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OT: Pirates Talk: Lets Play Ball

Will IKF hitting a rbi double there after Shelton had him squaring to bunt teach Shelton that you shouldn't have guys who clearly haven't bunted since little league try to move runners over with a bunt?
 
The bullpen has actually emerged as pretty consistently good other than those horrible early meltdowns with Bednar and Holderman. I'm not ready to proclaim Bednar is back after one game, but it's notable that his stuff number on the best pitch didn't fluctuate, so it's gonna be a matter of sequencing the other stuff in for him.

I also don't fully want to punt on Mlod as a starter, but a very obvious way to further bolster the pitching is to see if Bubba can hang as an MLB starter and unleash a more effective Mlod in shorter stints.

Offense would still be Oneil Cruz + cameos from Reynolds / Cutch / Bart, but the pitching has certainly solidified. I was talking to some people tonight who pointed out that the Heaney signing looks fairly surprising in retrospect. He's had some major injury issues but it's not like he hasn't performed at a very high level before. We have him basically for free and now it's starting to look like a terrific signing. If only we had bothered addressing the major weakness of the team with an impact bat (I'm sure the PR machine will hype Horowitz as this as he makes his way back, and I hope he makes us better, but there's no way I'm buying it).

Curious how this road trip will end, but also need to seize the opportunity for a sweep tomorrow. Then I guess you hope Skenes shows out vs. the Dodgers and we at least secure a winning trip, which would certainly be a success.
 
Bubba still has not gotten to 5 innings in 4 starts. They are being very slow building up the pitching count and limiting innings. None of the hitters in AAA are forcing the pirates hands.
 
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DJ Spinoza said:
The bullpen has actually emerged as pretty consistently good other than those horrible early meltdowns with Bednar and Holderman. I'm not ready to proclaim Bednar is back after one game, but it's notable that his stuff number on the best pitch didn't fluctuate, so it's gonna be a matter of sequencing the other stuff in for him.

I also don't fully want to punt on Mlod as a starter, but a very obvious way to further bolster the pitching is to see if Bubba can hang as an MLB starter and unleash a more effective Mlod in shorter stints.

Offense would still be Oneil Cruz + cameos from Reynolds / Cutch / Bart, but the pitching has certainly solidified. I was talking to some people tonight who pointed out that the Heaney signing looks fairly surprising in retrospect. He's had some major injury issues but it's not like he hasn't performed at a very high level before. We have him basically for free and now it's starting to look like a terrific signing. If only we had bothered addressing the major weakness of the team with an impact bat (I'm sure the PR machine will hype Horowitz as this as he makes his way back, and I hope he makes us better, but there's no way I'm buying it).

Curious how this road trip will end, but also need to seize the opportunity for a sweep tomorrow. Then I guess you hope Skenes shows out vs. the Dodgers and we at least secure a winning trip, which would certainly be a success.
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I really have to highlight this because it's easy to forget, there was no money to spend. So let's pump the breaks on the seemingly easy task of finding an "impact bat" for more or less league minimum, to a less than stellar destination.

Can we point to a few guys who signed elsewhere for a few million and would certainly be helping the lineup over a few of the regulars so far (namely Pham)? Yes, absolutely. But those gems are few and far between and there is no way of knowing if we did attempt to sign someone performing better only to be rebuffed. It's not as if we should be assuming that just because a logical choice ended up signing somewhere else, there wasn't an attempt to be made on our behalf.

The Heaney signing looms large in a positive light due to needing a replacement for Jones, which was going to be a tall task, again due to budge restrictions.

I've maintained that Cherington has hit on enough arms via trade/FA to look good in retrospect but they simply cannot find/develop cheap hitters. There's just too much talent that has gone through all levels of the system, with far too few results that you are satisfied with. And of course, coaching remains abysmal, but that's largely on Cherington to address and he seems joined at the hip with Shelton who is a certified bum.
 
It's really shaking out much as we thought it would. They are 10th in ERA and other than Bednar/Holderman early and the Mlod 5th starter experience, the pitching has been very good. The offense is 27th in OPS and 24th in runs scored despite playing a largely soft schedule to date and it's hard to see how this will improve that much. Reynolds will hit a little better and Hayes/Pham/Frazier aren't THIS bad, but Horwitz alone isn't going to make this offense more than below average.
 
MrBrightside said:
It's really shaking out much as we thought it would. They are 10th in ERA and other than Bednar/Holderman early and the Mlod 5th starter experience, the pitching has been very good. The offense is 27th in OPS and 24th in runs scored despite playing a largely soft schedule to date and it's hard to see how this will improve that much. Reynolds will hit a little better and Hayes/Pham/Frazier aren't THIS bad, but Horwitz alone isn't going to make this offense more than below average.
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Wonder if Valdez moves to 2nd once Horowitz is healthy. Frazier is cooked.

But yes, the Pham/Suwinski platoon has been an absolute disaster as expected
 
ImporterExporter said:
I really have to highlight this because it's easy to forget, there was no money to spend. So let's pump the breaks on the seemingly easy task of finding an "impact bat" for more or less league minimum, to a less than stellar destination.

Can we point to a few guys who signed elsewhere for a few million and would certainly be helping the lineup over a few of the regulars so far (namely Pham)? Yes, absolutely. But those gems are few and far between and there is no way of knowing if we did attempt to sign someone performing better only to be rebuffed. It's not as if we should be assuming that just because a logical choice ended up signing somewhere else, there wasn't an attempt to be made on our behalf.

The Heaney signing looms large in a positive light due to needing a replacement for Jones, which was going to be a tall task, again due to budge restrictions.

I've maintained that Cherington has hit on enough arms via trade/FA to look good in retrospect but they simply cannot find/develop cheap hitters. There's just too much talent that has gone through all levels of the system, with far too few results that you are satisfied with. And of course, coaching remains abysmal, but that's largely on Cherington to address and he seems joined at the hip with Shelton who is a certified bum.
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They are around $80 million. The reporting was they could go to $100 million, so there was some money to spend. And even if there weren't money to spend, it doesn't justify spending over $4 million on Pham. They might as well have lit that money on fire. Actually, that would have been a better use of it as then we wouldn't have Pham and his sub-.500 OPS sucking up valuable outs every game.
 
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The Angels are somehow a worse organization than the Pirates. Trout and Ohtani are better than any hitters the Bucs have had since Bonds and they were terrible with both of them on the team at their peaks.
 
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