“Got to cash in [on] situational hitting,” said Isiah Kiner-Falefa. “I think we've just got to do the little things better."
I can't believe the BS spewing from a team that's batting .184. Here's a really radical, alternative solution: Try batting way tf better than .184.
This kind of prattle is a measure of just how low Birdbrain and Dumbo have set the bar for the Cheringtons. The problem isn't that they're batting .184, it's that they just haven't done a few little things better. The losing culture is so strong and pervasive on this team that it infects new guys the moment they arrive.
Glad I missed it. I won't be watching the replay. I haven't really understood the Mlod experiment and I simply don't get why BC is still the GM or Shelton the MGR. I don't think I've ever written off a team this early in the season but it's hard to see any hope with this futile an offense. Two - two - players over the Mendoza line in the lineup. I've never seen anything like it.
I’ll be interested to see what the attendance will be tomorrow. It’s a Skenes start, but it’s against the Nats on a Monday night in April with the Pirates playing horrible baseball.
so I listened to beginning of sherrington show on replay and wanted to amend what i said . I missed Brown asking him to comment on Pham's "veteran presence" and cherington said it was "exactly what we hoped for "
So I moved to Colorado last year. While never abandoning the Pirates I always follow the local team to get a perspective on the Bucs and to satisfy my love of baseball.
What’s crazy is that the Rockies may be worse than the Pirates. They can’t hit either. They have Kris Bryant, who has done almost literally nothing with the $170 million or so dollars they threw at him. And they don’t have Paul Skenes, though Chase Dollander looks promising.
The Rockies are 3-11 and are down 5-0 to the Padres today. They have yet to score in the series, losing the first two games 8-0 and 2-0.
And you know what everyone says? They have one of the nicest stadiums in baseball!
Everyone wants to pin the cause of the precipitous fall in batting averages over the last 7-10 years on the improvement in pitching with the increasing velocities., and this certainly has something to do with it. There are just not many people hard-wired to react in time to a 98 MPH fastball.
However, the drop in batting averages has coincided with a league-wide movement to get hitters to pull the ball as much as possible and an obsession with exit velocities. I don't think that it is a coincidence that batting averages dropped immediately once the statcast era had begun.
If the Pirates (and Rockies) were smart, they would zig while everyone else zags. Yes, you still want to acquire power wherever possible, but finding good contact hitters and letting them be good contact hitters, instead of trying to get them to hit the ball harder all the time might be the way to go... the new inefficiency.
I don't know if this is the answer or not, but at this point I'd like then to try something, anything different from the same old thing. It might fail worse than what they're doing but at least it would show some effort and creativity
No team in the history of professional baseball has failed so badly at developing hitters as the Cherington-led Pirates. You cannot do worse. It cannot get worse.
The only 2 players on the Pirates' 40-man roster right now who were drafted or signed by Cherington and then developed by the Pirates are Gonzalez and Davis. Davis will be DFAed by July, and the verdict is still out on Gonzalez. It would be nigh impossible for monkeys on typewrites generating random draft picks and hiring random people off the street to produce a worse outcome.
With Skenes pitching twice, and possibly Keller too if they switch to a 5-man rotation, it seems like they need to go at least 4-3 on this homestand.
Worse than that? We'll probably just hear more of Cherington's babble about respecting the length of the season (this from the same person who claimed a sense of urgency every day).
Sure some players are injured but this is the worst hitting team ever assembled.
I think the pirates need better international scouts. They tend to sign athletes that can't hit i.e Campagna and Polanco just to name two. You could probably add everyone signed after Marte. Why does every other team succeed with signing young hitters but the pirates?
I believe that after today's 2-hit performance they have surpassed the 1884 St. Paul Saints to become the 2nd worst hitting professional baseball team to ever take the field. Another performance like this tomorrow, and they will pass the 1884 Wilmington Quicksteppers as the worst-hitting professional baseball team in the history of the sport.
Pretty much as I expected. Nothing was done in the off season to improve the roster so why expect different results? You can make a case that the roster is actually worse than last year by having pham and Frazier on the roster and not having Chapman in the pen.
