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

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Providing Priester remains healthy the rest of the year and pitches well, I'd say his timeline is to pitch out in AA, and given he missed the first 2 months, maybe grab a few starts in the AFL, ala Contreras. Begin 2023 in AAA and again, if he does well enough, get a mid June call up to the big club.

I think we'll see Cody Bolton get a shot pretty soon as well. Unless an injury happens between now and then, I'm guessing not long after the AS break/draft.
 
NewAgeOutlaw said:
Volgelbach will be fine. He should probably only be a platoon guy, but he will be fine.

I swear to god, the posters here will turn on literally any player in a slump as if production in this sport is a linear thing.

The dude is having a slump coming out of an injury. Relax, people.
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Vogelbach has been crap since the beginning of May, his OPS in May was only .666.

He was terrific in April, bad in May and has been horrid in June. Not really assuring of a sample size. His "good" sample size is about the same length and results of Tsutsugo's "good" last year, and I think a majority of Pirates fans are ready to move on from him.

Vogelbach is doing basically the same thing he did last year with the Brewers. He mashes off righty handed pitchers but that is literally all he can do. He's horrid against lefties, can't run and can't play defense.
 
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that Cruz's splits against lefties and righties in the minors are extremely not bad:

-Cruz against righties this year: .771 OPS in 151 PA
-Cruz against lefties this year: .746 OPS in 63 PA

-Cruz against righties last year: .951 OPS in 232 PA
-Cruz against lefties last year: 1.028 OPS in 79 PA

If Cruz is hitting well in AAA, which he is, it makes way more sense to call him up as the DH instead of trotting Vogelbach out as the DH every game. Cruz can hit off of both lefties and righties and runs really well, and you can throw him out at SS every now and then without completely sinking your team.
 
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Chang and his .258 OPS continues to play over Marcano (.806 OPS), I wouldn't so much count on this team not overplaying Vogelbach
 


Castillo dropped to 9th just as I said he needed to be. Why in the hell can't you put Suwinksi at DH if you want to give him a day off from running around in the OF? My only real complaint with that lineup today.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that Cruz's splits against lefties and righties in the minors are extremely not bad:

-Cruz against righties this year: .771 OPS in 151 PA
-Cruz against lefties this year: .746 OPS in 63 PA

-Cruz against righties last year: .951 OPS in 232 PA
-Cruz against lefties last year: 1.028 OPS in 79 PA

If Cruz is hitting well in AAA, which he is, it makes way more sense to call him up as the DH instead of trotting Vogelbach out as the DH every game. Cruz can hit off of both lefties and righties and runs really well, and you can throw him out at SS every now and then without completely sinking your team.
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This is the Polanco brain in me talking, but I also saw Polanco hit lefties in the minors fine and the issues appeared facing ML lefties.

I know, I know, they are independent. But still. Plus the ABs against the Reds last year (small sample of course) were very discouraging. 0/4 with 3 Ks.
 
ImporterExporter said:
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Probably a good thing that they started that on May 23 and not May 22, but that is pretty cool

0M3RRMS.jpg
 
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Cruz is in AAA at this point because he can't play defense. Like I posted above, I would be all for calling Cruz up to be the DH, but they realistically won't do that with Vogelbach on the roster.

The way he gets to the MLB is playing a clean defensive game at either SS or another position.
 
DJ Spinoza said:


He still has an option left, so wouldn't be the worst flier to claim and see if he can get the swing right in AAA.
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I'll give you credit, you love you some Clint haha. I know you've been after him for years.

DJ Spinoza said:


Complete nonsense.
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I don't think it's that cut and dry sir. They have legitimate concerns, I'm sure defensively speaking, at a minimum.

Now, with that being said, there is only so many challenges at the AAA level. I agree that he's likely been challenged with the bulk of situations you're going to face in the minor league realm.

My worry is Cruz, to this point, has not broken out fully, he's not dominated any real stretch of games, and that's AAA pitching. I keep hoping he'll go on a crazy tear to really make the decision easy but it has not happened. Let's not pretend he's been some dominant force this year. He's certainly not more deserving than Bae who I already highlighted has Cruz bested nearly across the board and hasn't had 1 awful month with 1 good one.

I'm on board with him coming up for the potential with his bat, but we have to exercise some modicum of realism here, IMO.
 
