One month, the Pirates are Major League Baseball's best.
The next, they're bound for the basement.
One night, they can't score a solitary run at Coors Field.
The next, they put up a 10-spot and have their starter shake hands with the catcher.
Get used to it, because there are 48 more games to go, and they'll go right on looking a whole lot like that. It's a younger roster, in particular a younger rotation, and it's going to keep riding mounds like they're the Rocky Mountains through to the end. That's who they are. That's where they are.
And you know what?
That's who they always were going to be.
I offer this not to be fatalistic or even pessimistic. The math is the math and, depending on which way one views one's cup, they're either another fun winning streak away from further contention, or they're five games behind the National League's two wild card teams, amid a pack of five total teams in pursuit.
The front office, of course, knew this. Bob Nutting, Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington knew this would be the case -- the rosiest case, actually -- when they dumped the contracts of Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole. And yes, you'd better believe they knew this last week when they stirringly added Chris Archer and Keone Kela.
One gross misconception that emerged almost immediately from the big deadline day was that the Pirates were ... say it with me ... ALL IN.
When that term is used, it most commonly describes pushing one's chips toward the center of the table for that particular season. And these trades were nothing of the sort. Archer is under team control through 2021, and that at highly affordable salaries of $8.25 million should each of his final two club option years get exercised. That's a spectacular term for a reliable starter. Kela is under team control through 2020, with two arbitration years remaining after this season, for which he's receiving $1.2 million. Yet another highly favorable term.
They weren't acquired for 2018. They were acquired for the next three or four seasons.
The fact that the national media -- and some around here, too -- gushed about the Pirates going wild to win in 2018 probably had a lot to do with the public responding similarly. Some even expressed concern about adding so much to a team that had been so maddeningly inconsistent. Neither reaction was warranted.
Same goes for the front office suddenly becoming strikingly visible around PNC Park in the past week, this after months in the bunker. Nutting and Coonelly both issued statements crowing about how they did the right thing. Huntington made himself available for interviews all over the place.
That was smart on their part. Rare is any positive perception that comes their way. They did well to embrace it.
But hey, look, these were good trades, both of them. And the fact that they weren't about 2018 makes them all the better. It's just important, I think, to keep them in the right context.
• So why did the front office make the trades?
By now, it's painfully obvious they're incapable of being embarrassed, so it's nowhere near enough to suggest they were done for PR purposes. And since we're talking about the Pirates, there's no way it could have been purely for baseball reasons.
To boost attendance?
No chance. It's pure mythology that attendance is some dominant revenue generator. According to the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2019 will mark the first year in which television revenue -- alone -- will outdo attendance revenue across all four major sports. And that's to say nothing of countless other streams of revenue such as stadium naming rights, web-based properties, merchandise and more.
Put it another way: The Pirates could lock up PNC Park for the entirety of 2019, not allow a single fan into the place, and still be fine financially.
No, the real motivation behind the trades, meaning the unprecedented approach of giving up valued younger players in exchange for known commodities, was twofold:
1. Local TV rights
2. Stadium naming rights
Always follow the money with these guys, and this is where the real money awaits. Potentially, anyway. The contracts with both AT&T SportsNet and PNC for the TV rights and stadium rights, respectively, both expire within the next year. Negotiations are underway between all concerned. And be very, very sure that neither of those two outside entities could have been ecstatic about the public constantly eviscerating -- or even talking about boycotting -- the Pirates while they were haggling over hundreds of millions of dollars.
That's what brought the change. And that's what brought those pitchers to Pittsburgh.
• Pretty soon, Sean Rodriguez's DL assignments will be determined by flinging darts at an anatomical chart.
Unless, of course, the dart hits the same target twice.
'No, go again! We did the abdomen last time!'
• Jordy Mercer won't be easily replaced when he leaves as a free agent after this season, no matter how much anyone tries to build up the infield prospects at Indianapolis -- Kevin Newman hit for the cycle last night and went 5 for 5, on that note -- or the new arrival, two-time castoff Adeiny Hechavarria. Mercer's solid slash line of .260/.328/.398 has been bolstered of late by reaching base safely in 19 of the past 20 games, for a .344 batting average plus eight walks and two HBPs.
He's a good, good ballplayer at a critical position. Try to remember what it was like before him.
• Including Taillon's gem last night, the Pirates' ERA over the past full month -- from July 8 to now -- is 3.09. That's the best in the league in that time, third-best in the majors behind the Red Sox and Athletics, both at 2.89.
Man, that matters a lot:
• Wait, Mason Rudolph's turn tomorrow night in Philadelphia won't come until near the end?
So much for tuning out after the first couple drives. Here's betting this will be the Steelers' highest TV ratings for a preseason fourth quarter in forever.
• Mike Tomlin and Keith Butler can get as clever as they please with defensive schemes, multiple hybrid safeties and all, but I won't feel better about that side of the ball until Vince Williams and Jon Bostic definitively take hold at inside linebacker. And honestly, maybe not even then.
Sorry, but I can't fathom a defense being soft in the middle but somehow strong overall.
• Le'Veon Bell can take all the time he wants, it turns out, at least if he's capable of this amazing gaffe-based feat discovered in EA's new 'Madden' game:
when your jump cut rating is 1000 ? pic.twitter.com/vPptrWqgjv
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) August 8, 2018
For real, Bell's the only one who can do it. It's like he's teleporting to the Andromeda galaxy.
• The Browns are this year's 'Hard Knocks' team on HBO, and Jarvis Landry, a newcomer to professional sports' most miserable franchise, whipped up the boys with a pre-camp speech that aired last night but really deserves to be printed out -- and devoured for each glorious syllable -- in its entirety:
“I don’t know what the [expletive] has been going on here! And I don’t know why it’s been going on! But if you’re not hurt, like if your hamstring ain’t falling off -- [expletive] gone -- your leg ain’t broke, you should be [expletive] practicing! Straight up! Like that [expletive] is weakness, and that [expletive] is contagious as [expletive], and that [expletive] ain’t going to be in this room, bro! That [expletive] been here in the past, and that’s why the past has been like it is, bro! That [expletive] is over with here, bro! If you’re going to [expletive] practice, [expletive] practice! Ain’t nobody going to get better by being on the [expletive] sideline if you ain’t [expletive] hurt! If you’re not [expletive] hurt, you’ve got to [expletive] practice! Because you make other [expletive] work even [expletive] harder! Now they’re at more [expletive] risk of getting hurt, because you don’t want to [expletive] practice, because you’re being a [expletive]! Straight up, man! That [expletive] is [expletive] real, bro! That [expletive] ain’t happening here! I’m just letting y’all know! That [expletive] is not [expletive] happening here. I’m hurt and I’m tired just like every [expletive] body in this room, but I ain’t taking no [expletive] days off, because I can’t be [expletive] great that way! That’s got to be the [expletive] attitude and the mentality all the [expletive] time! All that ‘me’ [expletive] don’t [expletive] live here no more! That [expletive] don’t exist! It’s contagious, bro! Like it’s really [expletive] contagious! It’s contagious!”
Yeah, but is it contagious?
Afterward on social media, of course, Landry got all pious:
Bless’m Then ??
— Jarvis Juice Landry (@God_Son80) August 8, 2018
• Am I the only one who feels older only upon hearing that a prominent athlete has a birthday?
Seriously, Sidney Crosby turned 31, and that's just all kinds of wrong.