A combined 33-52. With the Pirates now below .500 and threatening last place in the central, it's beyond discouraging to find such little in the cupboards. So much for drafting and homegrown talent! The heralded pitching is coddled so much that when they have their inevitable injuries (despite being coddled), we'll hardly notice because they don't pitch more than half the game anyway. The hitting is abysmal with strikeout after strikeout, no situational hitting and the best quote in the recent comments is "The Pirates - where good hitters go to die." Except they don't get good hitters - they get the Rowdys and the Hedges of the world. Dreary stuff for the last day of April.
David Schoenfield of ESPN is one of my favorite national baseball writers. Always insightful without all the bells and whistles. In today’s column —- the April 30-team report card (Pirates get a C) —- you fill find this nugget: “Betting on non-great players to keep producing in their 30s is always going to be risky.”
Could someone please tattoo this on Ben Cherington’s forehead?
I liked Oviedo and everything I read about Burrows, but you never know how pitchers come back from injuries. Two guys I am afraid might be hurt are Jun-Seok Shim and Thomas Harrington. I guess my point is in today's game you can probably only count on half of them to be healthy two years in a row.
I believe the over/under on the Pirates pre-season was 75.5 wins. Right now they are 14-16 on pace to win 75.6 games. Therefore, we should all be very happy.
Atleast the Steelers drafted well. You think we could get Khan to over see our draft and hitting development? In my 40 years of existence I've always kept some sort of optimism for our Bucs even when it wasn't deserved but honestly I really can't come up with anything to be positive about. Our pitching certainly keeps things interesting but that's literally it. The 1 bright spot used to be checking the minor league box scores, other than my boy NickG it's just a black hole when it comes to our hitters. Maybe we'll continue to draft pitching well and start flipping them for established major league hitters. I'm quite exhausted with this shit.... Someone please tell me there's a light at the end of the tunnel!?!
There isn't any light. It's taken me over 50 years of existence to discover this. Maybe those childhood late 70s teams delayed my idiocy of hope a bit longer.
"honestly I really can't come up with anything to be positive about" - pitching. Jones, Keller, add Skenes, then we have next year Bubba
I honestly feel like we are about to get some rotations. Hard to keep Bae and Gonzales down when our 2b production has been what it is..... And frankly Jake Lamb deserves some time in the majors with his minor production.
Admittingly, I could only stay up for the first 3 innings. I couldn't believe the number of non-competitive pitches the Oakland starter was throwing, especially in the first. If I see that, I'm not taking the bat off my shoulders until he shows me, he can throw 2 strikes in an AB. Kid like that, you wait him out.
Other than that, this was 2 bad teams playing each other. Pirates have 2 guys (Hayes & Reynolds) and really nothing else. They're the only 2 regulars that are above replacement. Pitching appears to be a strength, with some good depth, but you need to score runs. Wouldn't hurt my feelings if they fired Haines, but it's not going to make a bunch of dudes with bad hit tools better. The main culprit is the GM, I'm sorry but this is year 5 and it's not a competitive club.
That's what they did. Of course, they did not stop after Doyle left. They kept up the plan of "show me a strike before I move the bat" all night. By my count, last night, in their 35 PAs, Pirates' hitters took 11 first-pitch strikes looking. They took almost as many 2 pitch strikes looking. They swung 3 times the entire game on the first-pitch. All three swings were at strikes. So, of the 14 strikes thrown on first-pitches last night. The Pirates watched 11 go by and swung at 3. Hitting is hard, and it is harder when you start behind in the count in over 30% of your ABs.
I don't think that there is a team hitting "philosophy," whatever that is, that says... "hack away." There are individual hitters that hunt strikes better, are more patient, and so forth, and others that hack away more often.
What I can tell you is that of the 100 MLB players, 300 PAs or more last year, with the lowest zone swing %, 6 of those players now play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They just don't swing at enough strikes, and much of this is early in the count. Some of this may be their "philosophy," but some of it is just going out and hunting FAs based only on pitches/AB, such as Tellez or Vogelbach or Grandal. They keep accumulating cheap hitters who watch strikes go by and fall behind in counts.
I'm not sure if specific pitches, but I feel they're teaching their hitters to seek pitches in a specific zone. Whether it's a specific quadrant, zone, upper/lower half, I'm not sure. But, watch any pitches not in that zone, rather than "hunt strikes". If its in that zone, swing with all you got. Often finding themselves in non-hitter friendly counts.
Yes. This is what everyone is saying from the ex-Altoona hitting coach to everyone watching the entire system. They want players to be extra selective with pitches. I think the hitting zone may vary depending upon what the metrics say is "hot," but the general trend is to pull the ball, because this results, on average in higher exit velocities. It truly is one-size-fits all approach to hitting devised by people who have not spent much time trying to hit major-league pitchers. It is hard enough for a batter to distinguish between ball and strike at 96 MPH, read slider, changeup, or fastball spin, and make a swing decision in a split second. Now you are asking them to refine that decision even further. Very few, elite only, hitters can do this. The average major-leaguer cannot. They are asking for the impossible, and the results speak for themselves.
