I’m starting to lean towards a trade for kjerstad. The free agent market is underwhelming, I wouldn’t hate grabbing Winker and then platooning him and cook. I think kjerstad could be a long time solution. Not sure what he would cost but I wouldn’t think it would be too much. He’s got the talent but can he put it together.
Then you have about $25M to go get Minter, Leclerc, and Chafin to give yourself the best bullpen in baseball. Then to top it off you go sign Sasaki. With those moves you are still probably under $100M or close to it.
It would probably cost you Keller or Keller plus a lower level lottery ticket. The bonus here is that it would free up some additional money to improve other positions, however you would need to be comfortable with filling those 180+ innings.
You think for Kjerstad? If that’s the case I would roll with Winker and just build up the pen.
I just wish this rebuild was further along still so many offensive question marks.
Guys like Suwinski, Davis, Rodriguez, peguero and Hayes all need to have big seasons for this team to take the next step. But I’m doubting if any of those guys even play much for the major league club this year.
Man, I don’t think it’s worth trading Keller for that return. I’d rather them trade him for a more sure thing. What does the calculator have for abreu?
Justin: The Pirates don’t feel like they have a good enough situation for being in year 6 of a rebuild, right? What are your thoughts?
Eric A Longenhagen: Skenes has been their only biggity big big hit atop the draft, tough to really ascend when the others are underwhelming. Some of that has had to do with a given draft class and lack of superior options, but teams liek Baltimore ascend because they hit Adley/Gunnar in the same draft, and that hasn’t happened here.
Hugh: Are there certain characteristics (or statistics) of productive hitters at AAA that make you not believe their success at that level will carry to the majors? K rate of around 30% feels like one, curious if you have others.
12:37
Eric A Longenhagen: Splits versus 94+ mph fastballs
Desperate pirates fan: Any updated thoughts on Termarr Johnson following the AFL?
Eric A Longenhagen: Still love how his hands work, think they’re in the right place often enough for him to get to power and play 2B everyday. Gonna K a lot, he’s not Cano or anything like that.
Let’s keep our pitching together to start the year and sign Austin Hays. He was hurt/injured last year. In 22@23 he hit 30 doubles and 15-18 hrs. Put him in the outfield and see what happens. See if 8 mill would do it
In 2021,2022.2023 he was pretty good. Kidney issues and a hammy kept him out half the year. Not a great player but a good one. Just my thoughts watching him play the last 3 years
Agree. Still doesn’t quite make up the loss, but if I’m them I’m not sure I’d want to commit something like 7/$180 to a guy who is going to be 31 and with some shaky batted ball peripherals.
What happened to the baseball site? Lol, yeah I should have more Holiday cheer. But back to baseball, Nats and Rizzo make their first move of the winter.....$9M for Mike Soroka. See I would be more patient with BC if I knew he
was going to spend some money, but.....?
I just don't see Bob giving him the $30M to spend this offseason like the past 2 offseason. Soroka is a good gamble on a comeback season.
I think you’re both right. BC has known all along that he didn’t have the space to address the lineup problems through free agency, plus Nuttin isn’t going to allow any FA multi-year deals. He was straight out asked that a few months ago and he dodged the question.
He might have been able to make space for one good quality free agent signing if he had wanted to. That would require moving 2 of Hayes, IKF, or Bednar. If they could not get anything worthwhile (i.e. a decent controllable relief pitcher) for IKF, or anything at all for Bednar and if he could not unload Hayes on the As, even sending along a prospect, then I don't see where he has any options except to spend what little he has on the bullpen and Cutch (and maybe Laureano).
Though, I suspect if they can get Laureano for $3-4 million and they don't run into another deal in trade that they like, they may drop $4 million or so on Laureano. It would be my move, and so far, Cherington has done things that make sense to me (for a change).
For me it would be one target for leverage innings, knowing the bullpen is probably the best place to cobble together league-min dudes with the hopes that a handful succeed/exceed.
He won extra points from me when Denny Santana gave some credit to Aroldis for helping him improve. Santana pitched 33 innings with the Pirates giving up only 16 hits and 6 walks.
There is a guy I met once, who is one of the three great geniuses of our times, named Clem. He has some BBQ spots out Rt 22 between the Burgh and the Laurel Highlands.... His wife ran them last I heard in the divorce settlement. It turns out Clem was gay, not that that is important. But he and his sons came to Port Matilda, Pa for a while and they set up shop along SR 220 smoking pork and chicken all day long in a parking lot that used to be a gas station run by some middle eastern folks who disappeared suspiciously right after 9/11....
Well, the point of the story is Clem makes the best BBQ sauce I have ever tasted in my life.
I think they were quite successful and I believe they now supply a lot of product to restaurants in State College now.
Man you stick some good slaw on one of Clem's pulled pork sammies and whooa-nellie!
Yeah, I guess so. Last I knew you could still get Clem's over in State at restaurants. There's Hogs Galore locally also, so the pig is fresh too.... Depending on how you consider porcine freshness.
