THE FUN OF IT
“We had to make challenging decisions, but now we’re starting to see how that’s fitting into the whole plan.” Born out of all the frustration and losing has come a reason to smile again
It was a fair question and one asked more than any other this offseason: Why should Pittsburgh sports fans watch the Pirates this season? The answer could be distilled down to about 10-second clip that appeared on the AT&T SportsNet broadcast Tuesday night after Bligh Madris socked his first MLB home run.
In the dugout, Madris, Cal Mitchell and Jack Suwinski jumped up and down to celebrate. Oneil Cruz waited a few feet away before Madris gave him a big hug, the often-overlooked outfielder swallowed up in the 6-foot-7 shortstop’s midsection.
It’s OK to be mad about the Pirates and what has occurred of late — the final years of the Huntington/Hurdle era, the lack of winning, paltry payrolls and frustrating trades of fan favorites used to restock the farm system — but it’s also fair to acknowledge when something exciting happens.
Whether it’s Cruz, Madris, Suwinski, Roansy Contreras or Mitchell, plus the large collection of talent at Class AA Altoona that includes Liover Peguero, Henry Davis, Quinn Priester and others, there are tangible signs that things are improving.
Watching those seeds grow is what should have defined this season all along, and Pirates fans are seemingly responding in a big way, buying into what the kids can do: their ability, sure, and also a genuine enthusiasm for capitalizing on opportunities.
“We had to make challenging decisions, but now we’re starting to see how that’s fitting into the whole plan,” manager Derek Shelton said. “One thing that I give [general manager] Ben [Cherington] and our baseball operations group credit for is that we’ve stuck to our process. Sometimes it’s frustrating to people, and I understand that. It’s hard. But we’ve stuck to our process, and in the long run, we’re going to see the benefits.”
The Pirates have certainly made mistakes. They’ll continue to make them, too. They need more pitching, while some of their offseason signings haven’t worked out (Yoshi Tsutsugo, Kevin Newman and Heath Hembree, for example). That sort of stuff is also inevitable. No organization is perfect.
Most encouraging for the Pirates isn’t the record or where they might finish in the NL Central, although both would qualify as somewhat surprising to this point. It’s been more about the volume of opportunities given to younger players and the culture created that has allowed them to thrive.
“We’ve got a lot of talent throughout the minor leagues,” Bryan Reynolds said. “It’s good to see those guys come up and do their thing. It’s fun. It’s cool for them to get up here and get comfortable quickly and play the way they can play. It’s encouraging for the future.”
While the future is encouraging, fans will certainly still criticize: The Pirates don’t spend any money. If anyone is ever good, they trade them.
I have no interest in defending either narrative because the Pirates should spend more and have made some questionable trades. At the same time, there’s nothing preventing them from finding more of these guys — Cruz, Suwinski, Mitchell,
Contreras, etc.
They have the same access to young players as other clubs. The same resources, at least in terms of the draft and international spending, too. If they lose some guys to free agency because they have more prospects coming, so be it. It’ll sting less if they’re able to back-fill better.
This season, then, should be viewed as the start of that cycle, with young players coming up and contributing. That was another topic of conversation with Shelton last weekend. utlining expectations is important at the major league level, Shelton said. Ditto for having veterans around to help the young guys. But very few come up and stick like Reynolds, or how Suwinski appears poised to do.
They go back to the minors and are tasked with learning and improving parts of their game. Meanwhile, they’re counted upon to relay that experience to teammates at Class AAA or Class AA, theoretically motivating them.
“Whenever you go back to your team and be honest with your teammates, it’s extremely important,” Shelton said. “That experience is invaluable.”
Who knows what becomes of this season? There will certainly be plenty of hard times. A fair amount of excitement, too. It’s what fans should have expected all along. But as we watch, it’s important to remember that it is possible for these guys to thrive, for younger players to produce moments worth celebrating and for the Pirates to be better off for it.
“We’re reminded all the time that improvement isn’t a straight line,” Cherington said. “We’re all human beings. We’re all prone to mistakes and prone to not getting everything right, myself included. So it’s a wavy line with twists and turns, but we think the general path is positive.”