Kovacevic: A smart pick for smart reasons, Tomlin's true discipline, protecting Tanev

The Pirates picked the player atop their draft board. Additionally, they'll probably barter him down to a lower signing bonus to spend on more prospects. And as an aside, if not intentionally, they gained two other pluses in that Henry Davis, this sweet-swinging, flame-throwing catcher out of the University of Louisville, plays at a position of organizational need and, because he's 21, he'll arrive at PNC Park that much sooner.

Problem here, anyone?

Wait ... there are actual complaints?

Wow. Imagine that.

All right, I'll try this again: Bob Nutting, the embodiment of evil personified, presided over all of this from his secret lair and demanded that Ben Cherington choose the cheapest possible player so that Cherington could ... hmmm, yeah, he'd still end up spending every penny of the Pirates' allotted $14,394,000 on the draft class as a whole. 

So that doesn't work.

Maybe this: Nutting, the embodiment of evil personified, demanded that Cherington choose the youngest possible player so that the Pirates could avoid ever having to raise payroll within the same contending window and ... uh, no, that's a dud, too. Either of the top high school prospects, shortstops Marcelo Mayer and Jordan Lawlar, both 18, would've achieved that nefarious goal. But again, Davis is 21.

Drat and double-drat!

A-ha! This, by jove, is the one: Davis is ... Tony Sanchez! Because ... well, whatever, he just is! So long as we affix the appropriate sinister laughter!

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Had enough?

Yeah, me, too. 

I really like this pick, and I can rattle off a handful of very real reasons for that:

1. Dude can rake.

This marks the second year in a row Cherington's invested his top pick in the draft's top college bat, including Nick Gonzales. This makes me smile. There are zero certainties in baseball drafts, but a college hitter's as close as it comes, both in terms of performance and health.

In his just-completed sophomore season at Louisville, Davis batted .370 with 15 home runs, 48 RBIs, 31 walks against 24 strikeouts, and an ACC-leading .482 on-base percentage. Scouts graded his power a 70 on the traditional 20-80 scale -- that's tremendous -- and it wasn't exactly a secret:

2. Give. Me. Hitters. 

Where pitchers wind up being needed at the big-league level -- they will -- trade hitting prospects as necessary. And, of course, draft pitchers in big bulk in later rounds. But the Pirates aren't going to be one of those teams that can afford a No. 1 overall pick suddenly clutching his elbow on the first day of Instructs.

This is Pittsburgh. We've been part of the National League since 1887, and our next truly great pitcher will be our first. Build with bats. Load up on the lumber.

3. That arm, too.

Davis' other elite trait, per scouts, is his arm, also rated a 70. He threw out 46% of runners attempting to steal this past season at Louisville and, actually, the more common outcome is that they wouldn't run at all.

Because:

That's not appreciated as much as it used to be, but I get the sense that'll change soon, based on some proposals being floated to boomerang back to more old-school base-to-base baseball, notably bigger bases that'll result in more safe calls and, thus, more steals. Before long, everyone'll be searching for those 70 arms.

4. Keith Law loves him.

Long one of the game's great analysts of amateur talent, as well as a longtime friend I've learned to trust over the years, had Davis No. 1 on his board, too. Now, to know Keith, he marches to his own drum, but that's a good thing in this business that too often falls prey to groupthink.

Of Davis' offense alone, Keith sees "an elite approach, an ideal combination of selectivity, pitch recognition and hand acceleration."

Of the Pirates' choice, Keith says, "I think they did take the best possible player."

For the record, back in 2008, when the whole baseball world was going gaga over Pedro Alvarez, Keith was among the precious few pounding the figurative table instead for another catcher, Buster Posey. If only everyone had heeded that.

5. The kid seems great.

Don't laugh that off. Baseball's a hard game, founded on how one responds to failure. Character counts.

I loved this last night from Cherington: "When we'd ask Henry about his experience in Louisville, about an at-bat or a home run or something, he can talk about that and he can explain that. But then when you ask him about how the team did, he gets particularly passionate about that and really honest about the successes at Louisville and also some stretches when they may not have done as well as they wanted to. ... We feel really good about the person we're betting on here."

