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

[Gallatin]

I do hope Endy is one of those guys who gets up and never looks back because having a catcher who can hit at all is such an asset even if they aren't the greatest catcher in the World.

The dude has never failed to hit. At any level.

His lifetime #'s:
971ab .298./390/.523/.913

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

The dude has never failed to hit. At any level.

His lifetime #'s:
971ab .298./390/.523/.913

His walk rate this year is solidly over 10%. AA is considered the largest leap in the minors and so far so good.

 

[Gallatin]

His walk rate this year is solidly over 10%. AA is considered the largest leap in the minors and so far so good.

And that's the worst walk-rate of his career ....

Whereas vision is the thing I'm most worried about with the development of Nick Gonzalez, vision is probably the biggest strength of Endy Rodriguez. I think he sees the ball significantly better than average. I'm also kinda amazed at his glove skills, his ability to pick a low pitch well off the plate without even looking at it ....

Hold onto your drawers I'm about to drop something on you. Endy Rodriguez's ceiling is as a .300/.400/.500ish gold glove catcher. I'm not pronouncing this his future, but I am saying it's a possible future IMO.

So yeah - Buster Posey country. You heard it here first.

And yeah - I'm probably getting carried away.

Everything appears effortless right now for Endy, I'm shocked at how natural he already looks at Catcher.

 

[td_ice]

And that's the worst walk-rate of his career ....

Whereas vision is the thing I'm most worried about with the development of Nick Gonzalez, vision is probably the biggest strength of Endy Rodriguez. I think he sees the ball significantly better than average. I'm also kinda amazed at his glove skills, his ability to pick a low pitch well off the plate without even looking at it ....

Hold onto your drawers I'm about to drop something on you. Endy Rodriguez's ceiling is as a .300/.400/.500ish gold glove catcher. I'm not pronouncing this his future, but I am saying it's a possible future IMO.

So yeah - Buster Posey country. You heard it here first.

And yeah - I'm probably getting carried away.

Everything appears effortless right now for Endy, I'm shocked at how natural he already looks at Catcher.

That would be awesome if that projection holds. (Or even comes close.)

Super excited for Endy. Whenever that may be

 

[Gallatin]

That would be awesome if that projection holds. (Or even comes close.)

Super excited for Endy. Whenever that may be

At this point, I'm expecting June 2023.

I'd love a top half of the League defensive Catcher that can hit 275/360/450. I'm beginning to look at something like that as a likelihood for Endy. But I think the ceiling is pretty amazing.

 

[ChaosAgent]

The expectations of Endy are getting a little bit irrationally high, probably due to the paucity of other top hitting prospects having good seasons.

He's still under the radar comparatively speaking. Let's see how he handles the "top prospect" spotlight which is coming.

 

[Gallatin]

Nice to see Jack Suwinski end his 0-29 streak immediately.

 

[Gallatin]

113mph out

113mph out

117mph screaming line drive 3 run homer

O'Neill Cruz is an amazing leadoff hitter. I think he was being miscoached.

I also think it's obvious he's going to be a serious draw at the box office if they ever put a competitive team around him. Even if he doesn't figure it out, he's still good enough to play in The Show.

"He'll hit one over 500ft someday"
Bob Walk

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Still really early, but he looks to be turning the corner in terms of the approach and chasing, whiffing, etc. If he has that dialed in, then he's about to add 10 more HRs in September.

I don't even think it's too complicated. He doesn't need a high average, and he just needs to cut the Ks down to a reasonable level, not a worldbeating level. You add good D at a premium position with plus plus speed, and even a Kyle Schwarber type line makes him insanely valuable. Another big sign (and part of what makes Schwarber so good even though his average is poor) will be the walks ticking up, but even just with the Ks, if he gets it down into the 22-23% range that he's capable of, we're talking about a top-5 player in the game.

