U mad Bro: Pirates fans grumble about trades, 'media bias'; Pens fans carp about goaltending

This week’s “U mad, bro?” has Pittsburgh Pirates fans split between ripping me about the MLB draft and ripping Ben Cherington about his recent trades.

Penguins fans are split among themselves over how worried they should — or shouldn’t — be about the goaltending.

And Steelers fans are … oddly quiet. But I’m sure that’ll change after Thursday night’s preseason opener.

We’ve got about six straight months to overcorrect on that front.

We start with an email from Joe. He has an interesting theory on the Pirates.

“Been watching you battle it out this summer with some Pirate fans who get excited talking about our loaded farm system. I’m reminded of the ‘Infinite Monkey Theorem,’ which basically states that if you put 1,000 monkeys in a room with 1,000 typewriters you’ll eventually have one of them write Shakespeare.

Most of us are going to wait until a monkey gives us Shakespeare before we get excited. But others will get excited when one of the monkeys puts a sentence together. To each their own.”

Joe, I don’t own a typewriter. But I do have a laptop.

So allow me to respond by saying, “The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.”

When it comes to misery, I think being a Pirates fan certainly qualifies.

Now give me a banana.

Todd wasn’t wild about the Pirates’ haul of prospects that they got in the Adam Frazier and Rich Rodriguez trades.

“All of the trades are subpar except for Clay Holmes. Frazier and RRod should have commanded more of a return. The others might be marginally better.

Overall: C-

Very disappointing from Ben Cherington. He had a chance to do something remarkable with adding quality minor leaguers, but threw a wild pitch with too many of these trades.

It’s a good thing we drafted and signed five players ranked in the top 100 of draft eligible prospects. We’ll need every single one of them to produce. And soon!”

I wasn’t floored either, Todd. But I was probably expecting a little less than you were, based on the market.

Like you, though, I was also impressed that they got anything more than a bag of batting practice balls for Holmes. The return from the New York Yankees seems pretty good.

However, as you pointed out, five years from now none of this will matter because the greatest draft class in the history of professional sports will all come to PNC Park at once and carry the Pirates to the promised land.

At least that’s what Twitter keeps telling me.

This guy is still harping on the Pirates’ draft strategy and how much of an idiot he thinks I am because I had the gall to suggest Vanderbilt pitcher Jack Leiter was the best player available and the Pirates should’ve taken him.

Why am I wrong? Because it took big money for the Texas Rangers to sign him as the second pick, and he thinks the Pirates were smart for avoiding that expense.

No chance the @Pirates get 5 of the top 88 players in the draft if they had to pay this bonus!

Love the draft strategy even more now, thoughts @TimBenzPGH? https://t.co/cNQru8Nkft

— Burgh Vet (@BurghVet) July 28, 2021

I think Leiter is going to be great. That’s what I think.

Literally every analyst outside of angry bias Pittsburgh sports media are praising the draft strategy…‍️

All objective view points with a similar analysis tells me if you’re not jaded and can be objective it was done incredibly well.

But you’re right, we will see in 2-4 yrs

— Burgh Vet (@BurghVet) July 29, 2021

Oh, get lost. Biased media? What’s it been now? Like, 25 out of 28 non-playoff seasons?

Yup. That’ll make me biased. You got me. Guilty as charged.

Speaking of Leiter, Bill chimes in with a tweet.

So let me get this straight. You’d have rather they drafted/paid Leiter what he got, which would have prevented them from signing 4 HS kids that were rated as 1st round talents, to give them one potentially great player over several? Leiter has a lot of innings on his arm also.

— Bill (@Wrv1113B) July 28, 2021

Yeah, and most of those innings were really, really good.

You make this argument assuming that if the Pirates drafted Leiter, whoever they would’ve drafted in the next few rounds would’ve been garbage and whoever they actually did end up taking are all going to be All-Stars.

Because, you know, the Pirates have such a long and storied history of drafting, developing and retaining elite talent over the past quarter century or so.

This hockey fan didn’t like people in last week’s “U mad, bro?” who were lashing out at the idea of the Penguins reuniting with Marc-Andre Fleury.

Jarry and DeSmith stink. Flurry would be an obvious upgrade so fans saying this are blind.

— Big Ern (@BigErn_88) July 29, 2021

No. They can see. They can see the goaltending problems are beyond fixing. So they are focusing on other ones that may get tweaked or addressed. And, that way, they can feel better by the time training camps start.

Finally, James didn’t like a lot of those responses last week either.

Well 90% of sport fans are idiots that have to pause twice to catch their breath while tying their shoes!!

— James Staten (@Buckeye4LifeOH) July 29, 2021

What’s that, James?

Sorry, I got a little winded. My shoe was untied. I had a long walk back from the typewriter room.

I needed to feed the monkeys.