Nick Gonzales graduated from prospect status today. Some people had him off due to service time already, but he only surpassed 130 at-bats today. We used that mark only for hitters in the 2024 Minor League Guide (Priester was in the same situation this year)
I actuallly think the six man might be smart in the future, but you need to prepare for it. Meaning starters need to average 14% more pitches and your bullpen needs to be made up of multiple inning guys. Maybe next year when some of the guys like Burrows, German, Oviedo and Marco are back...... or when some of the youngsters gets called up out of Harrington, Solometo and Bubba. You just can't decide on a 6 man and try it out, you need to prepare for it.
I am so frustrated with this organization that I'm always half serious. I was being flippant when I made my comment but after reading yours I think I was half right, lol. This type of rotation seems it would be better for power pitchers then control pitchers. It seems they need to come up with better side sessions for guys like Martin, Perez and Falter to keep them sharp.
Mike Elias is the model. He was hired in November 2018. Drafted Adley Rutschnan with the #1 overall pick in 2019. You can say that was a no brainer pick, but he didn’t get cute. In year 4 they win 83 games. In year 5 they win 101. And the Orioles still have one of the strongest farm systems in baseball despite multiple graduations to the majors.
Elias went to Yale, by the way. So the Ivy League/New England elite school model can work. But you have to pick the right guy.
Elias did it right though. Stripped it down to the studs. Cherington, OTOH, moved some deck chairs around, made a few trades, and hired a guy from a team who couldn’t develop prospects to run player development and he’s trying to pass that off as a full scale rebuild.
I think it is important to keep in mind also that the situation that Elias and Mejdal inherited in Baltimore was far, far worse than the situation in Pittsburgh. Cherington has been an abject failure. 4 years of tanking, and the entire system from the majors on down, with the exception of Skenes, is in worse shape than what he inherited.
Yes. I don’t believe the Orioles even had an analytics department. And we had a little more talent than when he took over too. (I believe the prior regime traded Machado?)
Regarding Skenes he doesn’t really deserve credit for that. To quote Brian Burke, they won a lottery.
And for the 7th time in 9 years as the boss, GMBC's team is in last place, and for the 8th time in 9 years, GMBC's team has a losing record. Explain to me again how this incompetent grifter has a job.
And my frustration isn't even with Cherington showing himself to not be up to the task but that we have a president and owner who are unlikely to require accountability. We'll see--Nutting said that he expected the team to contend this year and with most professional sports teams, big changes are made when a management team fails to meet the owner's expectations. Instead, I expect a token change like replacing Haines and we'll get much of the same next year.
I've long thought this Pirates rebuild would be a lot like the 76ers rebuild in the NBA and less like the Astros rebuild. Intentional tanks almost never succeed with the original tank commanders. You will see a significant FO and coaching turnover before the whole thing pays off.
It makes sense. Intentional tanking is far from a sign of organizational health, after all.
Any job that I ever had working for other people, there were expectations. The consequence for not meeting expectations was not a contract extension, a gift of expensive bourbon, and a pat on the back. Holding people to account is on ownership, and the lack of accounability and discipline throughout the Pirates' organization begins and ends with Bob Nutting and his I don't give a damn attitude.
One thing I took some comfort in when we hired Cherington, despite how he seemed to have botched a good thing in Boston, was that some in the industry said he was a Huntington-clone. At the time I thought if we could get Huntington without the loyalty to Stark, we might be in good shape.
By year four (2011) of Huntington's term you could feel things turning. Of course we had the back-to-back collapses in '11 and '12, but we were in contention at the trade deadline each of those seasons. It does not feel like we're anywhere near contention now and I'm starting to think that Cherington is nowhere near as competent as Huntington was.
Awww, there's still time for the team to improve enough to have a Collapsening.
I mean, about three or four more bats would have to appear out of nowhere. But NickGon is starting looking potentially viable. That's one. Maybe Tellez will tear something.
