DK: Don't blame Reynolds or any broader 'under-performance'
Bryan Reynolds sure isn't to blame.
Not when he's buried in the deepest nosedive of his Major League Baseball career.
Not when he's bombing away ...
... and not ever.
That home run up there, a two-run shot in the ninth inning of the Pirates' 5-2 loss to the Phillies tonight at Citizens Bank Park, meant next to nothing. This particular outcome, given Carmen Mlodzinski's erratic pitching in being pulled after 3 1/3, might as well have been predetermined.
But to the team's premier everyday player?
Yeah, he was smiling. First time, seemed to me, in forever.
____________________
Funny thing, too: I caught him smiling beforehand. Right after he'd stepped out of a indoor cage session in the afternoon. And being the sensitive soul that I'm not, I even saw fit to tease him about the absurd 2-for-46 and 0-for-21 slumps he'd been lugging around, resulting in the slightest of laughs.
I had more afterward:
Initially, I asked how he felt in the box, since he'd also singled into center -- off Zack Wheeler, no less -- and walked in four total plate appearances. Total pitches seen: 26.
“I feel like I had the off day to kind of reset and work on some things," Reynolds would say of Don Kelly giving him a rare game off Friday. "I felt good the first few at-bats against Wheeler. He’s tough. He's always been tough on me. Just even to see his fastball, fouling pitches off, I felt pretty good.”
I then asked if he'd changed anything, and I'd been certain, having covered the entirety of his career, that I'd hear back a hard no.
Instead: “I’d say more mental stuff than anything.”
OK, then. So this wasn't the norm.
He'd proceed to explain that he'd spent time on that game-off Friday with Andy Bass, the Pirates' coordinator of mental conditioning, and that it's made a difference.
“Yeah, I talked to Bass, he gave me some things to tell myself in the box or leading up to it and whatnot. Helped clear some of the crap.”
That's tremendous. These types of practices -- and the jobs themselves -- tend to be low-hanging targets for public criticism when times are tough for any team, but those who've benefited swear by the positive effect. And really, nothing else factors into the equation. Because if an athlete as accomplished, as visibly confident and even-keeled as Reynolds can benefit, that's all that's relevant.
Once more, good on everyone. Including, by the way, Ben Cherington for having hired Bass in 2022 for precisely this purpose.
Good on Kelly, too, for taking that extra step Derek Shelton wouldn't in telling Reynolds to just go chill for a spell, even though the Pirates doubtless could've used him Friday. That's smart, selfless managing.
Watch Kelly's reaction when I brought up Reynolds' day:
"Unbelievable," he'd reply in a tone that'd suggest the slump's been his own. "Even before the home run, I know he got the base hit, and the at-bat he got the base hit, he really got into the groove there. It was a really good at-bat regardless of the hit. Those are the things. He had the walk early on and then the home run to follow. Again, not giving up. Just finish to the end."
This, of course, isn't the end. One sunny Sunday doesn't erase three weeks of being throttled.
"I don't know," Reynolds himself would say to what this signifies. "I'm just thinking about the good at-bats today.”
I don't waste my time or anyone else's worrying about him. He fell out of the womb being able to hit. He'll hit again, it'll be sooner rather than later, and he'll end up with pretty much the same 162-game stat-line as ever: His average, now .198, will somehow still approach his standard .274. His home runs, now at six, will somehow still approach his standard 24. His OPS, now .600, will somehow still approach his standard .809.
He'll be who he's always been. That's how baseball rolls for established players at their peak, and this player just turned 30 in January.
He'll be fine.
The team, even once that occurs, won't.
____________________
Back to the brutal reality ...
Through this 15-31 start, the Pirates' .218 batting average ranks 29th of the majors' 30 teams, the .623 OPS ranks 29th, the 33 home runs rank 29th, and the 141 runs rank dead last.
That's beyond abysmal. All of it.
Including this game, they've now gone a franchise-record 22 in a row without scoring more than four runs. The franchise, I'll remind, is 144 years old. Ulysses S. Grant could've been a season-ticket holder.
That alone ... that's flat-out embarrassing.
But never conflate anyone's individual slump, no matter how important the player, no matter how seismic the slump, with what's wrong with this offense. And within that, never subscribe for a split-second to the nonsense that Cherington often -- and I mean really often -- puts forth that it's founded on some general "under-performance" of their hitters.
For example, in his most recent press conference 10 days ago at PNC Park, he spoke that "a bunch of guys are under-performing" based on what he described as "contact quality" discerned from unspecified "internal measurements."
