you are leaning over to get down to the ball. The way to avoid this is to make sure that you can wiggle your toes at address. You cannot do this if you are putting too much weight on the front of your foot. Which way should you distribute your weight? I would give all three a try to see which one seems to give you the most relaxed swing. There are advantages and disadvantages to all three ways to stand at address. Having weight on the balls of your feet is the standard athletic position. It seems to put the body in a very good position to move. A problem can develop because the ball of the foot is not that far away from the toes. Just a slight move toward the front of the foot will get the weight toward the toes, which will restrict the turn in the golf swing. Having your weight over the arch of the foot is another way of saying that you want to distribute your weight evenly over the foot. This is not all bad, but sometimes this makes your foot overly attached to the ground. This can make your swing a little restrictive. Having your weight on the heels really allows your body to turn. The problem with having the weight toward the heels is that it sometimes becomes difficult to maintain your balance during the swing. Find the one that works best for you and remember to stay off those damn toes. The next fault ties in with the weight distribution problem, just like a lack of turn ties in with not finishing the backswing. See you next time.

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Golf: Fault No. 7

If this blog had been written about 30 to 40 years ago, this fault probably would be in the top 3. The grip is fault no. 7. Still not bad, but for different reasons. A bad grip would be something you would see all the time back in the 80s. You do not see as many today. I do not know if that is because of the internet and all the pictures you can see of the grip today. Speaking of pictures, if you want to see the very best grip, just look at Sam Snead’s grip below. For all the admiration of Snead’s swing, he had one of the best grips of all time. Gripping the golf club correctly is still an awkward thing to do because there is nothing like it in other sports where you have to grip a handle. Baseball, tennis, ping pong, hockey, and today pickleball all grip the handle of their sport differently than golf. For whatever reason, people seem today to be able to overcome the uniqueness of the golf grip. However, there are some things about the grip that people either refuse to acknowledge or understand how the grip can help your game quite easily. The grip can help you correct the curvature of your shots. The other misunderstood aspect is grip pressure, or how hard to hold onto the club.

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I have written about grip pressure before, but to briefly summarize, most of the time players do not hold the club firmly enough. If you play other sports that require holding a bat or racket, like baseball and tennis, then you should apply the same firmness that you do in those sports. If you read any instructions about the grip, there is almost always the word firm in the instructions. Where we have gone astray here is the fear of the so-called death grip on the club. Because of this, we often see the advice to grip the club lightly. Along those same lines, instruction will say that your grip will tighten naturally when you start the swing. I do not think this is the best way to handle grip pressure. The old advice about gripping firmly with the last three fingers of the left hand and the middle two fingers of the right hand is, in my view, the way to go. I think it is the only way to develop consistency in making contact with the ball. Firm is the thought you want to have, not squeezing with all of your might. You need to feel that you have control of the club, and you are not going to feel this way with light pressure on the club.

How you place your hands on the club can help you control the curvatures of your shots. You hear the terms neutral, strong, and weak when it comes to the position of your hands. Let’s just forget about those terms for the moment and concentrate on the palm of the right hand and the back of the left hand. The starting point for a grip should be that the palm of the right hand and the back of the left hand are pointing to the target. If after using that grip for three or four rounds your main problem is a slice, shots moving from left to right with too big of a curve, then you should turn your hands to the right about an inch or two. This will put your right palm and the back of your left hand looking left of the target. This should help you square up the clubhead at impact. If the opposite problem exists and you are hitting those right to left hooks that are traveling way left, then you can turn your hands to the left. If your starting grip is truly having your palm and the back of the left hand looking at the target, you will not be able to turn your hands to the left very far, maybe just about 0.5 to 1 inch in that direction. Even that small of a turn should help in keeping you from closing the clubhead. Hooks and slices can be caused by other swing faults, but until you start moving your hands on the grip, you will always be fighting the way your hands and wrists want to perform during the golf swing. Just watch the pros’ grips on TV or YouTube. You will see many positions of the hands on the club. There are certain principles of the grip, but exactly how you place your hands on the club is not one of them. How your ball is curving will dictate how you eventually grip the club. Don’t be afraid to try different positions. The pros sure do.

