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

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Saw this just now:

www.mlbtraderumors.com

The Pirates' Potential Rotation Trade Chip

Virtually all the attention on the Pirates' trade possibilities this offseason has centered on All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds. Extension talks hit …
www.mlbtraderumors.com www.mlbtraderumors.com

Interesting to talk about Brubaker as a trade chip. I wouldn't move him right now, but if Oveido and Ortiz repeat what they did last year, I wouldn't be concerned with moving him next year. Looking at the stats, I didn't actually realize that Oveido had such good numbers as a starter with the Pirates last year.
 
I think it is mildly surprising to see Castillo DFA'd, but the more I look into it, the less surprised I am. This might be uncharitable, but he's a slightly more interesting option than somebody like VanMeter. I think there's something to the infield depth consideration, but if anything I think this probably means a few things:

1) The Pirates think Castillo will not go claimed and can just be off the roster but remain in the system as emergency depth.
2) The Pirates value Triolo as the backup utility IF
3) The Pirates either think Bae can be the backup SS or they'll bring in a veteran / NRI type and let it work itself out in spring training

I think there's some chance he'll get claimed, but not a high chance. Other than a brief spurt, he did not hit at the MLB level or in AAA and he's not enough of a plus defender at SS to be a targeted option in that role. I think #2 is definitely true, though of course from all reports, SS is where Triolo had trouble defensively despite being very good at 3B. My guess on that front is that we'll run him out there in AAA a decent bit in order to see whether he gets a better feel for it, and in the meantime Bae will be a near lock.

Since Peguero is on the 40-man, it's also not insanely out of the question to think that we'll start with a Cruz/Bae depth chart or a Cruz/veteran depth chart and then Peguero will have a chance to be up by June.

All told, I don't really think it's a big deal. A guy like Joe is a better player to roster, even if he is DFA-able in the event he doesn't stack up as a RH platoon bat. The Pirates probably should be aiming higher -- Drury just signed a modest 2 year, 17 million deal as I'm typing this (though he isn't much of a SS -- but we are where we are, and clearly some of 2023 will be about playing Cruz nearly ever single day and making a decision about how viable that will be in the long run.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
I mean, you can say Castillo sucks and have it be completely valid, but my comment wasn't as much about Castillo as much as it is about IF depth. The Pirates have lost a lot of IF depth from their team last year and they really haven't brought in anyone to replace those guys lost. They've gotten rid of Newman, VanMeter, Castillo and Park from last year's team and they haven't brought in anyone as far as I can tell to replace those innings. Those guys aren't good, but that's not the point. The point is that someone has to play those innings.



Literally the Pirates should because someone has to play those innings.

They need someone to fill that role now, because they've lost about 85 starts at 2nd base between Newman, VanMeter and Castillo and 65 starts at SS between Newman and Castillo. Who have they brought in to replace them? No one as far as I can tell. You're not going to play Bae 140 games in his first season at 2nd base.
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Not they dont need someone to fill yhat role now. They might need someone to fill that role 4 months from now. If they do, they can easily find someone. Its literally the easiest thing to find in baseball.
 
Not too surprising that it's the Angels who paid up and gave a second guaranteed year. Everything I was reading/listening to earlier this winter suggested that contending teams would offer him the same type of 1 year, 8 million or so offer.

2/17 is not expensive at all, doubly so if you think 2022 wasn't a huge peak and he'll be able to repeat it or come close. He has had injury issues and consistency issues in his career, but 8.5M is a huge bargain for a 2-3 win player. It's really just market rate for a 1 win player. I don't mind the Joe acquisition in a vacuum but I think it goes without saying that Drury would have been better (and really, both could have been added without much problem).

The big thing I am waiting for in terms of the shoe dropping is the SP market fully drying up. Getting some kind of pretty dependable innings option is the bare minimum move that I think is still required to chase that 70-75 win/let's hope it's more if something really positive happens like a Hayes offensive breakthrough type of season. We certainly might be able to get Danny Duffy for basically nothing or even a spring training invite, but paying up for Kluber or Cueto would solidify the rotation in terms of its ability to cover innings. Even trying to get Cueto on some kind of two-year deal might be a good calculated gamble for a veteran pitcher in a pretty weak division.

Never gonna happen but it would be pretty funny to have aging veterans Cutch and Cueto both on the team as they enter their likely last year or two before retirement.
 
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Castillo had a .788 OPS against lefties and 9 homers in 153 PAs.

This is a mistake and I don't get it.
 
I don't see why we wouldn't bring Cutch back.

It would be the salvation of this year from a fan service and PR POV. Surely Bob is smart enough to recognize that this is the cheapest way to get the fanbase off his back for a year?
 
