By Dejan Kovacevic | 8 a.m. Thursday
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Q: Hi, DK, just a simple question: Why would anyone pay to see this team?
Can't be to see the "fan favorites." I just can't contribute even $1 to line the pockets of the Nuttings. They don't deserve it.
Through all the losing, I'd always been able to share the suffering with my Dad. He passed away in July, and I just can't take it anymore. I can't shake my loyalty, but I won't donate my money.
Dave Meglen of Yardley
KOVACEVIC: Lots and lots of these continue to come in, though they certainly declined with the sweep over the Brewers.
To answer the question you have there, Dave, the people who would continue to pay to watch the games probably fall into three categories:
1. They genuinely believe in the approach management is taking and like the idea of being on the ground floor of something they see as promising.
2. They will come unconditionally and support what they see and like, much like the very highly enthusiastic ovation Paul Maholm got coming off the mound last night.
3. They simply enjoy a day or night at the ballpark, which clearly has proven itself to be an attraction unto itself.
Let me also throw this at you, though: Bob Nutting is very much aware of potential customers like yourself who are turned off and unwilling to go to PNC Park, on principle. And I am reminded of his answer to a question I asked him back in January about winning vs. profiting, when he stressed his view that there is no reason the two cannot go hand in hand and, in fact, that more winning = more attendance = more profit. Thus, though he did not say this, he would be a much more popular owner.
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Q: Dejan, with all of the dumping of players over the past two seasons, would it be safe to say that the Pirates are not a Major League Baseball team but a developmental team for the rest of the majors?
David Staaby of Womelsdorf, Pa.
KOVACEVIC: Until the Pirates prove otherwise, that absolutely is safe to say, based on rock-hard precedent. The management team is adamant that, at some point, the moving of players for prospects or money will stop. That remains to be proven.
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Q: With the pop in his bat, do you think Ronny Cedeno is a long-term fit at short?
Also, how much of our pitchers' performance against the Brewers was a result of Dave Kerwin's coaching?
Eric Cathcart of Scott Township
KOVACEVIC: I asked Cedeno late last night how he hit a ball that hard off someone as skilled as Yovani Gallardo, even though I was aware Gallardo had hung a slider.
His response: "You know what they say: He hangs it, you bang it."
Delivered just like that in a second language.
The Pirates have told Cedeno they want to see defense from him as the real test for whether or not he can be the everyday answer at the position, and he very much has gotten that message. The bat is a bonus, and it obviously has been a pleasant bonus to this point, but Cedeno has had trouble hitting breaking pitches all through his career, and that has to be addressed for this power spurt to be meaningful.
On an intangible level, though, Cedeno is interesting. Boundless energy, but usually pretty serious.
Oh, and Mr. Kerwin should get as much credit for his pitchers' successes -- they were all terrific vs. Milwaukee -- as blame for their failures.
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Q: Dejan, it seems to me that, through this embarrassing stretch of late, the only constant positive has been Andrew McCutchen. His comments after the drubbing in Chicago sound like the stuff of clubhouse leadership. Is he as mature a 22-year-old as he seems or is it just "baseball speak" coming from the kid?
I hope it is for real, because it sure is hard find a silver lining right now.
Bill Holt of Wheeling, W.Va.
KOVACEVIC: I could not envision McCutchen fitting, say, into the Doug Mientkiewicz mold, but your sense for that quote is very much on the money, Bill. McCutchen has shown quite a bit, on and off the field, that has really stood out with these post-trade Pirates, and that bodes very well for the future.
He is a bright young man, extremely composed, unafraid to speak his mind and, above all, just oozing confidence. The latter trait alone is the type of intangible that can rub off on a team.
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Q: Do you get the impression that Kevin Hart is not all that enthused about being a Pirate?
This may sound odd, especially coming from a guy who watches games on TV rather than in person, but his body language just seems to say that he isn't all that happy in Pittsburgh. Also, the fact that he stiffed the media after his first start sure didn't help leave a good first impression.
Matt Slaba of Wagner, S.D.
KOVACEVIC: I really have little feel for Hart or a lot of the newer guys, Matt, other than, really, Charlie Morton. That stuff takes time. First impressions that I had about Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, Andy LaRoche, Craig Hansen and others last summer turned out to be not all that close to how I view them now. That comes with time.
That said, lumping Hart's media matter into this, I think, is off base. He has explained since then that he had a misunderstanding and that he did not know when and where he was supposed to be. In other events as related to the media, he has been as cooperative as anyone.
Whether or not Hart likes the city or the team, only he can say. In my only conversation with him on that precise topic, he came across as genuinely enthusiastic about the opportunity to pitch in a major league rotation regularly, something he was not getting in Chicago.
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Q: Garrett Jones is batting .384 with nobody on base and .097 with RISP. His 13 home runs have generated only 15 runs. Is this a statistical anomaly or do some players just normally not hit in those situations?
Are the Pirates aware of these amazing stats?
Richard Nathanson of Bel Air, Md.
KOVACEVIC: The Pirates are aware, and you should know that the Legend is aware and painfully so. Even when he homers, he still talks about this or that at-bat in which he might have left a runner in scoring position.