He's either peddling baloney, or he's being sold that baloney by his army of advanced analytics personnel, all of whom will be out of work as soon as he is. Either way, it's baloney.
Consider the Pirates' eight players currently with the most at-bats, their OPS for 2025, and how that OPS compares to their career marks:
Here's what I cull from all that: Reynolds, obviously, is under-performing. Hayes, to a degree, is under-performing. Cruz, Bart and Kiner-Falefa are all either at or above career norms. And Cutch, Frazier and Pham can't fairly be compared to their career norms because they're all several years older than their natural peak periods.
No, really, what am I missing here? Beyond the incessant gaslighting?
This is the truth, and it's also why Cherington keeps trying to sell this theory: In Year 6 of any total teardown/build, there are no circumstances shy of outright contention that any regular lineup should be deploying so many thirty-somethings. With respect to Cutch and his still being more than acceptable for his age, he shouldn't have all these peers.
Even allowing for injuries, there should've been a tidal wave of hitting prospects in Indianapolis by now. Instead, Cherington this week promoted Nick Solak, a 30-year-old utility type who was legitimately the most deserving. Which is ... wow. Great guy. Great story. God-awful subtext.
Cherington hasn't been able to identify hitting talent, or draft it, or acquire it through international means, or develop it even when one falls from the sky. After half a decade, his only success remains Bart, a reclamation project plucked from the Giants' system.
Oh, there's "under-performance" taking place, all right. In the mirror.
Nothing about this operation will improve, no matter how much energy and emotion Kelly instills, no matter how many Phillies we'll see getting whiffed in the series finale Sunday by Paul Skenes, no matter if Reynolds bats a bleeping 1.000 the rest of the way ... until there's a new GM.
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THE ASYLUM
Dejan Kovacevic
3:46 am - 05.18.2025PhiladelphiaDK: Don't blame Reynolds or any broader 'under-performance'
Bryan Reynolds sure isn't to blame.
Not when he's buried in the deepest nosedive of his Major League Baseball career.
Not when he's bombing away ...
... and not ever.
That home run up there, a two-run shot in the ninth inning of the Pirates' 5-2 loss to the Phillies tonight at Citizens Bank Park, meant next to nothing. This particular outcome, given Carmen Mlodzinski's erratic pitching in being pulled after 3 1/3, might as well have been predetermined.
But to the team's premier everyday player?
Yeah, he was smiling. First time, seemed to me, in forever.
____________________
Funny thing, too: I caught him smiling beforehand. Right after he'd stepped out of a indoor cage session in the afternoon. And being the sensitive soul that I'm not, I even saw fit to tease him about the absurd 2-for-46 and 0-for-21 slumps he'd been lugging around, resulting in the slightest of laughs.
I had more afterward:
Initially, I asked how he felt in the box, since he'd also singled into center -- off Zack Wheeler, no less -- and walked in four total plate appearances. Total pitches seen: 26.
“I feel like I had the off day to kind of reset and work on some things," Reynolds would say of Don Kelly giving him a rare game off Friday. "I felt good the first few at-bats against Wheeler. He’s tough. He's always been tough on me. Just even to see his fastball, fouling pitches off, I felt pretty good.”
I then asked if he'd changed anything, and I'd been certain, having covered the entirety of his career, that I'd hear back a hard no.
Instead: “I’d say more mental stuff than anything.”
OK, then. So this wasn't the norm.
He'd proceed to explain that he'd spent time on that game-off Friday with Andy Bass, the Pirates' coordinator of mental conditioning, and that it's made a difference.
“Yeah, I talked to Bass, he gave me some things to tell myself in the box or leading up to it and whatnot. Helped clear some of the crap.”
That's tremendous. These types of practices -- and the jobs themselves -- tend to be low-hanging targets for public criticism when times are tough for any team, but those who've benefited swear by the positive effect. And really, nothing else factors into the equation. Because if an athlete as accomplished, as visibly confident and even-keeled as Reynolds can benefit, that's all that's relevant.
Once more, good on everyone. Including, by the way, Ben Cherington for having hired Bass in 2022 for precisely this purpose.
Good on Kelly, too, for taking that extra step Derek Shelton wouldn't in telling Reynolds to just go chill for a spell, even though the Pirates doubtless could've used him Friday. That's smart, selfless managing.