It's interesting to watch too, because even though he's generally struggled and Burnes is very good, Burnes was clearly nibbling and afraid of him. The biggest thing is that he needs to not chase as much, which it seems like he's started to do. It's a really encouraging sign. I'm of the opinion that his season will be better analyzed in weekly or multi-weekly chunks rather than simply overall. I'd like to see a couple weeks with a 23-25% K rate for a start.

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

Yeah, Cruz is 100% the guy who could hit an insanely long bomb if he catches one on a day with favorable wind and atmospheric conditions.

Like that one Judge hit all the way over the left field seats in Yankee stadium to the monuments behind the seats a few years ago.

Light tower power.

 

[Gallatin]

Still really early, but he looks to be turning the corner in terms of the approach and chasing, whiffing, etc. If he has that dialed in, then he's about to add 10 more HRs in September.

I don't even think it's too complicated. He doesn't need a high average, and he just needs to cut the Ks down to a reasonable level, not a worldbeating level. You add good D at a premium position with plus plus speed, and even a Kyle Schwarber type line makes him insanely valuable. Another big sign (and part of what makes Schwarber so good even though his average is poor) will be the walks ticking up, but even just with the Ks, if he gets it down into the 22-23% range that he's capable of, we're talking about a top-5 player in the game.

It's interesting to watch too, because even though he's generally struggled and Burnes is very good, Burnes was clearly nibbling and afraid of him. The biggest thing is that he needs to not chase as much, which it seems like he's started to do. It's a really encouraging sign. I'm of the opinion that his season will be better analyzed in weekly or multi-weekly chunks rather than simply overall. I'd like to see a couple weeks with a 23-25% K rate for a start.

Let's keep track of his numbers batting 1st.

 

[Gallatin]

Yeah, Cruz is 100% the guy who could hit an insanely long bomb if he catches one on a day with favorable wind and atmospheric conditions.

Like that one Judge hit all the way over the left field seats in Yankee stadium to the monuments behind the seats a few years ago.

Light tower power.

I once saw Willie Stargell pull a foul ball out of Fulton County Stadium. Until recently, that was the hardest hit ball I've ever seen. Parker could really put a charge in the ball. Bonds too. These are my comparisons for how the ball jumps off his bat. Heady company indeed.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Cruz's problems are not a coaching or usage problem. Cruz's problems are that he's going to strike out a ton as a power hitter who's 6'7" and he's not good enough with reading pitches and making contact. That's not a coaching issue, it's a developmental issue that he needs to improve on going forward.

I'm not going to dwell on it though. All of Cruz, Suwinski and Hayes have very obvious holes that need improvement with their bats going forward for this team to do anything. But at the same time, it's hard to complain that much about them when you have the scrubs the Pirates are playing right now.

Cruz needs to either start taking more walks or get better at putting the ball in play. When he connects with the ball, he absolutely rips it. He's not a guy like Suwinski, who either crushes a HR or hits a weak grounder (which is where I think he needs to improve). But he needs to get better at either getting on base or putting the ball in play.

 

[td_ice]

I once saw Willie Stargell pull a foul ball out of Fulton County Stadium. Until recently, that was the hardest hit ball I've ever seen. Parker could really put a charge in the ball. Bonds too. These are my comparisons for how the ball jumps off his bat. Heady company indeed.

That just reminded me of the hardest hit ball I've seen in person. And that was from a player Cruz has been compared to ( we can only hope). Darryl Strawberry.

 

[Gallatin]

That just reminded me of the hardest hit ball I've seen in person. And that was from a player Cruz has been compared to ( we can only hope). Darryl Strawberry.

A Strawberry like outcome would be nice indeed. If he ever gets disciplined at the plate more is even possible IMO.

 

[ChaosAgent]

That pitch by Crowe was atrocious. Grooved middle-middle hanging breaking ball.

To think I had hopes for him this year.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Crowe, my god.

Nothing matters anyway so who cares.

 

[MrBrightside]

A Strawberry like outcome would be nice indeed. If he ever gets disciplined at the plate more is even possible IMO.