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Golf: Fault No. 8

Up to this point we know the concept of hitting down and through the ball. We know the importance of the body turning in the golf swing. The eighth fault is not finishing the backswing. The 8th fault is more common than the 9th fault and they seem closely related but not as much as you might think. Everyone who plays golf has a backswing. Even if your backswing is not technically correct but you finish it, you are going to have better results than a player who has a correct backswing but does not finish or complete it. Finishing the backswing is one of the most important things you have to do in order to make consistent shots. Not finishing the backswing is a mental problem not a physical problem. It is not a problem of improper fundamentals. The number one reason players do not finish their backswing is anxiety.

Anxiety takes on different forms as you make progress with your game. When you are just starting out in golf, you are worried about making contact with the ball. The further away you take the clubhead from the ball, the less confidence you have in making contact. As you get better at making contact, your backswing will have more of a chance of reaching completion. As your game progresses, you then become anxious over certain situations in golf. It could be the first tee jitters. It could be a tee shot on a hole where there is trouble on the right and left. It could be a shot over water. It could be a shot that will enable you to achieve one of your better scores. These same anxious moments can creep into your short game and putting. No matter what the reason, the result will be the same. You will not make a complete backswing. This anxiety will cause you to want to bring the clubhead back to the ball sooner than you should. Your backswing will be shorter than it usually is. Other than the results being terrible, how do you know they are related to an unfinished backswing? When you do not finish your backswing, there will be two possible results, with both being extreme. One is the dreaded duck hook that rolls forever until it finds woods or water. The second is the extreme right-to-right shot that is so bad that you cannot even imagine how you could hit a shot so far to the right. The two extreme results are due to how you manipulate the club with your hands and arms, but we need not know the aspects of this. Once we correct the backswing problem, the manipulation will take care of itself.

How can we make sure that we finish the backswing? You need to develop some simple checkpoints when you feel you are not making a complete backswing. Make sure that your left shoulder gets under your chin at the top of the swing. Kick the left knee toward the ball and point the knee just behind the ball at the top of the swing. Feel the right hip move closer to the target at the top of the swing. On longer clubs like the driver, see if you can see the top of the club and the end of the backswing in the corner of your eye. Going from the backswing to the downswing involves a change of direction which always require a brief pause at the top of the swing. Making sure you do that helps complete the backswing. You do not have to think of all of these things; just pick one to see if it corrects the problem. You may find that different ones work on different days. Keep working at it until your backswing feels that it is complete. The short or unfinished backswing can happen in the short game and putting. There is one other reason that backswings are not completed in those two areas of the game: there is a fear that a longer backswing will lead to the dreaded deceleration when executing the shot. You need a longer backswing in the short game and on the green in order to gradually accelerate into the ball. There is no question that for all shots around and on the green, the clubhead needs to be accelerating when it makes contact with the ball. However, even a decelerating shot will have better results than one that has a short, fast backswing. On short game and putting strokes, just make sure that the backswing is long enough to feel that you are easily accelerating the club into the ball. Once you gain confidence in executing a longer, complete backswing for all types of shots, your game will begin to improve.

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Golf: Fault No. 9

Fault no. 9 is not turning the body and, more specifically, the hips, when making a golf swing. The golf swing is a turn. On the backswing, your body turns away from the target. On the downswing, your body turns back to the target, with your belly button facing the target, depending on your flexibility, at the finish. Why is making a turn, or as some people like to say, a pivot, so difficult? The first problem is the arms. They want to control the golf swing. The arms are an important part of the golf swing, but they need to be followers, not leaders. The other problem is that many types of instruction encourage the hip turn on the backswing to be restricted. This brings us to the X factor. You can easily look up the X factor, but in a nutshell, the more you can turn your shoulders without turning your hips, the more you create this stretch up the left side that will act like a slingshot on the downswing. With this type of swing, you can increase your distance. There is no question this is true. The problem is this type of swing puts a lot of stress on your body. There has always been a certain standard when it comes to turning the hips and the shoulders. The shoulders should turn 90 degrees, and the hips should turn about 45 degrees. In the X factor swing, the goal is to increase this 45-degree differential between hip turn and shoulder turn. If you turn your body fully in the backswing, you might lose some distance, but your body will thank you for it. So how do we learn to turn our body?