Watch Kelly's reaction when I brought up Reynolds' day:
"Unbelievable," he'd reply in a tone that'd suggest the slump's been his own. "Even before the home run, I know he got the base hit, and the at-bat he got the base hit, he really got into the groove there. It was a really good at-bat regardless of the hit. Those are the things. He had the walk early on and then the home run to follow. Again, not giving up. Just finish to the end."
This, of course, isn't the end. One sunny Sunday doesn't erase three weeks of being throttled.
"I don't know," Reynolds himself would say to what this signifies. "I'm just thinking about the good at-bats today.”
I don't waste my time or anyone else's worrying about him. He fell out of the womb being able to hit. He'll hit again, it'll be sooner rather than later, and he'll end up with pretty much the same 162-game stat-line as ever: His average, now .198, will somehow still approach his standard .274. His home runs, now at six, will somehow still approach his standard 24. His OPS, now .600, will somehow still approach his standard .809.
He'll be who he's always been. That's how baseball rolls for established players at their peak, and this player just turned 30 in January.
He'll be fine.
The team, even once that occurs, won't.
____________________
Back to the brutal reality ...
Through this 15-31 start, the Pirates' .218 batting average ranks 29th of the majors' 30 teams, the .623 OPS ranks 29th, the 33 home runs rank 29th, and the 141 runs rank dead last.
That's beyond abysmal. All of it.
Including this game, they've now gone a franchise-record 22 in a row without scoring more than four runs. The franchise, I'll remind, is 144 years old. Ulysses S. Grant could've been a season-ticket holder.
That alone ... that's flat-out embarrassing.
But never conflate anyone's individual slump, no matter how important the player, no matter how seismic the slump, with what's wrong with this offense. And within that, never subscribe for a split-second to the nonsense that Cherington often -- and I mean really often -- puts forth that it's founded on some general "under-performance" of their hitters.
For example, in his most recent press conference 10 days ago at PNC Park, he spoke that "a bunch of guys are under-performing" based on what he described as "contact quality" discerned from unspecified "internal measurements."
He's either peddling baloney, or he's being sold that baloney by his army of advanced analytics personnel, all of whom will be out of work as soon as he is. Either way, it's baloney.
Consider the Pirates' eight players currently with the most at-bats, their OPS for 2025, and how that OPS compares to their career marks:
• Reynolds: .600 now / .807 career / -2.1
• Ke'Bryan Hayes: .619 / .691 / -0.07
• Oneil Cruz: .802 / .772 / +0.03
• Andrew McCutchen: .723 / .828 / -0.11
• Adam Frazier: .594 / .709 / -0.12
• Joey Bart: .730 / .696 / +0.01
• Isiah Kiner-Falefa: .673 / .664 / +0.01
• Tommy Pham: .476 / .765 / -0.29
Here's what I cull from all that: Reynolds, obviously, is under-performing. Hayes, to a degree, is under-performing. Cruz, Bart and Kiner-Falefa are all either at or above career norms. And Cutch, Frazier and Pham can't fairly be compared to their career norms because they're all several years older than their natural peak periods.
No, really, what am I missing here? Beyond the incessant gaslighting?
This is the truth, and it's also why Cherington keeps trying to sell this theory: In Year 6 of any total teardown/build, there are no circumstances shy of outright contention that any regular lineup should be deploying so many thirty-somethings. With respect to Cutch and his still being more than acceptable for his age, he shouldn't have all these peers.
Even allowing for injuries, there should've been a tidal wave of hitting prospects in Indianapolis by now. Instead, Cherington this week promoted Nick Solak, a 30-year-old utility type who was legitimately the most deserving. Which is ... wow. Great guy. Great story. God-awful subtext.
Cherington hasn't been able to identify hitting talent, or draft it, or acquire it through international means, or develop it even when one falls from the sky. After half a decade, his only success remains Bart, a reclamation project plucked from the Giants' system.
Oh, there's "under-performance" taking place, all right. In the mirror.
Nothing about this operation will improve, no matter how much energy and emotion Kelly instills, no matter how many Phillies we'll see getting whiffed in the series finale Sunday by Paul Skenes, no matter if Reynolds bats a bleeping 1.000 the rest of the way ... until there's a new GM.
Want to participate in our comments?
Want an ad-free experience?
Become a member, and enjoy premium benefits! Make your voice heard on the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates, and hear right back from tens of thousands of fellow Pittsburgh sports fans worldwide! Plus, access all our premium content, including Dejan Kovacevic columns, Friday Insider, daily Live Qs with the staff, more! And yeah, that's right, no ads at all!
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