Hold My Cutter
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Hold My Cutter
Unveiling Pittsburgh Sports Stories with Noah Hiles
Ever wondered what it's like to be at the heart of breaking sports news? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's own Noah Hiles joins us to share his journey through the vibrant world of sports journalism. Inspired by legends like Hunter S. Thompson and Rick Reilly, Noah reveals how he draws from both national icons and local heroes to fuel his writing. Together, we explore the rich tapestry of Pittsburgh's media landscape and the unique thrill of being the first to bring groundbreaking stories to the public eye.
We also catch a glimpse of the intricate dance that is sports reporting, as Noah recounts his exhilarating experiences uncovering stories in college football. From quarterback changes to strategies behind the Pittsburgh Pirates' long-term success, he sheds light on the strategic decisions and challenges that come with the territory. Our discussion ventures into the realms of sourcing, strategic leaks, and the camaraderie among journalists, painting a vivid picture of what it's like to live a life where work and passion seamlessly intersect.
Finally, we dive into the art of storytelling and game coverage, focusing on the meticulous balance required to craft compelling narratives throughout a long season. Noah shares his insights on the collaborative dynamics within the newsroom, particularly in baseball reporting, and the strategic moves necessary for maximizing team potential. With a nod to future ambitions and the excitement of what's to come, this episode promises to enrich your understanding of sports journalism's ever-evolving landscape.
Guest
Noah Hiles
Twitter: https://x.com/_noahhiles
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!!!
www.holdmycutter.com
Welcome to another exciting episode of Hold my Cutter. We're coming your way here at Burn by Rocky Patel, just a couple blocks down from PNC Park on the North Shore, greg Brown and Michael McHenry. And our special guest is Pittsburgh Post-Gazette beat writer for the Pittsburgh Pirates, noah Hiles, who asked us to feature and we've done this the gold label Rocky Patel. It is very special. Developed in a lustrous Havana wrapper from Ecuador, the gold label exudes sophistication from the very first glance. As Noah points out, beneath the surface lies a harmonious marriage of binders. He's such a great writer. He wrote this With Connecticut shade and Connecticut broad leaves, lending to a complex but smooth draw. A symphony of flavors further progressed by its carefully curated aged filler tobacco from the revered regions of Jalapa and Esteli in Nicaragua.
Speaker 2:You know, he went there and ran through the forest, yeah, and he had his quarterback arm and he was writing the story as he went.
Speaker 1:And you'll have to watch the previous episode Maybe you have or maybe you've heard it because he actually did that. Noah Hiles talked about how he got here, how he got to become the Post Gazette writer here, how he got to become the Post Gazette writer, but I guess what we didn't touch on in a previous episode was you talked about people that you look up to in terms of players, those that you idolized and such, talked about your favorite stories so far, but what, in your estimation, maybe you can point to other national writers you talked about Beaver County Times guys that came before you. Who do you look up to in terms of writing skills, styles and so forth?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. It's hard to pinpoint one person right. There's so many just really really good journalists out there, really good storytellers. Someone that I've always just found very intriguing is a guy named Hunter S Thompson. He's not necessarily the greatest sports writer. I mean, he is a legendary sports writer and I just think that his best writing was done outside of the realm of sports. But in the previous episode I shared the story where I was running with Maya Cochran, the distance runner, and he made himself part of the story and that's called gonzo journalism and he invented that form of journalism. And if you don't know who Hunter S Thompson is, go on his Wikipedia page and read about him. He is the most interesting human that has ever lived in his life.
Speaker 1:Do you know who that is? No, I'm going to read about him.
Speaker 3:I'll just say Hunter S Thompson. See before today.
Speaker 1:I thought that he was the most interesting human that ever lived the end of his life when he died.
Speaker 3:His funeral consisted of Johnny Depp shooting his ashes out of a cannon off top of a mountain.
Speaker 2:That sounds something that may be what I want my life to be.
Speaker 3:Yes, Hunter has top, but as far as inspirations, go Out of a cannon. Out of a cannon Ashes out of a cannon off top of a mountain.
Speaker 2:I kind of want my body to be shot out of a cannon. Is that weird?
Speaker 3:Not at all.
Speaker 2:Not at all. You're not weird at all. Stay tuned on, oh my.
Speaker 3:God, I'm reading a lot of the people that I've been coworkers with now. Just before, when I was eating breakfast as a kid, our rule was Monday, wednesday, friday I had to read something and I would tell my dad it was kind of like a book report While I waited for the school bus. I'd eat it while I was, or I would read it while I was eating my breakfast. You didn't read it in your mind.
Speaker 2:Yes, I would read while I was, or I would read it while I was you know eating my breakfast.
Speaker 3:Yes, I would. I would read while I was eating my breakfast and then while I was waiting for the bus, my dad would say what'd you read? And it could be from the paper, it could be from sports illustrated um, so people that I I read growing up. Um, rick Riley was someone. I think Rick Riley's one of the best uh, his feature he did on Marge Schott, the former Reds owner. Incredibly, god was is one of the best. His feature he did on Marge Schott, the former Reds owner.
Speaker 1:The guy was unbelievable.
Speaker 3:One of the best features ever written Wright Thompson. I think he's probably written maybe the best story of all time. On his story he wrote about Michael Jordan. Those are national guys Locally. I mean, I grew up reading a lot of dayan kovacevic, who's obviously I mean he, I think and I've I've worked for the guy and you know he's got some differing, differentiating opinions but I I read him a lot growing up and he he was an incredible writer. I will say that about him. Uh, jason mackie obviously filled these shoes before me. Uh, I read a lot of his stuff. I read as someone who grew up rooting for the team before I was covering it.
Speaker 2:Uh, read his. He's a great investigator.
Speaker 3:He he is, I. I equate mackie to. He is a hunting dog. You give him a scent and and it could be about anything you'd be investigating, it could be about a feature, it could be, be whatever If you tell him, if you give him a little scent, go out in the field and get it and he goes after it.
Speaker 3:But I mean a lot of people. I mean Gene Collier. I read growing up, ron Cook. I think Joe Starkey is one of the more underappreciated writers in our city. There's a lot of people.
Speaker 3:I mean, and that's what's interesting to me is, if you look at the landscape of Pittsburgh media, this is not a huge city compared to Chicago or Los Angeles or New York, but it's a great sports market to work in. Right, and if you compare our numbers to what we get page view wise or the awards our newspapers, our radio stations, our TV coverage gets, I mean people really want to read or consume content about their sports teams here. This is a sports town and, having grown up with a dad who was the ideal sports media consumer, other kids when they'd go on road trips they would listen to music with their parents. I listened to Mike and Mike, you know, or, locally, I listened to Stan and Guy, you know, or Mark Madden or whoever was on ESPN, and then the fan got invented and I remember listening to just everyone you know Gianotti and so on and so forth and I kind of got the sense from my family. And they're still like this, they are my audience and, having grown up around my dad and his three brothers and now their kids who are in college, I feel like I have a sense of like this is what my audience wants to read about and I think that there's value in that. Just having been immersed in that and knowing what my friends, my family and seeing. Hey, this is what people consume.
