Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if bringing in Taylor at the last minute and starting him ahead of Jack didn't start the downward spiral for Jack. Up to that point he was the most likely starting CF, with them putting Olivares in RF. Add Taylor who was made the starter in CF, left Jack with no home, and he worked very hard just the year before on his CF D.
I still think they keep him, and save him for a change of scenery trade next year if he can't fix his swing.
But, left's not forget the white elephant, Haines. His methodology isn't working, they need something else, even an internal replacement would be fine.
I think Shelton's fate will depend on this season. If they crack .500 he gets to come back, if not they cut him loose.
Last, I know it may not be a popular stance, but I really think BC is the best they could do right now. He's not a risk taker, but on a shoestring budget, you can't be, too much. Slow and steady is the only way this franchise can hope to compete for more than 3 years a decade. And I think he's done well in that role.
Suwinsky is not a good hitter. He'll never become one. One could see the potential in Jose Batista, the shining star of an hitter who figured it out. Suwinsky?
It makes sense to give Cruz PAs against LHs because he's the only potential super star quality position player in the system. Maybe Tremarr. To find another such player one would need to go to the FCL. Those players are a long ways away from Pittsburgh
The time frame for contention is set by Jones and Skenes. Their time as Pirates (healthy too) defines the time during which the Pirates will contend.
Letting Bonds leave cursed the Pirates for decades. I suspect trading Skenes will curse the Pirates for decades.
Haines needs to go. No one has thrived with him as a hitting coach. He failed the Brewers; he's failing the Pirates.
Stephen: I like Jack Suwinski, Termarr Johnson, Paul Skenes, and Jared Jones, but none of them or all of them together, will set a time frame for contention. That, unfortunately rests solely in the hands of our GM, Ben Cherrington, and what he is able to get authorization to do through BOB! Right now, patience should be the name of the game for a kid who led our team with 26 HR, and was second on our team with 74 RBI's in 2023, his first full year of MLB.
He is a keeper, and his offensive struggles are magnified by the ineptitude of our front office to not even try to find some help for the offense. Who else has struggled? It would be a lot easier to name those who have not struggled and that would be Bryan Reynolds, and probably Cutch. Cruz, Hayes, Tellez, Joe, Gonzales, Triolo, and Grandal have all had their periods of struggling, and Cruz, Tellez, and Gonzales look like they are presently working their way out of their hard times. It's baseball and it happens to many teams every year.
29 teams in baseball are searching for pitching, but our GM has not been able to find a CF who can hit, or a high prospect CF who we can watch grow into the position - possibly even two like that! On the Pirates right now we have 4 solid SP's already wearing Pirate Uni's, and possibly 5 or 6 others who can be ready to step into the Rotation within the next year, and that's not even counting Johan Oviedo off for TJ until 2025. That GM inherited one of those SP's, drafted 2 more of those SP's, traded to get a 4th SP, and signed two FA LHSP's before the 2024 season began. It's not that he is not capable.
I don't agree with Ben Cherington about much of anything but one thing I fear he's right about is that one good hitter, regardless of who it might be, will not make this team a serious contender. The Pirates need multiple major league (or at least major league ready) hitters and the worst part is that neither their current roster nor their minor leagues provide any for at least 2-3 years even if their prospects develop. An argument can be made either way, but being serious rather than just hopeful, is this team as it stands really a contender for anything?
Waiting and hoping that Suwinski or any of the other players on the current roster, that he sees as underachieving, suddenly snap out of it as a group is wishful thinking at best and just a delaying tactic at worst. A good GM would bite the bullet and make a major trade or two to get some quality hitters from a currently contending team (Cleveland, Baltimore,?) that wants to win now and has a lot of high-level hitting prospects it might be willing to trade. Parting with a guy like Keller (take a deep breath it's just an idea) right now would be very unpopular and understandably so, but he has the current value to get the kind of players the Pirates need if they hope to actually contend next year, in the near future or even the remainder of this year.
It won't happen so don't get too upset with the idea but this continued bumbling between 3-4 games under .500 isn't going anywhere and isn't helping for the future either.
You make a lot of good points but let me put this in a nutshell. The lack of improvement from Hayes, Suwinski and Davis has literally taken the offense to the bottom. The signings of Tellez, Taylor and Grandal have been foolish and shortsighted.
