Wilbur, FWIW, Perez qualifies for MiFA this offseason; however, the Pirates signed him to a two-year MiL deal, so he won't be hitting FA until 2024 because of that.
Not to be too much of a dick but Solometo inherently has not maintained 93-94 "throughout the season" if he's been back down to 89-91 for most of his time in Altoona.
Getting in early for the eventual "Pirate development ruined him" whining because fans don't understand the difference between radar gun reading of kids airing it out in a showcase setting and radar gun readings of big leaguers after 120 IP.
Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)
Plenty, that's the exact intent of my last line.
Just because he has "checked boxes" does not mean he's ready for the show nor does it means the Pirates have somehow "failed" at development if they do decide to continue promoting players who clearly aren't prepared to succeed.
So if they like the “Suwinski model” why don’t they give Mason Martin a shot to see what he can do? Everyone blames his strikeouts, but his numbers are very comparable to Suwinski’s albeit in the minors. Suwinski’s given a free pass to play everyday and be awful much of the time as long as he occasionally hits for power. Why not Martin? They certainly need a first baseman.
Martin would K close to 40% in the show and plays 1b and doesn't run as well as Jack.
Jack plays a premier position and can run. Huge difference. Martin would probably hit around .170 in the majors. Mason was available for all 30 teams and not one of them thought he would be a "Suwinski model"
#MasonMartinStrong2 Kid plays/played football for a team in Butler County (Karns City) and is fighting for his life. Google if interested. Pray for Mason
Weak argument. Suwinski plays an important position and can run? Really? You think first base is easy to play and isn’t an important position? It gets far more chances than CF and a misplay at first usually results in at least two bases. If you think it’s easy to play first just ask Connor Joe or some of the other guys the Pirates have tried over there over the past few years how easy it is.
Martin might strike out 40% of the time? Suwinski did strike out 40+ % of the time in August and hit under .100 for most of the month, but that’s okay apparently. I’m not really advocating for Martin as much as questioning some of the things the Pirates do and find acceptable and the things they don’t do but people don’t even question. If they’re still playing the likes of Capra, Rivas etc. why not at least give Martin a chance? If they’re relying on the “Suwinski model” to build a winning team, they’re neck deep in shite already anyway.
The Jack Suwinski, three-true outcome model seems as though it’s becoming the norm in the Pirates’ system.
The three-true-outcome style is an obvious development of the "moneyball" style of the early 2000 As and Red Sox. Cherington inherited the moneyball-OBP-is-everything system from the Red Sox. This style is combined with some modern analytic practices, like emphasizing average exit velocity, resulted in three-true-outcome baseball. So, it is not surprising that Cherington has followed the Dodgers and transformed moneyball into the three-true-outcome style where everyone waits for their pitch and then try to pull the ball 115 MPH: striking out if they never get their pitch or miss when they do, trying to hit the ball as hard as possible.
During the years of the juiced ball from 2017-2021, when they had the seams indented and HR totals went crazy, this style worked, but now baseball is returning to the game it has been for most of its history: a game that rewards solid hitters who make contact regularly. The three-true-outcome style really has not worked very well in recent years, and the reason is obvious. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. If you only swing at pitches that you can pull at 115 MPH, and swing for the fences in every AB, of course your average exit velocity is going to be high. The fact that you rarely make contact is ignored under this system.
Look at the Dodgers: the team that most embraced three-true-outcome baseball. They ruined Cody Bellinger by trying to make him a three-true-outcome player, and the guys carrying the Dodgers offense this year are all free agents who are not three-true-outcome type players: Betts, Freeman, and Heyward. What happend to that much vaunted and celebrated Dodger minor league system of 3 or 4 years ago, filled with three-true-outcome players? Not much of anything. The teams that are having the most success right now are much more classic, contact-style, line-drive hitting teams: think Braves and Orioles.
As usual, the Pirates are a day late and dollar short, copying the antiquated models of past big-market teams whose owed their success more to their piggybank than their developmental practices. The small-market teams that have success are the innovators, like the Orioles, for example, or the Royals before them, who placed emphasis on speed when everyone else was looking for the next power bat. Some day, maybe, Nutting will find an innovator for a GM, rather than a monkey that sees and does.
