My nit picking response.... I'd drop Meuth (still to far away) and probably lump Hartle with 'the rest' until he shows what he has in professional baseball. btw 'the rest' has many very interesting arms and I would not be shocked if a few don't earn the right to be on the list soon vs. lumped in 'the rest'. The pitching part of this organization seems to be working well.
I'll vote down on 3 of your recommendations. I am a full believer in starters staying starters until they fail. IMO they are just worth so much more to a team in that roll. My next observation is we (me included) are too high on Chappy and too low on Bednar. Right now that is fair, but looking to next year and how GOOD Bednar was the last couple of years, I am not ready to bail on him at all. It seems from those who know better than me that his stuff is still fine but location is off. That may never come back but I sure would like to see where he is after an off season of rest / health / reflection. Good Chappy good... bad Chappy not so much as we saw earlier this year. IMO it will be a $$$ decision for him and the Buccos.
Fair enough. I’ll counter with this. The record of bad body closers is pretty crappy. I’m not really of the mind that Bednar rebounds so I’d rather cut my losses. Chapman actually is one of the few closers who has lasted and seems to have ironed out his control issues from earlier. If they’re gonna keep one of those two, I’d rather go with Chapman. Bednar is Hanrahan 2.0 and I know it’s rough to not sell a guy at this level, but I’m not too keen on holding onto a bad bodied closer to see if he’ll rebound.
I’m not sure Burrows/Ashcraft have many bullets in them before they blow out. So I’d rather take the ruthless Rays approach and stick them in the pen to get something out of them at the MLB level. You don’t get style points for keeping guys in a role they are unlikely to succeed in. As for them as depth for the rotation, this is what I’d like to see next year:
Skenes
Keller
Jones
OA (outside acquisition)
Falter
Depth:
Chandler
Oviedo
Harrington
German
Ortiz also moves to the pen as a long man/sixth starter.
I can see and understand the Bednar opinion and I guess I am in the 'see how he feels / how he looks' in the spring since we already are selling low but also don't believe in paying big $'s to relievers. I just think Chappy will go to the highest bidder, which given his end to the season may make him pricy. However, I am not as confident that he will be 'this' good next year either. I'll still disagree on the two starters, they may have as many bullets as Jones/Skenes/Keller et al. have left so I'll stick with our disagreement realizing that the odds are they or others (what if Jones doesn't go back to early season - strike throwing Jones) will likely end up in the pen.
They don’t have as many bullets as Skenes/Keller cause they’re already battling injuries as they escalate through the system. It’s a fallacy to think all pitchers have the same amount of bullets. Think of any of the myriad examples of pitchers who were good when healthy which was incredibly infrequently. No pitcher is bulletproof obviously, but the best predictor we have of future health is past health.
As for them keeping their value as starters? That’s the same line of thinking that had them keep Cruz and Davis at positions they shouldn’t be because that “kept their value,” instead of transitioning them down the scale where they’d be a better fit. How’d that work out?
Apologies for the bee in my bonnet, but I’m kind of off the idea of just letting it play out and see where these guys end up. I’d rather see more decisiveness with roles.
Our bonnet's have different bees.. but all is good. I guess for the bullets I was referencing more the thought that all pitchers can get hurt, battling injuries now (I'd argue Borrows 'only' had one injury) vs. later could make it all a wash.
I think that's fair. Burrows velo ramping up is giving him an edge. Kinda hitting that point Ashcraft did last year where things began to come into sight and, "Oh, yeah. This gonna be good".
The separation of his 4 pitches is awesome, mid 90's fastball, around 90 slider, mid 80's change and then around 80 curveball all coming from the same release point. As the control/command keeps coming back, that's a mix for success.
I started thinking about whether Justin Steele was the best - only? - slow-fastball starter in the big leagues right now. Don't see many 4 WAR dudes sitting 91.
Turns out it's a team thing! Cubs have the lowest fastball velo in the entire league. All five arms with the most games started are below average in fastball velo. Seems like that's gotta be intentional?
I mean...sports talk radio is what it has been for the last decade or so: mostly hot takery. Working from home now, I don't listen to it very often anymore, but people losing their minds about Madden, Poni, Mueller, etc...they're just doing the standard schtick, catering to a very specific audience. I dunno...doesn't bother me too much at this point.
It doesn’t help that you don’t have a ton of super baseball knowledgeable people at the Fan. Combine hot takes shtickery designed to create an outrage factory, with a lack of baseball knowledge and you have an unlistenable product. Like you… I’ve tuned out.
