Has at least 1 more option year too. His metrics look better than his topline stats. He is a keeper... for now, and someone I can see progressing to a higher leverage role, at least against righties.
I truly couldn't tell by the end what was real and what was Tim's increasingly extreme storytelling, but the whole let-kids-dictate-their-own-development thing - if accurate - would seem to have the obvious logical hole that you see in Jared Jones right now.
Maybe his change and curve just suck and going all in on being Spencer Strider-lite is actually the best for him, but it also screams of a kid trying to succeed and not trying to develop.
I think there's some accuracy to it. I went out to FIL a few times last year and they really weren't doing anything at all. Just some half-assed scrimmaging. No drills. They don't seem to do drills much any more at any time, which may explain some of the frequent defensive and baserunning boobery, as well as the fact that very few pitchers in the entire org. can field their position.
I presume Wilbur was speaking of the system at large, and if you watch much of the affiliates you know exactly what he means. Quality of play is atrocious.
I don't know about those baserunning metrics. I don't think they are very comprehensive. I think that the Pirates at the MLB level have run the bases pretty well this year. I am also not sure about the defensive metrics... which are always a little dicey. I think their defense has been less than mediocre... but I don't suppose my eye-test is any more accurate an indicator than the metrics.
When you have the best defensive 3bmen on the planet, that helps. As does having, Hedges, Santana, Peguero plays a good 2b, Rodriguez and Triolo have been good defensively as well.
Well... yes Peguero is definitely an upgrade at 2B, but that position has been staffed by Bae and Marcano for long stretches this season, and I don't think either of them is very good. SS has been a mess unless Williams is in, and he can't hit. CF has not been good, and RF has been poor when Davis is there. So... with on again off again defense at 2B and RF, bad defense at SS, and very subpar defense in CF.. I don't think that is a good defensive team. 2B, SS, and CF are 3 of the 4 most important defensive positions, with C as the 4th.
Developmentally, pitchers seem to matter way more than hitters.
Just like the Cape, nobody really sends good, healthy pitchers because of injury risk. I don't really see the AFL being a challenge or developmentally beneficial for top hitting prospects.
Rod Munoz ain't exactly a Top 10 pitching prospect in all of baseball or anything but NickyG hitting for the cycle in a game in which the good guys put up 14 runs followed by a golden sombrero when they put up one seems awfully common. Quality of pitching varies so wildly in the minor leagues.
I guess it depends on what you want to do about 1B and CF. Teams don't really carry 5 true OFers any more. Andujar, Cutch, Joe, and Palacios are redundant: moreso if you want to move Jack to RF and get a true CFer. Cutch will almost certainly be back. Joe will be 32 next year. Palacios and Andujar are the same age, and it seems to me that Andujar is the much better bet at this point to cover 4th OFer and 1B backup. I figure at least 1 and probably 2 of Joe, Palacios, and Andujar will be traded for something. I prefer to trade Joe and Palacios, but I guess it depends on perspective. The return will not be great.. would be nice throw-ins along with a couple prospects (i.e. Gonzalez and/or Davis) for a true CFer.
We definitely are going to have a logjam of these spare parts that are redundant, like you mentioned. Choosing the few that give us the best roster construction/best return will be interesting to follow for BC. Suppose also palacios or andujar may accept a AAA assignment as possible first OF up in case of injury, but they may also want to try for a bigger role elsewhere
I mentioned it yesterday, so I'll say it again today. These Pirates were literally one extra win every 30 days away from being in a legit race for a wild card spot. There are ten days left in the season and they can't be eliminated from the playoffs mathematically tonight. That's from a team that is 52-73 since sending Drew Maggi to the minors.
I'm not a fan of the 12-playoff team system, but that's the world we are in now (who knows what Manfred will do to that world over the off-season). This team, as bad as they were from early May through the All-Star break, is only playing irrelevant games now because of one extra loss per month since their hot start
I liked the 10 team playoff system better, and while the WC game is cool and very un-baseball like, a natural step would have been to make that a mini series (2 of 3 in the higher seeds park) rather then just expand to a dozen. And then after that, best of 7 from then out.
