OT: Pirates Talk: That Skenes guy is okay at teh baseball

[Pens1566]

i hate nutting owning this team, but the leap to rip skenes after dfaing rowdy tellez is a bit much

Maybe if it were just this stunt, but to act like the pirates have done anything to encourage talent to stay is a bit disingenuous. The best young pitcher in the game in years is not going to stick around with a cheapskate ownership.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

Maybe if it were just this stunt, but to act like the pirates have done anything to encourage talent to stay is a bit disingenuous. The best young pitcher in the game in years is not going to stick around with a cheapskate ownership.

There are many reasons to criticize ownership and the team. But face it. Skenes was gone the day he hit free agency on the day he was drafted. And Pittsburgh is a last resort signing for nearly every free agent already.

It was a complete dick move.

But it also was completely irrelevant to attracting or keeping talented players in free agency. That ship has been gone for decades.

 

[cookthebooks]

Maybe if it were just this stunt, but to act like the pirates have done anything to encourage talent to stay is a bit disingenuous. The best young pitcher in the game in years is not going to stick around with a cheapskate ownership.

acting like telez has any bearing on what was preordained for skenes seems silly to me

 

[BusinessGoose]

acting like telez has any bearing on what was preordained for skenes seems silly to me

Lol, truth. He was never gonna be a lifer here.

But it's like, professionalism is gonna have him have to waste his great arm for a losing ass team that actively tries to lose.

Hope his insane personal motivation and drive see him through.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Idk I think it's just silly to talk about Skenes leaving when he's literally not going anywhere for at least 4+ years. At least wait until he hits arbitration to make those kind of posts.

 

[TooManyHumans]

The Pirates could keep him if they wanted to and Skenes could become the greatest pitcher in franchise history. Hopefully Cherington is gone well before this becomes an issue.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

Idk I think it's just silly to talk about Skenes leaving when he's literally not going anywhere for at least 4+ years. At least wait until he hits arbitration to make those kind of posts.

Several were posting articles and making claims that this POS move by Nutting will impact future FA signings including Skenes. I merely was addressing the silliness of connecting the two.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Signing Skenes only works if you remove the other long term contracts off the books beforehand. Meaning Keller will be gone. Hayes will be gone. Reynolds will be gone.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I don't think it's worth talking about Skenes too much given how much of a dumpster fire everything else has turned into in the latter half of the year. Maybe he would sign a deal that sacrifices a year of free agency in order to lock in money in the event of injury. But it likely doesn't matter -- as long as he stays mostly healthy, he will hit the top rung of what's possible in arbitration with how good he is.

Even if he misses on some of that money, whenever he hits free agency he will get a huge contract unless some kind of injury completely changes how good he is (and that's just how good he is in his first season -- while it's fair to say that the league will try to adjust to him, I think it's even more fair to say that Skenes will probably continue to get better as he gets even more experience).

Regardless of all that, this is obviously extraordinarily embarrassing. It probably doesn't matter due to the pathetic way we operate in free agency, but it's just one more ridiculous BS thing to have to deal with surround this joke of an organization.

Maybe it's just the pace of things for me, but I find myself seriously unable to even stomach the team anymore. Normally I will at least care a little bit about not being able to see Pirates baseball (as bad as it is) until April of next year, but I'm basically just checked out other than Skenes' start this weekend. f*** this organization.

 

[Ulf5]

He's from Cali so my guess is LA. They'll pay the most and it's home.

Wherever his hot, flexible gf tells him to sign!!

 

[Empoleon8771]

Yeah this dumpster fire of a last 2 months combined with just more shit showing the Pirates are an unserious franchise that only cares about money really puts a damper on the mood for next season for me. They need to actually do something in free agency this year for me to not just tune them out going forward outside of Skenes games.

 

[ImporterExporter]

I don't think it's worth talking about Skenes too much given how much of a dumpster fire everything else has turned into in the latter half of the year. Maybe he would sign a deal that sacrifices a year of free agency in order to lock in money in the event of injury. But it likely doesn't matter -- as long as he stays mostly healthy, he will hit the top rung of what's possible in arbitration with how good he is.

