Kovacevic: Cherington fairly laments loss of uplifting spring

Ben Cherington doesn't have a poker face so much as a poker existence.

So when he came aboard a conference call Monday from Bradenton, Fla., where the Pirates have mostly abandoned camp following Major League Baseball's advice over the weekend, it was never going to be easy to pick up emotion. He's calm, calculated, always seemingly considering all options even in mid-sentence.

And yet, when I asked the new boss, daring to broach actual baseball on a call that was understandably all about coronavirus, how he'd felt about his team at the stage where our whole world was interrupted, he opened with a slight pause and this: "It feels like a while ago now."

Yeah. Sure does.

"We were really excited about the kind of work that a lot of our players were doing," he kept going. "The energy and the attention that was going into making some adjustments, some important skill adjustments, and the attempt to bring that into games ... "

And then, with one of those mid-sentence adjustments, maybe realizing that some actually take Grapefruit League results seriously, he veered slightly, "Of course, when you have that happening, it's not all going to show up on the field right away. Sometimes it may affect outcomes in the short term. But I think Shelty and our coaching staff and our performance team and all of us around the players were excited about the kind of work that they were doing and the progress that some of our young players were making."

Trust me, I've spent enough time around the man since his hiring to appreciate that's the equivalent of Cherington shouting to the sky while streaking down the Boulevard of the Allies on any other year's St. Patty's Day.

He isn't alone. I made two trips to spring training and both times came away with one impression above all: Cherington, Derek Shelton and the players themselves saw themselves as incomplete, imperfect pieces within a puzzle that's got genuine potential.

I do, too. I've covered a 105-loss team, that miserable collection under John Russell in 2010, the one that sent the setup reliever to the All-Star Game. This isn't that team. Yeah, that one had a 23-year-old Andrew McCutchen and a year-older Neil Walker on the way up, but it also had Garrett Jones as the home run leader with 21 and not that much more in the lineup. In the rotation, it was all soft-tossing except for the early, enigmatic version of Charlie Morton. Worse, they were close to catastrophic defensively, so they just looked bad.

Now, that's not my bar. I'm bringing this up solely because that seems to be most people's bar.

I've never foreseen contention in 2020, but I'm also on record as never having cared about that. I wanted to see them get better, particularly the younger guys, enough that they'd be worth supplementing sooner rather than later.

Bryan Reynolds can get better, believe it or not. Kevin Newman, too. Josh Bell. Mitch Keller. Joe Musgrove. Cole Tucker. Ke'Bryan Hayes. A whole bunch more, notably all the flamethrowing children in the pen. And each of those individuals would support that sentiment without taking it as some insult. Heck, they'd probably be willing to write out entire theses on how they can get better.

As Steven Brault told me early in the spring, "Most guys in here ... it's not that we haven't hit our ceilings but that we aren't even close to our ceilings."

Maybe they'd have smashed their heads against the ceilings had the season started on time. Maybe they still will, if it ever gets going. But the excitement within the fold wasn't the usual, standard spring tripe. They'd felt it. They'd seen it.

Cherington wasn't done in conveying his disappointment from a pure baseball standpoint that it stopped.

"We came into spring training certainly with intentions to try to accomplish something, and I think, largely, that was happening. And we really wanted it to continue happening."

Same with all that symbiosis stuff that so many down there had been praising.

"Probably the hardest part about Saturday and then, even in the last two days as we've had to wind things down and players have left, is that it really was a sense of disappointment from our players that they couldn't continue that work. The initial response from the vast majority of our players several days ago, as information was still evolving, was, 'I really want to stay. We want to stay in Bradenton and continue this work.' I think they were excited about the work they were doing. But we will just need to continue that work and do it in different ways."

It was good work. Promising work. I could bore to tears with the specifics shared with me by certain players, but it was there. Tucker and Hayes lifting the launch in their swings. Bell's three-quarter throwing motion. Musgrove and Keller working high in the zone for the first time. The framing tricks being taught to the catchers by new instructor Glenn Sherlock. Also there was the glint in their eyes when they spoke, as if they'd encountered some great eureka moment in their careers.

For so many reasons, most of them beyond sports, it'll be wonderful to see that restarted.