Also, I’d like the best team in each league to get an extra home game so it would be 5 home and 2 away. A little extra something for being the best in the league.
A big reason I'm not terribly excited about this year's "progress".
It takes exceptionally little effort, luck, and skill to build a 75-win team in the modern game. I still say if you watch enough baseball outside of Pittsburgh you come away understanding truly how much parity actually exists today.
It's the next 10 wins that start to mean something, and the next 10 after that to actually get into the championship picture.
Per your second paragraph, that’s exactly why I’ve been so disgusted at Cherington’s tenure. “Rebuilding” doesn’t remotely explain the mind-numbing awfulness of his first three years.
In fact, their recent play just illustrates what an awful job he’s done. The rotation is a shambles and none of the rookies has been more than OK, yet they’re over .500 since Aug 1. All the boob had to do was not totally botch the offseason and make a few moves to avoid the complete fiasco of May-July, and they’d be in WC contention.
There is no excuse for disastrously long teardowns in the modern game. They got absolutely no benefit for three atrocious years of baseball they could not have gotten anyways with at least marginally competitive teams like we see this year.
The O's didn't just have to tear down the player end of things. Under Duquette, they were so aggressively anti-analytics they were like a business using smoke signals to communicate. Elias had to transition to a totally different era. Cherington mainly just needed to get rid of Kyle Stark.
It doesn't take a great team to make the playoffs any more. You only need an average team with a little bit of luck avoiding long-term injuries to key players. I don't like the system at all. 1 wild card team seems sufficient, but this system is very good for small-market teams. There should not be the need to grand teardowns and rebuilds given competent management.
One thing about this system is that it transforms MLB into a league in which the healthiest team come October is in the best position, rather than the best team: especially with regard to pitching. If you have an average team that has its top 2 or 3 starters healthy going into the post-season, you are in a better position than a very good team missing 2 of top 3 in the rotation. Also, bullpens become even more important in the post-season, since you might be limping into the playoffs missing starters, which is why I think the Pirates should focus on their bullpen in the off-season.
The system does have its merits. It gives more fans reasons to stay interested later in the season, rather than mostly tuning the league out in September and waiting for the playoffs to start watching again (like I did for years). It also should remove (though it has not as yet) the need for complete teardowns and rebuilds, since any team should never be more than a handful of decent players away from average. I can live with it.
How can you do that to yourself? I think I stopped watching long before Lanny Frattare was doing his best to convince us that Adam Hyzdu's September call-up could be a potential turning point for the Pirates organization.
Reinforces how close this team really is going into next year! Progress from the young guys + some pitching health and cruz makes this team probably a WC team
Even more striking is taking a look at their record since the break. They were 9 games under then and are 9 under now. The narrative that focuses on the collapses between the 20-8 start and the break is missing the real story. They are .500 in the second half and that’s after losing the the first 5 games after the ASG!!
They haven’t even been “massively” outscored on the season. Less than 100 runs is not massive at all.
Not sure you did the research before saying “massively”. Wrong assumption. They have been outscored by 50 runs total in the second half, 25 of the runs in those first five losses.
Shortly after that trades and callups changed the team significantly and no matter how much we try to say the team is no better, it’s bullpucky.
There are playoff teams with worse run differentials in august and September.
Anything to piss on even the smallest success, as usual.
If your psyche is so fragile that you get this butthurt over semantics, then by all means, soften language as much as you need to feel good about watching crappy teams.
Being outscored by 96 puts them at tied for 6th from the bottom. Per Pythagorean W/L they’re about 5 wins above their Runs Scored vs Runs allowed says. It’s an improvement over last year no doubt, but it would be hard to be worse. Rather than massive amount how about...healthy amount? Does that make it better?
I don’t think it does a whole lot of good to parse the first and second half either. While they’ve called up a slew of kids, those kids haven’t been the reason the team has played better in the last two months. It’s mostly due to younger vets (Reynolds, Key, Keller, Bednar, Jack) playing more to their level.
I’m glad they’re improving by what will amount to probably 12-15 more wins. But there are still a lot of steps that need to be taken to get to that next level.