There are some who dispute the very existence of clutch, mostly the game's more statistically inclined followers. I happen to be a believer in clutch, to the extent that players can lack clutch as opposed to having it. (Maybe this will help explain that sentence.) But there also is a lot of evidence to support the idea that disparities such as Jones' tend to close sooner rather than later.
For the better part of July and this month, the Pirates have not been a good on-base team, to be kind. That has much more to do with all of this, I suspect, than Jones.
Let me add this: There seems to be a perception that Jones somehow has gone cold in August, and this is wholly inaccurate. He had a .310 batting average in July, .290 in August. He had a .361 on-base percentage in July, .362 in August. He had an outrageous 10 home runs in July, three in August, which is still one per week.
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Q: Hi, Dejan, while Jose Tabata has hit for a nice average at Indy, his hits have almost exclusively been singles. He has only three for extra bases. His numbers at Altoona were only slightly better with 15 doubles, one triple and two home runs in 228 at-bats. Is his lack of power becoming a concern or do the Pirates feel that will come with age?
He is certainly very young for this level, having just turned 21 last week.
Sean Epstein of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh
KOVACEVIC: I would say there is legitimate cause for concern, Sean, but not because of age.
Tabata has been bothered all summer by a left wrist issue, one that obviously is not serious enough to shut him down right now but nonetheless has had a clear impact on his power, if not his contact. Wrists are to hitters as elbows are to pitchers, so the Pirates must be worried about that to an extent.
Many are talking now about Ryan Doumit's lack of power since returning from that fractured wrist. Even though the wrist is fully healed, it takes a while for that focused strength and flexibility to return.
As for Tabata's age, though no one is likely to make a case of it, there are more than a few skeptical that he is 20, so he might not be as advanced as it looks. Here is a video Pete Diana and I did back in spring training, where you can see and hear him for yourself.
Oh, and Tabata did homer last night. He has two with Indianapolis now.
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Q: Hello, Dejan! I haven't gotten to send a question in a long time, respectfully reading the Pirates Q&A in between my trips to the Mellon Arena during these last two playoff springs. I still like the Pirates and want them to do well, though, so I want to put in an observation from reading the responses in a recent Q&A.
I remember another time when your Q&A was a solace for a dedicated/infuriated readership that couldn't believe the depths to which their team (and their spending) had sunk. Now, that was a different time and a different sport, but I recall that team also beginning a new rebuilding phase more painful than ever before. It had traded some of its best and favorite players in Jaromir Jagr, Alexei Kovalev and Martin Straka, among others. The trades were followed by some abysmal losing, including an 18-game losing streak. The top prospects people really wanted to see were still in the juniors or minors, and the big-league team had never looked worse. And the fans wrote the Q&A and asked whether their team would ever regain competence.
That scenario ended all right.
It's not all the same. The NHL's salary cap and saner drafting policies far better allow reinvigoration of losing franchises. So, maybe that tempers the Pirates results by half. It's also possible that their effort fails completely. But I will state that, from a believer in the darkest-before-the-dawn school-of-thought here, it looks like the first real shot at rebuilding success in the past 17 years.
Mathew Calland of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh
KOVACEVIC: As you seem to note there yourself, Mathew, such comparisons rarely click on many cylinders.
I covered much of that 18-game losing streak in February 2004, including the game in which those miserable Penguins broke it in Phoenix. Some of those players came in the trades you cite -- Rico Fata for Kovalev, if memory serves -- but most of it was guys who simply did not belong in the NHL. Unless I am mistaken, Brooks Orpik and Marc-Andre Fleury were the only players on that team who hung around to lift the Cup, right? Most of the trades you cite, notably the Jagr one, brought the Penguins little of worth. They were salary dumps, and the Penguins, to their credit, acknowledged as much at the time.
Also, anyone who recalls the standing ovation that team got going off the ice after the final home game that year will know that there never was the cynicism with the ownership and management of the Penguins that exists with these Pirates. The baseball team has much, much work ahead to repair the damage done by this year and, really, the previous 16.
Stretching your comparison out, just for fun, how many of the Pirates' current 25-man players would be on a championship team in the same time span, five years from now?
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Q: Dejan, love your work and, as an out-of-town Buccos fan, it is a pleasure every day to log on and read what you have to say.
Whatever happened to the "Things I Miss About Pittsburgh" and the compilation of all those in the past that you promised to provide a year or so ago?
Jerry Davis of Longwood, Fla.
KOVACEVIC: I appreciate all that, Jerry, and you are not the only to ask about the Pittsburgh feature, both about the compilation and about the apparent discontinuation.
On the latter, I had to greatly limit my time at the laptop this past spring for medical reasons, so that was one of the many items I crossed off my list. Once I stopped, I found it kind of hard to restart. I would like to again next year, but perhaps with a different twist. I am open to ideas.
The compilation is supposed to have been done for a while, and there was some discussion a good while back as to whether it would get published (honestly) or simply posted online. I cannot imagine that it would be anything other than online, but I will check.
PHOTO of Tabata: Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
Posted
Aug 20 2009, 08:00 AM
by
Dejan Kovacevic