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OT: Pirates Talk: Lets Play Ball

This is a bad team and no other comment besides that really adds much additional insight to it beyond that, which is something I think we all more or less know.

It has been built to be a bad team by a bad GM who works for an awful owner. The only end result of all of this is overdue firings and a regime change which will involve trading Skenes.

That's it. There's nothing else beyond that which matters much. Player development sucks, strategic decisions are abysmal, drafting is middling. Fans caring or not caring, players being exposed out of their position, a particular decision or lack of execution here or there, etc. etc. etc. -- none of that matters much. What matters is that the only people who have the power to do anything about this do not care and are not interested in changing it. The evidence is on the field.
 
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I'm just glad they're showing us who they truly are at the start of the year, rather than starting out the year hot and making fans believe in them.

We can debate the merits of Horwitz as an everyday 1B, whether they're mishandling Davis/Endy or whatever else. But as long as Nutting doesn't want change, nothing will change. This is a team with a bad GM, a bad manager, a cheap as shit owner and a heavily flawed roster, and none of that will change unless heads start to roll.
 
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DJ Spinoza said:
This is a bad team and no other comment besides that really adds much additional insight to it beyond that, which is something I think we all more or less know.

It has been built to be a bad team by a bad GM who works for an awful owner. The only end result of all of this is overdue firings and a regime change which will involve trading Skenes.

That's it. There's nothing else beyond that which matters much. Player development sucks, strategic decisions are abysmal, drafting is middling. Fans caring or not caring, players being exposed out of their position, a particular decision or lack of execution here or there, etc. etc. etc. -- none of that matters much. What matters is that the only people who have the power to do anything about this do not care and are not interested in changing it. The evidence is on the field.
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Pretty much all of this. This Marlins team will lose 100-110 games - it's a terrible baseball team. Yet here we are.
 
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I truly hope this franchise is out of Pittsburgh when the lease is up. Sorry, but not sorry. I'd rather have nothing than watch this nonsense year in and year out.

You can fire everyone under Nutting and nothing will change. It's that simple.
 
ImporterExporter said:
I truly hope this franchise is out of Pittsburgh when the lease is up. Sorry, but not sorry. I'd rather have nothing than watch this nonsense year in and year out.

You can fire everyone under Nutting and nothing will change. It's that simple.
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We essentially have nothing currently. It's the same exact thing.
 
It’s an absolute travesty with how winnable this division looked in the winter they didn’t even try to build an offense. Pham is useless Fraizer and IKF plus trilo are bench depth if you want a playoff caliber team.
 
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They did nothing to improve the team. They didn't bring in even one legitimate bat when they needed at least two (and that is being very generous). They lost Chapman, Bednar is clearly toast, and yet they did nothing to address the bullpen. I think Shelton should have been fired long ago, but honestly there are no good moves that he can make given the bullpen. Just a trash team and they are going to completely waste Skenes.
 
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TooManyHumans said:
They did nothing to improve the team. They didn't bring in even one legitimate bat when they needed at least two (and that is being very generous). They lost Chapman, Bednar is clearly toast, and yet they did nothing to address the bullpen. I think Shelton should have been fired long ago, but honestly there are no good moves that he can make given the bullpen. Just a trash team and they are going to completely waste Skenes.
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Not that you're wrong here, but I think this is giving the players too much of a pass. Cruz is a poster boy for the issues with this team. They can't develop for shit, which is why Cruz can't make simple fly ball catches in CF, while the players also don't give a shit. Go look at Pham's body language and see if that's a guy that wants to be in Pittsburgh. Hell, Reynolds seems to do so well here because he genuinely seems like he doesn't give a shit about how the team does.

The owner cares about the bottom line more than winning, so it all trickles down from there. Players don't care, manager has been completely exposed as an idiot, a GM that has infinite job security despite doing a bad job and an owner that doesn't care enough about winning enough to make changes.

In Nutting's case, I don't even think it's as much "I'm a greedy bastard who wants money" more than "I'm terrified of losing value on investments, so I won't do anything that has a chance of losing money". Fire Cherington and Shelton? Can't do that, you'd have to pay his contract and another replacement's contract. Bring in an expensive UFA? Can't do that, revenue was down last year and they may end up in the negatives by that amount without more fans showing up.

When your owner cares about the bottom line more than winning, this is what you get.
 
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Empoleon8771 said:
Not that you're wrong here, but I think this is giving the players too much of a pass. Cruz is a poster boy for the issues with this team. They can't develop for shit, which is why Cruz can't make simple fly ball catches in CF, while the players also don't give a shit. Go look at Pham's body language and see if that's a guy that wants to be in Pittsburgh. Hell, Reynolds seems to do so well here because he genuinely seems like he doesn't give a shit about how the team does.

The owner cares about the bottom line more than winning, so it all trickles down from there. Players don't care, manager has been completely exposed as an idiot, a GM that has infinite job security despite doing a bad job and an owner that doesn't care enough about winning enough to make changes.

In Nutting's case, I don't even think it's as much "I'm a greedy bastard who wants money" more than "I'm terrified of losing value on investments, so I won't do anything that has a chance of losing money". Fire Cherington and Shelton? Can't do that, you'd have to pay his contract and another replacement's contract. Bring in an expensive UFA? Can't do that, revenue was down last year and they may end up in the negatives by that amount without more fans showing up.