Im very torn on the merits of run diff, i used to think anything in the middling range was just variance while big pos or big negative were either a very good or very bad team. Now, I dont know if it means anything at all since losing 15-0 or 3-1 counts the same on the sheet and blowouts can just be a factor of scoring early and teeing off on the opposing teams worst arms. I keep talking myself in and out of it lol, what do yinz think?
Really meaningless except it's evidence of having 3-4 in the bullpen who should be in AAA. Mop-up work is meaningless and that's when scores get out of hand.
AFL squad: brannigan, bowen, bins, samaniego, flowers, ercolani, junker, dombkowski
Roughly 1.5 of those are players i would have guessed had a chance of going
Moreta has a future with our team?
Im sure he will hang around on the edge of the 40 as an arm with some intrigue and can get hot in the pen
arbitration eligible though, no?
Spotrac his him prearb until 2027
ah - then its a no brainer
Has at least 1 more option year too. His metrics look better than his topline stats. He is a keeper... for now, and someone I can see progressing to a higher leverage role, at least against righties.
I truly couldn't tell by the end what was real and what was Tim's increasingly extreme storytelling, but the whole let-kids-dictate-their-own-development thing - if accurate - would seem to have the obvious logical hole that you see in Jared Jones right now.
Maybe his change and curve just suck and going all in on being Spencer Strider-lite is actually the best for him, but it also screams of a kid trying to succeed and not trying to develop.
If only there were coaches for that.
I think there's some accuracy to it. I went out to FIL a few times last year and they really weren't doing anything at all. Just some half-assed scrimmaging. No drills. They don't seem to do drills much any more at any time, which may explain some of the frequent defensive and baserunning boobery, as well as the fact that very few pitchers in the entire org. can field their position.
"some of the frequent defensive and baserunning boobery"
I'm really not sure about this per Fangraphs baserunning metric, they're 12th out of 30 teams. Per the defensive metric they are 8th out of 30 teams
I presume Wilbur was speaking of the system at large, and if you watch much of the affiliates you know exactly what he means. Quality of play is atrocious.
But I’m soooooo glad all the owners got to save some scratch by folding all those low minors teams. Really happy for them.
I don't know about those baserunning metrics. I don't think they are very comprehensive. I think that the Pirates at the MLB level have run the bases pretty well this year. I am also not sure about the defensive metrics... which are always a little dicey. I think their defense has been less than mediocre... but I don't suppose my eye-test is any more accurate an indicator than the metrics.
When you have the best defensive 3bmen on the planet, that helps. As does having, Hedges, Santana, Peguero plays a good 2b, Rodriguez and Triolo have been good defensively as well.
Metrics>your eye-test
And the best part about Hayes is he may hit enough to win a GG this year!
Well... yes Peguero is definitely an upgrade at 2B, but that position has been staffed by Bae and Marcano for long stretches this season, and I don't think either of them is very good. SS has been a mess unless Williams is in, and he can't hit. CF has not been good, and RF has been poor when Davis is there. So... with on again off again defense at 2B and RF, bad defense at SS, and very subpar defense in CF.. I don't think that is a good defensive team. 2B, SS, and CF are 3 of the 4 most important defensive positions, with C as the 4th.
Does Williams' ability to hit count against his defensive abilities? Other than gold glove voting, I dont think those two things relate
This is exhausting...
On the account of the use of the word boobery, ill allow it
I'm referring more to what I've seen in the minors.
that's what you'll see in the minors. Derek Jeter had 56 errors in one season.
No. I mean in comparison to what I've seen in past years. The quality of play I'm seeing from their teams is down.
The AFL roster is remarkably uninteresting. Bowen, Brannigan, Ercolani, Dombkowski, Flowers, Junker, Bins.
Whelmed
surprised no Cheng
what is the status of DareiL?
Yeah, Cheng was an obvious one. Also Termarr, Gorski, Travis MacGregor, Chen and/or Harrington. Ascraft. Lots of possibilities.
All I know on Lopez is "out for the season."
Who is left off you’d like to see go down there? White? I’m afraid he might step on a cactus.
Henry Davis *ducks*
Developmentally, pitchers seem to matter way more than hitters.
Just like the Cape, nobody really sends good, healthy pitchers because of injury risk. I don't really see the AFL being a challenge or developmentally beneficial for top hitting prospects.
