Month: March 2023

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Pirates Morning Report: We Could Have The Reds Bullpen

Final Score: Pirates 5 Reds 4

Why The Pirates Won: It was a strikeout-walk festival with the Pirates coming out ahead on both counts. The Reds struck out 15 times to “only” 11 for the Pirates. The Pirates walked 9 times, outwalking the Reds by 3. When a ball was put in play it was a shocker. Many have been maligning the Pirate bullpen, but they shined yesterday by allowing no runs on 2 hits, over the last 4 and 1/3rds innings. Mitch Keller’s start was just ok, as he had trouble with his control giving up 4 of the 6 Pirate walks. Oneil Cruz looked great at the plate walking 2 times and crushing a home run in the top of the 3rd. The Pirates only had 6 hits, but it is hard to get hits when the ball is hardly ever over the plate. Even with the pitch clock the game took 3 hours. The manufactured go-ahead run was a pleasure to watch. Ji Hwan Bae, who had a great game, walked to lead off the eighth inning. He then stole second and moved over to third on an excuse me sacrifice bunt by none other than Austin (Will I get a hit in April), Hedges. Oneil Cruz hit a deep sacrifice fly to score the go-ahead run. The bullpen with a little hiccup in each inning shut down the Reds and the opening day victory was ours.

Key moment Of The Game: Even though it was early, getting out of the bases loaded no out jam in the first inning with only 1 run scoring set the tone for the day. A walk sandwiched between two cheap hits loaded the bases. Then double play with a nice scoop by Santana. It is wonder what a real first baseman can do, isn’t it.? A pop out ended the inning and it just felt like this would be the Pirate’s day.

Next Game: Tomorrow Reds in Cincinnati. The line up had some interesting twists to it yesterday with Bae starting over Castro and Cruz leading off. The Pirate management looked like geniuses yesterday. I can’t wait to see what the Saturday line up will be, but for different reasons than I did in 22. In 2022 it would always be my belly laugh for the day. I just checked and see that Rich Hill is going to loosen up his creaky old bones on Saturday. Well, that at least gets my lips quivering.

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Pirates Morning Report: Opening Day

Today starts the 2023 season for the Pittsburgh Pirates as they face off against the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati. As I look at the 26 man roster, I am happy with the 13 position players on the team. The pitching staff is another issue but more on them later. I will still hold to the prediction that this team will contend for the division title. As I have written previously there are some unknowns that will determine just how well the Pirates will do. To summarize the unknowns, just how good a manager is Derick Shelton, will management actually try to win games this year, and if this team gets to August playing meaningful games for the first time, how will the players respond? There is also avoiding the disastrous injury. Already the Pirates have 3 pitchers on the shelf. I think the biggest lost is Jarlin Garcia, the free agent left-handed reliever they signed over the winter. He seemed to be a solid addition, but then he got a strange nerve injury to his left arm, to the point he cannot even pick up a ball. There is no telling when he might be back. J. T. Brubaker is on the shelf, but Johan Oviedo should fill in for him quite nicely. What would be considered a disastrous injury. If Mitch Keller, Roansy Contreras, Bryan Reynolds or Oneil Cruz would miss a significant amount of time due to injury, it would be devastating, and all bets are off. Let’s take a look at the position players that are going to start the season.