Speaker 3:And from a young age I was consuming it differently. I was like watching film, where they were just kind of, you know, being entertained. I remember watching Monday Night Football, or, you know, sunday Night Football and listening to Al Michaels and being like, okay, so that's how he brought that up. Or watching Doc Emmerich and being like, wow, he used a different adjective every single time. He did not repeat an adjective of a game. I thought that's incredible. Or Brownie, for example, the first college project I ever did was on Greg Brown.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, yes, it's stuff like that. That's cool, isn't it? Yes, what did you get? What grade?
Speaker 3:I got an A. Thank you, yes. Voices of the Game was the name of the class. Yes, no.
Speaker 1:So okay, so these guys, you say it's kind of like when we ask managers, noah, managers know about when they get to the big leagues, you know who do they either uh look up to uh, or or or many. Shelton, for example, talks about the guys that when he came up he takes a little piece of different guys uh which was really cool to hear, by the way yeah maybe the same is true, I guess, for writers, I think so entirely.
Speaker 3:If I had to pick one person who I would kind of try to want to emulate, bill simmons is a guy I connect with a lot, in the sense where Bill Simmons did not have the traditional media path. He started as a blogger and was so darn good. Espn hired him and then he was so dominant at ESPN he created his own thing called the Ringer. But while he was at ESPN, in the back nine of his ESPN career, he came up with this idea what about the sports doc idea? We'll call it 30 for 30. You know, like he, that was his baby and now he has his own thing and just the idea where he was able to make an impact in journalism through film, through podcasting. He's one of the most successful sports podcasts ever. He's also one of the greatest sports writers of all time. He was a big part, I believe, in Grantland, which used to be a branch of ESPN which was long-form writing. So I look at him.
Speaker 3:A guy like Dan Lebitard is another example of a guy who mastered being traditional media, and I think it's important to create your own brand, um, as long as you don't put that brand above what you're reporting on. That's why I go on. You know podcasts and shows. I want people to to get to know me, the storyteller, but I don't want them to like me more than the story that I'm telling. Uh, but eventually, yeah, I think that that's, that's the goal, and so those are the guys that I kind of look at now as like wow, okay, so they use this traditional media as a way to build their brand and establish their own credibility and to take this career path to where they want to go. So, to answer your question, I take a little bit of everyone I look at I I my dad, told me this the other day. I, he said, you've always been someone who reads more than most of the people I know, and I.
Speaker 3:I take a lot of pride in that because I I feel like you know, in today's world, it's a lot easier to read or to watch a video or listen to a podcast than it is to read, but the written word, I still think, carries the most validity. So, um, just by consuming content, by reading, uh, how writers construct their stories. Every time I pick up, every time I'm on the road, I always like to pick up a local newspaper. If I'm in new york, I'll get the post the hard copy?
Speaker 1:yeah, the hard copy. What is that?
Speaker 3:when I'm in the airport. I love doing that when I'm flying home from a city because, first off, I'm interested in seeing how the opposing beat the beat reporter for the opposing team told the story of the game that I just told. Right, I want to see how the Houston Chronicle guy wrote about that Astros pirates game compared to how I wrote about it. I want to see you know how the Arizona Republic covered that three game series at Chase field compared to how I covered it. How are they deploying their call on this? How are they doing this? And then you can also look at, you know, national call on this and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, you pick, you pick and choose and it the way I look at it and this is something that Jason relayed to me and kind of, I guess, confirmed my thought on it is you're going to get better, Like when you're a baseball player and the more you watch baseball as a performer pro, when you watch baseball it's a different experience than when I watch baseball, right, You're seeing how a guy's pitching and going after a batter and you're thinking, okay, well, the next time I face him. That's mental note. I'm reading a game story, I'm reading a column or a feature or something like that, and I'm thinking, okay, well, the next time I have something to write about in this type of circumstance.
Speaker 1:I can pick that. You know, I can pick and choose that.
Speaker 3:And you know, and I'm sure you do the same thing when you're when you're listening to play by play guys on hockey or football or whatever like, oh, I love the way they they built this up or the way he described that.
Speaker 3:It's, it's naturally of course you don't get that. If you don't love what you do, yeah right. If you're doing this for a paycheck which I mean you're doing this for a paycheck you're in the wrong field. Like no, that's not to say I I'm very, I'm happy with what I'm doing and I I live comfortably. But, like you know, you can make more money in finance or something like that. But if you're, if you're doing this because you love it, your brain never is completely off, right, you're always thinking. You're watching the NLCS and you're like is that Brent Honeywell Jr? That's a story. That guy pitched two innings for the Pirates and now he's pitching three innings in the NLCS against the Mets. You know something like that. It's never completely off and you obviously have to balance it. You don't want to work yourself to death. You don't want to be 100% committed to your career. You want to make time for friends, family and things outside of work. But if you love this, you're always kind of thinking about it a little bit. You're all in, yeah.
Speaker 1:A very high percentage of it and unfortunately, friends, family and so on might suffer because of it.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's why I'm very fortunate my girlfriend is a journalist as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, that helps and so that is really cool. I remember early on in our relationship some of the biggest news I've ever broken in my career so far was last fall. Pitt benched their quarterback during the bye week and for most teams that doesn't come out especially in college until the day before the game or the morning of the game. Well, I found out during the bye week, the day it happened, and I broke that news. And then the next day, while my girlfriend and I were at a soccer game she loves soccer a source reached out to me and informed me that not only was this quarterback benched, they're changing his position and some partners of journalists would be like, no, this is my time I'm working. But I remember talking to her. I'm like, hey, I've got a huge scoop. She looked at me and said go do it.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 3:And sitting there on my phone writing the breaking news piece and the tweet. When I broke, that story had like two million impressions.
Speaker 1:Noah, how about the rush of breaking a?
Speaker 3:story. It is unlike anything else.
Speaker 1:Because I'll throw myself in here, but I was a beat writer. I was the beat guy, the beat brownie For the Buffalo Bills, yeah. So I did color, but then I also was the beat guy during the week, and so I was up in Buffalo for five years. I broke one of the biggest stories in that time as a beat guy and I'll never forget it. The general manager got fired.