• If anyone's reaction to what's above is to cite the Pirates' 3-15-1 spring record as being emblematic of anything at all ... I'll phrase this kindly: Arrange a trip to Florida next year to experience Grapefruit ball in person. You'll love everything about it and, in this case, you'll also learn why it wouldn't matter if the Pirates had gone 19-0.

• Take this for what it's worth, amid the mounting contradictory reports about the delay before resuming baseball, also from Cherington: "Our hope is, with every intention, there will be a season. That we will play major-league games, minor-league games in 2020. Play as many of them as we can, both at the major-league and minor-league level. I think there's a level of confidence that will happen. But, of course, none of us can know for sure."

I'll take it. There's a lot I'll allow myself to envision about the weeks and months ahead. But what'd have to happen to kill baseball for a summer ... I can't go there.

• I've got a hard time going here, too, but for very different reasons.

There's a full piece to be written about Ramon Foster. I've never covered anyone quite like him in terms of class, accountability and just plain old caring. Readers often ask me to rank my favorite people in the years on this job, and he'll always be right up there. Assigning one measly bullet to that after a busy day wouldn't be right by him.

Suffice it to say for now that I'm delighted he exited on his terms. No cut. No trade. No pleading for work. A Steeler for life.

• It's nice to see the Nation eschew the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately thinking in embracing Ramon on social media after his announcement, and he clearly appreciated it, as well:

Unreal and I truly appreciate it. My phone hasn’t stopped since myself and the @steelers made the post. Truly, thank you all. Forever grateful for y’all and the love and respect you send back. I need to stop listening to this Frank Sinatra “My Way”. ?✌?❤️

— Ramon Foster (@RamonFoster) March 17, 2020

He had a rough year. But he was here a lot longer than that and gave it his all.

• Hail and farewell to Javon Hargrave, too. No reason for the Steelers to have been paying anywhere near the three years and $39 million he got from the Eagles. The D-line will be fine without him. Good as he is, he still wasn't as good as either Cam Heyward or Stephon Tuitt.

• Imagine how unsettling it'd have been if, on top of the pending apocalypse, the Browns hadn't been complete dopes at the opening of NFL free agency. Meaning, among other overpays, three years and $18 million for a backup quarterback. For Case Keenum. On the first day he hit the market.

Bless their souls.

• There won't be a dumber trade in professional sports in 2020 than Bill O'Brien and the Texans giving away DeAndre Hopkins to the Cardinals for David Johnson. I mean, comparing Hopkins to Johnson would be an insult to anyone's intelligence, including, I might add, O'Brien's own.

But let this serve as Exhibit A for why it's dangerous to have coaches double as GMs. Because word out of Houston is that there was friction between O'Brien and Hopkins, possibly over Hopkins seeking a redo of his contract with three years left. And if the coach gets rubbed the wrong way, than the field-level dynamic carries into the front office, where cooler heads should always prevail.

I've long admired O'Brien, primarily for his work in resuscitating the Penn State program, but the guy's mindboggling at times.

• Before anyone asks, Mike Tomlin's got a lot of say, but he's also got a great big check-and-balance GM in Kevin Colbert. The relationship, the responsibility, it's all shared. But it works.

• After three days of silence, this was pitch perfect from the Penguins:

"We are a resilient group and we are going to get through this." ? pic.twitter.com/ihesIe2iIx

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 16, 2020

First public words from Jake Guentzel since that frightful crash ... with all the hope he'd represent if/when the Stanley Cup playoffs begin ... yeah, that's how to do it.

• We're about to embark on silly season for predictions as to how those playoffs will proceed, but one that's making thick rounds in the Canadian media is the implementation of a -- wait for it -- 24-team tournament. The top four teams in each conference would get a first-round bye while the other 16 would face each other in best-of-three series.

The local catch: The Penguins would be the East's No. 5 seed -- behind Bruins, Lightning, Capitals and Flyers -- and, thus, forced to partake in one of these best-of-threes.

I know, I know. Just sharing. But for the record, I did predict a couple days ago that there was no way the league would dare leave the Rangers out because they're in New York, so here we go.

• Snapped this pic Monday evening on East Ohio Street on the North Side, where a line stretched nearly a full block to get into a State Store, all of which will close Tuesday at 9 p.m.:

This won't work voluntarily. It just won't.

Be better. Be smarter. If not for yourselves, then for those of us who want this to end sooner rather than later.