The simplest way is to do a drill that takes the arms out of the golf swing. You can do this drill anywhere: indoors, outdoors, and if we had them around in a phone booth. Without a golf club, you simply take your golf stance. Then you place your right hand on top of your left shoulder. Next, place your left hand on top of your right shoulder. This will fold your arms across your chest. Go ahead and make your golf swing, keeping your arms folded across your chest. Do this as many times a day as you can to get the true feel of how your body should move in the golf swing. I tried to develop a swing on this principle that I dubbed the shoulder control swing. I used this swing for about 18 months, but I finally abandoned it. I was proved wrong by a man much smarter than I am, Bobby Jones. He stated that you are always going to get into trouble if you try to keep any part of your body out of the golf swing. This is still a great drill. Just make your swing with the arms folded across your chest. You will see quickly that your swing feels a lot slower, which is good. Just try duplicating the movement once you get a club in your hands with the arms in their normal position at address. During the drill, feel your hip turning anywhere from 45 to even 60 degrees. You can make as big a hip turn as you want, as long as you keep your weight on the right foot at the top of the swing. As you turn your right hip away from the ball, it will actually move closer to the target. If you overdo it a little bit, you could get your weight on the left side at the top of the swing, which could cause the dreaded reverse pivot or weight shift.

So far, we have pretty much concentrated on the backswing. There is just one simple rule when it comes to turning on the downswing: the belly button must pass the ball before the arms and hands do. Easy concept, but not easy to do. Obviously, when you are doing the drill, the belly button is passing the ball before the arms because, essentially, there are no arms. What this amounts to is that the more you do the drill, the more your swing will be controlled by the body and not the arms. The arms have their function, but they are so determined and can move so fast that it will be hard to keep them under control. The drill will give you a great feel for what the body should do during the swing. Once you feel it, then you should be able to take this feel to the normal golf swing with the arms participating. Once you have a swing with a good body turn, the 8th fault becomes easier to correct. See you next time.

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Golf: Fault No. 10

Trying to lift the ball or help the ball into the air is fault no. 10. This fault is usually associated with the beginner player, but I have seen this in players who have been playing for a while, especially in the short game. This is a natural feeling to have. The golf shot has to get up in the air, and what better way to do it than trying to hit the ball on the upswing to get the job done. Unfortunately, that leads to mostly ground balls and hitting behind the ball. There are many videos about hitting down on the ball and how to do it. There are some videos that say you should not hit down on the ball. This is more or less a matter of semantics. Either way, these videos go through many drills and techniques to hit down on the ball properly. You really do not need to worry about doing any of these techniques. It is the concept you have to believe in first. Every golf swing is actually hitting down on the ball. That is one of the reasons they call it a downswing. It really is a natural occurrence of hitting the ball with a slightly descending blow. No swing is perfect, but it is not a swing flaw or fault that is keeping you from hitting the ball first and then the turf. It is a lack of trust in the concept that is keeping you from doing it. So, without changing any part of your swing, let us see how we can get you to hit down on the ball.

