Brandon Lowe Won’t Stop & Ben Cherington Has A LOT To Say

Yo, welcome to the North Shore Nine podcast presented by FanDuel.

This is Bucco Brew powered by Defer Coffee and Tea.

And I'm your host, Anthony DiNardo, with who we got, Jim Rosati.

And Jim, happy last Monday of the season.

Yeah, the final Bucco Brew of the twenty six regular season.

This is wild.

There are officially six games left.

This is it.

This is it.

I talked about it last week or whatever.

We have one more.

Excuse me.

This is that one more.

This is the last Bucco Brew of the twenty seven twenty six season.

Technically speaking, next week's will be after.

Yeah, so it's the season is the fate of the season was decided officially this weekend.

What was it for?

Late Friday night, the Pirates were officially eliminated from postseason contention.

Yeah.

after the Padres won, and the Padres just keep winning.

That's the...

The one thing about this, I guess, is...

Before the season, we were like, man, like, that's not even going to be close at this point.

Like, you're looking at probably...

like a minimum of eighty nine.

And then because you don't have the tiebreaker with San Diego, it would have been probably ninety wins to get into this postseason.

They're as hot as the Pirates have been, and Pirates have been one of the better teams this month in Major League Baseball.

The Padres have been even better.

I was going to say, actually at this point too, not that they have the tiebreaker for the Phillies either, but the Padres have actually climbed over the Phillies.

The Phillies are now the third wildcard team.

With six games left, the Phillies are at eighty-six wins and the Cubs and Padres are tied at eighty-seven.

That's where it stands right now.

It's not even the Padres you're looking at.

You're looking at the Phillies because of how good the Padres have been.

Like you're saying, with six games left, you'd imagine probably eighty-nine is that number of the last wildcard team being in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wild.

Especially what was it last year?

The Reds made it with eighty three wins.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we figured probably more than that.

Yeah.

But like you said, we weren't we were eighty five.

Eighty six.

Yeah.

Because, this Pirates team said they're they are playing really good baseball right now.

They just come in.

They're coming off the sweep of the Royals.

They're two games over five hundred.

there's a legit chance this team wins.

What I would say, eighty four, eighty four is possible.

Eighty three is probably like likely, eighty two or eighty three wins is probably the most likely outcome right now.

But.

But.

if I was going to be tough, but it could happen.

It's possible.

I'd have to end the season nine game winning streak, to get to that point.

But yeah, I would say the case of like that could happen.

There's still not even close to entertaining the wild.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Likely.

Yeah, it's wild.

We knew that the schedule lined up really nicely in September, and it was like they've got to...

What was it?

We were like, if they could get to.500 by September, then there's a chance, but they failed to do that.

Yeah, that would have at least kept them alive a little bit longer if they could have done that.

Yeah, it's like...

If they would have, it's still a tough task because that's the thing we point out on that one, and it's not live, too.

Like, going into September, it's like, the talk was how easy the Pirates schedule was, but as a matter of fact, we lined it up.

The Padres are very easy, too.

The Diamondbacks are very easy, too.

The Pirates actually weren't even the easiest for the top as far as, like, the wild card teams remaining.

St.

Louis and Miami.

Miami was tough.

And, Miami right now is...

three games on the Pirates.

But also to put this, the Pirates have played great baseball in September.

They're still seven games back.

There's been no ground made up.

So like you're saying, just absolutely wild.

The Diamondbacks has fallen out.

They're not going to make the playoffs very likely.

It's really going to be the Phillies, Padres, and Cubs.

And like you mentioned, all right now, it's probably going to be like an eighty nine to ninety win.

wild card that you have to make it.

So yeah, definitely a tough task, but to get back to the pirates, they have played a really good September.

And that's again, like what were the one things we wanted to see?

Like we want to see this team finish strong.

there's certainly things within the team that you want to see personally, as far as individual players, collectively as a team, we talked to this team is resilience.

They still shown the resiliency, again, like they are mathematically out of it.

They, were basically all but mathematically out of it for a while and they were still playing hard and now they're still out of it they swept the royals like they got their ball that's the one

thing that you certainly i do like about this team is they got there and they give it their all a lot of nights it might not be the best but they give it their all yeah i

i Well, what I declared the season over when they lost the Miami Marlins series.

So, that was, a month and a half ago, really.

they just put themselves in too big of a hole at that point.

Mm-.

and yeah since then despite realistically being out of the equation like there was still we were talking i think alex was referring it to they're the milk range right

they had that one to two percent postseason odds hovering right around there for a month or so but with everything they were they were done at that point but yeah throughout all that they

They ended up getting healthy as far as Konnor Griffin, Spencer Horwitz, Oneil Cruz, Ryan O'Hearn all coming back.

And they've been playing really good.

It's what you at least want to see, right?

You would have hated to see this team just give up and roll over and limp their way to the finish line this year.

i think that would have been a more of an indictment on like don kelly too right you've got to keep these guys motivated and keep these guys playing as much as people have been criticizing

don kelly and with good reason.

There are reasons to criticize Don Kelly for this year.

The one thing you do, I think, need to give him some credit for is the way that he's kept this team engaged and motivated and giving it their all this entire end of the year.

We have seen Pirates teams in the past just go through the motions at this point.

And this team isn't doing that at least.

