CLEVELAND -- Check out that scene up there.
I snapped that in the seventh inning of these Pirates' latest slamming, 6-1 to the Guardians on this spectacular Sunday at still-pretty Progressive Field, and I did so to remind myself that there's so much more to this grand game than covering these guys squeezing out two whole singles over two hours. Or allowing fresh-off-the-IL Alex Cobb to pitch two-thirds of a perfect game. Or sliding to 10 games under .500 a year after finishing 10 games under .500. Or losing for the 21st time in 29 games. Or further cementing that they’re Major League Baseball's worst team this side of the White Sox, who are only a slightly lesser 4-24 in that same span.
Only the Pirates spoil such scenes. Here, there and everywhere.
Only the Pirates can make something so beautiful so brutal.
I’m almost out of stuff to say on this.
Almost.
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I won't bury the lede: Based upon conversations I've had while here this weekend, Derek Shelton and his coaching staff need to get it together over the final month, or they're as good as gone. I’m not guessing at that.
Repeat: I’m. Not. Guessing. At. That.
Now, what all that entails, I don’t know. Whether or not it’s already too late, I don’t know. But I do know that there’ll be an emphasis from above in having a September that looks a lot more encouraging than what’s been seen these past few weeks.
As for Ben Cherington's fate, I’ll confess to being out in the cold on that front. Can’t even take a safe stab. Even amid internal complaints and criticisms about amateur acquisition, overall development, wasted free-agency dollars, wasted Latin American dollars and more, there isn't a soul who'll suggest he's in trouble ... or that he isn't.
This much is certain: All of this will be up to Bob Nutting and Travis Williams, the team president who holds authority over the GM. That means all of it, including field-level staff. That's how it went in the fall of 2019, when Nutting paid out a combined $17.2 million to make Frank Coonelly, Neal Huntington, Kyle Stark and Clint Hurdle all go away. It was just Nutting. And it was just Nutting at the outset, too, personally firing Hurdle in his office at PNC Park on the season's final day before eventually firing the rest.
Speaking only for myself, I'll reiterate that I can't fathom separating Shelton from Cherington, though that seems to be the common public sentiment and expectation. Meaning that the manager would go, but not the GM.
Sorry, but I don't get that. A manager's an easy evaluation, and I very much understand why Shelton shouldn't survive a 281-401 record regardless of circumstance, never mind not progressing in Year 5. But exempting Cherington from the same context is completely impossible. He's the one whose trades transformed Starling Marte, Joe Musgrove, Josh Bell, Adam Frazier and Clay Holmes into David Bednar and not a thing else. He's the one who pulled off the extraordinary feat of making the minor-league system worse than the one he was hired to invigorate, now ranking 27th of 30 organizations per Baseball America. He's the one who set ablaze the better part of $33 million this past winter through free agency.
He's the one who hired Andy Haines, for crying out loud. And still hasn't fired him.
Oh, and he's also the one who's amassed the army of alleged analytics aces whose key contribution to this summer was advising that he should go grab Bryan De La Cruz at the trade deadline for that big pennant push. All .211, one home run and 31 strikeouts of him.
This franchise needs an enema. Front office. Field level.
Clubhouse, too.
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Not talking about the players, actually.
This might sound hard to believe for anyone who's participated in organized sports at any level, but particularly for those who've done so professionally: The Pirates' clubhouse here at Progressive Field, meaning the one room dedicated to the players, had 18 non-players occupying stalls.
Uh-huh ... 18.
Nameplates and all. All interspersed throughout the room among the players, as opposed to being set apart in some way. No one was any different than Andrew McCutchen.
And not only were these not players, they weren't even any of Shelton's coaches, all of whom had a separate room. Two were athletic trainers, and that's the norm. One was a strength coach, also the norm. But the other 15, from the best I could tell, were various versions of staffers, exercise assistants, nutritionists, video workers and more, all part of Cherington's years-long hiring spree that's brought the most bloated version of baseball operations anyone can recall.
So there were 28 active players and 18 staffers in there. Walked around and tallied 'em up myself after the game.
Again, I won't have to explain this to anyone with experience in sports, but ... uh, no. That ain't it.
My friends, I’ve covered big-league sports for three decades, and I’ve never seen anything like it. I haven't seen a single stall committed to a non-player with the Steelers or Penguins, teams with longstanding winning cultures. Not at their game venues and not even at their practice facilities. It's an easy laugh, though, imagining how Cam Heyward or Sidney Crosby would react to an outsider in their space. And I hadn't seen it with the Pirates, either, until a recent accumulation in road games. (An extra room was added at PNC Park to accompany the spree.)
What's more, I checked with a veteran baseball writer in another city to see if this is maybe some new fad that I'd missed, and the writer's response was that the Dodgers carry a "bunch" of staffers, too, including on the road, "but not that many," before adding that it's unusual for any team to stuff their clubhouses with them. The team that this writer covers doesn't do it at all.
So, why are those staffers in there?
I reached out to a team official who explained, without elaboration, that the Pirates feel it's important to try to get every edge they can.
Why, for those without experience in sports, does this matter?
It’s simple: The room is for the players in non-game periods. It’s not for anyone else. Even a manager or head coach or assistants tread lightly. (Mike Tomlin's a rare and vocal exception, I should add, just as I should throw in the obvious that reporters are permitted within regulated access periods.) But the foundation of the room, the stalls, the nameplates ... that's for players. It's what they dream about as children, work toward in the minors.
It's not for, say, Andy Bass, who's listed in the official team guide as 'coordinator, mental performance.'
More important, it's the place where the players are supposed to come together. Trust each other. Encourage each other. Hold each other accountable.
Any of that feel like it's happening to anyone right about now?
I asked someone I know well with an American League team about this, and the reply was, "Enormous non-difference-making head count."
I asked one individual here who legit belongs in the clubhouse how he felt about the current environment, and all I got back was an eyeroll and a slight laugh. I also asked this individual if he even knew most of their names or what they do, and all I got back was a head shake. That was the end of that talk.
But hey, why worry about the players?
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To set this straight before proceeding: I'm not dumping on the value any support staff brings to any team. There's a reason the Penguins passed out Stanley Cup championship rings to security personnel and cafeteria workers in 2016 and 2017. Everyone plays a part.
But taking a traveling flotilla of iPad-holders on the road, at the glaring expense of the players having a clubhouse to themselves ... that's the most Cherington/Shelton thing ever. If only because it prioritizes process over winning.
My son plays these video games in a category known as 'grand strategy,' where he'll spend hours, even days building a city or even an empire. And when I pass behind him and ask what's the objective, he'll just kinda shrug and say, "Nothing, really. You just keep building. World domination, I guess."
That's where Cherington and Shelton are. And no, not world domination.
They began building in 2020, they did so with visions of being either the next Tampa Bay Brainiacs or something of that scope, and they see that goal as their singular North Star. Not the game being played right in front of them. Not being one short of the full complement of relievers on the roster entering this weekend even though Shelton acknowledged before the Friday game here that "we're still taxed out there."
And not ever assuming accountability for anything, as Cherington showed again earlier this day on his weekly radio show when he brought up whether Henry Davis' trajectory might've been hurt by sticking him in right field last season.
"For the Pirates, and I'll put myself as part of the responsibility," Cherington began, "this is not so much a regret, but sort of an explanation."
What? Seriously?
Who'd want to hear the rest of a statement that starts like that?
But then, how to admit anything when it might poke a hole in this infallible process that's bound to pay off ... if only the rest of us dummies could grasp how golden it is and be more patient?
Never mind that they've yet to construct/complete anything worth a damn.
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