DK's Daily Shot of Pirates: Someone wake up!

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-30

[00:00:08]It's not the loss. It's not splitting with the Cubs. It's it's there's this sense of just general wishywashiness right now about this team. Good morning to you. Good Friday morning. I'm Dan Kawach of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates presented by the Northshore Tavern, home of Steak on a Stone. Comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're into football andor hockey, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this Cubs 7 Pirates 2 last night at PNC Park. And it was in fact a split of the four game set. It's that version of the split that leaves you with the foul taste, which is you win the first two and lose the last two.

[00:00:59]But that's not all that's creating that taste. Paul Sches was outstanding.

[00:01:07]Wonderful bounceback performance in isolation for him. Five and a third innings, 10 strikeouts, three runs, only one of them earned.

[00:01:19]Four hits, three walks, two errors committed while he was out there. He also mishandled a high chopper. Tried to get it with his bare hand. Wasn't charged with an error, but things didn't go all that great in the field regardless. I mean, listen to what I'm saying here. He pitched really well.

[00:01:36]Mason Montgomery came in in relief. And make sure you're omitting Montgomery from your criticisms of the bullpen. He retired all five batters that he faced and struck out, too. But things went badly after that, as tends to be the case. Brandon Bidwa, who really doesn't look like he's ready for the majors, was hit for three runs in an inning of relief. Johan Ramirez, who is still here somehow, gave up his obligatory run on a walk and a hit. Now, offensively, which might have told the story as much as anything, nobody other than Brian Reynolds did a thing.

[00:02:13]Reynolds hitting his fifth home run, solo shot and doubling in addition to working a walk. Tyler Callahan, new guy brought up from Indianapolis, recently acquired from the Reds in a trade, had an RBI double. Team's record is 29 and 28. And there's some underlying yuckiness to everything that I'm saying here. For one, and this isn't anybody's fault, a couple of important injuries, even if neither of them sounds serious, Connor Griffin's experiencing what the team is describing as a strained forearm.

[00:02:54]I always sound cynical about the strained forearms because that's a longstanding baseball euphemism for something with an elbow ligament when you're talking about pitchers.

[00:03:05]The team itself stated before the game that Griffin was going to be available if needed in this game. He didn't play.

[00:03:14]We'll see how that goes. Nick Gonzalez was taken out of the game early. That's the result of fouling a ball off of his knee the previous night. But the stuff that is in this team's control and needs to be addressed, I believe it needs to be addressed emphatically. Well, in addition to this bullpen where there were no moves made incredibly in my eyes, I mean like incredibly that you could just sit there and leave Ramirez and Justin Lawrence in your pen for another day. Is that one decision was made and that's that Jared Jones will be making his return tonight against the Twins at PNC Park. Now, that's a positive, and I don't mean to paint it as anything, but it's wonderful to have him back after, my goodness, the amount of time pitchers have to miss to Tommy John surgery. But in this case, it'll be Jones's first start since September 27 of 2024 when he was pitching for the manager he'll be facing today. Derek Shelton, of course, is Minnesota's manager. Now, that of course necessitates that somebody would come out. The Pirates made the wrong choice. Or should I say they made the convenient choice. This happens not just with the Pirates, not just in baseball, not just in sports, but in life. There are certain people, certain situations that we're more comfortable moving into roles they've already handled before. And so the guy that they're taking out of the rotation is Carmen Majinsky. Even though Majinsky has been better, I believe marketkedly better than Bubba Chandler. Even though they're both young guys, even though they were both seen as good prospects, but Majinski's got a 3.76 erra.

[00:05:13]Chandler's at 4.85, a full additional run. Plus, Majinski's got a 1.42. 42 whip. Not great.

[00:05:24]Chandler's got a 1.52 whip. Majinsky has struck out 46 and walked 20. Chandler has struck out 52. That's six more, but walked 36, which is five more than anyone else in the entirety of Major League Baseball.

[00:05:46]It's a real problem. And although the pirates tried to spin this yesterday by doing the standard suggesting that there are some underlying things that they're working on and the signs are starting to show Majinski's been better. Majinsk's been objectively better. Now, for anyone who will recall Majinsk's previous reactions to being told by the Pirates that he's going to be utilized in relief, it won't surprise you that he took this one.

[00:06:19]Well, listen for yourself. This was after the game when Majinsky was asked for his feelings about the decision.

[00:06:28]>> Um, obviously just excited to have Jared back with us. um can honestly say I'm just still communicating with the organization. Um and the people in my corner um whether that's my family and my agency about what's next and I really don't have any comments after that. Now, even though he'd say he'd have no additional comment, he answered a few additional questions. And with each one, it became clearer that if he hasn't already asked to be traded out of here, he's seriously considering doing so. And honestly, regardless of what you think about his timing or his tone or his team orientedness or whatever, I'm not sure I blame him. Once you sense that you're the guy they don't trust in, they don't believe in, that they'll default to tossing out at every opportunity, you really are probably better off somewhere else. Now counterargument to that and a convenient one I might add is well Majinski's got a lot more experience pitching and relief than Chandler does and heaven knows this bullpen needs all kinds of help. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Everything that you do about your pitching staff begins with your rotation and that includes how you manage it, how you populate it, how you well rotate your rotation. And this is now at least the third or fourth time that the pirates have sent this signal to Majinsky. And what I'll say to all of that is get it fixed. establish some presence, some authority in particular at the general manager level and you know throw some food, do whatever it is that you have to do, but make it known to everybody that this isn't supposed to be just another season in Pittsburgh running out the schedule until it's done. Get rid of those relievers.

[00:08:39]Make some kind of move to address that.

