DK’s Double Shot of Pirates: Was that a strike?

0:00Hey, guys, welcome to double shot of Pirates. I'm Dan Kovacovich. He's Chris Halik. We're from DK Pittsburgh Sports. Your baseball club is in Braydenton right now. It's a one-one tie with the raise. And it's just another Tuesday down there, even though it's Monday. It's running joke, by the way, for in every spring training fold, everywhere. The days all blend together. Nobody remembers who's who, what's their name, everything else except for Conor Griffin. Yeah. Three hits this spring. They've all cleared offense. That's what he does, apparently. I don't know what, I don't know what else this, this spring is just, it's so interesting because you can look at like what what a Jared Jones has

1:00done in previous springs and what other young guys have done to, you know, earn their way onto a roster spot or really, but this is like I said, this is different. We've been talking about this. This is a different situation with Conor Griffin. He's the number one prospect in all of baseball. This is a decision, whatever decision you make, you can't mess it up. You really can't, no, I'm saying like you don't want to, I'm not, I don't fear the backward step the way a lot of baseball people do. They feel like you get this a lot. Oh, the guy makes it up, you know, and everybody goes through the big Ballyhoo and yay, first this, parents in the crowd, first hit and all that other stuff. And then you go through some monstrous slump and you get sent back and it's seen as the end of the world, like you totally blew it. I don't know why. I really don't. It's just, look, we just want you to go down, get yourself together. It happened with, well, I don't mean to compare Griffin to Jack Swinsky, but Jack, Jack was elevated right from AA. Okay, Jack, and then he hits

2:0126 home runs and you're thinking, whoo, you know, yeah, Jack had to go back. Yeah, it happens. It happens to, I was going to say better prospects than Griffin. I'm better prospects than Griffin. Very, very, you know, the history of the game. No, it's, it's tough to certainly not from a, from a visibility standpoint because of the futures game and all that other stuff, everything else. Also, today, Mike Clevenger opened up the game and open is the operative term here as opposed to starting because he's going to be a bullpen guy. Yeah. Three scoreless innings, one hit, two walks. He struck out three. Harmon Majinsky came in after him, which I think is telling, although Don Kelly rejected this notion when it came up with him, because I don't think they have any design whatsoever on Majinsky starting anymore. When you see the splits between his starting and his pen, two and a third innings, one run, two hits, a couple of walks, two strikeouts. That's,

3:04that's not exciting. 47 pitches, 28 strikes. That's not what you want, whether you're starting or relieving. So that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's a little bit disappointing from a hitting, hitting standpoint. Everybody's favorite, Jake Mangum, who actually is, by the way, exactly that personable and funny, two for three against, against the raise today, out of the lead off spot, he's going to be one of those people, Mangum, who every time somebody slumps, it's going to be getting Mangum in there. Why is it Mangum playing? Well, there's, there's a, a certain floor with that time of a hitter. You know, yet, no, is it going to put the ball over the fence? Quite a bit. No. But man, sometimes when you need, I pick me up, you just need to get on base, somebody to get on base. Somebody can slap a single. Yeah, somebody can slap a single out in the left field and just get to first base, get a base runner, get something going. You know, and yeah, that's, there's still

4:04a place in the game for somebody like that. There really is. Yeah, just, just put it somewhere in the grass and run like hell. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he can run nothing else to it. He can make things happen. Yeah. In general, the pirates are not going to be playing a regular grapefruit league game tomorrow. They're going to be playing against team Columbia from the World Baseball Classic. That's happened in years past. Those teams need somebody to play. So they end up finding their way, squirting around the various Florida and Arizona complexes. And with, with the World Baseball Classic, really imminent, more than anything else here, you're going to start seeing a lot of guys like Paul Schienz is now in the US fold. And I don't know, man, I get nothing to say about the World Baseball Classic.

