Barco walked the first batter he faced then K’d 5 of 6 looking really good for two innings. His 3rd got weird. He gave up his first hit then had a couple of stubborn hitters reach. He eventually got out of it, but threw a lot of pitches in the inning and was up over 60 total for 3, so that was it for him. Pretty good outing for his first back. Looked healthy.
KG just lined one to right center. One-hopped the wall, OF played it well and got it back in quickly. KG clearly was going for three from the start, just beat the throw. Routine double for just about anybody else.
Seeing the Pirates bench last night after that garbage call in the 8th inning by a minor-league umpire, it is pretty clear that Kelly has lit a fire under this team that was never there during Shelton's entire tenure. I don't think it is coincidence that the team is playing better (despite a regression to obsolete rigidity in how they use the bullpen) under Kelly. I hope he can maintain that level of enthusiasm in the players through the season.
Great play by KG in the 1st saved Bradenton a run. Caro, playing 3B, fumbled a grounder to his left. KG was ranging over behind him, picked the ball up and got the batter at 1B. I didn’t think he had any shot.
Then KG beat out an IF hit, stole second easily and scored on a single.
I think they might be keeping Chandler in Indy because they are afraid he might finish top 2 in ROY voting. Nobody has really separated themselves in the number 2 slot and if he has several good starts when he comes up, he could move to the top of the list. Baldwin is the only one making a case at 1.
Yeah. I think it is pretty clear that they learned a lesson from Skenes: that this is not a normal organization and that the chances of signing a star player to a long-term deal are approaching 0. So, they are going back to the Huntington strategy of waiting for Super 2. In all honesty though, why not? The off-season inaction and incompetence has doomed this season before it got started. Might as well preserve the value of their assets again for some ill-defined future date... same as always.
He has only had a dozen games at AAA. They have never rushed guys through or skipped steps in Piccollo's entire tenure running the minor league system. By Royals' standards, they are pushing him very fast. He only had about 40 games at AA. There is some defensive work that needs done too. They have been using him in the OF more and more. They have Pasquantino at 1B (and he can definitely not play OF), and Perez often DHs (because he just can't catch 125 games per season any more). Perez is playing some 1B too. So they really need Jac to play some OF for the big league team to get their best lineup on the field.
They gave Bobby Witt Jr. more time in AA and 60 games in AAA, for example. It's the way Piccollo has always operated.
J-Hay announced his retirement today. He hadn’t played since 2023. Made two all-star teams with the Pirates. A good under-the-radar pick up by Huntington.
Couldn’t remember the trade specifics so I looked it up: John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny to the Cubs for Harrison, Kevin Hart, and Jose Ascanio.
Harrison was a 2008 6th round pick by the Cubs out of the University of Cincinnati. His best season was his age 26 season in 2014 when he accumulated 5.6 bWAR. His career WAR was 16.1.
Comment here for Draft Mel (and others of course). A bit behind on podcasts, I listened to BA’s on players who can help their draft stock in postseason play. Most of these guys I hadn’t heard of, Dave Russell.
Hitters:
Landon Vidorouk, Cincinnati
Jack Gurevitch San Diego
Arms:
AJ Russell, Tennessee
Gage Wood, Arkansas
James Ellwanger, Dallas Baptist
Anthony Eyenson, LSU
JB Middleton, Southern Miss.
Got any preference or knowledge on these guys? I’d heard of Russell who apparently has been tantalizing his entire tenure but has had injury issues.
Watching games in the tournament, I really think this is a weak class of college hitters. I'm way more impressed with the next two draft classes as far as the hitters go. Cuvet from Miami, Lebron from Alabama, Wentz from Wake and the list could go on, look better to me than Arquette. I just don't see many top 50 bats this year. Even the guys in 25 to 75 range just don't stand out.
There will be several college bats picked in the first 2 rounds but I'd focus on prep bats and college arms this year. I'm sure there are more but I only like a few prep pitchers as well, Hernandez who I'd take at pick 6, Schoolcraft, Bauer, Sime and Harmon are about it in the early rounds.
