Luis Robert Jr hasn't even been very good this year. Surprised when I took a look at his numbers. .198 .284 .484 line in 25 games good for a 109 wRC+ thanks pretty much solely to his 7 dingers in 102 PAs. He'd be a super risky get with the injury history and the 35% strikeout rate. The below article has Getz saying they want full price for him, too:
I am the king at this. All you have to do is read my posts. We win 2 games in a row, I am the happiest guy on the planet. We lose 2 in a row, I can give you a list a mile long telling you why.
I no longer want us to be active in the trade market—I think we have too many holes to fill to realistically contend this season and I’m worried that out of desperation Cherington will trade someone like Ashcraft or Harrington or Chandler that we’ll miss when a competent FO takes over.
It is a shame that Cherington couldn’t set us up better for year one of Skenes, but maybe that allows them to be more cautious with his innings count and that will pay off next year. (Same with Jones.)
I was going to wait til July to come to the same conclusion, but agree wholeheartedly. Losing Bednar along with watching several AAAA relievers in the pen is salt in the wound. We're headed for 10 games under by the A/S break, so BC will be happy to stand pat.
Personally when I read Nutting give permission for Cherington to go out and make the team better, it is showing his hand a little. The last thing I want to see is the Pirates make a trade for the sole reason of making the fan base happy. See Chris Archer.
When you think about it, when you push an incompetent person to “do something,” you generally get a result even more idiotic than their norm. With Littlefield it was Matt Morris, with Huntington it was Archer. Cherington is more incompetent than Littlefield and far more incompetent than Huntington, so it’s pretty scary to think what sort of idiocy he might come up with. Maybe trade Skenes and Jones for Kris Bryant.
Imo, any trade for offense has to be a long term solution, player(s) that will be a part of the Skenes, Keller, Jones, etc era as opposed to a one year band-aid. The question is, do they have the trade capital to make it happen? Also, his value may be lower today, but I'm not opposed to trading Hayes. He's been around long enough and has not proven he can be the consistent hitter this team needs or stay healthy. They can play Triolo at 3B and use the money for an offensive upgrade elsewhere. Can NG play 3B?
This is a sinking ship and I think Cherington is on the hot seat.
-Nutting speaking to the media is telling. We need to acquire externally and need internal improvements.
-BC spend 30+M this past off-season and it has netted him -0.9 fWAR. He traded for Olivares and that has netted -0.4 fWAR
-Several hitters have regressed significantly.
-Henry Davis a 1-1, is completely lost and has been worth -1.2 fWAR. His development has been curious to say the least. For a 1-1, he had the least amount of minor league ABs since 1979.
If this thing crashes and burns like I suspect it will, I'm guessing they clean house. Whoever comes in will have a chance to do something special...they just need to find the right guy.
Agree with the idea that there should be a hot seat right now. The year Cherington took over, our top 5 prospects were Keller, Hayes, Cruz, Swaggerty and Tucker. Is our current top 5 better than this? I have doubts. Interestingly, Ashcraft rated on that list as having the best slider in the system. 5 years and a TJ surgery later, he is in the top 5 according to FG, as a NH draftee. Burrows is in the top 10, another NH draftee. The core of the team is pretty much all NH acquisitions. I made this point to you a few weeks ago and I’ll make it again in light of this comment: what prospects has he drafted and signed that have come out of nowhere to shoot up the ranks? Anyone with a Baseball America guide could have drafted Gonzales/Jones/Skenes. Most of what we’ve seen is our prospects going the other way and looking like non-prospects: Jebb, Solometo, Lonnie White, even Termarr Johnson amazingly. Highly skeptical we see a house cleaning though. This management team has a lot of people bamboozled for some reason. It surely isn’t their superior communication skills.
Here is something I saw backing what you are saying about develpment. Henry Davis looks totally lost with that batting stance in the majors. So they send him to the minors and don't think they changed a thing. He hits a few homers off slow or crappy pitchers and they promote him. That is really how you fix things? Similar story with Jack Suwinski. And I'll never understand the Miguel Andujar thing..... who is hitting 85 points above league average at .324.