More than Strawberry is HOF stuff. Strawberry was one of the best hitters in baseball for about 8 years until the drugs caught up to him - I’d sign up for that in a heartbeat. I just think putting expectations like this on a young player only sets yourself up to be disappointed, even if the raw power is a sight to behold at times.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I agree that established stars/legends are always a risk to compare young players to, though at the same time it's natural to make analogies and comparisons when getting situated with a player.

I also think it's important to stress that the book on a player is not at all written by a partial season of ABs. I'll just say it again even though I'm sure almost no one wants to hear it from me: Cruz should have been in MLB in May at the latest, having these same kind of struggles. There's a fairly traditional path for young players that they get called up, show a flash or two, and then have to go back and work on a few things while re-establishing their confidence. Because of how the Pirates handled Cruz this year, they didn't set it up so that he could fail in MLB and then go back to AAA for a bit (which also probably buys the team what they wanted, i.e. not super two eligible) with enough time in the MLB season.

Just as a quick comparison, you can see that the Phillies called on Bryson Stott, who had bad contact issues at first, then went back down, and since coming back has really cleaned that up.

Regardless, it hasn't been too uncommon for the advance in level to slow a player down, and this has been true for Cruz at the big steps of the way. I remember his early games in Altoona, and I think you can see from his recent interview comments that part of the issue has been in terms of mental preparation and what he's looking to do up there. Specifically, he mentioned how he was almost being too selective about which pitches he can really damage, instead of refining an approach that lets him be in an advantageous position to do the most amount of damage he's going to be able to do vs. that pitcher.

In other words, even when MLB pitchers know they need to execute a pitch, the quality of that for many is way higher than your standard AAA pitcher (obviously...).

We'll see if he can put together a 2-3 week period where the Ks are more under control. I think I said this immediately last night, but if he does that, the quality of his contact is going to mean that he'll hit a ton of HRs in a short period of time. He's got 11 HR right now and it practically feels like a copout to say that 20 is in play if he's looking good for a period of time. He needs a big stretch where it's just 1 K/game with occasionally 2 or 0, and never 3-4 or only once. He's moving in a good direction lately, and even a lot of the Ks he's had over the past week or so haven't been bad ones. Last night he was on Williams late in the game and we needed instant offense. He almost provided it, and a great pitcher just happened to beat him.


Aside from this, I am interested to see how we deploy Castro going forward. He's completely tearing the cover off the baseball since his promotion, such that if it continues, it probably puts a little bit of pressure on Marcano and then eventually Swaggerty and Bae for playing time, assuming Marcano is bumped to the OF more often. Castro needs to keep playing almost every day, and I think once the calendar turns to September and those guys are up here (hopefully), you should deploy 2 of them in the OF with Reynolds for the most part.

Anyways, it's all TBD, but Castro re-emerging as a viable rotation player who is locked in at the plate could be a very important development for how to approach the winter. If he starts edging himself into the starting 2B job, then I think you explore moving Newman or maybe likely, Bae. I doubt Newman gets much of anything, but if you wanted to keep him around as depth, maybe you can use Bae as someone to try and trade in order to upgrade somewhere else. Too many moving parts, but if you have Cruz+Castro as a starting point with Newman and Marcano as bench/utility options, and Castillo as depth with at least some possibility of Gonzales and/or Peguero on the horizon (and the 40-man) next year, not to mention a possible popup player in Andres Alvarez, it's a crowded situation.

For that reason, I think we need a healthy dose of Bae and Swaggerty starting in a couple of days. Whether or not either can be penciled in for a spot is something we should already be figuring out.

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

I actually think a good comp for Cruz is Javy Baez. Both guys who don't get cheated at the plate and who can make flashy plays in the field due to their athleticism.

However, their aggresive, big hacking approach puts somewhat of a limit on their offensive production as they walk far less than average.

At the same time, Cruz is only a couple of months into his career so who's to say he doesn't hit with more consistency than Baez has in his career?

