152 Comments

I’m in agreement with several earlier- guarantee if Bellinger comes up in the bottom of the 9th with less than 2 out with a chance to walk it off the game is over. Reynolds has to be able to get a ball in the air at minimum. A squibbler in front of the plate is not what a $15 million dollar player is paid to do in that spot. We need more from the guys who are being paid to produce

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Enough of this nonsense about the major league team. Am I the only one who didn’t know that Miguel Escotto is batting .383 with an OPS over 1.000? And he’s still only 21!?! Is there still a glimmer of light in the Taillon trade?

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It shouldn't take 40 games to realize the Tellez signing was a mistake. You cut bait, eat the cash and try to find an upgrade. But a real organization would never have signed Tellez. This buying cheap and dreaming big is a Nickles smoke screen to hide the obvious: the man ain't gonna spend what is necessary to compete. And as far as Bob Huhnenscheisse Nutting is concerned, Huhnenscheisse ist was Huhnenscheisse macht.

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I don’t speak German but I get the drift. And subscribe.

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When Shelton goes into his obligatory postgame babbling about key hits and missed opportunities, it’d be nice if someone would ask him whether penciling in Tellez and his automatic oh-fer most days isn’t a missed opportunity. That’s four ABs he could have given to somebody who, unlike Tellez, might have done something useful. It’s easy to pick on Grandal as the goat, but the impact of that daily oh-fer gets lost in the more obvious dramatic moments.

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The Cubs were ripping the ball hard all day... 100 MPH exit-velocity line drives and flyballs left and right... up and down the lineup. The Pirates were lucky they weren't pounded 10-2 today. These 2 teams are not in the same class.

The only way that the Pirates can steal games from these good teams is high-grade pitching, good defense, and good baserunning. Nice to see Suwinski doing this things today, but one guy out of 13 isn't close to enough. They need that from all 13, including the catcher position. Grandal was awful this series, and that type of play is unacceptable.

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There’s literally no level of awfulness that’s unacceptable to Cherington or Shelton.

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I still just can't believe that Sanchez was out there for the taking at 3 million, and the Pirates just waved him off. They were in a big hurry to sign Tellez for some reason too. He probably would have been available on a split deal when spring training opened.

This off-season was a complete disaster. We all knew it, watching it throughout, but it is even harder watching it play out during the season as the Pirates burn years of control on Cruz, Jones, and Skenes with Reynolds and Keller each one year closer to aging out of their primes.

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If you are looking for a reason about signing Tellez I bet it was the “success” he had while having Haines as his hitting coach in Milwaukee……

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Yep. He fits Cherington's profile too of being noted for seeing a lot of pitches. That seems to override all other criteria in their player evaluations and is the reason for many of his poor free agent acquisitions, as well as his good ones, like Vogelbach and Joe.

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Another winnable series lost due to poor play and poor management. Good teams don't do this

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It’s so true. The difference between a playoff team and an also ran is winning almost all of the games you’re supposed to win. This is yet another win turned into a loss because of an inability to make the right play.

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To the point I always make in here about payroll allocation and their approach to free agency:

You could replace Chapman with a waiver wire claim making league minimum, Grandal with Delay, Tellez with literally anyone making league minimum who can play competent defense, and you’ve saved yourself $14 million and you have the same record. Or maybe even a better record.

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Funny enough, if there's a way for Ben to lose his job, it's probably wasting Bob's money on an incompetent player to the tune of $10.5M, on top of the other bad players.

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I don’t long for Austin Hedges or anything, but after all the emphasis on catcher defense, I’m frustrated that Grandal was the vet we chose to go with.

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That home run by Joe almost makes it worse. If Grandal had bothered himself enough to have caught that pitch the game would still be tied but nope just too much effort needed.

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Grandal single-handily posted a 1-2 record this weekend. Crucial crucial play in each game.

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rally killer

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The Pirates are a circus act called, Ben Cherington's Follies.

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What a wretched team this chump GM has taken five years to assemble.

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I can't invest any more time on this game, lol.

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This start a guy on second rule totally slows down the pace of the game.

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That and the Pirates hitters pathetic lack of ability to score runs with less then two outs, lol.

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Kyle Nicolas inherits a 3-0 count. I'm betting a walk on my sports book.

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A mere walk would've been great

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-1,000,000?

Bet a million to win a dollar.

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Nicholas back on the horse.

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We are seeing the downside of a 6 man rotation when you lose a reliever.

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We are seeing the downside of a management team with no balls. Make the tough decisions and go with a 5 man rotation.

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Yes. This 6-man rotation thing will last about a week and a half until they realize that they don't have enough available relievers every game. Anyone with a brain knows that now, but it will take them 10 days to figure it out.

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Manicure

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