Cherington doesn't like any player that does not see a lot of pitches. All of his trade acquisitions, draft picks, and free-agent signings demonstrate this tendency. Andujar is something of a free-swinger who has that rare ability to make decent contact with pitches outside the zone. He doesn't fit Cherington's preconceived model of what makes a good hitter, so he released him: simple as that. It is very much like Huntington's pitch-to-contact one-size-fits all pitching strategy. This statement will upset the loons here, as it always does, but to ignore the obvious is just stupid. Cherington bases all of his decisions on pitches-per-PA. It's why we have Grandal over Sanchez; Tellez over anyone competent; Olivares over Andujar. It's why we had Vogelbach and VanMeter (who swung at a ridiculously low number of in-zone pitches). Until we get a GM who actually understands something about hitting and isn't so simple-minded, we are going to be stuck with the Grandals of the league, and anyone he trades for will be an overvalued version of Tellez.
In other words, he's targeting the correct approach. He's just getting the wrong guys. If Andujar, is your gotcha example, you probably don't have a point because he sucks.
Go look at the leaderboard at Fangraphs, all the top fWAR hitter see a lot of pitches and draw a lot of walks. There's nobody up there was an Andujar approach.
Are these top fwar players good because they take a lot of pitches or is it they get pitched around because they are good hitters. To try to ignore what a hitter's strength is and trying to make them all the same is foolish.
Almost everyone walks more than Andujar, so what. While some hitters are taking a lot of pitches and trying to draw walks, Andujar is swinging and getting hits. In fact his batting average is higher than all but 4 MLB team's on base percentage. His OBP is higher than all 30 teams.
If there are runners in scoring position, you do what you can to move that runner. The last stat I'm going to look at for that type of player is fwar. If he does his job, I could give a rat's ass if it was in the strike zone or what pitch it was.
Exactly this. No one is going to give Mookie Betts pitches over the middle of the plate except by mistake. There is a difference between Freddie Freeman seeing a lot of pitches and Rowdy Tellez seeing a lot of pitches.
What is the favorite line of the loons here? "Good grief, some of the comments on this site. It's like they never watched a baseball game or know anything about baseball."
Miguel Andujar is a 29 yo journeyman who has failed to stick in the league across NINE PROFESSIONAL SEASONS explicitly due to his abject lack of plate discipline.
HOW IN GOD'S NAME IS THIS YOUR PATRON SAINT OF PROFESSIONAL HITTERS.
Tellez, Olivares, Grandal, and Taylor all currently have *below* average walk rates and the prevailing narrative among the Pirate fanbase is that the offense is failing because they're targeting hitters who walk too much.
The guys you mentioned have below average walk rates because as a whole they are below average hitters. No pitcher pitch around these guys because they are not afraid of any of those hitters you just mentioned. I've never heard anyone on here complain about a player that walks too much. I've heard plenty complain about guys that strike out looking for a walk.... when there only job was to move a runner.
Truly wish I could agree, but I fear we’d be blaming the wrong person. The ship is sinking or at least listing heavily without much doubt, but the captain is not BC. He might be the first mate but Nutting is the captain and has the plank all set up and waiting for anyone who dares to challenge his authority.
Nutting’s speaking to the media is telling all right, but not for the reasons you articulate. He can fire Cherington any time he wants and there’s no reason to make some half-assed proclamation before doing so. This is but another example of him setting up his employees, Cherington , Shelton, etc, to take the fall so he can dance around and pretend to be the good guy who comes in to save the day, again.
If Cherington goes, he’ll hire someone else just like him who knows who the boss is and never over steps his bounds. Every Pirate employee knows this from the GM to the TV announcers who often sound like hucksters on QVC trying to sell some piece of junk to anyone gullible enough to listen. Writers lose their jobs for saying anything even remotely critical.
I would love to see some really positive change in how the Pirates operate, but just do not see that happening with this ownership. Really, really hope I’m wrong though because I’m too old to wait much longer for the Pirates to win.
I was reading the Athletic series on strikeouts this week. Hindsight is 20/20, but I really think you are close to right on this. Huntington made a critical error: he failed to recognize the importance of the pitch f/x/trackman stuff and put us way behind the 8 ball with the pitch to contact stuff. If he had adopted the philosophy of trying to miss bats and the requisite technology, he’s probably still sitting in the big chair on Federal St.
He was ahead of baseball with the analytics, until he wasn't. I remember his press conference after he got hired talking about VORP and all this metric language that I never heard of before. I was thinking who the eff is this guy...but he is the one that opened my eyes into the analytic world.
In addition to the analytics stuff, he had a baseball sense that Cherington just seems to lack. Even if I disagreed with a decision Huntington made, like the Erik Gonzalez fiasco, I usually at least understood it from a baseball standpoint. I am usually bewildered by Cherington. This seasons roster is a good example: I don’t understand how a baseball person could look at the position players on the 40 man and think “yeah that’s a good, coherent roster!”
