I don't have a ton to say on this topic.
Not that I haven't already written here. And here. And here.
Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton have had five years to make something, anything of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club, and the flagrant bottom line for that is that the major-league team's no better than when they took over at 70-76, and the minor-league system's ranked 27th out of 30 by Baseball America.
Being blunt here, anyone who's eager for evidence beyond that ... yeah, that's trying too hard.
Bob Nutting and Travis Williams, to whatever extent the latter will elect to be directly involved, can do better in 2025, must do better in 2025. And to date, neither's spoken a solitary syllable about the status of the front-office or field-level baseball operations since the post-July collapse in the only baseball category that counts: 288-405. And last place yet again.
So, no, I couldn't care less that Cherington offered the muted vote of confidence for Shelton this morning, saying, "I think there’s a lot to the job I believe he does really, really well, and I also believe he works his tail off to continue to improve in a number of ways. Seeing that, I believe he’s the right person to manage this team in 2025, so I fully expect that will happen."
He fully expects?
Awesome. And I fully expect Nutting's about to sell me the franchise for five bucks. But neither means a blessed thing.
I also couldn't care less that Cherington would then add, "As we would in every season, we will get to the end of the season and have an opportunity to look at the entire group and decide, again consistent with the point about faster improvement and more improvement, if any adjustments are necessary to give ourselves a better chance to do that. This staff works as hard as any in baseball and I know cares as much as any in baseball. Really love working with them and we all know we need to get better. We’ll get to the end of the season and spend more time on that.”
They tried hard? They're fun to work alongside?
Gee. Wow, then never mind.
And he and others will get together at the end of the season and take a look at the entire group to discuss whatever "faster improvement" might mean for a process that's palpably regressed across the board?
Is that a reference to finding out what Nutting and Williams think before going public with pablum like this?
Because if so, it'll be the only sliver of any of this that makes sense.
Other than, of course, that Cherington continued to clear a path toward blaming everyone else for his cataclysmic trade history -- Starling Marte, Joe Musgrove, Josh Bell, Adam Frazier, Clay Holmes and others for David Bednar and nothing else -- by also acknowledging to today that he's dumped his lead pro scout, Will Lawton, and the general of his analytics army, Sean Ahmed. This after dumping Junior Vizcaino as Latin American scouting director probably five years too late.
Yeah, this was all their fault. Don't look here. Look over there.
“I’m the leader of baseball ops, so I’ll take the first part of the accountability," Cherington would say. "Look at myself in the mirror first and foremost before anything else and, yes, there’s shared responsibility across baseball ops, with our players, with our staff. We’re all responsible for it and we all have to be willing to look at ourselves and how do we get better. I’m confident that’s exactly what’s happening and we’ll continue to do that.”
The first part of accountability? The first ... what's that even mean?
What general manager, or any leader of anything anywhere, talks like that, much less thinks like that?
The bad trades are on him. The blown $33 million in free-agent spending this past offseason, that's on him. The brutal development through the system, that's on him. The big-league-in-name-only instruction and fundamentals, that's on him. Not having acquired a solitary right fielder in any form over half a decade, that's on him.
But he'll take the first part?
Oh, and while he's at it, he'll issue a borderline unconditional show of support for the manager?
And then allow the manager to address this endorsement -- as if it matters -- after today's game at PNC Park?
"I appreciate that," Shelton would say after the Pirates beat the Marlins, 3-1. "And I'll be the first one to tell you that there are still things I need to be better at, we need to be better at, and we need to continue to improve, but the fact that Ben said that is very important to me. The most important thing for us is we need to continue to focus on winning games and getting better to get to where we want to be because we're not where we want to be. We just came off a sweep and we're playing better baseball and we played better baseball during the Washington series, but ultimately I realize I have to get better, and I realize we have to get better."
They haven't gotten better. Not since Huntington's last season. Not in the majors. Not in the minors. There's been no improvement, aside from lucking out into drafting Paul Skenes. Not over what was there before them. And I say that while reiterating with gusto that the Huntington crew deserved their mass firing in every way.
As improvement goes, this is an F freaking minus.
What the hell are we doing here, Pittsburgh?
Why do we still follow all this?
Why would anyone anywhere, no matter how loyal to the brand, take seriously anything about this franchise apart from its faraway history?
How stupid do they think the baseball fans are in this city that this would be seen as acceptable?
Stupid enough to be fooled by waiting until they sweep the worst team in the National League to hurry up and do this?