I don't listen to it at all, I just see the social media stuff that is obviously catered to stoking the most outrage possible. And that is due in large part to MM, who helped create the local media angst driven narrative. So essentially everyone tries to emulate him. I'll give MM credit with regards to respecting the game, but a lot of the new guys are just dumb. Especially when they try to "break news" of rumors and shit.
ESPN (McDaniel) has a column up ranking the top 10 for every birth year from 1999 to 2007 (and the top 5 from 2008, but of course those players are too young to have been signed or drafted). Of the 90 players from 1999 to 2007, five are still amateurs. Of the remaining 85 players we have three: Skenes, Jones, and Griffin. On the one hand, 3 is the expected number for each of the 30 teams. On the other hand, that seems a little light for this point in a rebuild. I was initially a little surprised Chandler didn't make the list for 2002 but that's a loaded year (Skenes tops the list and it also contains ELDC (2nd), James Wood, Dylan Crews, Masyn Winn, Evan Carter). Surely Johnson was considered for 2004 and must have just missed.
BP’s recent podcast had an “August and Beyond” segment where they debated the merits of three recent rebuilds: Washington, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. Guess where the PBC ranked in their view?
The big question is whether we're lagging behind due to poor evaluation of talent or due to developing that talent, though it's probably some of both. What's troubling to me is how much worse things would look if we hadn't won the lottery to draft Skenes.
This figure astounds me: the Tigers have 8 players over 1 fWAR: Riley Greene, Matt Vierling, Colt Keith, Carson Kelly, Kerry Carpenter, Jake Rogers, Parker Meadows and Zach McKinstry. Only Keith and Kelly are making more $2 million, and Kelly makes 3 and some change, and Keith signed a very team friendly extension.
Well, they spent all that big monies, those players flamed out, and have gone full youth movement. Unfortunately for them, I don't think Javy opting out any time soon. Pretty solid return on a prove-it-contract Flaherty.
And the only thing stopping us from making similar moves is? We spent somewhere around $35 million this offseason, so we could have even signed Flaherty had we so choose.
Pretty awful when you consider Detroit absolutely botched their rebuild so much that they fired Avila who led the bulk of it. But, Detroit also shows how quickly you can turn things around. They are spending more than us, but a lot of that money is on stuff like Javy Baez and Kenta Maeda that hasn’t really helped. They’ve made some savvy acquisitions like Matt Vierling and Carson Kelly. They got Vierling for a relief arm, and he makes the league minimum. Plenty of affordable talent, just gotta find it.
They fired Avila almost exactly two years ago. If nothing else, that rebuild shows the perils of building it around arms. Skubal was actually the least regarded of their arms, and the other two have been both hurt and crappy.
Avila did draft ok, although his #1s were bad. He was pretty bad at a lot of other things though. I think they’re well situated in that division to make some noise with some outside acquisitions.
And may have been better as second fiddle. In our data filled world, there is still a big place for the scouts and people with that background. I’m just not sure I’d want one of those guys running the show for my team.
Idk if i'd say least regarded, as he was beginning to get A LOT of traction before going down with injury. Regardless, yeah, they were stacked to the brim with arms. A bunch kept getting hurt, but more so, struggled to translate to majors. Where as the Marlins, can't keep a pitcher healthy to save their lives.
Does anyone have any idea why some articles just disappear from the feed? I wondered if I’d fat fingered something or if any others had the same issue.
It’s weird, I end up getting into the new article by searching from the home bar. But even after I comment and someone replies (Grazie, by the way) the article still doesn’t show in my feed. Odd.
Yeah, once you click on a post, the initial screen like marks it as "read" or something and it disappears from there...then it's like you have to click your profile in the upper right then Bucs On Deck to get to the main page.
If there is any way to just jump right to BoD when opening the app, I do not know it (I don't read anything else on Substack really...so it's annoying).
An excellent day for the minors. In my order of importance to the Pirates, Liover Peguero homered and was 2-4 with 2 RBI's, Nick Yorke was 2-3 with a double, and Mike Burrows had a successful outing of 4 innings, 1BB/5K. 74 pitches should be the goal for 5 IP.
Peguero has only 80 days of MLB Service (~30 days left in the MLB season). Last year for the Pirates he fielded .960 in 39 games at SS, and 1.000 in 33 games at 2B, slash of .231/.280/.374/.654 OPS with 7 HR in about 200 AB for the Pirates in 2023 as a 22 year old. With Cruz back at SS, he was sent back to AAA for additional seasoning. If the Pirates are serious about contending, he needs to be at SS NOW!