At this point, he can hit and throw the ball harder than any position player in major league baseball, which is something the Bucs may have never had in their history.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah, I think Baez is probably a pretty good comp for him, with maybe the small caveat that he has different kinds of right-tail outcomes due to the power. Obviously Baez had multiple 30 HR seasons, but Cruz has easy 35-40 HR power in that bat if he stays healthy, and to at least an extent this is true while also running a K-rate that's too high (though for that reason, he may not end up in a position to actually follow through on the power if he were sent down next year, etc.).

Another caveat/wrinkle is that Baez basically never walked, whereas Cruz is actually putting up a walk rate that is more than Baez's (bad) career best. Whether Cruz will tick the walks up is a big question, I think. Because of the nature of the minor leagues and also some injury history, there isn't a huge swath of consistent data, but he ran an excellent 12.1% BB-rate in AAA this year, and a similar one in a smaller sample of games when he first got to AA in 2019.

If he runs an ok 7% or a little more, which is where he's at now, then he'll still be a very quality contributor, with the big other question being the SLG. Batting average is almost totally a meaningless thing to look at with him. Getting the chase and in-zone contact rates in good shape, along with ticking up some walks, and thereby vaulting that SLG another 100 points or so will put him comfortably in the top 10 or 15 of power hitters, with the insane raw power probably showing up with more HRs than nearly everyone, including some guys who are better pure hitters who would outslug him (for example, guys like Jose Ramirez, Rafael Devers, or Mookie Betts, all of whom run tremendous K rates that he isn't going to reach).

In the end, the other comp here besides Baez is simply Tatis, I think. It's all pretty exciting, and I think there's an underrated total 2022 season under the hood of his totals, if you account for early bad weather in AAA + a slow, disappointing start, along with pretty run of the mill rookie batter struggles. I don't think we should ever get in the habit of dreaming on just one slice of data, but Cruz's cumulative totals between now and the end of the year loom pretty large, IMO.

And of course, this is all to say nothing of the fact that he's consistently done what almost every armchair spectator (who didn't watch him in the minors...) thought he couldn't do, namely play SS with complete competence and actual defensive upside.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Loved Cruz's first 3 ABs yesterday but the throw to Chavis tells me that throwing yips (like Pedro Alvarez in 2014-2015) are around the corner. He can definitely field the SS position but I think the throwing will move him off the position. You can't have a SS with throwing yips. Just can't.

 

[Gallatin]

More than Strawberry is HOF stuff. Strawberry was one of the best hitters in baseball for about 8 years until the drugs caught up to him - I’d sign up for that in a heartbeat. I just think putting expectations like this on a young player only sets yourself up to be disappointed, even if the raw power is a sight to behold at times.

He's a rookie and setting records for hardest hit balls. That he's already doing this without knowing how to hit is kinda amazing. There's what - 3 guys in the League that can hit the ball like him?

Wasn't Strawberry a 260/360/520 type hitter? I do believe Oneil's ceiling exceeds that - I don't believe it's unreasonable to expect some .600+ slugging percentage years if he figures things out.

 

[Gallatin]

I agree that established stars/legends are always a risk to compare young players to, though at the same time it's natural to make analogies and comparisons when getting situated with a player.

I also think it's important to stress that the book on a player is not at all written by a partial season of ABs. I'll just say it again even though I'm sure almost no one wants to hear it from me: Cruz should have been in MLB in May at the latest, having these same kind of struggles. There's a fairly traditional path for young players that they get called up, show a flash or two, and then have to go back and work on a few things while re-establishing their confidence. Because of how the Pirates handled Cruz this year, they didn't set it up so that he could fail in MLB and then go back to AAA for a bit (which also probably buys the team what they wanted, i.e. not super two eligible) with enough time in the MLB season.

Just as a quick comparison, you can see that the Phillies called on Bryson Stott, who had bad contact issues at first, then went back down, and since coming back has really cleaned that up.

