Today just has to be every baseball fan’s favorite day, Opening Day. The Pirates open 2025 just as they did in 2024 with a 4-game series in Miami. The Marlins had made the playoffs in 2023, and when the Pirates swept the 4-game series, I was pleasantly surprised. Little did we know that the Marlins would become one of the worst teams in the National League. They lost 100 games. This year, there are some who are expecting the Pirates to sweep the Marlins again. I am not one of them. As I have written before, this is the most pessimistic I have gone into a season for a long time. I will admit this Opening Day roster is not giving me a bad vibe. It’s better than I thought it would be. Except for Nick Yorke, the Pirates kept who I thought they would for the Opening Day roster. The Pirates did not do as good a job when it came to selecting pitchers. They sent 4 solid young arms down to AAA: two starters and two relievers. With the Jared Jones injury, the starting rotation reads Skenes and pray for 4 days of rain. I do not think all is lost for the Pirates, and a contending season is still a possibility. So, why all the pessimism?
Even before the Jared Jones injury, I thought the Pirate rotation was being overrated. There is no question that Paul Skenes is one of the best pitchers in the game. He never had a truly bad start last year, and he may not have one this year. The rest of the pitchers are just average starters, with some a little below. Mitch Keller may break out this year, but there is no sign that he will. Andrew Heaney has a lifetime OPS+ of 94, and last year it was 92. Bailey Falter had an ERA+ of 95. This means that both of these pitchers are slightly below league average. That is not bad, by the way. The problem here is they are pitching on a very poor offensive team. Can three pitchers who are league average or slightly below manage to win? They are most likely going to be in low-scoring games. The Pirates are interesting offensively. Several players had some very good runs, even with other teams. However, they have not been able to recapture that performance. We all know who these players are. It will boil down to whether you think they could get back to their top performance. Obviously, my feeling is no. Even though I feel that way, it could happen. That leaves us with the bullpen and defense, both of which were way below average last year. One of the few moves the Pirates made in the offseason was to hire Brent Strom as assistant pitching coach. He succeeded greatly with the Astros. He also saw early success with the Diamondbacks. He helped their staff to the 2023 World Series. Things went sour for him and the Diamondbacks’ pitchers in 2024, and they let Strom go. Hopefully, he may have a real positive effect on the pitchers. The same thing could be said of new hitting coach Matt Hague. Both coaches may be the wild card for the Pirates.
That brings us to manager Derek (The Shadow Knows) Shelton. He is the biggest reason to feel that this season has the potential for disaster. I have given him the benefit of the doubt every season. What is mind-blowing about Shelton is his rise through the ranks with two of the better organizations in baseball. These are the Tampa Bay Rays and the Minnesota Twins. For whatever reason, he seems to have learned nothing. Maybe he is the proof of the Peter principle. The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence P. Peter. It observes that people in a hierarchy rise to “a level of respective incompetence.” Employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs. Eventually, they reach a level at which they are no longer competent. Skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another. Last year Shelton’s strictly poor judgment and bad managerial decisions cost the Pirates 7 to 8 ballgames. That would have been enough to get them over .500. This was a significant non-move by the Pirates. They allowed him to continue managing this club in 2025. It will be interesting to see if he makes it through the season. It’s play ball later this afternoon with Paul Skenes starting a Cy Young winning year. Let’s hope that he is not the only bright spot that happens this year. Only time will tell. See you tomorrow with the opening game Pirates Morning Report.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 