He's brought in a slew of middle relievers off the waiver and collectively I've never seen a group that bad.
Watching Jack casually come in on a ball hit by Elly allowing it to turn into a double. Watching Falter not back up Grandal costing another run. It's just bad baseball and tough to watch.
Huntington did a nice rebuild, then Bob opened the checkbook to supplement the good young talent. That was fun and Huntington did did a great job. When we started to decline, Nutting was the problem. I am assuming he told Huntington he had to get rid of the 12 million on Liriano's contract. Huntington traded 3 top 10 prospects just to save Nutting 12 million....... the Blue Jays wound up being patient with Liriano and traded him for Teoscar Hernandez who we will see in the all star game.
See, here we finally agree! I know I want Cherington gone because I wasn't even excited by Nutting's comments that we needed external help for the offense because I don't want Cherington touching any trade proposals for this team ever again. No idea who we could get to replace Cherington. They couldn't be much worse. Nutting would be tempted to offer Kim Ng the job but I think she pretty obviously did a bad job in Miami. Would prefer someone from Baltimore, Milwaukee or Atlanta, honestly.
Ben Sestanovich from the Braves or James Harris from the Guardians or Matt Blood from the Orioles.
Honestly a great point here. For our standards, there was plenty of money to he spent this offseason and good prospect capital to utilize, but BC has done nothing positive with it. Wonder who the rising star in the brewers org might be? Theyre one of the newer model franchises imo
He’s left handed. Sounds trivial, but I feel like we haven’t adequately sourced left handed hitters, which makes no sense considering PNC Park’s dimensions. He has better plate discipline as well. No dislike of Nick Gonzales there, it’s just that Turang would be a nice guy to have.
Sorry for this salty start to the morning. 5 years of GMBC and no prolific offensive talent drafted or signed (international) playing for this Major League team. No Cutch. No Marte. Enjoy your day.
Cherington is now firmly worse than Littlefield in my opinion. Littlefield was just incompetent for the position.
Cherington puts a bandaid on bullet holes. His procrastination over the off-season left the team with gaping holes in the outfield, catcher and the bench. His early sign of Tellez has been bad. With the draft and Allstar game just around the corner he put the team an the fans in purgatory. His procrastination has now probably cost the team a chance for a playoff run but that isn't the reason he needs fired on the spot.
He's fucking wasting not 1 but 2 years of Skenes and Jones. Both are near certain to get a full year of service, which is fine if he'd have put a competitive team around them but he hasn't. His excuse is bullshit, even small upgrades would have helped.
I hope Nutting fires him yesterday. I don't want to see his next reactionary move or his next draft picks. He is stubborn, stupid and worst of all timid.
As for small upgrades, they could have had JD Davis almost for free the other day. Davis is not going to set the world on fire or anything, but he is a marked upgrade at 1B for the Pirates. So, why did they not acquire him for some complex-league riffraff?
Idk if I’d go that far. Cherington isn’t data averse like Littlefield. Unlike Littlefield he seems to recognize that you have to build through a solid minor league system. But man, Cherington seems to lack basic management skills. He hasn’t run out a team yet without massive gaping holes that he’s done precious little to address. First base this year (and pretty much every year) has been a prime example. Beyond that, I think they both have a lot in common in that they both seem to want to manage to win about 80 games. I also read a piece recently where someone wrote that Cherington agonizes over minor decisions and has a drawn out decision making process. That isn’t gonna work in modern baseball. Decisions come fast, and the best teams are proactive with their decision making and jump the market, or even create their own market.
You and I have talked about it long before Skenes was promoted, but the importance of 7 or 8 year contract. Everyone figured we were getting 6 years of Skenes, but we won't even get 5. And if you keep putting out a line-up of rejects from other teams, Skenes will want to get out of Pittsburgh faster than Cole. It also makes it difficult to sign good players. I
Sorry. Littlefield is in a class by himself. Cherington rightly drafted Skenes. His 1st draft is looking really good. He brought back Cutch. There are all kinds of things to criticize him for, but he is not the equal of David Littlefield.
Littlefield drafted Cutch and Walker, and didn’t have to win a lottery to do it. And Cherington didn’t bring back Cutch, Nuttin did. Cherington didn’t want him.
Littlefield was hired for a position he didn't have a skill set to succeed. He was very good in scouting and player development. He had little to no experience in operations and management, 2 of the hardest skills to develop. Cherington was groomed for operations and management and has failed to produce a winning team all but 1 year, and that looks like more luck than skill.