I do think it's possible they were at least attempting TTO, in theory. Going back to 2022 when they were hitting HR's all of spring training. Judging by some of the Ben's earlier acquisitions, and how some of those prospects faired under Pirates tutelage, I think there is some truth to they were looking for high contact hitters that hadn't displayed much power thus far. I feel they believed they could acquire a Diego Castillo, and have him "A swing" every swing, and produce better power outcomes. Unfortunately, it came with added swing and miss. I felt it appeared that was somewhat the case with CSN earlier in the season, with his K-rate over 40% in majors, and around 30% initially in Triple-A, before gradually decreasing it to more around his norm. Cal Mitchell was never a high K guy, and all of a sudden was around 30%.
I was concerned with Termarr at first, cause he was showcasing a much higher K-rate than I had anticipated, but after turning it around in Low-A and continuing his hitting in High-A, I think it can mostly be attributed to a teenager's first year in pro ball. I was really hoping he didn't become another Siani or Head who both showed pop and patience in Low-A, only to still be stuck in High-A limbo cause they can't get the K's in order.
Part of it just feels like they're still searching for their "prototypical hitter". A big power kid that needs help with contact, or a high contact kid that needs help with elevating. Gorski didn't fully maintain his offensive production, but he did drop hit K% while maintaining a near .200 ISO.
I do think they're still searching for their niche. At least with pitchers, I think like dirty sliders and...... not sure from there. I'd have to gather more info and such, but just looking at raw data, I feel there's been a lot of two-seamer pitchers acquired/drafted lately.
Those are three fringe prospects with little upper-level experience who got kicked in the teeth by big league quality they'd never seen anywhere near as often in their career.
Conversely none of Kebryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Henry Davis, Endy Rodriguez, and Liover Peguero - the club's best hitting prospects in recent memory - have displayed even a hint of systemic TTO development.
You guys are looking for boogeymen in coaching when it's shitty players that are the problem.
Sure, they are. But as another thing I've said, they need to hit on some of them.
To you Dodgers point, someone like Muncy wasn't special. But the Dodgers figured something out that worked. The Rays and Guardians have been grabbing the flyest of fliers in under the radar trades, and all of a sudden they develop into top prospects.
I feel saying "they're just shitty players" is the boogeyman. Good players come from somewhere (through development), from all walks of top tier to players casted aside.
Oh absolutely. By no means am I, of all people, arguing the Pirates player dev is *elite* like the clubs you cite and I sure as hell agree they need to get there in order to succeed.
But the argument here seems to be the Pirates player dev is making guys *worse* with some form of dogmatic system and I don't see a hint of it.
Player dev is a bell curve and the buccos are neither one of the few elite nor the few abysmal orgs. Just the milquetoast center grouping with the majority.
From my point of view, I'm not saying they're making players worse, rather than opening new holes trying to patch another. Such as again, a contact player now hitting for power, but developed a K issue. The fringe is still therein fringe.
The irony here is the punching bag for this TTO narrative, Jack Suwinski, is in fact one of the only fringe prospects this org has turned into a productive big leaguer.
Buddy sometimes I wonder with these long-drawn-out posts. Generally, all hot takes
Red Sox had some of the highest payrolls in the league during the times he cited. Mostly bad FA signings like Panda. That's not *MoneyBall*
MoneyBall is finding bargin bin players that have a certain skill, like getting OB.
Obviously, Beane was the innovator, but the Pirates were successful at this for a while getting guys like AJ, Liriano, Russ, Cervelli, the BP arms, etc. They just couldn't sustain it. The Rays are killing it. Getting guys that no one sees value...look at what they're doing with Robert Stephenson. He's a high leverage arm for them and a former Pirates castaway.
The model that the Red Sox developed was the same as that of the As and it was based, in no small part, on Bill James' book. That they had a higher payroll is irrelevant to the model of what they viewed as a successful offense in baseball. Hence the "moneyball" model to which I refer is not the search for hidden value, but rather the valuation of a batter's ability to layoff pitches out of zone and take a BB rather than a more free-swinging style.