In the comments to this article, there is a fan sure their one size fits all approach is to push the ball to the opposite field and another fan sure their one size fits all approach is to pull the ball and absolutely nobody sharing a shred of evidence behind either of their assertions due to the fact that none actually exists.
Does anyone understand what "one size fits all" means?
I was going to say the Pirates should just make a truce with the Orioles to swap hitting and pitching prospects. But the Orioles seem to be seeing some of their pitchers click. Which just seems unfair.
They are the same guy, except Grandal was actually good at the patient/power thing a few years ago and Vogelbach is not awful. Tellez on the other hand.
The narrative is that they keep accumulating the exact same type of hitter; unfortunately it is always the cheapest version that they can find. They are not hunting for hidden value or potential or an underutilized guy or anything else. They just accumulate players based on pitches per AB. This is all that Cherington knows. It is literally "Moneyball the Movie" in real life. I can't help you if you can't see what is plainly in front of everyone to see.
The two clubs with the highest swing rate in baseball are also the second and third worst offensive teams in the game.
Neither aggressive nor passive approaches work in today's game. Disciplined approaches work.
Good hitting clubs swing at more strikes and less balls, which inherently means this is a *skill* issue.
The bizarre and baffling refusal for fans to consider the possibility that the hitters just aren't good is hilarious to me. As if people truly believe these dudes have unlocked plate discipline that's being shrouded by Andy Haines' refusal to let them swing at strikes.
Baffling. Everybody wants to believe they're the smartest guy in the room.
Well, clearly I'm not the smartest guy in the room. That guy is currently still trying to concoct a story of how I'm manipulative and along with my amigos tried to sabotage him.
That said, I think the "the hitters just aren't good" is itself a lazy (lack of better term, not meant to be patronizing) take. Now, I do believe there are/were a great deal of scouting misses: ie. your take on Nicky G. But I don't think it's as easy as everyone else is just bad. I obviously don't have an answer, or I'd probably be working in a front office. I don't necessarily believe Haines is the main culprit, but I also don't think he's the answer as you can go back to his Milwaukee days and see he also coached an above average offense into mediocrity, who subsequently rebounded the year after he left.
Where I'm having a problem believing it's just bad prospects, is that it's becoming organizational wide, and not just the big club. We're not talking just a Cal Mitchell or CSN who hit in the minors but can't pick up big league pitching, but it's kid after kid after kid after kid that aren't even becoming able to pick up an A ball breaker. Would the likes of Gorski, Fraizer, or Glenn have become MLB regulars? No, but they all had ~150+ PAs of looking like competent hitters in Double-A, only to repeat the next year and look like release candidates a year later.
As I said in another comment, they're hardly to the point of needing to clear the translating to majors hurdle. They can't even get hitters to the upper minors. Mitch Jebb is goofy, but he shouldn't be THIS bad in Greensboro, with a swinging strike rate equivalent to Fraizer, Peggy, and Bowen.
Kebryan Hayes has increased his production from 85 wRC+ in 2021 to 111 this year.
Oneil Cruz improved from a 73 wRC+ in the first half of his first year to 117 in the second.
Endy Rodriguez developed into a top 25 prospect in all of baseball before being prematurely called up and subsequently injured.
The motivated reasoning that ignores successes and any nuance at all in this conversation is what I'm against.
Fringe prospects (Jackson Glenn for fucks sake?!) failing as they climb the latter is precisely how baseball has worked for generations.
Pirate dev is far from elite. They're clearly in the meaty part of the bell curve with the majority of orgs.
Save for maybe an insane dev club like Tampa, good hitting teams have guys of the quality of the first three I listed up and down the lineup. They're not turning Jackson friggin Glenn into gold.
Two years ago nearly every thread on a Pirate website was filled with garbage about "PLAY THE KIDZ" in spite of the fact that the Pirate led the league, by far, in rookie playing time and nearly every on of them sucked.
Groupthink is a hell of a drug.
I, too, think they should swing at more strikes and less balls.
I also think the pitchers should throw strikes only in a hitter's dead zone.
I wish there was a way to try and narrow down where there may be an issue. It isn't like with the pitching that we could point to a set of data and say, "These guys just have shit fastballs, and often pair it with shit command". Jared Jones comes in with elite pitch shape, or guys that command/sequence better, and pitching looks better.
With hitting, they've tried contact, hit over power hitters. Failed. They've gotten power over hit. Failed. Guys that are in-betweeners. Failed. My biggest concern going back a year is coming to fruition, that if the current crop of young hitters don't succeed, they're screwed. The hitting in the minors top to bottom is atrocious. They're not even developing Quad A hitters. With Neil, the biggest issue was translating minor league success to the majors. The Ben regime isn't even getting to the point of developing guys with minor league success. They can't even get hitters to Double-A, and succeed.