You're missing the point, it isn't Littlefield fault he was hired for the job he wasn't qualified or ready for and will never sniff again. Cherington knows what the team needed and had (and still does) the money to get them. He procrastinated in the off-season to fill the holes with sub replacement level players. He spent around half the budget on relievers (sorry Perez but thats what you were in 2023).
The holes still exist, because he's done absolutely nothing to upgrade them even a little.
Skenes should have been an obvious pick to anyone that watched him pitch his last 10 starts last year for Lsu.
His 1st draft looks good.
Nutting brought back Cutch.
Littlefield didn't half ass it, he should have never had the job. Cherington half asses it.
You don't hire a mechanic to manage the shop. That's what they did to Littlefield. Cherington is trained management but fails to make necessary moves to improve.
You are attempting to pull more from my comment than is there. He may be bad, but Littlefield was worse. In assessing Cherington we need to praise what he has done well. The fact is not everyone said that Skenes should be 1-1. Crews and Langford were favorites for many others. We have the best pitching prospect in baseball because of Cherington and Jones too. It is unfair to dismiss those facts, while only focusing on his failures.
Yes, he is not as bad as Littlefield. Littlefield didn't care about the farm, he was drafting guys like Bullington 1-1 and then saying he could be a decent #3 starter. Drafting Moskos to save money. I remember how refreshing it was that they drafted Pedro #2 because they actually spent $. Littlefield was OK with trades, but he was never going to build a winner by neglecting the farm system. Cherington is slightly better because he understands the importance of prospects. Littlefield didn't believe in prospects and had to be talked into drafting McCutchen by several of his scouts.
What’s frustrating is Shelton used the excuse of the bullpen being overtaxed as a reason they couldn’t keep the game competitive but it’s his and Cherington’s love for bullpen games despite a lack of depth in the bullpen that has to that.
Look at teams that are successful with bullpen games and they all have 8 or 9 pitchers that can go at least 3 innings. We have 5 which doesn't work. Shelton is the only manager in the history of baseball that has said we are out of pitchers the day after throwing 2 shut-outs.
I'm feeling the same way man. I'm a Pirates, Steelers, Pens fan in that order and I've luckily got to witness a few super bowls and cup runs in my 40 years of existence. But I don't think I'm ever gonna get to experience a world series game in Pittsburgh. I'll always be a homer and keep on rooting for our Bucs but damn they've been heavy on the heart for so long and barely a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I'm honestly still pissed off about the Buxton foul ball called passed ball. I tell my buddy at work, life is better when the Bucs win, unfortunately for us few and far between
Luis Robert Jr hasn't even been very good this year. Surprised when I took a look at his numbers. .198 .284 .484 line in 25 games good for a 109 wRC+ thanks pretty much solely to his 7 dingers in 102 PAs. He'd be a super risky get with the injury history and the 35% strikeout rate. The below article has Getz saying they want full price for him, too:
https://sports.yahoo.com/luis-robert-jr-linked-several-161301832.html
Post BTV update, Termarr + Bubba are almost spot on even value for Luis Robert Jr. fwiw
Do they have the money to pay him, Reynolds, and Keller $50m in '26 and '27?
No.
Have, sure. Willingness, unlikely.
I see the Pirates lost last night.
As far as Mel, I think he is extra mad now that the college world series is over.
I am the king at this. All you have to do is read my posts. We win 2 games in a row, I am the happiest guy on the planet. We lose 2 in a row, I can give you a list a mile long telling you why.
No shade intended, this is what we do. ;)
I no longer want us to be active in the trade market—I think we have too many holes to fill to realistically contend this season and I’m worried that out of desperation Cherington will trade someone like Ashcraft or Harrington or Chandler that we’ll miss when a competent FO takes over.
It is a shame that Cherington couldn’t set us up better for year one of Skenes, but maybe that allows them to be more cautious with his innings count and that will pay off next year. (Same with Jones.)
I was going to wait til July to come to the same conclusion, but agree wholeheartedly. Losing Bednar along with watching several AAAA relievers in the pen is salt in the wound. We're headed for 10 games under by the A/S break, so BC will be happy to stand pat.
If we are 10 under at the break, we better see what we can do to improve our team for next year.
Personally when I read Nutting give permission for Cherington to go out and make the team better, it is showing his hand a little. The last thing I want to see is the Pirates make a trade for the sole reason of making the fan base happy. See Chris Archer.