If a. Cruz and Hayes all started hitting well starting tomorrow, b. Reynolds continues to hit .270 and c. if we got above .500, then we can dig into the farm system.
Cruz is hitting great against right handed pitching
Why is it that we are so stubborn to "make him learn" how to hit lefties at this very moment???
Peguero could come up right now and improve the team against left handed pitching
Also if Peguero can hit right handed pitching, there is a good reason to give Hayes more rest and time on the bench (with Nick at third and Liover at second)
This in turn would make Triolo the true utility infielder that he is and minimize the amount of times he steps into the batters box
I had no idea Cruz's numbers were that bad againt lefties. Wow. .148 batting average lifetime. I am a big Peguero fan, but he needs to take advantage of the opportunity. He has 68 strike outs on the year and since May 1st, he has been a .250 hitter in the minors. I wanted him to begin the season in the majors, but not worthy of a promotion quite yet, imo.
They can of course walk and chew gum at the same time but this is a year when the insufferable comments about internal improvements are pretty much correct.
With how disappointing Hayes, Cruz, and Suwinski have been it's frankly a wonder they've been able to score as much as they have.
What does it say when a guy is posting career highs in swing rate and contact rate while posting career lows in quality of contact?
I think it means he's swinging at too many pitches and making too much contact.
I don't find the destined-to-happen argument very compelling for Jack specifically because he isn't failing through the manner in which his extremities lead.
This isn't Joey Gallo teetering over the edge of how many strikeouts one can sustain while still being productive.
If anything, 2024 Jack Suwinski is doing the *opposite* of what led to his success.
Think about this: not once in Jack Suwinski's career has he posted an above average month (>100 wRC+) with an in-zone swing rate above 70%. Never.
Yet, he's hovered above 70% in every month of 2024.
Not only is Jack Suwinski inarguable evidence against this braindead narrative about one-size-fits-all Andy Haines, he unfortunately demonstrates what the modern major league pitcher does to hitters who are too aggressive in the zone.
This is a guy trying to do too much. Changed his swing and approach and is finding out that's just not him. Now he's left trying to force that forward or adjust back on the fly against big league arms and his timing's a mess. Needs a reset and he'll be fine.
I agree with most of this except the last paragraph. I suspect (though I have not sought out the evidence) that pitchers knew Jack was hunting fastballs, so they often pitched him backwards in the past to put him in 2-strike counts. When he changed his approach last July, he caught the league off-guard and was smashing meaty off-speed stuff earlier in the count. Now the league is wise to his new ways, and he is not getting the juicy changeups over the middle of the plate for an automatic strike 1 (or laced double/HR in the 2nd half of last season). Now Jack must adjust, and so it goes.
Note that something similar happened to Reynolds this season. He was hunting fastballs early in the count, early in the season. Pitchers got wise to this and started throwing him first-pitch meatball changeups and sliders down the middle, which he mostly watched. In late May, he suddenly started smashing these pitches, and now he is not seeing them as much. His "hot-streak" in June was more him taking advantage of how he was being pitched than anything else IMO. We'll see how he handles the league pushing back and changing up their book on him. So, it goes.
I'm rather busy at the moment with 2 books to edit in 20 days, so I don't have time. You could check out the theory and see if it holds though if you are not super busy. I would be curious to know if that was the case.
What kills me is that the Brewers keep swinging trades for quality without giving up much. Last year was William Contreras, the year before (I think) was Wily Adames. For this trade they give up their #21 prospect (in High A) and in return get a year and a half of a proven (if currently shaky) starting pitcher. Seems like a steal to me.
I never say that. I say you can't make trades after the deadline. Seriously, it is not surprising the Brewers are adding some pitching as they are in first place. The surprising part is that the Rays are parting with one of their starters while they are only 3 out of the wild card spot. Then again, they might have had enough of Civale and his ERA over 5 last year and this year. My guess is the Rays are just making room for Shane Baz or have another deal in the works.
They started Keuchel a few days ago. This is not the type of trade that I am going to ding other teams all of a sudden for not making trades. IN THEORY.. this could be the Pirates if Quinn would have fully stepped up and they felt Ortiz could stay in the rotation. All of a sudden Perez/ Falter / Gonzalez (only one could go - retain needed depth) could be trade candidates and outside of Falter probably a similar small return. Early trades can happen but typically not with players who could create a bidding war.
