In the middle. His secondary metrics are perfectly fine and I don’t see why he wouldn’t be a solid, if unspectacular pitcher moving forward. The reason I say in the middle isn’t because of his performance. It’s because of his contract that we can’t “afford” based on our budget.
I’m sure Joe’s contract gives him heart palpitations, let alone Keller.
The problem as I see it, is lack of “profit.” They are paying him for what he did, not necessarily what he’s going to do. And that necessitates a figure a lot closer to market value.
The goal, IMO, should be to sign guys to pre-arb extensions where you “profit” from the spread between what you’re paying the guy versus the output he’s providing. Then, you take the “profit” in the form of dollars saved on production, and use that intelligently in trades and free agency.
The problem as I see it is BN could care less if Pirates win.
As a matter of fact, I believe he doesn’t want them to win as punishment to us fans for disparaging his name.
If only MLB had a Commissioner who actually cared about the fans one little bit we might have an economic system every fan could live with, not just the big market teams fans.
Mark Cuban hit the nail on the head with their business model. It’s heads I win, tails you lose. Revenue sharing ensures he will never lose money so long as he’s amply frugal.
But WTM’s point is valid: plenty of teams are similarly frugal and win. It would benefit his bottom line to learn from those teams.
That’s fair, we can leave the specifics of whether there’s more to unlock to the guys more well versed than us. But just a general comment on the aging curve, he’s 28 this year so that’s close to smack dab of his prime depending on how you figure it.
He's a good SP (2.2 fWAR) who had a decent year but dropped from where he was in 2023. He was being paid $5.44 mil in salary this year and his 2.2 fWAR, based on $7.75 mil per point of fWAR, tells us he returned $17 mil in Value to the Pirates. That's a plus that comes from being a SP who has averaged 31 Starts the past 3 years. A workhorse and a quiet leader.
Just for something to think about as we head to the Hot Stove League, the Pirates are currently 14th overall in pitching led by our Rotation of Skenes, Keller, Falter, Jones, and Ortiz. The Pirates paid those 5 guys $8.4 mil in salary, and those 5 returned $84.5 mil in fWAR Value.
Our Manager needs to be fired - he does not pitch nor does he hit, but he's responsible and the players need to get that message. We have enough talent to finish above .500, but we need a guy who can demand more attention to detail. I prefer Don Kelly, because his whole career as a player describes a guy who had to put it all out there to remain a player in the majors.
Mitch also got $2M signing bonus this year. fWAR for pitchers has never been a great analytic tool.....but your point is accurate.....SP was the best part of the team this year.
There’s going to be a lot of sniping at Keller, no doubt. And it’s foolish. He’s been a 2-3 win player for three years, 2.2 this year. Know how many 2-win players the Pirates had this year? 3. And the Brewers? 8. Do we want to win anything ever, yes or no? Should we give a flying f that Nutwit has to pay the guy? Really??
Could care less about his wallet. Whether it’s the best use of the extremely extremely extremely limited resources he gives baseball operations is a fair question though.
When the owner allows a max payroll that’s about a quarter of the highest teams you can’t ever afford to pay guys what they are worth. If they are going to win, it’s going to be on the backs of guys who are underpaid, just like they did with Cutch and Marte in 2013-2015.
And this is why the economics of baseball is so screwed up.
But why can't we win with 0-5 years of service guys? That's the hand we've been dealt. That's the business model. BC and Shelton are just bad at their jobs.
Oh, they are bad at their jobs. You need to collect enough 0-5 guys to be good, and they have failed at that. Beyond that, however, extended success depends on continued affordable production. Ideally you’re extending some of those 0-5 guys at a good rate. Look at the return the Braves have gotten from the Albies and Acuna extensions. They paid a relative pittance for both guys. You also have to trade guys at their peaks for solid returns and they’ve struggled with this since… forever. At least as long as I can remember.
Ehhh I cant see it that way. I surely wanted those 13-15 teams to go farther than they did. But man, it was fun following those teams on a day to day basis. Them failing to go all the way doesn’t negate the fun of those teams.
Certainly they had quite a bit of regular season success. That counts for something. After all, you can’t hope to win playoff games if you aren’t winning at least 85ish regular season games. And the regular season, due to its larger sample size, is more indicative of a teams true talent anyways.
Two of the first three teams to clinch playoff spots this year were Mil and Cleve. Tampa contends nearly every year. The Pirates’ problem isn’t the sport’s economics, it’s that they don’t care.
