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

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bigdaddyk88 said:
The team that gave Betts away and will not pay bogarts and devers and complained about us breaking the draft can stfu


So if the owner spent and they sucked would you be happy. Phillies Angels Mets spend and don’t make the playoffs
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At least those teams try to compete.
 
bigdaddyk88 said:
So if the owner spent and they sucked would you be happy. Phillies Angels Mets spend and don’t make the playoffs
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I'd be happy if they won 78 games, or won 58 but looked like they were poised to win many more in the future. This season is turning out to be 58 trending towards a peak of 80 in a couple years.
 
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The Red Sox announcer throwing shit at the Pirates for being shit is like an gambling addict throwing shit at a rehab patient for being in rehab. The team stinks and I think this season has overall been a failure, but to see that coming from an announcer of a team that is as much of a mess as the Red Sox are is just insulting.
 
ImporterExporter said:
I'm sure the ML staff has nothing to do w/this.

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They aren't helping, but Cruz also has gotten obliterated in like the Dominican League before.

He still has a very low floor offensively and has just as many spurts of obscenely bad offense as good offense. The hope is that with his talent he can figure it out or at least halfway figure it out and become 2012-2012 Pedro. The latter being more likely and an outcome I'd take instantly if we could get it.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
The Red Sox announcer throwing shit at the Pirates for being shit is like an gambling addict throwing shit at a rehab patient for being in rehab. The team stinks and I think this season has overall been a failure, but to see that coming from an announcer of a team that is as much of a mess as the Red Sox are is just insulting.
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Do you always get offended by random announcers speaking the truth?
 
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Smoke said:
I don't give a shit about the Red Sox or Eckersly, but what he said was correct. This organization is a joke.
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The fact that there are actually people on here who respond to it by arguing that the Red Sox, a team that has won 4 WS in the last 18 years, aren't good enough to criticize the Pirates is some great stuff. The Stockholm Syndrome that envelops the fan boys is something else.
 
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Pretty hard to see anything other than total misery right now. Best case scenario with Keller might be that he's shut down and avoids a surgery that knocks him out for 8 months or worse. The organization either doesn't think enough of most top prospects to promote them or doesn't care.

Cruz's approach looks like it's back to the absolute terrible, forced patience approach, which sees him locked up on healthy fastballs and then clueless with two strikes. He never took that approach in the minors and it looked like he had shaken it off after the all star break, but now a bad week has it back again. It's never going to work and it's not the kind of hitter he is. Haines should be fired tomorrow.

It's still put up or shut up time for Cherington and Nutting. This team is in a tail spin that is not going to stop. They won't even necessarily be rewarded for sinking lower in the standings with a high pick because of the lottery. If they come out and take the same approach to next year, then there never has been a plan.
 
DJ Spinoza said:
It's still put up or shut up time for Cherington and Nutting. This team is in a tail spin that is not going to stop. They won't even necessarily be rewarded for sinking lower in the standings with a high pick because of the lottery. If they come out and take the same approach to next year, then there never has been a plan.
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The plan was pretty standard and fine.

The execution of the plan at the upper levels is atrocious. Including the coaches that he has picked. I think Cherington himself must be astounded at how poorly this team turned out.

As I've said before, there's some re-thinking of the timeline going on. He for sure has to win 70 next year or he's getting fired. But as they think about what their real window is, Reynolds/Bednar probably aren't in it.
 
Atlanta is about to sign Harris to an 8 year, 87 million dollar extension. Meanwhile, we do nothing but play games with our top prospects, as they and the team continue to flounder. Utterly hopeless.
 
For anyone on the "it's Andy Haines only" train...and believe me, dude is a failure:

Suwinski is OPSing .709 at Indy. They scored 1 run tonight despite their opponent committing 4 errors. They are a prospect-filled team and under .500.
It's possible, even likely, that the talent evaluation is also pretty poor. Or again, good enough with a margin of error - which we don't have.
 