At AA, Nick Dombkowski pitched well, and TJ made a decent entry of 0-2, 2BB, 1SB. McAdoo 0-4. At A+ 2023 14th Rounder from Alabama Garrett McMillan was the story - in his 5 games at A+ 17 IP, 3BB/26K. At A, 2023 draft picks Zander Mueth (2s) and Khristian Curtis (12), combined for 9IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2BB/7K. The offense was almost single-handedly provided by Jhonny Severino (thank you Carlos Santana) who hit for the cycle going 4-4 with 4 RBI.
Glad to see 2B Carlos Caro promoted from extended FCL to A. The team that will take the field at A to finish 2024 and probably start 2025 will be very strong at the plate and with the gloves - pitching should be excellent also!
Went to Toon Town last night to watch Termarr and wound up watching the unexpectedly good Toona Pitching.
Nick Dombkowski looked REALLY good. Wonder where he's at in our system rankings.
Article from the Trib-Dem.
https://www.tribdem.com/sports/nick-cimillo-drives-in-2-runs-as-curve-prevail/article_9d499806-64d9-11ef-a422-9b3feeef42aa.html
1. Chandler
2. Burrows
3. Harrington
4. Meuth
5. Ashcraft
6. Barco
7. Hartle
...the rest
My nit picking response.... I'd drop Meuth (still to far away) and probably lump Hartle with 'the rest' until he shows what he has in professional baseball. btw 'the rest' has many very interesting arms and I would not be shocked if a few don't earn the right to be on the list soon vs. lumped in 'the rest'. The pitching part of this organization seems to be working well.
reasonable and prudent, i just got a hunch on those two
Stick #2 and #5 in the pen, resign Chapman, trade Chip Chopped Dave….that’s got the makings of a good pen.
I'll vote down on 3 of your recommendations. I am a full believer in starters staying starters until they fail. IMO they are just worth so much more to a team in that roll. My next observation is we (me included) are too high on Chappy and too low on Bednar. Right now that is fair, but looking to next year and how GOOD Bednar was the last couple of years, I am not ready to bail on him at all. It seems from those who know better than me that his stuff is still fine but location is off. That may never come back but I sure would like to see where he is after an off season of rest / health / reflection. Good Chappy good... bad Chappy not so much as we saw earlier this year. IMO it will be a $$$ decision for him and the Buccos.
Fair enough. I’ll counter with this. The record of bad body closers is pretty crappy. I’m not really of the mind that Bednar rebounds so I’d rather cut my losses. Chapman actually is one of the few closers who has lasted and seems to have ironed out his control issues from earlier. If they’re gonna keep one of those two, I’d rather go with Chapman. Bednar is Hanrahan 2.0 and I know it’s rough to not sell a guy at this level, but I’m not too keen on holding onto a bad bodied closer to see if he’ll rebound.
I’m not sure Burrows/Ashcraft have many bullets in them before they blow out. So I’d rather take the ruthless Rays approach and stick them in the pen to get something out of them at the MLB level. You don’t get style points for keeping guys in a role they are unlikely to succeed in. As for them as depth for the rotation, this is what I’d like to see next year:
Skenes
Keller
Jones
OA (outside acquisition)
Falter
Depth:
Chandler
Oviedo
Harrington
German
Ortiz also moves to the pen as a long man/sixth starter.
I can see and understand the Bednar opinion and I guess I am in the 'see how he feels / how he looks' in the spring since we already are selling low but also don't believe in paying big $'s to relievers. I just think Chappy will go to the highest bidder, which given his end to the season may make him pricy. However, I am not as confident that he will be 'this' good next year either. I'll still disagree on the two starters, they may have as many bullets as Jones/Skenes/Keller et al. have left so I'll stick with our disagreement realizing that the odds are they or others (what if Jones doesn't go back to early season - strike throwing Jones) will likely end up in the pen.
They don’t have as many bullets as Skenes/Keller cause they’re already battling injuries as they escalate through the system. It’s a fallacy to think all pitchers have the same amount of bullets. Think of any of the myriad examples of pitchers who were good when healthy which was incredibly infrequently. No pitcher is bulletproof obviously, but the best predictor we have of future health is past health.
As for them keeping their value as starters? That’s the same line of thinking that had them keep Cruz and Davis at positions they shouldn’t be because that “kept their value,” instead of transitioning them down the scale where they’d be a better fit. How’d that work out?
