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

[ChaosAgent]

I truly hope every bad thing that would get me banned from this board happens to Nutting and his progeny.

If a Pittsburgher pulled a United Healthcare CEO with Bob, they would be beloved. That is a fact and Bob probably knows it

 

[Empoleon8771]

That Hiles article is very alarming because the implication of both "they'd trade Keller to clear payroll" and "they're not going to be active in free agency, they'll be looking at trades" heavily implies that payroll won't even reach what it did last year. The last time I checked, the Pirates are only a bit below $70 million in money for next year including the arb estimates and pre-arb players. That's why I was using the $20 to $25 million in free agent additions estimate, I figured jumping from $84 million to $90-$95 million was a good estimate. I'm disgusted if this team won't even make that level of commitment.

If they're talking about trading Keller for payroll space, when they already have $14 million just to reach last year's payroll, that just makes me think they're not going to increase payroll from last year. Which makes me just hate this franchise even more. Trading Keller for any reason that isn't:

1. Opening up money to sign Skenes
2. You're getting a legitimately good MLB bat or stuff you can immediately flip for a good MLB bat for him

Is flat out unacceptable.

 

[ImporterExporter]

See, I'm not against moving Keller as it would free up money for Skenes (in theory) AND more importantly bring a better bat than Horwitz (again in theory).

But having already shipped Ortiz, this puts significant pressure on the young arms.

I simply don't trust MLB. I think they've carefully crafted a league where owners like Nutting are more than happy to rake in the tens of millions in net profits every year to actively keep their own team from being a threat while also sending players away at substandard rates to the big market clubs who simply aren't allowed to horde them all to begin with.

 

[ChaosAgent]

That Hiles article is very alarming because the implication of both "they'd trade Keller to clear payroll" and "they're not going to be active in free agency, they'll be looking at trades" heavily implies that payroll won't even reach what it did last year. The last time I checked, the Pirates are only a bit below $70 million in money for next year including the arb estimates and pre-arb players. That's why I was using the $20 to $25 million in free agent additions estimate, I figured jumping from $84 million to $90-$95 million was a good estimate. I'm disgusted if this team won't even make that level of commitment.

If they're talking about trading Keller for payroll space, when they already have $14 million just to reach last year's payroll, that just makes me think they're not going to increase payroll from last year. Which makes me just hate this franchise even more. Trading Keller for any reason that isn't:

1. Opening up money to sign Skenes
2. You're getting a legitimately good MLB bat or stuff you can immediately flip for a good MLB bat for him

Is flat out unacceptable.

Yes, I care primarily about the payroll being $95M+.

If they can trade Keller and reach that figure, I obviously don't mind at all. I think Keller cannot win a playoff game and cannot get good left-handed hitting out. He can eat innings at a 4-4.5ERA with low injury risk which has some value I suppose, but he's totally uninspiring to me and always has been.

 

[MrBrightside]

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah it's sort of a pessimistic all-around situation:

1) As IE says, hypothetically getting a solid bat in exchange for a modest contract like Keller could be fine if we thought the pitching depth would keep rolling, but trading Ortiz already puts pressure on the situation. Trading Keller too would make it worse, even if we just blindly assumed we could sign a FA and get 150 decent enough innings.

2) Trading Jones after having traded Ortiz also doesn't make a ton of sense for similar reasons. Crochet netting a somewhat middling, usual quantity-ish over quality type deal is also a worrying development.

3) Most generally, it seems like there is recognition that this team needs multiple bats to compete, and the underlying implication appears to be that the budget is already pretty maxed out and so in order to do anything, more "breathing room" is necessary.

But if so, it's one step forward and two steps back. This is true even if we somehow used the money for a shocker like Santander, because as much as that would seriously address the major need, a rotation without Ortiz and Keller would be a weakness. It's not realistic at all to expect Chandler to just easily adjust to MLB and be very reliable right away. Something like Jones' season feels like a more optimistic first year for a young pitcher with great stuff, even if it's very arguable that he's a better prospect with a higher ceiling.

We are already currently pretty f***ed, and if this is the kind of mess we're in to try and find improvement, then I just don't see any other conclusion but that we're f***ed twice over.

 

[Empoleon8771]

These numbers are slightly higher than what I saw but yeah it's totally right. They should still have about $15 million to only hit their payroll from last year. Why are you trading Keller to make that $30 million?

If they're trading Keller for a $20 million bat, I'm completely good with that. I keep seeing Bellinger's name out there and I'd be very fine with trading Keller out and bringing Bellinger in. But let's be real, they're not going to do that. They'll probably trade Keller for some contact hitting pre-arb player, go in FA and sign this year's version of Martin Perez for $10 million and not be any better next year.

 

[bigdaddyk88]

Yes how do you have the best pitcher in baseball for 3 mire seasons knowing he will sell out the stadium and not commit 100 million in spending minimum

 

[Empoleon8771]

Yes, I care primarily about the payroll being $95M+.

If they can trade Keller and reach that figure, I obviously don't mind at all. I think Keller cannot win a playoff game and cannot get good left-handed hitting out. He can eat innings at a 4-4.5ERA with low injury risk which has some value I suppose, but he's totally uninspiring to me and always has been.

Yeah the more I think about it, the less I care about the idea of trading Keller. It's just frustrating that it's the same old Pirates doing the same old shit they always do.

Keller to Baltimore for Kjerstad makes a lot of sense on paper with Baltimore looking for SP and the Pirates needing an OF. Kjerstad also fits that "high OBP" profile that Cherington seems to love when acquiring batters. I think Baltimore would be adding on top of that as well, but even if that's the primary base, you could then go use $10 million to sign someone else in free agency (probably a guy like Gibson, maybe Heany if you increase that money a bit). I think the team would be better with say Kjerstad in LF and Heany as their #3 starter than Keller as their #3 starter making likely more money than Heany. That said, how much better of a team are you actually? It's really not a needle mover, and that's with me explicitly liking Kjerstad.

Ultimately I won't hate it if they do something like that, but it just frustrates me that it's the same old Pirates once again refusing to spend money. They finally have a legitimate ace and potential best player in baseball, but they'd rather waste him being cheap over putting even a modest investment in the team. If they did that Keller move and also signed Teoscar Hernandez to a 3 year, $75 million deal, I would actually be ecstatic about that. But they won't do that.

 

[TooManyHumans]

I don't want Cherington making any more trades. He is terrible at it. I also don't want him signing any more FAs. He is terrible at that as well. I also don't want Cherington to be the GM of this team. He is terrible at it.