From reading the recent Alex Stumpf article on Sean Sullivan, it would seem that Vic Black has a huge part in helping the pitchers develop. Whoever that guy is for the hitting side, needs to be canned, cause they are failing miserably. On top of I think Haines needs to go as well.
I don’t believe the hitting talent on this team is as bad as it’s performing currently. All of these players have shown the ability to hit major league pitching at some point, but have gone from “streaky” to completely flatlined. And you’re right, they turned their legitimate power threats into singles hitters. It looks like everyone goes to the plate trying to hit to the opposite field, except for Henry Davis who is just lost and trying to pull everything.
From Cherington’s perspective, he’s at a crossroads and either needs to admit that his evaluation of these players he acquired is off, or make changes to coaching personnel to try to get the most out of his players.
It also seems like he evaluates things from a month to month basis, so hopefully with one full month of the season in the books he starts to try and shake up the roster at the very least.
The development of Jack this season is wild. What he was doing last year was working. He was a productive hitter. Now he sacrificed power for contact, ironically hitting LHP, and brutal against RHP.
I have no qualms with their drafting and development of pitchers, feels like Ben has a niche there.
However, the part of developing hitters is absolutely terrible. Jack went from a guy that was a TTO guy, with a k rate north of 30% to a guy that isn't k'ing, but has no pop. wtf did they do to him? They have Termarr and they have no clue of what to do with him. Henry Davis was said to have the best bat in his draft class and now he appears to have no plan at the plate, other than trying to pull everything. Other than that, the minor leagues have no real hitters. It's not that cannot even develop AAAA guys, it's because they're not drafting well.
I'm not even sure it's so much that they're not drafting well, rather than them seeking hitters with generally a specific set of skills/tools, that they believe they can develop into a big league hitter. Problem being that they're finding themselves in the hitter version of the Searage bubble, trying to turn hitters into something they're not, and subsequently killing off what made them competent hitters in the first place. You look at a lot of the guys they've drafted, and acquired through trades over the years, they love contact/"disciplined" hitters that have a penchant for beating the ball into the ground. Who may or may not have a dose of power. They obviously didn't draft him themselves, but it's like they looked at Hayes and said "find me as many of him as possible".
I'm not sure of your last sentence. They drafted Nick, Henry and Termarr and I don't believe they had a pound it into the ground profile like Hayes. Same with Suwinski as he was trade, and he also doesn't have that profile.
If anything, they try to make their hitters work counts and get the pitch count high, while selling out for power. Not a terrible approach, but you need the right guys. I just don't think they have much to work with...Look at Bradenton, is there anyone who will make it to AA on that squad?
Break these dudes down individually and the explanations seem pretty clear.
NickG and Hank were both clear scouting misses.
Both have unorthodox swings, which were frequently referenced leading up to their selections.
Gonzales is a near replica of Hiura, Downs, and Keiboom; all three hitters were scouted as plus yet turned out to bust. This swing just doesn't work in today's game.
Hank's was thought to be the antidote to high fastballs and yet high/inside heat has proven to be his kryptonite. It's a grooved swing with terrible coverage of the outer third, which forces him so close to the plate that he's left vulnerable to fastballs of a quality he rarely if ever see at Louisville.
Absolutely zero evidence they did a damn thing to make these two any worse of a hitter than they showed up as.
A frustrating game last night in Oakland, and the calls for change are starting. Grandal, when ready, will probably push Henry Davis back to AAA. Joey Bart is playing for his career, and has been too good to send away unless another team is coming with a solid offer. Other than that, it is hard for me to comprehend some of the changes being suggested.
Pitching and Defense. We have both and this team should start getting it together - the talent is there. I hear Nick Gonzales, and he has been hitting very well at AAA with a BABIP of around 480 - do I expect that last? No. Still a decent second baseman. Ji-Hwan Bae? Where?
The Pirates have a solid infield right now when Connor Joe is at 1B. Oneil Cruz is struggling, but that is to be expected following a year completely away from the game due to injury. Hayes is a GG at 3B and can play any other position in the infield, and do it well. Jared Triolo came in when Hayes was injured and during his time at 3B (309 innings) in 2023, he was excellent! Advanced fielding stats for 300 innings left 46 players at 3B. He was tied for 8th out of 46 with +4 DRS, 7th of 46 in Range +1.7 Runs above avg, and 1st of 46 in UZR/150 with +9.8. This year the Pirates moved him to a new position - 2B. His hitting has not been up to his standard in 2023, but in Advanced Fielding at 2B (189 innings) he is 3rd in DRS with +5, Tied for 2nd in Range with +0.7 Runs above avg, and 2nd in UZR/150 with a +9.6. Tellez is on a $3.2 mil contract?