5:05Yeah, I mean, I can't, I'm not going to manufacture pretending. I'm not either. It's not like as excited as I was about the Olympics and watching the men's and women's hockey teams. The same that. This is not that. If these guys are ever, ever, ever representing their countries in the summer games, that's a little different to me. Significantly different to me. And there's been discussion to that. Yeah. Yeah, 2028 that Rob Manford would like to see it happen. They'd obviously have to shut down the game in August. And just let it fly for two, three weeks. Me probably limit the number of countries or you have a pre-tornament or something like that like hockey does. Yeah. Yeah. To make sure that you only have like X number. You don't want to have, you know, shut the game down for an entire month. Yeah, you can't, you can't have some protracted tournament. You know what we can't talk about today? ABS. Let's do that. Ooh, I like this topic. It's poor on fire. You know what I'm talking about? The game against Boston. It's poor SOB. Had five straight ABS calls against

6:14them. Do you know what ABS stands for for SOB? Good. It's automated balls and strikes. And it's not anything of the kind. The way the system works isn't automated. In fact, they wanted to be the polar opposite of automated. And by that, it means this. There's three people who can call for an appeal. It's the picture, the batter, the one who I think would be by far the best qualified catcher. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now if I'm the pitcher, I'm sorry. I'm too emotionally tied. Yes. I would agree with that. I know what was in my head. And I know what I wanted that pitch to do. And I really wish that it had done that thing. Yeah. But the catcher is different. Catchers ice cold back there. Catchers always got to be impartial with this picture. Always got to be honest with them. Catcher. I'm alright with that. Yeah. But it's going to change umpiring, man. It is. I think it

7:15already has. I'll bet. I think it already has. The one thing that I was hoping, listen, I really, really like I like ABS. I am pro ABS. I still remember certain pitches that I've seen over the course of the game. Like when Joe Nathan, God, I think he was like 300 save or something like that. I don't remember what it was. What it was a milestone save. And he struck out Benzel risk to get it. And the ball was not even like in the same ball partner. It was outside. It was low. It wasn't close. And that's a video highlight for his entire career. Exactly. And it's just like moments like that. Now, do I want this defining the most, the smallest fraction of an inch on the on the edges of the zone? No, I don't. But what I do want it is to limit mistakes like that happening or when the entire ball

8:16is square in the middle of the plate. And for whatever reason, the umpire, because the catcher set up in a certain spot, whatever, the umpire just misses it. And it's like, OK, you just do a quick tap on the head. OK, agree. Just miss. You move on. OK. Um, that, that's what I want it to do. I have a feeling, though, as instant replay has done and not only this support, but even other sports that it's going to further complicate it. And that's what I'm hoping doesn't. Yeah. But the weird thing about this, though, is it's not going to complicate it in a way that would lead you in one direction or the other. And that's part of what's strange about it. Like when, when the NHL put the offside enforcement in, what you saw was the linemen would just call everything offside because they didn't want to be wrong. This way, go ahead and check it, whatever else here. But with this, that dude was wrong in both directions that umpire. Five times. Yeah. It was either the ball or a strike and he had it wrong. I, I would imagine that if there's an impact on umps,

9:25it's going to be that they are just lasered and that they get rid of the concept of their own strike zone. Oh, he's got a big strike zone or he's got this or he's got that. Well, there's a female umpire in baseball now too. So we can say he or she. Yeah. But it's, it's not, it's, it's, it's not something I think that's going to just going to separate the good ones from the bad ones. Chris, let's be real here. It is. You're not entitled to creating your own strike zone. I don't care anymore. You know, some legend who's been in the game for a thousand years, you still don't have it. You still don't get your own strike zone. No, not anymore. Not anymore. Now, of course, you know, what, what's the penalty? Well, first off, what's the penalty for for being wrong on a challenge? What do you mean by the penalty to the umpire? No, to just like if, if, if, if a picture like,

10:25you know, throws something and it's, you know, out of the strike zone, but the catcher is convinced that it was in the strike zone and the catcher challenges and it wasn't and it's a ball. But I think you don't, I think I don't think it's a penalty. I think there's just a limited number. So don't blow it. Okay. Okay. So you still have to be frugal with, you keep it if you win it. Right. But you lose it if you don't. So you'd better not. Right. So don't mess it up. You'd better be, you'd better be sharp. Dang, sure. Actually, yeah. Sharp is probably the operative term here. Everybody needs to be sharp with this. Everybody just can't just be a, well, gee, miss this one. Okay. Throw it back. Uh-uh. Yeah. Uh-uh. Yeah. Because nobody's going to want that on their, it's baseball statistics for everything. There's going to be a scorecard of these ups and how they perform on the ABS system that's going to be making every rounds on every social media platform. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It'll be everywhere. It'll be part of every broadcast. Oh, here's everybody in behind home plate