Speaker 2:Bill Polian. What's the buildup to that? Because you're grabbing all this information. It's a lot different. Your experience is probably a lot different than mine.
Speaker 1:Well, we talked about me being a. You called me a Stone Age guy.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. You called yourself a Stone Age guy.
Speaker 1:He called me an Ice Age guy.
Speaker 2:I said caveman.
Speaker 1:Caveman, but back then we didn't have these Alcor, you know back then we didn't have these Neanderthal yeah pagers and we had those just the beginning of car phones I only heard those about pagers and rap songs. Yes, yeah yeah, yeah, but you could go, but those are used for different things.
Speaker 3:That was not used for breaking news and rap songs here's the original d-o-double-g got it study history.
Speaker 1:Uh, anyhow, we were at a, at a luncheon, a banquet, and my pager went off we say that one more time we're at a banquet and my pager went off, okay what did?
Speaker 2:what was that like?
Speaker 1:if you had it on your belt, uh-huh, and it would kind of vibrate sometimes it would beep, but you could turn it off them back. Then we could actually even turn off the sound and kind of like.
Speaker 2:And then, what did that, that box on your hip, do?
Speaker 1:the box on and you looked at it and it's a call, a number. Oh so I'd go to a landline that. That's high tech, brian oh yeah, I left the banquet and I called the landline On a pay phone. I don't know who it was, we all have sources, but someone said I'm hearing that Bill Pullian could be in trouble, which was I mean. People talk about the Steelers being big in this town and they are.
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean the Bills in the 90s. You have no idea about the Bills.
Speaker 1:It's even to this day. That is it. And so I got on it and I actually drove to then-Rich Stadium I don't know what it's called now and I hung out in the parking lot and I started making phone calls and finally ended up calling his house and got confirmation from his wife and broke that story. And you know people talk about the greatest moments and stuff that the rush of knowing you've just broken a story. And now you go on the air like then you call the station, get me on right away. We were a news station. Break in. This is Greg Brown calling Break into news right now. I said we're going to go up to Orchard Park to break that story.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Your experience, my experience, is I mean, you didn't have a pager, I didn't have a pager.
Speaker 2:Why not? I kind of want to bring it back, yes.
Speaker 3:It's like 200 innings, Exactly Such a rush, right? Because I mean, not a lot of people can relate to breaking news, but everyone can relate to do you hear this, you know?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's essentially what that is right, Absolutely.
Speaker 3:When you're with friends and family. You never gonna believe what I just heard. Yeah, and you get to do that for an audience right or a living right.
Speaker 3:So, um, what was my first big one? I mean, I had ones like when I was covering high school, but I guess my first big one on the pit beat was I broke the story of um when they were hiring the women's basketball coach and it was just kind of a thing where I remember, like my hands shaking because you're typing it, yeah, and like you know you have, normally now it gets broken on X right and so, like you, formerly known as Twitter, formerly known as Twitter, and while you're typing it, like anytime I would typically break something. If I have the option, I like to type it out with a keyboard, because I know my hands are going to be a little jittery and I'm not going to you know Do you sometimes do it with your thumbs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, huh, it's impressive With my phone, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's just impressive writing a story with your thumbs.
Speaker 3:Oh no.
Speaker 1:What I'm saying is this is just the original thing, just to get it out.
Speaker 3:Just to.
Speaker 1:Which, by the way, is dangerous, because you don't want to be wrong, right, but you want to get it out. You've got to do it now.
Speaker 3:I had it made sure. I was like the source who contacted me. I was like how confident are you? Told me. I reached out to another one. They're like, yeah, that's what I've heard as well, and I run it by my bosses. I was like I'm going to fire this and I typed it out and I was like I cannot believe this is my. That was my first breaking news story as a news reporter. I broke some stories, uh, earlier in my career, but like breaking a sports story for the Pittsburgh post Gazette and seeing like ESPN credit you like in the little ticker or whatever in the push notification.
Speaker 1:You know that that outside of this business, people that aren't in this business just despise that. They dislike it so much that all they care about is getting that story out.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, they love it if it's not about them.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't you agree with that though?
Speaker 1:It's just more they love it. If it's not about them, probably yeah.
Speaker 2:When I think about the trade deadline, for example.
Speaker 1:All the GMs, all the baseball people look down on it. Oh, those are rumors, rumors, rumors, and all they care about is getting it out first.
Speaker 3:Getting out first, but not be right, my thing is, if I'm 100% right, you have nothing to be upset about other than I knew your secret.
Speaker 3:And so I go back to what I was talking about when Phil Djokovic was benched in October of 2023. That was the best feeling in the world to me, because I knew I was exactly right. I knew to the way it happened, to how he was informed, to how he informed his teammates and to the follow-up that happened. I remember writing in the original story he wasn't just benched, he was moved to third string. How did it happen? The way it happened was he was informed They'd fallen to one Can we go back a little?
Speaker 1:bit Pine Richland kid For those that are watching from out of town or listening Phil Dracovic was maybe the best quarterback prospect that this area has produced in 30 years.
Speaker 3:Out of high school he went to Notre Dame, didn't play there, transferred to Boston College, had a really good first year there. Injuries kind of derailed his second year there. He had one year left of eligibility. Western Pennsylvania guy, his former offensive coordinator, was coaching at Pitt at the time. They bring him in in the transfer portal and Pitt, as we see this year, is typically a team that's always one quarterback away from being a decent program. They always have a good line, always have a good defense, always have a good run game. They need someone who can throw the pill.
Speaker 3:So this was supposed to be the answer to their problems. So they bring him in and it didn't go well. Through five games they won one and four. He was a clear problem and so I had asked after those games, after the last two or three losses, is there any consideration to maybe making a change? And I got shot down real quick. But going into the bye week I had my antenna up. I was like you know this could happen. What made you think that? Well, just because it was like it was obvious.
Speaker 1:It was obvious. Yeah, I know somebody was tipping you off.
Speaker 3:And it was more like a thing where, if it's not going well, maybe it's going to happen. Okay, but that's your instinct of all. Right now I need to start reaching out or whatever. But in this case, for this one instance, someone contacted me and heard and they said I heard from someone that this is happening and if you don't have sources, that's worthless. You know it's. I heard from someone, but they reached out to me because they knew I knew people who would be able to. They maybe wouldn't tell me it, but they could be like I don't know how you heard that, but that's spot on. So I spent the rest of the day kind of talking with people and saying this is what I heard, this and that, and I eventually got the full story, and that was one where the best breaking news is not only when you can break it with a tweet, but when that tweet includes a story you talk to him about.