In a shocking development, unforeseeable, unknowable... Mlod runs into trouble after 4 innings when having to face the lineup a 3rd time. And Shelton brings in Joey Wentz to face the best hitter on the Reds with 2 men on because it is the 5th inning.
Then in the postgame, after the Pirates lose 8-1, he will explain how Mlod and Wentz just needed to execute better pitches.
Only the players are held to the standard of executing. The coaches aren't, the FO isn't, the president isn't. The owner isn't either, but then he's the owner. Just once I'd like to hear Shelton acknowledge that he didn't put a player in the best position to succeed, or Cherington acknowledge that he needed to have done more to build depth, or Williams acknowledge that fan experience depends more than anything on the quality of the team (did he attend a game in 2013?).
BTW, Eno Sarris, the very good baseball data guy with the Athletic, did an article the other day on the biggest gaps between stuff and results in the early going. The largest gap? Luis Ortiz. But Mlod checked in on the list as well.
“Got to cash in [on] situational hitting,” said Isiah Kiner-Falefa. “I think we've just got to do the little things better."
I can't believe the BS spewing from a team that's batting .184. Here's a really radical, alternative solution: Try batting way tf better than .184.
This kind of prattle is a measure of just how low Birdbrain and Dumbo have set the bar for the Cheringtons. The problem isn't that they're batting .184, it's that they just haven't done a few little things better. The losing culture is so strong and pervasive on this team that it infects new guys the moment they arrive.
Glad I missed it. I won't be watching the replay. I haven't really understood the Mlod experiment and I simply don't get why BC is still the GM or Shelton the MGR. I don't think I've ever written off a team this early in the season but it's hard to see any hope with this futile an offense. Two - two - players over the Mendoza line in the lineup. I've never seen anything like it.
There's no reason to get excited about a team that just sent a batting order out there with three major league hitters.
Now, if there were four, that'd be really exciting for a Cherington team.
That seems to be happening in today's game against the Nats. Perhaps more like 3.5, depending on how you really want to grade Hayes.
I’ll be interested to see what the attendance will be tomorrow. It’s a Skenes start, but it’s against the Nats on a Monday night in April with the Pirates playing horrible baseball.
so I listened to beginning of sherrington show on replay and wanted to amend what i said . I missed Brown asking him to comment on Pham's "veteran presence" and cherington said it was "exactly what we hoped for "
Where can one tune into this?
It’s being re-broadcast on Comedy Central.
So I moved to Colorado last year. While never abandoning the Pirates I always follow the local team to get a perspective on the Bucs and to satisfy my love of baseball.
What’s crazy is that the Rockies may be worse than the Pirates. They can’t hit either. They have Kris Bryant, who has done almost literally nothing with the $170 million or so dollars they threw at him. And they don’t have Paul Skenes, though Chase Dollander looks promising.
The Rockies are 3-11 and are down 5-0 to the Padres today. They have yet to score in the series, losing the first two games 8-0 and 2-0.
And you know what everyone says? They have one of the nicest stadiums in baseball!
Everyone wants to pin the cause of the precipitous fall in batting averages over the last 7-10 years on the improvement in pitching with the increasing velocities., and this certainly has something to do with it. There are just not many people hard-wired to react in time to a 98 MPH fastball.
However, the drop in batting averages has coincided with a league-wide movement to get hitters to pull the ball as much as possible and an obsession with exit velocities. I don't think that it is a coincidence that batting averages dropped immediately once the statcast era had begun.
If the Pirates (and Rockies) were smart, they would zig while everyone else zags. Yes, you still want to acquire power wherever possible, but finding good contact hitters and letting them be good contact hitters, instead of trying to get them to hit the ball harder all the time might be the way to go... the new inefficiency.
Oh…just hit for as much power as other teams and get more balls in play. So simple.
I don't know if this is the answer or not, but at this point I'd like then to try something, anything different from the same old thing. It might fail worse than what they're doing but at least it would show some effort and creativity
No team in the history of professional baseball has failed so badly at developing hitters as the Cherington-led Pirates. You cannot do worse. It cannot get worse.
famous last words.....