11:26tonight is the worst umpire in baseball. I mean, I'm thinking of the upscore cards on, on the social media that that pop up, you know, for like every game. That's going to be fun to see how even those evolve. And yeah, it's, I, I wanted to, I wanted to, the main thing that I want from it is to fix the egregious calls. And I think it will for the most part. Um, but I, what I don't want to see as umpires getting more lazy. Um, I don't think they, oh, I see what you're saying, but I don't think they can in this case. I don't think they can egrade badly. You're going to be out. Yeah. And this is going to be the they have their own grading systems and they've had them for some time. This is different. Yeah. This is public. You're not going to get away with it with an angel Hernandez again. You're just not, I don't think you're going to get away with a CB Buckner. Yeah. No, yeah. Never mind. Eric Greg. Those of you mentioning Eric Greg go way back. Eric Greg's strike zone was four miles wide for the, but only for the Atlanta Braves guys.

12:32Umpires are fun, man. They're like with the, with the, with the personalities, the way, and like, how is this going to affect like our like arguments? How's this going to affect? You know, we're not going to see as many arguments over ball over, you know, called balls and strikes. Again, you won't, there's no arguments. Well, what if a team runs out of challenges and then the umpires? Too bad. You blew it. Yeah. That's on you. Yeah. No, I really think if you look now, when you see there's a safe out controversy, nobody argues it anymore. They just, they just, they, they look at the dugout. They don't even look at the umpire. They don't say, oh, man, you really blew this. What are you doing? They just go straight to the dugout. dugout comes out on played umpire. Whatever else, that guy is just standing out there holding his olden arms. And then from there, if you argue a challenge, yeah, yeah, you're out. Instant ejection. Yeah. You're not allowed to do it. You're wasting everybody's time. Yeah. So the days of, remember a cut you're doing the stare down with the umpire in 2025. Yes.

13:39When he just, he just did this. Yeah. On the dugout railing, looking at, I don't remember what that was. It was on the road somewhere. Just staring at him the whole time might have been Cincinnati. And wouldn't take his eyes off him for like two straight innings. Like this. Well, I think that's over. I think that's over. I hope so. And what's really left? Her arguments in baseball, you know what it's going to be? It's stuff that you said. You're Derek Shelton now when he was managing the pirates. He felt the other team was being given some sort of advantage as it related to the clock. That was the clock would freak him out for some reason. Like you couldn't get a rise out of him on anything. But when it came to the the pitch clock, is the pirates had people who were just doing nothing other than watching the pitch clock and seeing who violated it. And he'd be barking from the dugout. And then the other team would

14:41get the benefit of the doubt on something and he would just lose it. That might be it. I just, it's not safe out. It's not fair or foul. It's not ball strike. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be rare. It is. It is. The game is definitely going to change for sure. And whether it changes, obviously, anytime there's a change, I think when the pitch clock was was implemented, there was a lot of fear that it was going to drastically alter the game, that it was going to speed it up too much. And I think overall we've seen it change for the better. You're not having these four-hour slugs that just go on and on and on and on. Not just anything on a reporter's perspective. No. But from a reporter's perspective, it's gold. Faster games. Yeah. It really is. But just the game feels like it's moving at a good pace. This, in particular, again, I feel like if the biggest change is the egregious calls are

15:44removed and it doesn't start becoming a huge controversy. I think it's going to be good for me. Cool. And here's another way that the game might change. Just throwing this out there. If you're a general manager, like Ben Charington, and he's very much fit for this category, who prioritizes defense behind the plate versus offense. And he can't make that any more obvious than he has over six years. He just brings in a bunch of 120 guys who can catch. That might become more of a thing around baseball because you can't have some slugger back there who can't frame, who can't catch, who can't hold the ball still, who can't, I don't know, even if that stuff, let me phrase that, who can't make the right calls on ABS. Seriously, the pitcher doesn't want to be doing that. I tell you that right now, pitcher does not want to be worried about that. You want your catcher taking care of that. The ball is right there.