When you think about it, when you push an incompetent person to “do something,” you generally get a result even more idiotic than their norm. With Littlefield it was Matt Morris, with Huntington it was Archer. Cherington is more incompetent than Littlefield and far more incompetent than Huntington, so it’s pretty scary to think what sort of idiocy he might come up with. Maybe trade Skenes and Jones for Kris Bryant.
Except Nutting ain’t green lighting that contract.
i think nutting has regrets about firing Huntington since the moment he did it
it was a weird thing that he decoupled himself from when he fired hurdle
The personal element there couldn’t have been easy either. You won’t find many nicer guys in the game than Huntington.
has there ever been a gm who was fired and then rehired years later?
Yes. Gene Michael of the Yankees.
feels like some Steinbrenner shit.
I have thought about it since Bob made the public announcement and it is beginning to scare me a bit.
Imo, any trade for offense has to be a long term solution, player(s) that will be a part of the Skenes, Keller, Jones, etc era as opposed to a one year band-aid. The question is, do they have the trade capital to make it happen? Also, his value may be lower today, but I'm not opposed to trading Hayes. He's been around long enough and has not proven he can be the consistent hitter this team needs or stay healthy. They can play Triolo at 3B and use the money for an offensive upgrade elsewhere. Can NG play 3B?
playing Nick at third from time to time frees up playing time for Peguero
rest of the time can go to Triolo
Hayes for another lost salary (Byron Buxton) is just what the doctor ordered
If we keep slipping, I am not opposed to trading Reynolds either.... but only if 2 things happen.
1) We bring back a haul.
2) We get a player just as good as Reynolds in the off-season. Maybe a first baseman.
This is a sinking ship and I think Cherington is on the hot seat.
-Nutting speaking to the media is telling. We need to acquire externally and need internal improvements.
-BC spend 30+M this past off-season and it has netted him -0.9 fWAR. He traded for Olivares and that has netted -0.4 fWAR
-Several hitters have regressed significantly.
-Henry Davis a 1-1, is completely lost and has been worth -1.2 fWAR. His development has been curious to say the least. For a 1-1, he had the least amount of minor league ABs since 1979.
If this thing crashes and burns like I suspect it will, I'm guessing they clean house. Whoever comes in will have a chance to do something special...they just need to find the right guy.
Agree with the idea that there should be a hot seat right now. The year Cherington took over, our top 5 prospects were Keller, Hayes, Cruz, Swaggerty and Tucker. Is our current top 5 better than this? I have doubts. Interestingly, Ashcraft rated on that list as having the best slider in the system. 5 years and a TJ surgery later, he is in the top 5 according to FG, as a NH draftee. Burrows is in the top 10, another NH draftee. The core of the team is pretty much all NH acquisitions. I made this point to you a few weeks ago and I’ll make it again in light of this comment: what prospects has he drafted and signed that have come out of nowhere to shoot up the ranks? Anyone with a Baseball America guide could have drafted Gonzales/Jones/Skenes. Most of what we’ve seen is our prospects going the other way and looking like non-prospects: Jebb, Solometo, Lonnie White, even Termarr Johnson amazingly. Highly skeptical we see a house cleaning though. This management team has a lot of people bamboozled for some reason. It surely isn’t their superior communication skills.
not fair because a lot of guys have graduated
But most of the guys who graduated were NH guys (Cruz), guys you or I could have picked (Skenes) or guys who haven’t done anything (Davis).
Here is something I saw backing what you are saying about develpment. Henry Davis looks totally lost with that batting stance in the majors. So they send him to the minors and don't think they changed a thing. He hits a few homers off slow or crappy pitchers and they promote him. That is really how you fix things? Similar story with Jack Suwinski. And I'll never understand the Miguel Andujar thing..... who is hitting 85 points above league average at .324.
Cherington doesn't like any player that does not see a lot of pitches. All of his trade acquisitions, draft picks, and free-agent signings demonstrate this tendency. Andujar is something of a free-swinger who has that rare ability to make decent contact with pitches outside the zone. He doesn't fit Cherington's preconceived model of what makes a good hitter, so he released him: simple as that. It is very much like Huntington's pitch-to-contact one-size-fits all pitching strategy. This statement will upset the loons here, as it always does, but to ignore the obvious is just stupid. Cherington bases all of his decisions on pitches-per-PA. It's why we have Grandal over Sanchez; Tellez over anyone competent; Olivares over Andujar. It's why we had Vogelbach and VanMeter (who swung at a ridiculously low number of in-zone pitches). Until we get a GM who actually understands something about hitting and isn't so simple-minded, we are going to be stuck with the Grandals of the league, and anyone he trades for will be an overvalued version of Tellez.
