DK: The Pirates will spend ... but only because they've cut
Yes, the Pirates will have more ability to pay into Major League Baseball free agency this offseason than in any other of Ben Cherington's tenure.
But no, Bob Nutting and ownership won't have had a blessed thing to do with it, and it's beyond bizarre that it's being portrayed any other way. Which it really is, far and wide, even locally.
Here's the reality ...
• The final payroll for 2025, meaning the total paid to players for time on the Pittsburgh roster, was $87 million, per Spotrac. The current projection for 2026, based on existing contracts, estimated arbitration figures and filling out the 26-man roster with players who aren't yet eligible for arbitration, is $62 million.
The gap there: $25 million. So that's there to be spent.
• The reasons for that gap: David Bednar was traded to the Yankees before being due an anticipated $9 million through arbitration, Ke'Bryan Hayes and his $7 million salary were traded to the Reds, Bailey Falter and his anticipated $3.25 million through arbitration were traded to the Royals, and both Andrew McCutchen ($5 million) and Tommy Pham ($4 million) have been allowed to become free agents.
That's a little more than the $25 million right there.
• But wait: The biggest's yet to come. I can't be convinced that Mitch Keller won't be traded, and I know for a fact that the collected clubhouse feels the same, including Keller himself. And once that occurs, that'll add his $16.9 million onto the pile.
New total that's there to be spent: $42 million.
Amount being added by ownership: $0.
Anyone's free to feel as they wish about the various moves above, plus those to come, but let's at least try to get this part right: Nothing's changing as far as ownership commitment.
• The final phase of any failing general manager will invariably see that executive begin giving information to media outlets that don't regularly cover their team, if only because they know that the media regularly covering their team can see right through their misdirection and occasional outright lying. Just saying.
• Believe me, when I'll say occasionally that this team doesn't deserve to be covered, it's a lot less about baseball and a lot more about bush-league B.S. like this.
• Aaron Rodgers and Mason Rudolph have been terrific together, on and off the field, and that applies all the same to Will Howard and Skylar Thompson. The Steelers have an airtight quarterback room, and that's been fun to observe.
So this playful public interaction yesterday on the South Side was no surprise:
That's good stuff.
As such, take all this in that same context, please: The Steelers don't benefit Sunday in Chicago from Rodgers starting with a fractured wrist. They just don't. And no matter how relentlessly he'll push to play even if he isn't remotely healthy -- a Fox Sports report in Week 14 of the Jets' 2024 season listed among his injuries a partial tear in his hamstring, a sprained MCL in his knee, and a high-ankle sprain, ALL AT THE SAME TIME -- he can't prevail over common sense.
Or Mike Tomlin, more pointedly.
The Jets' management bowed every time and he started all 17 games as a result, but that, like everything else about that franchise, didn't matter. This game does. This season does.
Rodgers already has been bad in his past 3-4 games, predominantly because he's now habitually fleeing from the pass rush before he can make more than a single read. To add onto that a natural fretting over how the wrist might handle contact ... yeah, no.
There's a very good quarterback ready to go in Rodgers' stead. Let the latter heal up.
• No reason to tiptoe on this topic: Presuming Rudolph were to perform against the Bears as he just did against the Bengals, and presuming he has a similarly calming effect on the offensive line, whenever Rodgers does return, he'll have to start doing some of the same. When that kinda came up in Rodgers' session yesterday, he essentially replied that it's up to the receivers to get more open for him. Uh, no. They can get open all day, but if he can't two reads deep into his progressions, it won't matter.
• Everyone can wish for this offense to look bigger and badder, but that can't happen without the line leading the way. And that, in turn, can't happen without confidence. Nothing can, actually. Not passing to all those big bodies. Certainly not running.
• Burying Calvin Austin's a mistake. For anyone, inside or outside the team. He'll rebound.
• The Ravens have won four in a row to even out at 5-5 and set the stage for not one but two more showdowns with the Steelers that'll almost surely decide the AFC North.
Familiar script, of course.
And yet, something's different: Lamar Jackson, without whom Baltimore's probably bordering on a bad team, sat out practice again yesterday in Owings Mills, Md., this time because of an ankle injury that followed his recent knee injury that followed ... a lot else. It's no coincidence, either: Dude's been sacked 23 times in his seven games, five of those Sunday in Cleveland, and four of the latter by Myles Garrett. All of his stats are down, passing (204 yards or less in each of the past four games) and rushing (48 yards peak over past six games).