The Kansas City Royals are one of like three MLB franchises that are objectively more dysfunctional than the Pittsburgh Pirates and my dude stood them up against the fucking Dodgers, presumably with a straight face.
The laugh-out-loud kicker to this screed is the fact that the biggest offensive "disappointment" from those Dodgers systems he talks about is Keibert Ruiz, a high-contact (10% K-rate) line drive (22%) hitter who is struggling to come within even 10% of big league average production over his first 1000 PA on account of - you guessed it - lack of OBP and power.
I love these posts, you usually have to pay for that kind of entertainment.
Well, I don't think he's wrong to say the Royals "before them". They did get by mostly on pitching, defense, and speed before the shift towards launch angle and such. IIRC, the year they won the World Series, they were last in HR's during the regular season, and then teed off in playoffs. The "now" Royals, yeah, they've been atrocious. They were promotion happy last year, similar to the Angels, but without Ohtani and Trout.
The Dodgers niche is unearthing stud pitchers more than anything. They haven't been churning out position players like previously (Bellinger, Seager, etc.), and have two recent top 100 bats optioned to Triple-A after struggles (Vargas and Busch).
I'd like the pirates to try to aquire either of Vargas or Busch at a buy low price. I think the early injury hampered Vargas, Busch is performing the same as he has through the minors. Busch struggles in the beginning of his advancements, figures it out then dominates. He hasn't had any consistent playing time in the majors yet.
"IIRC, the year they won the World Series, they were last in HR's during the regular season, and then teed off in playoffs."
This is direct evidence of the fact that the playoffs are largely a crapshoot where lesser teams can catch fire in small sample competition, not that the Royals unearthed some strategic genius.
MLB talking heads tried to turn them into that, except exactly zero clubs - the Neal Huntington Pirates included - have been able to replicate the success.
As for the Dodgers...Will Smith, James Outman, Max Muncy, JD Martinez, Jason Heyward all within the last 3-4 years. Variety of hitter types and means of acquisition, all successful. They're incredibly good developing both sides of the ball by any objective measure.
The Kansas City Royals won 2 ALCS, won the world Series in 2015, and lost the World Series in 7 games in 2014. If that is not successful, then I don't know what is. How dysfunctional was that team? They were very innovative, realizing that they needed defense and speed to win at Kaufman. Up until that point, most of the league was downplaying team defense. Suddenly, everyone became interested in defense. That was the Royals' doing.
You pick one guy... Ruiz. What about Hoese? Peters? Where did those guys go? How is Cartaya doing in AA? There system was not nearly as stacked as it was made out to be.
Technically Suwinski went to RYP I think it was before last offseason. Keller went to tread, and Ro apparently got shipped somewhere else to get fixed. Hayes still found help within the system, but not really from where he should be getting help. In the end he got the help but certainly saying something about the major league staff
Nola loves him some sullivan! Joe perez ever have any time at 1B? He's probably not going to amount to anything but can't hurt to try to plug a hole in our future
On the three true outcomes thing, I wish the Pirates showed more ability to hit for average. I hate it that talented players are hitting .200 with absurd strikeout totals. But the ultimate hitting stat is runs scored and Bradenton (in the second half) was second in the league in runs scored, 15 behind Lakeland. That’s less than a quarter of a run per game.
Wilbur, FWIW, Perez qualifies for MiFA this offseason; however, the Pirates signed him to a two-year MiL deal, so he won't be hitting FA until 2024 because of that.
Same with Franzua actually
Not to be too much of a dick but Solometo inherently has not maintained 93-94 "throughout the season" if he's been back down to 89-91 for most of his time in Altoona.
Getting in early for the eventual "Pirate development ruined him" whining because fans don't understand the difference between radar gun reading of kids airing it out in a showcase setting and radar gun readings of big leaguers after 120 IP.
Wasn't expecting the showcase 97, but was hoping the 93-94 would stick. Also still only 20. Kid has time
Plenty, that's the exact intent of my last line.