16:48It's passing through the zone or not. It's a foot away. He's got to have a feel for that. If he doesn't, the pitchers aren't going to want to throw to him. They won't talk about it publicly, for sure. But they're going to say, hey, come on, man, can I get Joe to catch instead of John, please? That's a whole other dynamic in this, too, because there's been so much emphasis on catchers who are elite pitchframers and how often they can steal strikes. Well, how much is this going to happen? Pitchframing, I think, is still going to matter because, but not as much. In other words, because you're not going to be challenging every close call. Like you said earlier, it's got to be a miss. Yeah, it's got, yeah, it's got to be something where you're like undoubtedly no matter what, that was he missed it. Yeah, big time. Because if it's close, you're still framing. Yeah. And you're still influencing the original call.

17:53Now, if the batter wants to go ahead and take that risk, again, that that's on the batter. It is. But the framing still becomes something that's worth or something it is. Yeah. And these are not automatic. I can't stress this enough. People think that all of a sudden it's going to be like tennis. Even tennis has a, has a human component to whether the ball is in or out or on the chalk. Yeah. And it's not going to be like there's a light that just goes on. It says, oh, right. Right. It's it's still the human element of the game that can be fixed by challenging and looking at the strike zone. And yeah, I really, oh, I know one. Oh, I know. I know. I know one argument possibility. Check swings. Don't forget the pirate's most hated argument. All 2025 was in Philadelphia with that Bryce Harper non, sort of that check swing that was called non check

18:58swing, even though he went like four miles past the plate. Check swings are still the domain of either the home plate on fire or the base on fire relative to which way the batter is positioned in the box. You can't ABS anything with that. Nope. You can't. Nope. Because it's not talking about anything else. Not only that, but the rule itself, which I had to I was covering that game out there had to really dig into the rule isn't really much of a rule. Like we talk about the check swings as if like, oh, you, well, if you break, if you break the wrists of the wrist break, then it's definitely not in the rule book. Yeah. If the bat breaks the plane of home plate, oh, yeah, we say that all the time too. It's not in the rule book. It's just reasonably a judge to be or something like that. Yeah. It's. That's one of those rules where it's just like

20:04they, they really did leave it up to completely to the judgment of the umpire. And the fact that it's, I mean, that feel he offered at that pitch. Yes. Yeah. That's, that's what it is. Yeah. That's, that's, that's it. And while, while like you, you can look at probably one of the hardest things and the most, but probably one of the hardest penalties or whatever in all of sports to define and to officiate is pass interference in the NFL. But the old ten or interference in the NHL is doing it a run for it. It is. It sure is. But at least leagues like the NFL and the NHL have tried to define baseball just says do what you want with it. Yeah. That's, that's what that's got to be fixed. Man, that's got to be fixed. Well, now that that's going to be an island. Yeah. That's going to be interesting. Other pirates have taken a four to one lead in the, in the seventh inning against your Tampa Bay rays. The MLB box score thing has frozen

21:11way behind. Yeah. Yeah. We have that coming up in our live chat. Yeah. But the, the, the box is RVN refers to the same with traveling in the NBA. What's an NBA? That's, isn't it the, the name of the, um, degree you get going? No, say that's the name of the degree you get whenever that's NBA. I know. I know. I know. I'm getting a very, very, like, disapproving look from the boss over there. That's right, pal. But this, but you do all good. We're good. We're good. All good. Phantom Joe says, uh, DK couldn't they put the chip in the bat and now we're getting into chips like football, two of the first downs. Uh, we're going to have chips in Pucks 2 to see if they made it all the way over the whole line. Can we start it on chips next though? You bring it up often enough. Somebody's going to do it. Yeah. You know, they can make chips that are the size of atoms. Yeah. You know, it wouldn't affect anything.