I like all the decisions that the Pirates made concerning who they kept on the team. Many thought that Travis Swaggerty should be on the team with the very good spring that he had. He has shown nothing in 3 years in the minors and one good spring is not going to change that. If he shows the same batting skills in the minors during the first month and someone is struggling or injured, I’m sure he would get the call up, but I am not sure he will continue to hit in AAA. I felt Jason Delay was the best choice as backup catcher but let’s face it, sending down Endy Rodriguez is strictly a player control move. A switch hitter who is hitting at every level and is a catcher who plays other positions, sure let’s send him down. Especially since we have the worst hitting catcher in all of baseball in Austin Hedges. He better throw out every runner, never have a passed ball, and pitchers better carry him off the field every game for the way he handled them. The team can be divided into two groups. The young and up and coming group. The old veteran group with a few in between. The young group include Oneil Cruz, Bryan Reynolds, Jack Suwinski, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Rudolfo Castro, Ji Hwan Bae, and Canaan Smith-Njigba. Many have stated that this group played a lot last year and the Pirates still did not win many games. The fact remains that this group, particularly the first 5, were rarely in the line up at the same time. The Pirate management team continued to put on the field, way below major league level players, just to ensure losing games. These 5 should be together almost every game with Bae and Smith-Njigba being key bench players. The old group is Andrew McCutchen 36, Carlos Santana, who will be 37 in April, Ji-Man Choi 32 in May, Conner Joe and Austin Hedges who both will be turning 31 during the season. The man in the middle is the backup catcher Jason Delay who is 28. This group needs to stay healthy and improve their play just a touch to make this team a contender. Nobody needs to have a career year. They just have to be a nice 2 WAR player and the Pirates will make a solid move forward. The good news here is that there are plenty of good young players down on the farm, if any of this group gets hurt or really falters. This group should be the steadying influence, if there are meaningful games to be played in August and September. They know what it is like to play in the heat of a pennant race. With the exception of Rodriguez, the Pirates are taking the 13 best players up North. They could not come close to saying that last year. Now for the pitchers, where I do not have the same warm fuzzy feeling.

Back in the fall I wrote that one of the prerequisites for the Pirates to be a contender would be that certain players should not be on the team. They have fulfilled that, except for good old Dwayne Underwood Junior, who will be referred to as DUJ, from this moment on. Now, maybe he is on the team because of other pitchers going down with problems, but this just points to the fact that the Pirates really did not do that much to shore up the bullpen during the offseason. The acquisition of Vince Velasquez is still one that has me scratching my head. There is nothing in his pedigree that suggests he is going to be an average Major League pitcher. He has a career ERA of 4.93 and ERA+ of 85. What I find interesting about him, and Rich Hill is that both have a lot of bullpen experience. Velasquez has relieved 47 times in his career and Hill has come out of the bullpen 129 times. That versatility may make them have a different role than expected as the season moves forward. More on Rich Hill later, but the fact remains that the Pirates are not famous for revitalizing anyone’s career, but maybe Velasquez will be the first. Despite these misgivings I think the bullpen will do alright. The Pirates have to make some 40-man roster moves even as I write this, but it appears that they are going to go with 2 lefties and the core from last year. I think the performances of Will Crow, Colin Holderman, and Chase De Jong will be a big key to the overall success of this bullpen. The starting rotation should do fine and if they don’t, then a lot of young arms are ready to be called up. This pitching staff is the real wild card on this team. They could really stink or be the real strength of this team.

It is very easy to see what the key to success for this team will be. First, the young players have to show some progress. It would be nice to see an upgrade in their play of around 10 to 20%. Second, the old group just needs to be themselves. The perfect example is Rich Hill. His 162 game average stats are 10 wins 7 losses an ERA of 3.85 and an ERA+ 111. Even if he does what he did last year, 8-7 with an ERA+ 98 the Pirates will be just fine. The same could be said of the rest of the veteran group. Carlos Santana has averaged about 19 homers the last 3 seasons. If he only has 2 during the first 60 games then the Pirates are in trouble. Andrew McCutchen’s on base percentage over the last 3 years has been .325. If at the 60 game mark his OBP is under 300 then the things are not going well. You get the picture. It is not a big ask but the veterans need to be themselves if the team is going to have success. Today is one of the great days in sport and I love the fact that it is just called Opening Day. Everyone knows what sport you are talking about without saying any more. The 162-game journey begins today.

