The Pirates are within striking distance of a wild-card berth with an exciting young pitching staff, and there is a strong chance they will finish the season with a winning record for the fourth time in 25 years.
These are the things fans and media should be talking about; instead, they are talking about biometric data, Clay Holmes and Casey Sadler. The thing is, the Pirates have nobody to blame for the disconnect but themselves, for the same reason as always: They are condescending and truly believe they are smarter than everyone else. They really think they have magical, cutting-edge analytical formulas that nobody else in baseball has, and that anyone who questions them just doesn’t understand.
Biometric data? Give me a damn break.
Look, we get it, the Pirates have young starters who are heading into uncharted waters in terms of MLB innings pitched. Jameson Taillon (134.0) has already reached his career high, and Joe Musgrove (80.0) and Trevor Williams (123.0) are on pace to exceed theirs.
The Pirates rightfully wanted to slow those three a bit in order to avoid burning out their young, promising arms. They simply wanted to steal them an extra day of rest, and this won’t be the last time they do it this season, either.
If Neal Huntington and company just said that, most outside of the organization would still not be happy with the decision — but a whole lot more would at least accept it. Most people understand how important it is to avoid overworking young pitchers.
The Pirates couldn’t just say that, though, because that would be logical. That wouldn’t advance the idea that they have some sort of secret formula, or that they are smarter than the rest of us.
Instead, Pirates assistant general manager Kevan Graves took to Neal Huntington’s radio show Sunday on 93.7 The Fan and cited “biometric data” and “anecdotal evidence” as the reason they needed to push the rotation back a day and start Holmes Friday against the Giants. Their studies suggest that pitchers have a tougher time recovering from pitching in Colorado because of the thinner air and higher altitude.
This is the kind of nonsense Huntington and company always run out there to explain moves. Therein lies the problem. They hope it sounds complex enough to blind us from the truth. They hope we are all too dumb to sniff the stuff they are shoveling. Then they wonder why they get hammered every time one of these decisions blows up.
Graves, who echoed Huntington’s words from the week before, explained that this was a well-planned, calculated move.
OK, let’s go with that. If that’s the case, then the Pirates deserve to get destroyed even more. If they “planned this out” for weeks, why didn’t they have a better pitcher available? And why, if they “planned this out” for weeks, did they only have six relievers available? If they knew they were going to have a spot starter, they also knew they were likely to need a full bullpen in case he faltered quickly, right?
That’s why the whole thing stinks. That’s why there is no excuse for having to bat Casey Sadler, who may have been worse than Holmes, with two men on in a game they trailed 7-2. Clint Hurdle’s explanation paraphrased was “we didn’t have enough pitchers available and didn’t want to run out of them.”
In other words the Pirates, in another attempt to sound smarter than everyone else, again came off looking foolish. They are either lying about how much planning went into this decision, or their planning was extremely poor.
Most importantly, the Pirates scored 10 runs in a game and lost because of that blunder. This is a team that cannot afford to give any games away, with very little margin for error.
It was smart of the Pirates to give their starters an extra day. It was dumb to do it without a plan in place that gave them an opportunity to win. It was even dumber to explain it away by citing nonsensical voodoo science.
The front office is generally smart but too often gets full of itself and in turn alienates its fan base. This was definitely one of those times — and doubling down only made it worse.
Paul Zeise: pzeise@post-gazette.com, Twitter: @PaulZeise
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First Published: August 13, 2018, 5:26 p.m.