And this from Davis, who referenced his recent workout at PNC Park: "I mean, going there and meeting with all of them, everybody in the organization, it was clear they’re all chasing the same thing. They’re chasing greatness for the Pirates. They see the vision where they can be great, where they can win World Series, and just being able to contribute a teeny bit going toward that goal, I’m super excited. I’m ready to go."

And this right after the pick:

Go ahead and laugh at the 'World Series' stuff. Everyone does around here. But if they don't have that faith, and if a player doesn't come with the heart to have that faith, then what are they doing?

It's another conspiracy-free brick for the foundation.

• If there's anyone left who thinks Cherington and Neal Huntington have anything in common, let's settle that with one simple press of the play button:

Cherington's very Pittsburgh for a guy who had no connections here. Just tells it like it is. Doesn't really worry how it'll be perceived.

He'll also never get pushed around the way his predecessor did. And I don't mean by Nutting.

• Once more for everyone in back: Positional needs or preferences don't matter in baseball drafts. And where Cherington's concerned, as he confirmed to me the other day, the Pirates will spend the remaining rounds picking from the board without even glancing at a player's position. Similarly, regarding Davis, Cherington said afterward, "We did not take him because he was a catcher."

Stop, stop, stop referring to positions when discussing baseball drafts. The players are too far away for that to matter, and there are countless other ways to address positional shortcomings, anyway. All that matters, within each acquisition -- however it's made -- is adding the best possible talent. The rest, as Cherington further told me, "sorts itself out."

• Timetables don't matter to Cherington, either, but I'm not going to lie in sharing that I'm A-OK with college vs. high school in this setting. To me, that contending window comes with every swing Bryan Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes take.

• Rodolfo Castro shouldn't spend another day of his life in Blair County:

He turned 22 in May, he was just called up ... not from Indy but from Altoona ... and he did all that in one wonderful afternoon. That's some rare air, and it can't be stifled.

This is really cool, by the way. I could get used to watching exciting, young players grow up right in front of my eyes.

• The current Pirates closed their unofficial first half yesterday in New York with a rousing five-run rally and 6-5 victory over the Mets that raised their record to 34-56 ... putting them on pace for 101 losses.

There's no circumstance under which 100 losses isn't ugly. I write all the time that it's terribly hard to do, and that's because you've got to be terrible to do it. There've been a handful of pleasant surprises, individually in the form of a few players, collectively in the form of vastly improved defensive metrics, but there's nowhere to run from triple-digit losses.

Who's to blame?

Ultimately, that's always Nutting. He's at the top, and he's the one who kept Huntington and Kyle Stark employed for far too long. But let's not absolve Huntington and Stark themselves for leaving the system bone dry at the Class AAA level, and even their replacements for not making very much of, say, Kevin Newman, who was a productive hitter just two years ago.

I've understood why this process had to be undertaken, and I've applauded the approach to date. That won't make 100 losses stink any less.

• Adam Frazier reached the break leading the majors in hits with 115, including three more yesterday. That should be respected accordingly. Meaning by Cherington. He can't just be given away. There needs to be a top-100 prospect and an arm in return.

• I've got zero interest in the All-Star Game or any such affair in any sport anymore. If it's possible, I've got even less interest in the Home Run Derby.

One of these days, one league or another will just say forget it -- my money's on the NFL and the miserable Pro Bowl -- but the ratings first need to dip even lower. Which they will, seeing as each of the past four has marked a new historic bottom.

Fans clearly care about who gets selected for these events but, just as clearly, couldn't care less about the events themselves. So, carry on the voting, announce the selections with proper pomp and circumstance at each home stadium -- like the treatment Frazier got at PNC Park -- and give everyone a couple days off.

• In 2005, my first year on the baseball beat for the Post-Gazette, Jason Bay played in all 162 games for the Pirates. No one's done that since. Next-closest was Josh Bell in 2017 with 159.