The golf swing has a start, a top, a bottom, and an end. What we are interested in this time is the bottom of the swing. Take a 7 iron, put a ball down where you would normally position the ball. Now step back and take a practice swing just like you normally would if you were actually hitting the ball. You want to make sure that your club makes contact with the ground. You do not need to lay a ton of sod on your practice swing, but make sure that you hit the ground and take a little bit of grass with it. This is the bottom of the swing. See where this is in relationship to the ball that you just placed down. If the ball is not totally behind the missing grass, move it to that point. If the divot is more than an inch in front of the ball, then move the ball forward to that spot. Keep repeating the practice swings until the ball is consistently about 1 inch or less behind the divot. That is your new ball position for your irons and fairway woods. You may vary the position about 1/4 of an inch as the clubs get longer and shorter, but the ball should not be played any further back than dead center of your feet. Try to make a real swing as close to the practice swing with the ball in the new position. The new position may not be all that different from where you originally placed the ball, and that is fine. Part of the solution has been that you have bought into hitting the ball on a descending blow. Another way of getting to believe in the descending blow is to try and hit your driver off the tee with a descending blow. It is fine to play the ball in your normal driver position, but this time have the feeling that you are hitting the ball on the downswing. With the ball teed up, you may not hit the ground, but if you are thinking descending blow, it will help you make the transition to the fairway woods and irons. Once you feel comfortable with this, go ahead and get back into the feeling of hitting the driver right in the back of the ball or slightly on the upswing. When in the learning process, it does not hurt to hit every shot with a slightly descending blow. In a nutshell, find out where your swing bottoms out and place the ball position accordingly.

The short game is the same thing. All your shots for the short game contact with the ball must be made with a descending blow. This technique is crucial because it ensures that you strike the ball cleanly and consistently, allowing for better control and accuracy. Sometimes, that descending blow must be pretty steep, depending on the type of shot you are attempting and the way the ball is sitting in the grass. For instance, if the ball is nestled down in the rough, a steeper angle of attack may be necessary to get under the ball and lift it into the air effectively. Again, the principal is the same. Always take your practice swings and check where the club is brushing the grass during your practice. This simple act can provide valuable insights into your swing path. Position the ball just behind the spot where the club makes contact with the grass for optimal results. Once you do this, your short game shots should improve significantly, leading to lower scores and a more enjoyable game overall as you gain confidence in your ability to execute these shorter shots with precision.

Despite what you watch on YouTube, this problem is not a problem in technique; rather, it is fundamentally a problem of perception. Once you fully grasp the concept of hitting the ball with a slightly descending blow, your swing will naturally adjust to fulfill its intended purpose of striking the ball correctly. It’s essential to hit down and through the ball, thereby dispelling the idea of hitting up at the ball to achieve lift. This shift in mindset is critical, as it allows the clubhead to perform its role effectively, generating the necessary power and trajectory. An important aspect to remember is that the bottom of your swing should occur about one inch past the ball; this precise positioning is what enables optimal contact. As you incorporate this approach into your game, you will begin to notice a transformative improvement in your shots—higher, longer, and straighter. Consequently, embracing this technique will not only enhance your understanding of the swing but also significantly elevate your overall performance on the course, making every practice session more rewarding and enjoyable.

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Golf: The Ten Commonest Faults, Introduction.

There seems to be a pattern when it comes to playing golf. Everybody has to start sometime, whether it’s through simply picking up a club, watching instructional videos, or taking formal lessons from a pro. As you play the game more frequently and dedicate longer hours to practice, you inevitably begin to notice improvements in your skills. However, it is crucial to recognize that no player’s journey is linear; it really does not matter how much you improve, as there comes a time when you hit a wall and do not seem to get any better, regardless of effort or dedication. For those who really excel at golf and manage to get their handicap below 5, it’s not uncommon to experience periods where their game digresses instead of progresses. This phenomenon can certainly be observed in elite players competing at the highest level, where the pressure to maintain performance is immense. Not all of the faults that I will be covering will apply to better players, but some definitely will resonate, especially when we delve into the top three problems that keep players from improving. When I was contemplating writing blogs about the most common faults, I initially thought about listing them all at once and providing quick solutions. However, after reflecting on the matter more deeply, I came to the conclusion that these faults are so pervasive and impact players at every level that each one truly warrants its own dedicated article. By doing this, I can give each problem the attention it deserves, allowing for a thorough exploration of causes and potential solutions. I will not drag this out too long, as I want to be concise while still being informative. Between now and the opening day of baseball, I should be able to cover the 10 faults or problems, or whatever you want to call them, that I have identified through my experiences. Some of these issues may be physical, involving swing mechanics, while others may pertain to conceptual misunderstandings of the game itself. Additionally, some could be classified under mental issues, such as anxiety or frustration during play, which can significantly affect performance. These factors are certainly not all swing faults; however, there are a few that clearly fall into that category. I truly believe that regardless of what level your game is at, if you can overcome these 10 issues, then your game will substantially improve, putting you on the path toward reaching your golfing goals. We will be getting started in the next couple of days, and I truly look forward to sharing these insights with you. The only thing that could potentially delay these blogs would be if the Pirates make any major moves over the next 5 weeks, but in other words, there won’t be any significant delays.

