ST. LOUIS -- Starling Marte seems to think he'll be available at Major League Baseball's trade deadline, at least judging by the number of separate occasions on which he mentioned that -- three -- through the Pirates' three-game set with the Cardinals this week at Busch Stadium.
That means next to nothing, of course. It's not as if Neal Huntington's consulting him on the matter. And for what it's worth, other than one whisper about the Phillies being interested, I haven't heard anything additional on that front, either.
This, on the other hand, does matter: This team values this player. And yeah, everyone involved gets just as exasperated by his lapses as the rest of us, but that's not how they measure him. It just isn't.
I've heard this intermittently from various people at various levels of the organization for years, but I've never heard it expressed more powerfully, more candidly than how Kimera Bartee, the first base coach and outfield instructor, did for me this week.
"You take the good with the bad," Bartee began. "He's an elite athlete. There are some days when he can literally out-athlete the game. And there are other days where ... he gets exposed. But you take that."
Bartee shook his head, looking toward Marte's stall, which was nearby but out of earshot.
"I love him. I've known him since he was 16 years old. I back him, I support him in everything he does. And sure, I've got to coach him up. But I don't ever want to take his athleticism away from him. I want him to go out there and ..."
Bartee paused again, reminding me of this fun Barry Sanders clip I'd shared with him on my iPhone earlier in the day:
Happy 51st birthday to Barry Sanders, who could still make any defender miss in the open field today. Absolute legend. pic.twitter.com/JmD2ewhdT1
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) July 16, 2019
"It's funny," Bartee continued, "but we're talking about Barry and his ability to do things on the field, running free, that nobody else could do. The Lions didn't even need to block for him. Just leave him alone. Let him do his thing. That's what we do with Marte. We respect what he brings. We want him to do what he does."
What he does, to summarize it in a single sequence, is stuff like this:
That was in the seventh inning Tuesday night, in the Pirates' invigorating-at-the-time 3-1 victory over the Cardinals. Marte led off with a single, then Josh Bell's flyout sent Harrison Bader back to the track in center. That's almost always a no-go for a tag, as are most tags from first. But Bartee and Marte had communicated after his hit about at least tagging up on anything in the air.
"We knew Bader was out there. We knew his arm," Bartee told me that night, trying hard to be polite about Bader's Gateway Arch throw up there. "We just wanted to put pressure on him."
OK, so that means he sent Marte, too?
"It wasn't a complete send. I was just getting him in that position. Read the play."
That's evident upon further review. Watch Marte's eyes on the last of those replays. Watch his body language. The initiative to go is his.
"Taking that base is to Starling's credit," Bartee said. "My job's to put him in position. Let the athlete take over from there."
I approached Marte to ask him about that, too. He was in no mood. Earlier in the day, I'd asked about his latest baserunning lapse, and he semi-struggled through that session. But when I clarified I'd only be asking about the tag, his eyes lit up.
"I saw the guy running back so far," Marte told me of Hader. "I thought I got a chance. I come back to the base."
His eyes went wider.
"It's the right decision. I think I can get it. I get it."
He gets it more than most seem to realize.