We always like a draft class more the farther away they are from being drafted.
However, you’re right though. The BA podcast on best draft tools (released yesterday), the two podcasters had difficulty hanging too many plus hit tools on anyone. Davalan, Bodine, a couple others.
Vidorouk is an outfielder, very good college player, strikes out a good bit. He'll probably go 5th round or later, could go higher if someone really likes him.
Gurevitch is a firstbasemen with the same qualities as Horwitz or Kayfus when he came out. Really good hitter if he can get the ball over the fence more he'd easily be a 3rd or 4th rounder but that's his knock, hits line drives hard but doesn't elevate the ball enough.
As for the pitchers, I'm probably not the guy to ask but I do like Russell (he just got back from TJS). He's kinda like Barco 1st round stuff, injury concern will push him to the 2nd or later.
I really think they should take the '23 draft approach to college pitching, maybe one of the guys in the first round if the hitter they like isn't there. Then go heavy on arms starting in round 4 or 5. There's a lot of decent college arms that should be available then.
Sure hated to see the ball thrown to Davis mistakenly called strike three. The walk would have tied the score and perhaps the next batter drives in the wining run.
I thought that it was a disgrace to turn out the stadium lights to bring in the SD relief pitcher. Such sham practices have no place in professional baseball.
If anyone's curious, Ump last night called only 2 strikes that were out of the zone. One on Frazier in the 7th, one on Davis in the 8th. Overall impact of the ump's work on the night: +1.58 runs for San Diego.
If you sort the overall data to see which teams are being hurt the most by B/S calls, the seven teams with the highest negative impacts are all small market teams, including of course the Pirates. Coincidence? Yeah, suurrrre.
2 Happy notes from the Indy game I was at last night.
1) After me dogging on Nick Yorke the day before, he played DH tonight and got two hits. The first hit he placed perfectly and looked like Luis Arraez with the swing. The second hit he stretched a single into a double by busting it out of the box.
2) Bubba was so worth the price of admission. He was taking it easy with his his fastball the first 4 innings as the scoreboard read 97 mph most of the time. His 5th and final inning, he decided to ramp it up. My favorite was when the count was 3 and 2 on his final batter, he shook off the catcher's sign (like in the movies). Then he threw his 100 mile per hour heater right by the hitter for his last pitch. So fun.
I’m going to be really interested to see how Escotto does in Altoona. This will be the true test as to whether he’s turned the corner or not. If he has, he’s still young enough to make the majors and perhaps be effective. If he goes back to struggling, then the dream is over.
After 4 years in Greensboro Escotto should get a diploma. It’s hard to believe he finally turned a corner but he will still be age appropriate in AA SO….fingers crossed
Normally I would agree with you, but that pitch wasn't that close. Davis clearly saw it the whole way and decided to layoff because he saw it clearly enough to know it was going to be a ball.
Sorry. You’re wrong, All he would have done is ground out to 3rd or hit it off his shin. If it were a batter with a better reputation it probably would have been a ball, which it was, which is why he did not swing. If he swings and misses we are all over him for swinging at ball 4. Take your base and your RBI.
Keller is tied for the MLB lead in quality starts with nine. Yet he's 1-7. Skenes is one of the guys he's tied with. Skenes is 4-5. The other four guys are all over .500, a combined 23-11.
Hell, it's damn hard to argue with you if you are going to insist on using facts! Just kidding, Mitch is the reincarnation of Bob Friend.
The good thing is that Teams who know baseball do not pay much attention to a SP's record. I would be surprised if there were not 5 or 6 teams sniffing around the Pirates clubhouse inquiring about the availability of Mitch Keller.
One that would fit nicely as a trade partner is the Texas Rangers. Look at their Rotation, then look at how many innings the individual starters have thrown in recent years. Patrick Corbin is about the only innings eater. The rest have all been injured or coming back from injury. For Young LH hitting OF's they have Alejandro Osuna, 22 (143wRC+ in 2024 in AAA). Has just been called up to the majors a few days ago. They also have Evan Carter, 23, who was drafted out of HS in 2020. He is an excellent defender, who hit 634 OPS for Texas last year - 45 games, 144 AB, 6 doubles, 2 triples, 5 HR, as a 22 year old last year.