Speaker 3:I didn't talk to him but I had some very, very, very good information and being able to reach out to my boss and say hey, I'm writing this now, I'll be tweeting this, I'm going to have this filed at 3.15. At 3.30, we need to publish this and because the sources that I talked to said this is going to get found out in a couple of days, you should break it now, because you have the exact truth and when you can do that, that's incredible. I got that rush.
Speaker 3:That's an incredible feeling. I remember just tweeting it out and just seeing the reaction. And it's not even a thing of pat yourself on the back, but it's just cool because that's like hitting a walk-off home run. That's what everyone kind of wants to go after.
Speaker 1:And I guess that's what people outside the business don't understand. Yes, they just don't get that. That's a great point.
Speaker 3:And if you're in a that's what you.
Speaker 1:That gives you so much credibility. Now, people want to read, listen to you. Yeah, they want to know what's next. You're the guy.
Speaker 3:And, if you're right, I broke the story that he was moving to tight end, and so I remember that week. This is college football. The coaches don't necessarily love the idea of you knowing stuff that they don't want you to know. So the next that first Monday after the bye week, we have this press conference. They update the depth chart and I was curious as to how they were going to handle it. They didn't say a thing this whole week. I was the only one to report this and it's just sitting there. People confirm the tight end thing, but I'm like, well, let's see how this goes. So we get to Monday, we show up the depth chart. Indeed, it showed him at number two and I knew that wasn't true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do that all the time in college sports.
Speaker 3:But then he kept. He went out of his way to say he's still a quarterback. He's still a quarterback when I had heard from like four different people that he was taking practice reps at tight end.
Speaker 1:When people are saying that, are you starting to get worried at all that they're so dead set on no?
Speaker 3:he's he's still, because I, the people that I had heard it from, it was like they it's just, you don't get access to practice when you cover college sports. You get one 10 minute window and you're not allowed to report anything that you see. So it's like the people that I heard this from. I'm like no, this is true and he doesn't have to tell the truth because there's no way we would know unless we heard it from people who saw it. So when he said he was a quarterback, still, I like questioned him. I said so, did he? Did he take reps at practice at tight end? And he said he didn't do anything in the team session as a tight end. I said what about individually? Did he run routes as a tight end? And the coach looked at me and he said I have no comment and I just smiled, got him, and he goes what? Oh, because he ran a couple of routes as a tight end. And I said I'm just asking, and because he ran a couple of routes, he's a tight end. I said I'm just asking, you know, and it's like you just confirmed that. And a couple of weeks later, sure enough, he says in a meeting yeah, he has been working at tight end and it's just moments like that where you get it.
Speaker 3:Or another big one that I had, yeah, like when you can break the news of a firing, like I broke when they fired Frank Signetti, and I remember coming back from that one I had just in this past weekend. I'd covered Pitt basketball all week in New York and then that Saturday morning I woke up at 3 am to catch a 5 am flight to Durham to get there for a noon kickoff. Covered that game. That was the last game of the season for Pitt football. Next morning woke up at 3 am again to get a 5 am flight back to pittsburgh. I'm exhausted. I haven't slept hardly at all, but I knew I'm like they're gonna have to be firing coaches today. So I'm exhausted but I'm like fighting back sleep because I'm like waiting, I'm like I'm gonna get this text and sure enough it came and being able to break that one when, like every fiber you're of your being is saying just go to bed, who cares?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then when the boss texts, you, that means, you love what you do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just like, yeah, no, I'm going to get this done. And whenever I get this done, and breaking news stories are also another reason I love them the easiest ones to write, you don't have to be creative of it's just this is what happened, and then whenever they release the statement.
Speaker 2:So you copy and paste their statement, quote in there. It's easy, it's done, yeah, so so I'm gonna be the devil's advocate kick you off the mountaintop. Now, what about? What about a story you got wrong, or a story that you wish you would have wrote, or, you know, a regret you have because obviously nobody's perfect? Yeah, and how do you handle that? Because that's got to be tough, because the opposite effect, right? Yeah, that doesn't help you in any way.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, but it's going to happen. It happens, yeah, and I think it's. I've always in like everything that I do. I've never tried to pretend like I know everything right. Like there's certain situations where, like you know, if, if, if, I am next to Brownie and I see Brownie, you know, spill his drink and I have like a video of it and I send you the video. I'm like here's Brownie spilling his drink and you report that Like you could stand on that and you're just like there's no way I'm wrong.
Speaker 3:But most of the time you don't know if you're a hundred percent right. So you try to be as right as you can, um, but if you end up being wrong, you got to own it. Or or or at the very least, say this is what I was told, that that's. That's a very common thing that I don't think a lot of people consumers get is that you're only as good as your sources, and sometimes your sources get played. Sometimes people know who your sources are and they know that they can get something out of them. They can if it's maybe to make you look dumb, if it's to get a narrative that makes someone look bad, or good Agents do that all the time.
Speaker 1:Agents do that all the time.
Speaker 3:And it's not just agents, front offices will do that, or athletic departments or coaches. I know like a coach. You know, say a coach is upset with how his player is performing at practice, if he's showing up later, if he's being a jerk to his teammates or if he's showing up overweight, if he's showing up later, if he's being a jerk to his teammates or if he's showing up overweight. If there's a writer you've known for 20 years, it's beneficial for you to maybe leak that and kind of light a fire under his rear end. You know, and say that and that might be that coach's truth, but that might not be the whole truth. But you've got to say look, this is what I reported. I remember one thing that happened with me this year is I reported that Joshua Palacios was getting called up. Remember that. And then he didn't get called up that day. He was there the next day, but I heard pretty credible information that he was coming.
Speaker 1:I got a question for you in that respect that he was coming. I got a question for you in that respect. Do you think teams, if they see that, might say, okay, hold it, don't. Is it possible they would say don't bring him up, let's wait.
Speaker 3:No, not at this level. I do think that happens at college.
Speaker 1:I mean team. I'm not talking about specifically the players.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think that happens at pro sports. I think pro sports because of the money that's invested in it, you're just gonna do what's best for you, but you could see in college, in college, don't do it.
Speaker 1:Now that it's out there, hold off if, if they can make, yeah, if.
Speaker 3:If. If it's a a move the size of something where it's like they can maybe make it look like they were in control the whole time and you weren't necessarily right, they, yeah, they. They'll take their foot off the gas and prolong that. In my instance, with the Palacios thing, I think a couple contributing factors led to a change in the decision, but I knew that this guy was heading to Pittsburgh and going to be on the major league roster, but some things either didn't come to fruition or changed and it was a day off. But that was a weird day, right. Well, how soon after did he get called up the next day?