The OF is good defensively, but Reynolds is the only OF other than Olivares who is hitting well. Jack is struggling, but his BB% to K% numbers are good. Too early to make any moves in the OF.
Hopefully, the management team will not allow themselves to panic.
Idk. I’ll say this: Huntington was frequently uninspired and ruthlessly utilitarian. But at least I always knew what the end game was. I have no clue what these guys think they are doing.
I'm a Huntington fan, so I'll be ducking too. 2019 was a horrible year for the franchise but in 2018 we won 82 games, the 4th best season in the past 32 years. Did Nutting overreact?
I was torn on NH. I personally liked the guy. He was very approachable and far more forthright than he received credit for. He also had a degree of success here in a market where it isn’t easy to win. That said, I didn’t complain when they fired him because I thought the Archer and Cole trades were pretty atrocious. The player development was awful.
Where I find myself wanting Huntington back is watching what’s going on now. This is the same thing they did under Huntington, except shittier. The contract extensions are worse. They are spending even more money for older players, on longer deals. The players are even lower ceiling, if they even have a ceiling, like Tellez. If you count Cutch, half of the position players starting are Huntington holdovers. At least in 2011-2012 we could look to the minors and see the cavalry coming. Offensively, aside from Termarr, it’s no reinforcements coming. And in terms of trying to put together a low ceiling/high floor roster like they did this year, Huntington absolutely would’ve did a more competent job. Lately, the Pirates have been like watching a crappy sequel of a movie.
The Huntington Front Office deserved to be shitcanned, especially if there was a refusal from NH to do anything about Kyle Stark who never should've found himself anywhere near the top of a big league org chart.
Nutting's failure, I believe, was structural in the type of guy he wanted to replace NH. Basically a clone with a bigger name.
His loyalty to Stark was the one thing that I used to rationalize/justify his firing. Otherwise, I thought it was an overreaction to one bad trade (every GM makes them) and an incident beyond his control.
“Nutting's failure, I believe, was structural in the type of guy he wanted to replace NH. Basically a clone with a bigger name.”
Yes. This. I don’t think he had any intention of allowing major philosophical change. He probably thought Cherington could implement his vision better. And he’s allowed Nutting some cover as a World Series winning large market GM.
AM: A little marketing comment. On the yearly plan the average cost listed is $4.16 - can you work around that to make that number $4.12 the Pittsburgh Area Code?
Orelvis Martinez is a ballplayer and is definitely going to be in the Blue Jays MI in the near future. If you pull up the stats of the International League and cue onto HR you will see him with his 7 HR and listed just below him, also with 7 HR, is RH hitting Center Fielder Everson Pereira, 23, of the NYY. Like to see the Pirates find a way to complete that PTBNL deal with the Yankees for BRU and $500K of International Dollars by somehow including Pereira coming to the Pirates. I think the Pirates have 6 months to finalize a PTBNL deal - be nice to do so by locking up a need for the future lineup (Aug 2024). Could possibly save us from having to pay another RH Hitting CF $4 mil in 2025, and finalize the positional lineup for the future!
A combined 33-52. With the Pirates now below .500 and threatening last place in the central, it's beyond discouraging to find such little in the cupboards. So much for drafting and homegrown talent! The heralded pitching is coddled so much that when they have their inevitable injuries (despite being coddled), we'll hardly notice because they don't pitch more than half the game anyway. The hitting is abysmal with strikeout after strikeout, no situational hitting and the best quote in the recent comments is "The Pirates - where good hitters go to die." Except they don't get good hitters - they get the Rowdys and the Hedges of the world. Dreary stuff for the last day of April.
Saw the FCL team in an exhibition—well, 2+ innings of it—today. They start their season Saturday.
Doesn’t tell you much except these guys are on the team, but the lineup:
C - Axiel Plaz
1B - Carlos Tirado
2B - Carlos Caro
SS - Yordany De Los Santos
3B - Roinny Aguiar
LF - Eduardo Oviedo
CF - Sergio Campana (rehab)
RF - Ewry Espinal
DH - Estuar Suero
Pitterson Rosa and Alexis Torres both pitched while I was there. Not a lot of strikes thrown.
David Schoenfield of ESPN is one of my favorite national baseball writers. Always insightful without all the bells and whistles. In today’s column —- the April 30-team report card (Pirates get a C) —- you fill find this nugget: “Betting on non-great players to keep producing in their 30s is always going to be risky.”
Could someone please tattoo this on Ben Cherington’s forehead?
Exciting stuff in here today.
The Pirates could probably get Brent Rooker off the As without giving up too much. Sure would be an improvement at 1B.
The Curve is 1-11 with the worst ERA? Surely that's the pen and not our highly ranked starters?
Truly don't mean to sound contrarian here but wild success of Jones aside, I'm just not seeing a ton of pitching prospect dev either.
