Officially, today’s the day the Pirates’ pitchers and catchers are required to report for spring training in Bradenton, Fla., though any lingering old-school romanticism about the event’s been further quashed post-COVID by the team keeping the Pirate City facility off-limits to media and fans until the first workout that follows Wednesday.
Which is … whatever.
No, not much happens on reporting day — players don’t even need to show at the facility, though most do — but this one still might’ve been newsworthy, if only because of the non-zero chance that there’ll be more big-league caliber catchers in this camp than starting pitchers.
Think I’m kidding?
Catcher count: Henry Davis, Jason Delay, newly signed Yasmani Grandal, and one could make a small case for Ali Sanchez, a 27-year-old who'd logged 13 games for the Mets and Cardinals in 2020-21.
So, we’ll say three-plus?
Starting pitcher count: Mitch Keller, Marco Gonzales, Martin Perez and … jeez, Paul Skenes in June? Maybe?
So, we’ll say three-plus?
Please, spare me any references to Bailey Falter, or any prospects or 4-A riff-raff. And further, until we witness it with our collective eyesight, spare me any expectations that Oscar Marin will have magically restored the missing velocity from the four-seamers of Roansy Contreras, Luis Ortiz or Quinn Priester. That won’t happen until the Rays get their instructional hands on them someday, and not a moment sooner.
I’ll couch what I say next but only because the next actual game can't occur until March 28 in Miami: This isn’t OK. Not just the precarious, borderline perilous state of the rotation. But also promising — vocally, repeatedly all winter — that this, the fifth year under Travis Williams, Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton, would finally be the one in which the games mattered to all concerned and not just the paying customers.
This ain’t it.
• I’ll make at least one trip down to Florida this spring, that at the end of this month, but only because I love stopping at red lights every 30 feet, soaking up the Freon my rental car’s spitting in my face and gazing out toward endless row of Applebee’s.
• No, really, it's nice to be home from a five-day stay in Winnipeg. No matter where I travel or how much I might like it -- or not -- nothing beats poking through the far end of that tunnel.
• Andy Reid’s now won three Super Bowl rings, ranking him third all-time behind Bill Belichick’s six and, of course, Chuck Noll’s four. And this after a football lifetime of being labeled as a coach who can't win the big one. Which ought to serve as an eternal reminder that this remains the single dumbest reason to fire someone. The hardest part of any process in professional team sport, as anyone in the industry will attest, is getting there. The coaches/managers who knock on the door the most often tend to be the best.
• More than $12 million in 2024 cap savings were realized for Omar Khan yesterday in releasing Mitch Trubisky, Chuks Okorafor and Pressley Harvin, but no other facet moved me in the slightest. I'd been reporting for weeks that Trubisky was good as gone. I reported exclusively two months ago that Okorafor lost his starting job because he'd wondered aloud to Mike Tomlin, late in a game that still had a mathematical chance to be won, why the Steelers weren't simply kneeling it out. And Harvin ... OK, that's something of a surprise. Tomlin legit loves the kid. (Which is easy to do, by the way.) I thought there'd at least be an offer to compete this summer.
• No way Eddie Faulkner was going anywhere. Super-tight with his running backs, and that goes double for Najee Harris. Already plenty enough for the younger players to learn from scratch.
• I get that the Steelers were aggressive before losing Javon Hargrave to the Eagles via free agency in 2020 for three years and $39 million, but man, how different their defense would’ve looked with him all this time. Seeing him rag-dolling guys in the Super Bowl shouldn’t hit some people hard on South Water Street. Because the players … they knew. I recall it well.
• The Chiefs have won three championships in five years in a salary-cap league, which some simpletons surely will cite as evidence that Major League Baseball has no economic imbalance issues because the World Series gets won by more different teams. The truth: Kansas City’s management, coaching, quarterback and tight end are elite, and they’ve done what’s needed to work with the cap. They’ve earned this. They should win, regardless of revenue streams or market size.
• Total in-game air time for Taylor Swift for CBS’ Super Bowl broadcast was … 54 seconds. Not even a blessed minute out of nearly four full hours. And yet, I’ve seen, heard and read more than a few folks complaining about this. If anything, the network might’ve been guilty of kowtowing to this hyper-sensitive group and not showing nearly enough. No reason to pretend her presence wasn’t a significant storyline unto itself. No reason to tiptoe, then.
• I’ll cover the Penguins’ games tomorrow night against the Panthers at PPG Paints Arena, then against the Blackhawks the next night in Chicago. Don’t feel its overstatement to suggest the season could be on the line within a 48-hour stretch. Not mathematically, but man, it’s getting tougher and tougher to conjure up any rationale to add before the NHL trade deadline, and this team would need some serious adding.
• I’d start Tristan Jarry in both. No reflection on Alex Nedeljkovic, but nothing could send a stronger signal to the players than to stress that these times are different. They’ve defended mostly well of late, but they definitely didn’t in the opening 10 minutes in Winnipeg. That can’t occur again. It just can’t.
• Hated seeing Jansen Harkins hit Long-Term Injured Reserve yesterday with a concussion, almost as much as I hated seeing his head swing my way Saturday night in Winnipeg upon being crushed into the glass by the Jets' Adam Lowry. Good dude, relentless worker and a player with more skill than he's yet to show at the top level. And actually, that first period, the one in which he was hit, might've been his strongest of the winter.
• Thanks so much for reading. And happy reporting day, to all who still celebrate!
• The Tuesday podcasts, for the audiophiles:
