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OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Congrats to the Houston Cheaters on their win

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DJ Spinoza said:
Go f*** yourself with this kind of stuff man. I don't understand the point of trying to engage with you -- every time, it ends up the exact same. Just f*** off.
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"I think Cruz could one day be a great player but right now he isn't even a good player. That's okay I guess, but it makes the arguments that he was going to immediately improve the team pretty silly."

"I can't even respond to this absurdity. It's beneath all of us. The best thing to do in response to such a statement is to take a sabbatical."


Like it's fine, I guess I could told you the same response I'm quoting above. Ultimately your responses have been equally as insulting and f***-off-able this whole time.
But I chose to grab an image for the standby Cruz tactic all year.

Let's hope he does something awesome tomorrow. He is capable of it.
 
That is not a motte bailey, I don't know where you got that idea.

It is what it is. I have enjoyed posting in these threads over the years and engaging in discussing. I don't think it's productive to make bold proclamations like "Cruz isn't even good" after a week of games. I have nothing else to add.
 
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DJ Spinoza said:
It is what it is. I have enjoyed posting in these threads over the years and engaging in discussing. I don't think it's productive to make bold proclamations like "Cruz isn't even good" after a week of games. I have nothing else to add.
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It's a fair point. Ultimately a shit fit about how good Cruz is today is unproductive. The thing is to have the best version of Oneil Cruz in 2024-2026. That is the motte on which we all agree.
 
How about let the kid adjust to being called up, there's an adjustment period, getting used to MLB pitching, umpiring, and maybe his overall anxiousness to perform. He does need to get better at pitch recognition and strike zones. Let the hype surrounding him die down, and let him adjust for a few weeks, and let's see what happens.
 
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I think it's worth pointing out that Suwinski had these walk issues when he first came up to the majors as well. Suwinski was generally solid at drawing walks in the minors, but through his first 25 games in the majors, he only had 4 walks in 82 PAs. Since then, he has 13 BB in 112 PA, which is much more in line with what you'd want out of him. It's not nearly as many walks as he had in AA, but it's certainly a good enough amount of walks. It's why he he an OPS of .851 over that sample size.

The Pirates need Cruz to do that same thing down the line. I think it's entirely reasonable for him to progress like that, what Suwinski did isn't particularly uncommon.
 
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since70 said:
How about let the kid adjust to being called up, there's an adjustment period, getting used to MLB pitching, umpiring, and maybe his overall anxiousness to perform. He does need to get better at pitch recognition and strike zones. Let the hype surrounding him die down, and let him adjust for a few weeks, and let's see what happens.
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I agree. Just let him play and wait and see.

He had an adjustment period to AA and a pretty significant one to AAA.

I still think there's a right tail Aaron Judge outcome. Or a good chance at being a "Pedro Alvarez but can run and throw" 3-4WAR player. I guess I've gotten a little overly perturbed by the Rumbunters and the Kody Duncans and all of that overselling how high the floor is.

The prospect evaluators knew how hard he could hit/throw a baseball and about his raw athleticism. They had him ranked 20th-40th in the game anyway.

In the end the first little bit has been about as I expected. I think he continues to scare the bejeezus out of any average or below righty and gets more competitive against tough pitching and lefties.

I'll still take Henry Davis and probably Roansy though if we're talking prospects in our system today.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
Eh I think there's a middle ground here on Cruz. He's been extremely solid defensively, more than I think anyone here could have reasonably hoped for him. He has absolutely smoked the ball at times on the year, and has shown terrific speed on the bases as well. An OPS of like .650 with the defense he has provided at SS is perfectly solid. If not for the ridiculous hype around Cruz, I don't think there would be any complaints with him.

But on the other side, he's striking out a ton against lefties and has shown a clear impatience at the plate. I wouldn't call it a bad eye, but he's clearly not going up there with much of a willingness to take a walk. That's causing him to have a lot of weakly hit balls, he's trying to put it in play too much and it's causing weak pop-outs or ground outs.

Overall, I think he has been good but for a reason I didn't expect: his defense. Even with his error today, I've been extremely happy with his defense at the position. I'd have a much bigger problem if he looked problematic at SS with how he has performed at the plate, but I think he has been really good defensively.
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Cruz has yet to take an MLB walk. He didn't have one in Spring Training either. I'm positive he's got the eye, just as I'm positive he has patience issues, and little in the way of a plan.

Luckily the foundation is strong, he's got a good eye, and a great swing if he can get more consistent with it. That's easily the hardest part, and the most important.

He needs to learn, needs to change. Now granted - that's something I'm a little concerned about with him - but I don't figure Cruz to fail. The floor is pretty solid from my view, although far far from the ridiculous ceiling.

I simply don't expect greatness without a massive evolution of his game and approach. And I think he needs to experience real failure at The Show for any of that to happen. I think he needs to get afraid for his future. That's when the magic can happen IMO. So I'm kinda just fine with this.

Empoleon8771 said:
Also if you spend all season saying Cruz was down in the minors solely for service time manipulation, you can't just hand wave away his results in the majors as being too small of a sample size when he's not really performing to the capabilities you claimed he would perform at.

I don't like how people are trying to say you can't draw conclusions from what Cruz has done in the MLB so far. You can't make massively declarative statements, but you can absolutely look at how he has performed and give an opinion on where he's at development wise. Cruz looks extremely impatient at the plate, which is something of his that has been criticized in the past. He's striking out a ton, which is something of his that has been criticized in the past.

Jumping to conclusions with his time in the majors was something like the example I mentioned with his defense above. He's doing pretty much what his scouting report said he'd do outside of his defense, which has been way better than advertised.
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Nailed it.
 
