Reds are ticketed to nowheresville just like this Pirates roster right now. They have more hitting than we do but not a ton and I like our pitching going forward.
There's a few posts below about McKinney. I too thought he won a spot out of ST. Then all he did is go on and hit all season at Indy. Cue the FO bad decision to go with Olivares.....for wayyy too long.
I agree with your conclusion but McKinney was hurt a high percentage of this year. Only had 46 games played in AAA. While Olivares should have been replaced, McKinney was not available to be that replacement for a good portion of the year.
I'm not sure who sucks more.....Shelton for his decisions on a daily basis or BC for just not dumping all the dead weight on the mlb roster and calling up young players to get at bats and pitch some innings. This is truly ridiculous. Bednar at this point should just be put on the IL for some phantom injury. Man he has blown so many games this year and yet Shelton keeps sending him out there in tight games.
If Bednar was on the IL since the trade deadline how many more wins would the team have? 8.59 ERA and 6.16 FIP. 7 ER in 7 appearances. I'm not even certain splits tool is picking up today's L.
He got the loss in 3 games, including one blown save. And he had a second blown save. So that's only 4 games we could have had a W. And I think we've lost 13.
I forgot he had a YOC left so my easy answer is yes if he can perform like a #5 for the rest of the year. My rationale is easy, I think Ortiz and Falter (unless they crumble) deserve to be ahead of him based on this years performance. With three obvious at the top that gets us to 5. IMO the key depth options all have reasons to question whether they would be ready to break camp. Oviedo off of TJ may need as long as possible re-hab in AAA, Ashcraft has been injured off an on so going to AAA is not a terrible thing, Burrows is starting to look good again but he also may need more AAA innings, and Bubba to me is a dream.. he may pull it off but I think I need to assume he needs more AAA time (I am ignoring any YOC considerations for the purpose of just this exercise). So it seems German if he performs could be the annual (and needed) veteran arm as a #6 / MLB depth. The impossible dream is all 4 of the guys i am starting in AAA crush the end of 2024 and spring training. Also.. i'd say betting odds are at least one of this list could be in a trade package.
Yeah, it's all dependent of course on how he performs the rest of the year, but at the very least you hang on and trade him. It probably makes the most sense to go into spring training with all this potential depth and see how it shakes out. Somebody'll get hurt, not perform, whatever. If there's still access, there's always some team that needs a SP. Just non-tendering him, if he pitches reasonably well, would be wasting an asset.
Definitely on performance, the 40 man should be easy to manage this year, only two locks to be added are Cook and Yorke. Sullivan is the only maybe I can think of, seven coming off plus the 5 that could be added from the 60 day IL (Borucki should come off before seasons end, two if they activate Endy). A few could be non tendered or released.
Again, trade Keller for a 5alented young hitter or two. Pray that German pitches well the rest of 2024 so that he can be traded next spring. Prepare Chandler, Harrington and Burrows for the Majors in 2025. Hope that Ashcraft returns to health, that Ortiz continues to pitch well, that Ovidieo returns to form. Cherrington needs to turn the pitching depth he controls for at least one starting outfielder who can hit for power and average. That's his job. Nutting's job is to increase the budget to accommodate a firstbaseman better than Tellez.
Not sure BC knows how to deal from a position of strength. He has been very strong in the Amateur Draft and on the IFA market. Our strength today, tomorrow, and for the next 5 years will be Pitching. Keller has shown too much character to be traded away . . . his leadership will play up for at least the next few years.
Somebody not related to anyone in the FO, an objective baseball veteran, needs to look at the makeup of this roster and pick about 4 or 5 players who can be used in trade. Yes, it would probably offend many in the clubhouse and many on boards such as this, but a totally objective viewpoint is desperately needed going into this offseason. We have pitching that can be traded, and at least 2 or 3 MI’s. Not sure we can get anything in return for some of the OF’s.
Problem is, you're not going to get an established, 0-3 hitter for a guy owed over $70M. You get either a hitter with a similar salary, or a prospect who's not established yet. And BA's looked at this a couple times and found that veteran for prospects trades virtually never work out for the team getting the prospects.