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Baseball: The 100 Pitch Count

Baseball pitchers have been a fragile bunch. Over the last 10 years there have been an average of 16 Tommy John surgeries a year on Major League pitchers. Even though the success rate of this surgery is extremely high the rehab period is usually long and hard taking 12 to 18 months. Some pitchers have had to go through this twice. Because of this, organizations do everything they can to protect young pitchers and work them gradually up the ladder into the Major Leagues. When they get in the majors, the magic number seems to be 100 pitches per game. When a pitcher approaches this pitch count, no matter how he is doing, this becomes the time to take him out. There are some exceptions, and we will see these later in the blog, but 90% of the time this is the unwritten rule. Pitchers are taken out even when they are throwing a no hitter. Because of this, many fans and sportscasters wish for the good old days, when pitchers almost routinely pitched complete games, and would never be taken out if they were pitching well, let alone pitching a no hitter. This leads to the question of why do so many pitchers have arm problems today, even though they are monitored much more closely than they were 40 to 50 years ago. My answer to that is who cares, this is just the way things are at the moment. The quest should go on to find out what can be done to help avoid all of these arm problems. Until that happens, major league teams should accept the fact that this is the way it is now and do even more to protect their pitchers. Before we go into that, lets go back 35 seasons to 1988, the first year that pitch counts were on the stats in baseball reference.

Let us look at 5 pitchers from the 1988 season, Orel Hershiser, Frank Viola, the 2 Cy Young award winners, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Dave Stewart, 3 of the best pitchers from that era. We will look at games started, complete games, and average number of pitches per game. Hershiser started 35 games, completed 15 games, and averaged 101 pitches per game. One game he threw 153 pitches for his season high. Frank Viola started 35 games, completed 7, and averaged 106 pitches per game. Three times he threw 122 pitches and once 121. Roger Clemens was the big workhorse that year. He started 35 games completed 14 and averaged 119 pitches per game. He had one game where he threw 162 pitches and had 12 games of over 130 pitches. No wonder he took steroids at the end of his career. Greg Maddux started 34 games but there were 2 games where no pitch counts were recorded. For the 32 games they did he averaged 105 pitches per game and completed 9 of them. He had an 11 inning 167 pitch game and 6 others that were over 130. Dave Stewart pitched 37 games, completed 14 and averaged 114 pitches per game. Now we head to 2022 and start with Sandy Alcantara the current Cy Young award winner. Alcantara started 32 games, completed 6, averaging 102 pitches per game. His highest pitch count was 117. Gerrit Cole started 33 games, completing 0, and averaged 99 pitches per game. His highest count was 118. Corbin Burnes started 33 games, completing 0, and averaged 99 pitches per game. The most pitches he threw in a game was 115. The stats are about the same for every well know starter in baseball last year. Even though they rarely completed a game their pitch counts did not average that much less than the pitchers in 1988, even though the complete game was much more common. The pitchers of 2022 were really never allowed to get their pitch count to a very high level as they did in 1988. One of the highest in 2022 was Miles Mikolas who threw 129 pitches trying to no hit the Pirates. This pales in comparison to the over 160 pitches that Clemons and Maddox threw that year. There is no question that it takes a lot more pitches today to accomplish the same thing that pitchers did in the 80’s. This is due to more batters being selective or to put it another way, begging for walks. This is the way it is in baseball at the present, and teams should change the way they think about how pitchers should pitch and on how much.

The above data shows that pitchers today get a lot less done on about the same number of pitches. Now it takes about 100 pitches to get through 6 to 7 innings. Pitchers back in the 80’s could complete a game on about the same number. Teams need to make 100 pitches the max any pitcher throws regardless of the situation. This would be the most effective way to help preserve pitching arms. This policy will also help them be more pitcher ready for the playoffs. Another thing that would help pitchers is to abandon the so called waste pitch. If you have a batter down no balls and 2 strikes, just challenge the guy and be damned about the results. In today’s environment every pitch is precious. You got two strikes on the batter get the third one and if he hits hit it out, he hits it out, who cares. The old way of thinking about an 0-2 count has got to stop. Pitchers need to think about throwing strikes on every pitch and forget about burying one in the dirt. It is the only way that pitchers have any chance of going deeper into games than they are now. Here is one last curiosity about pitch counts. How many days rest does a pitcher need if throws 50 pitches. I have often thought what if teams limit pitchers to 50 pitches a game and just start rotating them in the game. Forget about the role playing that pitchers do today. The average number of pitches thrown in a game is about 150. That would mean about 3 pitchers per game. With 12 to 13 pitchers on most teams, that means they would throw about every 4 games. They might even be able to cut that down with more aggressive pitching, by eliminating the waste pitch. Of course, starting pitchers would not like this idea, but in the long run it might be the most effective way to prevent runs. I would love to see some team put this into play. Tampa Bay are you listening? Twelve to thirteen pitchers just rotating through the games every 4 to 5 days. Even though this is unlikely to happen, teams still need to apply the 100 pitch mode as a hard and fast rule. In the long run this will save arms and may make your staff one of the best in the playoffs.