Jackson's 28 going on 38, you know?
. Right after being slowed in practice a week ago by a knee. Right after being sacked
• Next game for the post-Sweden Penguins comes tomorrow night at PPG Paints Arena against the Wild. I covered these teams' previous meeting Oct. 30 in St. Paul, Minn., which was won by the visitors, 4-1, despite Minnesota being awarded four of the game's five power plays.
A couple of the Penguins' players fumed to me about this afterward, and the storyline's still in play: The team with the NHL's No. 1 power-play conversion, at 34.1%, also remains dead-last in power-play opportunities, at 44.
Dan Muse can't do much about this as a rookie head coach. Some refs won't even look his way when he speaks to them. That's not new. That's life at the top level.
But maybe Kyle Dubas or even Sidney Crosby can. Maybe there's something to spoken in some form to someone at some level, even if it means a call to the league offices. Or complaining in public to call further attention to it.
• It's uplifting that Sam Poulin's up from the AHL. Upstanding young man. He's overcome a lot. Works as hard as anyone. Was just leading Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in scoring.
He's got to be given a plain-as-day map as to what the Penguins expect him to be. Not just this weekend but in the long run. For far too long, this organization's vision of the player hasn't appeared to match what's on the ice when he's been up, and that's not fair to anyone.
• Craziest aspect of this season to date: There've been only five regulation losses through 19 games and, of those five, the Penguins were affected hard by brutal officiating in three, and another was the three-goal, third-period collapse in Toronto that can be traced directly to Tristan Jarry getting hurt and playing through it. Only asterisk-free regulation loss came in Winnipeg.
• I could observe that Mike Sullivan might've made the mistake of his hockey life signing up with the Rangers, or I could illustrate this effort from this captain a couple nights ago in Las Vegas:
Yeah, that's local lad J.T. Miller standing all-the-way upright while the Golden Knights get a goal and, before long, the game. That'd get somebody kicked out of an optional skate.
All Sully had to do to stay here was play the kids, right?
THE ASYLUM
DK: The Pirates will spend ... but only because they've cut
Yes, the Pirates will have more ability to pay into Major League Baseball free agency this offseason than in any other of Ben Cherington's tenure.
But no, Bob Nutting and ownership won't have had a blessed thing to do with it, and it's beyond bizarre that it's being portrayed any other way. Which it really is, far and wide, even locally.
Here's the reality ...
• The final payroll for 2025, meaning the total paid to players for time on the Pittsburgh roster, was $87 million, per Spotrac. The current projection for 2026, based on existing contracts, estimated arbitration figures and filling out the 26-man roster with players who aren't yet eligible for arbitration, is $62 million.
The gap there: $25 million. So that's there to be spent.
• The reasons for that gap: David Bednar was traded to the Yankees before being due an anticipated $9 million through arbitration, Ke'Bryan Hayes and his $7 million salary were traded to the Reds, Bailey Falter and his anticipated $3.25 million through arbitration were traded to the Royals, and both Andrew McCutchen ($5 million) and Tommy Pham ($4 million) have been allowed to become free agents.
That's a little more than the $25 million right there.
• But wait: The biggest's yet to come. I can't be convinced that Mitch Keller won't be traded, and I know for a fact that the collected clubhouse feels the same, including Keller himself. And once that occurs, that'll add his $16.9 million onto the pile.
New total that's there to be spent: $42 million.
Amount being added by ownership: $0.
Anyone's free to feel as they wish about the various moves above, plus those to come, but let's at least try to get this part right: Nothing's changing as far as ownership commitment.
• The final phase of any failing general manager will invariably see that executive begin giving information to media outlets that don't regularly cover their team, if only because they know that the media regularly covering their team can see right through their misdirection and occasional outright lying. Just saying.
• Believe me, when I'll say occasionally that this team doesn't deserve to be covered, it's a lot less about baseball and a lot more about bush-league B.S. like this.
• But hey, I guess that's what everyone deserves in "a place like Pittsburgh," right?
• Back to the two teams in town that care ...
• Aaron Rodgers and Mason Rudolph have been terrific together, on and off the field, and that applies all the same to Will Howard and Skylar Thompson. The Steelers have an airtight quarterback room, and that's been fun to observe.