What in the name of the Good Lord above is that man doing with that grill on the website. They would literally deport him, documents or no, if he did that to a fine piece of meat on a grill in Argentina.
I plant the seasons. Collards, kale, beet root, radish ect. Deer eat some. Then I eat deer. Start all over in spring. Kind of like bucco fandom. Excitement in spring. Then gets in the 90s for a few months and I think why even bother. Then October comes. And I say wtf start planting kids.
Read Bill Mollisons permaculture manual, Dick proennekes book. Kept reading. Bought a farm. Left the physical therapy world. Family lives off land. No regerts like the snickers commercial.
My wife makes a mean batch. My love affair started at the new Kensington long John silvers as a wee lad. If on the menu or available I'm all in. Like to think of myself as a connesieur. Not a huge fan when they load dill in it.
And the farts later on. If you pile a good lager or two on top of a good pulled pork with slaw, the farting gods come down and give you this gigantic column of poo-stink that builds up in your system allowing for farts that can last more than ten seconds with no threat of butt-smudge whatsoever.
NO DILL! Sacrilege. It is all in the vinagre to mayonnaise ratio, and homemade mayonnaise is the best. NO MIRACLE WHIP (not that we even have that in Argentina).
Yeah, right, Dill? Gawd. And it IS all in the vinegar to mayo ratio. AND in the relative coarseness of the cut. When you get slaw that is cut like sawdust, I just wanna puke.
Let me do a little Ethan stuff this morning. The Pirates in 2025 should take the field with a Starting Pitching Rotation that would be at least Top 10, and possibly very close to Top 5. It is a Playoff Rotation. On the position player side, Oneil Cruz came back better than expected, Joey Bart was an unexpected plus from last year, we added Billy Cook and Nick Yorke at the trading deadline, and so far we have added Spencer Horwitz a LH hitting 1B/2B from Toronto. We need another bat or 2 for the middle of the order.
All contract numbers are from Cot's. Adding up the salaries that will exceed the minimum we have 11 players who will make $58.4 mil. The minimum salary in 2025 will be $760,000. If the other 15 players who will make up the Final 26 man roster make an average of $800,000 apiece that will amount to $12 mil, and a 26 Man Total of $70.4 mil - probably still a bottom 6 Franchise in salaries!
Opening Day 2024 - 26 Man - Cubs were at $214 mil; Cardinals were at $175 mil; Brewers were at $104 mil; the Reds $90 mil, and the Pirates were at $86 mil. It got to $86 due to an increase of $13 mil from 2023 to 2024, and an $18 mil increase from 2022 to 2023. Based on the $86 mil in 2024 and the rate of increase since 2022, we should be expecting a 26 man payroll of at least $100 mil to start 2025. Does that mean we could expect a few signings to add the additional $30 mil, or one big signing for about $22 or $23 mil, and another add of an $8 mil player?
If only they would increase payroll to $100 million. Remember those tanking years, when payroll was as low as $45 million. We were told that money would be saved and added to the competitive years. It has not been. That much is obvious. Nutting pocketed it. I fully support any and all action by the players' union against Nutting. The guy is just so cheap. Even if $80 million is their baseline, there should be a warchest of some $70 million from 4 years of sub $60 million payrolls.
I’m not sure there was ever any statement from them that flat out said they were setting money aside. Some talking heads, I recall the Bucs in the Basement guys in particular, speculating they were setting aside money for future years, but I don’t recall the team directly saying this. All I can recall is that they said they would spend when the time was right, a statement that is very much open to interpretation.
Not unfair to speculate why they aren’t spending more. What happened to their portion of the Bamtech money, for example?
I think that Williams or some such did make a statement to that effect at some point. Whatever... if they find the money to extend Skenes, I will be Ok with $85-$90 million in payroll this season, The problem is that I just don't see how Cherington can ever win on that budget. He just doesn't seem to be very agile in terms of acquiring talent via trade. Every move that he makes seems to be glacial in speed. How long did it take him to replace the Latin American scouting director? The head scout? The batting coach? I mean... he was like 2 years behind everyone else in noticing that these were problem areas.
I don’t recall any comments like that, but if someone digs something up post it here, it’d be interesting to see.
I agree the moves he made were a long time coming. I know the Astros did a lot more thorough house cleaning when Luhnow took over, and the Marlins under Bendix have been extremely aggressive, to the point of reportedly firing even clubhouse attendants. But, better late than never right? The change in pro scouting might pay quick dividends. Fingers crossed for this season. And of course some the changes, like the international director, might take more time to pay dividends.
Doing everything deliberately, and staying quiet has been a part of this management team's dunna (DNA). BC is not dumb and knew what he was getting into when he took the job. But, having his legs cut from under him in Boston for a more aggressive program when they hired Dave Dombrowski and placed him above BC, I had hoped that he would not want to suffer the same fate with another team. Of course, this is just the type of guy Nutting appreciates.
IMO, the Pirates have a 4 year window with 2 or 3 of the Top 20 SP's in the game - Skenes, Chandler, and 3 guys very close are Jones, Harrington, and Barco. We'll see what they are thinking by how they treat Chandler. If they think they cannot sign Skenes, then they will keep Chandler in AAA as long as necessary so that he cannot get his first year of MLB Service until Skenes is in his 3rd year (2026).