Speaker 1:Oh, the day after the day off. Yeah, so you weren't right, no it wasn't a day off.
Speaker 3:They played a game, but I was. Do you have to own that?
Speaker 1:I said Because you were wrong.
Speaker 3:What I reported was. I tweeted the next day. I said what I reported this day was this At that point in time that's what I was told and I believe that was true Things changed.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, but anybody could do that right To play devil's advocate. Anybody could throw it out there and then you could come back and, ah, didn't happen. Things changed, right, and.
Speaker 2:I'm sure some writers do that a lot. Eventually it's going to ruin your career. You know, don't you think some writers probably do?
Speaker 3:that I mean maybe, but I mean in that in that case, like, like I said, like I think what happened changed and that's what I said, yeah, and that Adam. Another instance, one instance where I do think I was played a little bit was when Pitt was looking for an offensive coordinator. I think that one of the people that they were interviewing was simply taking interviews at Pitt to try to get more money from the place he was currently at, and they recognized that I was, which is very common.
Speaker 3:Yes, and they recognized that I was a writer that had broken a lot of news on that beat, and so they went to me and said it made it look eminent. And so I kind of highlighted this guy as, like it seems like this is going to be the guy and he wasn't the guy, and in that case it was like I had to basically say like, yeah, you know, that's, this is what I was told. Apparently wasn't true, you know, and that's a tough pill to swallow, but guess what you know, like sometimes you're wrong.
Speaker 3:Right, that's the nature of the beast. And like, as long as you're saying you know, like as long as you don't speak it as as as if it's fact, like if, if someone tells you it's fact and you say it's fact and it's not, if you say michael mckenry just signed with the red socks for 10 million dollars and it didn't happen, then you guys say, well, that didn't happen. But if you're saying, hey, I'm hearing that this guy is the favorite here and he doesn't end up being the favorite getting hired, it's like, hey, well, what I heard was wrong, I was wrong, and then you just got to be right the next time how much fun is the MLB trade deadline for you as a writer?
Speaker 1:Is that fun or is it too exhausting?
Speaker 3:You'd prefer it's a little bit of both to. To be honest, you get to a certain point in the deadline where the national guys are just kind of kind of get all of those things. That's kind of just the payoff.
Speaker 1:You have to kind of concede to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean you try right, but why? Why is that? By the way, I mean, that's their job, where I'm writing 100 game stories and features on one team. These insiders, their job is to just follow transactions.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:If that was 100% of my job, I'd probably be able to have more transactional news as well. But that's one element of many things that I do and so it's tough. And also because those guys they work for bigger national outlets, they have bigger platforms the people who leak that stuff to them. It's more serving to their sources to leak it to a guy with a hundred thousand followers as opposed to eleven thousand followers or something like that. And especially, just one year into being on the beat, you just got to have the realization where it's like, yeah, I'm not there yet, maybe one day I will be, maybe one day I won't.
Speaker 1:By the way, are you and Andrew Destin kind of co-beat?
Speaker 3:writers yes.
Speaker 1:Is that just how you're going to go along?
Speaker 3:for a while. That's the plan. We're just a tag team duo.
Speaker 1:How do you get assigned games? Do you pick them?
Speaker 3:yourself. Andrew and I are really good friends. We were really good friends before this and I think we work together incredibly well. I think we complement each other's strengths. So every Monday I'll FaceTime him, them, and I sit there with a pen and pad and I'm like all right, here's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 3:You base it around your life, you know like, hey, ideally if I could just show up to Clubhouse and not have to cover this Thursday game in June, would you be able to take the game story and to make it up for you. I'll have the big Friday feature, you know, or something like that, and you plan it out. Or, hey, what are you working on? You know, who have you been talking to? Oh, okay, Well, I got this thing on on O'Neill. I got this thing on schemes that maybe we should run this next week or maybe.
Speaker 3:You know, you coordinate it and if you have a really good team, you're able to decide. It's no different than deciding who gets an off day in the lineup or who's pitching on what day. You just kind of coordinate it based off of, also, travel schedules. If Andrew gets back from a six-day road trip, I'm not going to be like, hey, man, need you to write all four game stories for this four-game series coming up. It's like take a break, dude. You want to show up to the ballpark and just talk to guys and you work on features this week. All right, Work on game stories, or vice versa.
Speaker 1:If we didn't read the bylines and we just read the game story, would we know? What clues would I have, knowing it's your story or his?
Speaker 3:Andrew's a thousand times smarter than me. So if there are bigger, better words, is a thousand times smarter than me. So if there are bigger, better words, no, like if you see the word mercurial or something like that, yeah, that's, I don't know. I mean, the game stories are interesting because there's your game story at times can only be as good as the game that you watched.
Speaker 1:You sound like a broadcaster.
Speaker 3:Right. I mean yeah, like how many if you're making?
Speaker 2:a reel. If you're making a reel, you know he's been in so many different ways.
Speaker 3:If you're making a reel, you're not really picking out a 7-1 loss, right? I mean, it doesn't necessarily need to be all walk-off home runs, Right, but like, there's just certain things where, and like I remember talking about this over the weekend with Stephen Thompson, the kid who replaced me on the pit beat and just, you want to always write the best story possible, but it's like playing 160 games in the big leagues you can't sprint to first on every weak ground ball or something like that, or I'm just saying wait a minute or maybe, maybe you can't, you, can't, you can't go and that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this edition of home by cutter, maybe, maybe you can't.
Speaker 3:Maybe that wasn't the best example, but it was not a good example.
Speaker 3:Okay, it's not a good example, or you can't. You've got to be able to realize. It's like I'm not winning a pulitzer prize on this story. It was a 5-0 win on a Wednesday afternoon. I just need to tell the story of the game and you save. The good games is when you're going to sit down and say I'm going to really lock in and I'm going to be given extra 100,000%, and that's not to say I'm dogging it on the other ones but you have to realize, know, like it's, I give a full effort every time.
Speaker 1:I can't ask you this because you guys split the season, so I can't ask you what? What, in fact?
Speaker 3:uh, I think we had a better record.
Speaker 1:I couldn't, no, I couldn't no no, I could be wrong and want to talk to hannah mears about it, but I'll bet you that was an incredible, incredible awakening for her, because it's the first time she covered a team. I think she did probably 140 games something around there I bet you uh, hayley did, the others maybe dan's.
Speaker 3:But that's, you pick and choose, incredible grind you when you're, when your job is to tell a story.
Speaker 1:He used to do them.
Speaker 3:He used to do the bulk of it, yes, and you, just you can't tell a you know front page story every day. It's just not possible.
Speaker 1:You try, though you try.