Roansy Priester and Ortiz kinda stink. Mitch has regressed. Solo is struggling. Bubba's still super raw.
Mixed at best?
I liked Oviedo and everything I read about Burrows, but you never know how pitchers come back from injuries. Two guys I am afraid might be hurt are Jun-Seok Shim and Thomas Harrington. I guess my point is in today's game you can probably only count on half of them to be healthy two years in a row.
Amen to that.
No need to worry. Bucco's fortunes will turn once they get RH hitting Center Fielder Everson Pereira, 23, of the NYY.
Still have that player to be named from the Yanks lol
I believe the over/under on the Pirates pre-season was 75.5 wins. Right now they are 14-16 on pace to win 75.6 games. Therefore, we should all be very happy.
I don’t like to believe in the over. But that Skenes fellow doesn’t hit, does he?
I am pretty sure he did some in college. Not sure what years or how much.
He definitely caught as a freshman at air force
Batted over 400 that year.
Atleast the Steelers drafted well. You think we could get Khan to over see our draft and hitting development? In my 40 years of existence I've always kept some sort of optimism for our Bucs even when it wasn't deserved but honestly I really can't come up with anything to be positive about. Our pitching certainly keeps things interesting but that's literally it. The 1 bright spot used to be checking the minor league box scores, other than my boy NickG it's just a black hole when it comes to our hitters. Maybe we'll continue to draft pitching well and start flipping them for established major league hitters. I'm quite exhausted with this shit.... Someone please tell me there's a light at the end of the tunnel!?!
There isn't any light. It's taken me over 50 years of existence to discover this. Maybe those childhood late 70s teams delayed my idiocy of hope a bit longer.
"honestly I really can't come up with anything to be positive about" - pitching. Jones, Keller, add Skenes, then we have next year Bubba
I honestly feel like we are about to get some rotations. Hard to keep Bae and Gonzales down when our 2b production has been what it is..... And frankly Jake Lamb deserves some time in the majors with his minor production.
After reading many thoughtful and well informed comments I have come to a rather obvious conclusion the our development plan SUCKS!!!
I think of it as a devolvement plan.
Admittingly, I could only stay up for the first 3 innings. I couldn't believe the number of non-competitive pitches the Oakland starter was throwing, especially in the first. If I see that, I'm not taking the bat off my shoulders until he shows me, he can throw 2 strikes in an AB. Kid like that, you wait him out.
Other than that, this was 2 bad teams playing each other. Pirates have 2 guys (Hayes & Reynolds) and really nothing else. They're the only 2 regulars that are above replacement. Pitching appears to be a strength, with some good depth, but you need to score runs. Wouldn't hurt my feelings if they fired Haines, but it's not going to make a bunch of dudes with bad hit tools better. The main culprit is the GM, I'm sorry but this is year 5 and it's not a competitive club.
That's what they did. Of course, they did not stop after Doyle left. They kept up the plan of "show me a strike before I move the bat" all night. By my count, last night, in their 35 PAs, Pirates' hitters took 11 first-pitch strikes looking. They took almost as many 2 pitch strikes looking. They swung 3 times the entire game on the first-pitch. All three swings were at strikes. So, of the 14 strikes thrown on first-pitches last night. The Pirates watched 11 go by and swung at 3. Hitting is hard, and it is harder when you start behind in the count in over 30% of your ABs.
Is there a team in the league with an uber aggressive approach?
I don't think that there is a team hitting "philosophy," whatever that is, that says... "hack away." There are individual hitters that hunt strikes better, are more patient, and so forth, and others that hack away more often.
What I can tell you is that of the 100 MLB players, 300 PAs or more last year, with the lowest zone swing %, 6 of those players now play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They just don't swing at enough strikes, and much of this is early in the count. Some of this may be their "philosophy," but some of it is just going out and hunting FAs based only on pitches/AB, such as Tellez or Vogelbach or Grandal. They keep accumulating cheap hitters who watch strikes go by and fall behind in counts.
I'm not sure if specific pitches, but I feel they're teaching their hitters to seek pitches in a specific zone. Whether it's a specific quadrant, zone, upper/lower half, I'm not sure. But, watch any pitches not in that zone, rather than "hunt strikes". If its in that zone, swing with all you got. Often finding themselves in non-hitter friendly counts.
Yes. This is what everyone is saying from the ex-Altoona hitting coach to everyone watching the entire system. They want players to be extra selective with pitches. I think the hitting zone may vary depending upon what the metrics say is "hot," but the general trend is to pull the ball, because this results, on average in higher exit velocities. It truly is one-size-fits all approach to hitting devised by people who have not spent much time trying to hit major-league pitchers. It is hard enough for a batter to distinguish between ball and strike at 96 MPH, read slider, changeup, or fastball spin, and make a swing decision in a split second. Now you are asking them to refine that decision even further. Very few, elite only, hitters can do this. The average major-leaguer cannot. They are asking for the impossible, and the results speak for themselves.