Bob Friend is a great analogy. I think Keller is a great value for what he’s getting. Or would be if they cared enough to put a competitive team behind him.
Did not see the play by IKF, but the throw to Home by Frazier was only about a 75' throw that had to be right on the plate in order for the Catcher to make the play. Throwing it a foot or two to the 1B side gave the runner free access to the plate. Just a terrible effort from an experienced player.
The pitch to Davis was definitely out of the strike zone, but the combined 0 for 12 with 10 K's by our 5, 6, and 7 batters was not much help either. We have to do a better job of at least putting the ball in play - not just last night, but every game!
Barco walked the first batter he faced then K’d 5 of 6 looking really good for two innings. His 3rd got weird. He gave up his first hit then had a couple of stubborn hitters reach. He eventually got out of it, but threw a lot of pitches in the inning and was up over 60 total for 3, so that was it for him. Pretty good outing for his first back. Looked healthy.
KG just lined one to right center. One-hopped the wall, OF played it well and got it back in quickly. KG clearly was going for three from the start, just beat the throw. Routine double for just about anybody else.
Will Taylor goes oppo. Pitching here doesn’t seem to be a mystery to him any more. Probably should be on his way.
Seeing the Pirates bench last night after that garbage call in the 8th inning by a minor-league umpire, it is pretty clear that Kelly has lit a fire under this team that was never there during Shelton's entire tenure. I don't think it is coincidence that the team is playing better (despite a regression to obsolete rigidity in how they use the bullpen) under Kelly. I hope he can maintain that level of enthusiasm in the players through the season.
Barco activated from IL.
Best news that I have had all day.
Fanned 3 in the first.
Only struck out 2 in the 2nd. Is he going to strike out 1 in 3rd to make a pattern.
Great play by KG in the 1st saved Bradenton a run. Caro, playing 3B, fumbled a grounder to his left. KG was ranging over behind him, picked the ball up and got the batter at 1B. I didn’t think he had any shot.
Then KG beat out an IF hit, stole second easily and scored on a single.
https://x.com/The_Marauders/status/1928921725699346831
Full blown stud!
The game is streaming for free. KG’s play making the throw from deep in the hole off his backhand was impressive.
I think they might be keeping Chandler in Indy because they are afraid he might finish top 2 in ROY voting. Nobody has really separated themselves in the number 2 slot and if he has several good starts when he comes up, he could move to the top of the list. Baldwin is the only one making a case at 1.
Which is 100% the correct move. Keeping him down for like 3 more starts also means he will not reach Super 2.
Yeah. I think it is pretty clear that they learned a lesson from Skenes: that this is not a normal organization and that the chances of signing a star player to a long-term deal are approaching 0. So, they are going back to the Huntington strategy of waiting for Super 2. In all honesty though, why not? The off-season inaction and incompetence has doomed this season before it got started. Might as well preserve the value of their assets again for some ill-defined future date... same as always.
Kinda like the Royals and their anemic offense and not calling up Jac.
He has only had a dozen games at AAA. They have never rushed guys through or skipped steps in Piccollo's entire tenure running the minor league system. By Royals' standards, they are pushing him very fast. He only had about 40 games at AA. There is some defensive work that needs done too. They have been using him in the OF more and more. They have Pasquantino at 1B (and he can definitely not play OF), and Perez often DHs (because he just can't catch 125 games per season any more). Perez is playing some 1B too. So they really need Jac to play some OF for the big league team to get their best lineup on the field.
They gave Bobby Witt Jr. more time in AA and 60 games in AAA, for example. It's the way Piccollo has always operated.
Maybe that’s what they’re doing - making sure he can handle RF defensively before he gets the call. They certainly need the offense out there
J-Hay announced his retirement today. He hadn’t played since 2023. Made two all-star teams with the Pirates. A good under-the-radar pick up by Huntington.