Speaker 3:You try, but or you recognize that maybe the biggest story that came from today, like we talked about in the last episode, is something that needs more time to tell and I'm going to talk about it a little bit in my game story.
Speaker 3:But it's like we're going to put a pin in that and this can be my Friday feature, even though this game was played on Tuesday. If I take two more days to look into this because I have a deadline to meet and everything as well, I don't have time to sit down and comb through two hours worth of stats and get secondary quotes. But if I just mention this here, point out that it happened, make it the lead and then on Friday I'm going to really dive into it. I think that that's how you do a good job on the beat and being able to recognize, you know and communicate with your beat partner like we'll communicate during the game. Was this game worth two stories or is the game story just enough? Or did you see anything that happened pre-game, post-game, during the game that we can use later in the week for our weekend features?
Speaker 1:Wait a minute. So you guys decide whether there are two stories to a game. We decide whatever we write.
Speaker 3:You and Andrew yes.
Speaker 1:So there could be two stories the next day, there could be three, there could be a whole bunch. Wow, see, that might be another episode, because I'm not having been a writer, but boy, I think that that's, I don't know. I think that every game we talked about this earlier, about every game has a lot of depth to it regardless of what the score is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we cover now.
Speaker 1:This is no disrespect to you and Andrew and the Post-Gazette, but going on the road when I get a hard copy maybe or online, of the st Louis Post-Dispatch like or there are some other cities that cover baseball like this is the way to cover baseball. I mean, I think you guys do a great job, but I'd love to see more.
Speaker 3:So I'll push back on this, because the element here was we have, unlike other papers, we have four columnists at our paper, okay, so it's more just. Well, what are they going to write about?
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, and stuff like that. That. That's different also, and you might just see it. You gotta include those guys in the exactly so in in like for that's different and that's where it's you have to.
Speaker 3:You have to account for that and all, and we have the way we like to do. Our coverage is we have weekly things, so is is something happens on a tuesday, well, is this something we can cover in the podcast on Wednesday? Is this something we can cover in the mailbag on whatever day? Is this something we can cover? Here and there it will be addressed. It's just not maybe in the traditional sense where it's three stories, because at the same time, the counter to, I guess, oppose what you just said If you're writing three stories every day, one of them's going to get buried, and if it's a relevant story, then maybe you could pick and choose the right time to tell it and it'll get more eyeballs here's.
Speaker 1:Here's my philosophy, just in general, about every town, every reader, every listener, every human. There's a Pied Piper mentality that if you lead the way, people will follow. So I'm sensitive to this. I think that when the pirates start going bad, as they have in the last few years, all of a sudden people tune out. Well, people tune out because the station and I had an argument with 93.7 the Fan got my hand slapped a few years ago about this on the air. They were talking about attendance and so on. I said you guys can determine how that is. You guys, the more you talk about a team, even if they're bad, you can find good stories.
Speaker 3:You can find interesting things. There's always good stories, but I think there's you know there's.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, and educating the fan.
Speaker 3:Right Is important. I just think there's, but how much does the fan I mean? Well, there's a formula. There's a formula.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:I feel like a lot of times the fan I mean there, well, there's a formula, there's a formula. I, I agree. I feel like a lot of times the fan has.
Speaker 2:I'm not okay.
Speaker 3:That's just one element, by the way, my point is would you rather read about you know, alika williams going two for three in a game, or would you rather me sit down with him the next day and talk, hey, why'd you go two for three? Oh, because I went to this place in the off season and I made some change. Like you can get more to it than like we said. Like, yeah, you could write two or things, two or three things every game. But sometimes it's just more of a sense where it's like note that and expand upon it later. It's having the touch and feel to say is this a two, three that night, or do these two, three things play into something we do later on? That we can capture it? And if you look at our byline count, I mean we're writing 20, 30 stories a week during the season. That's. I mean how many games they play a week Five, six. So there's a ton there. It's just you know when a game ends at 11, how many of your stories do you want coming?
Speaker 1:out I guess it's just a general feeling about that I have that there's such an incredible appetite amongst fans, regardless of the record. Yeah, and our radio and TV ratings show it. Oh, I agree. They're dying for it. They want more content. They do, yeah so like give it to them.
Speaker 3:Any way you can, unless again, this is general yeah Around this town. It also just depends on you know. There's so many factors that play into that, like in St Louis, that's the only professional sports team there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's always been that way, even when they had the.
Speaker 3:St Louis Rams yeah, or the.
Speaker 1:Cardinals even before that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but here it's like all right, well, what's going to get into the paper and this? And that I genuinely feel that if there was a story to be told, we told it. It's just, you know it's deciding, you know know, is this a today story? Is this a tomorrow story? Is this long form? And there's you don't always get that right right like there's things that you probably, when you're driving home after games, like I wish I probably could have talked about that.
Speaker 1:No doubt about that it's, it's, it's tough but even after games that he and I have talked about this down the road, doing doing something an hour, they do an hour post-game TV show. I think there's room for another hour and another hour. And so TV radio, podcasting, writing, whatever it is. I think people want it, so give it to them. And when you don't, when you quit talking about the team, they're no good. Well then people then do turn to other things, because that's where there's no content. But there's people out there that want to see it, hear it, take it in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that it's always evolving, it's always moving. The key, what you alluded to, is, I think it's important to give it in different ways, like if all you're doing is writing about it, that's one thing, but, like, my job, even as a beat reporter, isn't just to write it I know yeah, like okay, well, I'll bring this up on my radio.
Speaker 3:Hit on the fan tomorrow. I'll bring this up on my podcast. I'll bring this up. And you know different perspectives. When we do a yeah, a live show or you know, this is, this is a good. When I'm doing our mailbag, like could, I'm sure someone will ask about it here. Let's just put a pin on that. And then, if it's more of an opinion like what do you think about this, I get to talk about my opinion in the mailbag and stuff like that. It's fun. It's fun. And that's what's unique about baseball is, with football, you're contained to one game a week and whatever narratives come, out between monday and thursday when they're practicing baseball there's.
Speaker 3:There's a new story every day, and more than one right, and it's just your job create more content than yeah, yeah, and that's why it's your job to decipher. You know what's. What's a bullet point, what's a story? What's a story work on for five days? What's a story work on for two months and everything in between online and, uh, hard copies the we're we're phasing out hard.
Speaker 1:I can't believe there's still some hard copies, right? What do you think of that?
Speaker 3:um, I get it. I I think that I don't know. I mean the hard copy. I I see why people like it. I personally like it because I grew up reading it, but I think that online, I mean, it's hard to make someone focus on anything for two minutes these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they call it the bull ride. You have eight seconds to grab someone's purse, correct?