God forbid the Bucs ever find a Vladimir Guerrero. They'd ruin him with this kind of philosophy in 2 seconds.
In the comments to this article, there is a fan sure their one size fits all approach is to push the ball to the opposite field and another fan sure their one size fits all approach is to pull the ball and absolutely nobody sharing a shred of evidence behind either of their assertions due to the fact that none actually exists.
Does anyone understand what "one size fits all" means?
I was going to say the Pirates should just make a truce with the Orioles to swap hitting and pitching prospects. But the Orioles seem to be seeing some of their pitchers click. Which just seems unfair.
What is the common denominator between Tellez, Grandal & Vogey?
They draw walks at a very high rate.
Your narrative is getting in the way of your brain. You're too smart not to see this.
They are the same guy, except Grandal was actually good at the patient/power thing a few years ago and Vogelbach is not awful. Tellez on the other hand.
The narrative is that they keep accumulating the exact same type of hitter; unfortunately it is always the cheapest version that they can find. They are not hunting for hidden value or potential or an underutilized guy or anything else. They just accumulate players based on pitches per AB. This is all that Cherington knows. It is literally "Moneyball the Movie" in real life. I can't help you if you can't see what is plainly in front of everyone to see.
The two clubs with the highest swing rate in baseball are also the second and third worst offensive teams in the game.
Neither aggressive nor passive approaches work in today's game. Disciplined approaches work.
Good hitting clubs swing at more strikes and less balls, which inherently means this is a *skill* issue.
The bizarre and baffling refusal for fans to consider the possibility that the hitters just aren't good is hilarious to me. As if people truly believe these dudes have unlocked plate discipline that's being shrouded by Andy Haines' refusal to let them swing at strikes.
Baffling. Everybody wants to believe they're the smartest guy in the room.
Well, clearly I'm not the smartest guy in the room. That guy is currently still trying to concoct a story of how I'm manipulative and along with my amigos tried to sabotage him.
That said, I think the "the hitters just aren't good" is itself a lazy (lack of better term, not meant to be patronizing) take. Now, I do believe there are/were a great deal of scouting misses: ie. your take on Nicky G. But I don't think it's as easy as everyone else is just bad. I obviously don't have an answer, or I'd probably be working in a front office. I don't necessarily believe Haines is the main culprit, but I also don't think he's the answer as you can go back to his Milwaukee days and see he also coached an above average offense into mediocrity, who subsequently rebounded the year after he left.
Where I'm having a problem believing it's just bad prospects, is that it's becoming organizational wide, and not just the big club. We're not talking just a Cal Mitchell or CSN who hit in the minors but can't pick up big league pitching, but it's kid after kid after kid after kid that aren't even becoming able to pick up an A ball breaker. Would the likes of Gorski, Fraizer, or Glenn have become MLB regulars? No, but they all had ~150+ PAs of looking like competent hitters in Double-A, only to repeat the next year and look like release candidates a year later.
As I said in another comment, they're hardly to the point of needing to clear the translating to majors hurdle. They can't even get hitters to the upper minors. Mitch Jebb is goofy, but he shouldn't be THIS bad in Greensboro, with a swinging strike rate equivalent to Fraizer, Peggy, and Bowen.
Let's be honest, a year ago, you'd have probably said, "Maybe Jared Jones is just bad". I could probably find you saying that verbatim somewhere lol
Kebryan Hayes has increased his production from 85 wRC+ in 2021 to 111 this year.
Oneil Cruz improved from a 73 wRC+ in the first half of his first year to 117 in the second.
Endy Rodriguez developed into a top 25 prospect in all of baseball before being prematurely called up and subsequently injured.
The motivated reasoning that ignores successes and any nuance at all in this conversation is what I'm against.
Fringe prospects (Jackson Glenn for fucks sake?!) failing as they climb the latter is precisely how baseball has worked for generations.
Pirate dev is far from elite. They're clearly in the meaty part of the bell curve with the majority of orgs.
Save for maybe an insane dev club like Tampa, good hitting teams have guys of the quality of the first three I listed up and down the lineup. They're not turning Jackson friggin Glenn into gold.
Yes, they just need more good hitters.
This is it. They don't have skilled hitters.
Everybody is also telling you that they have a "philosophy" of taking too many pitches. The only guy trying to be smarter than everyone else is you.,
Two years ago nearly every thread on a Pirate website was filled with garbage about "PLAY THE KIDZ" in spite of the fact that the Pirate led the league, by far, in rookie playing time and nearly every on of them sucked.
Groupthink is a hell of a drug.
I, too, think they should swing at more strikes and less balls.
I also think the pitchers should throw strikes only in a hitter's dead zone.
Neither is a "philosophy". It's a skill issue.