DocEmrickSkitters said:
I don't see great bat-to-ball ability. But then again I never have. It would be unbelievable if he had it given such long levers. I see decent discipline and an ability to look better in the 2nd AB versus the 1st.

If he had Castillo's bat to ball ability but with his natural tools, dude is a 1st ballot HOFer.

You're right the defense has been better, but you can see the throwing yips bubbling just below the surface.
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I have seen good-not-great bat to ball ability from Oneill Cruz. But I've also seen a ton of soft contact because he's often swinging at the wrong pitch, at Pitcher's pitches. I think Cruz needs to change his approach, he needs to develop a little more patience, and he needs to get more consistent with that shirt quick thing-of-beauty we call a stroke.

Cruz could learn so so much from Vogelbach, who excels exactly in those parts of the game where Oneil currently has weaknesses.
 
Gallatin said:
Cruz has yet to take an MLB walk. He didn't have one in Spring Training either. I'm positive he's got the eye, just as I'm positive he has patience issues, and little in the way of a plan.

Luckily the foundation is strong, he's got a good eye, and a great swing if he can get more consistent with it. That's easily the hardest part, and the most important.

He needs to learn, needs to change. Now granted - that's something I'm a little concerned about with him - but I don't figure Cruz to fail. The floor is pretty solid from my view, although far far from the ridiculous ceiling.
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This is a reasonable take. I think the bigger issue is the inconsistency in making contact vs. taking walks in of itself. And of the contact he makes, there's a lot of pop-ups/jammed/weak grounders in there. I think a lot of the swings are due to not wanting to get to 2 strikes and wanting to take a shot at making contact sooner.

Can barreling a baseball at the highest level be learned? Certainly Judge hit <.200 initially. Byron Buxton is another guy who was pretty bad compared to his hype and now has delivered on it 4-5 years later. This year a whole slew of "can't miss" types have had very rough starts at the MLB level. The gap between minors pitching and MLB pitching has never been higher.

I still think a floor exists where he's a lefty slugger that just feasts on bad pitching and puts balls in rivers, but is pretty underwhelming against quality pitching and downright unplayable against lefty pitching. That isn't that valuable of a player. Though if he keeps his speed that gives him additional value.
 
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The overemphasis on small initial sample sizes is pretty crazy. Hayes comes up and has 3 good weeks and as a result people have spent a year and a half of making excuses for his mediocrity. Cruz comes up and struggles a bit for 10 days and massive concern about him suddenly is everywhere. It takes time to hit at this level for nearly everyone and even more so in this era. The guys who come up and rake from day one are anomalies.
 
MrBrightside said:
The overemphasis on small initial sample sizes is pretty crazy. Hayes comes up and has 3 good weeks and as a result people have spent a year and a half of making excuses for his mediocrity. Cruz comes up and struggles a bit for 10 days and massive concern about him suddenly is everywhere. It takes time to hit at this level for nearly everyone and even more so in this era. The guys who come up and rake from day one are anomalies.
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I realize this is just a backdoor way to make your point about Hayes but...

I have no new concerns about Cruz that I didn't 14 days ago. These first 2 weeks haven't helped or hurt his case with me. I was always skeptical of the arguments that Cruz coming up was clearly superior for the team or that he's right now clearly better than a Kevin Newman. Even his defense, IMO there has only been one throwing error but there are gremlins in there.

I'm more sympathetic to the idea that he needs to succeed/fail/get figured out/respond etc at the MLB level. But that is a different argument and people get snitty when you call them out on conflating the two.
 
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Patience.

I'm as frustrated as anyone. We've lost a lot of winnable ball games lately and that's going to happen given our situation in terms of talent but more so the young make up of the roster. Bullpen was fantastic for 2 months and has fallen off in recent weeks. The big names have been worked hard. Happens.

2022 was never supposed to be a year in which we contended let alone have a winning record. If we're going through the same shit this time next year, then I'll be worried.

Until then, we just need to accept we're going to lose a lot of games though there should be some definite fireworks from guys like Cruz.
 
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Empoleon8771 said:
Good god, apparently Pittsburgh sports radio is now saying Cruz needs to be sent down because he's not destroying the world :laugh:

Morons in the Pittsburgh sports media are going to make fans turn against Cruz for not being Tatis Jr right out of the gate.
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After they spent 3 months bitching and moaning about him not being up in the first place.

The media, sports or otherwise, sucks so much ass these days.

Neat stat.

 
I feel like Cruz needs to spend a month working on his throwing accuracy, he seems to draw his 1st baseman off the bag a lot.

That was a really nice 2-seam fastball by Keller there. Keller looks like he has his stuff today.

Edit: then Keller threw two meatballs and now the Pirates lost their lead
 
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All of the hits Keller has given up since that double play have been bad locating of breaking stuff. You can't put a slider or curveball in the middle-left of the plate and expect to get outs.

Cruz draws a walk on a really good at bat for him. He got nothing worth hitting and took all 5 pitches.
 
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Cruz can't even steal with all THAT speed, awful. Seriously though, terrible break off first and a rope from the catcher, and was still closer than it should've been...
 
Shut up Mitch, you missed more pitches than the ump has, it was happens when your control is crap
 
Despite being all over the place and the bad start, what you need out of Keller in this game is some innings. We're taking it on the chin every day and the bullpen is in total shambles. He needs to get through 5 today at least, and maybe even through 6. Decimating the bullpen further will just solidify the fact that this slide will continue further.

Easier said than done maybe, but even if he gives up 5 in 5 innings, at least it doesn't tear the bullpen up further. Especially here against lesser hitters, he needs to clamp it down. And of course he starts it off with a full count and leadoff walk.

Shelton is the one who should be getting tossed from this umpire.
 
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