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Cruz has been in AAA because they are manipulating his service time. They will do the same thing with Henry Davis next year, and they would have done the same thing with Contreras if depth didn't force them to have him in the bullpen. They then sent him back to completely dominate while he "stretched out".

The rest is noise. There was a lot of talk, but a lot less action, about how the organization's approach is "player friendly". I suppose the content of that is Baker referring to players as "human beings" when he gives the company line.

They have repeatedly shown that they do not think AAA is a meaningful development location, as they've called lesser touted prospects directly up from AA and stuck with them through ups and downs. Cruz does not have anything left to prove against AAAA pitching, and he never had anything to prove in the first place. The only silver lining I can find is that Mackey and the other journalists didn't present the context of their questioning, and so Baker's comments could very much just be general ones about Cruz being in AAA and have nothing to do with their near future plans. Cruz's performance in AAA doesn't have anything to do with when he will or won't be called up.
 
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DJ Spinoza said:
Cruz has been in AAA because they are manipulating his service time. They will do the same thing with Henry Davis next year, and they would have done the same thing with Contreras if depth didn't force them to have him in the bullpen. They then sent him back to completely dominate while he "stretched out".

The rest is noise. There was a lot of talk, but a lot less action, about how the organization's approach is "player friendly". I suppose the content of that is Baker referring to players as "human beings" when he gives the company line.

They have repeatedly shown that they do not think AAA is a meaningful development location, as they've called lesser touted prospects directly up from AA and stuck with them through ups and downs. Cruz does not have anything left to prove against AAAA pitching, and he never had anything to prove in the first place. The only silver lining I can find is that Mackey and the other journalists didn't present the context of their questioning, and so Baker's comments could very much just be general ones about Cruz being in AAA and have nothing to do with their near future plans. Cruz's performance in AAA doesn't have anything to do with when he will or won't be called up.
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You act like this hasn't been the MO under Nutting forever. It's not new.

Nobody is ever going to be an opening day starter when they have a massive ceiling.

Why would you want us to give up 2 years of service time for 2 months of early season ball? Budget teams don't bring up guys left and right early in the year.

I'm sorry DJ, but there are situations where it seems like you completely forget we're not the LA Dodgers or in a market with well under a million people.
 
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Trying to hand-wave any sort of criticism towards Cruz and saying he's only not up in the majors due to "service time manipulation" is just bizarre to me. Serious question: what has Cruz done to this point to absolutely justify he should be in the majors?

You'd have a convincing argument that they sent him down out of Spring Training until they'd gain the extra year of service, but they didn't call him up immediately after that because his play didn't warrant it.

ImporterExporter said:
You act like this hasn't been the MO under Nutting forever. It's not new.

Nobody is ever going to be an opening day starter when they have a massive ceiling.

Why would you want us to give up 2 years of service time for 2 months of early season ball? Budget teams don't bring up guys left and right early in the year.

I'm sorry DJ, but there are situations where it seems like you completely forget we're not the LA Dodgers or in a market with well under a million people.
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This angle is correct but I don't even think this is what is going on. What's going on is that Castillo took Cruz's spot out of spring training and Cruz sucked to start the year in AAA, which is why he's still in AAA.
 
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I'm not making any comments on whether this has been done because of Nutting or not, or with other teams or not. It obviously has in both cases but that's besides the point. My concern the whole time has been specific to the player and what I see from him.

I think it's been a waste of a development year so far, beginning with spring training, and that the best case scenario at this point is that he was able to settle in and perform and is now poised not to have more of the year wasted by the FO playing games with his promotion now that he is no longer in line for super two within a few days.

Otherwise, we seem to be talking past each other and there's a dynamic in this thread where arguments never end, so I'll leave it at that. (the "we" here is in response to IE above, but also basically everyone else in the thread. I've said my piece about Cruz and don't feel like continuing to rehash it.)
 
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Mitchell is going to be an MLB regular. Love his swing. Marcano and he were great on the bases there.

Swaggerty has to be better there.

Big missed opportunity to get 1 there.
 
dogthateats said:
Marcano seems like a really smart player
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I loved what I saw live. He's a plus contact guy and always hustling. Hope he and Mitch are playing most days.

Empoleon8771 said:
Solometo is going to end up an absolute gem I bet. Him performing really well in his first professional starts in A ball at age 19 is really impressive.
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Leading up to the draft I pegged him as a prime target. It's waaay early but he's got such a unique delivery and a nice trio of pitches to build on.
 
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