In other words, he's targeting the correct approach. He's just getting the wrong guys. If Andujar, is your gotcha example, you probably don't have a point because he sucks.
Go look at the leaderboard at Fangraphs, all the top fWAR hitter see a lot of pitches and draw a lot of walks. There's nobody up there was an Andujar approach.
Are these top fwar players good because they take a lot of pitches or is it they get pitched around because they are good hitters. To try to ignore what a hitter's strength is and trying to make them all the same is foolish.
Almost everyone walks more than Andujar, so what. While some hitters are taking a lot of pitches and trying to draw walks, Andujar is swinging and getting hits. In fact his batting average is higher than all but 4 MLB team's on base percentage. His OBP is higher than all 30 teams.
If there are runners in scoring position, you do what you can to move that runner. The last stat I'm going to look at for that type of player is fwar. If he does his job, I could give a rat's ass if it was in the strike zone or what pitch it was.
Your buddies entire argument revolves around Miguel Andujar being better than hitters that are selective at the plate. That’s it. Read the OP
My response is to you saying Andujar sucks because of his fwar. I say he is good because he hits and knocks in runs.
I'm also saying Andujar is better because he is not selective at the plate. Most players are better because they are selective at the plate.
That's it.
Exactly this. No one is going to give Mookie Betts pitches over the middle of the plate except by mistake. There is a difference between Freddie Freeman seeing a lot of pitches and Rowdy Tellez seeing a lot of pitches.
What is the favorite line of the loons here? "Good grief, some of the comments on this site. It's like they never watched a baseball game or know anything about baseball."
They're good hitters because of the approach.
Miguel Andujar is a 29 yo journeyman who has failed to stick in the league across NINE PROFESSIONAL SEASONS explicitly due to his abject lack of plate discipline.
HOW IN GOD'S NAME IS THIS YOUR PATRON SAINT OF PROFESSIONAL HITTERS.
Because unlike you, I have actually watched him play many games.
A smart GM would sprinkle in those shitty plate discipline types.
None of this one-size-fits-all garbage.
Tellez, Olivares, Grandal, and Taylor all currently have *below* average walk rates and the prevailing narrative among the Pirate fanbase is that the offense is failing because they're targeting hitters who walk too much.
Truly incredible example of hysteria here.
The guys you mentioned have below average walk rates because as a whole they are below average hitters. No pitcher pitch around these guys because they are not afraid of any of those hitters you just mentioned. I've never heard anyone on here complain about a player that walks too much. I've heard plenty complain about guys that strike out looking for a walk.... when there only job was to move a runner.
loons. lol
It's much broader than the narrative you're trying to spin.
This One Small Trick to Fix Your Offense!!!
***CLICK HERE***
Truly wish I could agree, but I fear we’d be blaming the wrong person. The ship is sinking or at least listing heavily without much doubt, but the captain is not BC. He might be the first mate but Nutting is the captain and has the plank all set up and waiting for anyone who dares to challenge his authority.
Nutting’s speaking to the media is telling all right, but not for the reasons you articulate. He can fire Cherington any time he wants and there’s no reason to make some half-assed proclamation before doing so. This is but another example of him setting up his employees, Cherington , Shelton, etc, to take the fall so he can dance around and pretend to be the good guy who comes in to save the day, again.
If Cherington goes, he’ll hire someone else just like him who knows who the boss is and never over steps his bounds. Every Pirate employee knows this from the GM to the TV announcers who often sound like hucksters on QVC trying to sell some piece of junk to anyone gullible enough to listen. Writers lose their jobs for saying anything even remotely critical.
I would love to see some really positive change in how the Pirates operate, but just do not see that happening with this ownership. Really, really hope I’m wrong though because I’m too old to wait much longer for the Pirates to win.
Nutting isn't the problem. Huntington was so damn close to getting there.
I was reading the Athletic series on strikeouts this week. Hindsight is 20/20, but I really think you are close to right on this. Huntington made a critical error: he failed to recognize the importance of the pitch f/x/trackman stuff and put us way behind the 8 ball with the pitch to contact stuff. If he had adopted the philosophy of trying to miss bats and the requisite technology, he’s probably still sitting in the big chair on Federal St.
Pretty much.
He was ahead of baseball with the analytics, until he wasn't. I remember his press conference after he got hired talking about VORP and all this metric language that I never heard of before. I was thinking who the eff is this guy...but he is the one that opened my eyes into the analytic world.