DocEmrickSkitters said:
I don't see why we wouldn't bring Cutch back.

It would be the salvation of this year from a fan service and PR POV. Surely Bob is smart enough to recognize that this is the cheapest way to get the fanbase off his back for a year?
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I don't see a real argument against it, but I would point out that McCutchen isn't great defensively and they have a lot of players in that mold already. But the solution there is to get rid of those other players and bring in McCutchen.

The way I look at it with McCutchen is that he stinks defensively and probably should be a DH, but the Pirates don't really have any good OFers he'd be blocking by signing him and playing him in RF. So why not do it? DFA Andujar and sign McCutchen, doing that seems like a no brainer.
 
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Empoleon8771 said:
I don't see a real argument against it, but I would point out that McCutchen isn't great defensively and they have a lot of players in that mold already. But the solution there is to get rid of those other players and bring in McCutchen.

The way I look at it with McCutchen is that he stinks defensively and probably should be a DH, but the Pirates don't really have any good OFers he'd be blocking by signing him and playing him in RF. So why not do it? DFA Andujar and sign McCutchen, doing that seems like a no brainer.
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Yes, even if DHs, it's Cutch!

He could be had for something like 1/$6M, and gets to end his career here. It's a merch and PR bonanza for Bob.
 
DocEmrickSkitters said:
Yes, even if DHs, it's Cutch!

He could be had for something like 1/$6M, and gets to end his career here. It's a merch and PR bonanza for Bob.
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Issue with him just being a DH is that you basically brought in Santana to do exactly that.

I think you have to play him in the OF if you bring him in. He's a good hitter against both lefties and righties, so platooning him as a DH doesn't make sense. If he's your everyday DH, you're going to have to purely platoon Santana and Choi at 1st base and play Joe everyday in the OF. Just not an option I like.
 
I also don't think it's too viable given the roster construction. The main reason Cutch would do it is that he might be in a situation where he doesn't get much of a better offer elsewhere and as far as I understand it, he's never moved his permanent home away from Pittsburgh. He's still good for some power and I remember reading that his sprint speed was still impressively high in 2022, even if he doesn't offer much in the way of plus defense.

I doubt we are paying Santana 6.75M to not play nearly every day, but at the same time, he is a veteran player. There should still be enough playing time to go around with Choi/Santana/Cutch being in the DH role sometimes and Cutch being a 4th OF type. Where it gets fuzzier is if Cutch is looking for nearly everyday playing time. As it stands, Andujar also figures to get some DH and corner OF action, and I presume the plan with Joe is practically to platoon him with Suwinski. In any case, other than Bae and Andujar, none of these guys are too viable in the IF (I guess Joe could be third on the 1B depth chart).

If Choi basically never bats vs. LHP and Santana is a little bit more like a 2/3rds of the time player (unlikely based on his career and the fact that he signed so early), there's a little more room, but I don't quite see it unless Bae is more of a competitor with Castro for 2B than someone to pencil in as the LF/CF. I think that's a possibility -- i.e. that neither Castro or Bae have a spot locked down and will win one in spring training, with the other potentially being optioned -- but not something we'll know for a while. Besides nostalgia, I think the main upside to Cutch is veteran leadership and someone who can likely be counted on for 15-20 HRs, though that likely goes down if he's not a full-time player.


For me, the tldr; is that Cutch would mean putting some strain on prospects to earn spots (which I think is ok) and being ok with DFAing somebody like Andujar or Joe if they are underperforming (which is also ok). I don't think ditching Cutch will be an option, and at the end of the day I don't think the front office wants less flexibility.
 
You almost have to wonder if while the Mets are at it, they might just go for total broke and trade for Reynolds. Two of their best prospects are Baty and Mauricio, who are MLB ready and reasonably close to MLB ready respectively. The Pirates obviously have Hayes + Cruz and a ton of MI prospects, so the fit isn't exactly perfect, but in terms of top talent, that's probably enough to get a conversation started and be better than where the other offers figure to be right now.

I really doubt we'll move Reynolds given how everything has gone down, but at the very least it would benefit us if Cohen and the Mets FO put out some rumors that they were in the hunt, in order to amp up the pressure on the Yankees and others. Today, the way I lean is that you just let him play out the length of his contract and get the compensation pick, but part of that involves a more serious investment in the MLB product than we have any evidence to believe in.

I still think that unless the top flight headliner offers roll in this offseason or by the deadline, then the kind of deal we can get is really not going to make it worth it, even if the upside of keeping him is that we're a 75-win team in 2023, an 82-win team that is WC hopeful in 2024, and maybe a bit better in 2025. Since he's so important and cost controlled for that, I'd rather just roll the dice than get some more ok everyday type prospects back. It's only worth dealing him if one of the players is a potential impact guy, even "just" a 3-win type impact.
 
