Gotta use a challenge in the 11th on the wild pitch. Looked like we wanted to appeal but were too late. The winning run doesn't score if it hit the players helmet. The ball seemed to change direction.....I think our coaches effed up there.
The bunting a runner from second to third has to stop when we're down by one. The Pirates can't afford to be giving up an out like that, and playing for the tie! Our hitters are weak, we need to actually try to hit the baseball without being down to only 2 outs. Shelty ball needs to stop and be banned. Kelly needs to stop Rabelo from calling the contact play. It's game 2, I hope to see changes in the very near future.
The contact play with a runner on 3rd has to be a mandate from the front office (because there is no getting rid of it, it seems) and probably cost them more runs than any other stupid thing they do.
At his press conference the other day, Cherington said that analysis shows that the Pirates are OK at baserunning (and defense). No Ben... the metrics, which are available to the public, show what anyone who watches this team can see plain as day. The Pirates are, by far, the worst baserunning team in baseball and lead the league by a wide maring in Tootblans.
That was a really outrageous comment by Cherington. Why state something that can be demonstrated to be totally false with two minutes of on-line research?
The biggest concern is that Cherington always cites their internal metrics, but if we have analysts worth anything it's probably past time for them to take a critical look at those internal metrics as they rarely seem consistent with publicly available metrics or with our eye tests. My guess is that Cherington's arrogance will prevent that from happening.
The Pirates lead all baseball in OOB, despite being in the top 8 teams in steal percentage and league average in CS. They have the fewest extra bases taken with 17. The next lowest are the Angles with 23. They have made the most Outs at Home. So, despite being good... actually... at stealing bases and taking the fewest extra bases on flyballs, wild pitches, etc... in all of baseball, they still lead all of baseball in Tootblans. That is not bad baserunning. That is awful baserunning.... like historically bad.
That includes stolen bases as part of the baserunning metrics. Take away the stolen bases, and just treat baserunning as a separate category, and they are off-the-charts bad.
Just more Cherington Horror Stats. Never in their wildest dreams could Littlefield or Huntington have imagined failure on the level Cherington reaches on a daily basis. He’d have to improve a thousand times over to be merely a bad GM.
Actually with yesterday's offensive surge, the Rockies have moved ahead of the Pirates in run per game... making the Pirates the worst offensive team in baseball.
Maybe in Colorado, they are saying, "It could be worse. Our offense could be as bad as the Pirates."
They've given up 63 runs in the last 5 games, which is hard to believe even in their ballpark. Shame we don't play each other anytime soon because it would be interesting to see if our poor offense or their awful pitching would win out. I'd bet on our offense, which says it all about their pitching.
I read an article about them the other day. They have never really used much analytics of any kind. They only had 1 person doing analytics up until recently. The principle owner's kid is making a lot of baseball decisions. They rarely hire anyone from outside the organization.
It would be as if a couple random fans started a baseball team and ran it for 30 years without any reference to what everyone else in baseball was doing.
That's doesn't seem like a very good business model. Reminds me of a story I heard, a pro football owner who drafted a player in the first round because he really liked a stage photo of the player.
I had the same thought, unless you’d want to keep Cruz at shortstop over Taveras.
What’s insane is that after Stennett’s seventh hit, guess who they brought in to close out the game at second? September call-up Willie Randolph. That’s how much talent they had back then. They were so slap happy with their depth that they decided to throw in Randolph in the Dock Ellis for Doc Medich trade with the Yankees that winter.
Randolph was a 5.0 WAR player for the Yankees in 1976 at the age of 21 and went on to accumulate 65.9 WAR in his career. He had a borderline Hall of Fame case, though no one recognized it.
I wrote some articles long ago, doubt I could even find them now, about where their players came from back in the day. The farm system was a juggernaut and, despite a couple blips, they made good trades, too. The farce we’re seeing now is totally avoidable.
I live in Colorado. The Rockies situation is beyond belief. Pending the bottom of the ninth they have been outscored 55-12 in their last *four* games, including losing a doubleheader to the Tigers 11-1 and 10-2. Their starting pitcher the other day was tearing up in the post-game press conference. They are about to be 6-33.
I read an article the other day about them (written in 2022 or therebouts). The subject was the ownership group (and the rampant nepotism in the organization... the principle owners' son is one of the senior people making baseball decisions despite no background in the sport). They are very insular, and other people in baseball say that their front office is strange and hard to deal with on trades and so forth.