Just because he has "checked boxes" does not mean he's ready for the show nor does it means the Pirates have somehow "failed" at development if they do decide to continue promoting players who clearly aren't prepared to succeed.
I gotchu. I call it NolaSplaining. It's like mansplaining, but I'm Nola.
BaldSplaining, we come by it honestly.
Someone else said this and I think it's a good outcome for Solometo - Hoby Milner
I had to look Milner up to make sure he wasn’t some bot name created in MLB The Show.
WTM knows what’s up with Luke Brown #L1C4
The real Louisville Slugger
So if they like the “Suwinski model” why don’t they give Mason Martin a shot to see what he can do? Everyone blames his strikeouts, but his numbers are very comparable to Suwinski’s albeit in the minors. Suwinski’s given a free pass to play everyday and be awful much of the time as long as he occasionally hits for power. Why not Martin? They certainly need a first baseman.
"albeit" of the year. ;)
Martin would K close to 40% in the show and plays 1b and doesn't run as well as Jack.
Jack plays a premier position and can run. Huge difference. Martin would probably hit around .170 in the majors. Mason was available for all 30 teams and not one of them thought he would be a "Suwinski model"
#MasonMartinStrong2 Kid plays/played football for a team in Butler County (Karns City) and is fighting for his life. Google if interested. Pray for Mason
Weak argument. Suwinski plays an important position and can run? Really? You think first base is easy to play and isn’t an important position? It gets far more chances than CF and a misplay at first usually results in at least two bases. If you think it’s easy to play first just ask Connor Joe or some of the other guys the Pirates have tried over there over the past few years how easy it is.
Martin might strike out 40% of the time? Suwinski did strike out 40+ % of the time in August and hit under .100 for most of the month, but that’s okay apparently. I’m not really advocating for Martin as much as questioning some of the things the Pirates do and find acceptable and the things they don’t do but people don’t even question. If they’re still playing the likes of Capra, Rivas etc. why not at least give Martin a chance? If they’re relying on the “Suwinski model” to build a winning team, they’re neck deep in shite already anyway.
I think SS & CF are at the top of the defensive spectrum, where 1b is at the bottom.
The Jack Suwinski, three-true outcome model seems as though it’s becoming the norm in the Pirates’ system.
The three-true-outcome style is an obvious development of the "moneyball" style of the early 2000 As and Red Sox. Cherington inherited the moneyball-OBP-is-everything system from the Red Sox. This style is combined with some modern analytic practices, like emphasizing average exit velocity, resulted in three-true-outcome baseball. So, it is not surprising that Cherington has followed the Dodgers and transformed moneyball into the three-true-outcome style where everyone waits for their pitch and then try to pull the ball 115 MPH: striking out if they never get their pitch or miss when they do, trying to hit the ball as hard as possible.
During the years of the juiced ball from 2017-2021, when they had the seams indented and HR totals went crazy, this style worked, but now baseball is returning to the game it has been for most of its history: a game that rewards solid hitters who make contact regularly. The three-true-outcome style really has not worked very well in recent years, and the reason is obvious. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. If you only swing at pitches that you can pull at 115 MPH, and swing for the fences in every AB, of course your average exit velocity is going to be high. The fact that you rarely make contact is ignored under this system.
Look at the Dodgers: the team that most embraced three-true-outcome baseball. They ruined Cody Bellinger by trying to make him a three-true-outcome player, and the guys carrying the Dodgers offense this year are all free agents who are not three-true-outcome type players: Betts, Freeman, and Heyward. What happend to that much vaunted and celebrated Dodger minor league system of 3 or 4 years ago, filled with three-true-outcome players? Not much of anything. The teams that are having the most success right now are much more classic, contact-style, line-drive hitting teams: think Braves and Orioles.
As usual, the Pirates are a day late and dollar short, copying the antiquated models of past big-market teams whose owed their success more to their piggybank than their developmental practices. The small-market teams that have success are the innovators, like the Orioles, for example, or the Royals before them, who placed emphasis on speed when everyone else was looking for the next power bat. Some day, maybe, Nutting will find an innovator for a GM, rather than a monkey that sees and does.
