Colin Beazley's Pirates chat: 08.25.26
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Colin Beazley
1:00
Good morning from San Diego. It's Skenes Day today, and I'm planning on celebrating with fish tacos for lunch today. (I'd probably have fish tacos for lunch today if I were the one pitching.) Let's get this chat rolling...
Chili
1:01
Ok, hear me out. Obviously baseball won’t be around for much of 2027. This off season if they do get a salary cap we could make some deals like maybe Giancarlo, Stanton. Right handed DH they Yankees would love to get off their books for I would think minimum trade effort Another signing Inwouodbkikento see is Mike Mountcastle. Great fit for us. Also need a left handed starter. We have so many pictures that all pitch exactly alike great fast ball hard slider. The other thing I wanted to mention was Paul Skenes. I think the league is just caught up with him a little bit. And I think a lot of these players know they can’t hit him so they’re looking for first pitch fast. I think that’s why he’s giving up some home runs. I think he just needs to make some adjustments and he’ll be fine. I just don’t know if we have the coaching that can do that
Colin Beazley
1:04
Think we'll have a lot of Skenes questions today. Looking forward to getting into them.

If they do get a salary cap, it'll be fascinating to see how the league adapts to it. Do you give big spending teams to get under the cap? Do they have to dump contracts immediately? Do non-spending teams have time to get up to the floor? Do players also get the quicker free agency they've looked for? If so, we could have a free agency frenzy unlike any other.

But without rules in place, it's very, very tough to say who the Pirates should go after.
Stush from Penn Hills
1:04
What do u make of Paul ‘Just tryna get thru 5’ Skenes?  And of Jacob Gonzales horrible swing?
Colin Beazley
1:08
Paul Skenes has pitched like a No. 4/No. 5 starter of late. It's been wild to see this after watching two seasons of utter dominance. Kind of interested to see how the Padres will do against him today, as they've never seen him before and they haven't been an offensive juggernaut this season. But at this point, the impetus is on Skenes to be more than he's been.

I haven't been too impressed by Jacob Gonzalez. The debut was good, but he hasn't done much since. He's a competent defender and a left-handed bat, which has been good to have, but he'll need to do plenty of work this offseason if he wants to compete for a starting role at second or third next year. (I'd rather bring back Brandon Lowe anyways.)
Floating around
1:09
If the Pirates are pretty much out of it (over six games) by the time Griffin is eligible and able to play. Would it
Has Griffin played enough games to no longer qualify as rookie? If he hasn't should the Pirates shut him down if they are over six games out of a playoff spot when he is eligible and able to play again? Try to get the extra draft pick the following year for Rookie of the Year votes because he won't get enough this year.
Colin Beazley
1:12
Konnor Griffin no longer has rookie eligibility, as you need to have under 135 at-bats and he has 225. He's also spent more than enough time on the active roster.

I was asked on the radio a few weeks ago if the Pirates should shut Konnor Griffin down even if he's ready to return from his injury. I don't see any benefit in it. If he's ready to play, which it seems he will be in early September, he should play. It doesn't seem like there's any risk of worsening the injury, so might as well get him the reps.
demosthenes98
1:13
Your article this past Friday about Ben Cherington's first thousand games as Pirates GM was a grimly fascinating read. Any chance of a termination with cause after the final out on September 27th?
Colin Beazley
1:14
A termination with cause? Don't think it works like that.

But yes, there's certainly a chance this season is Cherington's last with the Pirates. Especially if they once again finish below .500.
demosthenes98
1:14
The Dodgers are on a collision course with a World Series threepeat. As far as you know, were the Pirates thankful that they got to share a field with them a few times this past weekend? They really ought to be, don't you think?
Colin Beazley
1:18
The Pirates are major leaguers, too. That said, it was cool to hear Khristian Curtis bring up Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts unprompted as the highest-caliber hitters he's ever faced. (And a little funny, as he didn't say the same things when he faced the Guardians.)

Know this question was meant to be mocking of the Pirates, but I will say that Dodger Stadium is one of the trips that players look forward to. Pirates have a lot of Southern Californians in Skenes, Jared Jones, Rafael Flores and Jacob Gonzalez. Gonzalez and Flores had a ton of family at the games. Jones was extra amped to pitch at the ballpark he grew up going to. Skenes was an Angels fan, but had a night to remember at Dodger Stadium last year. It was fun to see a series that meant a little more to those guys... though all were disappointed with how it went.
demosthenes98
1:19
Your weekly MiLB Monday articles are always interesting. Given how bad the big club is, though, isn't every day a MiLB day around here?
Colin Beazley
1:20
Glad you appreciate those articles, I really enjoy writing them. I'm gonna use this question as an opportunity to get on a soapbox for five thoughts on five Pirates prospects:
1:26
  1. Reinold Navarro! Navarro's walk rate is above 20%, a ridiculously high number, but his K rate is also sky high. His fastball may be the best in the system, even better than Seth Hernandez. Future closer if he can figure out his command.
  2. It's been fun to see Lonnie White Jr. have a true breakout campaign this year. His .280 batting average/.900+ OPS has stuck all year. I wrote about him in May, slightly worried Altoona wouldn't work out for him, but it has. He may again be part of the Pirates' future.
  3. Mitch Jebb has had a similarly strong year. Plenty of really good things happening for him once he got out of Altoona. Another one who has worked his way back into the Pirates' future.
  4. I don't know what to do with Termarr Johnson, as I've shared in this chat previously. There's a chance there won't be a Rule 5 draft with the lockout, which could help the Pirates get away with not adding him.
  5. I'm not worried about Murf Gray's slow start in Altoona. Not everyone's Konnor Griffin. He'll
He'll be fine.
demosthenes98
1:26
The article about the Pirates sticking with SportsNet Pittsburgh for next season mentions that they have the fifth-best local TV ratings of any MLB team. That's really, really good for a bad team with an amoral owner, isn't it?
Colin Beazley
1:29
That would be this article from my good friend King. Give it a read, if you haven't already.