Speaking of not hitting, the Pirates have scored four or fewer runs in 16 consecutive games. The all-time club record is 17 games, set in 1908. (That team had Honus Wagner in his prime). [Thanks to the P-G for this info.]
With Chris Sale going tomorrow, I would bet on a record tying performance.
They just can’t hit. It’s really hard for me to understand how the offense can be this bad. They wasted a great day from the bullpen.
I’m trying to think of a Pirates team that has been this inept offensively in my lifetime. The one I came up with was the 85 team —- the last gasp of Tanner and the absolute nadir between the great teams of the 70s and the Bonds, Bonilla, Van Slyke teams. Tony Pena led the team in WAR at 3.5, but most of that was defense as his OPS+ was underwater, along with pretty much the entire starting lineup. This was the year they traded John Tudor for Joggin’ George Hendrick, who turned out to be the 1985 version of Tommy Pham.
Plus the drug scandals. A total shit show. Thrift and Leyland took over the next year, Bonds came up in June, and in a little over a year they got back to being relevant.
I’m really warming up to a lengthy lockout in 2027. It would be a relief to have no Pirates baseball for a season. I miss the days when the organization wasn’t such a laughingstock
I am, if they figure out a more equitable way to share revenue. Or a way to keep top players like Skenes and Cruz to stay in Pittsburgh. There are so many parts of the game that can be improved...... but I get what you are saying about taking a break for a year.
If Cruz is hurt, pretty much have to bring up Horwitz and put Gorski in CF, no? He's probably not ready, but neither Yorke nor Cook is doing squat either. I suppose you could hope Solak has figured it out at age 30, but can he play anywhere other than RF?
I may be the sole member of the Bae fan club. He was a bad fit with Shelton but maybe Kelly can bring out the best in him without the mistakes from being overly aggressive.
Goes back out into the field and tries to play hurt on a team that is 14 games below .500. Can we finally put to bed the talk that he is lazy or selfish or whatever. Kid has heart, and he cares.
Want to hear something amazing? The Pirates actually hit better with runners in scoring position than they do without (.233 BA and .680 OPS vs. .218 BA and .625 OPS in general). So when Shelton or Don say that guys are pressing or "trying to do too much" to excuse their inability to drive in runners in scoring position, it is not true. It is just that the whole team cannot hit in any situation. We just notice more when there are runners in scoring position than we do when they go down 1-2-3.
The truth is, every single discussion point about this club is completely pointless except one: Birdbrain has done a horrible job of assembling talent. Until they replace 50-75% of this roster with major league players, it's all just rearranging deck chairs.
Gee... the Braves seem to understand that you can't send the runner on 3rd on any ball hit to a drawn-in infield. Wonder why, after years, the Pirates have not figured that out.
Gotta use a challenge in the 11th on the wild pitch. Looked like we wanted to appeal but were too late. The winning run doesn't score if it hit the players helmet. The ball seemed to change direction.....I think our coaches effed up there.
Rabelo had to make the call, so if you've been concerned about his quick reactions as 3B coach, this should reinforce that concern.
We probably lead MLB with 3 games lost by wild pitch. Bednar has the other two.
The bunting a runner from second to third has to stop when we're down by one. The Pirates can't afford to be giving up an out like that, and playing for the tie! Our hitters are weak, we need to actually try to hit the baseball without being down to only 2 outs. Shelty ball needs to stop and be banned. Kelly needs to stop Rabelo from calling the contact play. It's game 2, I hope to see changes in the very near future.
The contact play with a runner on 3rd has to be a mandate from the front office (because there is no getting rid of it, it seems) and probably cost them more runs than any other stupid thing they do.
At his press conference the other day, Cherington said that analysis shows that the Pirates are OK at baserunning (and defense). No Ben... the metrics, which are available to the public, show what anyone who watches this team can see plain as day. The Pirates are, by far, the worst baserunning team in baseball and lead the league by a wide maring in Tootblans.
That was a really outrageous comment by Cherington. Why state something that can be demonstrated to be totally false with two minutes of on-line research?
The biggest concern is that Cherington always cites their internal metrics, but if we have analysts worth anything it's probably past time for them to take a critical look at those internal metrics as they rarely seem consistent with publicly available metrics or with our eye tests. My guess is that Cherington's arrogance will prevent that from happening.