I vividly recall one day in Cincinnati in that 2005 season, in Lloyd McClendon's office, when I asked if he'd ever planned to give Bay a breather.

"You mean a day off?" he replied.

I did.

"How old's J-Bay?"

He's 26, I came back.

"He'll have days off when he's 30. Go out there and ask him if he wants a day off."

I did. He didn't.

Let Hayes and Reynolds play, Skip. The system's unfair enough. The Pirates got Bay's best years. The Red Sox, Mets and Mariners got the rest. Feels like a semi-leveling of the field to me.

KARL ROSER / STEELERS

Mike Tomlin addresses player at the Steelers' minicamp last month at Heinz Field.

STEELERS

• The degree to which an NFL head coach instills discipline isn't measured by whether or not he jaws at his shanking punter coming off the field.

Nor in how he polices his players' social media accounts.

It comes, first and foremost, in the effort his team gives each Sunday and, within that, how efficiently they execute plays and how they avoid taking penalties. This facet's way, way, way above all else.

But allow me to throw into the pile that the Steelers have been, by every available metric, maybe the league's very best at managing this pandemic. They navigated 2020 without an outbreak, coping only with isolated cases here or there. And now, according to the league's medical staff, they were among the first three teams to top an 85% vaccination rate -- that was in the third week of June -- and they've since topped 90%.

That's discipline. And that's to the credit, primarily, of Mike Tomlin.

Be sure to give him 0% of that credit, the cynic in me wants to say, while instead fussing over JuJu Smith-Schuster's latest TikTok and suggesting that players never would've danced under Chuck Noll or Bill Cowher.

• Tomlin's total of three playoff victories in the past decade is wholly unacceptable. Both things can be true, meaning that he's good at his job and he needs to do better.

• No idea what's going on with Devin Bush the past few days on Twitter, not least of which was this striking tweet over the weekend ...

... but if Vince Williams sounds concerned ...

... then so am I. About the individual, not about any alleged coaching or culture issue.

These guys just need to get into camp. All of them. I've long believed that the main reason NFL players put themselves into more lousy situations on social media than their sporting peers is that they've got so much more down time. And there's no worse period for down time than the six-week span between minicamp and training camp. Absolutely nothing happens.

• Ben Roethlisberger will be terrible.

He'll refuse to ever hand off to Najee Harris, he'll be caught in multiple confrontations with Matt Canada, he'll have a completion percentage of 7.0%, he'll be benched by midseason, he'll be overtaken not by Mason Rudolph but by Dwayne Haskins, and he'll then be abducted by a band of 2-foot-tall Martians right off his front lawn in broad daylight.

Am I doing this right?

Because I'd really love to have a job at a four-letter network someday.

• Look, I'm a little worried about Ben, too. That's only natural after how he finished, especially in the playoff debacle.

But let's get real here: In his past two full seasons, 2018 and 2020, including the playoff loss, he threw for 71 touchdowns, 30 interceptions and 9,433 yards over 32 games. That's a per-game average of 2.2 touchdowns, 0.94 interceptions and 294 yards. And I should add that all of this is after Antonio Brown left and while a young receiving group was left in his wake. And that this receiving group led the NFL in drops in 2020. And that the running game ranked dead last. And that his offensive coordinator did a lousy enough job that he'd get fired at season's end.

This player, my friends, ain't the problem.

• I don't know about the O-line. That obviously could derail everything.

But I do know that, if one or more of the linemen disappoints in any way, it won't take the coaches long to see it. And neither Tomlin nor Kevin Colbert will shrug that off and just ride with those players regardless. They'll be replaced. Before Buffalo.

I'm not currently expecting that, but I'm also not ignoring the possibility. Nowhere is it cemented that anyone -- I mean anyone -- on this line is a starter.

GETTY

The Kraken's Ron Francis.