The Pirates haven't developed a competent hitter since Marte and even he has improved since leaving despite being out of his prime production years and post-PED suspension.

We got Reynolds when he was virtually ready from the Giants.

It is definitely a rotten organization to the core and it is completely related to the lack of funding. Player development both domestic and abroad costs money all the same as free agents.
 
NewAgeOutlaw said:
The Pirates haven't developed a competent hitter since Marte and even he has improved since leaving despite being out of his prime production years and post-PED suspension.

We got Reynolds when he was virtually ready from the Giants.

It is definitely a rotten organization to the core and it is completely related to the lack of funding. Player development both domestic and abroad costs money all the same as free agents.
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Do we really think they started pinching pennies on development?
Like Nutting slashed the player development budget in 2016 or something?

It just doesn't pass the sniff test. The Pirates are insultingly cheap with the ML roster but there are no accounts that they've shortchanged the acquisition or development of 18-22 year olds. Didn't they spend $14M or something on the 2021 draft, almost $8M on Termarr Johnson...gave the other Polanco (Shalin is his name?) like $3M.
It would be beyond scandalous and there really wouldn't be any hope if they slashed the development budget. Much more likely is that they've spent on development but have screwed up/gotten unlucky/could still maybe turn it around.

Also Reynolds spent a full year in our minors before coming up. Doesn't pass the sniff test.
 
DocEmrickSkitters said:
Do we really think they started pinching pennies on development?
Like Nutting slashed the player development budget in 2016 or something?

It just doesn't pass the sniff test. The Pirates are insultingly cheap with the ML roster but there are no accounts that they've shortchanged the acquisition or development of 18-22 year olds. Didn't they spend $14M or something on the 2021 draft, almost $8M on Termarr Johnson...gave the other Polanco (Shalin is his name?) like $3M.
It would be beyond scandalous and there really wouldn't be any hope if they slashed the development budget. Much more likely is that they've spent on development but have screwed up/gotten unlucky/could still maybe turn it around.

Also Reynolds spent a full year in our minors before coming up. Doesn't pass the sniff test.
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For just one example, the Pirates' Latin American facilities are notoriously underfunded and shitty.

I mean, teams that are properly investing in development don't never develop quality players.

Marte was the last one and he debuted 10 years ago.
 
NewAgeOutlaw said:
For just one example, the Pirates' Latin American facilities are notoriously underfunded and shitty.

I mean, teams that are properly investing in development don't never develop quality players.

Marte was the last one and he debuted 10 years ago.
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Link?
Why even have any faith in a rebuild then.

Sorry, I ain't buying it.

They also have developed or had a hand in developing quite a few successful ML hitters now across the league: Josh Bell, Austin Meadows, Harold Ramirez, Connor Joe, Adam Frazier, and of course Bryan Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes. Robbie Grossman is still kicking around - he'd maybe be a good guy to bring back next year. Hayes offensively kinda sucks but outside of 2020 he's basically what he was always projected as. Really the only high-profile outright bust has been Polanco (and even he had a couple good years in '16 and '18) with Cole Tucker as a distant 2nd.

The thing that's stuck in our craw is that we've brought up 7 B-C prospects (Swaggerty, Madris, Mitchell, Suwinski, Castillo, Castro, Marcano) and they've all been pretty bad. Only 1 ever saw the Pirates Latin America facilities - Castro. 3 weren't even in this organization 13 months ago. The issue is either in the upper minors development, player selection or bad luck. Certainly none of these 7 were slam dunks or anywhere near. Cruz is in his own category and anyone who thought it wasn't going to be a rollercoaster ride with him was kidding themselves (the rollercoaster ride still has some potential good outcomes and a couple of potential amazing outcomes which is why he's so highly regarded).

The bad outcomes among these prospects this year may just be bad luck and results may regress. But the inability to convert even one into a surefire productive MLer 4.5 months into this season should make you question whether the current brain trust will also wreck the more promising guys down the road (Davis, Endy, Johnson)
 
ImporterExporter said:
I'm sure the ML staff has nothing to do w/this.