Huntington caught part of the wave of innovation in baseball, but he did not understand where it was headed: away from outcome-based analytics and toward process-based analytics (i.e. ... from his fastball has a very good positive run differential... to what dynamic makes it a good fastball.. i.e. spin... vertical movement.. etc... ). So, he failed to keep up with the times. He was mediocre. Cherington is just in over his head. He is not smart, and he is in a competition with some very smart people in other front offices who are obsessed with learning everything they can about body kinetics, visual acuity, and so forth and applying this knowledge to player evaluation and development. In this crowd, Cherington is a charlatan who tries to talk their language but has no idea what they are saying or doing.
And don’t forget, they don’t have the benefit of all the recent high picks we do. It’s just flat out being more transactional, developing better, and finding talent beyond the first round.
I recall being disgusted when they were able to acquire Contreras for hardly anything after the Braves acquired Murphy. And they're one of the few teams that can trade with the Rays and come out even or better. Some of it may be culture, but probably most of it is just sharp FO personnel.
If you look at the teams from whom they acquired most of this lineup, it goes against the grain of common perception. They acquired these guys from Tampa, Baltimore, Atlanta... all teams with reputations for being well-run and tough negotiators.
These deals are getting a bit long in the tooth, but they gave up Cronenworth, Snell, and Nate Lowe over just a two year period for effectively zero return. Those are all terrible deals!
Yet they didn't skip a beat, because they didn't stop there.
Huntington could've survived the Archer debacle if he hadn't picked up his ball and quit trying to build a competitive team into 2019. Jordan Fucking Lyles. JB Schuck! My goodness.
They didn’t rook Atlanta in the Contreras deal. Atlanta got Murphy. They rooked Oakland who was enamored with a group of possible 5th starters and Esteury Ruiz for…. Reasons?
I would say that both the Braves and As walked away with egg on their faces, and the Brewers walked away with an All-Star catcher and a good relief pitcher for nothing.
The Braves didn’t really give up anything of value here beyond Contreras. The A’s moved Muller to the bullpen. Tarnok is 25 and in AAA. Salinas is their best chance to salvage the deal and he looks to have some serious relief risk. You can argue the trade was pointless for the Braves since they basically already had a Sean Murphy and didn’t realize it. But they didn’t really lose anything. Only the A’s lost.
Well. TBH... I love Sean Murphy, and I understand the reasoning. At the time of the trade, Contreras was considered a mediocre defensive C, whereas Murphy is gold-glove caliber. They figured the hitting was a wash, and they were not sold on Muller, with good reason it seems. Only ex post facto does Anthopolous look bad, since Contreras has become a pretty good defensive C in his own right.
Can we have a redo on the GM hire? That we had to rely on a search firm after hiring a non-baseball president and that firm, as such firms are known to do, went the safe route with a previous GM over Arnold speaks to the lack of any kind of vision guiding this organization.
I can't watch the Brewers without being struck by how many smart acquisitions, either via the draft or trades, are key to their sustained success.
Does anyone believe the Pirates railroad spikes through Shalin Polonco's eyes. He sure whiffs alot his year.
Murph and BnP, just got around to listening to this week's podcast, but wanted to shoutout the great content as always! Well done fellas
Good college game on ESPN 2 tomorrow night at 8pm eastern, Arkansas v Ta&m a couple top 5 teams with top 10 draft prospects (Montgomery and Smith).
Good looking Melkel!
Hat tip to you, sir.
Nick Gonzales graduated from prospect status today. Some people had him off due to service time already, but he only surpassed 130 at-bats today. We used that mark only for hitters in the 2024 Minor League Guide (Priester was in the same situation this year)
It is the season for Pomp and Circumstance.
Maybe this six man rotation isn't a one size fits all!
I actuallly think the six man might be smart in the future, but you need to prepare for it. Meaning starters need to average 14% more pitches and your bullpen needs to be made up of multiple inning guys. Maybe next year when some of the guys like Burrows, German, Oviedo and Marco are back...... or when some of the youngsters gets called up out of Harrington, Solometo and Bubba. You just can't decide on a 6 man and try it out, you need to prepare for it.