I think the Rays needed to clear a spot for Shane Baz, so rather than DFAing him they were able to get an A ball player for him. As you say, the Pirates could be in a similar situation with one of the guys you mentioned. Martin Perez might be a fair comp.
I think we're all waiting for that. He's got the talent to be special, he just needs to find consistency. Not unlike Cruz, he's had to overcome lefthanded pitching and offspeed pitches. If either of them find a way to damage that pitching, the Pirates will finally have an offense.
He improved from 2022 to 2023. He's taken a disappointing step back in the first half of 2024. Improvement is not linear. Maybe he rebounds. I wonder if his long slumps are related to the promotion from AA. Maybe he needed more time to learn before moving up with the big boys.
I remember when the called him up, both he and (that guy we traded for Falter) were both up from AA. Suwinski hit one of his hot streaks and they just left him up. I'm like you, I think he came up too fast. He didn't get enough practice hitting better pitching. But by now he has. It's my hope they hang onto him to see if he can turn it around, but could see him traded also.
He redesigned his entire approach to hitting beginning last July. He has stopped hunting fastballs exclusively early in the count and looking for pitches in his hot zone to pull into a more liberal approach: swinging at strikes in any count and on any pitch type. Of course, his effectiveness against fastballs has declined because he is not focused exclusively on them anymore with less than 2 strikes.
He made it look easy last year (like Bellinger did) when he first made the change. Now, it looks like much more a struggle, in large part because his bat-to-ball skills are not as advanced as Bellinger's. Whatever the case, I think the truth lies somewhere in between in his raking the last two months of last season and his flailing the first 3 months of this season. He should improve significantly over his first-half showing, but I doubt that he will ever be the second coming of Ted Williams.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if bringing in Taylor at the last minute and starting him ahead of Jack didn't start the downward spiral for Jack. Up to that point he was the most likely starting CF, with them putting Olivares in RF. Add Taylor who was made the starter in CF, left Jack with no home, and he worked very hard just the year before on his CF D.
I still think they keep him, and save him for a change of scenery trade next year if he can't fix his swing.
But, left's not forget the white elephant, Haines. His methodology isn't working, they need something else, even an internal replacement would be fine.
I think Shelton's fate will depend on this season. If they crack .500 he gets to come back, if not they cut him loose.
Last, I know it may not be a popular stance, but I really think BC is the best they could do right now. He's not a risk taker, but on a shoestring budget, you can't be, too much. Slow and steady is the only way this franchise can hope to compete for more than 3 years a decade. And I think he's done well in that role.
Suwinsky is not a good hitter. He'll never become one. One could see the potential in Jose Batista, the shining star of an hitter who figured it out. Suwinsky?
It makes sense to give Cruz PAs against LHs because he's the only potential super star quality position player in the system. Maybe Tremarr. To find another such player one would need to go to the FCL. Those players are a long ways away from Pittsburgh
The time frame for contention is set by Jones and Skenes. Their time as Pirates (healthy too) defines the time during which the Pirates will contend.
Letting Bonds leave cursed the Pirates for decades. I suspect trading Skenes will curse the Pirates for decades.
Haines needs to go. No one has thrived with him as a hitting coach. He failed the Brewers; he's failing the Pirates.
Stephen: I like Jack Suwinski, Termarr Johnson, Paul Skenes, and Jared Jones, but none of them or all of them together, will set a time frame for contention. That, unfortunately rests solely in the hands of our GM, Ben Cherrington, and what he is able to get authorization to do through BOB! Right now, patience should be the name of the game for a kid who led our team with 26 HR, and was second on our team with 74 RBI's in 2023, his first full year of MLB.
He is a keeper, and his offensive struggles are magnified by the ineptitude of our front office to not even try to find some help for the offense. Who else has struggled? It would be a lot easier to name those who have not struggled and that would be Bryan Reynolds, and probably Cutch. Cruz, Hayes, Tellez, Joe, Gonzales, Triolo, and Grandal have all had their periods of struggling, and Cruz, Tellez, and Gonzales look like they are presently working their way out of their hard times. It's baseball and it happens to many teams every year.
29 teams in baseball are searching for pitching, but our GM has not been able to find a CF who can hit, or a high prospect CF who we can watch grow into the position - possibly even two like that! On the Pirates right now we have 4 solid SP's already wearing Pirate Uni's, and possibly 5 or 6 others who can be ready to step into the Rotation within the next year, and that's not even counting Johan Oviedo off for TJ until 2025. That GM inherited one of those SP's, drafted 2 more of those SP's, traded to get a 4th SP, and signed two FA LHSP's before the 2024 season began. It's not that he is not capable.