In addition to the analytics stuff, he had a baseball sense that Cherington just seems to lack. Even if I disagreed with a decision Huntington made, like the Erik Gonzalez fiasco, I usually at least understood it from a baseball standpoint. I am usually bewildered by Cherington. This seasons roster is a good example: I don’t understand how a baseball person could look at the position players on the 40 man and think “yeah that’s a good, coherent roster!”
Watching that game last night was difficult.
He's brought in a slew of middle relievers off the waiver and collectively I've never seen a group that bad.
Watching Jack casually come in on a ball hit by Elly allowing it to turn into a double. Watching Falter not back up Grandal costing another run. It's just bad baseball and tough to watch.
Huntington did a nice rebuild, then Bob opened the checkbook to supplement the good young talent. That was fun and Huntington did did a great job. When we started to decline, Nutting was the problem. I am assuming he told Huntington he had to get rid of the 12 million on Liriano's contract. Huntington traded 3 top 10 prospects just to save Nutting 12 million....... the Blue Jays wound up being patient with Liriano and traded him for Teoscar Hernandez who we will see in the all star game.
Totally reasonable take.
See, here we finally agree! I know I want Cherington gone because I wasn't even excited by Nutting's comments that we needed external help for the offense because I don't want Cherington touching any trade proposals for this team ever again. No idea who we could get to replace Cherington. They couldn't be much worse. Nutting would be tempted to offer Kim Ng the job but I think she pretty obviously did a bad job in Miami. Would prefer someone from Baltimore, Milwaukee or Atlanta, honestly.
Ben Sestanovich from the Braves or James Harris from the Guardians or Matt Blood from the Orioles.
Baltimore.
Honestly a great point here. For our standards, there was plenty of money to he spent this offseason and good prospect capital to utilize, but BC has done nothing positive with it. Wonder who the rising star in the brewers org might be? Theyre one of the newer model franchises imo
His name was Matt Arnold.
Arnold's system isn't great. He's too in love with small hit tool guys who play up the middle just like Cherington.
Idk. I’d take Turang and Ortiz right now?
How is Turang any different than Nick Gonzales? Other than a LHB and not coached into a slump by Andy Haines?
Turang is able to draw a walk and not K. He parlays those skills into a 119 wRC+ and is on pace for 50 SBs. He's better than Gonzales.
He’s left handed. Sounds trivial, but I feel like we haven’t adequately sourced left handed hitters, which makes no sense considering PNC Park’s dimensions. He has better plate discipline as well. No dislike of Nick Gonzales there, it’s just that Turang would be a nice guy to have.
I thought it was Robert Paulson.
Sorry for this salty start to the morning. 5 years of GMBC and no prolific offensive talent drafted or signed (international) playing for this Major League team. No Cutch. No Marte. Enjoy your day.
Cherington is now firmly worse than Littlefield in my opinion. Littlefield was just incompetent for the position.
Cherington puts a bandaid on bullet holes. His procrastination over the off-season left the team with gaping holes in the outfield, catcher and the bench. His early sign of Tellez has been bad. With the draft and Allstar game just around the corner he put the team an the fans in purgatory. His procrastination has now probably cost the team a chance for a playoff run but that isn't the reason he needs fired on the spot.
He's fucking wasting not 1 but 2 years of Skenes and Jones. Both are near certain to get a full year of service, which is fine if he'd have put a competitive team around them but he hasn't. His excuse is bullshit, even small upgrades would have helped.
I hope Nutting fires him yesterday. I don't want to see his next reactionary move or his next draft picks. He is stubborn, stupid and worst of all timid.
As for small upgrades, they could have had JD Davis almost for free the other day. Davis is not going to set the world on fire or anything, but he is a marked upgrade at 1B for the Pirates. So, why did they not acquire him for some complex-league riffraff?
Idk if I’d go that far. Cherington isn’t data averse like Littlefield. Unlike Littlefield he seems to recognize that you have to build through a solid minor league system. But man, Cherington seems to lack basic management skills. He hasn’t run out a team yet without massive gaping holes that he’s done precious little to address. First base this year (and pretty much every year) has been a prime example. Beyond that, I think they both have a lot in common in that they both seem to want to manage to win about 80 games. I also read a piece recently where someone wrote that Cherington agonizes over minor decisions and has a drawn out decision making process. That isn’t gonna work in modern baseball. Decisions come fast, and the best teams are proactive with their decision making and jump the market, or even create their own market.