The Pirates' TV numbers are really, really good, yes, especially for a small market team. There's been plenty of interest this year.
Leemarvinwannab
1:31
What reason is given by the GM for not addressing the relief situation earlier. I don't think they even care if they win or lose.
Colin Beazley
1:35
Pretty simply, you need two teams to trade. Generally speaking, opposing teams would rather way as long as possible to make a deal. Waiting until the deadline ensures as many teams as possible are interested and you get the best price. It also ensures you don't sell before your team gets hot and you go on a run, like the Red Sox could have done this year. You may have noticed that no top relievers went before mid-July this year, as in most years.

Now with that said, I do wonder whether two of the deals the Pirates pulled off could have been done earlier. The Angels had been floundering and clear sellers for weeks — would they not have done Kyle Robinson for Kirby Yates in June? The Yankees were very happy to get rid of Camilo Doval (0.4 bWAR, 1.64 ERA in PGH). Could that have been done sooner?

I don't know anything for sure there, and I'm sure the Mets wanted to wait until deadline deal to ship off Luke Weaver. But it's real that trades rarely happen as early as the Pirates needed them to.
JD/Denver
1:36
Skenes has been bizarrely nonchalant about his failures this season. Incoherently explaining some non plan to improve. Completely abdicated any leadership responsibility. Is there some unspoken lockeroom code of silence about his being the main albatross that drug the team into a funk after his 20 game skid into mediocrity.?
Colin Beazley
1:38
Him not saying "Everything is on fire and I haven't been good" doesn't mean he's failed as a leader. We don't know what he's saying about it behind closed doors.
1:40
I have noticed him getting frustrated about it, but I haven't noticed any adjustment. Maybe I missed some mechanical tweak. Maybe something little is going on. But to me, it's been a lot of the same stuff from his last few starts.

There's also no incentive for him to tell us exactly what he's doing to fix it. His job isn't to convince the fans/the media he's getting better -- it's to get better. To this point, that hasn't happened. We'll see if today is an improvement.
steelstu
1:41
is it true that Griffin wanted to play through his injury but the Pirates “out of an abundance of caution “ decidedto shut him down decided to shut him down for two months and “likely has had a significant impact on their ability to make the playoffs.
Colin Beazley
1:45
I'll start at the back: missing Konnor Griffin has had a significant impact on the Pirates' ability to make the playoffs. Injuries aren't the sole blame, but they have been a factor.

Going back to the injury, there was some talk about possibly being able to play through it, but the Pirates and Griffin eventually decided they couldn't risk it. He wanted to, but there was very real risk.

From Griffin on July 8: "I was told that if I continued to play, every time that tendon stays loose it’s just not helping it at all. The chance of having to have a big-time surgery, the risk of that is going to be way more. ... It really felt like the right decision was to naturally heal, put it in a splint and see where we were after six weeks.”
Sucks for all involved that Griffin wasn't able to play, but the unfortunate decision was really the only one they could make.
Dennis Dixon
1:46
Good afternoon Colin. Just curious- who would be the emergency catcher today if none of the rostered catchers were available (injured, pinch-hit for etc). Thanks!
Colin Beazley
1:48
Good morning/afternoon Dennis. Thanks for your question. I haven't been able to get a firm answer on this, though we have asked.

My guess would be Spencer Horwitz, who caught in high school, but I wouldn't be shocked to see Jared Triolo in the mix too.
Aces High
1:50
Who holds out longer and wins the inevitable lock out the Billionaires or the Millionaires? How likely will long, long suffering Pirate fans finally see a Salary Cap?
Colin Beazley
1:54
If I had to guess right now, I'd say the players. They've got no reason to accept a salary cap. The owners, believe it or not, are doing alright financially right now and have little reason to drag this out ahead of TV negotiations in 2028. I struggle to believe the owners are *that* motivated for a salary cap that they're willing to miss months-worth of games and crush what should be a very lucrative TV deal just up the road.

Maybe I'm wrong. This just doesn't seem like a good time for the long, protracted fight that would be required to get a cap.
1:59
That'll do it for this week's Pirates chat. Thank you all for your questions. With Monday's off day, I'll be working on a mailbag next week. Get your questions in via email (cbeazley at post-gazette dot com) or by messaging me on Twitter @colin_beazley. I'll be looking forward to it.

Now, for those fish tacos...
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