36 Comments

the problem with any Nick G promotion is the corresponding demotion? Cruz? Cutch? Davis? Tellez? Can't really demote Alika.

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As Chuck Noll would say, the issue isn’t where to start but where to stop.

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I think the easiest would be to switch him and Triolo. If nothing else the jolt may help wake up this offense

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It seems like Alika is their best (only?) hitter right now.

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Well... they pinch-hit Williams for Tellez last night. Great move BTW. Had to be embarrassing for Tellez, which was probably the point of using Williams. A little embarrassment here and there wouldn't hurt some of these guys.

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Check wOBA v xwOBA, dude is in for huge regression. I love the results, but it’s only a matter of when.

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The only "new" stat I can relate to is OPS. They said he's put on weight. Maybe he's found the answer. I'd give him a shot. Can't do much, if any, worse than who they're starting now.

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I was just looking at our stats and given that Cruz, Cutch, Davis, Suwinski, Tellez, and Triolo all have OPS+'s of 75 or lower, it's amazing that we have a winning record.

I'm happy for Williams, though. Last year I recall liking his potential but wondering if he could get past the nerves to actually perform at the major league level. This start should give him plenty of confidence and it could be interesting to see where things go from there. It's hard to have much confidence in the FO right now, but I'll give them some credit for keeping Williams on the 40-man when several times he seemed likely to be the one to be DFA'd.

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I'm guessing some of the Shelton fans are feeling okay with the last two results because months from now it will help them explain to us what a good manager Shelton is by outperforming our Pythagorean record. ;)

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He has fans?

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Shelton fans? Never met one.

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I’m sure they love him in Cincinnati.

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AM: I think Reed was a SP at WVU his first two years and then a RP in his Junior year, and he did very well in shorter appearances. But, possibly one of the youngest players in last year's draft, and will pitch all of 2024 as a 21 year old. He had 2 starts in the FCL last year and 2 or 3 starts at Bradenton so far this year. How many more starts in BRD before he is promoted to A+? Possible for him to reach upper 90's with his FB this year?

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Reed was a swing man for two years. 33 G, 11 GS

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If the Pirates are treating Reed like Harrington and Massey from a year ago, I’d say around six or starts. From talking to Harrington last year, it all seemed planned.

I think there is potential to get the velo up with the fastball, but a lot of that is how the control comes.

Trying to keep the control for 4-5 innings I’d imagine would make it harder to keep/get the velo up

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They waited until Massey and Harrington each had a stretch of 4-5 good starts.

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Sorry, I can’t hear you guys over all of the loud contact NG is making in Indy. I know, I know, the way I’m pounding the table you’d think he leads the IL in xbh’s. Ohhh wait…

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So far Gonzales has improved his Line Drive rate at the expense of his Ground Ball rate. His Walk Rate has fallen (6%) but so also has his Strike Out rate (18%) His BABIP is exceptionally high, but he's hitting .380 without many Home Runs, so a high BABIP rate would be high. His high BABIP suggests that Nick G. Will regress to the mean. One question is: How far will ge regress? Or, is his performance just an aberration? A Small Sample Size false positive? Another question: Will his improvements carry over to the Major Leagues? The datas don't tell us much but his past performance suggests that Gonzalez will fall off a cliff.

Time will tell.

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Of course he will regress from current numbers, but he’s hit at every level. Yes there is swing and miss, however others have been successful with the same profile, see Brandon Lowe. He managed 60 xbh’s last year and eleven came at the MLB level. Baseball is hard, but he needs to be given a longer leash, especially when his competition hasn’t demonstrated the ability to produce at each level.

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The funniest thing I keep hearing about is NG's swing and miss issues are what's keeping him in Indy, lol. The whole Pirate roster has swing and miss issues. Apparently Nick's swing and miss issues are of a different variety.

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Bingo, he comps very closely to Brandon Lowe.

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The six players that I note above with OPS+ values of 75 or lower have a combined 121:41 K:BB ratio and have K's in 29% of their PAs. So yes, maybe NG is being unfairly targeted for something that is characteristic of the organization.

To be fair, while all six hitters have poor OPS+'s, the above is heavily influenced by Cruz's 34:4 ratio and 40% K rate.

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Yeah TN I'm not a new stats guy not because I don't believe in them but because there is just too damn many of them, lol. I was just remarking what it looks like from a plain 'vanilla' perspective. A lot of people don't like my perspective on this aspect of the Pirate's lackluster offense and that is if I'm seriously running a business which baseball has become and have been paying a guy (BC) who hired a guy (Haines) to assist my players in hitting 'thee' baseball and three years later they are still one of the worst at it in a real world he would be fired. But we all know Nutting is making his real baseball money in other ways so it doesn't matter to him.