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Pirates Mid-March Report

Spring Training is in full swing with opening day 17 days away. Already the Pirates have a big injury with Jarlin Garcia going down with some kind of unexplained arm injury where he cannot even grip the baseball. Who knows the outcome of this one. He would have been a big part of the bullpen. He had been a solid left hand bullpen guy with no history of arm issues in the past. His injury is not changing my mind about this team being a contender, but it is a blow, none the less. Ke’Bryan Hayes seems to be as fragile as ever, with now a thumb injury being the culprit, but until proven otherwise, I am going to remain optimistic about him and his ability to play a full season. I am not as confident, injury or no injury, that he will become an above average hitter. If he would, then that would be a great asset to add to his superb fielding. The only other thing of note, it does seem like Travis Swaggerty is making some noise this spring. This is a number 1 pick who has done nothing, up to this point, to warrant him playing in the majors. I think the Pirates missed a big opportunity last year in not bringing up for about 2 months, and showing what he could do. Even if Swaggerty continues to have a good spring, I doubt seriously he will beat out Canaan Smith-Njigba for a roster spot. If anything, because they are so thin at outfield, they may wind up keeping both of them. It will be interesting to see if he gets a legitimate shot. Even though the Pirates have given up a lot of runs this spring, the pitchers that you expect to be on the team are doing well. Most of the runs that are being given up are by pitchers that won’t be on the opening day roster. For the most part Spring Training is going well, especially for the starting pitchers.

The main purpose of Spring Training is to get ready for the regular season. It is to stay healthy and work on your game. Despite this, I still read things trying to put significance on spring training performances. They are absolutely 100% meaningless, with so many examples that I am not bothering to even write about them. What Travis Swaggerty is doing in these games I put no stock in. I will be happy to be wrong about this concerning him. The Pirates can always use a bat that is a decent fielder. I think the players are working nicely toward their goal of getting out of the gate well, with the intention of setting up a winning attitude for this team. I am making no real speculation on who is going to be on the opening day roster. We will know this soon enough and then I will give an opinion on how I feel about who is going up North. I will blog about the team a couple of days before opening day and then the Pirate Morning Report will start once again giving a synopsis of each game in a brief concise no holds barred format, sparing no punches. It will be a new year and thing, with the Pirates trying to win games for the first time in about 22 months.

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Sports: Random Thoughts

Since baseball’s regular season has not started and even though I am golfing on a semi-regular basis, during this new thing called “winter”, I thought this would be a good time to just have some random thoughts on various topics. Nothing earthshattering, but these things have been rattling around in my brain for a while now. In no particular order let us begin.

Pro Football: You would think that pro football would be able to find 32 people in the world that could punt a football at least 70 yards. I think punting is the worst performed specialized job in America. Seven days a week these guys only have one thing to do. Take 2 steps and kick the crap out of a football, that’s it. Some have the added duty of holding on field goals but how long does that take out of the day. Just think about it for one moment. Two steps, boom, two steps, boom, two steps boom. There are nearly 8 billion people in the world, and you have to find 32 that can punt. You would think that there would be tall lanky guys that could really do this. If a punter could boom punts 70 to 80 yards every single time, he would never have to have contact. After he punted, he would simply run off the field. Yet, what would seem like an easy thing to find, seems to be almost impossible. Every week during the pro football season, you see one guy on the team, the punter, who does his job at best, mediocrely. Almost every game you see a punter shank one 15 yards, punt the ball on such a low trajectory that it is returned for big yardage, or simply punt the ball straight up in the air for 25 net yards. Pro football doesn’t seem to care about this, even though it is one of the most important parts of the game. All I can say is, if you are a young individual I would immediately start practicing.