In uncapped/floored sports, there is always going to be a dichotomy between owners that view their teams as playthings (Cohen), owners that view their teams as a breakeven proposition (the WhiteSox, Brewers) and POSes like our Bob.

Same as Soccer in Europe with the oil teams (e.g., Paris Saint Germain, Manchester City).

Steve Cohen is a great owner.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
Are you even a Pirates fan? Literally all I've ever seen you post in here is just "lol Nutting is cheap" trolling.
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I’m sorry that I come on here and point out the truth. You may not like it, but that’s what it is. This teams big move after coming off a 98 win season (the type of year which you say would make guys want to come here) was to sign Ryan Vogelsong…. But I’m the bad guy for pointing out that this team won’t make actual moves to be competitive instead of saying “no one wants to come here now because we suck, but boy just wait until we show signs of being good, we will definitely sign guys then!”
 
TimmyD said:
I’m sorry that I come on here and point out the truth. You may not like it, but that’s what it is. This teams big move after coming off a 98 win season (the type of year which you say would make guys want to come here) was to sign Ryan Vogelsong…. But I’m the bad guy for pointing out that this team won’t make actual moves to be competitive instead of saying “no one wants to come here now because we suck, but boy just wait until we show signs of being good, we will definitely sign guys then!”
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Cool story, bro.

No, I'm just calling you a troll if you're not a Pirates fan and you just come in here to stir up shit.
 
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Based on what's come out so far, the Giants really deserved to have this happen to them. Scrapping a deal and trying to negotiate a lower price based on an injury from pre-MLB days that has not been any issue since then? Incredible, gotta feel for Giants fans, at least to the extent that you can feel for a team that has won a bunch of World Series championships recently and knocked one of our only chances to win in all of our lifetimes away with a near no hitter.

I assume they might get into an insane bidding war for Ohtani next year. Probably going to be at least them vs. the Dodgers vs. the Yankees for 400M+++ lifetime contract.

The owners absolutely have to be pissed at Cohen because such an aggressive and over-the-top spending reveals how arbitrarily low a number of payrolls are, including the largest ones. I don't doubt that there might be an explosion over this in the future, but even setting aside worrying about any of that, I think two things are true and obvious in the current financial universe of MLB: high revenue teams in large markets can easily afford to blow well past the highest luxury tax and lower revenue + small / mid-market teams can easily afford to go to 100M as the real floor of spending and sustain a winner at 120M.

More simply, I don't think there's much denying that there is imbalance at the very top of the market in free agency and I suppose you could extend that into some of the better paid but not absolutely top echelon of players, though the contracts Tampa has offered to some players in recent years also undermine that a little bit. There's no real reason other than lack of will on ownership's behalf that the Pirates can't make Reynolds a competitive 7-year offer to remain a Pirate through most of his free agency at nearly market value for those 3-4 seasons. Similarly, there's no reason that the Pirates or others can't afford to sign a guy like Brandon Drury as a supplementary player to help be more competitive. Especially now that 12 teams make the playoffs, the "we need to tank to have any shot" argument goes out the window.

Strategic arguments can be made about whether a big extension or a supplemental FA at a little below market price are wise things to do. For example, we could look at the situation in June or July and conclude that trading a depth prospect for Joe was a much better way to get some RH help than signing a FA, but fundamentally I don't think anyone needs to be reminded or even convinced that until the Pirates actually run meaningful, competitive, sustained payrolls relative to peers such as Milwaukee or Tampa Bay, there's no reason to give ownership or front office the benefit of the doubt.
 


This seems like a dumb thing for him to continue saying if it ends up being veteran/NRI or minor league type contracts. At the very least they need to get a genuine veteran SP who can be counted on to eat innings and bring experience to the rotation. Presumably the position player might be a stopgap infielder type, though I think it's hard to say for certain because it depends on how comfortable we are with Cruz+Bae being the SS depth. We have obviously made it clear that we'll rely on Cruz for the lion's share of starts, and Bae should be capable of giving him a rest.
 


BC's comment is a little bit strange... besides the obvious of Reynolds, I think the only real 40-man candidates who could be traded for any kind of SP are Bae and Peguero. Cruz wouldn't go, and I guess maybe Suwinski could be moved, but I don't think he has all that much value in a trade.

Trading either of those two would be ok, I think, though I presume Bae figures fairly heavily in the current plans. I'm so-so on a Reynolds trade having a pitcher or pitchers as primary pieces. I guess maybe the Marlins with Cabrera+Rogers would potentially be a pretty interesting pivot, but I am more stuck on the premium position player prospect as headliner.

Could also just be absolutely nothing or misdirection etc.
 
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