Well I am the smartest guy in every room so clearly it cant be anyone else! /s
I wish there was a way to try and narrow down where there may be an issue. It isn't like with the pitching that we could point to a set of data and say, "These guys just have shit fastballs, and often pair it with shit command". Jared Jones comes in with elite pitch shape, or guys that command/sequence better, and pitching looks better.
With hitting, they've tried contact, hit over power hitters. Failed. They've gotten power over hit. Failed. Guys that are in-betweeners. Failed. My biggest concern going back a year is coming to fruition, that if the current crop of young hitters don't succeed, they're screwed. The hitting in the minors top to bottom is atrocious. They're not even developing Quad A hitters. With Neil, the biggest issue was translating minor league success to the majors. The Ben regime isn't even getting to the point of developing guys with minor league success. They can't even get hitters to Double-A, and succeed.
From reading the recent Alex Stumpf article on Sean Sullivan, it would seem that Vic Black has a huge part in helping the pitchers develop. Whoever that guy is for the hitting side, needs to be canned, cause they are failing miserably. On top of I think Haines needs to go as well.
I don’t believe the hitting talent on this team is as bad as it’s performing currently. All of these players have shown the ability to hit major league pitching at some point, but have gone from “streaky” to completely flatlined. And you’re right, they turned their legitimate power threats into singles hitters. It looks like everyone goes to the plate trying to hit to the opposite field, except for Henry Davis who is just lost and trying to pull everything.
From Cherington’s perspective, he’s at a crossroads and either needs to admit that his evaluation of these players he acquired is off, or make changes to coaching personnel to try to get the most out of his players.
It also seems like he evaluates things from a month to month basis, so hopefully with one full month of the season in the books he starts to try and shake up the roster at the very least.
I saw that about Vic Black, seems he is developing good plans for individual pitchers and isn't afraid to alter if something isn't working.
Which means he’ll be fired soon.
But, yeah, if Cruz, Davis and Suwinski all go bust, they are fucking screwed.
The development of Jack this season is wild. What he was doing last year was working. He was a productive hitter. Now he sacrificed power for contact, ironically hitting LHP, and brutal against RHP.
They Pedro'd Jack.
I have no qualms with their drafting and development of pitchers, feels like Ben has a niche there.
However, the part of developing hitters is absolutely terrible. Jack went from a guy that was a TTO guy, with a k rate north of 30% to a guy that isn't k'ing, but has no pop. wtf did they do to him? They have Termarr and they have no clue of what to do with him. Henry Davis was said to have the best bat in his draft class and now he appears to have no plan at the plate, other than trying to pull everything. Other than that, the minor leagues have no real hitters. It's not that cannot even develop AAAA guys, it's because they're not drafting well.
I'm not even sure it's so much that they're not drafting well, rather than them seeking hitters with generally a specific set of skills/tools, that they believe they can develop into a big league hitter. Problem being that they're finding themselves in the hitter version of the Searage bubble, trying to turn hitters into something they're not, and subsequently killing off what made them competent hitters in the first place. You look at a lot of the guys they've drafted, and acquired through trades over the years, they love contact/"disciplined" hitters that have a penchant for beating the ball into the ground. Who may or may not have a dose of power. They obviously didn't draft him themselves, but it's like they looked at Hayes and said "find me as many of him as possible".
I'm not sure of your last sentence. They drafted Nick, Henry and Termarr and I don't believe they had a pound it into the ground profile like Hayes. Same with Suwinski as he was trade, and he also doesn't have that profile.
If anything, they try to make their hitters work counts and get the pitch count high, while selling out for power. Not a terrible approach, but you need the right guys. I just don't think they have much to work with...Look at Bradenton, is there anyone who will make it to AA on that squad?
Obviously not everyone, but Tres, Nunez, CSN, Forrester, Castillo, Marcano. etc.
Davis, Nicky G, and probably Termarr are all guys that weren't known as heavy GB guys, but they all were considered high contact rate hitters.
Break these dudes down individually and the explanations seem pretty clear.
NickG and Hank were both clear scouting misses.
Both have unorthodox swings, which were frequently referenced leading up to their selections.
Gonzales is a near replica of Hiura, Downs, and Keiboom; all three hitters were scouted as plus yet turned out to bust. This swing just doesn't work in today's game.
Hank's was thought to be the antidote to high fastballs and yet high/inside heat has proven to be his kryptonite. It's a grooved swing with terrible coverage of the outer third, which forces him so close to the plate that he's left vulnerable to fastballs of a quality he rarely if ever see at Louisville.
Absolutely zero evidence they did a damn thing to make these two any worse of a hitter than they showed up as.
A frustrating game last night in Oakland, and the calls for change are starting. Grandal, when ready, will probably push Henry Davis back to AAA. Joey Bart is playing for his career, and has been too good to send away unless another team is coming with a solid offer. Other than that, it is hard for me to comprehend some of the changes being suggested.