When your owner cares about the bottom line more than winning, this is what you get.
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Cruz can't play centerfield because he came up as a shortstop. Reading the ball off the bat in center is not easy and takes years to become instinctual. Maybe this organization should stop trying to switch players' positions on the fly once they reach the majors and maybe actually figure this shit out in the minors. They are just a trash organization from top to bottom. They have no idea what they are doing.
 
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TooManyHumans said:
Cruz can't play centerfield because he came up as a shortstop. Reading the ball off the bat in center is not easy and takes years to become instinctual. Maybe this organization should stop trying to switch players' positions on the fly once they reach the majors and maybe actually figure this shit out in the minors. They are just a trash organization from top to bottom. They have no idea what they are doing.
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Again, this gives too much of a pass on the player. Plenty of other teams have not had issues swapping players like that. Jackson Merrill nearly won ROY after moving from SS to CF last year for the Padres, while finishing with a +11 OAA according to statcast. Cruz not being able to catch a basic fly ball or regularly making stupid decisions with his throws is an issue of a lack of focus and a lack of development. That's not only on the management/coaching, that's also on Cruz.

Cruz got moved out from SS to CF because he couldn't play SS defense, and is now showing he can't play CF defense. This team can't develop for shit, but the players aren't innocent here either.

I actually think IKF is a good example of how you can't just hand-wave the responsibility away from the players. Back in 2023, the Yankees randomly decided that IKF would move from SS/3B to being their new CF despite never playing the OF in the majors. He finished with a +1 OAA and -1 DRS at CF, which isn't anything amazing but is totally passable defense. You can't just hand-wave away Cruz's constant throwing miscues or being unable to catch a routine fly out because "he came up as a shortstop", plenty of other players have been able to make those kind of changes without botching routine plays.

This all comes from the top, where Nutting cares about not losing money more than he cares about winning, but there is a massive issue with a lack of accountability that makes both the players and management sloppy as hell. The players don't give a damn because they view the Pirates as "I don't have any other options", as Jarrod Dyson appropriately said a few years ago.

“Ain’t too much out there right now, you know,” Dyson responded. “You’d love to explore. But at the same time, you take what you can. Take the good with the bad and roll with it. Make the most of it.”
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Cruz benched, which in this lineup has to reduce any win probability by a significant amount.

Suwinski starting, despite the fact that he came up as an OF and also bungled a play yesterday.

There's no reason to get worked up about any of it, though. One of my main hopes in doing the 10-15 game recaps is to help uncover that you can't necessarily draw conclusions from any series or couple game stretch. Things become clearer once you get a couple of stretches like that in the books. The obvious problem is that team is identical to the one that plummeted in the latter half of last year, with the only exception to that being that Cherington's main deadline acquisition was so bad we just didn't renew him.

It's last place + casually tune in when Skenes is pitching.
 
DJ Spinoza said:
Cruz benched, which in this lineup has to reduce any win probability by a significant amount.

Suwinski starting, despite the fact that he came up as an OF and also bungled a play yesterday.

There's no reason to get worked up about any of it, though. One of my main hopes in doing the 10-15 game recaps is to help uncover that you can't necessarily draw conclusions from any series or couple game stretch. Things become clearer once you get a couple of stretches like that in the books. The obvious problem is that team is identical to the one that plummeted in the latter half of last year, with the only exception to that being that Cherington's main deadline acquisition was so bad we just didn't renew him.

It's last place + casually tune in when Skenes is pitching.
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Cruz has made like 5 boneheaded decisions in the OF so far and was thrown out on Suwinski's double to start the game because he was jogging around 2nd:



Him being benched is 100% warranted.
 
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Cruz is more talented than Greg Polanco, by a lot, which is saying something. Unfortunately, he's got the baseball IQ and motor of his former countryman.

I don't think Skenes even makes it to arbitration here, so you've got this year and next and then it's goodbye Paul! Oh and for pennies on the dollar because we have no leverage (can't sign the guy so teams will underpay just like Houston did with Cole)
 
metalan2 said:
We essentially have nothing currently. It's the same exact thing.
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It really isn't though.

Right now, the taxpayers of PA pay to fund the existence of the Pirates. Our ROI is as low as you can possibly get. Having a team that performs in the manner of the Pirates, year over year, with no real tangible investment in the franchise is a slap in the face to people who do care. It's a waste of our money to allow Nutting to continue profiting endlessly for a shit product.

And yeah, he'd make over a billion in any sale and would reap hundreds of millions in net revenue, but at least we wouldn't have to endure 90-100+ losses every f***ing year, which to me, is worse than not having a team at all.

I understand some won't agree, but that's where I'm at.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
Cruz has made like 5 boneheaded decisions in the OF so far and was thrown out on Suwinski's double to start the game because he was jogging around 2nd:



Him being benched is 100% warranted.
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This is why talk of extending Cruz is insane. He is lazy, dumb at times, an unstable player. He also killed multiple people driving a car. I'm not saying he should have been found guilty, but like "of course this happened to him. Him." This all paints a picture that Oneil Cruz is not someone you give $75-$100m of guaranteed money and feel good about it.
 
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Yeah I'm pretty much a complete no on extending Cruz at this point. I think he could be really valuable as a DH, but the dude simply can't play the field and doesn't have the focus you want out of a guy you're giving $80+ million to.

They already have a long term guy that should be a DH in Reynolds, so they can't put Cruz in that spot. The only position I might see Cruz being able to play at this point is 1B, but Cruz's personality doesn't give me the impression that he'd either take that well or he'd work hard to be able to succeed in that position.
 
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