So I'll give him credit for that.

a lot earlier than september so yeah now obviously they were a much better team than some teams in the past right they're still within the wild card race another team in the past but absolutely

this team from game one to game well i guess what one seven one fifty six right now yeah like they've they fought they're in it's

can criticize a player from this game to that game per se right everyone has an off night or whatever but as a team like yeah this team has certainly fought they've been in it and again i do appreciate that from this team but also it does it

does just it sucks like that's what just sucks about this not to go too negative at this point but mean we basically said that you have all the five hundred mark like this

team has to get to that level to then basically win two out of every three and that's what they've been doing that's what they've been doing they just didn't get to that mark they got themselves too much of a deficit and it

was too big too deep of a hole to dig out of now ironically also like that two out of three still as we're talking about wouldn't have been enough because that two out of three was basically get them with about eighty seven wins.

And again, that's probably still not going to be enough here.

So but they, once they got through that, they did that thing that we said they would have to do.

And.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They played some really good baseball.

And a big part of that also is.

Brandon Lowe.

Huge part.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He, especially this past week, I feel like, ever since we had, like, a little bit of talk and discussion, I was like, and again, understand where I'm coming from, understand the Pirates payroll situation.

I can see this team moving off from him.

I'm okay with it.

And then he was like, DiNardo, don't you dare.

Don't you dare say that.

I'm going to prove to you that I need to stay here, and I'm just going to come back and win every game.

He's been outstanding this past week.

Just to remind me, like, yeah, I really want to see Brandon Lowe next year.

Yeah, we've said time and time again that the Pirates need to figure out a way to bring this guy back.

He's sitting right now, one-twenty weighted runs created plus, thirty-three homers, ninety-two runs, ninety-three RBIs, four-point-seven wins above replacement on fan graphs.

Defensively, he's been just out of this world.

He's had a really good series this weekend defensively, but...

Fourteen defensive runs saved.

Fourteen outs above average.

A fielding run value of twelve.

Like, he's...

He's just having himself a really...

it's his best season of his career.

Best year of his career.

It's his Corey Dickerson year.

Like, I put it that way.

That's...

similarities right the trade from the rays the well this guy's bad defensively and then he ends up being one of the best defenders in the league yeah like what a turnaround even think about

this when the trade happened is he gonna dh a lot he's gonna maybe play first base a little bit here and there like once again like the defense is so bad at second base but the offense over

overplays it.

It's fine, but defense is really bad.

Maybe you're going to DH him a lot.

And right.

He was the best defender this infield had.

Now, I just say that because Konnor Griffin probably would be, but he missed so much time and stuff.

He was the staple of this infield.

He held this thing together.

Yeah.

He was just really good.

And so now it comes down to You have to at least try to bring him back.

Actually, I'm even going to go a step farther.

You've got to bring this guy back somehow.

You've got to figure out a way.

Trying isn't even good enough.

The problem with this is we have seen how this has gone in the past.

He's going to be a player that a lot of teams are going to be in on.

there are a lot of teams that are going to want Brandon Lowe.

I think MLB trade rumors, someone listed him as like the eighth best free agent going into next year.

Yeah.

So we're talking about someone who is going to be one of the more highly coveted players.

It's also just going to be interesting to see how teams approach this offseason with, the lockout looming there in December.

Like our – Are you going to see a flurry of moves before that happens to try to like lock guys up before all that takes place?

Or are you just not going to see anything until after teams have a better idea economically where they're going to be and what that looks like.

So, yeah, I'm just curious to see how this plays out.

but the Pittsburgh pirates absolutely need to figure out a way to make this happen.

Like somehow need to figure out a way.

He's too important to this team.

It's going to be so tough.

Like, listen, it's my team, my money, my whatever.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

But the reality is like this team's already at a hundred million dollars next year based on the contracts that are there.

Brandon Lowe's going to get how much?

Fifteen to twenty a year.

I think he's probably, I went through some night on just like the last ten multi-year deals given to second baseman and just looking at

the numbers out there.

like he's probably not going to get like the Marcus Semien deal.

Semien was coming off like almost a seven war season when he signed a seven year hundred and seventy five million dollar deal.

DJ LeMahieu got six years, ninety million after that COVID year where he just went off.

I don't think teams are giving out those types of deals to like thirty two year olds anymore.

But.

I could see I could see Brandon Lowe getting.

Three years, seventy million, somewhere in that range.

So like somewhere between the twenty to twenty five million dollar a year range, I think, is where ultimately he's going to be.

OK, I guess I undershot a little less than that per year.

But regardless, even if even if it was, even if we're talking about the variance between fifteen to twenty five, if it's fifteen, the very low end of the variance, like this payroll is already at one fifteen.

Well, probably a little more.

Probably one-sixteenth.

I think it's like... Well, let's see.

So according to Ethan...

Ethan looked at next year's payroll and some calculations here based off the players...

So Ethan's at – so the Pirates have eighty – they have sixty-one million dollars in commitments for twenty-twenty-seven.

Now, that doesn't include all their ARB players or all of their minimum, league minimum guys.

So, what was that?

Sixty-one million?

I'm just curious on what, like – what the rest of the team makes outside those guys this year so if you just take

the rest it's like another thirty million or so let's call it yeah he has he has the tweet out here but yeah he says a hundred million is the

baseline Based off of what he's assuming, like what he's putting in there.

And he does a pretty good job on estimating numbers and such.

But yeah, he says, someone was asking about twenty seven payroll today.

So your first twenty seven estimate made up our estimates.

So this is probably low, but one hundred million is the baseline.

OK.

So that's just what the people returning.

Now, I guess you could probably take Doval out of the equation.

He has Doval here at seven million.

So I guess you could take him out because I think we all can agree he's probably not.

But that's it.

like everyone else, you're giving arbitration to like you're running that.

So I guess maybe let's put it at ninety three low end.

Okay.

Because there's no Duvall.

So regardless, that's what I'm alluding to is you need still more pieces than just Brandon Lowe.

And if you add Brandon Lowe, I guess we're looking at the very low end of one hundred and eight million dollars.

If you're if we're starting with ninety three.

Yeah.

Yeah.

you're Brandon Lowe's going to push you over one ten with the players that you've got right now.

And again, his estimates are low end.

I'm giving a low end of a fifteen million.

So again, like that, they have like that one.

Oh, eight is like a very extreme low end of stuff.

Most likely over one ten, like you mentioned.

And that's just where I'm at now.

Again, like it's not to say like I want Brandon Lowe gone, but it's just.

Do you think Bob's getting one hundred ten million dollar payroll next year plus?

I could see one ten because what was it this year?

Like one oh five.

I think like right now it's about that.

Yeah.

Right around there.

Attendance.

It didn't start there.

Yeah.

Attendance slightly went up so I could see it pushing one, with that being the case though.

The only way you're bringing Brandon Lowe back is if you probably cut bait with Mitch Keller.

Like that's the way around all of this is figuring out a way for someone to take Mitch Keller off your hands and that contract.

I think Keller had a very bad year this year.

I think that's widely known and understood.

But overall, for the most part, for his career, he's been a pretty consistent pitcher.

He's going to go out there and he's going to give you a hundred and seventy plus innings a year.

And he's going to give you a chance to win every fifth day.

That's just the pitcher that he is.

And if you look out there on like the free agent market, like those kinds of pitchers, even coming off down years, they still they still go out there and get one year, two year deals worth twenty to twenty five

million dollars.

Like that's the type of like guys who throw one hundred seventy plus innings every year with the RAs and the low fours.

That's typically what they get.

So when it comes to Keller, I think you could probably find a team to take him off your hands.

You're probably not getting much of a return for him.

It's going to be more of a here's Mitch Keller type of deal.

Thanks for giving us some money to spend.

But I do think they can, if they want to go that route, which I think with the constraints that this team has monetarily, that's probably what they're going to have to do.

In order to, in order to resign low, resign low is to get someone to take Keller because that will then free up.

You can essentially at that point, just swap.

You can just swap those two, right?

you can pretty much just give, You could pretty much just give Brandon Lowe Keller's money.

Keller's due for eighteen million next year.

Mm.

So, that frees up quite a bit for you.

That's it to me.

Now, that's going to be a tough task, though.

I feel like trading Mitch Keller because like it isn't just the one year he's got some years left.

Yeah, it's two years.

So, Keller's making eighteen next year and twenty the year after.

Right.

Which, if he is the pitcher that he was before this year, he's worth that.

Sure.

But there's certainly some uncertainty there.

And I...

You're absolutely trading him at your lowest also.

That's another thing, too.

Yeah.

Absolutely at your lowest, which is something that Ben Cherington seems to find himself in a position of doing quite often.

So...

That's the really, because I don't, you're not, you can, but I don't think you're trading Bryan Reynolds.

I don't think you are either.

Mitch Keller.

Mitch Keller is the piece.

The only way in my eyes that this team even entertains bringing back Brandon Lowe is if they're able to trade off Mitch Keller.

And then it comes down to is the sum of returns of trading Mitch Keller at his lowest, basically not getting any return.

bringing back Brandon Lowe, the best possible situation to put yourself in, then just keeping Mitch Keller and then going another route.

TBD.

TBD.

But I just, again, like, I just really, would I love Brandon Lowe back?

Absolutely.

But I also think if you bring Brandon Lowe back, you also need to add something else as far as a right-handed bat still and such.

And you brought the point of, maybe you trade Nick Gonzales to do that, and that certainly could be a possibility.

That's the thing, too.

If you do bring Brandon Lowe back, I think it also absolutely means you are trading Nick Gonzales.

Maybe not like a hundred percent absolutely have to, but you're entertaining that because he can't play third.

And at that point, he's not going to be a utility guy.

And I think next year, too, it's like you're not really getting a full-time DH involved.

That's what next year presents and gives you opportunities for is you can rotate it with guys like maybe get some more days DH-ing, and Bryan Reynolds does, and, Oneil Cruz, whoever, you can use that DH spot to do that with.

You have to entertain Trey Nick Gonzales, and that's how you maybe get a right-handed, maybe it's an outfield bat or something, or third base or something like that.

But I think it just starts with Mitch Keller.

That's, like, the only way this team can do it.

That's it.

That's the only way.

And there are some things you can do to make it, possibly a little bit easier to sign Brandon Lowe.

I think first and foremost, I don't know the last time this team submitted a qualifying offer.

It's been a bit.

Was it Russell Martin?

It might have been.

I think it was the last time they saw, a person through their deal to last year.

It was probably Russell Martin.

But I think you do have to, I'd have to go back and look that up.

But yeah, I think you need to, I think you need to give Brandon Lowe a qualifying offer, which is going to roughly be twenty two to twenty three million dollars.

And so that gives you, that does a few things for you.

One, he could take it, right?

He could take it.

And then Brandon Lowe is a pirate next year for twenty three million dollars.

Now you got to figure out a way to make that money work within your budget.

The second thing it does is if he does sign somewhere else, you get a first round draft pick out of it.

Right.

So at least you get some compensation there.

