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OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Dull days of July

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SIX IN A ROW


When we execute, we win

Crazy
 
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Empoleon8771 said:
Bednar has been really good for the Pirates since his bad April, but good lord Harper just downright murdered that one.
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Harper can for sure crush a baseball. Hope he got it out of his system and stays quiet tomorrow

DJ Spinoza said:
Just like we all said, Cherington and Shelton were genius for saving Skenes and Keller for the Cardinals series.
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It's 4D chess, hahaha
 
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It would take moon + stars for me to move Ortiz at this point.

We can't forget how insane he was in the 2nd half of 2022 and how he rocketed up from an unknown to the best pitching prospect in our system entering 2023. He took his lumps but his time in the bullpen added deception and more sidearm action to his delivery. His stuff is really, really good. We could have just unearthed a #2 starter easily.

wheelz87 said:
When Cruz gets ahold of a line drive. My god. The only thing bringing it down are walls. Inside or outside the stadium. Also was that the longest HR of Cutch's career??
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It may have been Cutch's longest home run since coming back in 2023, but it's nowhere close to his longest. For one thing I remember a couple of moonshots in Coors when he was at his peak. I think there was another one in San Francisco.
Cutch still has good pop but peak Cutch had exceptional power especially to right-center where he'd regularly go 420 oppo.
 
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ChaosAgent said:
It would take moon + stars for me to move Ortiz at this point.

We can't forget how insane he was in the 2nd half of 2022 and how he rocketed up from an unknown to the best pitching prospect in our system entering 2023. He took his lumps but his time in the bullpen added deception and more sidearm action to his delivery. His stuff is really, really good. We could have just unearthed a #2 starter easily.
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When we mention the strength of the Pirates being our starters and for good reason, and then list Skenes, Keller and Jones when defining that sentiment, well, we gotta start adding Ortiz into that equation.
 
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td_ice said:
When we mention the strength of the Pirates being our starters and for good reason, and then list Skenes, Keller and Jones when defining that sentiment, well, we gotta start adding Ortiz into that equation.
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Learning how to get by and survive when his stuff dropped off a cliff in 2023 turned the guy into a much better pitcher.

He is also BIG with long arms, and throwing from a 3/4 arm slot adds a lot of deception and frustration to facing him.

Man Cherington has come up Aces with starting pitching this year. Including the decision to prioritize Ortiz and Priester over Roansy.
 
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What Ortiz is doing looks plenty sustainable to me, and now the partial season in the bullpen looks almost like it was the ideal plan all along. He should be in plenty good shape to finish out the season as part of a 6-man rotation. It will be fun to see how well he can maintain this pace.

I'm all for dealing from positions of strength, but prospects are prospects for a reason. Ortiz now has a clear foothold as a young pitcher in MLB. Even if he still has some bumps in the road and is more of a #3-type pitcher, that's insanely valuable at league minimum. Pitching is also about attrition, and you can't take depth for granted too much.

All of that is to say that I would be hard pressed to consider moving Ortiz in a deal. I guess maybe if it were Robert, but that doesn't make a lot of sense and I don't think we'll be in on him regardless.

I also don't think we should just shove Harrington out the door, but in terms of ceiling, I think there might be something to selling high. I'd still be comfortable with him as a main piece in a Chisholm trade. Chandler has more ceiling as a frontline starter, and I see Ashcraft and Harrington as both solid depth that could be called on within the next year or so.

In terms of Jazz, while it's fair to question how impactful the bat would be, I think there's something to just not overthinking it. He can play center just fine and is a top-10 player in wRC+. He adds energy, speed, and legit power, and fills a spot we can't fill otherwise for 2 more years. I also worry that we might underrate how much Rooker will cost. The defense and age will be concerns, but he's still totally raking and would be an immediate huge impact in any lineup. I wouldn't really wince at moving Harrington at the head of a package for Rooker, either... at some level you just figure the defense out.

In any case, we'll see, but if we sweep the Phillies and win the series vs St. Louis, the spotlight will be bright on Cherington. And I am plenty fine being greedy here: the Phillies are sending out a middling young pitcher tomorrow and Gonzales has looked fine. We can finish this sweep, though random middling young pitcher is often kryptonite for us.
 
Mind boggling Ortiz wasn't starting from day 1. He's never been bad for us.

He may end up being better than Jones.
 
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