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Pirates Morning Report: The Current Pitching Staff

The Pirates last year had one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball. That is the key phrase, one of the best. They had THE WORST OFFENSE in all of baseball, 2nd to none. This stat sums it up best. The Pirate pitchers had the 7th best ERA in baseball. Every team that had a worse ERA than the Pirates had a better record except for 4 teams. The Chicago White Sox 20th, the Minnesota Twins 24th, the Washington Nationals 29th and the Colorado Rockies 30th. The Pirates led the league in shutouts last year throwing 19. Twenty seven per cent of their wins were by shutout, the highest percentage in the league. The Pirates have lost 2 pitchers Johan Oviedo and Mike Burrows in exchange for more offense. Even though I have a sinking feeling that the Burrow loss may come back to haunt them, I do not criticize the trade. The Pirates had to do something. The staff looks still very strong. I will look at who I think should be there on opening day with the current crop of pitchers on the 40 man roster. That leaves Jared Jones off this list, but you know he will be returning sometime this year. We will include Jose Urquidy who is now on the 40 man roster.

I am going to do this a little differently. Instead of looking at the rotation and then the bullpen, I am just going to go down the list of players and decide where they will fit in and how likely that is to happen. Most likely, the Pirates will take 13 pitchers north when camp breaks. Who will those 13 be? Keeper No. 1, Braxton Ashcraft will be in the starting rotation. As long as he can avoid having control issues, he will probably be considered the no. 3 starter. Keeper no. 2, Hunter Barco, in my view, is the best candidate to hold down the 5th spot in the rotation. That could change if the Pirates add a veteran lefty. Even if that happens, I would keep him in the bullpen. Brandan Bidois had a great minor league run last year coming out of the bullpen. Not that likely to make the team, but he will be a great depth addition if injuries do come up. He was protected from the Rule 5 draft. Keeper No.3, Bubba Chandler will be in the starting rotation. Expect him to be the no. 2 starter. When he finally made it to the majors, he was spectacular. Wilber Dotel, another young strong arm for the Pirates, was protected from the Rule 5 draft. Again, nice depth, will start in the minors. Ryan Harbin, another Rule 5 protection, will start the season in AAA. Thomas Harrington had a rough 2025. He had a brief look at the MLB level and got knocked around pretty good. Unless there are injuries or he has a spectacular spring, he will start in AAA. He does have starter potential. Keeper No.4, Mitch Keller will be in the starting rotation. There is always hope that Keller will pitch as well as the Pirate broadcast booth says he pitches. They make him out to be another Walter Johnson. Even though he is not close to that, he is a solid average Major League starter, and that is nothing to sneeze at. He had the worst run support of any pitcher. Antwone Kelly, another young arm the Pirates have. He will start in the minors. Keeper No. 5, Justin Lawrence will be a solid bullpen member. In his first season, he had an injury that limited his innings. Hopefully, that is just a fluke. If he remains healthy, he will be a great high-leverage guy. Keeper no. 6, Isaac Mattson had a breakout year last year. Even if this was a fluke, there are plenty of arms to replace him, but I feel he is the real deal. Keeper no. 7, Carmen Mlodzinski. This is simple: bullpen yes, starting rotation no. Keeper no.8, Mason Montgomery. Left-handed bullpen addition. If the Pirates can get his control issues fixed, he will be awesome. Keeper no.9, Kyle Nicolas. Another pitcher who has great stuff, but location is a problem. If that is corrected he will be excellent. Yohan Ramirez. Simply no. I don’t know why they signed him. Even if there are injuries, I would choose the young guys before I would let him on the field. Cam Sanders and Evan Sisk are two left-handers who have been replaced. Keeper No.10, Dennis Santana. This is one of those guys who just goes along and quietly does his job. It is hard to say what the Pirates will do when it comes to closing. I would hope that they do it by committee. I feel that way is the best way. Having said that, I still will not mind it if the closer turns out to be Santana. Keeper no. 11, Paul Skenes, simply the ace of the United States. Keeper no. 12, Gregory Soto, the other lefty acquisition that should be a big upgrade coming out of the bullpen. Keeper no. 13, Jose Urquidy, certainly adds versatility to the staff. I see him coming out of the bullpen and making spot starts.