Even if he misses on some of that money, whenever he hits free agency he will get a huge contract unless some kind of injury completely changes how good he is (and that's just how good he is in his first season -- while it's fair to say that the league will try to adjust to him, I think it's even more fair to say that Skenes will probably continue to get better as he gets even more experience).

Regardless of all that, this is obviously extraordinarily embarrassing. It probably doesn't matter due to the pathetic way we operate in free agency, but it's just one more ridiculous BS thing to have to deal with surround this joke of an organization.

Maybe it's just the pace of things for me, but I find myself seriously unable to even stomach the team anymore. Normally I will at least care a little bit about not being able to see Pirates baseball (as bad as it is) until April of next year, but I'm basically just checked out other than Skenes' start this weekend. f*** this organization.

Welcome to the revolution.

This is an MLB and Bob Nutting issue. Simple as that. Cherington and everyone below him are just pawns in a corrupt scheme.

I hope the city tells Nutting to go f*** himself when it comes time to negotiate a renewal on the lease. This is a guaranteed cash cow for Bob and his family so on one hand it makes sense for him to remain in Pittsburgh for another generation and collect tens of millions in profits each year. However, a big market and investors will likely pay a pretty penny to take the franchise off his hands.

But yeah, I increasingly think this team is gone once 2030 rolls around. And if we have to endure the shit we endure, just sell the team and be done with it.

 

[TooManyHumans]

Even with Nutting as the owner (and there is nothing to do about him being the owner) the Pirates could compete if the entire management team weren't a bunch of losers who care more for their "process" than they do for winning.

 

[cookthebooks]

the tampa bay rays do more with less year after year but the pirates can only ever catch lightning in a bottle once every couple decades. maybe thats nuttings fault too for hiring loser retreads instead of up and coming thinkers, but it does gall

 

[Jaded-Fan]

I don't think it's worth talking about Skenes too much given how much of a dumpster fire everything else has turned into in the latter half of the year. Maybe he would sign a deal that sacrifices a year of free agency in order to lock in money in the event of injury. But it likely doesn't matter -- as long as he stays mostly healthy, he will hit the top rung of what's possible in arbitration with how good he is.

Even if he misses on some of that money, whenever he hits free agency he will get a huge contract unless some kind of injury completely changes how good he is (and that's just how good he is in his first season -- while it's fair to say that the league will try to adjust to him, I think it's even more fair to say that Skenes will probably continue to get better as he gets even more experience).

Regardless of all that, this is obviously extraordinarily embarrassing. It probably doesn't matter due to the pathetic way we operate in free agency, but it's just one more ridiculous BS thing to have to deal with surround this joke of an organization.

Maybe it's just the pace of things for me, but I find myself seriously unable to even stomach the team anymore. Normally I will at least care a little bit about not being able to see Pirates baseball (as bad as it is) until April of next year, but I'm basically just checked out other than Skenes' start this weekend. f*** this organization.

If it is any consolation, baseball's model is long term unsustainable.

They are losing youth to other sports in droves and have an aging fan base. They are incredibly short sighted, which I get with ball players, whose careers are by definition short term. But ownership? Idiots.

Look at the current cable deal. $18 a month from a few hundred thousand, half of whom are like me and wish that not a dime went to Nutting and all of it to the Pens and NHL who handled this correctly?

A far cry from the millions forced to buy Pirates' games with their cable package.

Yes, I get that the Pirates still get cable bucks. But for how long now that sports is uncoupled from cable TV? This is the beginning of the end of the free ride baseball gets for running things as they do.

Things will change eventually. But it will take a while.

There will be a Cap and Floor eventually.

 

[WickedWrister]

Passan's take on the whole Rowdy fiasco

 

[Fogel]

the tampa bay rays do more with less year after year but the pirates can only ever catch lightning in a bottle once every couple decades. maybe thats nuttings fault too for hiring loser retreads instead of up and coming thinkers, but it does gall

This. AL East is a beast and they are still running a .500 team in a down year. Yes, the Pirates won't truly be a consistent contender without better ownership, but 1 playoff stretch in 20+ years is pretty bad. I would expect a lot of people on this board or the public at large could luck into that.