Couldn’t remember the trade specifics so I looked it up: John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny to the Cubs for Harrison, Kevin Hart, and Jose Ascanio.
Harrison was a 2008 6th round pick by the Cubs out of the University of Cincinnati. His best season was his age 26 season in 2014 when he accumulated 5.6 bWAR. His career WAR was 16.1.
J-Hay was supposed to be the throw-in.
Comment here for Draft Mel (and others of course). A bit behind on podcasts, I listened to BA’s on players who can help their draft stock in postseason play. Most of these guys I hadn’t heard of, Dave Russell.
Hitters:
Landon Vidorouk, Cincinnati
Jack Gurevitch San Diego
Arms:
AJ Russell, Tennessee
Gage Wood, Arkansas
James Ellwanger, Dallas Baptist
Anthony Eyenson, LSU
JB Middleton, Southern Miss.
Got any preference or knowledge on these guys? I’d heard of Russell who apparently has been tantalizing his entire tenure but has had injury issues.
Middleton is pitching against Alabama on espn2 at 3pm.
Watching games in the tournament, I really think this is a weak class of college hitters. I'm way more impressed with the next two draft classes as far as the hitters go. Cuvet from Miami, Lebron from Alabama, Wentz from Wake and the list could go on, look better to me than Arquette. I just don't see many top 50 bats this year. Even the guys in 25 to 75 range just don't stand out.
There will be several college bats picked in the first 2 rounds but I'd focus on prep bats and college arms this year. I'm sure there are more but I only like a few prep pitchers as well, Hernandez who I'd take at pick 6, Schoolcraft, Bauer, Sime and Harmon are about it in the early rounds.
We always like a draft class more the farther away they are from being drafted.
However, you’re right though. The BA podcast on best draft tools (released yesterday), the two podcasters had difficulty hanging too many plus hit tools on anyone. Davalan, Bodine, a couple others.
Arnold looks pretty good tonight, Myles Bailey crushed a homerun, I wanted him in the 3rd round last year when they took Hartle.
I hope they get some left handed power bats, the organization has hardly any.
Vidorouk is an outfielder, very good college player, strikes out a good bit. He'll probably go 5th round or later, could go higher if someone really likes him.
Gurevitch is a firstbasemen with the same qualities as Horwitz or Kayfus when he came out. Really good hitter if he can get the ball over the fence more he'd easily be a 3rd or 4th rounder but that's his knock, hits line drives hard but doesn't elevate the ball enough.
As for the pitchers, I'm probably not the guy to ask but I do like Russell (he just got back from TJS). He's kinda like Barco 1st round stuff, injury concern will push him to the 2nd or later.
I really think they should take the '23 draft approach to college pitching, maybe one of the guys in the first round if the hitter they like isn't there. Then go heavy on arms starting in round 4 or 5. There's a lot of decent college arms that should be available then.
Sure hated to see the ball thrown to Davis mistakenly called strike three. The walk would have tied the score and perhaps the next batter drives in the wining run.
I thought that it was a disgrace to turn out the stadium lights to bring in the SD relief pitcher. Such sham practices have no place in professional baseball.
If anyone's curious, Ump last night called only 2 strikes that were out of the zone. One on Frazier in the 7th, one on Davis in the 8th. Overall impact of the ump's work on the night: +1.58 runs for San Diego.
https://x.com/UmpScorecards/status/1928823690344443937?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
And if you want to see the rated impact by team, you can see that here: https://umpscorecards.com/data/teams
If you sort the overall data to see which teams are being hurt the most by B/S calls, the seven teams with the highest negative impacts are all small market teams, including of course the Pirates. Coincidence? Yeah, suurrrre.
Further down is another graphic showing that he missed 10 total pitches, five of them out of the zone.
SD didn’t win the game. Never know how it would’ve ended if Davis walked.
I meant to check that out, thanks for posting!
2 Happy notes from the Indy game I was at last night.
1) After me dogging on Nick Yorke the day before, he played DH tonight and got two hits. The first hit he placed perfectly and looked like Luis Arraez with the swing. The second hit he stretched a single into a double by busting it out of the box.
