MrBrightside
Registered User
See also Triolo. And Suwinski. And Contreras. And Bart. And Williams. And...
OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: New season of plundering begins
- Thread starter Zirakzigil
- Start date
- Status
sovietsanta87
Registered User
We were spoiled after the three years of playoffs. We thought five year rebuilds would work. Ignored the 20 years before 2013 where they resembled more of what we are seeing now.
sovietsanta87
Registered User
Actually you can make a case that there’s enough pieces to contend in the near future. But BC has tethered himself to players, scouts, coaches that don’t get it done. And he has a weird fetish with middle infielders. In what world are we going to compete with the logjam of Peguero, Cruz, Alika, Gonzales, Bae, Triolo, Termarr. You have an obvious hole at first base. You need at least one reliable outfielder (defensively and offensively). Make a trade. Package something together and get better.
But nope. It’s empty words and circular conversations from cherington. And by end of June they’ll be buried in the standings. No one will get fired with additional years on their contract. And even if you fire everyone, good luck finding someone half competent that will want to work for that piece of shit hayseed
End rant. Go Bucs
But nope. It’s empty words and circular conversations from cherington. And by end of June they’ll be buried in the standings. No one will get fired with additional years on their contract. And even if you fire everyone, good luck finding someone half competent that will want to work for that piece of shit hayseed
End rant. Go Bucs
ImporterExporter
"You're a boring old man"
Cherington should be canned at this point for his failure to remove coaches who are clearly subpar. Though removing those people would then put more of a spotlight on him.
I loved the entire tear it down, rebuild it from the ground up approach, but it's 5 years and we're still a 90+ loss team.
The most laughable part of the entire conversation is removing Cherington AND coaches doesn't get us any closer to winning because whoever is hired will just perpetuate the same cycle we've seen 90% of Nutting's existence as owner.
Hooray.
I loved the entire tear it down, rebuild it from the ground up approach, but it's 5 years and we're still a 90+ loss team.
The most laughable part of the entire conversation is removing Cherington AND coaches doesn't get us any closer to winning because whoever is hired will just perpetuate the same cycle we've seen 90% of Nutting's existence as owner.
Hooray.
DJ Spinoza
Registered User
- Aug 7, 2003
- 25,928
- 4,504
Empoleon8771
Registered User
I don't see why anyone should be surprised that Skenes is coming up when he is. Unless Skenes didn't perform well, they weren't going to Super-2 manipulate him because he's just simply way too good.
They were going to keep him down long enough to get him stretched out and ready for a rotation spot and then call him up. They were honest all along with their intentions for Skenes all along. The extra time he was down guarantees they'll get that 7th year of control (since I doubt he'll be in enough games to win NL ROY over Yamamoto) and now he's fully ready to be in the MLB.
They were going to keep him down long enough to get him stretched out and ready for a rotation spot and then call him up. They were honest all along with their intentions for Skenes all along. The extra time he was down guarantees they'll get that 7th year of control (since I doubt he'll be in enough games to win NL ROY over Yamamoto) and now he's fully ready to be in the MLB.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24785968/1503447065.jpg "MLB Analysis: Pirates prospect update - Pitcher Paul Skenes - Bucs Dugout")
ImporterExporter
"You're a boring old man"
I hate to break it to you all, but the weather looks horrendous for Saturday. Watch the game get punted.
WickedWrister
Registered User
DJ Spinoza
Registered User
- Aug 7, 2003
- 25,928
- 4,504
I may have more to say in the writeup, which now conveniently will be broken between this bad stretch and the stretch that begins the Skenes era, but I think it's a great thing that we called him up right now. There's a world where the bad play would have effectively signaled a punt on the season and an excuse-laden, foot-dragging attempt to keep Skenes down longer to be certain about Super Two.
We don't really need to get into all of that now, especially since they can still carve off some calendar days by "managing innings" around the All Star Break and sending him back to game the system more.
But I mean it in the sense of the MLB team's fate. It would be foolish to say that this team is headed in a good direction, but Skenes in early May is a good sign to put more pressure on things to go well. We're still 17-21 and we're hardly out of any picture yet, as bleak as the offense looks.
Concretely, I think this means that Cherington needs to act with a serious degree of urgency to at least attempt an upgrade on offense. The writing should be on the wall for Tellez: there is not one damn sign that he is going to get better. We should be actively looking for an offensive player to insert into the lineup and then shuffle things around if necessary. The moonshot move would be trying to plunder the Marlins for Jazz, but with two years of control remaining and a possible breakout happening, that's going to be easier said than done. But even if you could get him and then move Joe permanently to 1B, that's an improvement for now.
