Kovacevic: Remember, this flat-line progress is four years in the making

My question for Derek Shelton couldn't have been simpler: Who's pitching the final two games of the series in Kansas City that starts tomorrow?

His response couldn't have been more succinct, accompanied by a shake of the head and a small laugh: "Don't know."

It's not OK. None of this.

It's Year 4 of this front office at 115 Federal, it's Year 4 for most of this field-level staff, it's Year 4 of the Pirates absorbing 10-1 annihilations like the one administered by the Cubs on this Sunday at PNC Park, it's Year 4 of a 58-73 record feeling routine, it's Year 4 of presumably blue-chip prospects falling on their faces ... and my God, it's Year 4 of some dude named Bailey Falter taking the ball every fifth day for the flat-out indefensible reason that there isn't anyone else.

And of Josh Palacios, a 28-year-old rookie, being slotted onto the batting order at cleanup despite dragging a .115 average through an almost-complete August.

And of Vinny Capra, a 27-year-old never-was with a 3-for-17 lifetime outpout, being sent up to pinch-hit when that plate appearance could've gone to any number of relevant players or prospects.

And of every other Bido, Bolton, Borucki or whoever they're using to flagrantly eat up innings for the remainder of 2023, as if the aim's nothing more than to survive the final month and change of the schedule while, at the same time, masking what all's gone awry to make this mess. 

And it sure as hell isn't OK to enter every series, as this team's been doing for a while now, with a bunch of TBDs listed where a big-league starting pitcher's name should be.

Want to talk about injuries?

That's fair, to an extent: JT Brubaker and Vince Velasquez, veteran righties, plus Max Kranick and Mike Burrows, both younger but able, all went down to Tommy John surgery. That hurt on multiple levels, but most immediately the rotation.

But that doesn't explain allowing Quinn Priester to emphasize everything but his fastball throughout the minor-league season, then watching his offspeed pitches get crushed upon being promoted, then sending him back down as if Priester had done something wrong. Anyone in the seats on that spring day in Sarasota, Fla., when Priester lobbed endless soft stuff to the Orioles -- including me -- could've seen this was absurd. 

That doesn't explain affording Luis Ortiz the latitude to get lax in his between-starts regimen and pregame prep, from what I was told a couple days ago. There's nothing wrong with his health, either. He burst into the majors last season, struck out everyone in sight, then proceeded to put his own progress on pause because he thought he could go on auto-pilot. Blaming the kid's easy, so go right ahead. But there are supposed to be adults in the equation.

That doesn't explain overseeing the still-way-too-mysterious disappearance of Roansy Contreras' fastball, once 98-99 mph, now barely penetrating a wet paper towel. This kid's 100% healthy, 100% committed, but his biomechanics -- the area in which Oscar Marin was supposed to specialize -- are apparently off to such an extent that the team quietly took Contreras to a private pitching lab a few weeks ago in Seattle to see if someone else could solve it.

If Contreras were traded to the Rays, they'd have him up to 100 mph by year's end. They'd fix him just like they took Robert Stephenson from the Pirates earlier this season in the Alika Williams trade and transformed a 5.14 ERA with erratic command in Pittsburgh ... into a 2.93 ERA, 42 strikeouts and seven walks in St. Petersburg, Fla., where they know how to make players better.

All it took was a tweak:

No, really. One tweak:

And from there, he leads the majors in getting swings and misses out of the bullpen:

That's criminally butchered development. All three cases, plus Stephenson. All fireable offenses in an organization that comes equipped with actual accountability.

But Marin won't get fired.

Just like Andy Haines won't get fired, no matter how many times his hitters strike out looking because they're being force-fed one-size-fits-all passive approaches. A dozen more strikeouts on this day, four of them looking.

Here's young Liover Peguero, who was born with an aggressive streak in life let alone baseball, trying his damndest to fit in watching this baby go by with two outs and a runner 90 feet away:

It's stomach-turning. All the moreso when placed in the context that Ben Cherington, upon being hired, promised that development would be "player-centric," meaning catered to the player's actual skill sit. This is the polar opposite.

Of all the backward Ks, Shelton had this to say afterward: "I think, at times, we get too passive. I think, at times, you look at pitches that are called strikes that may not be, and people get criticized for it. I think with young players, we have to have that fine line between being passive and being aggressive. I think today we got executed against. As good as our young hitters have been at times, I think we saw some young at-bats today.”