College football now is allowing players to be able to make money on their names and go from college to college to play the game. There are certain rules concerning the so-called transfer portal but like most things there are ways of getting around them. In the not-too-distant future I expect to see this story. Today, quarterback Joe Blackburn, who quarterbacked for LSU, TCU, SMU, Utah, BYU, UCLA, and Nebraska, announced his retirement from football today, at age 36. Blackburn, who majored in Economics, and got his masters and PhD, while playing football, said that he has invested the money he made playing college football well, and no longer needs to work and risk any further injury, especially to his brain. Not as farfetched as it sounds the way things are going.

March Madness is about to start, with the conference tournaments set to begin. College basketball is the only sport where every team has a chance to win the National Championship no matter how bad they played during the year. It would be a shocker, if some team that only won 1 or 2 conference games during the regular season, went on to win the conference tournament and continued to a NCAA Championship. No matter, it is something that is possible in college basketball. Despite all the hype and the upsets in the NCAA tournament, the highest seeded team ever to win the championship is Villanova at no. 8. A nice argument for making the field 32. It so happens that there are 32 conferences eligible for the tournament. Isn’t that nice. If I was the Czar of the NCAA tournament this is how the field would be set. In order to play in the conference tournament, you would have to finish 8th in the conference. Who ever won the conference tournament would still get an automatic bid to the tournament. Depending on how many of the conference champs were also the regular season champs, then this would open up the remaining spots. This would be the new at large berths. Now on the rare occasion, when all the conference champs were not the regular season champs, then there would be no at large births available. This would do two things. It would make the regular season more meaningful, by making only the top 8 in each conference eligible for the conference tournament. It would give the regular season champ more incentive to win the tournament on the off chance there would be no spots left. As it stands now, the regular season champ, in the major conferences, always gets in, no matter what they do in the tournament. It makes the conference tournament more of an extension of the NCAA tournament. It would make everything in college basketball more meaningful and exciting.

I haven’t said all that much about the LIV golf tour, which has taken players away from the PGA Tour, paying them much more money, to essentially play in exhibition events, where there are only 48 players, playing 3 rounds with no cuts, for a lot more money. I have never been into the economics of sports and could care less about salary caps, strikes, and player contract disputes. The players that joined the LIV did it strictly for the money. I have no problem with that, other than the fact that they tried to hide behind the statement that this is going to help the game of golf. Frankly, I am surprised that even more players have not joined. It is quite a difference in purses. The thing that is going to interest me the most, however, is how are the LIV players going to do in the majors. This will be a back to reality check for these players. Besides the pressure of the major, there will be a rather new pressure for these players of having to make a cut again. There are players on the LIV tour that have won majors, and are elite players, but to play one way for weeks at a time, then to have this new experience at a major. Will they be able to adapt? Just another reason to watch the Masters on Thursday and Friday.

Last but certainly not least is the new changes in baseball. I think the pitch clock and the larger bases are going to have a big impact on the game. The “banning” of the shift, I am not too sure. First of all, with left hand hitting pull hitters, the shortstop will still be able to play close to the second base bag and there goes the hits up the middle. Then I can see one of the more progressive teams, like Tampa Bay, deciding to move their right fielder down to where the second baseman played out in the outfield, leaving the other outfielders to cover the ground, with the centerfielder shaded well toward right field and the left fielder well toward center. I don’t know if this would happen with every line up, but if a line up is loaded with left handers, I can see it happening. Maybe this won’t happen, depending on the data that is out there. If it does happen, then baseball will have to make another decision on whether they want to limit what the outfielders can do. Banning shifts may open up a whole new can of worms, rather than solving the problem of helping incompetent left hand hitting batters.