I was browsing Twitter this afternoon, when I stumbled upon this remark by @whygavs:
The article he links to appears on the Pittsburgh magazine website. It would easily be the biggest misuse of a journalistic platform related to the Pirates this year, were it not for the Pirates Report fiasco just a few weeks ago. While I’m tempted to tear it apart Fire Joe Morgan style, I’m going to go another route.
There are lots of problems with what Conboy is saying. But the most egregious of them seems to be a comical misunderstanding of the nature of the sport of baseball. Baseball, at it’s very core is a game of one hitter vs. one pitcher. It’s that nature that allows a pitcher like Strasburg to completely dominate a game, despite the fact that he plays for a Nationals team that is below .500, even after sweeping the Pirates this week. Conboy’s assertion that players like Morgan are important to a developing team seems to completely ignore that aspect of the game. In true team sports like Hockey, Football, and Basketball you have to rely on your teammates to help maximize your performance. I have no doubt that in those sports guys like Morgan and Billy G can make a profound difference to a teams ability to win a championship. But in a baseball, an individual sport disguised as a team game, team chemistry is incredibly overrated.
Now don’t get me wrong, Nyj-Mo was one of my favorite players when he was in a Pirates uniform. He’s a plus defender with speed on the base paths who can survive as a slap hitter because of his speed. But ultimately, this isn’t about Morgan’s skills on the field but rather what he does off of it for a young team. From what I know of Morgan, based mostly on interviews and the like, he seems like an very likeable, funny guy. That likeability almost certainly translates to the clubhouse, helping to keep teammates loose, but the assertion that it translates to wins on the field is at best unproven and at worst just plain wrong.
If Conboy wants to criticize Pirates management because Milledge hasn’t played well since coming to Pittsburgh and we’d be a better team with Morgan back, that’s fine. It’s pretty clear at this point that Milledge has been a dissapointment. Maybe you don’t like the risks Neal Huntington has taken in many of his trades and think disgraced former top prospects like Milledge and Clement never workout and aren’t worth trading for. But that isn’t what Conboy says. In Conboy’s world, Nyjer Morgan and Doug Mientkiewicz (for the record he never specifically mentions Dougie baseball, I’m just assuming Conboy would put him in the same camp as Morgan) would still be Pirates, and those 2 players would lead their young players to victory. In the real world talent, not chemistry, is what wins baseball games. I’ll even go a step further and bet that if the Pirates continue to develop talent, to the point that they become a winning team, the chemistry and morale in their clubhouse will be just fine.
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