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

[WickedWrister]

Home Runs are fun

 

[Empoleon8771]

Cook and Yorke definitely gave some reason for optimism for both of them next year, I'm super high on Yorke already but Cook has some nice pop as well. Both are striking out way too much in their short time up but you can see the power with both of them. I bet Yorke claims a full time role out of camp but I'm curious to see how Cook does.

Also nice to see Burrows putting in some decent innings to end the year too, they really need bullpen help next year and I feel Burrows makes a lot more sense as a reliever long-term. I'd be moving on from Bednar and trying to use his money plus Chapman's to sign the best closer I can get, and then try to bring in another 1 or 2 Holderman/Mlodzinski caliber relievers if possible. I think Holderman, Mlodzinski and Nicolas are all safe pieces to pencil into their bullpen for next year, but they need a lot more than just 3 guys. Their rotation is likely set (Skenes, Keller, Jones, Ortiz and Falter) but they need to add some significant bullpen help. Dennis Santana has been terrific for the Pirates but I'm not buying that as a long-term thing.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

I love how the Pirates wasted Skenes' family's time.

They all traveled to Yankee Stadium from all across the country just to see him pitch two innings.

Just shut him down at that point.

 

[Ryder71]

I love how the Pirates wasted Skenes' family's time.

They all traveled to Yankee Stadium from all across the country just to see him pitch two innings.

Just shut him down at that point.

They did that to help preserve ROTY. He finishes with an ERA below two.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I love how the Pirates wasted Skenes' family's time.

They all traveled to Yankee Stadium from all across the country just to see him pitch two innings.

Just shut him down at that point.

I feel like Skenes only got the start to face off against Judge and Soto in a game and shut them down. Kinda like an exclamation point on his ROY bid, trying to hype him up to get it based on his last game blowing it by Soto and Judge.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

You two are probably right, forget my gripe, lol.

 

[Goalie_Bob]

Skenes finishes having pitched 162 innings between the majors and the minors. Thus that should allow him to be around 200 innings next season.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Reliever ERA	Apr	May	June	Jul	Aug	Sep
Bednar	13.50	2.03	2.25	3.60	10.97	3.38
Chapman	7.71	3.48	2.53	2.79	3.00	5.79
Holderman	1.35	0.77	1.59	5.79	18.00	1.13
Santana				0.66	2.40	0.00
Mlodzinski		9.39	1.08	1.86	12.00	1.35

I am perfectly fine for them to fire Shelton after this year, but these series of bullpen performances this year made winning baseball games quite difficult when we have a bad offense.

In April, both Chapman and Bednar were bad. Holderman was great but there was very little else. They needed leverage innings and betting on Chapman/Bednar bounce backs was the best decision. Then Bednar's season turned around to where it made sense to keep trotting him out there at the end of games until the wheels completely came off in August. The wheels also came off Holderman at this same time.

I'm fine in saying that Shelton isn't inspiring and he doesn't turn around losing streaks quickly enough. But the right way to manage David Bednar, the bullpen bellcow and overall our best pitcher (easily) from 2021-2023, was unclear. Chapman did not outright win the closer job in April as he was also garbage then. Our bullpen was very thin on quality outside of Holderman at that point.
Shelton chose to put his faith in Bednar as a leverage reliever and Bednar failed. Holderman also epically failed in August. If anything not demoting Holderman was the bigger problem. Holderman has a track record of completely losing control and the warning lights were flashing in July.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

What do you estimate the bullpen lost them this season? 10-15 games?

 

[ChaosAgent]

What do you estimate the bullpen lost them this season? 10-15 games?

I think the bullpen lost 5-7 games this year.

The other underperformances in the lineup (Hayes, Suwinski/MAT, Davis) was another 5-6 wins.

Given our putrid financial resources, there isn't really a path for the Pirates to contend without a good bullpen. Which they had in 2013-2015 and smaller market contenders like Kansas City, Cleveland and Milwaukee have. The ability to lock down wins after 6 innings is vital.

I think a bad bullpen is going to make a manager look bad because it means the team loses a lot of winnable games.

I am fine if they can Shelton as the 10 game losing streaks are unacceptable. But the knock-on effects of Bednar completely sucking this year and the inconsistency of Chapman/Holderman were huge.

 

[ChaosAgent]

OPS by Month	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep
Tellez	.505	.323	.925	.916	.813	.464
Joe	.845	.737	.572	.543	.683	.535

Managing this platoon must have sucked also.