So Nuttin will have to spend the money anyway, and then may need to spend money to replace Keller. All the pitching prospects are nice, but there's literally no number of pitching prospects that guarantees you not having to add established major leaguers. If you want to win, that is. Literally almost never.
If the idea is to make the team better, the odds would be better trading pitching prospects than trading Keller.
While this is not what I was hoping for (I wanted a playoff race), there are actually a lot of players, particularly starting pitchers, who are pitching for a lot at the end of the season. I could argue everybody I listed other than the 'top 3' and of course Oviedo could significantly alter their standing going into 2025. Ortiz and Falter can gain /lose an almost locked spot. All of those in AAA are trying to prove they actually are ready to fight to break camp come spring. German for all the reasons we discussed. And I didn't even list Harrington. Suspending belief in Ben.. if we just play GM, doesn't there have to be trade in there somewhere given the reality (and lack of realistic targets) in free agency for bats.
Rough stretch lately (understatement, I know). Still appreciate this site for cranking out fresh content every day despite knowing maybe less people are checking in daily.
July was a record-setting month page view-wise for the site. This month has been a struggle.
I get it. It's a long season, and it's hard to commit much time and effort to a team that constantly loses.
We are going to keep doing what we are doing. We are doing what we love, watching baseball and talking about what we are seeing. Whether it's a lot of people reading or no one reading.
I have enjoyed the site but am disappointed at some of the commenters. I have enjoyed the comments up until the last couple weeks when it has turned mean-spirited against each other and not just frustration at the teams. I may not continue if bickering becomes the norm. I hate it when a good site's conversations are ruined that way.
Yea, I'll take the blame for it getting out of control without saying something. I did today earlier in here, and will definitely be taking a more active role. Unfortunately that'll cut into some writing time, but if that's what I got to do, it's got to be done.
I'll take a lot of the blame too but also—somewhat in my defense—I'm never on offense or attacking anyone. I'm happy to just talk about baseball even if that's sometimes making fun of the team. It's a team worthy of being made fun of by any metric. You royal you may not _like_ how I talk about baseball and that's fine. When folks come at me personally and call me an f slur, an r slur, an idiot, unhinged, unemployed, etc etc etc, I get defensive and can get nasty.
Problem with tankathon is the long odds (even with 2 not eligible). Real tanking got them tied for the 3rd worst record and we get Skenes. However(I think this more in football), if there are going to be 5 or 6 teams 'competing' for the 6th worst record, please let us not finish with the best record of all of them.
Yes. Sometimes it really is the players that lose, not the coaches, not the brass, just the players who aren’t able to perform at a high enough level to win.
I would venture to say 90% of the time it's on the player.
As far as Bednar goes he's had a rather bad year starting with the spring training injury and probably rushed a bit. IMHO I think he could benefit by dropping some lbs.
Cue the empty-headed postgame babble from Shelton about how they're in a bit of a rough patch and just need to get a few hits to fall. Like having six Mendoza-or-below hitters on the roster has nothing to do with it.
When 16 of 27 outs are strikeouts, it's a little hard to make the case that we just need some balls to drop (though it did occur to me that our best opportunity to score was a passed ball or wild pitch when Bae was on 3rd).
If I find myself with insomnia tonight, think I'm gonna look up how many games post AS break Bucs have outhit the opponent and lost. But I'm hoping I sleep well.
Bednar had a poor April, but his May, June, July were money.....All Star level. Things have rapidly gone bad in August only. It is his command.....he threw a lot of FB that were uncompetitively wild. Usually he can place a FB above the belt and get swing and miss. But he's been neck high and easy takes.
Yes and no. Thing is that even his FIP and xFIP haven't been good throughout the season. Only one sub 4.00 xFIP month, and only one sub 5.00 FIP month. Even in his "good" months, he was more lucky than good.
He’s probably a good bounce back candidate for next year given how relievers can change from year to year, but man, he has more than contributed to the misery.