22:14You get the check swing distance taken. Yeah, but Joe, it doesn't matter. The distance doesn't matter if you're, if, if part of the rule is that your wrists don't break. In other words, if you do one of these, you do one of these. They're not going to call this strike. No, it doesn't matter where to bat it. Yeah. Yeah, they can, yeah, yeah. It's, I don't know. That's, that's one thing. They've got to figure out a way to define it because it's, you know, the whole like, I don't know how to define it, but you know, you know, what it is when you see it, you know, type thing. But then again, it's still up to a, it's still up to the judgment of the, of the, of the umpire. And even though the vast majority of people who were watching that game last, last year, think that Bryce Harper, Bryce Harper offered at the pitch that umpire did. So it doesn't get called. And it makes people mad. They don't care. Just know my job. Yeah, it says here in our live chat that the pirates are winning four to one in the eighth. None of this is available on the MLB box score or stream or anything. So we're

23:17just going to rely on you guys here. Your, your Donny Deilo Santos hit the home run to break the tie. It was a two run home run. Okay. So that made it three to one. And then apparently, Rafael Flores had a hit as well. Now, how do you, how do you read this? It was back to back Oh, it was. Yeah. Okay. A four to one now. It's a, it's the seventh inning of a spring. Yeah. None of these guys are making the team. Nope. On either side. Nope. So we're going to be talking about a bunch of different stuff here. Let's, uh, let's close out today with a couple of stuff from our members of our, of our pirate channel I did. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're looking for, we're looking for more members says the boss. And the way to become a member and to support this program so that it continues and everything is happy land is to go to dkps.net slash join pirates. And that's all lowercase the J and the P and everything. Okay. dkps.net slash join pirates.

24:20To support this program, you'll also find out that there are perks that there are members only programs that will do. This is when there's stuff. Okay. We're not quite there yet. We are definitely not there. Mark Cunningham just became a member today. Welcome, welcome. Mark on that count. Uh, let's, uh, let's try to get a couple of questions in from you guys here if we can. So, um, up here, Jared clock wants to know if Rafael Flores will start out and AAA this year. Here's what I know. Henry Davis is going to catch in the majors. Yeah. Yeah. Andy Rodriguez is probably going to be the backup. What happens to Joey more traded. That's just based on what I heard down there. That doesn't mean it's going to happen. Right. Right. Okay. This just means that that was, that was basically the discussion points down there. And then Flores would essentially have to hit slash catch his way up.

25:28Yep. Now Flores, his prospect light is still on, but it's fading. Yes. He's close. When you're in your mid 20s, you need to step on the gas a little bit. Yep. So that's, that's how I feel. I don't believe that I don't believe that Bart actually truth be told that I talked with Bart. I don't think he believes he's going to be on the team come opening day. Oh, yeah. So I think he's pretty much prepared for, he's pretty much prepared for anything. So yeah, Mark, our new, our newest member here says April's going to be epic in Pittsburgh. You can't wait. April's going to be, it'll be really, really interesting. This is not going to be one of those collapses. It's just not because early, like seasons over before it starts. I mean, beginning of the pirate season, especially of Connor Griffin. Yes. Connor Griffin's on the roster. You have the pirates. You got Paul schemes. You got Connor Griffin and hockey. The penguins are on their way to making playoffs.

26:31The city of Pittsburgh is hosting the NFL draft. It is, it is man. April, April is going to be boss. It's pumped about. Yeah. RVN gets our last word in today. So there are still plans at this point to add another reagent depth starting pitcher for one. Yes. And I reported exclusively from Braden's and when I was there last week that the pirates are, and this was I guess where this came from way on high in the organization that they are looking for a starting pitcher. It doesn't have to be a lefty, but they do want depth in the rotation. And that makes sense given what you and I have talked about a lot here, which is that they need innings. They do. They have too many children. Yeah. I agree. In and around this rotation who aren't going to be able to wouldn't be allowed to go anywhere near 200 innings. You know, who I don't really like to see them get Jose Cantana. He signed. I know he did. Yeah. I just thought. Yeah. Yeah. I was like,

27:36I really like I thought that was a really good. Well, Jose was a great citizen when he was here too in addition to being just such a reliable pitcher. Is Scherzer still available? Scherzer. You imagine though. Thanks. I'm not talking about him as a pitcher. I'm talking about him as a union guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bad bad stuff. Guys, we're going to jump over to the hockey channel right now. We have three different, by the way, YouTube channels for the Kippets Perksport, which is Steelers of Penguins, and this one, the Pirates. So each of these shows is on a different channel. So just hop on over the Kippets Perksport's Penguins is where to find our hockey show. We'll be back with another one of these tomorrow.