The Pirates lead all baseball in OOB, despite being in the top 8 teams in steal percentage and league average in CS. They have the fewest extra bases taken with 17. The next lowest are the Angles with 23. They have made the most Outs at Home. So, despite being good... actually... at stealing bases and taking the fewest extra bases on flyballs, wild pitches, etc... in all of baseball, they still lead all of baseball in Tootblans. That is not bad baserunning. That is awful baserunning.... like historically bad.
By FG’s baserunning runs, they rank 29th, so they’re not THAT bad. Lol.
That includes stolen bases as part of the baserunning metrics. Take away the stolen bases, and just treat baserunning as a separate category, and they are off-the-charts bad.
Just more Cherington Horror Stats. Never in their wildest dreams could Littlefield or Huntington have imagined failure on the level Cherington reaches on a daily basis. He’d have to improve a thousand times over to be merely a bad GM.
It could be worse, we could root for the Rockies
Actually with yesterday's offensive surge, the Rockies have moved ahead of the Pirates in run per game... making the Pirates the worst offensive team in baseball.
Maybe in Colorado, they are saying, "It could be worse. Our offense could be as bad as the Pirates."
True but their pitching is potentially historically awful combined with their offense.
They've given up 63 runs in the last 5 games, which is hard to believe even in their ballpark. Shame we don't play each other anytime soon because it would be interesting to see if our poor offense or their awful pitching would win out. I'd bet on our offense, which says it all about their pitching.
"It could be worse. We could run the bases as badly as the Pirates?"
"It could be worse. We could be as bad as the Pirates in the field?"
It could be worse, we could have lost half the games we actually won and be as bad as the Rockies
I read an article about them the other day. They have never really used much analytics of any kind. They only had 1 person doing analytics up until recently. The principle owner's kid is making a lot of baseball decisions. They rarely hire anyone from outside the organization.
It would be as if a couple random fans started a baseball team and ran it for 30 years without any reference to what everyone else in baseball was doing.
That’s as bad as the Jets making decisions based on Madden ratings.
That's doesn't seem like a very good business model. Reminds me of a story I heard, a pro football owner who drafted a player in the first round because he really liked a stage photo of the player.
They're down 3 touchdowns tonight!
They at least have the certainty of knowing that they'll be drafting at pick 10 in 2026, after potentially having the worst record in mlb history.
If you're going to be bad, be historically awful.
That's my motto. I live by it every day... lol.
One more thing: the Pirates beat the Cubs 22-0 in September 1975. That was the game that Rennie Stennett went 7-7.
The Pirates lineup that day:
2B Stennett
3B Hebner
CF Oliver
1B Stargell
RF Parker
LF Zisk
C Sanguillen
SS Taveras
P Candelaria
How the mighty have fallen.
The Cheringtons literally don’t have a single player who’d start for that team.
I had the same thought, unless you’d want to keep Cruz at shortstop over Taveras.
What’s insane is that after Stennett’s seventh hit, guess who they brought in to close out the game at second? September call-up Willie Randolph. That’s how much talent they had back then. They were so slap happy with their depth that they decided to throw in Randolph in the Dock Ellis for Doc Medich trade with the Yankees that winter.
Randolph was a 5.0 WAR player for the Yankees in 1976 at the age of 21 and went on to accumulate 65.9 WAR in his career. He had a borderline Hall of Fame case, though no one recognized it.
I wrote some articles long ago, doubt I could even find them now, about where their players came from back in the day. The farm system was a juggernaut and, despite a couple blips, they made good trades, too. The farce we’re seeing now is totally avoidable.
Jacob Stallings went two innings of one-run ball with a strikeout.
I live in Colorado. The Rockies situation is beyond belief. Pending the bottom of the ninth they have been outscored 55-12 in their last *four* games, including losing a doubleheader to the Tigers 11-1 and 10-2. Their starting pitcher the other day was tearing up in the post-game press conference. They are about to be 6-33.
I read an article the other day about them (written in 2022 or therebouts). The subject was the ownership group (and the rampant nepotism in the organization... the principle owners' son is one of the senior people making baseball decisions despite no background in the sport). They are very insular, and other people in baseball say that their front office is strange and hard to deal with on trades and so forth.
Yes. Probably the same article where it said they had front office staff doubling as clubbies and the analytics guys doing the teams laundry.