I already forgot the name of Chicago's starting pitcher, I swear. Never really matters much.

But using phrases like "at times" and "young at-bats" flies in the face of the Pirates, as a whole, looking at more called third strikes than any team in the majors. Those are justifications for a visibly flawed philosophy, one that's shared, by the way, by Haines, Shelton and Cherington.

Want to blame injuries for the offense?

Good luck with that one, outside of the obvious loss of Oneil Cruz. Because Bryan Reynolds, Ke'Bryan Hayes, Andrew McCutchen and the veterans who've since been traded have all hit pretty much to par, but the younger ones haven't. Not even top prospects Henry Davis, Endy Rodriguez and Nick Gonzales.

My stat of the summer: Out of the 10 younger players who've spent at least 20 games in Pittsburgh, no one's got a higher batting average than Ji Hwan Bae's .237 ... except for poor Jared Triolo, who hit .270 and was inexplicably sent back ... only to have Capra recalled in his stead.

Can't make that one up, my friends.

There's no apparent plan other than oh-wow-let's-just-get-through-this-somehow, at least not that I can see.

This was Cherington's uncut response before the game, on his weekly radio show, when asked about the Pirates' August performance, now 11-15: “As I looked at this month back in the winter, I anticipated this month being a difficult part of the schedule. And I really feel like we’ve played better baseball this month overall than we did even in June and July. We’re not winning every game, but in that stretch of 16 games in a row, I think we won seven of them. We put ourselves in a position to win a bunch more, but couldn’t close it out. Then we started another stretch of 13 games. So far, we’re nine games into that and we’re 4-5. We’ve got a chance to win some more games here in the next four days. We’re going to focus on doing that. But the team has — at least, in my view — really been well prepared. We’ve competed. We’ve given ourselves a chance to win most games. We’ve had to do some things that are unorthodox, as we’ve talked about with the pitching deployment — really out of need. But, out of need sometimes comes opportunity and you learn about things. I’ve been really … not satisfied, of course. We need to win more games, certainly. But I’m encouraged by the level of competitiveness this month, and just the energy that’s going into trying to win each and every game during a time when we’ve got a ton of young players out there also experiencing the big leagues for the first time.”

Uh-huh. Slice it up into small segments. A few games here, a few at-bats there, and not a syllable about how it all came to be. Buries the bigger scenarios.

It's Year 4. It's not OK.

Not the lack of prospects. Not the lack of progress for those at hand. Not the almost-funny fact that most of this team's peak performers remain those acquired by either Neal Huntington or -- gasp! -- Dave Littlefield. And definitely not the attitude of accepting losing at any stage of anything.

Put it another way: Is anyone seriously pumped to see how Paul Skenes will lose his fastball or Termarr Johnson will lose his will to swing in this environment?

JUSTIN BERL / GETTY

Bailey Falter pitches in the first inning Sunday at PNC Park.

THE ESSENTIALS

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THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 10-day injured list: RF Henry Davis (thumb)

• 15-day injured list: RHP Carmen Mlodzinski (elbow)

• 60-day injured list: SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow), INF Tucupita Marcano (knee), LHP Angel Perdomo (elbow), RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow)

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Ji Hwan Bae, 2B
2. Bryan Reynolds, DH
3. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
4. Josh Palacios, LF
5. Connor Joe, 1B
6. Jack Suwinski, CF
7. Liover Peguero, 2B
8. Alfonso Rivas, 1B
9. Jason Delay, C

And for David Ross' Cubs:

1. Nico Hoerner, 2B
2. Dansby Swanson, SS
3. Ian Happ, LF
4. Cody Bellinger, DH
5. Seiya Suzuki, RF
6. Yan Gomes, C
7. Jeimer Candelario, 3B
8. Patrick Wisdom, 1B
9. Mike Tauchman, CF

THE SCHEDULE

The Pirates will spend the coming week in Missouri, first with three games in Kansas City, beginning Monday night, 8:10 p.m. against the Royals. Johan Oviedo (7-13, 4.46 ERA) will counter whatever's left of Zack Greinke (1-12, 5.34). Alex Stumpf will cover the trip.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE CONTENT

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