That’s a good call. In fact, I’d be fine if Hank didn’t bat at all...just played RF for both teams. Double the reps!
Rod Munoz ain't exactly a Top 10 pitching prospect in all of baseball or anything but NickyG hitting for the cycle in a game in which the good guys put up 14 runs followed by a golden sombrero when they put up one seems awfully common. Quality of pitching varies so wildly in the minor leagues.
I like waking up 5 games ahead of the Cardinals though it would feel a hell of a lot better if it was for first place not last. Baby steps!
Does late inning palacios keep a 40 man spot as a PH specialist? Or do we try to oversell his value to some other team over the offseason?
right now it looks like a Palacios / Andujar platoon
is Tank now battling Delay for role as backup catcher?
I guess it depends on what you want to do about 1B and CF. Teams don't really carry 5 true OFers any more. Andujar, Cutch, Joe, and Palacios are redundant: moreso if you want to move Jack to RF and get a true CFer. Cutch will almost certainly be back. Joe will be 32 next year. Palacios and Andujar are the same age, and it seems to me that Andujar is the much better bet at this point to cover 4th OFer and 1B backup. I figure at least 1 and probably 2 of Joe, Palacios, and Andujar will be traded for something. I prefer to trade Joe and Palacios, but I guess it depends on perspective. The return will not be great.. would be nice throw-ins along with a couple prospects (i.e. Gonzalez and/or Davis) for a true CFer.
2024 Marte Parte
We definitely are going to have a logjam of these spare parts that are redundant, like you mentioned. Choosing the few that give us the best roster construction/best return will be interesting to follow for BC. Suppose also palacios or andujar may accept a AAA assignment as possible first OF up in case of injury, but they may also want to try for a bigger role elsewhere
I mentioned it yesterday, so I'll say it again today. These Pirates were literally one extra win every 30 days away from being in a legit race for a wild card spot. There are ten days left in the season and they can't be eliminated from the playoffs mathematically tonight. That's from a team that is 52-73 since sending Drew Maggi to the minors.
I'm not a fan of the 12-playoff team system, but that's the world we are in now (who knows what Manfred will do to that world over the off-season). This team, as bad as they were from early May through the All-Star break, is only playing irrelevant games now because of one extra loss per month since their hot start
I liked the 10 team playoff system better, and while the WC game is cool and very un-baseball like, a natural step would have been to make that a mini series (2 of 3 in the higher seeds park) rather then just expand to a dozen. And then after that, best of 7 from then out.
Also, I’d like the best team in each league to get an extra home game so it would be 5 home and 2 away. A little extra something for being the best in the league.
A big reason I'm not terribly excited about this year's "progress".
It takes exceptionally little effort, luck, and skill to build a 75-win team in the modern game. I still say if you watch enough baseball outside of Pittsburgh you come away understanding truly how much parity actually exists today.
It's the next 10 wins that start to mean something, and the next 10 after that to actually get into the championship picture.
Per your second paragraph, that’s exactly why I’ve been so disgusted at Cherington’s tenure. “Rebuilding” doesn’t remotely explain the mind-numbing awfulness of his first three years.
In fact, their recent play just illustrates what an awful job he’s done. The rotation is a shambles and none of the rookies has been more than OK, yet they’re over .500 since Aug 1. All the boob had to do was not totally botch the offseason and make a few moves to avoid the complete fiasco of May-July, and they’d be in WC contention.
Preach. There are real examples,
Dbacks, Cubs both won 74 last year and both will likely be WC's.
Marlins won 69, Reds 62 and are both knocking on the door and over .500. There should be NO
satisfaction by BC, he needs to get us IN in '24.
You and me both, brother.
There is no excuse for disastrously long teardowns in the modern game. They got absolutely no benefit for three atrocious years of baseball they could not have gotten anyways with at least marginally competitive teams like we see this year.
Unfortunately, given the success of Baltimore with this “model,” I don’t think we’ll see it going away either.
Ugh, stop. One success and ten failures, unfortunately, will probably still give cheap-ass owners the cover to continue.
Sorry I should know better than to say the quiet part out loud. Now I’ve ruined it.
