MILWAUKEE -- There's a tendency, probably not a coincidental one, for the people running the Pirates to put forth any and all of their public analyses in the micro. You know, where everything's about a hitter who's slumping or a pitcher who struggled or a fielder who slipped up. Or it'll be just about that day's game and a missed opportunity here or there.
For example, Martin Pérez had an awful Wednesday afternoon here at American Family Field, allowing five home runs in as many innings of a 10-2 annihilation at the hands of the Brewers.
Bad day for Pérez, yeah?
"All of his pitches were the problem," Derek Shelton would reply when I asked if any particular pitch was an issue. "And then the changeup wasn't as effective as it's been previously, and he left a couple of them up. When you leave changeups up, they're going to get hit."
"I think everything was off. Everything, maybe," Perez would reply when I put the same question to him. "I was just missing my spots and, as a pitcher, you're not allowed to do that. It happened. We still have a lot of games, and I'll be fine for my next game."
Confirmed. Bad day for Pérez.
But hey, if only for whatever would constitute the polar opposite of fun, let's take several steps back and consider the macro.
The real macro, meaning what this front office has wrought upon this franchise since late 2019, when Bob Nutting hired Travis Williams, and those two hired Ben Cherington, and Cherington hired Shelton. Meaning that they're now a cumulative 287-422. They've done nothing but lose, lose, lose, with no end in sight. And everyone needs to stop glossing over this in favor of the grunt du jour.
Go back up and read that macro record again.
That's a .404 winning percentage.
That's the worst of any of Major League Baseball's 30 teams in that time.
That's among the worst over the franchise's 143-year history, keeping flatulent company with the following four-year stretches:
• 1952-1955: 205-411 (.333)
• 1950-1953: 213-402 (.346)
• 1887-1890: 205-321 (.390)
• 2007-2010: 254-393 (.393)
• 2008-2011: 258-389 (.399)
• 2020-now: 287-422 (.404)
That's three historic clusters of failure, one of those only two decades removed from the Civil War ... now joined by this one.
And this season alone, Year 5 for this bunch, they're 19-25, including the ongoing 10-23 nosedive. No specifics needed. No advanced analytics. No nothing other than plain-old wins vs. losses. And they've now plain-old lost 23 of their 33 games.
Anywhere else, that gets people fired. Lots of people. Maybe all of the people.
In this setting ... eh.
How'd Cherington ramble about it over the weekend?
"It's never one thing," he'd say. "We know we need to get better. Believe we will. Believe we can. Believe we will. Ultimately, I'm responsible for that. I'm the person who leads baseball operations, the person who's ultimately responsible for all of this. It's definitely something I'm putting on myself more than anything to try to help figure out what we want to do this year, to accomplish what we want to accomplish. We've got to be better in that part of the game. There's no question. We believe we can be."
OK.
Don't make excuses for any of them, either. Stop that, too. This brass had to cope with COVID same as everyone else's did. This brass had to flush out a full-blown rebuild same as everyone else who's had to do that and didn't take anywhere near this long to recover. And yeah, before it's figuratively brought up in my face, this brass had to put up with a too-low payroll same as several other operations run by equally cheap owners and/or in equally small revenue bases.
None of that forces a GM to put together a lineup that's regularly got -- sit down for this -- Jared Triolo has three extra-base hits in 161 plate appearances, Rowdy Tellez four extra-base hits in 120 plate apperances, and Michael A. Taylor four extra-base hits in 116 plate appearances. That's nothing other than abominable evaluation, acquisition, instruction ... my God, all of the above. Cherington's conducted a clinic in how not to compose a roster, but doubly so when it comes to hitting.
None of that forces Shelton to make bizarre decisions like treating Connor Joe, their only competent hitter over these couple months, as some platoon option behind Tellez. Or any other nonsense we've witnessed in peculiar abundance of late, for some reason.
None of that explains everyone at all levels of the organization silently standing pat while all this occurs in the big leagues, while Henry Davis, a No. 1 overall pick, is 3 for 19 with seven strikeouts since being sent back to Class AAA Indianapolis, while Termarr Johnson, a No. 4 overall pick, is at .176 with one home run in 109 at-bats with Class A, while Roansy Contreras gets released on the morning of Paul Skenes' debut to try to deflect attention from another high-pedigree pitching bust, while a six-man rotation -- Cherington's stated explanation for cutting Contreras -- gets scrapped less than a week later ... I can't. I just can't anymore.
Wait, yes, I can: Of the Pirates' 18 position players among their top 30 prospects, per MLB Pipeline, their cumulative batting average is currently .176.
Tellez's average right now: .176.
It's like they've revved up a Rowdy factory down there. Can't make this stuff up.
If they don't care about all the mismanagement or even all the plain-old losing -- and their actions speak louder than any words to this effect -- why would anyone else?
If they don't change a solitary thing about what they do from a baseball standpoint -- beyond Cherington downgrading at hitting coach three years ago by firing Rick Eckstein in favor of Andy Haines -- why would any of this bother anyone else?
If Nutting and/or Williams watch this and can't bring themselves to do anything at all ... well, whatever, right?
Bad day for Pérez. Below are the highlights. Enjoy:
• Thanks for reading my baseball coverage from up here. Flying home tonight. Football next week.
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