But thirdly, it does make him not necessarily like if we're referring to like football terms here, like it's not that he's a restricted free agent at that point, but it does make it a little easier

for the Pirates to have a leg up on other teams because the Pirates, in order to sign Brandon Lowe at that point, just need to give him money, right?

Years and money.

Whereas any other team in baseball, if they sign Brandon Lowe, they've got to give him years, money, and they're giving up a draft pick.

So it costs more for other teams to get Brandon Lowe at that point, which just gives you a leg up because it's going to cost you less than any other team to sign him once you put

that qualifying offer on him.

I think that's move number one.

That's the thing you got to do first.

And who knows?

Maybe he takes it.

I doubt he does.

But once you give that qualifying offer to him, it does give you a leg up.

Gives you a little bit of a leg up on everybody else.

I feel like the only way he could even entertain taking that is it's like there's just so much uncertainty on what's going to happen that like, let me just take this for this year and I'll enter a free agency when all this stuff is worked out.

Yeah.

But if you're Brandon Lowe and you're Brandon Lowe's camp, you're coming off the best year of your career.

You're capitalized.

You're capitalized.

You've got to cash in right now.

So I don't see a qualifying offer being accepted here.

This is Brandon Lowe's best shot of maximizing his dollar is right here.

Yeah.

I think he's going to decline the qualifying offer.

He's going to see what's out there.

The comments this weekend were, he likes it here.

He'd be willing to come back.

I didn't really take any of that as news, really.

I know a lot of people...

There's mutual interest.

And it's like, I don't know.

I don't know if I would go that far.

I think it's more along the lines of, yeah, if Pittsburgh wants to pay me more than any other team, I would gladly come back here to Pittsburgh.

That's how I read it.

He's not shutting the door here, but it's not like Brandon Lowe saying, I want to be in Pittsburgh above all else.

Like he's saying, Hey, if the pirates want to offer me something, I'll listen to him, but that's going to be them and other teams.

it's right.

Real quick.

I'm at here, Russell Martin and Francisco Liriano same year, but, yeah, like I'll say two things on here.

Right.

One of it, like you're saying, like, He's not out there pining, like, get it done.

I'll take a discount.

Like, I want to be here to that level.

But he is saying, like, I do like it here.

I would entertain it.

These guys, I think there's, good talent here.

Like, he talks a little bit about the team and such.

And now there's also the other side of that where people are saying, like, well, what else is he going to say?

Like, he put him on the spot.

He's going to say that stuff.

And honestly, like, well, he could just simply say, like, what he said when he was asked that question earlier in the season.

Well, what?

I'm not even thinking about that now.

We'll wait till after the season.

We'll discuss, we'll talk.

the fact that he did open up and say that, I think there's some truth there.

like, I think he did like his time here.

He seemed to fit in well.

I don't think there's anything or anyone.

he spoke up after every game.

It sounded like, I don't think there's anything that indicates like he wanted to get the hell out of here.

I think he was probably fine being here.

I think he enjoyed his time being here, but he wanted to win.

Of course, every, mostly every player wants to win, but, Like, I don't see anything that he said being off base or like, ah, he's just saying that.

Like, yeah, I think he would.

But of course, like, yeah, it's not as if he's saying like, yeah, I'll do whatever it takes to sign here.

Like, yeah, I'm all yours.

They've never talked to me yet.

So if they want to talk to me, I'm going to listen.

I do like it here.

Let's talk.

Yeah.

And again, I think ultimately you're going to look at I think you're going to look at it's going to be three years and it's going to cost you twenty to twenty five million bucks per year.

I think that's what we're going to look at.

Yeah, that very well could be.

I think the three years, though, is that sweet line for him because he is coming off a really good year.

Gives him a high AV in that sense.

But like, I don't know if too many teams don't want to get more than three years for Brandon Lowe, because, again, to be honest.

He is injury prone in the past.

He had he was healthy all year this year.

which is why he killed that home run total that I took the under on because I didn't expect him to play these many games, Jim.

He crushed it.

He crushed it.

But yeah, I think that three years is probably the sweet spot.

Maybe someone goes out there and give him a fourth to lock it down, but I couldn't imagine him really getting like a four or five or like you said, like seven.

That's not going to happen.

So it's probably a three years, little higher average annual value that you would think because of it and gets it done.

Yeah, we'll see.

And again, it's going to be interesting to see, does anything happen before December second when the lockout is set to begin?

Or are we going to wait until after that's over to really get what things are going?

I do have a feeling a lot of players are going to be...

They're going to have some urgency to try to get something done before that.

I could see that.

I could see that being the case.

Because at the end of the day, you're thinking...

Even if the lockout doesn't last very long, and even if there's no cap system that goes into place, the owners are digging in pretty good.

There's probably going to be some give and take here, and the players may have to give a little bit to...

to avoid a cap so i'm i wonder if they're concerned with that yeah so i wonder if they'll be like hey what let me let me take what i know i can get in this current economic system as opposed

to waiting for what's going to come after this thing so yeah we'll see it's going to be it's going to be an interesting off season that's for sure yeah good and bad But for that case, yeah, like you said,

I'm interested in the type of player that would want to sign now opposed to waiting out.

Yeah, man.

Anything else on Brandon Lowe?

I don't think so.

Cool.

Well, bring him back.

Bring him back.

Bring him back.

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All right.

Well, Ben Cherington also had a lot of things to say yesterday, Ben Cherington on his radio show.

And there is a, there's still a chance that this is the final Ben Cherington radio show.

I guess there'd be one next Sunday.

So this could have been the penultimate Ben Cherington radio show.

