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.

 

[Empoleon8771]

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

I think this is a huge exaggeration, I honestly don't think this team was much better than the 76 or so wins it's going to end up with. Even with Hayes and Suwinski not having terrible years and the bullpen not imploding, I really struggle to see this team having won more than like 85 wins. Just not enough talent there.

The Hayes/Suwinski/Joe/Tellez terrible bats probably cost them 5 games while the terrible bullpen probably cost them 5 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.

I didn't notice this before replying, I think this estimate is pretty much spot on. They were an 85-90 win team if everything went well and the things that didn't go well cost them about 10-12 games.

 

[MrBrightside]

 

[MrBrightside]

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

Even the best bullpens lose games, so the analysis is how many more games they lost because of a bad bullpen than they would have with a good or average bullpen. The estimates of others of 5-7 are probably reasonable, as it was an issue - but nowhere near as big an issue as having below average play at 1B, 3B, CF. and RF was.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I am encouraged that the team has frozen Hayes out. I don't think he is untradeable, yet. But money may have to come the other way.

I want nothing to do with him going forward. Triolo can be the same player basically without the pomp, circumstance and injury headaches. Mind you, they should try to do better.

 

[Empoleon8771]

The Pirates are going to end up sweeping the Yankees in a meaningless series to end the year

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

The Pirates actually benched IKF because, like Tellez, he needed four plate appearances to trigger a $250,000 incentive.

Cherington actually said with a straight face that IKF was "happy to let the kids play."

 

[Empoleon8771]

The Pirates actually benched IKF because, like Tellez, he needed four plate appearances to trigger a $250,000 incentive.

Cherington actually said with a straight face that IKF was "happy to let the kids play."

IKF flat out said that he made the decision to not play today.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1840453209552265542

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

I'm sorry, he can say it, and maybe deep down he means it, but the Pirates deserve absolutely zero assumptions that the player was happy to sit.

The final game of the season is really the time to give everyone an at bat?

 

[Coastal Kev]

I do find it astonishing that the Pirates were gifted with the Best pitcher in baseball and the GM spent 30 million dollars in additional payroll; and the absolutely best they could do was 1 win better than the year before. yowza

 

[MrBrightside]

I do find it astonishing that the Pirates were gifted with the Best pitcher in baseball and the GM spent 30 million dollars in additional payroll; and the absolutely best they could do was 1 win better than the year before. yowza

Not that the point is any different, but they actually finished with the same record as they did last year.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

The offense did set a franchise record with 1,506 strikeouts this season.

 

[ChaosAgent]

This was a draining season.

Nutting is actively cheap to where I'm questioning his willingness to pay the inflation-adjusted ~$120M payroll he ran in 2015-2016. He needs to clear $40M/year through cost cutting.
In addition, this organization failed to develop the kind of star homegrown offensive player that the good small market teams have backstopping their lineup. Cleveland has Ramirez, KC has Bobby Witt, Milwaukee got Chourio in addition to ponying up for Yelich. The Orioles have Henderson. Etc.

Reynolds is a good hitter, but not a great one. Cruz has a superstar right-tail outcome but is more likely an enigmatic 3 WAR guy - the right tail is very unlikely. Hayes and Davis became irrelevant this year. Nick Yorke was an awesome find but he's not going to become Ketel Marte. Without that 6+ WAR position player in the mix, our lineup will not be dangerous during the next few years.

I don't think there's a path to obtaining the sort of impact bat we need. Rooker is a DH and we have Cutch, and he is a risk to fall off. We could try to get that level of production in a Joc Pederson platoon but he is going to get super paid.
Making a Godfather offer for Ezequiel Tovar or something of the sort - the current team has to be willing to deal that player.

I dunno. I see a Josh Bell reunion, signing Kepler (or at the very most, Comforto would be great) and then running it back. Which will be a 75-80 win team. Pointless.

 

[ImporterExporter]

And yet apparently no one will be fired below Nutting.

 

[WickedWrister]