With the pathetic excuse for a bench he has to work with, this is one problem that can't be blamed on him. McKinney may help, but then you've got 3-4 starters every day who can't hit to save their lives. With that lineup, they need about four pinch hitters per game and, if McKinney isn't starting, they have one.
The reason I'm trying not to be so harsh on Shelton, kinda hard laying a foundation with a few blocks, several card board boxes and a bucket of shit instead of mortar.
Oh yeah? Well come down here to a couple of the neighborhoods that I have been in when I go to town to do humanitarian work (or whatever it is called). You can build a foundation and a roof with almost anything, including all the items listed above.
Reds score 11 after being down 6-0. Good, set up perfectly for a Skenes shut out.
Reds are ticketed to nowheresville just like this Pirates roster right now. They have more hitting than we do but not a ton and I like our pitching going forward.
There's a few posts below about McKinney. I too thought he won a spot out of ST. Then all he did is go on and hit all season at Indy. Cue the FO bad decision to go with Olivares.....for wayyy too long.
I agree with your conclusion but McKinney was hurt a high percentage of this year. Only had 46 games played in AAA. While Olivares should have been replaced, McKinney was not available to be that replacement for a good portion of the year.
It's hard to care about McKinney. He's 30 on Friday and has a cumulative -0.5 fWAR.
He's coming into his prime! Let him play RF or CF for a month......tbd.
Don't hitters peak at 27?
Cherington goes for the ones who peak at 15.
Joey is 27. McKinney could be in the utility guy mix in '25.
I'm not sure who sucks more.....Shelton for his decisions on a daily basis or BC for just not dumping all the dead weight on the mlb roster and calling up young players to get at bats and pitch some innings. This is truly ridiculous. Bednar at this point should just be put on the IL for some phantom injury. Man he has blown so many games this year and yet Shelton keeps sending him out there in tight games.
If Bednar was on the IL since the trade deadline how many more wins would the team have? 8.59 ERA and 6.16 FIP. 7 ER in 7 appearances. I'm not even certain splits tool is picking up today's L.
He got the loss in 3 games, including one blown save. And he had a second blown save. So that's only 4 games we could have had a W. And I think we've lost 13.
Could German become an option for next year? He has one yoc left.
I forgot he had a YOC left so my easy answer is yes if he can perform like a #5 for the rest of the year. My rationale is easy, I think Ortiz and Falter (unless they crumble) deserve to be ahead of him based on this years performance. With three obvious at the top that gets us to 5. IMO the key depth options all have reasons to question whether they would be ready to break camp. Oviedo off of TJ may need as long as possible re-hab in AAA, Ashcraft has been injured off an on so going to AAA is not a terrible thing, Burrows is starting to look good again but he also may need more AAA innings, and Bubba to me is a dream.. he may pull it off but I think I need to assume he needs more AAA time (I am ignoring any YOC considerations for the purpose of just this exercise). So it seems German if he performs could be the annual (and needed) veteran arm as a #6 / MLB depth. The impossible dream is all 4 of the guys i am starting in AAA crush the end of 2024 and spring training. Also.. i'd say betting odds are at least one of this list could be in a trade package.
Yeah, it's all dependent of course on how he performs the rest of the year, but at the very least you hang on and trade him. It probably makes the most sense to go into spring training with all this potential depth and see how it shakes out. Somebody'll get hurt, not perform, whatever. If there's still access, there's always some team that needs a SP. Just non-tendering him, if he pitches reasonably well, would be wasting an asset.
Definitely on performance, the 40 man should be easy to manage this year, only two locks to be added are Cook and Yorke. Sullivan is the only maybe I can think of, seven coming off plus the 5 that could be added from the 60 day IL (Borucki should come off before seasons end, two if they activate Endy). A few could be non tendered or released.