2) Bubba was so worth the price of admission. He was taking it easy with his his fastball the first 4 innings as the scoreboard read 97 mph most of the time. His 5th and final inning, he decided to ramp it up. My favorite was when the count was 3 and 2 on his final batter, he shook off the catcher's sign (like in the movies). Then he threw his 100 mile per hour heater right by the hitter for his last pitch. So fun.
3 ball count though. He needs more time to work on that in Indy. Mid to late June should be enough time.
-Ben Cherington
Clearly Yorke’s motivation hinges on your input! Love this stuff, Stats.
Love these!
Thanks. Two more games for me here, then back to Illinois.
I’m going to be really interested to see how Escotto does in Altoona. This will be the true test as to whether he’s turned the corner or not. If he has, he’s still young enough to make the majors and perhaps be effective. If he goes back to struggling, then the dream is over.
After 4 years in Greensboro Escotto should get a diploma. It’s hard to believe he finally turned a corner but he will still be age appropriate in AA SO….fingers crossed
He’s the Bluto Blutarsky of Greensboro…
Love that idea. Or organize a good luck/tribute farewell day at the ballpark.
You can’t walk off the island
I thought we were done with all this staring at strike three bs!!!
You don’t swing at balls….
With two strikes you do when they’re that close
Normally I would agree with you, but that pitch wasn't that close. Davis clearly saw it the whole way and decided to layoff because he saw it clearly enough to know it was going to be a ball.
Sorry. You’re wrong, All he would have done is ground out to 3rd or hit it off his shin. If it were a batter with a better reputation it probably would have been a ball, which it was, which is why he did not swing. If he swings and misses we are all over him for swinging at ball 4. Take your base and your RBI.
Keller is tied for the MLB lead in quality starts with nine. Yet he's 1-7. Skenes is one of the guys he's tied with. Skenes is 4-5. The other four guys are all over .500, a combined 23-11.
Blown calls didn't create these numbers.
No doubt, the blown call does not change the fact that this has been a poor offensive team.
I don’t know, man. Blue calls the ball a ball in the Davis AB & Keller isn’t 1-7.
That call was clearly wrong.
Yeah, great, then he's 1-6.
Hell, it's damn hard to argue with you if you are going to insist on using facts! Just kidding, Mitch is the reincarnation of Bob Friend.
The good thing is that Teams who know baseball do not pay much attention to a SP's record. I would be surprised if there were not 5 or 6 teams sniffing around the Pirates clubhouse inquiring about the availability of Mitch Keller.
One that would fit nicely as a trade partner is the Texas Rangers. Look at their Rotation, then look at how many innings the individual starters have thrown in recent years. Patrick Corbin is about the only innings eater. The rest have all been injured or coming back from injury. For Young LH hitting OF's they have Alejandro Osuna, 22 (143wRC+ in 2024 in AAA). Has just been called up to the majors a few days ago. They also have Evan Carter, 23, who was drafted out of HS in 2020. He is an excellent defender, who hit 634 OPS for Texas last year - 45 games, 144 AB, 6 doubles, 2 triples, 5 HR, as a 22 year old last year.
It seems to make too much sense that they trade Keller for a decent bat. That's exactly why they won't do it.
Bob Friend is a great analogy. I think Keller is a great value for what he’s getting. Or would be if they cared enough to put a competitive team behind him.
IKF & Frazier make those fairly routine plays and Pirates win 2-1 even with the shit show by the HP Umpire.
Did not see the play by IKF, but the throw to Home by Frazier was only about a 75' throw that had to be right on the plate in order for the Catcher to make the play. Throwing it a foot or two to the 1B side gave the runner free access to the plate. Just a terrible effort from an experienced player.
The pitch to Davis was definitely out of the strike zone, but the combined 0 for 12 with 10 K's by our 5, 6, and 7 batters was not much help either. We have to do a better job of at least putting the ball in play - not just last night, but every game!
I was going to post that about our 5 thru 7 hitters. I was also going to note that the Padres 5 thru 9 hitters went 0 for 14.