I don't know that any trade is likely, but actually moving on Skenes within this fairly reasonable timeframe is at least a positive step in addressing other issues with the team, because a rotation fronted by him and Jones is a rotation that can win, and win now. I think I was in the minority in terms of wanting Skenes to break spring training in MLB, but I will admit that this is earlier than I anticipated him being up by a good bit.
We don't really need to get into all of that now, especially since they can still carve off some calendar days by "managing innings" around the All Star Break and sending him back to game the system more.
But I mean it in the sense of the MLB team's fate. It would be foolish to say that this team is headed in a good direction, but Skenes in early May is a good sign to put more pressure on things to go well. We're still 17-21 and we're hardly out of any picture yet, as bleak as the offense looks.
Concretely, I think this means that Cherington needs to act with a serious degree of urgency to at least attempt an upgrade on offense. The writing should be on the wall for Tellez: there is not one damn sign that he is going to get better. We should be actively looking for an offensive player to insert into the lineup and then shuffle things around if necessary. The moonshot move would be trying to plunder the Marlins for Jazz, but with two years of control remaining and a possible breakout happening, that's going to be easier said than done. But even if you could get him and then move Joe permanently to 1B, that's an improvement for now.
I don't know that any trade is likely, but actually moving on Skenes within this fairly reasonable timeframe is at least a positive step in addressing other issues with the team, because a rotation fronted by him and Jones is a rotation that can win, and win now. I think I was in the minority in terms of wanting Skenes to break spring training in MLB, but I will admit that this is earlier than I anticipated him being up by a good bit.
ChaosAgent
Registered User
- May 8, 2018
- 18,561
- 12,606
This better turn around.
With Skenes and Jones gone, our minor league system sucks. It's 3 pitchers and Termarr Johnson who is looking like garbage. Our best hitting prospects are 3 guys who have failed at the MLB level (Gonzales, Peguero, Davis) the first time and a good defensive catcher on the shelf in Endy.
There's nothing there. It's going to be awesome to see the fruits of BC's labor (finishing in last place) come up and blow us away on Saturday, but so much better if BC's teams could finish well enough to put us in the position to take a Kevin Newman in the 1st round. Like Huntington's did.
With Skenes and Jones gone, our minor league system sucks. It's 3 pitchers and Termarr Johnson who is looking like garbage. Our best hitting prospects are 3 guys who have failed at the MLB level (Gonzales, Peguero, Davis) the first time and a good defensive catcher on the shelf in Endy.
There's nothing there. It's going to be awesome to see the fruits of BC's labor (finishing in last place) come up and blow us away on Saturday, but so much better if BC's teams could finish well enough to put us in the position to take a Kevin Newman in the 1st round. Like Huntington's did.
BusinessGoose
Registered User
Yep. We are as far away from competing as we have ever been in this 30+ year era of being the worst team in baseball.
DJ Spinoza
Registered User
- Aug 7, 2003
- 25,928
- 4,504
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there's a little bit too much doom and gloom, and I attribute it to the extraordinarily infuriating experience of watching a struggling team lose game after game because nobody on offense can get a hit.
I am firmly on Team Anti-BC, but there are a lot of really positive things about the team right now, purely and simply because having a duo like Skenes and Jones is basically the hardest thing to pull off in baseball. Obviously, to some extent this statement is putting the cart before the horse, and it's still possible one gets injured, which would make fumbling the bag in 2023 especially frustrating.
But the fact remains that basically every team in baseball is constantly chasing for this kind of pitching, and the Pirates have uncovered it with solid organizational depth behind it as well as a pitching coach who seems to have a penchant for convincing reclamation projects to come sign and perform pretty well.
If you want the craziest form of the optimism I am pushing here, then I won't beat around the bush: a team with this kind of pitching in front of it would be as dangerous as the Diamondbacks NL Pennant run last year if you had a handful of offensive players peaking at the right time of the year -- and we know it's in there for guys like Cruz and Reynolds.
To be clear, I am not saying that this is in the cards, or that Cherington should be excused for horrendous team-building, given that this is year 5 of the rebuild and we have the lineup that we have, but I want to emphasize that it is maybe a little bit too easy to overlook what we have in front of us now, given Jones' emergence.
Competent offense is not as hard to come by, and in my view, this is where it is as much of a Cherington and front office problem as it is the default blame Nutting truism. To take just an easy example: we are running Tellez out at 1B because he was a cheap bounce back who could provide middle of the order thump if things went well. The Orioles acquired Ryan O'Hearn as a strong-side platoon and the Cubs acquired Michael Busch as effectively someone who has become a supplementary core player. Both guys make the same or less than Tellez and were acquired for scraps.