I do think it's possible they were at least attempting TTO, in theory. Going back to 2022 when they were hitting HR's all of spring training. Judging by some of the Ben's earlier acquisitions, and how some of those prospects faired under Pirates tutelage, I think there is some truth to they were looking for high contact hitters that hadn't displayed much power thus far. I feel they believed they could acquire a Diego Castillo, and have him "A swing" every swing, and produce better power outcomes. Unfortunately, it came with added swing and miss. I felt it appeared that was somewhat the case with CSN earlier in the season, with his K-rate over 40% in majors, and around 30% initially in Triple-A, before gradually decreasing it to more around his norm. Cal Mitchell was never a high K guy, and all of a sudden was around 30%.
I was concerned with Termarr at first, cause he was showcasing a much higher K-rate than I had anticipated, but after turning it around in Low-A and continuing his hitting in High-A, I think it can mostly be attributed to a teenager's first year in pro ball. I was really hoping he didn't become another Siani or Head who both showed pop and patience in Low-A, only to still be stuck in High-A limbo cause they can't get the K's in order.
Part of it just feels like they're still searching for their "prototypical hitter". A big power kid that needs help with contact, or a high contact kid that needs help with elevating. Gorski didn't fully maintain his offensive production, but he did drop hit K% while maintaining a near .200 ISO.
I do think they're still searching for their niche. At least with pitchers, I think like dirty sliders and...... not sure from there. I'd have to gather more info and such, but just looking at raw data, I feel there's been a lot of two-seamer pitchers acquired/drafted lately.
Those are three fringe prospects with little upper-level experience who got kicked in the teeth by big league quality they'd never seen anywhere near as often in their career.
Conversely none of Kebryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Henry Davis, Endy Rodriguez, and Liover Peguero - the club's best hitting prospects in recent memory - have displayed even a hint of systemic TTO development.
You guys are looking for boogeymen in coaching when it's shitty players that are the problem.
Sure, they are. But as another thing I've said, they need to hit on some of them.
To you Dodgers point, someone like Muncy wasn't special. But the Dodgers figured something out that worked. The Rays and Guardians have been grabbing the flyest of fliers in under the radar trades, and all of a sudden they develop into top prospects.
I feel saying "they're just shitty players" is the boogeyman. Good players come from somewhere (through development), from all walks of top tier to players casted aside.
Oh absolutely. By no means am I, of all people, arguing the Pirates player dev is *elite* like the clubs you cite and I sure as hell agree they need to get there in order to succeed.
But the argument here seems to be the Pirates player dev is making guys *worse* with some form of dogmatic system and I don't see a hint of it.
Player dev is a bell curve and the buccos are neither one of the few elite nor the few abysmal orgs. Just the milquetoast center grouping with the majority.
From my point of view, I'm not saying they're making players worse, rather than opening new holes trying to patch another. Such as again, a contact player now hitting for power, but developed a K issue. The fringe is still therein fringe.
The irony here is the punching bag for this TTO narrative, Jack Suwinski, is in fact one of the only fringe prospects this org has turned into a productive big leaguer.
Troof. Now if they could replicate that, effectively
Of all the takes, this is indeed, one of them.
wait...what?!?!?!
how much of this is actually true? Just because Jack skill set is tailored to TTO doesn't mean the entire organization is taking this approach.
My man, some of these hard takes you bring would fit right in with Poni.
This is a sprawling mix of boring tropes and straight up MLB fan fiction.
You can always spot former little league all stars who've got it all figured out from posts like this, it's cute.
It's ignorance to the subject. Plain and simple.
Maybe this is poni in disguise...
Buddy sometimes I wonder with these long-drawn-out posts. Generally, all hot takes
Red Sox had some of the highest payrolls in the league during the times he cited. Mostly bad FA signings like Panda. That's not *MoneyBall*
MoneyBall is finding bargin bin players that have a certain skill, like getting OB.
Obviously, Beane was the innovator, but the Pirates were successful at this for a while getting guys like AJ, Liriano, Russ, Cervelli, the BP arms, etc. They just couldn't sustain it. The Rays are killing it. Getting guys that no one sees value...look at what they're doing with Robert Stephenson. He's a high leverage arm for them and a former Pirates castaway.