MORE PIRATES
• Jordan Lyles is being made available in trade talks by the Pirates, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. That led an executive from an American League team to text me this: “Who would want him?” Only a team more desperate for pitching than the Pirates. Lyles has a 10.13 ERA in his last seven starts after compiling a stellar 1.98 mark in his first eight outings. Lyles has a low salary of $2.05 million, but the executive thinks not even that makes Lyles attractive to other teams – John Perrotto
• Francisco Cervelli revealed last weekend that he has renewed hopes of catching again after being examined by Micky Collins, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Cervelli has six documented concussions over 12 seasons in the major leagues. Collins is widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority on sports concussions and athletes from all over the country travel to Pittsburgh to be examined by him. That led one Pirates player to ask, “Why did it take so long for him to see that doctor? He’s right here in town. That makes no sense.” One big reason is that the Pirates are contracted with Allegheny General Hospital to provide the team’s health care. – Perrotto
• That the Pirates stopped Gregory Polanco’s rehab assignment at Class AAA Indianapolis earlier this week wasn’t a big shocker. The Pirates had made it clear ever since Polanco had surgery to repair a torn labrum last September that his left shoulder would not be completely healed this season. Polanco deserves plenty of credit for his work in rehab that enabled him to return by the end of April. However, sometimes nature must take its course before injuries heal, and that’s how the Pirates are viewing Polanco’s setback. – Perrotto
• It was widely reported that Joe Maddon was trying to get to Clint Hurdle on July 4 at PNC Park when the Cubs’ manager had a meltdown and was ejected from the game after what he felt was one too many inside pitches from Lyles. It turns out that Maddon’s beef is with Ray Searage and not Hurdle, according to a Cubs person. Like each of the other four teams in the National League Central, the Cubs fear their players are at risk of injury by the Pirates’ style of pitching inside and feel Searage is to blame. Rightly or wrongly, the Pirates pitching staff has developed a reputation of being headhunters by many hitters in the division -- Perrotto
STEELERS
• It was nice to have the deadline pass to sign players who had the franchise tag placed upon them without having to worry about it. That had not been the case the previous two years covering the Steelers because of the Le'Veon Bell situation. Now, we're seeing more players threaten holdouts and carping about having the franchise tag placed on them. With the league and NFLPA currently negotiating a new CBA, look for these holdouts and the franchise tag to be addressed. It's unlikely owners are going to give up the franchise tag. But, the NFLPA could push to have the exclusive rights portion taken out of the equation and allow all franchise-tagged players to become free agents. The caveat would be that a team who signs a franchise player would have to give up multiple draft picks. As for players under contract holding out, as the Chargers' Melvin Gordon and Cowboys' Ezekiel Elliott are threatening, the league is concerned about that, especially given what happened with Antonio Brown. It could push for stronger sanctions against players who breach their contract. -- Dale Lolley
• It's going to be interesting to see whether the Steelers are primarily a nickel or dime team this season, something that will hash itself out in training camp and the preseason. Last year, the Steelers were in their base 3-4 defense just 30 percent of the time, while they ran nickel 33-percent of the time and dime 36-percent. That percentage in dime ranked third most in the NFL according to Football Outsiders, while the percentage in nickel was 30th in the league. With the additions of Mark Barron and Devin Bush, the Steelers appear to be better suited to run more nickel this season. What's the difference? In the nickel, the Steelers should be better able to stop the run while also defending the pass. Last season, 26 teams ran the nickel more than 50 percent of the time. But because the Steelers lacked a true three-down linebacker, they couldn't employ that defense as much, having to use Morgan Burnett and Cam Sutton as a dime "linebacker" beside Vince Williams. -- Lolley
PENGUINS
• Mike Sullivan has experienced a few major events this summer -- like agreeing to a four-year contract and taking a vacation to Bermuda -- but there's at least one more set of dates that he's circled on his calendar before training camp opens in September. "As a coaching staff, every year, toward the end of the summer, before we go back to training camp, we spend four days together -- my staff, Wilkes-Barre and Wheeling -- and we do our due diligence," Sullivan said. "We look at the league and some of the best practices, and everybody has responsibilities. We look at the top five power plays in the league, we look at the top five penalty-kills in the league, we look at teams that are good defensively, we look at teams that are good offensively and try to analyze different aspects of the game and figure out what are the best practices. Is there anything that we need to be doing that we're not? Is there something we should change to try to help us be more successful? We divvy up the duties -- everybody has their own responsibilities, in that regard -- and then we meet for four days and we watch tons of film on different teams, and we watch tons of film on our own team and we have discussions. When we come out of those four days, we have a clearer understanding of how we're going to play, down to the details, and all of those things." -- Dave Molinari
• Training camp is still nearly two months away, but at least for now, word from inside the organization is that no one is expected to miss the start of fall drills because of an injury or recuperation from off-season surgery. -- Molinari
• One of the most intriguing issues of this off-season has been where newcomers like Dominik Kahun and Alex Galchenyuk will fit into the lineup, since both are versatile enough to play multiple positions and could be slotted in at several spots. The answer? Well, it apparently hasn't been finalized yet. "We're still going to have coaches meetings between now and training camp where we'll probably make those types of decisions, on where we're going to start guys," Sullivan said. "We've given some thought into some potential scenarios, but we'll see where that goes. ... I think we have a lot of that versatility in our lineup. We have guys like Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann, who can play center and wing. We have a lot of flexibility throughout our lineup. It's a matter of trying to figure out what the best combinations are to help us win." -- Molinari