Apologies for the bee in my bonnet, but I’m kind of off the idea of just letting it play out and see where these guys end up. I’d rather see more decisiveness with roles.
Our bonnet's have different bees.. but all is good. I guess for the bullets I was referencing more the thought that all pitchers can get hurt, battling injuries now (I'd argue Borrows 'only' had one injury) vs. later could make it all a wash.
pen is kinda full too once everyone is healthy
Bednar
Chapman
Holderman
Nicolas
Beeks
Oviedo
Mlodzinski
Moreta
Borucki
Falter
Ortiz
When are ALL the pitchers healthy? They’re allowed to go outside the organization to get other players.
I think that's fair. Burrows velo ramping up is giving him an edge. Kinda hitting that point Ashcraft did last year where things began to come into sight and, "Oh, yeah. This gonna be good".
The separation of his 4 pitches is awesome, mid 90's fastball, around 90 slider, mid 80's change and then around 80 curveball all coming from the same release point. As the control/command keeps coming back, that's a mix for success.
Lets also say, fingers crossed, we'll hopefully get some insight in the near future. I sent Ryan some things I was noticing about Burrows.
The FF hitting 97 last night was awesome.
And compliments it with the best secondaries in the system, right?
Slider and change were hugely improved before he broke, oughta expect they come back I figure.
Came back with a disgusting change
I started thinking about whether Justin Steele was the best - only? - slow-fastball starter in the big leagues right now. Don't see many 4 WAR dudes sitting 91.
Turns out it's a team thing! Cubs have the lowest fastball velo in the entire league. All five arms with the most games started are below average in fastball velo. Seems like that's gotta be intentional?
Probably doesn't help Ben Brown and Cade Horton went down with injuries
Pittsburgh Media: look at oneil cruz pouting, his arms are crossed!
Pittsburgh fans: how dare you criticize oneil cruz, so much for player centric!
Actual Oneil Cruz: four absolute piss missiles, unbothered
I think the fans one is more: "93.7 The Fan is such rage bait shit"
I mean...sports talk radio is what it has been for the last decade or so: mostly hot takery. Working from home now, I don't listen to it very often anymore, but people losing their minds about Madden, Poni, Mueller, etc...they're just doing the standard schtick, catering to a very specific audience. I dunno...doesn't bother me too much at this point.
It doesn’t help that you don’t have a ton of super baseball knowledgeable people at the Fan. Combine hot takes shtickery designed to create an outrage factory, with a lack of baseball knowledge and you have an unlistenable product. Like you… I’ve tuned out.
You can also see it with some of the new guys they hire, that it's almost like they give them a powerpoint on how to tweet.
I don't listen to it at all, I just see the social media stuff that is obviously catered to stoking the most outrage possible. And that is due in large part to MM, who helped create the local media angst driven narrative. So essentially everyone tries to emulate him. I'll give MM credit with regards to respecting the game, but a lot of the new guys are just dumb. Especially when they try to "break news" of rumors and shit.
ESPN (McDaniel) has a column up ranking the top 10 for every birth year from 1999 to 2007 (and the top 5 from 2008, but of course those players are too young to have been signed or drafted). Of the 90 players from 1999 to 2007, five are still amateurs. Of the remaining 85 players we have three: Skenes, Jones, and Griffin. On the one hand, 3 is the expected number for each of the 30 teams. On the other hand, that seems a little light for this point in a rebuild. I was initially a little surprised Chandler didn't make the list for 2002 but that's a loaded year (Skenes tops the list and it also contains ELDC (2nd), James Wood, Dylan Crews, Masyn Winn, Evan Carter). Surely Johnson was considered for 2004 and must have just missed.
Considering Termarr just barely hung on to a spot in McDaniel’s top 100, he likely wasn’t close.
Gonna be fun when the Nationals turn it around before the Pirates
BP’s recent podcast had an “August and Beyond” segment where they debated the merits of three recent rebuilds: Washington, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. Guess where the PBC ranked in their view?
The big question is whether we're lagging behind due to poor evaluation of talent or due to developing that talent, though it's probably some of both. What's troubling to me is how much worse things would look if we hadn't won the lottery to draft Skenes.
This figure astounds me: the Tigers have 8 players over 1 fWAR: Riley Greene, Matt Vierling, Colt Keith, Carson Kelly, Kerry Carpenter, Jake Rogers, Parker Meadows and Zach McKinstry. Only Keith and Kelly are making more $2 million, and Kelly makes 3 and some change, and Keith signed a very team friendly extension.