But yeah, he had a lot to say.

He acknowledged that missing the postseason means that they failed.

His quote was, if you're not playing games in October, you haven't met what you set out to do.

He also added that he thinks that the team is in a much better spot right now as than it was twelve months ago points to Griffin being up here Flores playing well Valdez Bubba

Montgomery Ashcraft Jones finishing in the season off and yeah like I think and I agree with him on that we'll go into that more the bullpen was clearly his main problem coming into

the season and He's like that was the comments I want to touch on.

I think the most here during this discussion was, it sounds like he knows that's where he messed up.

That's where he messed up was the bullpen.

And then, just goes into talking about how, they did do better this year, but it wasn't good enough.

Yeah.

So that's, that was the interview.

yeah it's just disheartening man again because like you see how they're playing right now and if you just gave this team a little more help that it needed

when it needed it could be different like it could have been different and i think that's why a lot of powers fans feel this way it was early on the season that bullpen you needed to

do something just watching this team crumble before your eyes knowing what's at stake yeah and he mentioned during the interview he

said that he's gone back and he's asked himself whether there was something that he could have done earlier and he says that there just wasn't an obvious move sitting there that they

that they knowingly ignored so And this is the one thing, and I pushed back on Tyler a little bit.

We were talking about this.

I don't know if it was on NSI Live or it was on a postgame show, but the one...

I'm not going to give Ben Cherington an excuse here, right?

Because at the end of the day, he's responsible for putting together a bullpen that works from the start.

But...

There are reasons why trades for good players don't happen early in the year.

They rarely ever happen.

And so once he realized that bullpen wasn't going to be good enough, he did shuffle the deck chairs around a lot.

there were people coming up, coming down, coming up, coming down, coming up, coming down nonstop.

The issue is that none of them were good enough, right?

Like, none of these guys that he brought up were good enough to actually make any impact in that first half of the season.

And when you go externally, like, it takes two to tango.

Like, that...

You can't just it's an MLB the show where you can just on April eighth say, hey, I need a reliever.

Let me match it up so that the bars are equal value here.

And the other team says, yes, like that just.

There's a reason why it doesn't happen.

Right.

Like it just it doesn't happen.

There's again, Hamilton right here in the comments.

The first trade of note this year was Curtis Mead on July twenty sixth.

Right.

And so, again, not blaming not this isn't an excuse because ultimately, again, it's still his fault, but.

It would have been extremely difficult to get something done before the deadline.

And who knows how hard they tried?

Who knows what was on the table?

There may have been ways to get Luke Weaver two months earlier, right?

The Mets maybe were the one team that you could have dealt with a little earlier.

But also, what's the incentive for the Mets to trade Luke Weaver a little bit earlier?

So, yeah, it's, again, it's not an excuse.

The issue was it wasn't right beforehand.

But once it's not right beforehand, like, your hands are tied for a while.

Yeah, and I guess my pushback to that is, and Alex wrote about this.

Check out Alex's work, right?

But he did write about, the ten things that was a problem.

And I forget where he ranked the bullpen.

And that's something I was talking about beforehand, too, and he mentions that.

I talk about an individual player, but he points out that's a very good scenario.

What was going to take the pride of the Angels to trade Kirby Yates in June?

like a Luke Weaver, I understand.

like the big impactful players, like absolutely.

But the Angels are out of it.

the Angels are clearly out of it.

They're the last place team in the AL.

Like on May.

They were sixteen and twenty nine, fourteen games out, like.

They're not going anywhere.

It's clear.

You're not trying to pry Mike Trout off of them where it's like, let's build this up.

It's Kirby Yates.

And if it means you have to double the value of Kirby Yates, does that mean you got to give a.

Thirty five plus future value.

Right.

Kirby Yates.

what?

Yeah.

Like that's what I'm alluding to.

It's like.

To be aggressive, what's it going to cost you on those types of players?

At the end of the day, is that player worth costing your season?

Would Kirby Yates improve this team?

Most likely.

Kirby Yates alone, maybe not, but like Raley.

there's talks the Mets are open to trading Raley.

I don't know if the qualifying offer alone would have been worth that, right?

Like maybe more than that, but they were interested in that.

That was before the deadline.

The Mets were clearly out of that point in time, too.

The Andrew, the Luke Weaver, I get.

I get.

That's the one you want to maximize.

There's players you want to capitalize and maximize on.

There's other ones that's like, what's the maximum capital return you're getting for Kirby Yates?

Whatever you're giving up in May to get it or June to get it, you still don't care about.

Ben Cherington's not going to utilize that player in his future.

And if he does, it's not going to be that much.

A platoon guy maybe at best.

Was it worth holding back because you couldn't get ultra-aggressive to get Kirby Yates to help save this season?

That's just where I'm at.

We're not talking about the top tier guys.

Go get some of the other guys.

Again, you didn't need to have, we thought it would be a luxury, but you didn't have to have this top tier closer.

You just need some pieces to help stabilize this bullpen.

This offense is good enough.

The pitching staff at that point in time is still good enough.

Just get some guys to help stabilize this.

Get rid of the twenty blown saves.

Make it fourteen.

And that puts you in a whole different situation now.

And again, that's just where I was at.

By the way... Go ahead.

I was going to say... Go.

The thirty-fourth overall pick...

not getting a reliever for that and like using it where, Hey, I need to get a long-term piece here in Jacob Gonzalez.

Like they may have felt that the value was more with that, but that trade did not help the twenty six pirates.

