The entire Rowdy Tellez timeline with the Pittsburgh Pirates is yet another look at how the Pirates do business with an extreme priority on penny pinching. To me, it’s comical in the way it all turned out.
The timeline:
- December 16, 2023 – The Pirates didn’t make much of an offseason splash, but one of their early moves was signing Tellez as a free agent to a $3.2 million contract with $800,000 in playing time incentives. Those would begin with $200,000 at 425 plate appearances, according to Ethan Hullihen.
- January 31, 2024 – Tellez does an interview with Foul Territory. During the interview, Tellez is asked: “If you sign a one year deal with the Pirates, you’ve kind of got to expect that you’re not going to end the season with the Pirates, right?” A visibly frustrated Tellez, sitting in his car, gives a snappy response. The interviewer proposes that if Tellez hits well enough, he could be traded at the deadline. Tellez says that the Pirates have a really good team with Oneil Cruz returning.
- April 9, 2024 – “We don’t do that here.” Following a third blown game by David Bednar to start the season, there were boos from the crowd. Tellez stepped in ahead of the interview with Bednar and delivered a message that “we don’t do that here”, saying that Bednar would get back on track. Tellez received a lot of backlash for scolding the fans, who some say were reacting to manager Derek Shelton.
- May 23, 2024 – Tellez is batting .175/.242/.225 after 132 plate appearances. The Pirates give him a week off to get back on track. Fans are calling for his release, with Jake Lamb and Seth Beer seen as potential saviors. The Pirates double down on Tellez.
- June 10, 2024 – After batting .370/.414/.556 in 29 plate appearances in his return, Jason Mackey writes about how Tellez is turning his season around. The article focuses on Tellez going to his father for guidance, along with an outside hitting coach for help.
- July 4, 2024 – Once the subject of boos from the home crowd, due to his comments about Bednar, Tellez is now getting cheers. He’s batting .341/.379/.549 with four homers in a little over a month since his break, with three of those homers coming between June 26th and July 3rd.
- July 30, 2024 – The trade deadline arrives. Tellez is batting .313/.356/.552 since the end of May, with four more homers in the last month. The Pirates are fringe-contenders, and buy at the deadline with minor upgrades. Tellez is part of the reason the Pirates are contenders at this point, due to his play over the previous two months, and at key times in July. Ultimately, Tellez is not traded. The Pirates retained most of their veteran free agent signings. They did trade for minor leaguer Billy Cook, who can play first base.
- August 31, 2024 – The hitting from Tellez is starting to fade a bit, however he’s still batting .291 since the trade deadline, with a .780 OPS. He’s also coming off a game where he hit his 11th homer in the last three months. Meanwhile, the Pirates spent the month of August falling out of contention. In the minors, Cook is batting .277/.351/.434 in Triple-A since the trade deadline, while getting plenty of time at first base.
- September 8, 2024 – The Pirates placed Henry Davis on the injured list and called up Cook. He played his first MLB game at first base that night, picking up two hits with a double.
- September 22, 2024 – Tellez falls back to his early-season struggles during the meaningless month of September. He hits for a .116/.255/.209 line with one homer in 51 plate appearances. Cook only took two starts at first base, spending more of his time in the outfield.
- September 24, 2024 – With 421 plate appearances, just four shy of a $200,000 bonus, the Pirates designate Tellez for assignment. This ends his time with the Pirates, and prevents him from getting the playing time bonus with one week remaining in the season. Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington says the bonus didn’t play a factor. Had Tellez played on Tuesday night, the Pirates would have seen their payroll go up $200,000. Cook started the game on Tuesday, playing first base.
Tellez was a priority signing for the Pirates, despite Carlos Santana wanting to return. A big difference between the two was that Santana ended up costing about $2 million more, while providing consistently better production in 2024.
