DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Cutch’s call

[Music] [Applause] this just into our Studios Andrew McCutchen remains really good at baseball good morning to you good Tuesday morning I'm de katovich of DK Pittsburgh sports and this is daily shot of pirates it comes your way bright and early every weekday if you're into football Andor hockey I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this Pirates 5 Cubs 3 really nice overall W for the club last night at Wrigley Field not just in cutch getting the winning home run not just Brian Reynolds with a three-run shot to tie it after Chicago had taken a three- nothing lead but maybe even more so that Jared Jones got back on his figurative horse and looked a lot more like the early season Jones that had everyone all excited he wasn't great six in the third Innings three runs but he was plenty good enough and really with him you just want to see him finish strong after having had the lad injury cost him a third of the season but I want to talk about cutch today I want to talk about his future and yes he's got a future because when you're depending on your metric either the seventh best or the 10th best at what you do in baseball meaning being a DH then you're still playing no matter what your age is cutch is 37 he'll of course be 38 next season but the home run last night was his 18th his Ops is at 759 those are both third best on this team behind Reynolds and O'Neal Cruz and not far behind either one of them that's not some sentimental s that's not like just ushering cutch into the sunset or something over the weekend in Cleveland I spent a pretty good amount of time with him and I wrote a column about how the decision to return for 2025 should be his and his alone I did this of course only after he told me that he does in fact want to return for 2025 and I did this within the context that Ben charrington's not really in the position to be calling anybody's shots let alone someone like cutch who means only about a gazillion times more to the city than charington or anyone in this front office two Springs ago when Kutch returned I was walking off a Field in Bradenton with both Kutch and Bob nutting just a coincidence and it was there that it became really clear that the decision for Kutch to come back was initially his and his alone but that he directly approached nutting that's how this is going to happen it's not going to have anything to do with charington whether he is or is not the GM next year and that's as it should be but when I wrote this column I got a lot of push back in large part because you know he's he's part of this and it's time to turn the page and people are just in a sour mood about the team I think more than they are about him and anything in anybody that's new or even just looks new would be preferable to almost anybody who's already here and I I kind of get that and I kind of expected it to be honest in other words you know Joey Bart good cutch bad why Bart's new same numbers not the same career trajectory obviously Bart ideally would be around for a long time and I get that as well it's just everyone's kind of got slumped shoulders right now and and there were a few who attempted to make the argument that cut was actually the worst DH in baseball because if you looked at all of the various full-time DHS and that would mean anybody who's qualified for the batting title in either League that Kutch ends up seventh out of seven the argument that they made was that in the ideal model the Pirates would have players dhing on their days down so for example your DH in Pittsburgh could be days that you give Reynolds a break or Cruz a break or for that matter Bart a break he's actually done some of that within the past month and I can appreciate that I I think that's a really nice objective it's a nice goal to set they're nowhere near that they just aren't how you can put that forth while looking at a daily basis at the bottom half of this order is beyond me the 78 and9 that Derek Shelton writes up should come with a laughing track and sure part of that's a bad decision on Management's part meaning running Jared triolo out there every day makes no sense you've got Nick York and a couple other people in the miners who maybe would be worth a look these games don't mean anything so why not but you are nowhere near having a lineup that's solid enough that you can afford to lose cutch for 2025 I don't know how much more obvious that can be so set aside the slumped shoulders and the sadness and the idea that this is some sort of sentimental exercise he's still a ball player and if you want to know the truth his numbers this year should actually be a lot better than they've been based partly on his having started kind of slowly and based way more on his having been really unlucky I mean he has hit some screamers at people all summer long this is what Kutch had to say last night in Chicago about his 2024 to date I mean I felt pretty good um since probably La um so I was just trying to maintain that approach and you know um you know I've been able to do it um keep in as simple as possible so so yeah it's uh overall it's I felt pretty good just just with my Approach um you know just having to understand that it's going to be some things I may have to fight through with the body and may have days that don't feel too good but how can I maintain um a good approach and still be able to get my swing off I've been able to do that that's it I'm sorry there's nothing to discuss or debate here he's your DH for 2025 and that's a good thing that' be a good thing if his name was Joe Smith and you just pulled him out of nowhere and nobody' heard of him you would happily add him to your roster and to your lineup when we come back [Music] j1q this portion of daily shot of pirates is brought to you by our friends at Northshore Tavern that's directly across Federal Street from PNC Park it's home of steak on a stone an eating experience under underscoring the word experience the steak is brought to you partially cooked on an 800° stone and you do the rest it's a ton of fun it's a great meal and it's a baseball atmosphere like no other in Pittsburg Northshore Tavern right across Federal Street from PNC Park it's gun storage check week help prevent unwanted access to your Firearms no one wants their unsecured gun to be used in an accident a suicide or a crime use lock boxes safes and locks to secure your Firearms learn more at gunstor check.org that's gunstor check.org brought to you by nssf the firearm industry trade [Music] [Music] Association today's j1q unsurprisingly comes in response to yesterday's show and the column that I wrote from Cleveland regarding the Pirates stuffing their Clubhouse stalls with 18 non-players and non- coaches just general staffers to that Barry asks DK is it fair to say that we know why they're there it prevents Revolt in the clubhouse you know Barry I I I spent a lot of time on that column and and then in turn on other things including the podcast that emanated from it and I am here to tell you embarrassingly really embarrassingly that that never occurred to me until first readers and then listeners brought it up I swear to you I feel so stupid I got all these people saying oh great job on this and way to go and great digging and and I put forth in the piece and in yesterday's episode here all kinds of reasons for why and that never dawned on me because I guess I'm just a dope or something but it makes more sense than anything I wrote or spoke if I was running an operation that was all about sustaining my processes into eternity and making sure that I tiptoe around any landmines along the way one of the biggest landmines you can encounter is having your players start you know publicly complaining or even outright mouthing off and that stuff begins in my experience from the past with the Pirates and other teams with players congregating and conversing among themselves about this guy or that guy or this thing that they don't like or that thing they don't like and then it eventually sooner or later probably after some lousy loss blows up well great way to mitigate that because not only do they have these 18 people in that Clubhouse who don't belong there although I'm told it was reduced to just a handful yesterday at Wrigley Field despite the same exact traveling Entourage but they're also in this point I did make interspersed meaning they're not all just in one part of the clubhouse they're it's like two players random dude another two players random dude they're all over and if I was going along with your thinking meaning I'm Ben charington and I'm going by your approach here Barry that's exactly what I would do it's exactly what I would do and look I'm not saying you're right but I'm saying I absolutely should have thought of it and included it as a possibility I appreciate the question I appreciate all my goodness of the feedback yesterday to both the written and spoken versions of this piece if there's one thing I know for certain it's that all of you who say that's it I'm out I quit I'm done with this you're all lying to yourselves you really are I appreciate you any way I appreciate you being here and we will in fact have another episode of this tomorrow [Music]