OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: New season of plundering begins

[TNT87]

Two f***ing hits.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I think any remaining Cherington defenders should be out at this point. He hasn't fired Haines because he endorses the approach. He has not fixed development and is way behind Huntington at this same stage in their respective rebuilds.

He has nothing. nothing. nothing. in the pipeline offensively. His top remaining hitting prospect is scuffling (shocker) is H-A.

Tell me again why the vibes are better with Cherington, a guy who managed to take Boston's financial resources and produce 3 consecutive last place finishes. Dude is a career loser.

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

The whole thing is rotten. The entire team is regressing in a year where we should be seeing improvement.

The pitching has been largely good, but you can't ride pitching to 90+ wins like you could in 2013-15. If your team isn't hitting in this league you have no chance to compete when the best lineups have like 6 20 homer guys.

Hayes has been the most consistent guy and even there the power he was showing late last year is seemingly gone.

 

[ImporterExporter]

And yet nothing changes. Nobody is fired, whereas other teams who actually try and win will can subpar performers mid season or certainly after multiple significant losing ones.

There is nobody being held accountable. There are no players being called up to push out the guys hitting like Tellez, Triolo, Davis, etc, etc.

And if you think firing Cherington and the coaches will fix anything, you haven't been paying attention since Nutting took over the franchise. This all goes back to Bob.

 

[sovietsanta87]

And yet nothing changes. Nobody is fired, whereas other teams who actually try and win will can subpar performers mid season or certainly after multiple significant losing ones.

There is nobody being held accountable. There are no players being called up to push out the guys hitting like Tellez, Triolo, Davis, etc, etc.

And if you think firing Cherington and the coaches will fix anything, you haven't been paying attention since Nutting took over the franchise. This all goes back to Bob.

Pretty much. There’s no sense of urgency. Any other franchise (except the one we are playing against) would sense that the seat is getting warm and make some moves. I think BC knows he won’t get fired. Shelton knows he won’t get fired. And you can’t threaten to trade anyone because it would be an upgrade.

You get what you pay for. You receive a return based on the investment.

And the cycle will repeat long after BC is gone.

 

[cookthebooks]

i cant remember a time being more depressed about the farm system and thats with skenes. what a developmental disaster.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

No denying that it's misery city right now. They either turn it around on a dime in this series and the following road trip, or the season is basically over by the time Skenes would be coming up.

I do think it's hard to deny that Nutting is the root of all that is wrong with this team, most specifically the pathetic free agency periods year over year. Offensive issues have plagued this team every single year and yet we go ahead with a complete offensive black hole at 1B all the time, which any glance around the league shows is impossible to pull off.

Yet you can even find exceptions to that which don't fully point the finger at Bob's nickel and diming everything. The Orioles are running out a platoon situation at 1B that is hardly a group of world beaters on expensive contracts and yet they are getting terrific production out of Ryan O'Hearn, who was DFA'd by the Royals and acquired for cheap (though he still makes more than Rowdy).

Nutting is an unmovable pit that makes this team perennially bad, but the Cherington era has completely failed. Maybe you can give him some credit for Jared Jones, or a prospect such as Chandler or to a lesser extent Harrington. But once he was in place, they never tired of pointing at the new and improved player development under John Baker. They have absolutely nothing to show for it and it's year 5 of the rebuild. About the only really great thing that's happened under Cherington's regime is the luck of a ping pong ball coinciding with a once-in-ten-years pitching prospect.

 

[Fogel]

Hayes has regressed back to 2022. Launch angle, barrel %, hard hit % are all down, GB% and IFFB% are up from 2023 so whatever tweaks he was working earlier don't seem to have kept.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah, his offensive flatlining has been overshadowed a decent bit by how terrible almost everyone else is.

It's really a shame, because the pitching is almost certainly unsustainable. We should probably have at least 5 or 6 more wins with even a bad offense rather than a terrible one.

 

[ImporterExporter]

This is Nutting. He hires Cherington, and he hires the rest of them. Now I fully blame Cherington for keeping Shelton and the rest of the losers, but at the end of the day, he's nothing more than a stooge for Nutting and MLB.

I don't even know if I can accurately judge the players we've drafted/signed/traded for because the developmental track record of this franchise is shit. It dates back to pre-Cherington too.

Too many guys have left here (namely P) and shown moderate to significant improvement almost immediately (Cole, Glasnow come to mind, plenty of others like Musgrove, Morton).

Honestly, and I don't just come to this conclusion based on emotion, this team needs to be sold when the lease is up and moved. It's an awfully small market and I'm sure the league would love to see the team in any # of major cities which puts increases on the bottom line.

