The Good, the bad and the ugly. The Pirates have very little of the first and a ton of the second and third.
Gran Torino was not a good movie.
My wife and I went to the theatre to see that Clint Eastwood movie where he’s a racist and gets shot, Gland Torpedo, a guy sitting next to us repeated every line Eastwood said, even the racist ones. He also cried when Clint got shot at the end. Sorry for ruining the movie for you. I think the point of the film was that Clint Eastwood is Jesus? I know those are two different Clint Eastwood movies but The Good, the Bad and The Ugly reminded me of that guy crying. Gran Torino has received negative feedback for being a vehicle for racist Asian jokes. Read more here.
Back to baseball. This team sucks. The 2023 Pirates season is over. April and May were nice, June was a reality check and July through September will be hell on earth. The Pirates have played a little above their weight thanks to a nice April and May but have drastically regressed and will continue to come back down to earth, through the crust, upper mantle and then fully into the burning molten center. Four years into the Cherington GM tenure and there has been little to no progress. GMBC has been the GM of exactly one team that didn’t finish in last place in their division, he somehow finished dead last multiple times with the Red Sox payroll? Cutch’s return has been somewhat fun, he seems to have his legs back but the lack of hitting, bullpen depth and having a bunch of dudes with 4+ ERA’s in the rotation has led to another 100 loss season. I thought they would be better, sorry kiddos I was wrong. Mark it down, it doesn’t happen often.
First the very few good things that have happened this year:
Ben Cherrington picked the right guy with the first pick in the MLB draft and took LSU Pitcher Paul Skenes, yay! It was an easy choice; he should not be celebrated for making the reasonable decision but it’s still good news. Throw a parade. The standard is the standard, which happens to be very low.
Nick Gonzalez has been sort of competent, he’s also old as fuck. No other team considers 24-year-olds that hit like .240 prospects, but hey this was supposed to be positive! I don’t have high hopes for him but he doesn’t seem terrible which is a minor step in the right direction.
Henry Davis seems to be able to hit, he cannot play catcher or even play right field so that’s sort of a bummer. I like that he doesn’t waste time with batting gloves. Total cool baseball guy move, I project that he will be a big pine tar helmet guy and perhaps later on an unbuttoned top button guy.
They signed Bryan Reynolds who is a decent centerfielder. Good player that also seems like a good guy. He needs to play better.
This guy was so bad he had to leave the country.
And now the bad….
Kebryan Hayes sucks. He is a bust, John Wehner holds the record for most games played at 3rd base without an error – 99 games- Jeff Cirillo was on the cusp of breaking it when he literally got an error in the record breaking game. Kebryan Hayes was not drafted to be Jeff Cirillo or John Wehner, he was drafted to be a good hitting corner infielder, he is all glove and no bat. The Pirates did draft him nearly 30 slots too high, he was projected as the 57th prospect and was picked at 32 so this is also their fault. Hayes has join the list of ill fated jersey purchases, I also own a Devin Bush jersey. A close friend owns an Eric Tangradi jersey. We make bad choices. Hayes will hit .240 and 17 home runs for the rest of his career but will make nice plays at third when he isn’t injured. Mediocrity rules!
Their pitching mostly sucks outside of Mitch Keller and who knows how long he is going to be around. He looks like he’s pitching his way out of Pittsburgh and with their track record of either not signing guys or signing the wrong guys, I have no faith he will either stay here, or pitch well if he stays here. He has rounded into form after hearing about him for years. They have Bednar who is a shut down closer and guess what? There are trade rumors around him! Yay a good local product has shown to be a good MLB player so he needs to go play somewhere else, they just need to get 16 yr old kids to stock their system. Bednar is under team control for like 4 more years, I thought that was the whole point of having cheap young talent? Maybe they just don’t give a shit.
And now the UGLY…
Derek Shelton should not be in charge of a low volume Dollar General. Also do not go to the Dollar General on Banksville Road. It was like a hurricane went thru there and they were just like “yeah we had a hurricane come thru in 2009, what do you want?” I went in there for some cleaning products and this guy was working the register, or at least a guy wearing the same shirt.
Shelton has the same winning percentage as John Russell. I understand that he does not have the 1998 Yankees lineup but he cannot manage at all. There must be some responsibility on the manager to know when to pull guys and manage a lineup. He cannot do either. He was also given an extension after a half decent first month of the season. Was there a huge demand for managers with no winning seasons and below .400 winning percentages? Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton do not inspire much hope in me. I hope I am wrong, but I wont be. They have lost 5 of 6 out of the All Star break and have been embarrassingly bad. I am pretty sure Quinn Priester is still on the mound giving up bombs to the Guardians….
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