Haha, I used to think Dave Littlefield was the worst GM who could ever be. Oops.
The only 2 players on the Pirates' 40-man roster right now who were drafted or signed by Cherington and then developed by the Pirates are Gonzalez and Davis. Davis will be DFAed by July, and the verdict is still out on Gonzalez. It would be nigh impossible for monkeys on typewrites generating random draft picks and hiring random people off the street to produce a worse outcome.
“Davis will be DFA’ed by July.”
That’s aggressive pronouncement. I don’t think they give up on him that easily.
I, for one, cannot believe replacing Andy Haines with Matt Hague didn’t magically fix everything
How do you even grade Hague if this is what he's working with? Reynolds, Cruz and IKF are the only proven major league hitters in the bunch.
With Skenes pitching twice, and possibly Keller too if they switch to a 5-man rotation, it seems like they need to go at least 4-3 on this homestand.
Worse than that? We'll probably just hear more of Cherington's babble about respecting the length of the season (this from the same person who claimed a sense of urgency every day).
Sure some players are injured but this is the worst hitting team ever assembled.
I think the pirates need better international scouts. They tend to sign athletes that can't hit i.e Campagna and Polanco just to name two. You could probably add everyone signed after Marte. Why does every other team succeed with signing young hitters but the pirates?
I believe that after today's 2-hit performance they have surpassed the 1884 St. Paul Saints to become the 2nd worst hitting professional baseball team to ever take the field. Another performance like this tomorrow, and they will pass the 1884 Wilmington Quicksteppers as the worst-hitting professional baseball team in the history of the sport.
Batting .184. Who will fall below the Cherington Line first, Phamine or the Cheringtons?
Well ladies and gentlemen how are we liking our 2025 version of the Titanic otherwise known as the Pittsburgh pirates?
Pretty much as I expected. Nothing was done in the off season to improve the roster so why expect different results? You can make a case that the roster is actually worse than last year by having pham and Frazier on the roster and not having Chapman in the pen.
thata baby
wentz managing high stress situations
He threw 4 straight cutters right down broadway. Against an actual major-league hitter, it would be 8-0.
Sunday Night Massacre on way home to Pittsburgh:
* Shelton out; Kelly acting
* Bubba up, Mlod to back end of Bullpen; Mayza out
* Yorke up, Suwinsky down
* Solak up, Frazier out
Rather Bubba replace falter and allow Harrington to piggyback Mlod on a shorter leash
would like to see Bowen or Siani instead of Solak
Send Endy down too.
He’s gotta go home on that throw. Runner would’ve been out by a mile
In a shocking development, unforeseeable, unknowable... Mlod runs into trouble after 4 innings when having to face the lineup a 3rd time. And Shelton brings in Joey Wentz to face the best hitter on the Reds with 2 men on because it is the 5th inning.
Then in the postgame, after the Pirates lose 8-1, he will explain how Mlod and Wentz just needed to execute better pitches.
Only the players are held to the standard of executing. The coaches aren't, the FO isn't, the president isn't. The owner isn't either, but then he's the owner. Just once I'd like to hear Shelton acknowledge that he didn't put a player in the best position to succeed, or Cherington acknowledge that he needed to have done more to build depth, or Williams acknowledge that fan experience depends more than anything on the quality of the team (did he attend a game in 2013?).
Cruz just ran down and caught a ball in center. He made it look easy. I don;t think every center fielder would have gotten to that ball. Good to see.
just saw it again. He got a slow read and break, but made up for it with his speed.
Ballgame.
Shelton even knows it--playing the infield in in the 3rd? Not exactly a vote of confidence for his lineup.
They should be playing in during warmups.
BTW, Eno Sarris, the very good baseball data guy with the Athletic, did an article the other day on the biggest gaps between stuff and results in the early going. The largest gap? Luis Ortiz. But Mlod checked in on the list as well.
Greene is too much for the pirates minor leaguers
Reynolds seems to be seeing him well at least
He’s not a minor leaguer.