Madden Monday: ‘We’re pretending Dwayne Haskins might be good, and he won’t be’; Pirates’ Derek Shelton ‘is an amateur’

Mark Madden is back from an extended weekend, and he has opinions stored up and ready to fly.

In this week’s “Madden Monday” podcast, we start by discussing the rumors that PLB Sports & Entertainment CEO Ty Ballou wanted to buy the Pirates, even though they aren’t for sale.

Madden isn’t buying that for a second.

“He has no intention of buying the Pirates,” Madden said. “He wanted to get his name out there. Which he did. Now when he moves onto his next gaffe, he’s ‘the guy who almost bought the Pirates.’ This is done to lay the groundwork for other cons.”

On the field, the Pirates broke their 10-game losing streak this weekend by taking two of three games from the Cleveland Indians. But they lost Sunday’s game in part because manager Derek Shelton pulled JT Brubaker after 6 ⅔ innings when he had only thrown 76 pitches.

Brubaker had nine strikeouts and no walks in a 1-1 tie with a runner on second base at the time. Yet Shelton yanked him in favor of Chasen Shreve who yielded the eventual game-winning RBI to .250 hitting Josh Naylor.

Shelton is quickly building a reputation for pulling starters early.

“He should build a reputation for being an amateur who doesn’t belong in the big leagues, even with the Pirates,” Madden said.

On the Steelers front, the team concluded its spring workouts with a week of minicamp. And Madden isn’t buying the hype around backup quarterback Dwayne Haskins.

“We’re pretending Dwayne Haskins might be good. And he won’t be,” Madden insisted.

In terms of Ben Roethlisberger’s assessment that Haskins could “throw a ball through a car wash and it wouldn’t get wet,” Madden had a less than flattering comparison to another first-round pick quarterback that never panned out: Baltimore Ravens bust Kyle Boller.

“I had him on my show before the draft,” Madden recalled. “And I said, ‘Kyle, it’s said that you could kneel on the 50-yard line and throw the ball through either goal post. Is that true?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘What tangible application does that have?’ And he responded, ‘None, and you’re the first person to figure that out.’”

Also in the podcast, we get into the philosophical gap that needs to be bridged between quarterback Roethlisberger and offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Plus, we talk about the future of NHL scheduling, the MLB “sticky stuff” debate, potential trade plans for the Pirates and Mark’s trip to Texas to see Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Listen: Tim Benz and Mark Madden discuss the state of the Pirates, Steelers backup quarterback situation and more

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.