51 Comments

Pipeline mock draft has us taking Rainer, thoughts?

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Great cheap beer.

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Still hoping one of the college bats fall but a lefty hitting SS doesn’t sound like a bad backup plan

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He's probably my favorite prep, by a small margin over Griffin. I think I would still prefer any of the top 6 college bats. He's closer to the top 2 college pitchers but I wouldn't pass up them either currently. Both preps could move up though. Only other prospects that I would even consider currently are Yesavage and to a lesser degree Tibbs.

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They have the top 6 bats, griffin, and smith going in front of us. So, in this version we could also yesavage or burns as well

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May 3·edited May 3

Currently I'd go Burns with who was available in their mock but by just a smidgen lol. Burns has a higher ceiling, while Yesavage has the higher floor in my opinion.

I think I like Rainer better than the pitchers but have no confidence in his development with this organization.

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Any words being spoken or written out there about how maybe the mechanical changes Davis has made aren't working?

Pretty substantial differences in position, stance, and load. Early returns are, uh, not great.

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Nola sent me a text the other day asking for a very specific at bat from a year or two ago by Davis. So Im guessing he's noticed something, or on to something on that regards.

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Which one of you is Sherlock and which is Holmes? ;)

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Sherlock is the smart one, right? So can we both be Holmes?

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I'm looking for the mechanical change that involves having the bat make contact with the ball.

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He and Michael Taylor are in a close team battle for second highest strike out rate behind Cruz.

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Totally biffed my infatuation with Brazxton Ashcraft. One of these days I'll get one right.

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Maybe TINSTAAPP doesnt mean "there is no such thing as a pitching prospect" but rather "there is no such thing as a pirates' prospect"

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A good outing for Braxton Ashcraft. The one bad inning started with a FO, then a single, Passed Ball, another single to drive in a run, then a Balk, and then an Error by the SS. Clean up a lot of that mental aggravation, and he could be onto something. Just getting to the 5 and 6 innings level is an accomplishment.

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With Ashcraft, I just like seeing the 18 whiffs, which surprisingly is 7 more than Skenes got in his 6 innings (though obviously Skenes was facing tougher competition).

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Nice short write-up about Jones at FG (but reading the article might also lead to feelings of envy for the Reds--they have THE Cruz):

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/stock-rising-four-players-im-higher-on-after-a-month-of-play/

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I was really hopeful that we had the better cruz, however....

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Of course a player has to earn his confidence, but watching Cruz and seeing the few clips of De La Cruz, the difference in confidence appears to be night and day.

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One appears to have a love and passion for the game, the other does not.

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Ok here we go again, Im ready to get hurt again

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Keep waiting in vain for a sign of literally any pulse from this front office.

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Any insights on Ashcroft's 'stuff' this year? It's great he is being stretched out and hopefully it is just a matter of making some adjustments as in theory he should be doing well in AA based off his results last year in shorter outings.

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The good news is he's pumping strikes in there

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Color me surprised Grandal hasn’t replaced Davis yet. And a team who actually had aspirations of competing for playoffs would also be replacing Triolo with Nick G before tonight’s game.

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Pretty insightful comment. Perhaps their public statements about their intentions this year do not match whatever the real plan is? Btw, I always enjoy your comments Scott.

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-I would think Henry Davis is still one bad Jared Jones start away from being sent to the minors. Jones pitches tomorrow.

-Unless the Pirates are seeing something in Grandal that I'm not, I'm no buying into the veteran presence that he brings. I watched enough Sox games over the last couple years to see their pitching staff fall apart. Grandal had single digits homers over the last 2 years, hit .219 and the Sox were in the bottom half in pitching. I agree he going to need to come up, but I don't think our expecatations should be too high.

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Yes. Whatever he has left in the tank (which sure doesn't look like much if anything), the PIrates would be best served by trying to tap it with him as backup, rather than starting 4 games out of 5. To my thinking, until he proves he can't do it, Joey Bart has to be the starting catcher, by default if nothing else. What a pickle ignoring all the positions of need in the off-season has produced.

