Any 20 year-old holding his own in AA is almost certainly going to be at least a regular MLB starter.
I am mystified by the Johnson fretting. I think it mostly comes from the ranking lists, which I place less stock in with each passing year. I don't think there is much objectivity in most of these lists, and it is 90% hype and 10% rigor, method, and scouting.
The lists may be part of it, but I pin most of it on the unreasonable Wade Boggs/Tony Gwynn kind of comparisons when he was first drafted. They were unfair and unreasonable at the time, but that stuff sticks with you for awhile. From there, pundits lean more towards what he’s not doing to meet those expectations and focus less on his positives.
Apart from any unfairness, the prospect mavens totally misevaluated the type of player he is. They’re still scratching their heads/ butts wondering where that guy went and not addressing the actual player. I feel like the writeups now aren’t about, y’know, Termarr Johnson.
Yes. He is not the old-school free-swinging high-contact hitter they projected onto him with the comps. He is an on-base machine that doesn't make contact as often as they thought, but does hit the ball pretty hard when he does. He is not going to bat .350, but he is likely to have an OBP in the high .300s.
The strike zone judgment is where I just can’t write him off. You can’t teach that and his is elite. Yet the writeups are all, “He has a good eye BUT . . . .” Well, “but” what?, dickhead.
Boggs didn't even start playing major-league ball until he was 24. At 20, he was in AA, just like Johnson, doing very similar things. Gwynn was playing college ball when he was 20. The kid is holding his own in AA. He's going to be fine, and a solid major-league player.
The PG's article implied that Davis is Skenes' catcher, which is fine as long as they start Davis more than just once every five games which was the case this past week.
How do they do that? Give Cutch two starts in the OF per week with Bart at DH for one of those games and Davis the other.
I don’t really get the rush to find Hank at bats. I mean I get your interest, but they have plenty of offense at both catcher and DH. I’d rather see them squeeze out as many wins as they can than handicap an already-challenged offense in order to develop Hank.
I'm still interested in seeing Davis develop, and don't think we'll lose much replacing Pham's bat in the lineup with his a couple of times per week. Now, if we find a better option in LF than Pham which would mean Cutch stays at DH, then it would be harder to justify additional starts for Davis.
Really hope the bat comes along for Davis, his defense is actually better than I thought it could be, he could become a better than average defensive catcher.
Honestly, felt like the only leg up Endy would be able to have over Davis was the defense.
Now, I'm not really sure where Endy fits in. Don't think he's as bad a hitter as he's shown early but also don't think it's going to play at first for him.
Actually, I would argue that their lack of effort to find more ABs for Bart (who only has 70 PAs or so) is a much bigger problem- by sitting Pham and starting Cutch in the OF, for example. The only catchers in the NL hitting better than Bart right now are Smith and Carson Kelly, and obviously the Kelly numbers are a SSS fluke.
For a team starved of offense, to sit a guy with an .800 OPS on the bench 2 games out of 5 is bad... bad... bad.
Not big on the personal catcher thing and I haven’t seen any indication that Skenes himself cares. That being said, if Skenes wanted Oliver Onion as his personal catcher I’d be ordering a custom-made catcher’s mask.
Bubba's next scheduled start lines up pretty nicely with Mlod's next scheduled start. Just sayin'. Wonder if baseball people far smarter than me have noticed.
I may be in a small minority but I was encouraged with how Mlod came back to get 6 outs after the HR, and that should earn him another start.
I'm not sure an organization that said it was only about winning this year should have started the season trying to convert a reliever to a starter but given that they did, I wouldn't pull the plug yet.
Santana should be available--he didn't pitch Thursday and only threw 17 pitches last night. Nicolas pitched well on Thursday, and Shugart and Ferguson have been pretty reliable. If Keller can give us 6 and the game doesn't go to extras, I think we'll be fine.
Shelton has used Santana in 4 of the last 5 games. And Bednar in the last 3 games. That's a red flag for April. Going to have to mix Ferguson and Wentz into high leverage games. And I think both can be successful.
Termarr is lulling everybody to sleep with that 262 batting average. An OPS near 800 in Altoona, is impressive. I gotta keep reminding myself, he’s 20 years old. He’s going to be in the big leagues at 21. Developing a good hit second baseman shouldn’t be this hard butJohnson will peak in a Pirates uniform.