It's a long season, and I don't want to give the impression that I am holding it against anyone who thinks that it's effectively already over. Maybe the best outcome I can drum up right now, save for some insane trade for Jazz Chisholm, is that we fumble around mediocrely for a while longer and Cherington makes the unpopular decision to trade Bednar for some Orioles hitters who aren't able to crack into that full roster. The current roster probably needs a winning streak to be even in the ballpark of a chance to finish around .500, but the season is still relatively young and not much separation has taken place.
I am firmly on Team Anti-BC, but there are a lot of really positive things about the team right now, purely and simply because having a duo like Skenes and Jones is basically the hardest thing to pull off in baseball. Obviously, to some extent this statement is putting the cart before the horse, and it's still possible one gets injured, which would make fumbling the bag in 2023 especially frustrating.
But the fact remains that basically every team in baseball is constantly chasing for this kind of pitching, and the Pirates have uncovered it with solid organizational depth behind it as well as a pitching coach who seems to have a penchant for convincing reclamation projects to come sign and perform pretty well.
If you want the craziest form of the optimism I am pushing here, then I won't beat around the bush: a team with this kind of pitching in front of it would be as dangerous as the Diamondbacks NL Pennant run last year if you had a handful of offensive players peaking at the right time of the year -- and we know it's in there for guys like Cruz and Reynolds.
To be clear, I am not saying that this is in the cards, or that Cherington should be excused for horrendous team-building, given that this is year 5 of the rebuild and we have the lineup that we have, but I want to emphasize that it is maybe a little bit too easy to overlook what we have in front of us now, given Jones' emergence.
Competent offense is not as hard to come by, and in my view, this is where it is as much of a Cherington and front office problem as it is the default blame Nutting truism. To take just an easy example: we are running Tellez out at 1B because he was a cheap bounce back who could provide middle of the order thump if things went well. The Orioles acquired Ryan O'Hearn as a strong-side platoon and the Cubs acquired Michael Busch as effectively someone who has become a supplementary core player. Both guys make the same or less than Tellez and were acquired for scraps.
It's a long season, and I don't want to give the impression that I am holding it against anyone who thinks that it's effectively already over. Maybe the best outcome I can drum up right now, save for some insane trade for Jazz Chisholm, is that we fumble around mediocrely for a while longer and Cherington makes the unpopular decision to trade Bednar for some Orioles hitters who aren't able to crack into that full roster. The current roster probably needs a winning streak to be even in the ballpark of a chance to finish around .500, but the season is still relatively young and not much separation has taken place.
I want the hitters to be way more aggressive. I'm not sure elevating pitch counts works in today's game as it did when teams wanted starters to go seven innings. You might get one or two good pitches to hit per at bat, but if you're sitting with the bat on your shoulder to drive up pitch counts you're likely to miss those pitches, and I think opposing teams know this about the Pirates. I think this approach leads to the ridiculous amount of K's and weak contact and makes hitters entirely too passive, especially if you're sitting there with two strikes early, because you were trying to get pitch counts up.
Empoleon8771
Registered User
Tickets for the game on Saturday are expensive, really hope it doesn’t get rained out.
sovietsanta87
Registered User
We need to pick a lane. The trio of Skenes, Jones, Keller is good enough to compete. But the lineup is an absolute disaster. If the end was near for BC he would over pay for a veteran player. Huntington did it with the archer trade. Littlefield did it when he traded Rajai Davis for Matt Morris.
So I think BC has more runway than we think. But like I said the other day, you need to consolidate and get a bat.
If bubba chandler was at AAA knocking on the door to the majors, I’d say we could flip him to Baltimore for one of their 8000 hitters. But Baltimore is trying to win a World Series now and there’s no way this team trades Bednar; even if it would improve the team
So I think BC has more runway than we think. But like I said the other day, you need to consolidate and get a bat.
If bubba chandler was at AAA knocking on the door to the majors, I’d say we could flip him to Baltimore for one of their 8000 hitters. But Baltimore is trying to win a World Series now and there’s no way this team trades Bednar; even if it would improve the team
Empoleon8771
Registered User
Pirates, stop, my penis get only get so erect.
Empoleon8771
Registered User
One more point on Tellez: based on the track record of Shelton and Cherington, I think it's fairly likely that Tellez won't last another month with the Pirates if his play doesn't improve. The closest comparable they have had to Tellez is Tsutsugo in 2022, who was making $4 million a year and was absolutely horrendous (.478 OPS) before finally being released after 50 games. Granted Tsutsugo ended up on the injured list so it took longer, but I can't imagine Tellez making it to July on this team if he doesn't majorly improve.
BusinessGoose
Registered User
"we've read your comments on HFboards, and we hear you"
Coastal Kev
There will be "I told you so's" Bet on it
Andy Haines has the cure for that condition
ImporterExporter
"You're a boring old man"
- Status