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Joey Bart might be just as much of a head-scratcher as Henry Davis. Bart is hitting .136 with 1 extra base over his last 15 games which is better than Henry's .125 average. I do think Henry has a connection with some of the younger pitchers, especially Jones.

I think the Endy injury caused them to look for a short term solution at catcher. I'm not sure why the Gary Sanchez deal fell through. Either the Pirates wanted to save a few dollars or Sanchez wanted to play for what he thought was a better team.

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Such a complete mismanagement of the off-season budget. I love how Davis handles the pitchers, but his framing is horrid. They are robbed of 5 or 6 strikes a game and never get anything stolen outside the zone. Also, maybe some time in AAA will get his bat going. He can try 1B there too, since the Pirates ignored that problem as well. An owner who cared at all about his product would be starting the job search for Cherington's replacement now. Unfortunately, we have Bob Nutting.

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Cherington really did get owned this offseason. Guessing he figured between Ohtani and Yamamoto there’d be way more players falling into their price range?

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Cherington's gotten owned in five straight offseasons. Five straight in-seasons, too.

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The part where it turns out he can't hit seems like it's by far the biggest concern.

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Maybe he can hit, but we just aren’t seeing it between how they mismanaged his development and their awful approach at the plate.

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Davis? Bart? or Grandal? They all suck.

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The rational side of me says give them this homestand, and then evaluate after the first 6+ weeks--I'm holding out slim hope that coming home and having yesterday to reset will help (but when they went west, I thought that might be what they needed to get going). OTOH, this homestand could sink our season especially with a tough schedule the rest of May (only the next six games are against teams with worse records than we have).

Maybe a good day to shuttle players between Indy and Pittsburgh is Monday, the off day for Indy. If not then, then Thursday as an off day for the Pirates and we'll absolutely need a good showing against the Cubs (the PG writers are all speculating with the suggestion of having inside info that Skenes will make his debut next Friday).

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Is Grandal completely through the Plantar Faciitus? Once he is, I would also wonder why he is not up. I know Davis is the obvious choice, but could the Pirates be thinking of using Grandal at 1B? In that case, do we keep Tellez?

For second base, the Pirates took our Utility IF (Triolo) from 2023, and transitioned him to 2B. So, he is learning a new position and doing very well defensively - not a big surprise. His .991 fielding percentage, +5 Defensive Runs Saved, and UZR/150 of +9.8 all rate very high amongst MLB second basemen.

If comparing NG and Triolo, I would want to use data from when they faced similar competition. Offensively NG had a very rough 2023 at the MLB level, Triolo had a VG 2023 at the MLB level. Then at ST 2024, Triolo was also the better hitter of the two. That's my take on them right now, because trying to compare AAA results to MLB results is asking for problems. And if they were even anywhere near equal I would always favor the better defensive player which IMO, is Jared Triolo.

I think it is too early to make a decision such as the one you are suggesting. Now, if we are talking trading Alika Williams and bringing up someone in his place, that would be something I could understand.

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I'd love to see Grandal replace Tellez but it won't happen as Shelton clearly has a lot of confidence in Tellez despite Tellez never being even an average player over the course of a season. Smarter front offices than ours gave up on Tellez. And one of the justifications for bringing Tellez in is that he'd provide leadership and keep players relaxed. Players look tighter than ever and where is there evidence of leadership?

And it's not that I'd expect more from Grandal, but I think Grandal being in a timeshare at 1B but also a backup C will mean Joe will get more starts at 1B.

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Shelton said Tellez is really close.

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Unfortunately I don't think that meant close to being DFA'd :)

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In fairness though, Tellez has had some hard hit balls in the past week, which have stood out to me because of the lack of hard hit balls by the rest of the lineup. His fielding continues to frustrate me--no wonder that even when he hit 35 HRs he was only worth a single WAR.

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I said a few times that he thinks he is a little better than he really is. I think reality hit when he ran the player to 3rd base, then straddled first base when he caught tht throw. I even saw him run out a ground ball once. Maybe he is playing with a little urgency.

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I feel I'm with ya on this. Nick G and Bae are raking in AAA. Grandal is at least a proven commodity. Davis and Triolo are scuffling.

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