With Key long-term injury and Mitch regressing, it's probably giving BN heartburn about dishing out extensions or FA contracts. Throw in Polanco too. Reynolds is proving his value so time will tell on Keller's big dollars next 4 years.
The Pirates could move Keller tomorrow for a decent return. There is no problem with the extension. In fact, don't be surprised if they move Keller in the off-season whether GMBC is still here or not.
Even with the regression, the contract is fine even with even a 20th ranked payroll. But it’s pointless to have a guy making $15-$18 million when you can’t afford to put a team around him. I’m sure the idea was that the minor league system would produce better players to put around him, but they had to know the minor league system was faltering a bit when they signed the deal.
Good point about Polanco btw. Gotta wonder if that soured him on pre-arbitration extensions?
The Island is absolutely beautiful. The last few times we went down to ST we stayed in Tampa at the Hard Rock, and in Orlando and scheduled it so we could get the Pirates when they travel over to play Detroit, only 45 minutes away from Orlando. Stopped in the Costco up the North end of Bradenton and the developments around there look very impressive.
It's finishing up here on the farm in central SC. Currently staring at a tree that fell on a power line in my pasture. Another massive pine tree fell away from my fencing which is nice. Little of my barn roof blew off. Doubtful I have power in the next 24. Guinea fowl are pissed as usual. Bar oiling up the chain saws. Ain't f in with that power line though.
I say Keller is half full. Which is almost as good as my rain barrels right about now
Also thinking of the FL and wherever else that got wrecked
The Mitch Keller Mullet - #3 in the front, #5 in the back
👏👏👏
sourcing saying the Blue Jays are interested in KeBryan and willing to take up half of George Springer´s salary
So is the Mitch Keller is a good SP glass half full or half empty?
In the middle. His secondary metrics are perfectly fine and I don’t see why he wouldn’t be a solid, if unspectacular pitcher moving forward. The reason I say in the middle isn’t because of his performance. It’s because of his contract that we can’t “afford” based on our budget.
If 16 mil per season is giving Bob heart palpitations, homie is in the wrong line of work.
I’m sure Joe’s contract gives him heart palpitations, let alone Keller.
The problem as I see it, is lack of “profit.” They are paying him for what he did, not necessarily what he’s going to do. And that necessitates a figure a lot closer to market value.
The goal, IMO, should be to sign guys to pre-arb extensions where you “profit” from the spread between what you’re paying the guy versus the output he’s providing. Then, you take the “profit” in the form of dollars saved on production, and use that intelligently in trades and free agency.
The problem as I see it is BN could care less if Pirates win.
As a matter of fact, I believe he doesn’t want them to win as punishment to us fans for disparaging his name.
If only MLB had a Commissioner who actually cared about the fans one little bit we might have an economic system every fan could live with, not just the big market teams fans.
Mark Cuban hit the nail on the head with their business model. It’s heads I win, tails you lose. Revenue sharing ensures he will never lose money so long as he’s amply frugal.
But WTM’s point is valid: plenty of teams are similarly frugal and win. It would benefit his bottom line to learn from those teams.
Is there anything more to unlock with Keller that might enhance him? This is a question for those others much smarter than me.
That’s fair, we can leave the specifics of whether there’s more to unlock to the guys more well versed than us. But just a general comment on the aging curve, he’s 28 this year so that’s close to smack dab of his prime depending on how you figure it.
He's a good SP (2.2 fWAR) who had a decent year but dropped from where he was in 2023. He was being paid $5.44 mil in salary this year and his 2.2 fWAR, based on $7.75 mil per point of fWAR, tells us he returned $17 mil in Value to the Pirates. That's a plus that comes from being a SP who has averaged 31 Starts the past 3 years. A workhorse and a quiet leader.
Just for something to think about as we head to the Hot Stove League, the Pirates are currently 14th overall in pitching led by our Rotation of Skenes, Keller, Falter, Jones, and Ortiz. The Pirates paid those 5 guys $8.4 mil in salary, and those 5 returned $84.5 mil in fWAR Value.
Our Manager needs to be fired - he does not pitch nor does he hit, but he's responsible and the players need to get that message. We have enough talent to finish above .500, but we need a guy who can demand more attention to detail. I prefer Don Kelly, because his whole career as a player describes a guy who had to put it all out there to remain a player in the majors.
Mitch also got $2M signing bonus this year. fWAR for pitchers has never been a great analytic tool.....but your point is accurate.....SP was the best part of the team this year.