Tellez stepped up as a vocal leader early, and perhaps a bit too aggressively. There was the interview in his car. The Bednar situation. I watched him eat steak on a stone in a one-on-one interview with Hannah Mears. The Pirates were making an effort to push Tellez as a veteran leader. However, his poor numbers at the plate and the on-the-nose approach to marketing him received backlash from the fans.
Faced with demands to release him, the Pirates kept Tellez. He sought outside help to turn his season around, and will forever be referenced as a reason why you don’t give up early on a player. The Pirates didn’t trade him because he was helping them contend, but they also didn’t really push to go for it. They slumped and their season ended, then he slumped and his season ended.
I don’t think it’s a horrible thing that the Pirates are saving money here on a player who was one of the worst performers in the game for half a season. There is something about this which doesn’t sit right. It’s a lack of loyalty.
Tellez was pushed early by this marketing approach team. When he turned things around, he was pushed as a feel-good story. The Pirates kept him around constantly throughout the year. They kept him when it would have been acceptable to release him. They kept him when they were on the fringe of contending.
More importantly, they kept Tellez into September, even after Cook resumed hitting in Triple-A. They kept Tellez after Cook got the call to the big leagues in early September. Cutting ties with Tellez could have been done earlier this month, with a plan to give more playing time to Cook. The fact that they waited until the last minute — and the Pirates would know when a player is nearing an important bonus — shows they never intended on allowing Tellez to reach that bonus.
It all goes back to that first interview. Tellez scoffed at the idea that the Pirates are only known for doing business in a cheap way, surrounded by losing. At the end of the year, he didn’t end the season with the Pirates. That’s entirely because the Pirates are cheap, and didn’t want to pay him the bonus that would be triggered by his four extra plate appearances.
I don’t think there’s much Tellez can do about it, as his numbers didn’t warrant him being in the lineup for so long this year. The Pirates don’t owe him a bonus, even if it does show bad faith in allowing the bonus to be reached. Tellez delivered on the marketing end, then delivered on the field, and finally was let go right before his bonus could be triggered.
This situation makes it less likely that the Pirates will shed their image as a team more concerned with money than winning.
Three Pirates Observations
The Pirates lost to the Milwaukee Brewers 7-2 on Tuesday night. Here were three things which stood out from the game:
- Joey Bart had two hits, with his tenth double of the season. With an .810 OPS, Bart has been the biggest positive on offense this season. The Pirates acquired him at the start of the year for A-ball pitcher Austin Strickland. They drafted Strickland in the eighth round last year, and he had yet to make his pro debut when they dealt him for Bart. Strickland finished his first pro season with a 3.20 ERA in 19.2 innings in Single-A, followed by a 5.46 ERA in 29.2 innings in High-A. Bart is under team control for three more seasons, and is arbitration eligible for the first time this offseason.
- Jared Triolo went 3-for-4, picking up his second three hit game of the season. Playing third base, for the injured Ke’Bryan Hayes, Triolo has been hitting well this month with the added playing time. He’s batting .290 with a .347 OBP and a .391 slugging. There’s not a lot of power, with two homers and a double, but Triolo is consistently getting hits and getting on base to end his first full season in the Majors.
- David Bednar pitched a scoreless ninth inning in a meaningless game. He did get back on track after those early-season comments by Tellez, but Bednar has struggled in the last month. He was removed from the closer’s role at the end of August. This is one of few times that he’s pitched in the ninth inning.
Michael A. Taylor Also Gone
In addition to Tellez, the Pirates also designated Michael A. Taylor for assignment. They brought up Joshua Palacios and Liover Peguero from Triple-A. Those two are likely to fill out the bench, with Cook and Nick Yorke getting more time in the final week. Read about the moves in the latest Pirates Transactions.
Indianapolis Season Recap
The minor league season is over. Yesterday, I started my recaps of every level of the Pirates’ system, beginning with Triple-A Indianapolis. Read the recap for the hitter and pitcher of the year, the top ten prospects at the level, notable performers, and an early 2025 outlook.