The wild card in all of this is the new pirate pitching coach, Bill Murphy. He comes from the pitching guru Houston Astros. He has been a big part of the pitching philosophy since 2017. Hopefully, he brings this successful philosophy with him. There is no question the 13 pitchers that are most likely to make this team have elite stuff. The issue has been putting that stuff where they want it. His 3 big projects should be Kyle Nicolas, Mason Montgomery, and the veteran Justin Lawrence. Believe it or not, Nicolas is the best of the group with a walk rate of 10.8%. Montgomery is at 12.9% and Lawrence is at 12.4%. If this pitching coach can find a way for these guys to get down to about 7 or 8%, this bullpen is going to be first-class. This is what makes Bubba Chandler so good. His walk rate is an amazing 3.2%. He is better than Skenes in that department, who has a 5.7% walk rate. Even though I think these are the 13 pitchers that will make the team at the moment, there is little room for error for this group. The young arms the Pirates have are chomping at the bit. The Pirates are not deep enough that they could absorb a slew of injuries, but they could weather a moderate storm for sure. Despite the upgrade on offense, the pitching is where this team is as strong as any in baseball. They will be even stronger when Jones returns. Their offense was solidly entrenched in 30th place last year. There was not another offense that was close to being as bad as they were. If they can improve to 16th to 19th, just below average, they will have a shot at the division.

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Pirates Morning Report: How Much Have The Pirates Improved

The Pirates have had their most active off-season in about 10 years. They will open the season with new players at 5 positions. Some of those players will be in-house, but nonetheless, they are not the players that played those positions on opening day. Their last acquisition, Marcell Ozuna, changed the whole dynamic of the team. Before this signing, I felt that the DH role would be pretty much by committee. It is a moot point now because Ozuna will be the full-time DH, if for no other reason than by default. This eliminates any possibility that the Pirates will sign McCutchen. All we can do is look at this team in its present state as spring training opens. In order to see how much the Pirates have improved, we will use one raw stat, OPS. This is the combination of on-base percentage added to the slugging percentage. This gives the total picture of how somebody is contributing to the offense of the team. I am not going to get into the comparison stat of OPS+. This takes in a lot of factors that could be argued. It is time to look at just the numbers. Let us see how this current Pirate team stacks up at the moment.