Again, trade Keller for a 5alented young hitter or two. Pray that German pitches well the rest of 2024 so that he can be traded next spring. Prepare Chandler, Harrington and Burrows for the Majors in 2025. Hope that Ashcraft returns to health, that Ortiz continues to pitch well, that Ovidieo returns to form. Cherrington needs to turn the pitching depth he controls for at least one starting outfielder who can hit for power and average. That's his job. Nutting's job is to increase the budget to accommodate a firstbaseman better than Tellez.
So trade, hope, and pray? Hard pass.
Not sure BC knows how to deal from a position of strength. He has been very strong in the Amateur Draft and on the IFA market. Our strength today, tomorrow, and for the next 5 years will be Pitching. Keller has shown too much character to be traded away . . . his leadership will play up for at least the next few years.
Somebody not related to anyone in the FO, an objective baseball veteran, needs to look at the makeup of this roster and pick about 4 or 5 players who can be used in trade. Yes, it would probably offend many in the clubhouse and many on boards such as this, but a totally objective viewpoint is desperately needed going into this offseason. We have pitching that can be traded, and at least 2 or 3 MI’s. Not sure we can get anything in return for some of the OF’s.
this
trading keller to the orioles or the nationals for an outfielder is the best move we can make
plus that´d give us an extra $15mil to spend this offseason
I don't understand why everyone wants to trade Keller. He has been a consistent starter for 2 1/2 years now. Spend money for hitters!
Your last sentence is why. Never going to happen.
Problem is, you're not going to get an established, 0-3 hitter for a guy owed over $70M. You get either a hitter with a similar salary, or a prospect who's not established yet. And BA's looked at this a couple times and found that veteran for prospects trades virtually never work out for the team getting the prospects.
So Nuttin will have to spend the money anyway, and then may need to spend money to replace Keller. All the pitching prospects are nice, but there's literally no number of pitching prospects that guarantees you not having to add established major leaguers. If you want to win, that is. Literally almost never.
If the idea is to make the team better, the odds would be better trading pitching prospects than trading Keller.
Yep. All you have to do every season is look at how many different pitchers make starts during the year. You need a good bit of depth.
While this is not what I was hoping for (I wanted a playoff race), there are actually a lot of players, particularly starting pitchers, who are pitching for a lot at the end of the season. I could argue everybody I listed other than the 'top 3' and of course Oviedo could significantly alter their standing going into 2025. Ortiz and Falter can gain /lose an almost locked spot. All of those in AAA are trying to prove they actually are ready to fight to break camp come spring. German for all the reasons we discussed. And I didn't even list Harrington. Suspending belief in Ben.. if we just play GM, doesn't there have to be trade in there somewhere given the reality (and lack of realistic targets) in free agency for bats.
I have to think Oviedo will open the season in AAA. He can rehab, I think, for 30 days, and he has an option left.
Rough stretch lately (understatement, I know). Still appreciate this site for cranking out fresh content every day despite knowing maybe less people are checking in daily.
July was a record-setting month page view-wise for the site. This month has been a struggle.
I get it. It's a long season, and it's hard to commit much time and effort to a team that constantly loses.
We are going to keep doing what we are doing. We are doing what we love, watching baseball and talking about what we are seeing. Whether it's a lot of people reading or no one reading.
I have enjoyed the site but am disappointed at some of the commenters. I have enjoyed the comments up until the last couple weeks when it has turned mean-spirited against each other and not just frustration at the teams. I may not continue if bickering becomes the norm. I hate it when a good site's conversations are ruined that way.
Yea, I'll take the blame for it getting out of control without saying something. I did today earlier in here, and will definitely be taking a more active role. Unfortunately that'll cut into some writing time, but if that's what I got to do, it's got to be done.
I'll take a lot of the blame too but also—somewhat in my defense—I'm never on offense or attacking anyone. I'm happy to just talk about baseball even if that's sometimes making fun of the team. It's a team worthy of being made fun of by any metric. You royal you may not _like_ how I talk about baseball and that's fine. When folks come at me personally and call me an f slur, an r slur, an idiot, unhinged, unemployed, etc etc etc, I get defensive and can get nasty.