If this is the product we're getting 95% of the rest of our lives, I don't want it anywhere near the city. It's a disgrace to competition. I feel for the players who just want to be part of a winning culture. And I certainly feel for the average fan who spends what little extra money they have to bang their heads against a wall of deliberate sabotage.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I know things are rough right now and they're going through a serious rough patch, but good lord some of you need to take a chill pill

The Pirates are 14-16 right now, not 2-28. Do they have concerns? Of course they do, especially with how they've struggled after a hot start. But saying they should be moved and are "a disgrace to competition" to Pittsburgh is just a wild overreaction to a bad stretch of games.

 

[BusinessGoose]

I, for one, am ready to be let down again

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

The Pirates have acquired Keiner Delgado as the PTBNL in the Brubaker deal.

He has great plate discipline, so I look forward to the Pirates ruining him.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I know things are rough right now and they're going through a serious rough patch, but good lord some of you need to take a chill pill

The Pirates are 14-16 right now, not 2-28. Do they have concerns? Of course they do, especially with how they've struggled after a hot start. But saying they should be moved and are "a disgrace to competition" to Pittsburgh is just a wild overreaction to a bad stretch of games.

IMO the next stretch is pretty do or die, simply in terms of whether or not the team has a puncher's chance to stay relevant as we get close to the warm months of the summer.

I guess it's possible that we could continue to struggle in the A's series, as well as against the Rockies and Angels, and then stay in the thick of it, but it's pretty much desperation time as far as getting some Ws back on the board and having a better 10-game stretch.


With Nutting, my attitude tends to just be agnostic. He's a feature of MLB's screwed up system which is entirely out of my hands to do much of anything about. These are the same people who are talking out of both sides of their mouth while selling Oakland down the river. I don't even totally disagree with the notion that the Pirates should be sold to be done with Nutting, even at the cost of them being in Pittsburgh (i.e., it is indeed that bad, IMO), but as a fan I just don't want that to happen or to think about it, so it's whatever to me.

The season was off to a terrific start due to some luck and some stuff that seemed to look optimistic, including on the horizon. But we're at the absolute best stuck in neutral right now, and if we even have a mediocre record in the next 8 games, we're going to be positioned to be run over by the Cubs and Brewers and relegated to the basement of the division. We need to go 6-2 in order for even .500 or so against the division to really matter that much.

 

[WickedWrister]

Free game of the day w/ Skenes pitching: https://www.mlb.com/news/watch-minor-league-baseball-games-for-free

 

[sovietsanta87]

This is Nutting. He hires Cherington, and he hires the rest of them. Now I fully blame Cherington for keeping Shelton and the rest of the losers, but at the end of the day, he's nothing more than a stooge for Nutting and MLB.

I don't even know if I can accurately judge the players we've drafted/signed/traded for because the developmental track record of this franchise is shit. It dates back to pre-Cherington too.

Too many guys have left here (namely P) and shown moderate to significant improvement almost immediately (Cole, Glasnow come to mind, plenty of others like Musgrove, Morton).

Honestly, and I don't just come to this conclusion based on emotion, this team needs to be sold when the lease is up and moved. It's an awfully small market and I'm sure the league would love to see the team in any # of major cities which puts increases on the bottom line.

If this is the product we're getting 95% of the rest of our lives, I don't want it anywhere near the city. It's a disgrace to competition. I feel for the players who just want to be part of a winning culture. And I certainly feel for the average fan who spends what little extra money they have to bang their heads against a wall of deliberate sabotage.

Yeah. It’s a black hole here and the root of the issue is the hayseed at the top. We got Ben cherington because he was the best candidate that said yes. Players don’t want to come here. Front office staff doesn’t want to come here. Coaches don’t want to coach here. The media, especially recently, has gone out of its way to call BN a cheapskate.

I think he’ll sell in 2030 or whenever the lease is up and they’ll move the team. Thus maxing out his profit while keeping costs ridiculously low.

You kinda hope if that happens, “uncle Tony” pays a visit and busts some kneecaps. Is that harsh?

 

[BusinessGoose]

I don't get the vibe that, even new owners, would want to move the team

The location isn't the issue

 

[WickedWrister]

75 pitches

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

View attachment 862604
75 pitches

How is his hitting?

 

[Empoleon8771]

0.39 ERA across 6 starts may legitimately be the filthiest stat lines I've ever seen in the minors.

Screw the minors, the dude may be one of the best pitchers in baseball already.

 

[sovietsanta87]

How is his hitting?

He couldve been a two way player. At this point he can’t be worse

 

[BusinessGoose]

"we have Ohtani at home"

 

[wheelz87]

I'm going on vacation starting next weekend. Please god call up Skenes so I can see his debut.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Just don't understand. It cannot be coaching that tells these guys to not swing with 2 strikes. They simply do not recognize these pitches as strikes.

Mitch Keller was a huge mistake also. Just has very little out there.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Mitch Keller is a #5 starter lol

Mitch Keller is 2021 Wil Crowe and we paid $70M lol. Nutting really does have a "1 extension for PR per year" quota and if you don't use it you lose it.