I wrote a reply but the software ate it.
In a nutshell:
I consider Suiwnski's 2023 season to be the outlier. That's confirmation bias on my part. We'll see.
The time frame for contention is set by Cruz, Skenes and Jones enter into arbitration. We'll see or not if Nutting will spend.
I agree that Cherrington's 23-24 off-season damned the 24 Pirates.
I'd trade Keller. GMs like veterans. Hopefully, his recent start was only a hiccup.
Zielinsky
Excellent point.
Lol
I don't agree with Ben Cherington about much of anything but one thing I fear he's right about is that one good hitter, regardless of who it might be, will not make this team a serious contender. The Pirates need multiple major league (or at least major league ready) hitters and the worst part is that neither their current roster nor their minor leagues provide any for at least 2-3 years even if their prospects develop. An argument can be made either way, but being serious rather than just hopeful, is this team as it stands really a contender for anything?
Waiting and hoping that Suwinski or any of the other players on the current roster, that he sees as underachieving, suddenly snap out of it as a group is wishful thinking at best and just a delaying tactic at worst. A good GM would bite the bullet and make a major trade or two to get some quality hitters from a currently contending team (Cleveland, Baltimore,?) that wants to win now and has a lot of high-level hitting prospects it might be willing to trade. Parting with a guy like Keller (take a deep breath it's just an idea) right now would be very unpopular and understandably so, but he has the current value to get the kind of players the Pirates need if they hope to actually contend next year, in the near future or even the remainder of this year.
It won't happen so don't get too upset with the idea but this continued bumbling between 3-4 games under .500 isn't going anywhere and isn't helping for the future either.
You make a lot of good points but let me put this in a nutshell. The lack of improvement from Hayes, Suwinski and Davis has literally taken the offense to the bottom. The signings of Tellez, Taylor and Grandal have been foolish and shortsighted.
If a. Cruz and Hayes all started hitting well starting tomorrow, b. Reynolds continues to hit .270 and c. if we got above .500, then we can dig into the farm system.
Setting up a chicken and egg problem there: they play two months longer than they allow trades.
Cruz is hitting great against right handed pitching
Why is it that we are so stubborn to "make him learn" how to hit lefties at this very moment???
Peguero could come up right now and improve the team against left handed pitching
Also if Peguero can hit right handed pitching, there is a good reason to give Hayes more rest and time on the bench (with Nick at third and Liover at second)
This in turn would make Triolo the true utility infielder that he is and minimize the amount of times he steps into the batters box
I had no idea Cruz's numbers were that bad againt lefties. Wow. .148 batting average lifetime. I am a big Peguero fan, but he needs to take advantage of the opportunity. He has 68 strike outs on the year and since May 1st, he has been a .250 hitter in the minors. I wanted him to begin the season in the majors, but not worthy of a promotion quite yet, imo.
-8 wRC+ against lefties. *negative* eight.
They can of course walk and chew gum at the same time but this is a year when the insufferable comments about internal improvements are pretty much correct.
With how disappointing Hayes, Cruz, and Suwinski have been it's frankly a wonder they've been able to score as much as they have.
What does it say when a guy is posting career highs in swing rate and contact rate while posting career lows in quality of contact?
I think it means he's swinging at too many pitches and making too much contact.
I don't find the destined-to-happen argument very compelling for Jack specifically because he isn't failing through the manner in which his extremities lead.
This isn't Joey Gallo teetering over the edge of how many strikeouts one can sustain while still being productive.
If anything, 2024 Jack Suwinski is doing the *opposite* of what led to his success.
Think about this: not once in Jack Suwinski's career has he posted an above average month (>100 wRC+) with an in-zone swing rate above 70%. Never.
Yet, he's hovered above 70% in every month of 2024.
Not only is Jack Suwinski inarguable evidence against this braindead narrative about one-size-fits-all Andy Haines, he unfortunately demonstrates what the modern major league pitcher does to hitters who are too aggressive in the zone.
This is a guy trying to do too much. Changed his swing and approach and is finding out that's just not him. Now he's left trying to force that forward or adjust back on the fly against big league arms and his timing's a mess. Needs a reset and he'll be fine.