There was definitely room in the market for Pirates coverage of the caliber you guys are offering.
No doubt
In some ways, we can thank the Pirates for adding more draft content for the future.
We're Pirates fans. We weren't here with expectation of winning.
Well, back to 1 game behind Rangers in tankathon. Tied with Cherington's former employer, Toronto
and with .3% playoff odds, let the tanking begin in earnest.
Problem with tankathon is the long odds (even with 2 not eligible). Real tanking got them tied for the 3rd worst record and we get Skenes. However(I think this more in football), if there are going to be 5 or 6 teams 'competing' for the 6th worst record, please let us not finish with the best record of all of them.
Ben will fail at failing.
Hail king Bednar. Another losing effort that Shelton caused by using him.
Who else should he have used? He just sucks right now.
Yes. Sometimes it really is the players that lose, not the coaches, not the brass, just the players who aren’t able to perform at a high enough level to win.
I would venture to say 90% of the time it's on the player.
As far as Bednar goes he's had a rather bad year starting with the spring training injury and probably rushed a bit. IMHO I think he could benefit by dropping some lbs.
I said it before…too many Paczki in the offseason.
Was hoping we'd get on a roll with winning series. We scored in only 3 of the 27 innings--lots of ugly innings.
Cue the empty-headed postgame babble from Shelton about how they're in a bit of a rough patch and just need to get a few hits to fall. Like having six Mendoza-or-below hitters on the roster has nothing to do with it.
When 16 of 27 outs are strikeouts, it's a little hard to make the case that we just need some balls to drop (though it did occur to me that our best opportunity to score was a passed ball or wild pitch when Bae was on 3rd).
If I find myself with insomnia tonight, think I'm gonna look up how many games post AS break Bucs have outhit the opponent and lost. But I'm hoping I sleep well.
How many games has he blown this year? Of course the offense didn’t score but Bednar has been atrocious overall this year.
Looks like 5 blown saves...and his 6th loss here.
And seems like velocity is still there usually. Just is imminently now hittable this year. Gets squared up so much more often.
Mostly comes down to his command complete dissipated. The stuff still grades out very well
Bednar had a poor April, but his May, June, July were money.....All Star level. Things have rapidly gone bad in August only. It is his command.....he threw a lot of FB that were uncompetitively wild. Usually he can place a FB above the belt and get swing and miss. But he's been neck high and easy takes.
Yes and no. Thing is that even his FIP and xFIP haven't been good throughout the season. Only one sub 4.00 xFIP month, and only one sub 5.00 FIP month. Even in his "good" months, he was more lucky than good.
Yep his HR rate is way up, which again could be a command issue more than his stuff.
He’s probably a good bounce back candidate for next year given how relievers can change from year to year, but man, he has more than contributed to the misery.
The Renegade!
More like The Follower at this point.
ah poop
I would have walked Jung after the SB to set up the the force, but it worked.
This is exactly how you'd think a 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates game would go
Shelton emptying the clip, after getting 6 from German, and they still ain't doing anything lol
Where's Hannah Gutierrez-Reed when you need her.
Getting thrown under the bus by Alec Baldwin, prolly
my faith in humanity is restored by that one like, lol
With the pathetic excuse for a bench he has to work with, this is one problem that can't be blamed on him. McKinney may help, but then you've got 3-4 starters every day who can't hit to save their lives. With that lineup, they need about four pinch hitters per game and, if McKinney isn't starting, they have one.
String together some hits… boom, the rally runs into Jared Triolo.
The reason I'm trying not to be so harsh on Shelton, kinda hard laying a foundation with a few blocks, several card board boxes and a bucket of shit instead of mortar.
Oh yeah? Well come down here to a couple of the neighborhoods that I have been in when I go to town to do humanitarian work (or whatever it is called). You can build a foundation and a roof with almost anything, including all the items listed above.
and then the bloop off Bednar after the error to begin his inning. Lower it.
Good thing Rowdy was at 1b and not Joe, otherwise runner on 2b and he might've scored right there.