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See Brandon Lowe…

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BC threw a monkey wrench into all of that by taking our best Utility Infielder (outside of Hayes), Jared Triolo, and started him at 2B.

NG's having an excellent year at AAA, but it's hard to make projections with him because of the problems he encountered when promoted last year. The book on him is "trouble with the curve"! Is he starting to hit breaking pitches better at AAA? And are those AAA offspeed pitches anything like he will encounter at the MLB level?

Do you take that gamble if you are BC? Or, is BC comfortable waiting for his phone to ring regarding NG, Bae, Peguero, and Williams?

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I'd love to see Gonzales put it together as he seems like a great kid and had a pretty remarkable story at the time of the draft.

I'm far from ready to sit Cruz given his year off, and it's probably unfair to sit Triolo yet despite his 67 OPS+, but if NG keeps hitting we have to find room for him.

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So apparently Skenes has taken to expressing his frustration at being treated like a vintage Lamborghini, that is taken out of a garage for a few minutes to show off once a week, rather than a baseball pitcher. Silly Skenes. He thinks the objective is to win games and not find endless excuses to keep him in AAA until Super 2 passes. The objective with the Pirates is never to win games. Soon Skenes will learn this. It seems even the new guys have learned this after they pulled Jones the other day. Losing is a habit.

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He was on the Pat Macafee show yesterday and I'd say his demeanor about being in AAA was anything but frustrated. He talked about how much different MiL ball is from college and how he's getting used to all of the differences. No hint of frustration about still building up in the minors.

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https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1781386375377334442

Normally, I would think that this is typical media stuff to stir up controversy where none exits. Except for this quote.

"I wasn’t happy,” Skenes about being pulled in the fourth inning against the Saints. “But it’s over [manager Miguel Perez’s] head. It’s over my head.”

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Fine line here. He has the tools, just needs to use them properly. The dude probably hasn’t been appropriately challenged in two to three years. Not sure what the answer is, but it probably isn’t calling him up to see him try and blow every hitter away. I think his biggest obstacle will be himself, can he become more efficient at the expense of his counting stats. There is probably some ego stuff here, but if he isn’t getting 3-4 pitch k’s, he needs to learn how to get hitters out more quickly. It’s really in everyone’s best interest, but mostly his own.

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Did not read anything from Skenes directly, but Sarah Langs wrote a nice piece on him going through AAA like a hot knife through butter, but finishes with talking about the Pirates possibly wanting to see him expand the number of pitches to cover more than 3.1 IP. She comments that the Pirates should want to see him throwing 75-80 pitches, but doing so efficiently. What I read is 75-80 pitches and 5 innings in the book. She makes good points and has always been an excellent evaluator.

That last outing of 65 pitches, 3.1 IP should be kind of a wake-up call for him - better he gets those wake-up calls in AAA than at the MLB level. His location was probably not what it had been in his previous starts. Trying to get through innings averaging 15 or 16 pitches would be an excellent goal for any SP. Mitch Keller did very well in 2023, but in the years before, how many times was he around 75-80 pitches and still in the 4th inning?

Still see May 4, 2024 as his first MLB Start at PNC against the Colorado Rockies!

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Honestly, he should be upset at being treated this way, but given the seemingly inevitability of injury, Pirates are right for going slow.

Both sides can be right.

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Agree, I would expect a competitor to want the ball and not want to give it up.

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What's got to be frustrating to him (and to many of us) is not the big idea of building him up slowly but how slow it has been. Given that he reported to Bradenton two months ago and was carrying a heavy load a year ago, there doesn't seem to be a logical reason other than Super Two that he's still limited to ~50 pitches. The devil is in the details, and that's where Cherington seems to be lacking.

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I think he was up to 65 pitches his last outing. It also looks like they're doing the same thing with our other pitching prospects.

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You're right--I was thinking mid-50s but now I recall noting that they gave him more pitches than they gave Jones despite those pitches coming in fewer innings, which I think would produce more stress. But still, 65 pitches after two months of building him up? I can't imagine that the timeline isn't being heavily, maybe entirely, influenced by Super Two.

We'll see because with the injury to Gonzales, Priester's complete ineffectiveness, and Lauer not doing much to make his case, we'll likely have a need for Skenes before Super Two even if his pitch count is limited.

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