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Apparently Neil Walker said, "There has been absolutely zero adjustments in Cruz's approach since he has got here".

Starkey relayed that quote to Shelton today on the "Derek Shelton show", and Shelton didn't really have much to say about it. A bunch of BS. Just said that Cruz "has to be more consistent in his approach".

They also brought up Shelton's managerial record and asked him if he was worried about his job security. And if he has been approached about an extension. Nothing there either. Just what you would expect him to say. He said he was confident in his job security. And that "we don't discuss contractual situation, we haven't in the past and we aren't going to start now."

There were a lot more questions, but no answers worth repeating. Just typical politically correct bs speak.
 
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DJ Spinoza said:
Atlanta is about to sign Harris to an 8 year, 87 million dollar extension. Meanwhile, we do nothing but play games with our top prospects, as they and the team continue to flounder. Utterly hopeless.
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That's not a particularly great extension for them.

Paying $72 million (what Heyman reported) for Harris with where he's at in terms of years of service isn't cheap at all.
 
td_ice said:
They also brought up Shelton's managerial record and asked him if he was worried about his job security. And if he has been approached about an extension. Nothing there either. Just what you would expect him to say. He said he was confident in his job security. And that "we don't discuss contractual situation, we haven't in the past and we aren't going to start now."

There were a lot more questions, but no answers worth repeating. Just typical politically correct bs speak.
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I know it comes with a territory, but that type of question would be brutal to answer on air. I don't blame him for going the route that he did.

It's down to actions right now from the brain trust. Replace the coaching staff and add the players to at least win 70 next year. Prove you know how to find players who win games. Cause right now, the 75% losing seasons in Boston are looking like the trend that came here, at 1/3rd of the budget.
 
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As I've said before. BC will have completely lost me as a backer if he doesn't can AT LEAST Shelton and Haines the day after the season ends. Point blank. It should happen now, but won't. Marin can at least point to the turnaround of Keller and, until the arms were cooked, was seeing a lot of good results from the pen. Of course Shelton's usage was questionable, at best.

I don't believe for one second all these guys are average to flat out terrible players. Again, it doesn't jive mathematically speaking.

We've seen numerous draft picks make the ML team over the last 10 years, and without a doubt in my mind, most have gone onto better fortunes upon leaving here. I'm talking the Cole's and Musgrove's of the world. Guys who were plenty good while here, but almost instantly took their games to an entirely different level (or more).

To me, it's less about drafting and finding talent as it is developing it. That speaks to the cheap ass nature of the system below the ML level, which we know is dirt cheap. Why would people believe the facilities and staff in the minor leagues, to be of any quality if we're among the 2-3 cheapest teams in the league, year, after year?

This is why I really believe I need to see an actual qualified staff coaching these players up. The Cruz's, Reynold's, Hayes', Contreras, etc, etc.
 
Feels like the minor league facilities are the new shiny lookie-here objects in this thread.
Wasn't even really discussed until recently.

If we're at a competitive disadvantage in prospect development there isn't hope.

Edit: isn't the real, real, real issue that in this losing culture these young prospects press themselves to be "the guy" because they look at the guys occupying the same lineup and see garbage? So they press? Our players doing better externally correlates with them having lesser roles. Cole was expected to be like the #4 starter in Houston (and with him we don't know how much the Spider Tack is helping).

IMO we're seeing a similar pattern of pressing with today's beleaguered core of Reynolds, Hayes and Cruz.
But this is another issue with tanking culture. IMO you can ruin your players in it.
 
Gerrit Cole didn't improve when he left because Houston took the pressure off of him. It is because the Pirates had him leaning on literally his worst pitch because their philosophy at the time was to throw 2 seamers to induce contact.

And they had Cole pitching like that despite it being virtually the exact opposite of how a guy with Cole's arsenal should be pitching.

They had data showing his 2 seamer was trash and they kept having him throw it more than his wildly effective 4 seamer anyway!
 
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