Well, they spent all that big monies, those players flamed out, and have gone full youth movement. Unfortunately for them, I don't think Javy opting out any time soon. Pretty solid return on a prove-it-contract Flaherty.
And the only thing stopping us from making similar moves is? We spent somewhere around $35 million this offseason, so we could have even signed Flaherty had we so choose.
They should've. Idk why they didn't. I really wanted them to.
Pretty awful when you consider Detroit absolutely botched their rebuild so much that they fired Avila who led the bulk of it. But, Detroit also shows how quickly you can turn things around. They are spending more than us, but a lot of that money is on stuff like Javy Baez and Kenta Maeda that hasn’t really helped. They’ve made some savvy acquisitions like Matt Vierling and Carson Kelly. They got Vierling for a relief arm, and he makes the league minimum. Plenty of affordable talent, just gotta find it.
Detroit is 9-1 against the White Sox and 59-65 against Major League teams.
15-21 against their own non-white sox Division opponents.
I'll *firmly* take the under on this so-called turnaround.
They fired Avila almost exactly two years ago. If nothing else, that rebuild shows the perils of building it around arms. Skubal was actually the least regarded of their arms, and the other two have been both hurt and crappy.
Avila did draft ok, although his #1s were bad. He was pretty bad at a lot of other things though. I think they’re well situated in that division to make some noise with some outside acquisitions.
Avila seemed like one of those great old school guys who would’ve been a great GM in 1995, but unfortunately the game just passed him by.
And may have been better as second fiddle. In our data filled world, there is still a big place for the scouts and people with that background. I’m just not sure I’d want one of those guys running the show for my team.
Idk if i'd say least regarded, as he was beginning to get A LOT of traction before going down with injury. Regardless, yeah, they were stacked to the brim with arms. A bunch kept getting hurt, but more so, struggled to translate to majors. Where as the Marlins, can't keep a pitcher healthy to save their lives.
True. Skubal was probably the least known initially, since Mize and Manning were top 10 picks.
The Marlins arms seem to all break right when they get to the bigs or shortly after.
Considering Detroit is actually making a late run for a WC bid, I'll guess last lol
They were fourth out of three.
5 out of 3 people are bad at fractions.
Does anyone have any idea why some articles just disappear from the feed? I wondered if I’d fat fingered something or if any others had the same issue.
Are you talking about the site or the app, because the latter sorta sucks...especially the initial landing page.
It’s weird, I end up getting into the new article by searching from the home bar. But even after I comment and someone replies (Grazie, by the way) the article still doesn’t show in my feed. Odd.
The app.
Yeah, once you click on a post, the initial screen like marks it as "read" or something and it disappears from there...then it's like you have to click your profile in the upper right then Bucs On Deck to get to the main page.
If there is any way to just jump right to BoD when opening the app, I do not know it (I don't read anything else on Substack really...so it's annoying).
Severino's cycle was welcome. He'd been in a 1-for-21 tailspin, with nine Ks.
Yeah that stretch was rough.
He needs to succeed. Yordany is wetting the bed at BRD again.
An excellent day for the minors. In my order of importance to the Pirates, Liover Peguero homered and was 2-4 with 2 RBI's, Nick Yorke was 2-3 with a double, and Mike Burrows had a successful outing of 4 innings, 1BB/5K. 74 pitches should be the goal for 5 IP.
Peguero has only 80 days of MLB Service (~30 days left in the MLB season). Last year for the Pirates he fielded .960 in 39 games at SS, and 1.000 in 33 games at 2B, slash of .231/.280/.374/.654 OPS with 7 HR in about 200 AB for the Pirates in 2023 as a 22 year old. With Cruz back at SS, he was sent back to AAA for additional seasoning. If the Pirates are serious about contending, he needs to be at SS NOW!
At AA, Nick Dombkowski pitched well, and TJ made a decent entry of 0-2, 2BB, 1SB. McAdoo 0-4. At A+ 2023 14th Rounder from Alabama Garrett McMillan was the story - in his 5 games at A+ 17 IP, 3BB/26K. At A, 2023 draft picks Zander Mueth (2s) and Khristian Curtis (12), combined for 9IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2BB/7K. The offense was almost single-handedly provided by Jhonny Severino (thank you Carlos Santana) who hit for the cycle going 4-4 with 4 RBI.
Glad to see 2B Carlos Caro promoted from extended FCL to A. The team that will take the field at A to finish 2024 and probably start 2025 will be very strong at the plate and with the gloves - pitching should be excellent also!