And I think a lot of people when they made it were like, no, this is a Konnor Griffin replacement.

This is a Konnor Griffin replacement.

Well, that didn't work out right.

Jared Triolo was better than Jacob Gonzalez, but So not utilizing that pick to get immediate bullpen help in early July

instead of having to wait until early August, that is the biggest thing I will fault him for in terms of addressing this bullpen during the season.

That is that right there.

Agreed.

Agreed.

I just wanted to point some things out here because, for the thing that never happens, again, it doesn't happen often, but the thing that never happens, it's when he,

Did I mention that?

Yes, I did.

Was that the eighteenth season?

Yeah.

It can happen.

It can't happen.

They don't happen in May.

It doesn't happen in April and May, but it happens late June.

Sometimes it happens in May.

Alex call it May.

June is still a big difference in August third.

That's when you definitively knew This bullpen is not working out.

You've tried all these internals.

Go out there and get something.

Help stop this bleeding.

And it didn't happen.

Anyways, not to go too long onto that.

We've already discussed this.

But him identifying that, I think, is absolutely correct.

And then you can also double down on that.

When the trade deadline came, you also knew that your starting rotation was...

on life support and he didn't add another starter.

And as we see now, there's two games a week where you have a bullpen game now because of that.

And you did not add a right-handed bat.

And also that was in the biggest funk they were in at that point in time, first lefties.

it was, it's been bad all year, but at that point in time, it was putrid.

And that's jokingly.

I said, I was like, well, Ryan O'Hearn being injured, maybe, for the second time, maybe that's a blessing in disguise, Jim.

We've talked about that.

Maybe it's a blessing in disguise because they already need to have a right-handed bat added.

So now if Ryan O'Hearn out, they'll definitely get a right-handed bat.

They have to get a bat.

So might as well make it right-handed.

And they still didn't.

They didn't address anything outside the bullpen.

And Yeah, they didn't do enough at the deadline.

The bullpen was addressed, and it was addressed in a really good way.

This has been one of the best bullpens in baseball since the deadline.

But yeah, they didn't address the other stuff.

And we talked about that on that deadline show where they need a right.

leading up to the deadline, they need a right-handed bat.

They need a starting pitcher.

And then they needed one even more once they realized that Keller was done for the season and they still didn't do anything about it.

So, yeah.

And that's why I got criticized for my I think I gave him a C for the deadline because I was just he didn't do enough.

I think we were all low, and I think people got mad at us because we liked the moves that were made, but we needed to see more.

And yeah, at the end of the day here, he didn't do enough at the deadline to address the weaknesses that this team had.

He addressed one of the weaknesses, but there were multiple others that just never got fixed at all.

Mm-.

Yep.

But also talking about, and I tweeted this, talking about that they're in a better situation today than they were twelve months ago.

And I agree.

Like you said, you agree.

Yeah, they are.

I agree.

You should.

That's your job.

I'm not going to celebrate doing the status quo.

It's year seven of the rebuild.

year seven shouldn't be like, well, last...

twelve months ago we were in a better spot than we are this year you should be in a better spot that's why you're not like you're still apparently like building you're not reaching the playoffs yet so I damn sure

I hope you're a better spot today than we're twelve months ago because that's a bigger problem but I'm not here to celebrate that we're better than we are twelve months ago in our seventh season you should

It bothers me so much.

We're going to do everything in our power.

We're going to double down on everything in our power next year to make sure we make the playoffs.

Again, I'm not trying to make this back into an NSLive show, but it's just like, how many times do you just want to say this?

They're just words.

And again, when there's no accountability, they're just words.

There's no faith.

There's no belief.

They're just words now because you've been saying that.

And now you say it again.

No one believes you.

Nobody believes you.

And that's why.

That's where the accountability comes into place.

So what?

Who cares?

Prove it to me.

Yeah.

Again, words are meaningless if they just don't end up amounting to anything.

Again, in twenty four.

Accountable together, it's time to win.

Right.

Last year, the period full stop.

Next year, double down.

there's been a new saying, right, for these last two seasons and going into the third year here.

Again, I agree with you.

There's nothing to celebrate.

There's celebrating that this team is in a better position now than it was a year ago.

I think that's a little silly.

And not to say he was celebrating, but that's what I'm alluding to.

But I think we can also acknowledge that it is.

The catching position that we were very up in the air about a year ago seems to be solved.

I feel really good about the catcher position going into next year.

I love what I'm seeing out of Rafael Flores.

The emergence of Valdez has been huge for this team.

There's just a lot less things you need to address now than you had to address at this point last year.

At this point last year, it was like, okay, we need a second baseman, you need a third baseman, you need a catcher, you need two corner outfielders, and you need an entire bullpen and probably a starting pitcher.

Now that list of things that they need to do is smaller.

because you can, you can look at this lineup and I said that, I think that's, what's probably the most exciting part about this September is you're looking at the guys who are playing right now.

And you're saying like, these are the guys who are going to be here next year for the most part, minus Brandon Lowe as of this moment.

And they're all playing.

really well together they're winning baseball games Jared Jones has had an outstanding season i think coming off his injury bubba chandler we've talked about how he's just grown throughout

the year and he looks like he looks like a really legit starter like i'm excited to see what year two of bubba chandler looks like So like you start piecing this thing out and you look at the rotation and you

look at the bullpen that they've also addressed with guys who are going to be coming back next year.

And it's like, okay, this team is like the starting point for the twenty seven pirates.

it's higher than the starting point was for the twenty six pirates so can you get the twenty seven pirates to where they need to be to accomplish the postseason if you if you have another

offseason like this year where you're adding ten wins to the team, then that's huge.