Speaker 3:And we're in an information age where you just want it now, now, now, now, now. And that's why guys like Schefter and Shams and Passing get paid so much money. It's like they're not writing a ton, it's just they're able to recognize what the grand audience wants. And if you could still feed every mouth at the table, that's great. I think that that's the important part and I take pride in that we made an emphasis. It's like we're always going to have an in-depth feature run in the Thursday newspaper and in the Sunday newspaper. We will always make sure our two best stories we write this week as far as features go, we can't control. You know, if they lose 11-0, my game story is not going to be as good as a walk-off home run in the 12th Right. That's just facts.
Speaker 1:It could be about Roddy Tellez pitching.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it could be, but I'm just saying it's not going to be, as that's what Shelton would hope it would be Right. So you know you want to focus on that, but you also want to focus on the new thing. How are we going to get the young Noah Hiles, who's 15 years old, who just loves baseball and loves sports media? He's probably not going to CVS and picking up a hard copy of the Post-Gazette right now how am I going to make him consume my content? He's probably going to see it on YouTube, he's going to see it on TikTok, he's going to see it on Twitter or X or something like that, and it's going to be in a different thing. So you've just got to figure out how to package it and how to get your message out there and how to reach as many people.
Speaker 1:Just wrapping this up, the other episode you talked about you just touched on it that you thought one of the reasons the Pirates kept Charrington and Shelton was because they really believed in their heart of hearts that 2025 was the year right.
Speaker 3:In a way, yeah, I think. I mean, I think that they hoped. Obviously, I don't think they acquired the players this past offseason knowing that this would be the production they would get, but I think that their scope of things was this is going to be. A key piece to this is skeins and jones and getting chandler and ashcraft and harrington close, and I don't know what they thought ortiz or falter would be. I don't, you know. Maybe they thought they'd be this good, maybe not. Um, but I think that, in the grand scheme of things, skeins, more than anyone else, they viewed as if we're going to win a championship here before 2030, this guy's going to play a significant role in that, and so we need to dedicate this year, a big part of it, to making sure that we set this guy up to be the best he can long term. And if we want to, you know, on a counterpoint, like, like, yeah, they would have been a better team if they pitched them once every five days, but you know who's to say that that would have went as what? Would he have ended the year with a sub two era, maybe, maybe not. Uh, maybe it wouldn't have gone well, maybe he would have got injured.
Speaker 3:But they took this route with the six-man rotation, knowing that, yeah, it might not be what's best for keller, it might create more bullpen dilemmas where you're down an arm and you have to rely on guys to cover innings and if they don't, you're you know sol. Um, they did that with the understanding that, like, this is still going to be the better long-term prep play. So this was more just the mentality that they had, that it's like, yeah, this might make it a little harder to win now in 2024, but overall, this is going to make us a lot better of a team moving forward. And that's what I think they were getting at was in order to completely maximize this weapon that no one else in baseball really has. We have to take this route in 2024. And there's still a path that they could have probably been a better team. Right, if Swinski and Hayes and all these other guys produced, they probably could have been a playoff team even bullpen right.
Speaker 3:If these things worked out the way they did, they still could have won by this route, but I don't think it was the most ideal route of choice. I think it was the route that they looked at and recognized and said this is going to be a little bit inconvenient, but this is something we need to do.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So you're a fan watching what you just said. So what changes in your mind? This is your opinion piece, yeah.
Speaker 3:What changes is you get to use your best weapon way more.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you get to pitch Paul Skeens more than however many 18 times at the big league level. You get to let him log 200 innings. Obviously, I think another big piece of this year was you got to figure out what you have with O'Neal Cruz here. They clearly made a decision on him and you can debate whether, if that was the right call or not, you can debate the progress he made against lefties, if he's hitting enough power or whatever. I feel like they figured some things out. They also figured out some things are not going well right with their hitting development, with Davis, with Sawinski and all that.
Speaker 3:But I think, to answer your question, with the changes, all right, well, we know what we have with Cruz. We know what we have with Skeens. We have an idea. They already knew kind of what they had with Reynolds. Let's build around this now we're entering. Last year they really didn't even I mean, they had an idea of what they had with this weapon. They drafted one overall. But now they really know. Okay, now we know how to use this and he's prepared to be used, how we want to use him.
Speaker 1:I understand people's angst about not keeping Charrington and Shelton get that part of it. No doubt Change change. But I also, like you, talk about skin in the game, and Charrington pretty much said that at that press conference. He and Shelton are kind of tied at the hip now. I mean, they have come out and said we have to win. Like 2025 is the no excuses tour. Yep, it's huge. So I kind of like that. You know, to your point.
Speaker 3:Does it feel like 2013? Maybe a little to you. Maybe, yeah, well, this past year felt like 2012. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, where it's like we saw hints of it. We didn't have this talent though. So that's what's interesting to me.
Speaker 1:That's the end of the show. Yep, that's the end of the show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that's what's interesting to me is, you know, I agree with you where it is like all right, this is your final chance to kind of piece this puzzle together, because if somebody new comes in.
Speaker 1:They're going to have a grace period, a honeymoon. They have to, I mean, that always happens, but now this is it.
Speaker 3:So I like the immediacy of it. I agree, yeah, and I think that that's. But my question is what's different? I mean as a fan.
Speaker 2:I'm asking the same questions.
Speaker 1:The team will be way different come spring training.
Speaker 3:That's a question that I mean. Not way. I should say what will be different. That is interesting. There will be.
Speaker 2:The move that you could say you know in 13,. They went out and got Russell Martin Well they're going to go out and get somebody.
Speaker 1:That's no doubt in my mind.
Speaker 3:That's the question that needs to be answered. What's going to be different? Who do they hire to be their head of pro scouting? Who do they hire to be their hitting coach, their bullpen coach? What do they do in free agency trade market? What do you do with Henry Davis? What do you do with Brian Hayes? What do you do with Brian Reynolds? Do you play him at first? Do you play him in the outfield? Still DH him? Do you bring Kutch back? That's what's going to be different.
Speaker 1:You're going to be a busy guy.
Speaker 3:This offseason I'm enjoying these last couple of days, and again, I don't know if it's going to be, you know.
Speaker 1:I have a prediction, by the way, what? Do you got, I think for the first time in a fan nothing. But they are going to go out and be aggressive way more this year than they have been in years past.
Speaker 3:And they should.
Speaker 1:As soon as that World Series ends, because you can't sign guys until, or deals and stuff. Baseball doesn't want that.
Speaker 2:What does that mean?
Speaker 1:This is a quiet period. It means they're going to acquire.