I agree with most of this except the last paragraph. I suspect (though I have not sought out the evidence) that pitchers knew Jack was hunting fastballs, so they often pitched him backwards in the past to put him in 2-strike counts. When he changed his approach last July, he caught the league off-guard and was smashing meaty off-speed stuff earlier in the count. Now the league is wise to his new ways, and he is not getting the juicy changeups over the middle of the plate for an automatic strike 1 (or laced double/HR in the 2nd half of last season). Now Jack must adjust, and so it goes.
Note that something similar happened to Reynolds this season. He was hunting fastballs early in the count, early in the season. Pitchers got wise to this and started throwing him first-pitch meatball changeups and sliders down the middle, which he mostly watched. In late May, he suddenly started smashing these pitches, and now he is not seeing them as much. His "hot-streak" in June was more him taking advantage of how he was being pitched than anything else IMO. We'll see how he handles the league pushing back and changing up their book on him. So, it goes.
This would be extremely insightful if you were able to back it up with evidence.
I'm rather busy at the moment with 2 books to edit in 20 days, so I don't have time. You could check out the theory and see if it holds though if you are not super busy. I would be curious to know if that was the case.
Brew Crew swing trade for Aaron Civale, who says you can't make trades before the deadline
What kills me is that the Brewers keep swinging trades for quality without giving up much. Last year was William Contreras, the year before (I think) was Wily Adames. For this trade they give up their #21 prospect (in High A) and in return get a year and a half of a proven (if currently shaky) starting pitcher. Seems like a steal to me.
It would take a competent GM.
I never say that. I say you can't make trades after the deadline. Seriously, it is not surprising the Brewers are adding some pitching as they are in first place. The surprising part is that the Rays are parting with one of their starters while they are only 3 out of the wild card spot. Then again, they might have had enough of Civale and his ERA over 5 last year and this year. My guess is the Rays are just making room for Shane Baz or have another deal in the works.
They started Keuchel a few days ago. This is not the type of trade that I am going to ding other teams all of a sudden for not making trades. IN THEORY.. this could be the Pirates if Quinn would have fully stepped up and they felt Ortiz could stay in the rotation. All of a sudden Perez/ Falter / Gonzalez (only one could go - retain needed depth) could be trade candidates and outside of Falter probably a similar small return. Early trades can happen but typically not with players who could create a bidding war.
I think the Rays needed to clear a spot for Shane Baz, so rather than DFAing him they were able to get an A ball player for him. As you say, the Pirates could be in a similar situation with one of the guys you mentioned. Martin Perez might be a fair comp.
The only thing that’s going to help Jack is getting to an org that knows more about hitting than the average Mongolian goat herder.
Monongahela goats? shout out to trax farms: see yinz in october
also there is stiff competition for the Monongahela G.O.A.T.
Joe Montana, Ken Griffey Sr, Ken Griffey Jr, Stan Musial
I think we're all waiting for that. He's got the talent to be special, he just needs to find consistency. Not unlike Cruz, he's had to overcome lefthanded pitching and offspeed pitches. If either of them find a way to damage that pitching, the Pirates will finally have an offense.
He improved from 2022 to 2023. He's taken a disappointing step back in the first half of 2024. Improvement is not linear. Maybe he rebounds. I wonder if his long slumps are related to the promotion from AA. Maybe he needed more time to learn before moving up with the big boys.
I remember when the called him up, both he and (that guy we traded for Falter) were both up from AA. Suwinski hit one of his hot streaks and they just left him up. I'm like you, I think he came up too fast. He didn't get enough practice hitting better pitching. But by now he has. It's my hope they hang onto him to see if he can turn it around, but could see him traded also.
He redesigned his entire approach to hitting beginning last July. He has stopped hunting fastballs exclusively early in the count and looking for pitches in his hot zone to pull into a more liberal approach: swinging at strikes in any count and on any pitch type. Of course, his effectiveness against fastballs has declined because he is not focused exclusively on them anymore with less than 2 strikes.
He made it look easy last year (like Bellinger did) when he first made the change. Now, it looks like much more a struggle, in large part because his bat-to-ball skills are not as advanced as Bellinger's. Whatever the case, I think the truth lies somewhere in between in his raking the last two months of last season and his flailing the first 3 months of this season. He should improve significantly over his first-half showing, but I doubt that he will ever be the second coming of Ted Williams.