You had ten wins to an eighty three win team.

They are ninety three win team, right?

As opposed to adding twelve wins to a seventy one win team.

Now it's going to be a lot harder to add ten wins, I think, to an eighty three win team than it was to add twelve wins to a seventy one win team.

But again, the starting like his quote was, the starting point is stronger.

And that's true.

So now just you got to have another killer offseason.

Yeah.

Yep.

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back in the day all right so final topic which by the way hold on

i just moved stuff what is our final topic Final topic is just last week of the season is coming in.

Oh, yes.

Here we go.

So, yeah, so we've got three more home games against the Cardinals than three away games in Detroit.

everybody's pretty much slated for one more start.

Jared Jones, I guess, could start two games here this final week if they don't do anything to mess up schedules or anything like that.

I think the most important for me, I would I would say like.

it's not a goal, but like just finish above five hundred.

Just do it like.

Go at least three and three this week for eighty two wins, like let's get that monkey off our back where we haven't had a winning season in eight years.

Let's just get that out of the way now.

Again, it's not something worth celebrating, like you shouldn't celebrate your first five hundred season in eight years, but it is something it is something.

So do that.

And then just make sure everybody stays healthy.

No injuries to the starting pitchers this last week of the season.

I'm fine with just taking it easy with all these guys.

If Paul Skenes and Bubba Chandler and Jared Jones just need to pitch four innings, start and throw sixty to eighty pitches and then get them out of there.

i'm fine with that honestly at this point just like finish the year healthy there's a man pitching staff which means you've got eleven relievers like let them

let them pitch the innings right like give Antwone Kelly and Wilber Dotel and Khristian Curtis and Brandon Eisert or give these guys two to three to four innings at a time let them deal

with some of this bulk work And then there's one other guy I want to see before the end of the year.

And it's just because he's had a pretty strong finish to his minor league season.

Oh, I know what this is.

Is this almost like that carrot?

Give him a start up here.

No, it's a guy who we've seen before, but we've never seen him start a major league game.

He's pitched nine games in the majors.

They've all been out of the bullpen.

Hunter Barco.

Give Hunter Barco a major league start.

like a real life major league start before the end of the year and just see what happens because he's got, you're going to, you're going to roster him.

You're not cutting bait with Hunter Barco.

He's going to be in the mix somehow next year.

So like, just give him a start.

give him a start people talking about connor Wietgrefe connor Wietgrefe absolutely not absolutely not as deserving as he is for it you can't add connor Wietgrefe to the forty man roster the last week of the year going

into a lockout because guess what happens guys on december second if you're on the forty man roster you're not allowed to talk to these people again So now the Connor Wietgrefe, if he's not rule five eligible, there's no reason to add him to a

forty man again from a desert.

He's probably deserving of a of a start.

I'll give him that.

He's been he's been a rock star.

But yeah, you can't.

It's probably not a smart idea for this team to add Connor Wietgrefe to their forty man roster heading into the offseason.

So as deserving as he is.

Unfortunately, the situation calls for him not being added.

But Hunter Barco, give him a start.

He's had, like I said, a really good ending to his minor league season.

He hasn't looked great in the majors, but give him a start.

This was a guy who was a top-one-hundred prospect a year ago.

Mm-.

And he still doesn't have a single major league start, which is wild.

They keep going these bullpen game routes as opposed to just giving pitchers a spot start here and there.

Just give him one.

I could be four.

So he gets the final one?

It's not Jared Jones?

Or instead of two bullpen games this week, yeah, let Hunter Barco start one of them.

Okay.

I'll say this.

Yeah.

I was thinking you're going the Connor route, but that's why I looked up here.

I'm like, yeah, he's not rule five eligible.

I didn't think about the whole lockout situation too.

Yeah, absolutely not.

Yeah.

Because you do that.

Then now you've just made them part of the major league.

And it's like, no, let's not do that.

So good call that not no Connor.

Sorry, Connor.

But yeah, there's no need for, again, he's deserving of it.

Absolutely deserves it.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Like, take all that stuff out.

That's what it's like saying, thinking like them back when they did that to her own Z and Cruz.

And it's like, you had a good year.

Here's your little taste of the major leagues, but no, not this year, Connor.

Sorry.

Yeah.

I'm good with that with Barco.

It's, it is funny because it was always like, he and Thomas Harrington is like maybe which one's really the better prospect and such.

And, really gone the other way.

But Barco is just there.

I know he's forgotten and I don't think anyone's counting on him for the future, but he has had a solid season in AAA.

So I guess maybe just like you're saying as a little kudos here, you actually get a major league start.

I'm good with that.

And again, it's the final week.

It's nothing really matters.

You're not really playing for anything.

Like, yeah, I'm good with doing that.

And you probably need a pitcher anyways.

Like you're saying, if you're probably going to give guys four innings, which I'm also good with, just go in there.

It's like spring training.

Just get your work in.

I'm good with that.

I just want to add here, maybe not go too much on what you want to see the last week.

I think you've pretty much nailed it.

But what I want to do say is knowing that this team wasn't going to make the playoffs, right?

Like what September met, what we want to see out of September.

This is a hell of a September.

A lot of things were answered.

Maybe not a lot were answered.

We were given a lot more information on things, and it was all positive information for the most part.

I think the only negative, which isn't so much a negative, is I think we've answered the Duvall situation.

There isn't any need to tender him a contract, go through arbitration.