Regardless, it hasn't been too uncommon for the advance in level to slow a player down, and this has been true for Cruz at the big steps of the way. I remember his early games in Altoona, and I think you can see from his recent interview comments that part of the issue has been in terms of mental preparation and what he's looking to do up there. Specifically, he mentioned how he was almost being too selective about which pitches he can really damage, instead of refining an approach that lets him be in an advantageous position to do the most amount of damage he's going to be able to do vs. that pitcher.

In other words, even when MLB pitchers know they need to execute a pitch, the quality of that for many is way higher than your standard AAA pitcher (obviously...).

We'll see if he can put together a 2-3 week period where the Ks are more under control. I think I said this immediately last night, but if he does that, the quality of his contact is going to mean that he'll hit a ton of HRs in a short period of time. He's got 11 HR right now and it practically feels like a copout to say that 20 is in play if he's looking good for a period of time. He needs a big stretch where it's just 1 K/game with occasionally 2 or 0, and never 3-4 or only once. He's moving in a good direction lately, and even a lot of the Ks he's had over the past week or so haven't been bad ones. Last night he was on Williams late in the game and we needed instant offense. He almost provided it, and a great pitcher just happened to beat him.


Aside from this, I am interested to see how we deploy Castro going forward. He's completely tearing the cover off the baseball since his promotion, such that if it continues, it probably puts a little bit of pressure on Marcano and then eventually Swaggerty and Bae for playing time, assuming Marcano is bumped to the OF more often. Castro needs to keep playing almost every day, and I think once the calendar turns to September and those guys are up here (hopefully), you should deploy 2 of them in the OF with Reynolds for the most part.

Anyways, it's all TBD, but Castro re-emerging as a viable rotation player who is locked in at the plate could be a very important development for how to approach the winter. If he starts edging himself into the starting 2B job, then I think you explore moving Newman or maybe likely, Bae. I doubt Newman gets much of anything, but if you wanted to keep him around as depth, maybe you can use Bae as someone to try and trade in order to upgrade somewhere else. Too many moving parts, but if you have Cruz+Castro as a starting point with Newman and Marcano as bench/utility options, and Castillo as depth with at least some possibility of Gonzales and/or Peguero on the horizon (and the 40-man) next year, not to mention a possible popup player in Andres Alvarez, it's a crowded situation.

For that reason, I think we need a healthy dose of Bae and Swaggerty starting in a couple of days. Whether or not either can be penciled in for a spot is something we should already be figuring out.

It's always so surprising to me how few fans want to play Moneyball. I want my team to be creative & efficient in taking every advantage available to a small market team.

I want Cruz for 7+ seasons. Same with the other guys. Why do we constantly complain when the Bucs play it smart? Otherwise I often agree with your opinions.

It feels lonely to be one of the only folks here with a modicum of patience sometimes ....

I actually think a good comp for Cruz is Javy Baez. Both guys who don't get cheated at the plate and who can make flashy plays in the field due to their athleticism.

However, their aggresive, big hacking approach puts somewhat of a limit on their offensive production as they walk far less than average.

At the same time, Cruz is only a couple of months into his career so who's to say he doesn't hit with more consistency than Baez has in his career?

At this point, he can hit and throw the ball harder than any position player in major league baseball, which is something the Bucs may have never had in their history.

Dave Parker says hi.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Loved Cruz's first 3 ABs yesterday but the throw to Chavis tells me that throwing yips (like Pedro Alvarez in 2014-2015) are around the corner. He can definitely field the SS position but I think the throwing will move him off the position. You can't have a SS with throwing yips. Just can't.

I don't mean this in a passive aggressive way, but have you watched him regularly? He has occasionally made some errant throws, and then within the same game, including yesterday, he fires a number of perfect throws later in the game.

So I don't think you are totally wrong, but I don't quite think it's the yips. It's a less than ideal part of the package that you can probably live with for the most part and then perhaps need to eventually think about having a defensive replacement for late, close games that really mean something.