I am so frustrated with this organization that I'm always half serious. I was being flippant when I made my comment but after reading yours I think I was half right, lol. This type of rotation seems it would be better for power pitchers then control pitchers. It seems they need to come up with better side sessions for guys like Martin, Perez and Falter to keep them sharp.
Oh believe me, I get it. My frustration was in the off-season though.
Mike Elias is the model. He was hired in November 2018. Drafted Adley Rutschnan with the #1 overall pick in 2019. You can say that was a no brainer pick, but he didn’t get cute. In year 4 they win 83 games. In year 5 they win 101. And the Orioles still have one of the strongest farm systems in baseball despite multiple graduations to the majors.
Elias went to Yale, by the way. So the Ivy League/New England elite school model can work. But you have to pick the right guy.
Typical Nutting. Went cheap on his New England guy.
Elias did it right though. Stripped it down to the studs. Cherington, OTOH, moved some deck chairs around, made a few trades, and hired a guy from a team who couldn’t develop prospects to run player development and he’s trying to pass that off as a full scale rebuild.
I think it is important to keep in mind also that the situation that Elias and Mejdal inherited in Baltimore was far, far worse than the situation in Pittsburgh. Cherington has been an abject failure. 4 years of tanking, and the entire system from the majors on down, with the exception of Skenes, is in worse shape than what he inherited.
Yes. I don’t believe the Orioles even had an analytics department. And we had a little more talent than when he took over too. (I believe the prior regime traded Machado?)
Regarding Skenes he doesn’t really deserve credit for that. To quote Brian Burke, they won a lottery.
Their entire analytics department was that girl whom the Pirates recently hired.
And for the 7th time in 9 years as the boss, GMBC's team is in last place, and for the 8th time in 9 years, GMBC's team has a losing record. Explain to me again how this incompetent grifter has a job.
And my frustration isn't even with Cherington showing himself to not be up to the task but that we have a president and owner who are unlikely to require accountability. We'll see--Nutting said that he expected the team to contend this year and with most professional sports teams, big changes are made when a management team fails to meet the owner's expectations. Instead, I expect a token change like replacing Haines and we'll get much of the same next year.
I've long thought this Pirates rebuild would be a lot like the 76ers rebuild in the NBA and less like the Astros rebuild. Intentional tanks almost never succeed with the original tank commanders. You will see a significant FO and coaching turnover before the whole thing pays off.
It makes sense. Intentional tanking is far from a sign of organizational health, after all.
Any job that I ever had working for other people, there were expectations. The consequence for not meeting expectations was not a contract extension, a gift of expensive bourbon, and a pat on the back. Holding people to account is on ownership, and the lack of accounability and discipline throughout the Pirates' organization begins and ends with Bob Nutting and his I don't give a damn attitude.
One thing I took some comfort in when we hired Cherington, despite how he seemed to have botched a good thing in Boston, was that some in the industry said he was a Huntington-clone. At the time I thought if we could get Huntington without the loyalty to Stark, we might be in good shape.
By year four (2011) of Huntington's term you could feel things turning. Of course we had the back-to-back collapses in '11 and '12, but we were in contention at the trade deadline each of those seasons. It does not feel like we're anywhere near contention now and I'm starting to think that Cherington is nowhere near as competent as Huntington was.
Awww, there's still time for the team to improve enough to have a Collapsening.
I mean, about three or four more bats would have to appear out of nowhere. But NickGon is starting looking potentially viable. That's one. Maybe Tellez will tear something.
Huntington caught part of the wave of innovation in baseball, but he did not understand where it was headed: away from outcome-based analytics and toward process-based analytics (i.e. ... from his fastball has a very good positive run differential... to what dynamic makes it a good fastball.. i.e. spin... vertical movement.. etc... ). So, he failed to keep up with the times. He was mediocre. Cherington is just in over his head. He is not smart, and he is in a competition with some very smart people in other front offices who are obsessed with learning everything they can about body kinetics, visual acuity, and so forth and applying this knowledge to player evaluation and development. In this crowd, Cherington is a charlatan who tries to talk their language but has no idea what they are saying or doing.
If you can’t spot the Dave Littlefield in the room, you’re the Dave Littlefield.