He's going to make probably six to eight million dollars.

Ethan did have him here as a seven million dollar case.

There's no reason to spend that.

And also part of that is because of what we've seen, right?

Again, all this stuff from September.

Like, Lake Bachar?

I'm happy with him next year as a right-handed pitcher.

there's still Weaver.

Mason Montgomery, his development, what he's become.

I'm excited for him next year.

There's still Carmen Mlodzinski.

There's still Wilber Dotel.

Like, you have a plethora of pitchers that...

Yeah, we don't need Duvall, at that price point.

Outside of that, like Rafael Flores, what's he going to have and look like in September?

And it's still strong.

He's tightened up a lot.

The power is still legit.

He's actually looked better behind the plate also.

There's been a lot of nice things.

a lot of stuff that makes you feel comfortable about some of these players heading into twenty seven that you saw from September.

So, again, not so much about what I want to see the final week.

I just want to take a step back to look what we have been seeing through September.

and a lot of good stuff from these guys.

It's a shame that Esmerlyn Valdez went down, he's not going to finish the year.

You would like to see him like how, he went through his struggles and how he bounced back and he was starting to a bit.

So that's the one downside.

You're not going to see Esmerlyn Valdez, but for the most part, what she's seen from everyone was very positive.

Yeah.

I absolutely love what we've been seeing from Rafael Flores jr.

Like Absolutely love it.

Couldn't be happier with what he's doing.

And we're talking about one hundred and forty seven plate appearances now.

So it's still a pretty small sample size, but it's getting up there.

Right.

He's no longer he's no longer a prospect.

He's no longer, rookie eligible.

So like next year, he's not going to be a rookie.

So we're in.

It's been really good.

DiNardo, he's slugging five fifty six.

He's got a one forty three way to run his creative plus the power of power is awesome i love i love the power that we're seeing out of him and the ability to just like his comments yesterday like he just he

seemed like a dog one and he's got the ability to adjust mid at bat and make pitchers pay for stuff so big homer yesterday game winning homer

Love it.

Absolutely love what we're seeing out of Rafael Flores Jr.

So, yeah, there's some things to get excited about.

He's certainly one of them.

Yeah, that contact rate, still sitting at like seven, eight and a half percent.

That's below league average, but that's acceptable.

He's still not chasing pitches.

Again, it's a lot of similarities to the Esmerlyn Valdez thing.

There's question marks about him coming up.

rafael flores had like the same issues but what he's doing at the major league level doesn't look like it's like it's not going to translate up here he's doing some good stuff it's still those issues still exist but it's not at

a level where he's just going to be a bad player so yeah good stuff from flores good stuff from a lot of guys So it was a good September, I felt like, with stuff that you wanted to see that

remain.

Yeah, they're twelve and six right now, too, in September.

So, like, they're winning at a two out of three clip for the month.

They're doing it.

Yeah, if they do the same these last two series, then you got, what, sixteen and eight September?

it's pretty solid.

Again, they just put themselves in too big of a hole in July and August to...

to claw their way out of it, but they've finished this season quite strong.

Yep.

Yep.

All right.

Well, there's no game tonight.

They do play tomorrow.

And as it seems, it's the end of the year with FanDuel, probably because of all the bullpen games and whatnot.

They're not really putting out the odds until the day of.

So there's no odds right now on FanDuel.

So check it out tomorrow, I would say, or maybe later tonight.

And again, there's no need to go to any type of awards or playoff odds, stuff like that.

Yeah, I don't even know if they still have their...

I don't even see any Uchers bets that are even still active at this point.

Yeah.

Yeah, they've got World Series winner.

But that's about it.

The Dodgers right now are heavy favorites at plus-two-twenty to win the World Series.

What?!

Which, what, someone asked on the Discord yesterday, which if you're not on the Discord, make sure you're on there.

Make sure you download the app.

We've got the daily chat going on there, too, and the game chat.

But somebody asked, who should we be pulling for this postseason?

And I don't really pull for anybody.

I can't root for a team that isn't the Pittsburgh Pirates.

But I think what we as a fan base, if you are pro salary cap, if you want a salary cap, you probably want the Dodgers to win again.

Because that's just a little bit more ammo to the, hey, look what's happening without a cap.

The Dodgers are just winning every year.

That's probably what we want to see.

yeah that would certainly help that argument and i think that jeff passan talked i think he had a similar question and like he said i don't think it's going to really push the needle too much

the way things are but it right but it wouldn't hurt and on the opposite end don't root for the Rays or the Guardians.

Yeah, like the Rays winning.

You don't want to see the Rays to win this year because then it's going to be like, see?

Sorry, Rays.

Sorry, Brewers.

Not this year.

Maybe, yeah, not this year.

Yeah, I have no problem,.

When it comes to playoffs, I think I just like to look for good baseball and fun baseball and underdogs to some level,?

Like, it's nice seeing the...

when the Guardians are playing the Yankees or something, even though Tyler would never root for Cleveland.

But anyways, yeah, I don't know.

Let's just have some fun series.

A lot of times, often enough, they are.

But we'll be back tomorrow with a post-game show to wrap up our final week of the twenty six season.

Crazy.

Yeah.

But with that said, any last words, Jim, before we get out of here?

No, let's enjoy the last week of baseball because who knows when we're going to have the next Pirates game.

With that said, like, subscribe, follow along.

We appreciate you all that do, and we love you all.

So until next time, bye-bye.

Go Bucs.

All right, that wraps up this episode of North Shore Nine.

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