9 Comments

I'm guessing Nick Krall isn't happy with Nick Martinez eating up 21M of salary by accepting the QO.

That's a lot of $ for a swingman playing for a small market team.

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I slightly disagree. You don't make the QO if you haven't planned for the player to accept it, especially for players like Martinez who many expected to accept. I get you offer the QO to the Soto types just to make sure you get something back, but Martinez was a strong candidate to accept.

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Wouldn’t it be cool if Skenes became the first rookie to win the Cy Young award since Fernando Valenzuela this year?

If Skenes had either pitched the entire season, or been a part of a winning team, it would practically be a slam dunk for him.

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Positives -

*Paul Skenes wins the ROY Award tonight,

*38 players currently on the Pirates 40 Man Roster, Sammy Siani would be a no-brainer

Negatives -

*Little if any activity from the front office,

*BC has not fired Derek Shelton,

*BN has not ordered BC to fire Derek Shelton,

*It's pure guess work trying to figure the direction of this team regarding position players

*Does this list of negatives sound familiar

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I believe BN models himself after Rooney in terms of stability in the organization. Unfortunately for us Pirates fans, Shelton hasn’t figured out how to produce a winning team, unlike Tomlin who does it every year.

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The Rooney boys were the poor Catholic kids from the Northside. They were Pittsburgh People from birth and have remained grounded through both success and failure. Smartest thing they did was to hire Mike Tomlin after the retirement of Bill Cowher in 1992. The Pirates, in my lifetime, have always been owned by "outsiders", and they have never realized how much different that is in the 'burgh!

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Hard to believe that some wanted Tomlin fired after last season, but then the fan bases have different standards. No way the Steelers would keep someone with Shelton's track record, regardless of whether it would be fair. Sometimes it's not even about fairness but making a statement about expectations.

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Very well stated, but our (Pirate) GM does not grasp that very simple maxim! Making the statement that you want to win is an absolute - don't tell me what you want to do - show me how committed you are!

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Tomlin is a good example of why I’ve tried to avoid going too hard into the fire management stuff, at least until it becomes glaringly obvious that people need fired. If you want a good baseball example of this look at Dave Roberts. Even the best teams will always have detractors wanting to fire people. There needs to be a decent balance between stability and consequences for poor performance.

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