The players that are going to be playing the same position as they did last year will be the catching tandem of Joey Bart and Henry Davis. The other three will be Oneil Cruz CF, Bryan Reynolds RF, and Spencer Horwitz 1st base. Brandon Lowe will be the 2nd baseman. He will replace Nick Gonzales. Lowe’s OPS was .784 in 2025, compared to Gonzales’ at .661, an improvement of 123 points. Jared Triolo is set to start at 3rd base, replacing Ke’Bryan Hayes. Believe it or not, this will also be quite the upgrade. Triolo is at .667, while Hayes, when he was with the Pirates, was a pathetic .569, a 98-point improvement. At shortstop will be Gonzales. Gonzales will be a slight upgrade from Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Kiner-Falefa, despite the propaganda from the Pirate booth, was not all that productive with an OPS of .632. Neither one is anything to write home about, but the fact remains that Gonzales is a slight upgrade. In left field will be Ryan O’Hearn. He is replacing Tommy Pham. O’Hearn tops Pham .803 to .700, a 103-point increase. Last but certainly not least, Marcell Ozuna will be replacing Andrew McCutchen at the DH slot. Ozuna is a moderate upgrade from McCutchen with an OPS of .756 to McCutchen’s .700. There will be some that argue the Pirates are sacrificing defense for this decided upgrade in offense. A closer inspection shows that 2nd base, 3rd base, and shortstop grade out about the same between the players. The big difference is in left field, where Pham was a Gold Glove finalist, and O’Hearn is a decidedly below-average defender in left field. He is a very good fielding 1st baseman. The other caveat here is that these players have to at least repeat their offensive production of 2025. Although that is not a given, they could also improve upon their 2025 season. I really think that it is a flip of the coin which will happen. It will certainly determine how successful this 2026 season will be.

The Pirates can still make some moves. There are certain players that are expendable. The Pirates have prospects that teams should have an interest in. The other thing that the Ozuna signing did was practically guarantee that Rafael Flores will not go north with the team. Flores was the main piece in the David Bednar trade with the Yankees. He can play 1st base and catcher. This makes him, Bart, Davis, and Horwitz all expendable. The next expendable group would be Triolo, Gonzales, and Reynolds. Konnor Griffin and Password make them expendable. If the Pirates really wanted to make a bold move, they could move Oneil Cruz. Any of the above should bring in a good offensive 3rd baseman. What will the Pirates finally wind up doing with Jack Suwinski and Endy Rodriguez? Acquiring Ozuna took a lot of the flexibility out of the Pirate lineup. We will see if that turns out to be a good or a bad thing. The Pirates must feel that DH should be a full-time position. I must say that they may be right, but there is not a lot of data on that. Their lack of lineup flexibility does give them a lot of trade flexibility. Only time will tell, but it certainly looks like the Pirates have one or two more moves to make. We can only hope that they will be good ones.

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Sports: Super Bowl Wrap Up

I was right about this one for a change. The Seattle Seahawks dominated the New England Patriots, defeating them 29-13. The score and even the stats do tell the story of how bad the Seahawks made the Patriots look. Most of the stats were about the same for both teams. There were only 3 that gave any indication of how much of a blowout this was: the 3-0 turnover advantage the Seahawks had, the Seahawks sacked Drake Maye 6 times, and the Seahawks’ time of possession was 33:11 to 26:49 for the Patriots. The Patriots had a lot of garbage stats that made the game appear closer than it really was. The Patriots, for whatever reason, did not stick with their running game. They ran the ball 18 times for the game and had a 4.4 average per play. The Seahawks, on the other hand, ran the ball 32 times for exactly the same average. This is a legitimate stat because once the Patriots fell behind in the 4th quarter, they threw on almost every down. When the game was still in doubt, the Pats ran the ball fairly effectively, but did not push the issue. Drake Maye, who played more like Elly May, hardly ran at all. He did not seem to have much pocket presence. This is a player who during the regular season used his legs to win many a game, running for 38 first downs, second on the team. You had this sinking feeling that Seattle was going to let this one slip away at one point. New England was going to get the ball with just under 11 minutes to go in the game, and the score was 19-7. The Patriots had just pulled off a nice 3-play, 65-yard drive. The Seahawks punted the ball, and the Patriots’ deep man failed to catch it, allowing the ball to be downed on the 4-yard line. It cost the Pats at least 10 to 15 yards. Then Maye went into desperate pass mode for no reason. He got away with the first one, which allowed the Patriots to move from their own 4 to the 44. Then he threw desperate pass no. 2 and was not so lucky. This one was intercepted, and the game was essentially over. The stage was just a little too big for the 23-year-old. This Super Bowl is not going to make any top 10 lists, that is for sure. The Seahawks would have covered even with my spread of about 10 points. Pro football season is finally over. Congrats to the Seahawks. Let the baseball games begin.