Pitching and Defense. We have both and this team should start getting it together - the talent is there. I hear Nick Gonzales, and he has been hitting very well at AAA with a BABIP of around 480 - do I expect that last? No. Still a decent second baseman. Ji-Hwan Bae? Where?
The Pirates have a solid infield right now when Connor Joe is at 1B. Oneil Cruz is struggling, but that is to be expected following a year completely away from the game due to injury. Hayes is a GG at 3B and can play any other position in the infield, and do it well. Jared Triolo came in when Hayes was injured and during his time at 3B (309 innings) in 2023, he was excellent! Advanced fielding stats for 300 innings left 46 players at 3B. He was tied for 8th out of 46 with +4 DRS, 7th of 46 in Range +1.7 Runs above avg, and 1st of 46 in UZR/150 with +9.8. This year the Pirates moved him to a new position - 2B. His hitting has not been up to his standard in 2023, but in Advanced Fielding at 2B (189 innings) he is 3rd in DRS with +5, Tied for 2nd in Range with +0.7 Runs above avg, and 2nd in UZR/150 with a +9.6. Tellez is on a $3.2 mil contract?
The OF is good defensively, but Reynolds is the only OF other than Olivares who is hitting well. Jack is struggling, but his BB% to K% numbers are good. Too early to make any moves in the OF.
Hopefully, the management team will not allow themselves to panic.
sources saying current management is dismissed and Hurdle and Huntington are returning
I actually wouldn’t mind that. (Ducks)
The Guardians hired Huntington two years ago as a special assistant to the GM and now they're the surprise team of the league. Coincidence?
Idk. I’ll say this: Huntington was frequently uninspired and ruthlessly utilitarian. But at least I always knew what the end game was. I have no clue what these guys think they are doing.
I'm a Huntington fan, so I'll be ducking too. 2019 was a horrible year for the franchise but in 2018 we won 82 games, the 4th best season in the past 32 years. Did Nutting overreact?
I was torn on NH. I personally liked the guy. He was very approachable and far more forthright than he received credit for. He also had a degree of success here in a market where it isn’t easy to win. That said, I didn’t complain when they fired him because I thought the Archer and Cole trades were pretty atrocious. The player development was awful.
Where I find myself wanting Huntington back is watching what’s going on now. This is the same thing they did under Huntington, except shittier. The contract extensions are worse. They are spending even more money for older players, on longer deals. The players are even lower ceiling, if they even have a ceiling, like Tellez. If you count Cutch, half of the position players starting are Huntington holdovers. At least in 2011-2012 we could look to the minors and see the cavalry coming. Offensively, aside from Termarr, it’s no reinforcements coming. And in terms of trying to put together a low ceiling/high floor roster like they did this year, Huntington absolutely would’ve did a more competent job. Lately, the Pirates have been like watching a crappy sequel of a movie.
The Huntington Front Office deserved to be shitcanned, especially if there was a refusal from NH to do anything about Kyle Stark who never should've found himself anywhere near the top of a big league org chart.
Nutting's failure, I believe, was structural in the type of guy he wanted to replace NH. Basically a clone with a bigger name.
His loyalty to Stark was the one thing that I used to rationalize/justify his firing. Otherwise, I thought it was an overreaction to one bad trade (every GM makes them) and an incident beyond his control.
“Nutting's failure, I believe, was structural in the type of guy he wanted to replace NH. Basically a clone with a bigger name.”
Yes. This. I don’t think he had any intention of allowing major philosophical change. He probably thought Cherington could implement his vision better. And he’s allowed Nutting some cover as a World Series winning large market GM.
Sources also say Everson Pereira will not be traded to Pittsburgh and as a result Mel Shuster has been fired as his agent.
I'm guessing Mel will implode.
And my sources were right. Pereira is not the PTBNL.
I miss Huntington.
Only if Sean Rodriguez returns also.
Would love this
AM: A little marketing comment. On the yearly plan the average cost listed is $4.16 - can you work around that to make that number $4.12 the Pittsburgh Area Code?
Orelvis Martinez is a ballplayer and is definitely going to be in the Blue Jays MI in the near future. If you pull up the stats of the International League and cue onto HR you will see him with his 7 HR and listed just below him, also with 7 HR, is RH hitting Center Fielder Everson Pereira, 23, of the NYY. Like to see the Pirates find a way to complete that PTBNL deal with the Yankees for BRU and $500K of International Dollars by somehow including Pereira coming to the Pirates. I think the Pirates have 6 months to finalize a PTBNL deal - be nice to do so by locking up a need for the future lineup (Aug 2024). Could possibly save us from having to pay another RH Hitting CF $4 mil in 2025, and finalize the positional lineup for the future!
I appreciate the Pereira continued love honestly.
Morning, Mel. I appreciate your comments.