Septic Tank

BY KEVIN KERNAN

The Pirates and Reds showed once again this week why the NL Central is the Septic Tank of Major League Baseball.

It’s bad enough that the Pirates DFA’d Rotund Rowdy Tellez four at-bats shy of landing a $200,000 bonus, but the real problem was the Pirates signing RRT in the first place, thinking he would be the answer to their first base problems.

Tellez made $3.2 million this year for a last-place team. He hit 13 home runs and drove in 56 runs. His batting average was .243, his on-base percentage was .299 and his slugging percentage was .392. I’m surprised the Pirates held onto Tellez this long.

The Pirates, though, really are Pirates, and will do anything to come away from a burning ship of a season with more loot in their pantaloons.

Someone get Ben Cherington an eyepatch.

“That was so bad what he did to (Tellez),’’ one longtime talent evaluator told BallNine. “If you actually want to go to the next level that you want to go to, you don’t do these things.’’

Talk about stealing money. Since Cherington has been in charge of the Pirates, the team has finished last or next to last in all five of his seasons. That is consistency. The wrong kind of consistency.

“They just look at the players as assets, not people, they don’t see the big picture and how it affects a team,’’ the evaluator said. “For someone like Skenes, when you see that is the way they handle things, you say, ‘You know what clock, keep on ticking, when it’s my time, I’m out.’’’

Gerrit Cole got out and wound up in two winning organizations, the Astros and Yankees.

Three of those Cherington seasons the Pirates have finished dead last in the NL Central. Manager Derek Shelton has been the captain of this sinking ship all five years, too, handpicked by Cherington in November of 2019.

Owner Bob Nutting is ultimately responsible for this mess with the low budget payroll of $86 million, and his cheapskate ways, but don’t dare let Cherington and Shelton off the hook just because the owner is clueless.

MLB is littered with lost owners. And some of them win because they have the right people running the show.

Nutting, Cherington and Shelton have run this team into the ground even though they were lucky enough to get draft assets like No. 1 pick Paul Skenes. As the evaluator said, you can be sure Skenes is watching all this go down and much like Gerrit Cole before him, cannot wait to get out of Pittsburgh and be in a winning situation.

Pittsburgh is a Steelers town and always will be, but the Pirates under Clint Hurdle were once a fun watch and made it to the postseason three straight years in 2013, ’14 and ’15. They lost the one-game wild card in 2014 and ’15, but in 2013 advanced beyond the wild card and came one win away from making the NLCS, losing the NLDS to the Cardinals in five games.

Hurdle is a baseball man. Not many of them left. The Pirates have systematically removed good baseball men, some that I know, from their organization under this losing regime.

How is that working out for you Big Ben?

It is not working out for the fans in Pittsburgh. The organization has won five World Series. The first came in 1909 when Honus Wagner, 35, led the charge and beat the Tigers in seven games with their young superstar Ty Cobb.

The Pirates also won in 1925, 1960 when Bill Mazeroski broke my seven-year-old heart with his Game 7-ending home run at Forbes Field to topple the mighty Yankees, and in 1971 and ’79.

So, it is 45 years and counting since the Pirates last won a World Series.

Trust the process.

My favorite quote of the week was when Cherington told the Pittsburgh media that money had nothing to do with the Tellez move.

“Zero factor in the decision,’’ Cherington said with a straight face when asked if finances were involved.

Okay.

I am sure of this, baseball ability had “zero factor in the decision,’’ to originally sign Tellez. That was a money decision too. This is the kind of “leadership’’ so many teams have now and that is part of the reason there is so much parity in MLB. Many of these baseball bosses have no clue what they are doing. But they will do ownership’s bidding, dump scouts, hire more analysts and continue to be part of the Nerd Network so they get jobs forever in baseball.

I would love to hear a conversation between Skenes and Cole where they could trade notes about the Pirates (Cheapskate) Way.

It is all about saving money and curtailing service time when the Pirates can do that.

It is never, I repeat, never about winning.

Imagine rooting for a team where winning is nowhere to be found in the handbook. This is the Pirates 143rd season and remember, they have only five world championships and, again, none since 1979.