You and I have talked about it long before Skenes was promoted, but the importance of 7 or 8 year contract. Everyone figured we were getting 6 years of Skenes, but we won't even get 5. And if you keep putting out a line-up of rejects from other teams, Skenes will want to get out of Pittsburgh faster than Cole. It also makes it difficult to sign good players. I
Totally agree
Sorry. Littlefield is in a class by himself. Cherington rightly drafted Skenes. His 1st draft is looking really good. He brought back Cutch. There are all kinds of things to criticize him for, but he is not the equal of David Littlefield.
Littlefield drafted Cutch and Walker, and didn’t have to win a lottery to do it. And Cherington didn’t bring back Cutch, Nuttin did. Cherington didn’t want him.
Littlefield was hired for a position he didn't have a skill set to succeed. He was very good in scouting and player development. He had little to no experience in operations and management, 2 of the hardest skills to develop. Cherington was groomed for operations and management and has failed to produce a winning team all but 1 year, and that looks like more luck than skill.
You're missing the point, it isn't Littlefield fault he was hired for the job he wasn't qualified or ready for and will never sniff again. Cherington knows what the team needed and had (and still does) the money to get them. He procrastinated in the off-season to fill the holes with sub replacement level players. He spent around half the budget on relievers (sorry Perez but thats what you were in 2023).
The holes still exist, because he's done absolutely nothing to upgrade them even a little.
Skenes should have been an obvious pick to anyone that watched him pitch his last 10 starts last year for Lsu.
His 1st draft looks good.
Nutting brought back Cutch.
Littlefield didn't half ass it, he should have never had the job. Cherington half asses it.
You don't hire a mechanic to manage the shop. That's what they did to Littlefield. Cherington is trained management but fails to make necessary moves to improve.
We have a problem if the primary justification for Cherington is that he drafted the guy at 1-1 that most analysts and fans said should be 1-1.
And it was Nutting that brought back Cutch, who was drafted by Littlefield, ironically.
I don’t know if Cherington is worse but I have the similar feelings of dread about his trades and FA signings as I did with Littlefield.
“Similar feelings of dread.” So that’s the feeling I’ve had in the pit of my stomach the last 2 years?
You are attempting to pull more from my comment than is there. He may be bad, but Littlefield was worse. In assessing Cherington we need to praise what he has done well. The fact is not everyone said that Skenes should be 1-1. Crews and Langford were favorites for many others. We have the best pitching prospect in baseball because of Cherington and Jones too. It is unfair to dismiss those facts, while only focusing on his failures.
Yes, he is not as bad as Littlefield. Littlefield didn't care about the farm, he was drafting guys like Bullington 1-1 and then saying he could be a decent #3 starter. Drafting Moskos to save money. I remember how refreshing it was that they drafted Pedro #2 because they actually spent $. Littlefield was OK with trades, but he was never going to build a winner by neglecting the farm system. Cherington is slightly better because he understands the importance of prospects. Littlefield didn't believe in prospects and had to be talked into drafting McCutchen by several of his scouts.
I can tell you what his next move will be. Picking up the next crappy reliever that gets waived/DFA'd and adding him to the PIrates bullpen.
Probably, I'm sure it will be a half assed measure with some sort of greater cost.
A real HALF ASS that makes excuses.
I'm not sure which was more pathetic....the line up behind Paul Skenes on Sunday or the quartet of bullpen arms that followed Falter last night.
What’s frustrating is Shelton used the excuse of the bullpen being overtaxed as a reason they couldn’t keep the game competitive but it’s his and Cherington’s love for bullpen games despite a lack of depth in the bullpen that has to that.
Look at teams that are successful with bullpen games and they all have 8 or 9 pitchers that can go at least 3 innings. We have 5 which doesn't work. Shelton is the only manager in the history of baseball that has said we are out of pitchers the day after throwing 2 shut-outs.
Ben wants a balanced team!!
He wants a good balance of .500 and .600 OPS hitters.
Well put! He's working hard to accomplish that goal.
I'm feeling the same way man. I'm a Pirates, Steelers, Pens fan in that order and I've luckily got to witness a few super bowls and cup runs in my 40 years of existence. But I don't think I'm ever gonna get to experience a world series game in Pittsburgh. I'll always be a homer and keep on rooting for our Bucs but damn they've been heavy on the heart for so long and barely a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I'm honestly still pissed off about the Buxton foul ball called passed ball. I tell my buddy at work, life is better when the Bucs win, unfortunately for us few and far between