I know some don't care and it doesn't show up in the box scores, but he has such an uplifting personality. He could make things really fun in the right scenario.
I probably would have selected LW, Jr as the Top Hitter for GBO simply due to the HR and 3 RBI's, but Rivas has been a different hitter this year at a higher level. Check the Hitting Leaders in the South Atlantic League and he and 1B Esmerlyn Valdez are right there at the top, and C Omar Alfonzo is not too far down the sheet.
Last year at A Ball, Rivas hit for a .676 OPS with a BB/K of 4.36%/32.15%. This year at A+ he is hitting for an OPS of 1.074 with a BB/K of 5.26%/22.4%. Last year at A he had 12 HR in 367 PA and so far in A+ 6 HR in 76 PA. Not great, but one helluva turnaround for this kid, and his glove plays well at SS.
If Reynolds can rebound and Hayes finds some magic they start having a fairly respectable ensemble around an absolute stud. Super impressed with what Valdez has added, too.
I firmly believe he didn’t have a dime to spare at the deadline, but I still place some blame for failing to sell Bob on stripping as much as humanly possible to fit him under budget.
Maybe Valdez becomes the super-utility player that Cherington has pursued since he took that job--I think he even mentioned Justin Turner in his introductory press conference. I
n the minors Valdez played very position except CF, though only a couple innings at C and a few games at SS.
After his "recuperating" year in 2024, he has been on a tear. He and Elly De La Cruz are often mentioned in the same sentence, but OC is way out ahead of EDLC with an .894 OPS to a .752 OPS, 12/12 SB to 10/12 SB, and 14 BB/25 K to 11 BB/35 K. As long as the Pirates can keep OC protected in the order, he will enjoy seeing hittable pitches.
Bubba has been nothing but impressive. I do think Skenes was throwing harder last year than this year for a few reasons. 1) He was throwing less pitches, 2) He was proving himself ready, 3) Right now I honestly think he is not throwing max effort very much this year because he knows what is best for the long haul. Just my guesses.
The Pirates are probably watching Bubba's usage, because it will probably not be too long before they will want to get him some starts at the MLB level. Not only because he is very deserving, but because it would give him time in the same Rotation with Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller during 2025.
Matoma to Bradenton.
That solves that question John and I were talking about yesterday. Thought he was hurt at this point
Needs innings now. Yes, indeed.
Bidois also sent there on rehab. I’m guessing the pre-injury plan had him going to Altoona.
Altoona would make sense for him.
I don’t know, man.
Termarr going oppo with enough juice to barely elicit a jog from the left fielder. K-rate under 20%. 32% better than league-average in AA.
Still can’t legally buy beer.
Think I've remained cautiously optimistic with him. It's obviously there. Just putting it all together.
Still not sure what type of player he'll be, but it's there for him to be a big leaguer
Any 20 year-old holding his own in AA is almost certainly going to be at least a regular MLB starter.
I am mystified by the Johnson fretting. I think it mostly comes from the ranking lists, which I place less stock in with each passing year. I don't think there is much objectivity in most of these lists, and it is 90% hype and 10% rigor, method, and scouting.
The lists may be part of it, but I pin most of it on the unreasonable Wade Boggs/Tony Gwynn kind of comparisons when he was first drafted. They were unfair and unreasonable at the time, but that stuff sticks with you for awhile. From there, pundits lean more towards what he’s not doing to meet those expectations and focus less on his positives.
Apart from any unfairness, the prospect mavens totally misevaluated the type of player he is. They’re still scratching their heads/ butts wondering where that guy went and not addressing the actual player. I feel like the writeups now aren’t about, y’know, Termarr Johnson.
On board with everything you guys said.
Also, this.
Yes. He is not the old-school free-swinging high-contact hitter they projected onto him with the comps. He is an on-base machine that doesn't make contact as often as they thought, but does hit the ball pretty hard when he does. He is not going to bat .350, but he is likely to have an OBP in the high .300s.
The strike zone judgment is where I just can’t write him off. You can’t teach that and his is elite. Yet the writeups are all, “He has a good eye BUT . . . .” Well, “but” what?, dickhead.
