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going to be hard to turn down a package of Drew Jones and Ivan Melendez

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Assuming we keep 1 around, would yinz rather have santana or choi around the rest of the season? Probably wouldnt get much for either, but even a lottery ticket is something

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by Anthony Murphy, NolaJeffy(BnP)

Afternoon, fellas.

Kudos to Murph and Jeffy for getting this site going for us degenerates!

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My DUDE.

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Welcome!

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Had to change my email...hopefully that doesn't make things more confusing on your end.

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Welcome aboard!

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Thx, man.

These replies go directly into my email, more specifically, my work email. Might have to put a different email in my profile...don't need IT sniffing around.

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Lol i had to stop all notifications for the same reason. Being honest with myself, I will be refreshing the page plenty often enough that I won't need to rely on notifications. I suppose there are worse vices in the world

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There's also the app, which I stumbled upon while trying to figure things out lol

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Glad to hear that. Starting with Fridays game I’m going to start setting up a Gameday thread article for the game.

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It seems like we have plenty of the usual suspects around that a gameday thread should become a pretty active place in short order!

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Not sure where to put this but any remember Stephen Alemais? Just randomly thought of him and decided to look him up. Guess b/c he was considered a great defensive SS and Williams is supposed to be fine as well. If you were wondering he is a FA. And Wikipedia states his grandfather is buds with Robinson Cano's grandfather.

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A couple weeks ago I went to MLB.com to check on previous drafts to see where Zack Gallen was drafted. He was the last pick in I believe the 3rd round by St. Louis in 2015 or 2016. One pick ahead of him was the Pirates picking Alemais.

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I sure hope williams becomes more than alemais lol

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Tucu's pumpkin bloomed about exactly as expected. Even after all these years a hot bat will make you believe very dumb things.

Speaking of, anyone source AAA batted ball data for Alika? Awfully curious how real that power surge might be. Kid looks like a ballplayer.

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It's a shame he got injured the way he did, but you're right the clock struck midnight a while ago. One of these days the tryouts on the middle infield will end.

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I have like three days of data from him. I didn't really think to log his data but it got to a point where there was NO ONE in Indy, so I started and then he got called up lol

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If it IS real, where does he play? Cruz and Peguero are ahead of him at SS. At 2b you have Nicky. But, at least we have a nice defensive utility man, unlike the ones we had before, like Castro, Owings, JVM, Marcano, et al who were below average at 2b and SS.

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If the power is real then he absolutely is not ahead of Liover Peguero, at least. Far better defense, better contact, better discipline.

The lack of impact contact is the poison pill for these types that drags down every other aspect of their offensive ability. Fix that, and you've got blast off.

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Alika's bat hopefully translating will then push the competition to hopefully FINALLY nailing down a competent 2B. We've been talking about Nicky G's swing and miss issues since he debuted in Greensboro, and it hasn't appeared to get any better. Data sample is small, but MLB is already catching on if you just look at his month to month pitch usage. Fastballs is already down 10+%

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

And he seems to be making a concerted effort to trade impact for contact. Just terrible batted ball data.

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Just me thinking out loud, and I think I've maybe mentioned this? Watching him, I've wondered if something as stupid as a one-handed follow through would help keep the bat I guess "on plane" a second longer?

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Weve got to hit on one of these guys, right? Ill keep telling myself that

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Sooner or later. Feel like I have been saying that for longer than I should.

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Essentially how we ended up with our 6-WAR version of Bryan Reynolds, but yeah I'm still fiending for our Corbin Carrol/Jose Ramirez glow-up.

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Feels like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Mid season update from Fangraphs

https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/farm-system-rankings

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Jul 26, 2023·edited Jul 26, 2023Author

Was looking over the list, and it's not really an "update" per se. They just removed graduates and added draft picks. For example, Tank and Endy were 3 spots apart in pre-season, and they're still 3 spots apart. Majority of reports are still pre-2023 season.

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Good points!

It sounds like the board is fluid until after the trade deadline so the Pirates may only be the #1 farm system for a few more days

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/the-2023-draftees-are-now-on-the-board/

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Just in general, it's going to be precipitous drop as the season goes on. Going off the list as is, the Pirates are #1 with $308M in value. Tank needs 20 ABs (5-6 games, give or take), which will remove $46M in value, dropping them to second at $262M, and just above Cubs. Endy ($46M) and Peguero ($8M), will be a little while. Gonzales ($2M) is at 91 ABs and Triolo ($6M) is at 81 ABs. Assuming they go by reliever appearances (cutoff is 30) Hernandez ($1M) is 2 appearances shy. The last big one would be Priester ($21M), who if I'm honest, I'm not sure he'll necessarily reach the IP limit, but I could see getting a downgrade in FV, which from a 50 to a 45+ alone would be a loss of $15M. There's other players I can see getting downgraded, while at same time I could see Solo and Jones being deserving for bumps in value.