PENGUINS

• The NHL's Expansion Draft is July 21, just nine days away, and I'm finally starting to turn some gears related to who the Penguins should protect among the allotted seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender:

Forwards: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Jared McCann, Kasperi Kapanen, Brandon Tanev

Defensemen: Kris Letang, Brian Dumoulin, Cody Ceci

Goaltender: Tristan Jarry

Prefacing that not all players are eligible -- John Marino and P.O Joseph, for example -- don't need to be protected -- the main guys left exposed on my list are Teddy Blueger, Jeff Carter, Jason Zucker, Mike Matheson and Marcus Pettersson. And my guess, from there, is that Ron Francis, a two-way Hall of Fame center, might choose Blueger. Carter's 36 years old and might not even be back, which makes him too big a risk for Seattle, and Zucker, Matheson and Pettersson are all unwieldy cap hits.

Tanev vs. Blueger is an easy one for me. The former offers traits the Penguins still need to add in abundance, while Blueger's a fourth-liner on the current depth chart and could, theoretically, have that spot filled by Radim Zohorna.

There. That's it.

• If I'm Ron Hextall, I'm on the horn with Carter and/or his agent as if the entirety of next season depended on his return. Which it just might. Imagine having to replace him.

• As for the regular old NHL Draft, that starts three days later, and the Penguins, barring an unforeseen trade up, won't pick until -- yikes -- No. 57 overall. Then again in the fifth round. Then three times in the seventh and final round.

Can't say this often enough, even though I began saying it after the second of the consecutive Cups: This trend desperately needs to be reversed.

• Zero issue here with Nikita Kucherov's ... uh, intoxicating post-Cup press conference:

For one, we're all watching them chugging champagne, right?

For another, as many times as I've interviewed Kucherov, including a couple one-on-ones, I'd no clue he had any personality. In this context alone, I feel like I found out more about him in this five-minute clip -- drunken or not -- than I ever could've otherwise. And I'm certain I'll never see him the same way again, even as a player. Meaning in a good way.

Imagine if the NHL did more -- no, anything -- to let fans see its stars' personalities.

Not all athletes are created equally, and not all are appreciated equally.

That's something the dinosaurs in the league offices have never fully processed. No one remembers the other swimmers around Michael Phelps, nor the other gymnasts around Simone Biles, and no one cares about a fourth-line plugger as much as they do hockey's best and brightest. They're inherently more interesting to fans if only because they're capable of doing greater things on the ice.

This attitude won't change until Gary Bettman's gone, though, and maybe not even then.

• Part of Kucherov's rant was to blast Vezina Trophy voters was to award that to "that guy in Vegas" -- Marc-Andre Fleury, of course -- rather than Andrei Vasilevskiy, which is a fair point to raise. But here's guessing that he -- like most, from what I gather -- doesn't realize the Vezina is the one trophy chosen by the NHL's 31 general managers. And for the record, the Professional Hockey Writers Association named Vasilevskiy to the first-team postseason All-Star team with 405 voting points, and had Fleury a distant second with 278. Additionally, Vasilevskiy had 67 first-place votes to Fleury's 27. Which should powerfully suggest how the Vezina voting would've gone if it were up to reporters.

Why'd the GMs go with Fleury?

Impossible to be certain, but the history of the Vezina is that goaltenders kind of work their way into it. They get good, stay good, and eventually it's their turn.

Also, here's further guessing the GMs don't exactly knock themselves out in research when filling out these ballots.

• Closing these 21 Takes with stick taps for the truly great Tom McMillan, the behind-the-scenes spirit of the Penguins since the 1990s in his role as master of communications, who retired from the job this past week.

There isn't an issue related to the team, particularly off the ice, that he didn't handle adroitly, and he did so with an uncommon mix of passion and professionalism. He's also someone I trusted enough to be among the very few I phoned on the weekend before losing my mind and starting this venture seven years ago, and his advice -- rational, knowledgeable but also excited -- is a big reason this thing exists today.

Best of luck and health in retirement, my friend. Richly deserved.

Oh, and read his book on Flight 93. It's the definitive account of that chapter of 9-11, masterfully researched and written.