Let's just take the comps they have made
Boggs didn't even start playing major-league ball until he was 24. At 20, he was in AA, just like Johnson, doing very similar things. Gwynn was playing college ball when he was 20. The kid is holding his own in AA. He's going to be fine, and a solid major-league player.
I'm still on the Termarr bandwagon. It might be a bumpy, winding ride but still heading in the right direction.
Was somewhat surprised that Hank Davis was catching last night, is he gonna be Skenes' new catcher or was it just a day off for Bart?
The PG's article implied that Davis is Skenes' catcher, which is fine as long as they start Davis more than just once every five games which was the case this past week.
How do they do that? Give Cutch two starts in the OF per week with Bart at DH for one of those games and Davis the other.
Really gotta get Reynolds healthy.
I don’t really get the rush to find Hank at bats. I mean I get your interest, but they have plenty of offense at both catcher and DH. I’d rather see them squeeze out as many wins as they can than handicap an already-challenged offense in order to develop Hank.
I'm still interested in seeing Davis develop, and don't think we'll lose much replacing Pham's bat in the lineup with his a couple of times per week. Now, if we find a better option in LF than Pham which would mean Cutch stays at DH, then it would be harder to justify additional starts for Davis.
Really hope the bat comes along for Davis, his defense is actually better than I thought it could be, he could become a better than average defensive catcher.
Couldn’t have said it better. Superior defender to Bart and even indistinguishable to my eye from Endy.
Honestly think this is a pretty damn good situation for him and the club. Grateful to find a stud bat in Joey AND allow Hank to cook in the same mold.
Honestly, felt like the only leg up Endy would be able to have over Davis was the defense.
Now, I'm not really sure where Endy fits in. Don't think he's as bad a hitter as he's shown early but also don't think it's going to play at first for him.
Actually, I would argue that their lack of effort to find more ABs for Bart (who only has 70 PAs or so) is a much bigger problem- by sitting Pham and starting Cutch in the OF, for example. The only catchers in the NL hitting better than Bart right now are Smith and Carson Kelly, and obviously the Kelly numbers are a SSS fluke.
For a team starved of offense, to sit a guy with an .800 OPS on the bench 2 games out of 5 is bad... bad... bad.
Love this take.
I don't know, but am pretty sure Henry was Skene's personal catcher for the first few games when Skenes was called up last year.
Not big on the personal catcher thing and I haven’t seen any indication that Skenes himself cares. That being said, if Skenes wanted Oliver Onion as his personal catcher I’d be ordering a custom-made catcher’s mask.
Bubba's next scheduled start lines up pretty nicely with Mlod's next scheduled start. Just sayin'. Wonder if baseball people far smarter than me have noticed.
I may be in a small minority but I was encouraged with how Mlod came back to get 6 outs after the HR, and that should earn him another start.
I'm not sure an organization that said it was only about winning this year should have started the season trying to convert a reliever to a starter but given that they did, I wouldn't pull the plug yet.
That’s fair. I’m ready with Fred, but the pen is humming and Bednar showing good signs.
I don’t expect bubba to be much better than Mlod right now, I just like Mlod boosting the pen. That may not really be needed.
It might be needed tonight when both Santana and Bednar will probably be unavailable.
The thing about trying to win game 3-2 with pitching is that you have to have a deep bullpen too. You can't use the same 3 relievers every game.
Santana should be available--he didn't pitch Thursday and only threw 17 pitches last night. Nicolas pitched well on Thursday, and Shugart and Ferguson have been pretty reliable. If Keller can give us 6 and the game doesn't go to extras, I think we'll be fine.
I see Dennis Santana was the Pitch Profiler propitching+ leader for yesterday with a bang up rating of 119.
Shelton has used Santana in 4 of the last 5 games. And Bednar in the last 3 games. That's a red flag for April. Going to have to mix Ferguson and Wentz into high leverage games. And I think both can be successful.
At least there was an off day in there, and in one of the outings I think Santana only faced one batter. But yes, something to keep an eye on.
I did like that he broke the mold and used Santana as the leverage guy against the top of the order rather than waiting for the 9th
I'm going to have to check Shohei and Freddie's splits. It may not matter, but one would think a LH might have a (slight) advantage.
