A collection of tidbits from Sunday’s Pirates Insider Show …
Obviously don’t bet on baseball. That’s very, very bad. And illegal.
But there are a few bets the Pirates are making that general manager Ben Cherington and I discussed Sunday on the Pirates Insider Show.
The Pirates are 46-45 entering this week’s six-game homestand, starting with the Braves on Tuesday. It should be better. Most projections have the Pirates between five to seven games over .500.
The difference has been the bullpen and 17 blown saves, tied for fifth-most in MLB.
Pittsburgh has a plus-33 run differential that ranks fifth in the National League, while the Pirates are 14-12 against NL Central teams after going 19-33 in the division in 2025.
I asked Cherington how seriously the organization takes some of that stuff, especially amid a stretch of 22 consecutive games against teams .500 or better. (The Pirates are 4-3 thus far.)
“They’re an indication of the strength of the team,” Cherington said. “It’s also true run differential doesn’t get you into October. Wins do. We know that. At some point, you have to turn those strengths into wins.”
Not trying to be hyperbolic, but this stretch could define the Pirates’ season — and they’re shorthanded. Prior to Tuesday, that meant Spencer Horwitz and Oneil Cruz out until at least after the All-Star break.
Now, we’re hearing Konnor Griffin may have an issue with the ring finger on his left hand.
Nobody will feel sorry for the Pirates. They’ll need to continue to replace those guys, and their pitching staff simply has to be better.
“I’ve been very encouraged by how the team has battled through the first part of that stretch,” Cherington said. “We just gotta continue it.”
The Skenes bet
Another thing I asked Cherington about was the Pirates’ ace, Paul Skenes, who’s been a popular topic of conversation among fans.
Skenes has a 5.96 ERA over his past nine starts. The Pirates haven't won a Skenes start since May 12. We saw some concerning velocity dips in his last outing.
I’m OK with Skenes taking a little off his fastball to stay healthy — more pitchers should do it — but his performance at Citizens Bank Park was alarming.
It could’ve been the heat. Perhaps Skenes needs rest. Shoot, if I had the magic answer, I’d bottle and sell it.
But the Pirates obviously need more out of Skenes, even if some of his underlying numbers (2.76 expected ERA, 93rd percentile) remain solid.
The same as the team-oriented stuff above, Skenes and the Pirates need to see actual results.
It’s why Cherington has no problem betting on Skenes. Here’s Cherington’s full answer when I asked what the Pirates and Skenes must do to fix this.
“I think it’s mostly just putting the information in front of him,” Cherington said. “He’s an engineer. We talked about that engineer brain. That’s his family business. He just happens to be a Major League pitcher. When he has the information in front of him, he’s one of the best I’ve ever been around at taking that information, diagnosing and going out and solving it.
“Whether it’s something with the delivery, something with pitch shape or sequencing or execution, game planning, whatever it is, he’s gonna find the solution. It’s our job to make sure the right information is in front of him. That’s part of it.
“The other part that’s hard to quantify is he’s pitched a lot of baseball over a three-year period. He’s done it at an extraordinarily high level. It’s even normal for elite pitchers — as he is — to go through a period where it’s still good but not quite the same. It’s often the case that guys just find their way out of that. Maybe we build in just enough recovery, maybe he feels just enough better three or four weeks from now and you’re seeing more of that high-end that we’ve seen.
“We’re betting on Paul Skenes. It’s pretty easy to do that. Trust him entirely. Have a ton in confidence in him every time he takes the ball.”
Draft talk
The second half of the show featured a conversation with senior vice president/assistant general manager Kevan Graves, who’s overseeing the Pirates’ draft this year.
It’s not permanent for Graves, but it’s how the Pirates are accounting for the loss of director of amateur scouting Justin Horowitz to the Nationals back in October.
I started out by asking Graves what it actually means to run the draft.
“This entire spring has been how we go about using our expertise, our resources, to capture as good a picture as we can of the talent across the country,” Graves said. “And how we go about valuing that, ultimately how we go about executing on our 20-plus picks next weekend and adding the most talent we can to the organization.
“It’ll culminate in the draft, but there’s so much that goes into it over the course of the spring. That’s been a lot of fun. It’s been challenging. But it’s been energizing in a lot of ways. That’s a credit to all the people and all the contributors.”
The Pirates have four of the top 51 picks in the draft, which will start Saturday and conclude Sunday. They also have more bonus pool money than anyone else ($19,130,700).
“We have a lot of picks and draft capital this year,” Graves said. “We’re gonna really look to leverage that to the best of our ability, add as big of a collection of talent as we can. That’s not necessarily specific to any demographic but feel good about what’s out there and how we’re going to attack that over the weekend.”
I also brought up the Pirates selecting Paul Skenes, Konnor Griffin and Seth Hernandez in the first round of the past three drafts and whether that changes anything.
Graves emphasized that this process doesn’t have any direct correlation to the Major League team, that it’s almost entirely independent. But the Pirates, along with all other teams, do have post-draft debriefs where they review processes and such, and there have obviously been some things worth repeating the past few years.
“If I were to highlight one aspect of our evaluation/acquisition process, it’s continuing to lean heavily into our synergy with our player development group and our skill development experts and targeting players who match the characteristics and qualities we value in a Pirates player, targeting those aggressively in the draft when we’re looking to bring up young talent,” Graves said. “It does feel good. It speaks to how exhaustive the group has been. We’ll continue to try and lean into some of the things that we think led to good decisions in the draft.”
Jason Mackey: Jason.Mackey@pirates.com and @JMackey_PGH on X.