The O's didn't just have to tear down the player end of things. Under Duquette, they were so aggressively anti-analytics they were like a business using smoke signals to communicate. Elias had to transition to a totally different era. Cherington mainly just needed to get rid of Kyle Stark.
It doesn't take a great team to make the playoffs any more. You only need an average team with a little bit of luck avoiding long-term injuries to key players. I don't like the system at all. 1 wild card team seems sufficient, but this system is very good for small-market teams. There should not be the need to grand teardowns and rebuilds given competent management.
One thing about this system is that it transforms MLB into a league in which the healthiest team come October is in the best position, rather than the best team: especially with regard to pitching. If you have an average team that has its top 2 or 3 starters healthy going into the post-season, you are in a better position than a very good team missing 2 of top 3 in the rotation. Also, bullpens become even more important in the post-season, since you might be limping into the playoffs missing starters, which is why I think the Pirates should focus on their bullpen in the off-season.
I like this system much better than the system that had the team with the 2nd best record in the game play a one game wild card.
Yet another example that more divisions just serve to hose things up.
The system does have its merits. It gives more fans reasons to stay interested later in the season, rather than mostly tuning the league out in September and waiting for the playoffs to start watching again (like I did for years). It also should remove (though it has not as yet) the need for complete teardowns and rebuilds, since any team should never be more than a handful of decent players away from average. I can live with it.
I guess I'm truly a degenerate. I've been watching Pirates play Sept baseball my entire life.
The exception is Sunday's during football season. I'll check in, but I'm watching more football.
How can you do that to yourself? I think I stopped watching long before Lanny Frattare was doing his best to convince us that Adam Hyzdu's September call-up could be a potential turning point for the Pirates organization.
It's in my blood, man. Grew up watching baseball with my Dad and brother as far back as I can remember.
Reinforces how close this team really is going into next year! Progress from the young guys + some pitching health and cruz makes this team probably a WC team
Even more striking is taking a look at their record since the break. They were 9 games under then and are 9 under now. The narrative that focuses on the collapses between the 20-8 start and the break is missing the real story. They are .500 in the second half and that’s after losing the the first 5 games after the ASG!!
while getting massively outscored.
Huge credit to the Manager for wringing so many wins out of these guys.
They haven’t even been “massively” outscored on the season. Less than 100 runs is not massive at all.
Not sure you did the research before saying “massively”. Wrong assumption. They have been outscored by 50 runs total in the second half, 25 of the runs in those first five losses.
Shortly after that trades and callups changed the team significantly and no matter how much we try to say the team is no better, it’s bullpucky.
There are playoff teams with worse run differentials in august and September.
Anything to piss on even the smallest success, as usual.
If your psyche is so fragile that you get this butthurt over semantics, then by all means, soften language as much as you need to feel good about watching crappy teams.
Being outscored by 96 puts them at tied for 6th from the bottom. Per Pythagorean W/L they’re about 5 wins above their Runs Scored vs Runs allowed says. It’s an improvement over last year no doubt, but it would be hard to be worse. Rather than massive amount how about...healthy amount? Does that make it better?
I don’t think it does a whole lot of good to parse the first and second half either. While they’ve called up a slew of kids, those kids haven’t been the reason the team has played better in the last two months. It’s mostly due to younger vets (Reynolds, Key, Keller, Bednar, Jack) playing more to their level.
I’m glad they’re improving by what will amount to probably 12-15 more wins. But there are still a lot of steps that need to be taken to get to that next level.
Im very torn on the merits of run diff, i used to think anything in the middling range was just variance while big pos or big negative were either a very good or very bad team. Now, I dont know if it means anything at all since losing 15-0 or 3-1 counts the same on the sheet and blowouts can just be a factor of scoring early and teeing off on the opposing teams worst arms. I keep talking myself in and out of it lol, what do yinz think?
Really meaningless except it's evidence of having 3-4 in the bullpen who should be in AAA. Mop-up work is meaningless and that's when scores get out of hand.
The 94-win 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates had a Pythagorean record of 88-74, returned nearly the same lineup in 2014, and won how many games?
You guessed it.
Nobody outruns the basics of scoring more than your opponent over the long run. Nobody.