Yeah I could have seen Ferguson used there too for sure. Either way, signs of them not being robots stuck to one mold is a win in my book
Borucki, Santana and Bednar are the 7th thru 9th inning guys. If the starter goes six, there’s nothing left. Rules are rules.
It's going to have to change Sat and Sunday. Wonder if he's thought about staggering Bednar and Santana to not be used in the same game?
If he hasn’t he’d better.
Termarr is lulling everybody to sleep with that 262 batting average. An OPS near 800 in Altoona, is impressive. I gotta keep reminding myself, he’s 20 years old. He’s going to be in the big leagues at 21. Developing a good hit second baseman shouldn’t be this hard butJohnson will peak in a Pirates uniform.
I know some don't care and it doesn't show up in the box scores, but he has such an uplifting personality. He could make things really fun in the right scenario.
I probably would have selected LW, Jr as the Top Hitter for GBO simply due to the HR and 3 RBI's, but Rivas has been a different hitter this year at a higher level. Check the Hitting Leaders in the South Atlantic League and he and 1B Esmerlyn Valdez are right there at the top, and C Omar Alfonzo is not too far down the sheet.
Last year at A Ball, Rivas hit for a .676 OPS with a BB/K of 4.36%/32.15%. This year at A+ he is hitting for an OPS of 1.074 with a BB/K of 5.26%/22.4%. Last year at A he had 12 HR in 367 PA and so far in A+ 6 HR in 76 PA. Not great, but one helluva turnaround for this kid, and his glove plays well at SS.
Cruz is on such a tear, ripping multiple ~110+ liners per game. I'm excited to see how this plays out over the rest of the season.
If Reynolds can rebound and Hayes finds some magic they start having a fairly respectable ensemble around an absolute stud. Super impressed with what Valdez has added, too.
The huge gaping hole in the lineup is Pham. Correct that and they might be borderline passable. Unfortunately, Ben & Derry love huge gaping holes.
I think about Jazz Chisholm more than any self respecting married man ought to for that very reason.
It would’ve been so effing easy. Upgrading from shit isn’t hard, but Ben managed to fail ai it.
I firmly believe he didn’t have a dime to spare at the deadline, but I still place some blame for failing to sell Bob on stripping as much as humanly possible to fit him under budget.
And yet... they found a way to acquire IKF within the budget that they had.
Speaking about people surrounding OC in the lineup, has there been any sign of Spencer Horwitz at PC?
He’s supposedly there. I didn’t see him yesterday but I’m guessing he’ll go on rehab next week with Bradenton or the FCL team.
It’s gonna be quite a puzzle when they have him, Valdez and Nick. I’m sure Shelton’s solution will be to play Frazier more.
Maybe Valdez becomes the super-utility player that Cherington has pursued since he took that job--I think he even mentioned Justin Turner in his introductory press conference. I
n the minors Valdez played very position except CF, though only a couple innings at C and a few games at SS.
After his "recuperating" year in 2024, he has been on a tear. He and Elly De La Cruz are often mentioned in the same sentence, but OC is way out ahead of EDLC with an .894 OPS to a .752 OPS, 12/12 SB to 10/12 SB, and 14 BB/25 K to 11 BB/35 K. As long as the Pirates can keep OC protected in the order, he will enjoy seeing hittable pitches.
I think he’s as well protected as he can be, hitting leadoff with Reynolds next.
Pretty impressive to see Chandler out-velo-ing Skenes.
I do hold my breath a little when I see so many triple digits. Case in point see Jared Jones.
I'm with ya, with Skenes and Chandler it eases a bit with their size and effort compared to Jones. Still only so many bullets.
Bubba has been nothing but impressive. I do think Skenes was throwing harder last year than this year for a few reasons. 1) He was throwing less pitches, 2) He was proving himself ready, 3) Right now I honestly think he is not throwing max effort very much this year because he knows what is best for the long haul. Just my guesses.
The Pirates are probably watching Bubba's usage, because it will probably not be too long before they will want to get him some starts at the MLB level. Not only because he is very deserving, but because it would give him time in the same Rotation with Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller during 2025.