It's true.
He talks a lot without saying anything. He stays within a budget. He went to Amherst. He got lucky once and the hope that lightning strikes twice.
That's all I got, only a penny pincher with no real urgency of winning would employ him in an upper management role.
Maybe Tellez's swan song?
Cutch is en fuego
In the managerial move of the decade, Shelton finally uses Williams as a defensive sub... in a game they are losing 10-2.
It's a damn shame no one was on base so he could have a sacrifice bunt down 8.
At least Ortiz was nice and efficient. Smh.
WMTIB
The Milwaukee Brewers, a good baseball team, have just 4 "homegrown" position players out of 16 used this year.
Only 2 out of their top 9.
But hey when you spend like the Dodgers you can get away with it...wait a minute.
And don’t forget, they don’t have the benefit of all the recent high picks we do. It’s just flat out being more transactional, developing better, and finding talent beyond the first round.
I recall being disgusted when they were able to acquire Contreras for hardly anything after the Braves acquired Murphy. And they're one of the few teams that can trade with the Rays and come out even or better. Some of it may be culture, but probably most of it is just sharp FO personnel.
If you look at the teams from whom they acquired most of this lineup, it goes against the grain of common perception. They acquired these guys from Tampa, Baltimore, Atlanta... all teams with reputations for being well-run and tough negotiators.
Tampa trades specifically are so instructive.
These deals are getting a bit long in the tooth, but they gave up Cronenworth, Snell, and Nate Lowe over just a two year period for effectively zero return. Those are all terrible deals!
Yet they didn't skip a beat, because they didn't stop there.
Huntington could've survived the Archer debacle if he hadn't picked up his ball and quit trying to build a competitive team into 2019. Jordan Fucking Lyles. JB Schuck! My goodness.
I've never seen a team basically give players away in deals the way Tampa has, yet keep putting up great teams year after year.
I…quite honestly have no memory of JB Schuck. Not one. Was he a bot?
Opening Day starting lineup!
J. B. Schuck... lol!
They didn’t rook Atlanta in the Contreras deal. Atlanta got Murphy. They rooked Oakland who was enamored with a group of possible 5th starters and Esteury Ruiz for…. Reasons?
I would say that both the Braves and As walked away with egg on their faces, and the Brewers walked away with an All-Star catcher and a good relief pitcher for nothing.
The Braves didn’t really give up anything of value here beyond Contreras. The A’s moved Muller to the bullpen. Tarnok is 25 and in AAA. Salinas is their best chance to salvage the deal and he looks to have some serious relief risk. You can argue the trade was pointless for the Braves since they basically already had a Sean Murphy and didn’t realize it. But they didn’t really lose anything. Only the A’s lost.
Well. TBH... I love Sean Murphy, and I understand the reasoning. At the time of the trade, Contreras was considered a mediocre defensive C, whereas Murphy is gold-glove caliber. They figured the hitting was a wash, and they were not sold on Muller, with good reason it seems. Only ex post facto does Anthopolous look bad, since Contreras has become a pretty good defensive C in his own right.
That’s fair. I don’t think Atlanta regrets the move. Sean Murphy is quite solid.
Which raises the question, What tf was Cherington doing the past five years?
Collecting weak hitting middle infielders in an effort to find the next Justin Turner.
Like the Great Pumpkin. He’ll show up eventually!
By my estimation, taking the job that belonged to Mat Arnold.
The Pirates just promoted Ewry Espinal from the FCL to Bradenton. In the FCL, he was 0-10 with 8 Ks. Pgh can’t be far away.
Can we have a redo on the GM hire? That we had to rely on a search firm after hiring a non-baseball president and that firm, as such firms are known to do, went the safe route with a previous GM over Arnold speaks to the lack of any kind of vision guiding this organization.
I can't watch the Brewers without being struck by how many smart acquisitions, either via the draft or trades, are key to their sustained success.
But we traded for Olivares and picked up Joey Bart on waivers.
What position players are most likely to pitch this game for the Pirates?
That’s not who’s been pitching?
Tellez.