All that losing gives you a leg up in the draft and that is how the Pirates came away with Skenes, everyone’s No. 1. It’s really difficult to mess up on the No. 1 pick in the draft.

But wait, Cherington & Co. have done just that, contributing to the team’s woes. In 2021 they made catcher Henry Davis the No. 1 pick in baseball. Davis is 24 now and the next game he will play in the majors will mark his 100th game. During that span he is a .191 hitter with a .590 OPS, not quite Rowdy Tellez numbers, but you get the picture. Injuries have been a problem, too.

Maybe Davis will turn it around.

One thing is clear, Nutting is not going to spend big money acquiring talent. And if there is a chance to save $200,000 again somewhere along the way, Cherington has proven he will enact the company line and run with it like a good Executive VP of baseball operations and GM.

Free agents will go where the money is – and there is no money in Pittsburgh. Big-time free agent first basemen Pete Alonso and Christian Walker will not be in the mix.

 You would think that with landing all those sparkling draft picks at some point the Pirates may just stumble into contention in the NL Central…

The next aging overweight first baseman is out there, just waiting for the Pirates to sign – or maybe one of their minor league players will step up to the task, after all, isn’t that what the Cheringtons of the Baseball World always promise to their owners? The team will become a conveyor belt of young talent coming from the minors under their watch because they all trust in the process.

The Pirates’ process includes finishing in last place or next to last place, something that has happened eight straight seasons. Again, tremendous consistency from this organization. You would think that with landing all those sparkling draft picks at some point the Pirates may just stumble into contention in the NL Central, but they are so bad they can’t even breed success from their draft picks.

The second NL Central team to be embarrassed this week was Cincinnati.

The Reds last won a playoff game at home October 6, 1995. David Wells was the winning pitcher. They had an okay 82-80 season last year but were crushed by injuries this year, especially to their rotation; that meant the end for manager David Bell because president of baseball operations Nick Krall said the Reds were not developing players as well as they should have developed at the major league level.

Really?

Don’t forget it wasn’t that long ago when Krall hired Driveline’s Kyle Boddy to run the pitching in the Reds organization and eventually, they parted ways.

Krall came into baseball as part of the Moneyball A’s way back when.

As one former longtime manager asked of BallNine recently, “How come none of the analytics guys ever get fired?’’

Good question.

You can’t have that in MLB. That would mean GMs and presidents of baseball operations and all their many dressed alike minions would have to look in the mirror. It is never the front office’s fault.

What a gig.

The Yankees are lucky to have Aaron Judge hitting home runs and running their clubhouse, most of these teams are leaderless. The Reds fall into that category. Players become entitled in the minor leagues and bring that to the majors with them. And in the Reds’ case, when you lose your starting rotation to injuries and a trade, no amount of player leadership can get you over the hump even in the NL Central.

David Bell was extended by Krall 14 months ago through the 2026 season so Krall changed his mind about the leadership ability of Bell, who comes from one of baseball’s all-time baseball families. Krall thought Bell was the leader the Reds needed 14 months ago but when things went south because of injuries, Bell had to go. Such is the life of a major league manager.

Such is life in the Septic Tank World of the NL Central.

Reds owner Bob Castellini can give Nutting a run for his money, that is for sure. The Reds have not won a postseason game over the last 12 seasons. Again, it’s all about consistency and Krall has provided Reds fans with a team that consistently does not make the playoffs or on the rare times they do, are quickly eliminated.

The last time the Reds won a postseason game was 2012.

Believe in the process, though. Castellini does. Krall has only been running the team for seven seasons, what do you expect? Miracles. In the shortened Fake Season of 2020 the Reds made the Fake Postseason but were eliminated quickly in the wild card.

The Reds have had four seasons of fourth or fifth place in the NL Septic and last season managed to move up to third with that 82-80 record and the magic of Elly De La Cruz.

The magic didn’t happen this year with all the injuries.

Someone like Skip Schumaker, once he escapes the weird Marlins, a manager I respect, could wind up in Cincinnati. The Reds, like the Pirates, need all the help they can get as they continue to trust the process … of losing.