The GM just gave Bud Black a vote of confidence before this game. Said players are still playing hard for him. Oops.
Speaking of not hitting, the Pirates have scored four or fewer runs in 16 consecutive games. The all-time club record is 17 games, set in 1908. (That team had Honus Wagner in his prime). [Thanks to the P-G for this info.]
With Chris Sale going tomorrow, I would bet on a record tying performance.
They just can’t hit. It’s really hard for me to understand how the offense can be this bad. They wasted a great day from the bullpen.
I’m trying to think of a Pirates team that has been this inept offensively in my lifetime. The one I came up with was the 85 team —- the last gasp of Tanner and the absolute nadir between the great teams of the 70s and the Bonds, Bonilla, Van Slyke teams. Tony Pena led the team in WAR at 3.5, but most of that was defense as his OPS+ was underwater, along with pretty much the entire starting lineup. This was the year they traded John Tudor for Joggin’ George Hendrick, who turned out to be the 1985 version of Tommy Pham.
Plus the drug scandals. A total shit show. Thrift and Leyland took over the next year, Bonds came up in June, and in a little over a year they got back to being relevant.
I’m really warming up to a lengthy lockout in 2027. It would be a relief to have no Pirates baseball for a season. I miss the days when the organization wasn’t such a laughingstock
I am, if they figure out a more equitable way to share revenue. Or a way to keep top players like Skenes and Cruz to stay in Pittsburgh. There are so many parts of the game that can be improved...... but I get what you are saying about taking a break for a year.
So the problem wasn’t Shelton. Who’d have thought?
Oh he was a problem.
Same old same old
If Cruz is hurt, pretty much have to bring up Horwitz and put Gorski in CF, no? He's probably not ready, but neither Yorke nor Cook is doing squat either. I suppose you could hope Solak has figured it out at age 30, but can he play anywhere other than RF?
IOW, they'll bring back Suwinski for the LH bat.
Bae can play CF until Horwitz is ready, and then a Bae/Gorski platoon could work.
Canario played there once for this team already. The Sunday line up is gonna be scary 😱.
"Can" and "should" are different things.
I may be the sole member of the Bae fan club. He was a bad fit with Shelton but maybe Kelly can bring out the best in him without the mistakes from being overly aggressive.
The Billy cook fan club petitions for his promotions
Good news: Billy Cook is 3 for his last 8.
Bad news: Billy Cook is 5 for his last 30.
Goes back out into the field and tries to play hurt on a team that is 14 games below .500. Can we finally put to bed the talk that he is lazy or selfish or whatever. Kid has heart, and he cares.
2-18 with RiSP. What a bunch of scrubs.
All that bad luck!
Want to hear something amazing? The Pirates actually hit better with runners in scoring position than they do without (.233 BA and .680 OPS vs. .218 BA and .625 OPS in general). So when Shelton or Don say that guys are pressing or "trying to do too much" to excuse their inability to drive in runners in scoring position, it is not true. It is just that the whole team cannot hit in any situation. We just notice more when there are runners in scoring position than we do when they go down 1-2-3.
The truth is, every single discussion point about this club is completely pointless except one: Birdbrain has done a horrible job of assembling talent. Until they replace 50-75% of this roster with major league players, it's all just rearranging deck chairs.
And, yes, take a third strike there. It’s the Cherington thing to do,
Eh, I can't get down on Peggy too much for that. It was a ball. He's a rookie.
He’s not a rookie. Went well past eligibility in 2023.
Also, needs to swing if it’s close in that spot.
Well... at least he didn't swing at a borderline pitch and make... gasp... soft contact.
Crucial to get the guy to third since the Cheringtons are last in MLB in SFs.
Sure would be nice to have a few LH bats in this lineup
Or just bats.
Well... he may not hit very well... but you have to admit that Peguero looks a little like a young Barry Bonds with that stache he has going.
I didn't even recognize him. My daughter thought he looked like Carlton.
No problem. Our next 3 hitters have OPSes of .452, .334 and .486.
I didn’t realize it was mandatory to have 3 pitchers hitting?
Tough way to lose a game, throwing a wild pitch behind the batters head!!! Only the Pirates
Gee... the Braves seem to understand that you can't send the runner on 3rd on any ball hit to a drawn-in infield. Wonder why, after years, the Pirates have not figured that out.
It’s all those baserunning drills they stopped doing in March.