First Call: Flyers social media mishap; Steelers lose data analyst; ex-Pirate is All-Star MVP
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There surely have been more than a few instances of Zoom calls originating in Western Pennsylvania that have included the words “Flyers (stink)” and another word that begins with the same letter. But Tuesday, it happened on a call staged by Philadelphia Flyers employees themselves.
During a live stream of a virtual conference call with Philadelphia media and veteran forward Garnet Hathaway, audio came through from Flyers social-media staffers who arranged and facilitated the call. And after at one point a reporter asked Hathaway a question about why an accomplished player such as he would sign with a clearly-rebuilding team like the Flyers, a voice is heard saying, “How many times is she going to ask this (bleeping) question?” Another voice, sarcastically in agreement, can be heard saying what sounds like, “Yeah, the Flyers (stink), why are you even watching?”
While the Flyers apparently took down the post rather quickly, of course in social media nothing is erased, so the exchange made its rounds — to the hilarity of many fans of other teams who dislike the Flyers.
The Flyers ultimately responded with a Twitter post of a statement attributed to new team president of hockey operations Keith Jones apologizing for the “disrespectful remarks” and saying the team reached out to the reporter and her media outlet.
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 11, 2023
“Any disrespect towards reporters is completely unacceptable, especially when they are simply doing their job,” the statement read, in part. “…(the Flyers) will continue to promote an environment of mutual respect when working with media.”
Forgotten Pirate
The Pirates have had their issues getting offense from the catcher position this season. Just think if they had an All-Star catcher who, say, had 77 hits that were tied for third-most of any catcher across MLB this season — a guy who homered during Tuesday’s All-Star game.
Elias Diaz’s two-run homer off Felix Bautista in the top of the eighth inning Tuesday night was the key hit in the National League’s 3-2 victory against the AL in Seattle.
Elias Díaz just flipped this #AllStarGame on its head! pic.twitter.com/a676EZsZ53
— MLB (@MLB) July 12, 2023
Diaz indeed was a Pirates catcher — up until 2019. The team’s primary catcher that season, Diaz was the first regular from that team discarded by then-new general manager Ben Cherington. Though Cherington had designated for assignment a handful of fringe pitchers days after he was announced as the Pirates’ baseball operations head on Nov. 15, the first starting position player let go was Diaz, whom Cherington declined to tender a contract to on Dec. 2, 2019, making him a free agent.
Diaz’s non-tender was not without its logic — after all, he ranked dead last in all of the majors at any position in defensive runs saved in 2019 (minus-21). And it’s not as if Diaz has become a star with the Colorado Rockies (he has 38 home runs and a .720 OPS over 317 games). But no one can take away from Diaz that he earned an MVP award in an All-Star game.
More sports
• ‘Take what the draft gives you’: Pirates continue run on college players in MLB Draft
• Pirates’ Mitch Keller gives up home run, records strikeout in All-Star debut
• Competing for NFL job for 1st time, punter Braden Mann joins friend Pressley Harvin with Steelers
Steelers lose analyst
The Dallas Cowboys have hired a two-year member of the Steelers’ analytics staff, Will Britt. According to a report from Yahoo! Sports that was confirmed via a post to a Twitter account belonging to Britt, Britt will be a “strategic football analyst” for the Cowboys. His title over the past two seasons for the Steelers was “football analyst.”
According to Britt’s bio in the Steelers 2022 media guise, Britt has a bachelor’s degree in data science with minors in both computer science and mathematics from Centre College in Kentucky. Britt was a quarterback and wide receiver on that school’s Division III football team as well as a two-year point guard for the Colonels’ basketball team.
Britt served on staffs both under Kevin Colbert’s and Omar Khan’s tenures as Steelers general manager.
Poor anniversary
Tuesday marked the 22nd anniversary to one of the darkest trades in Pittsburgh sports history. The Penguins dealt four-time reigning NHL scoring champion Jaromir Jagr — in his prime, and to their bitter rival, no less — for three mid-range prospects (Kris Beech, Michal Sivek and Ross Lupaschuk) and under the condition the Washington Capitals took on the contract of Frantisek Kucera and threw in some cash.
The results were predictable for the Penguins, two years removed from bankruptcy but less than two months removed from a berth in the Eastern Conference finals. As the Penguins joined the NHL’s other small market teams in limping toward the end of a collective bargaining agreement with the union in 2004, they needed to cut payroll.
But Jagr also had requested a trade. If that hadn’t happened, perhaps Mario Lemieux — at that point a young team owner and less than a year into his comeback at age 35 — might have approved “running it back” with Jagr and other veterans in an attempt to make a run at one last Stanley Cup for Lemieux the player.
Of course, 2001-02 began a run of three consecutive non-playoff seasons, and ultimately the Penguins also would part ways with the likes of Alexei Kovalev, Martin Straka, Jan Hrdina and others.
It all worked out, though: be it intentional or not (and in the latter stages, it probably was), the Penguins had the look of a “tank job.” That landed them the No. 1 pick in the 2003 draft (Marc-Andre Fleury) No. 2 pick in the 2004 draft (Evgeni Malkin), the No. 1 pick in the 2005 draft (Sidney Crosby) and the No. 3 pick in the 2006 draft (Jordan Staal). Combined with a new CBA that included a salary cap that came out of the 2004-05 season being canceled in a work stoppage, and the Penguins mini dynasty of three Stanley Cups over the Crosby/Malkin/Fleury era was the end result.
Beech, Sivek and Lupaschuk, though, did not make their mark on the franchise. They combined for 13 goals, 20 assists and a minus-37 rating in 141 games for the Penguins — 100 from Beech over two undistinguished tenures.
A-plus for effort
Time will tell how fruitful the Pirates’ recently-completed draft was. But at least one national outlet was impressed.
Bleacher Report assigned grades to all 30 MLB teams’ drafts. They ranged from A-plus (three teams) to C-minus (one team). And guess what? The Pirates were one of those A-plus grades.
The San Francisco Giants and Washington Nationals also got an “A+” (the Kansas City Royals had the lone “C-“).
Author Joel Reuter’s reasoning for grading the Pirates so highly: “For the Pirates and Nationals, they benefited greatly from selecting 1-2 in a draft that featured a pair of potential generational talents in LSU teammates Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews, and despite some rumblings of below-slot deals they wisely made them the first two selections.
The Pirates followed the selection of Skenes at No. 1 overall with a high-floor college shortstop (Mitch Jebb) and a high-ceiling prep pitcher (Zander Mueth) before taking seven college pitchers among their eight Day 2 selections. Great strategy to restock the system.”