So this playful public interaction yesterday on the South Side was no surprise:
That's good stuff.
As such, take all this in that same context, please: The Steelers don't benefit Sunday in Chicago from Rodgers starting with a fractured wrist. They just don't. And no matter how relentlessly he'll push to play even if he isn't remotely healthy -- a Fox Sports report in Week 14 of the Jets' 2024 season listed among his injuries a partial tear in his hamstring, a sprained MCL in his knee, and a high-ankle sprain, ALL AT THE SAME TIME -- he can't prevail over common sense.
Or Mike Tomlin, more pointedly.
The Jets' management bowed every time and he started all 17 games as a result, but that, like everything else about that franchise, didn't matter. This game does. This season does.
Rodgers already has been bad in his past 3-4 games, predominantly because he's now habitually fleeing from the pass rush before he can make more than a single read. To add onto that a natural fretting over how the wrist might handle contact ... yeah, no.
There's a very good quarterback ready to go in Rodgers' stead. Let the latter heal up.
• No reason to tiptoe on this topic: Presuming Rudolph were to perform against the Bears as he just did against the Bengals, and presuming he has a similarly calming effect on the offensive line, whenever Rodgers does return, he'll have to start doing some of the same. When that kinda came up in Rodgers' session yesterday, he essentially replied that it's up to the receivers to get more open for him. Uh, no. They can get open all day, but if he can't two reads deep into his progressions, it won't matter.
• Everyone can wish for this offense to look bigger and badder, but that can't happen without the line leading the way. And that, in turn, can't happen without confidence. Nothing can, actually. Not passing to all those big bodies. Certainly not running.
• Burying Calvin Austin's a mistake. For anyone, inside or outside the team. He'll rebound.
• The Ravens have won four in a row to even out at 5-5 and set the stage for not one but two more showdowns with the Steelers that'll almost surely decide the AFC North.
Familiar script, of course.
And yet, something's different: Lamar Jackson, without whom Baltimore's probably bordering on a bad team, sat out practice again yesterday in Owings Mills, Md., this time because of an ankle injury that followed his recent knee injury that followed ... a lot else. It's no coincidence, either: Dude's been sacked 23 times in his seven games, five of those Sunday in Cleveland, and four of the latter by Myles Garrett. All of his stats are down, passing (204 yards or less in each of the past four games) and rushing (48 yards peak over past six games).
Jackson's 28 going on 38, you know?
. Right after being slowed in practice a week ago by a knee. Right after being sacked
• Next game for the post-Sweden Penguins comes tomorrow night at PPG Paints Arena against the Wild. I covered these teams' previous meeting Oct. 30 in St. Paul, Minn., which was won by the visitors, 4-1, despite Minnesota being awarded four of the game's five power plays.
A couple of the Penguins' players fumed to me about this afterward, and the storyline's still in play: The team with the NHL's No. 1 power-play conversion, at 34.1%, also remains dead-last in power-play opportunities, at 44.
Dan Muse can't do much about this as a rookie head coach. Some refs won't even look his way when he speaks to them. That's not new. That's life at the top level.
But maybe Kyle Dubas or even Sidney Crosby can. Maybe there's something to spoken in some form to someone at some level, even if it means a call to the league offices. Or complaining in public to call further attention to it.
• It's uplifting that Sam Poulin's up from the AHL. Upstanding young man. He's overcome a lot. Works as hard as anyone. Was just leading Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in scoring.
He's got to be given a plain-as-day map as to what the Penguins expect him to be. Not just this weekend but in the long run. For far too long, this organization's vision of the player hasn't appeared to match what's on the ice when he's been up, and that's not fair to anyone.
• Craziest aspect of this season to date: There've been only five regulation losses through 19 games and, of those five, the Penguins were affected hard by brutal officiating in three, and another was the three-goal, third-period collapse in Toronto that can be traced directly to Tristan Jarry getting hurt and playing through it. Only asterisk-free regulation loss came in Winnipeg.
• I could observe that Mike Sullivan might've made the mistake of his hockey life signing up with the Rangers, or I could illustrate this effort from this captain a couple nights ago in Las Vegas:
Yeah, that's local lad J.T. Miller standing all-the-way upright while the Golden Knights get a goal and, before long, the game. That'd get somebody kicked out of an optional skate.
All Sully had to do to stay here was play the kids, right?
• Thanks so much for reading. Insider tomorrow.
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