OT: Pirates Talk: Lets Play Ball

[TNT87]

Sorry Paul

 

[WickedWrister]

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

Pittsburgh to the Pirates.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Beyond awful and fully attributable to the offense, again. There is no ability to produce a professional at bat.

When Cruz is bad, he is comically bad at the plate. Just staring at strikes. Why.

If I am Skenes I am despondent. What are we doing to this guy?

 

[WickedWrister]

Pham is so f***ing annoying lmao

Edit: Ok I kind of wonder what the fan behind the plate said

 

[ChaosAgent]

Please let this be the last of Pham. His slowness made that replay even possible. Now he's flipping out on a fan, and given there are other black people there defending the fan I doubt the fan said the N-word.

Canario or Cook would have been better options to pinch run. Just end the Tommy time.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

Is this that "character trait, locker room guy" we heard about Pham?

 

[WickedWrister]

Raise it!

 

[BusinessGoose]

Snatched victory from the jaws of defeat

 

[WickedWrister]

Just criminal at this point that Skenes only has 1 win since May 1st

 

[Factorial]

Raise it!

"Fans" are out of control.

It's reminiscent of the first WWF match I went to at the Civic Arena and fans were throwing full cups of beer in the face of one of the Valiant brothers.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Through all of that, I want to give Hayes some props. He should just go back to oppo hitting at this point, he can still be useful that way.

Triolo has more offensive upside (lol) and is just as good of a defensive player. Hayes should only start to boost his value to try to pawn the contract off.

 

[MrBrightside]

In Skenes' last 10 starts, he's 1-4 with a 1.54 ERA. That's really almost impossible.

I will admit that I can't be too hard on the pen last night. I think the tying HR was the highest pitch I've ever seen get hit out. That was insane.

 

[Fogel]

It seems that Bednar sorted out whatever, it will be criminal if they don't move him at the deadline. His FIP is even lower than his All-star seasons and it looks like last year was more anomaly than decline.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Degrom tonight, woof. Hope Cruz figures his nonsense out. Suwinski running into one also wouldn't hurt.

 

[MrBrightside]

The send of Pham in that spot with no outs was criminally stupid, but the call was correct - the catcher missed the tag.

Would love more intel on what happened with the fan ejections and the Santana dustup.

 

[wheelz87]

Going tonight. Will be fun to see degrom if nothing else.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Pipeline has another mock out, this time with prep RHP Seth Hernandez getting to the Pirates: https://www.mlb.com/milb/news/mlb-pipeline-mock-draft-for-june-19-2025?t=mlb-draft-coverage

Seems like it's still too early to tell or worry about much, though they paint a clearer pitcher that Aiva Arquette is the one college bat who has separated themselves from the rest of the pack, so he's going to be the main player I am pulling for in terms of the delusional Operation Get-Griffin-And-As-Much-Talent-To-Pittsburgh-By-2027 before Skenes leaves.

It does very much seem like a typical MLB draft where there isn't a slam dunk top talent and the entire top group doesn't have huge separation. I haven't followed until the past few weeks, but the general picture I get from the mocks and writeups is that there's a group of about 8 players who all have some arguments to be made for them, but for risk / player demographic reasons, some won't go quite as high. Hernandez seems to basically be considered the top talent available, but teams have moved further and further away from prep pitching towards the very top. The prep shortstops don't seem to be quite as in demand as the college pitchers, with the exception of Holiday who has the name pedigree and figures to be gone for sure in the top-4 picks.

The Pirates have done fairly well in these types of situations, though there are caveats. I genuinely think the book is out on Davis still. There are reasons to worry but catchers take so long to develop and regardless, for at least this point, the idea is that we walked away from that draft with Chandler, who may ultimately turn out to be the best prospect from the draft if he hits close to his ceiling (still a gigantic if, but just in terms of prospect talent, we walked away with a player who rose up to top-3 or so in baseball as a prospect).

Griffin is the other obvious case and I think why so many mocks are going to slot Hernandez to us. To me, that seems fine -- if 2025 has taught us anything, it's that we suck and just need talented players.

Still, I think it's a little early to say with much certainty what we'll do. Last year, I don't remember a ton of noise about Griffin to the Pirates and in general I think it's a bit suspect to just think a team will take the same strategy as the previous year. Teams definitely have tendencies, but this scouting group + front office has switched things up before, and so I think with so many variables, that kind of common sense just becomes a way to handle some of them.

Tldr; for me is that the path to the college bat of Arquette likely depends on the top of the board falling a certain way. I think if Holiday somehow gets down to Colorado, then we could be in business, since it seems like there will be plenty of college pitchers to fill the other spots and also that the Cardinals may not want to go the college hitter route. Of the college pitchers, I like Arnold, but it doesn't seem like he's gonna be there for our pick. I haven't seen us linked to any of them, but it's also possible that we like one of the prep shortstops a lot and get our pick of the bunch. Arquette just seems like a good combination of standout college hitter who projects for very solid power which isn't always true of most shortstops besides phenoms (and if he moves to 3B, it's less of a big deal at this point).

 

[WickedWrister]

Your 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates

 

[BusinessGoose]

We aren't even half way done! Stay tuned for more exciting developments!