#SGITR
The model that the Red Sox developed was the same as that of the As and it was based, in no small part, on Bill James' book. That they had a higher payroll is irrelevant to the model of what they viewed as a successful offense in baseball. Hence the "moneyball" model to which I refer is not the search for hidden value, but rather the valuation of a batter's ability to layoff pitches out of zone and take a BB rather than a more free-swinging style.
Yes, correct, we agree your argument is a total strawman that's our point.
The Kansas City Royals are one of like three MLB franchises that are objectively more dysfunctional than the Pittsburgh Pirates and my dude stood them up against the fucking Dodgers, presumably with a straight face.
The laugh-out-loud kicker to this screed is the fact that the biggest offensive "disappointment" from those Dodgers systems he talks about is Keibert Ruiz, a high-contact (10% K-rate) line drive (22%) hitter who is struggling to come within even 10% of big league average production over his first 1000 PA on account of - you guessed it - lack of OBP and power.
I love these posts, you usually have to pay for that kind of entertainment.
Well, I don't think he's wrong to say the Royals "before them". They did get by mostly on pitching, defense, and speed before the shift towards launch angle and such. IIRC, the year they won the World Series, they were last in HR's during the regular season, and then teed off in playoffs. The "now" Royals, yeah, they've been atrocious. They were promotion happy last year, similar to the Angels, but without Ohtani and Trout.
The Dodgers niche is unearthing stud pitchers more than anything. They haven't been churning out position players like previously (Bellinger, Seager, etc.), and have two recent top 100 bats optioned to Triple-A after struggles (Vargas and Busch).
I'd like the pirates to try to aquire either of Vargas or Busch at a buy low price. I think the early injury hampered Vargas, Busch is performing the same as he has through the minors. Busch struggles in the beginning of his advancements, figures it out then dominates. He hasn't had any consistent playing time in the majors yet.
"IIRC, the year they won the World Series, they were last in HR's during the regular season, and then teed off in playoffs."
This is direct evidence of the fact that the playoffs are largely a crapshoot where lesser teams can catch fire in small sample competition, not that the Royals unearthed some strategic genius.
MLB talking heads tried to turn them into that, except exactly zero clubs - the Neal Huntington Pirates included - have been able to replicate the success.
As for the Dodgers...Will Smith, James Outman, Max Muncy, JD Martinez, Jason Heyward all within the last 3-4 years. Variety of hitter types and means of acquisition, all successful. They're incredibly good developing both sides of the ball by any objective measure.
The Kansas City Royals won 2 ALCS, won the world Series in 2015, and lost the World Series in 7 games in 2014. If that is not successful, then I don't know what is. How dysfunctional was that team? They were very innovative, realizing that they needed defense and speed to win at Kaufman. Up until that point, most of the league was downplaying team defense. Suddenly, everyone became interested in defense. That was the Royals' doing.
You pick one guy... Ruiz. What about Hoese? Peters? Where did those guys go? How is Cartaya doing in AA? There system was not nearly as stacked as it was made out to be.
That was 10 years ago!
Thing is, some of his posts are good. But, when he does this stuff, it's like a parody.
"presumably with a straight face" hahaha.
Wilbur the real MVP
Did I miss some news about the team outsourcing hitter development? I know Ke Hayes had to get with his AA hitting coach to un-Haines his approach.
Technically Suwinski went to RYP I think it was before last offseason. Keller went to tread, and Ro apparently got shipped somewhere else to get fixed. Hayes still found help within the system, but not really from where he should be getting help. In the end he got the help but certainly saying something about the major league staff
Yeah that they should all be fired.
Nola loves him some sullivan! Joe perez ever have any time at 1B? He's probably not going to amount to anything but can't hurt to try to plug a hole in our future
On the three true outcomes thing, I wish the Pirates showed more ability to hit for average. I hate it that talented players are hitting .200 with absurd strikeout totals. But the ultimate hitting stat is runs scored and Bradenton (in the second half) was second in the league in runs scored, 15 behind Lakeland. That’s less than a quarter of a run per game.