Speaker 3:Does it mean a multi-year deal?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I think that that would be the start. For years they've waited, until January to February.
Speaker 2:I think that's something that we should remind everybody. Russell Martin signed a two-year deal.
Speaker 3:That's my point.
Speaker 2:Because it's not that if you're buying a substitute.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's what's different.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm asking you. As I've said in other places, that's the start.
Speaker 3:It's easy, as I've said in other places, that's the start. It's easy. I mean, when you bring in a vet on a one-year deal, you look at him as yeah sure, this is cool, I've watched him do great things. But it's like, is he going to? If we're 500 at the deadline, is he going to be here in August when you sign? Well, think about him when you sign.
Speaker 2:Think about a free agent signing here. Why would you sign here If you get a multi-year deal? It's a little bit of game-changing.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and that's exactly it. When you can make a statement that says there is no backup plan here, where when it's a one-year deal, it's okay, there's always the ripcord. It's like, no, we're going, we're diving in the pool. And if you sign a free agent or if you make a substantial trade, you trade for a guy who has three years of control and it's not just a, you know a guy who's pre-arb or something, but someone who has, you know, a financial commitment on his deal and you say you know, we're willing to pay this guy this amount of money for the next couple of years because we know this is going to make our team better in this window. That's, that's the, that's the stance they need to make, that's the statement they need to make.
Speaker 3:so name a couple free agents, maybe that you have in the back of your head my leading my wish list if I was a pirates fan and I just think the perfect fit for this team a guy that I look at is Tyler O'Neal. Tyler O'Neal makes this team better in so many ways. Tyler O'Neal has been a part of winning baseball teams. Tyler O'Neal hits 30 home runs. Tyler O'Neal plays excellent outfield defense on the corners and when you have a new center fielder I mean we talked about what could you do with Brian Reynolds you may be moving to right first base DH. I think in this ballpark your best defensive outfielder needs to be your left fielder and you get Tyler O'Neal. That is absolutely the case. It takes a burden off O'Neal, who's still learning center field. You have a 30 home run bat. You have a guy who's been here before and that's a guy who's not going to sign on a one-year deal. That's a guy who's going to take a notable.
Speaker 2:He's also somebody you have to trade for no, he's a free agent.
Speaker 3:He's a free agent. He's a free agent. He's an unrestricted free agent.
Speaker 2:I'll be baffled if he didn't go back to Boston.
Speaker 1:If it happens, we're bringing you right back guy.
Speaker 3:but I mean there's, you know my, you want to know my wish list yeah, bo bichette, bo bichette.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to, when you talk about a right-handed power bat where's he playing shortstop, shortstop every day and I signed him to a long-term contract immediately because I think that's a loud noise. I think you bring a a guy that wants to win. He learned from too low. Um, he brings a lot to the table. Defense is above, above bar. But he's also a guy that brings a lot of tools at the plate. O'neill I, I agree. The only problem is name a right-handed power hitting bat that's played in pittsburgh. I mean, jason bay didn't work. That's a huge park and to say he's gonna hit 30 home runs, I'm even if he doesn't at 30, I still think.
Speaker 3:I mean, if he's 20, that's still.
Speaker 2:I'm with you but I'm just saying bo bichette, longer term maybe younger, he's 25, him o'neill, exact same age, probably a similar contract, if you look at it okay, if the pirates signed him, then you're coming back to hold my cutter yeah, I mean that'd be a wild move, but I know the blue jays need some pitching too, so we have some depth there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean trade targets. There are some guys that I think make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:I think free agency's a lot tough.
Speaker 3:I think free agency's tougher, especially this year, because you look at this free agent class, there are like three or four, maybe five guys who are going to get paid really well I mean Tyler Neal's probably going to get 20 million Easy right.
Speaker 3:I mean this is going to be tough. It's going to be tough, yeah, and you might have to make some moves to clear up within your budget if you're the Pirates to do that. But they're trade guys too. I mean you want to talk about a splash Kyle Tucker, go get him, yeah, but what would it take? Who knows? But I mean, how serious are you about winning? Or a guy I was just texting my friends about? Cleveland needs starting pitching right now. What if you went and got a guy like Stephen Kwan? That would take a lot. That's what.
Speaker 1:I'm saying so. We're talking about scenarios, trades. It's going to happen.
Speaker 3:You watch.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it'll be that big of a name, but they are going to do some things they've not done in at least five or six years. You watch, it's just going to happen.
Speaker 2:And that's what you need to do With your backs against the wall, you need to acquire someone who's going to be here for multiple years, because that's the difference.
Speaker 3:Guys saw rowdy was on a podcast this past weekend. He was talking about the differences in clubhouse culture between milwaukee and pittsburgh and he said the vets in milwaukee you just had more guys who had been there and the guys that he mentioned you, you look at their names. You talk about adonis, you acquire adonis. Adonis had multiple years on his deal when he was acquired by tampa. Right, and so it's. It's not like a thing where, when you bring in a Rowdy or a Santana or a Vogelbach, a one-year commitment like what Art House?
Speaker 3:said in the movie Moneyball, it's not a huge vote of confidence, right.
Speaker 2:If you're going to build around, you've got to bring in the right guy Right.
Speaker 3:They need their.
Speaker 2:Russell, martin I'd love to have Adamas. We're never going to be able to get Adamas. You just look at it. Adamas is a teammate of mine, he's a friend of mine. I think the world of him we cannot get him. You just look at it and say who can we go out and get? That makes our clubhouse better. That is a winner. That adds to that culture, that schemes and certain guys, obviously.
Speaker 3:Ryan, mountcastle would be a trade target I would look at that's an idea too, because you know, what I like about him is multiple years of control.
Speaker 3:I mean, baltimore's got all of these guys. Eventually one of them's gonna have to move to first base. They're gonna take priority over him and mount castle's a guy who's kind of seen it through. He's gone through the tunnel that the pirates are in the middle of right now, and not all the way to the point of a championship, but he's seen how a rebuild is supposed to work right, like where all the talent and he can say, hey, the guy's like we're not far away and he can provide quality right. And there are pieces in this organization that I'm sure the Orioles would love to have.
Speaker 1:One thing we can absolutely agree on. You talked about it the best podcast you've ever heard or been on, hold my Cutter. Hold my Cutter. It's truth, absolutely. You get the nuance of Hold my Cutter right.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay, it's a double entendre.
Speaker 1:Thank you, yes, thanks to. Double Entendre.
Speaker 2:Look that up.
Speaker 1:On Hold my Cutter thanks to Noah Hiles. Thank you for watching. Like subscribe on all all platforms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and maybe we'll start our own mailbag because he's inspired me. Thanks, noah thanks guys.