 

[Empoleon8771]

the tampa bay rays do more with less year after year but the pirates can only ever catch lightning in a bottle once every couple decades. maybe thats nuttings fault too for hiring loser retreads instead of up and coming thinkers, but it does gall

I'm not trying to defend Nutting here, but he has only owned the team since 2007 and his decision to hire Huntington after the 2007 season is a huge reason why the Pirates became relevant again. They were already 14 years into a playoff drought when Nutting bought the team. He has only hired 2 GMs in his tenure as the owner of the Pirates, it's just Huntington and Cherington.

The Pirates record of sucking and the loser franchise they've been since the 1990s outdates Nutting by a fair bit.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

Speaking of the Rays, the Pirates had Matt Barnes, from Tampa, and Ben Cherington as GM finalists in 2019.

The small market Brewers hired Barnes, and anyone know how they are doing?

 

[DJ Spinoza]

My take for what it's worth has always been a kind of both/and situation. Yes, I think management are largely lackeys that Nutting has in place and Nutting is the root cause of the problems in the Pirates organization. I don't think any other owner would be just as bad, simply because it depends on who the hypothetically different owner would be. The Orioles were largely the same way and it seems like the new owner will be better, though we'll see how it actually plays out.

But other teams either spend reasonably at least sometimes (Brewers), or they have been able to do a lot better at sustaining success while not spending much at all (Rays, Orioles, etc). The Tigers are generally a big market team who can and will spend a lot, but they have been in teardown and rebuild mode multiple times and might be making the postseason this year.

Cherington's leadership has brought about some good results, as I don't think we can just ignore the state of the pitching throughout the organization. At the same time, I think at least some of that is due to lucking into Skenes. Without him, we'd probably still rightly have some optimism about Chandler or Harrington or Burrow etc., but the whole thing would look a lot more bleak.

I think bleak is a good word for the whole situation. BDLC stinks. IKF is alright, but not much of an answer at shortstop. The rotation might be very good, especially if Chandler shines early and Jones solidifies himself. The bullpen probably stinks, but bullpens can be fickle year in and year out. We won't sign any meaningful free agents or make any big trades. Short of Termarr having a Jackson Chourio/Merrill type rookie year, there's no impact internal talent on the way. Maybe the only slight silver lining from the latter part of the year is that Cruz has taken pretty well to the abrupt move to CF and also cemented himself as a real offensive force.

But the prospects are basically for this team to be the same razor-wire mediocre group that can go on good runs sustained by incredible pitcher, all the while hoping that the really favorable landscape of the division and NL (and really AL) is still there next year. It feels silly to even be saying stuff like this now, but if we had actually made a run after the ASB instead of collapsing, we'd be thinking that we have a true shot at winning the whole thing. There are no real juggernauts in this year's group of teams -- IMO, the closest is Philly, and we won the series with them this year.

The tldr; for me is that I think the situation and opportunity outside the team will change next year, but the situation and MO within the team/org will not change much. Blah.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Signing Skenes only works if you remove the other long term contracts off the books beforehand. Meaning Keller will be gone. Hayes will be gone. Reynolds will be gone.

What is the point of keeping Skenes if you unload Keller and Reynolds? Hayes, sure, bye bye.

 

[cookthebooks]

the whole skenes/merrill thing is a bit perplexing to me since skenes has better numbers than the cy young candidates and merrill isnt close to being an mvp candidate

 

[Coastal Kev]

Passan's take on the whole Rowdy fiasco

Exactly. Even if the dump the entire baseball ops this offsesaon, which they won't. The guy who is the main problem with the franchise will remain.

 

[ImporterExporter]

What is the point of keeping Skenes if you unload Keller and Reynolds? Hayes, sure, bye bye.

Point? None, really but Bob Nutting isn't shelling out a couple hundred million to a single player when he's already tied up significant money in 3 players for years to come.

We simply can't afford Skenes FA years unless he's the only big contract and the rest of the team is made up of cheap young talent and cast offs.

 

[TooManyHumans]

You can occasionally win as a cheap franchise. You don't ever win as a cheap and dumb franchise. Give Cherington more money and he brings in more slop.