[00:08:43]that maybe goes beyond just bringing Isaac Matson back up. Ben Cherington is he's not the most popular guy inside 115 Federal Street, but of all the complaints that I've ever heard about him and his managerial style.

[00:09:02]Number one at top that list, and I mean number one with a bullet, is that he's just so bleeping slow to act on anything. All he wants to do is wait and observe and study. Wait some more and observe some more and study some more.

[00:09:24]Try something different. When we come back, J1 Q.

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[00:11:53]Today's J1 Cube comes in response to the news earlier in the day. Yesterday, Major League Baseball proposed Gasp, a salary cap system.

[00:12:06]And it's one that gasp is exactly like the ones in the NFL and the NHL.

[00:12:14]And the salary cap system has a ceiling, a floor, and immensely expanded revenue sharing to allow everyone to spend in the assigned range. If you've been listening to this program for any length of time, you can probably mouth all of those phrases right along with me. I've been reporting, not speculating, not guessing, but reporting that this is what the owners were going to do for the better part of two years now. Almost nobody seemed to believe me, that they'd even have the audacity to try. But here it is. And the ceiling in this proposal would be 245 million. The floor 171 million.

[00:13:05]the expanded revenue sharing. Sit down for this. All local TV revenues would get pulled. That's P O L E D. It'll all be in the same pot. Even the Dodgers money. Just like the merchandising money, just like the internet money, just like the national TV monies, all of it. one big pot that I can tell you I did not see coming. Certainly not with the very first proposal. I also didn't envision that the floor would be as high as it is. Again, at least not in the first proposal. My forecast was that it would be at 180 ultimately, like by the time the whole thing got done. But I also thought they'd start out lower because, you know, first proposals in negotiations tend to allow you for room to adjust and make deals. And 171 is pretty high. Now, as one can imagine, it's one thing to hear the guy in Pittsburgh talking about this stuff and not necessarily take it too seriously or try to find out more about it. Well, all of that changed yesterday. Now all of a sudden, everyone, it seemed like on social media was either saying all the wrong things based on incorrect information that they've had for a long time, or if they were based in New York or Los Angeles, they were being willfully and blissfully ignorant. or they were trying to stamp out the whole thing by just saying, "Listen, the union's never going to go along with this." So, the J1Q that I picked for the day is the one that was most common among my listeners to this show, and that came from John and it was as simple as can be. He just asked, "Can the Pirates do 171 million?" My answer to that, John, is going to remain unchanged. They absolutely unequivocally can do 171 million in an environment where all of the local TV monies are pulled. Again, I'm going to spell it. It's P O L E D.

[00:15:29]All in one pot in a sideways kind of way. That was the most impactful news that emerged from this and I don't think it's going to be appreciated as much by people who are just going to be trying to figure out how the cap system works for the first time in their lives because the reason that it's impactful is that the owners are that united.

[00:15:57]Think about this.

[00:15:59]I've told you all a million times that it takes a threequarters vote to get a ratification of a collective bargaining agreement.

[00:16:10]So, whoever the three quarters are, they hold the power and they get to decide what system they want to push for and how they want to push for it. And what this tells me that even if all 30 aren't on board, even if the Dodgers say, "Wow, I mean, our local TV contract is just colossal. Why would we want to share any of that with anybody more than we'd have to?" The other teams can just say, "Hey, too bad. If you don't like it, leave. Go start your own league. See how that works for you. Maybe you can just bring the Savannah Bananas in there 81 times a year to Dodger Stadium. In fairness, they would sell out the place a lot. But what this proposal and that portion of the proposal spoke loudest to me was, "Whoa, that's a coalition.

[00:17:04]That's a confident coalition." They put that on paper and pushed it across the table to the players association that said, "We'll do this." and we'll share all of our local TV revenues.

[00:17:21]This is completely without precedent when it comes to this sport. And actually, I'm going to take this further. It's completely unprecedented with any sport. You don't share local TV revenues, which are much smaller in the NFL because those are just preseason games.

[00:17:42]You don't share them in the NHL, but they're ready to do this in baseball.

[00:17:46]It's a massive story unto itself. So, yeah, John, that's where the money would come from. The Pirates can afford it comfortably and meaning the floor figure, but they also can afford the other figure to be honest with you.

[00:18:01]They'll be able to spend to the ceiling.

[00:18:03]When you create these cap systems, you do it in a way that everybody can spend to the literal ceiling or you don't have an honest cap system. So the pirates, I know this stuff sounds crazy.

[00:18:16]Okay, I realize how stupid it probably comes out of my mouth here sounding like, but the pirates could actually spend to that ceiling in a system like this. But it's just been so long with this current system and the current feelings of inadequacy and disbelief and everything that would accompany installing this. That's going to hit everybody. It's going to hit everybody hard, whether it's for good or for bad. But hey, consider this a promising first step. consider the general reaction across the country, at least not in places named New York or Los Angeles, to be really uplifting. I thought players are used to having the the fans at their backs in situations like this. That's not going to happen. Not after people read this and not after they find out that the players themselves benefit hugely from this system. they get guaranteed a 5050 split with the owners of total revenues. And if you were to put this system into play right now, not according to me, but according to Spotrak, you know, the website that tracks all the money in all of the sports, the players would be receiving right now, this season, an additional $500 million plus if that system was in right now. I appreciate the question. And I appreciate hearing from everybody on this subject. I appreciate everybody listening. The Daily Shot of Pirates, we're going to have a double shot today as well. That'll be at 3:00 p.m. Eastern in advance of Pirates versus Shelton tonight. That's a 6:40 p.m. first pitch at PNC Park. And again, it's the return of Jared Jones. Hope to have you with us for that one.