Long story short, chances are they're outside the Top 10 by end of season by Fangraphs standards. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as you want to graduate prospects, obviously. I'd probably have them closer to 10 as is. That is unless we make a blockbuster trade involving Bednar and Keller for a big time prospect! (Come on, Rangers. You need both starters and relievers. Give us Evan Carter+ lol)

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Jul 27, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Carter, walcott, and porter would be a nice trio to get it rolling

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Looks like he bumped Skenes up to a 60, so that's cool.

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But, until he does itâ€¦â€¦â€¦đŸ˜‡

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Updated my tracking list with their "new" list (mind you they only have 89 on their top "100"), and there's definitely some choices. A few new pop up names I presume they liked, but quite a few I'm not sure should be near a Top 100

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

I am admittedly worried for what happens when the current crop graduates because im not sure what all we have coming next other than termarr

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I'll say I'm looking more and more forward to the pitching side of things as we go on. Hitting concerns me, to which, hopefully pitching works out to the point they have arms to deal for bats.

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

At least arms are always a hot commodity. As you said in your article, I wish they would learn what they do well and lean hard into it

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No great loss not signing Cuvet. He may regret not taking the money.

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Not at all meant to run cover for the Pirates' weirdly underwhelming draft, but there was some absolutely WILD money thrown around to talk fairly marginal high schoolers out of going to college. I'm at least content that they did not sacrifice up top.

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Oh man, who let NMR in here? AM needs a better screening process. đŸ˜‡đŸ˜‡

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

*Stranglehold plays in background, smell of cigs and stale beer wafts into the room, NMR lowers his cheap sunglasses*

Who's here to party?

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Let me know when you bust out the other stuff and start playing Phish. I remember when I lived in Pittsburgh DVE loved some Donny Iris and Dio. Bucs develop a player as often as I see "A Rainbow in the Dark".

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Speaking of, I flew back into town last weekend to see them play two nights at Starlake. Grabbed an uber from the airport at like 2am friday morning and shit you not, guy rolls up in a beater Accord playing DVE on the radio and the first song that comes on is Penny of the Floor.

Never change, Pittsburgh, never change.

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I went home probably years ago to see my Dad. One of the nights my sister and I met her friend at some block party in Irwin. Headliners were......? The Clarks. For some reason my butt was at some school in Connellsville circa 1996 and they were playing in the auditorium. Dudes got longevity. Last Clarks thought. Some one gave me a Rolling Rock Town Fair CD probably 18 years ago. Check song #8.

https://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Rock-Town-Various-Artists/dp/B000KC0TWW

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

My warm IC light is packed and ready to go

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You talking Stevie Wonder's favorite been.? Every time I go back to the Burgh I return with at least two 30 packs of Iron. Usually say I am only going to drink them during Steelers, Pens, Pitt games. Week later they are all gone. And I think SOB you did it again. Total Wine down here in SC wants like 10 bucks for a 6 pack of bottles. That's not even going to get me a buzz.

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Yea that kid the A's drafted got almost $2 million over slot and he wasn't close to being the best prep arm out there.

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I'm thinking the overwhelming glut of bodies the Pirates have between the 2 complex leagues (3 teams in total) might've played a part. One thing I keep going back to is just the fact of being drafted probably held some weight, but the Brewers signed I think it was 5? prep arms for roughly just over $2M? I feel like the Pirates could've found 3-4 for what they had left that at least had raw toolsets with projectability similar to the relievers they grabbed. I wanted them to set the UDFA signing record by getting Cam Clayton, the sophomore eligible SS from Washington University. If not for more than I would've liked to have seen a more well-rounded college bat, and one that actually has projection as a SS, not what's become their norm of picking up second basemen and saying, "We think he could stick".

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

The A's have their own process almost always it seems lol

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

That one was a head scratcher. Even Tommy White at $4m, whew.

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Thats a record for his round IIRC, pretty wild since he seemed like a good prospect but certainly nothing ground-breaking

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Jul 26, 2023Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Seems like you can comfortably assume a $1m-$1.5m premium established on the cost of buying a kid out of school. Maybe worth considering moving ahead in draft cycles.

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Sightler picking up where he left off. Hopefully, Nunez continues that type of hitting in Indy.

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