There’s going to be a lot of sniping at Keller, no doubt. And it’s foolish. He’s been a 2-3 win player for three years, 2.2 this year. Know how many 2-win players the Pirates had this year? 3. And the Brewers? 8. Do we want to win anything ever, yes or no? Should we give a flying f that Nutwit has to pay the guy? Really??
Could care less about his wallet. Whether it’s the best use of the extremely extremely extremely limited resources he gives baseball operations is a fair question though.
Well that's what Wilburs saying. There's really no interest in winning if people are concerned with paying a valuable guy like Keller what he's worth.
When the owner allows a max payroll that’s about a quarter of the highest teams you can’t ever afford to pay guys what they are worth. If they are going to win, it’s going to be on the backs of guys who are underpaid, just like they did with Cutch and Marte in 2013-2015.
And this is why the economics of baseball is so screwed up.
But why can't we win with 0-5 years of service guys? That's the hand we've been dealt. That's the business model. BC and Shelton are just bad at their jobs.
Oh, they are bad at their jobs. You need to collect enough 0-5 guys to be good, and they have failed at that. Beyond that, however, extended success depends on continued affordable production. Ideally you’re extending some of those 0-5 guys at a good rate. Look at the return the Braves have gotten from the Albies and Acuna extensions. They paid a relative pittance for both guys. You also have to trade guys at their peaks for solid returns and they’ve struggled with this since… forever. At least as long as I can remember.
Winning what? One wild card game and then losing to the Cards. That's all they accomplished in those 3 seasons.
Ehhh I cant see it that way. I surely wanted those 13-15 teams to go farther than they did. But man, it was fun following those teams on a day to day basis. Them failing to go all the way doesn’t negate the fun of those teams.
Certainly they had quite a bit of regular season success. That counts for something. After all, you can’t hope to win playoff games if you aren’t winning at least 85ish regular season games. And the regular season, due to its larger sample size, is more indicative of a teams true talent anyways.
Two of the first three teams to clinch playoff spots this year were Mil and Cleve. Tampa contends nearly every year. The Pirates’ problem isn’t the sport’s economics, it’s that they don’t care.
It’s a chicken and egg argument. BN doesn’t care because the economics of the game reward him for not caring instead of penalizing him.
My contention there wasn’t that the Pirates were getting screwed by the economics. I was saying that the economics screw the players.
With Key long-term injury and Mitch regressing, it's probably giving BN heartburn about dishing out extensions or FA contracts. Throw in Polanco too. Reynolds is proving his value so time will tell on Keller's big dollars next 4 years.
The Pirates could move Keller tomorrow for a decent return. There is no problem with the extension. In fact, don't be surprised if they move Keller in the off-season whether GMBC is still here or not.
The amount to which player extensions have gained status as inherently good is one of the bigger nerd baseball coups of the last two decades.
Even with the regression, the contract is fine even with even a 20th ranked payroll. But it’s pointless to have a guy making $15-$18 million when you can’t afford to put a team around him. I’m sure the idea was that the minor league system would produce better players to put around him, but they had to know the minor league system was faltering a bit when they signed the deal.
Good point about Polanco btw. Gotta wonder if that soured him on pre-arbitration extensions?
Hope you guys down in Bradenton are safe and did not get washed away. I can imagine Pirate City is probably filled to capacity at this time of year.
I hear Anna Marie Island got hit pretty hard with storm surge. The Sandbar, a pretty nice watering hole on the beach, needs to be completely rebuilt.
If I remember correctly, Pirate City is far enough from the Gulf that it should be ok.
The Island is absolutely beautiful. The last few times we went down to ST we stayed in Tampa at the Hard Rock, and in Orlando and scheduled it so we could get the Pirates when they travel over to play Detroit, only 45 minutes away from Orlando. Stopped in the Costco up the North end of Bradenton and the developments around there look very impressive.
It's finishing up here on the farm in central SC. Currently staring at a tree that fell on a power line in my pasture. Another massive pine tree fell away from my fencing which is nice. Little of my barn roof blew off. Doubtful I have power in the next 24. Guinea fowl are pissed as usual. Bar oiling up the chain saws. Ain't f in with that power line though.
I say Keller is half full. Which is almost as good as my rain barrels right about now
Also thinking of the FL and wherever else that got wrecked
I'll wave as me and the BW head to Shades of Green in Orlando tomorrow. We always take 26 through SC from Tenn and then hit 95 over at the coast.
When I'm coming that way I get off at Newberry. Then it's about 40 mins. Have fun. 26 is a wild ass road once you get near Columbia