Nope Cherington is far from dumb. Like you said just very deliberate. And some of the moves I understood, they just appear to have been wrong in hindsight, like keeping a lot of the scouting personnel in place.
But, I’m not sure deliberate is what the team needs. Most things that pay large dividends come with risk, and require aggressive moves.
There's a story about Luhnow (one of my GM heros), where, in his first season, he went to watch the AA team. He told the AA pitching coach that studies show that long-toss is very helpful for pitchers and that he wanted the whole minor-league system to implement a long-toss program for pitchers. The coach said that he didn't see any benefit from it. Well... the next day... Luhnow comes back and still sees no long-toss, so he fired the pitching coach that same day.
Luhnow must have been a fan of Gary Adams, long time Manager of UCLA Baseball who put a long toss program into place for his whole team which included an hour of full body stretching, arm circles and surgical tubing exercises which led to long toss done in a specific manner. Remember reading about it in an article in Collegiate Baseball about 25 years ago.
Oakland will need about a 15 win improvement or so to make the playoffs. Not sure I see that happening, but it should be really interesting to see how this flurry of moves works out. Definitely a storyline I’ll be watching during the season.
We do the Feast of the 7 Fishes on Christmas Eve (or as close as the family will allow us) and the cooking and baking has already started. I am the Gopher - go for this, go for that, etc. I started writing something shortly after 6 and am just getting back to it!
If you are wondering how a guy with a German last name does the Feast, my Mother was full Italian, and my wife is full Italian. A long and well appreciated tradition.
Well you messaging a Bianco. You can guess my ethnicity. Also had a ski in there. Thus my love of pierogies. Do yourself a favor and put spaghetti sauce on some potato pierogies sometime. Hot damn.
Have fun. Off to Chucktown SC for a pre Xmas Xmas. Oyster roast.
I had recently talked myself into being ok with it if that's what they did. I'll have to go over the free agents again, but yea trade is starting to feel like the best route
I’m starting to lean towards a trade for kjerstad. The free agent market is underwhelming, I wouldn’t hate grabbing Winker and then platooning him and cook. I think kjerstad could be a long time solution. Not sure what he would cost but I wouldn’t think it would be too much. He’s got the talent but can he put it together.
Then you have about $25M to go get Minter, Leclerc, and Chafin to give yourself the best bullpen in baseball. Then to top it off you go sign Sasaki. With those moves you are still probably under $100M or close to it.
It would probably cost you Keller or Keller plus a lower level lottery ticket. The bonus here is that it would free up some additional money to improve other positions, however you would need to be comfortable with filling those 180+ innings.
You think for Kjerstad? If that’s the case I would roll with Winker and just build up the pen.
I just wish this rebuild was further along still so many offensive question marks.
Guys like Suwinski, Davis, Rodriguez, peguero and Hayes all need to have big seasons for this team to take the next step. But I’m doubting if any of those guys even play much for the major league club this year.
I hear you, ostensively more questions marks this off-season than last, which is absolutely bonkers. One step forward and two back.
That’s how it feels. Someone’s gotta hit this year you’d think. I’m holding out hope that Cruz can become a 5 win player.
Man, I don’t think it’s worth trading Keller for that return. I’d rather them trade him for a more sure thing. What does the calculator have for abreu?
Nice to know. I would not entertain a Keller trade. Which I was leaning against anyways.
Justin: The Pirates don’t feel like they have a good enough situation for being in year 6 of a rebuild, right? What are your thoughts?
Eric A Longenhagen: Skenes has been their only biggity big big hit atop the draft, tough to really ascend when the others are underwhelming. Some of that has had to do with a given draft class and lack of superior options, but teams liek Baltimore ascend because they hit Adley/Gunnar in the same draft, and that hasn’t happened here.
This might be the smartest answer on that chat.
Hugh: Are there certain characteristics (or statistics) of productive hitters at AAA that make you not believe their success at that level will carry to the majors? K rate of around 30% feels like one, curious if you have others.
12:37
Eric A Longenhagen: Splits versus 94+ mph fastballs
Desperate pirates fan: Any updated thoughts on Termarr Johnson following the AFL?
Eric A Longenhagen: Still love how his hands work, think they’re in the right place often enough for him to get to power and play 2B everyday. Gonna K a lot, he’s not Cano or anything like that.
Owen White DFA'd... has 1 option year left. Would be a good pickup for potential bullpen depth. Go get 'em GMBC.
Let’s keep our pitching together to start the year and sign Austin Hays. He was hurt/injured last year. In 22@23 he hit 30 doubles and 15-18 hrs. Put him in the outfield and see what happens. See if 8 mill would do it
In 2021,2022.2023 he was pretty good. Kidney issues and a hammy kept him out half the year. Not a great player but a good one. Just my thoughts watching him play the last 3 years
Houston is close to signing Walker to play first. If they pull it off, it makes losing Bregman and Tucker a bit more tolerable for them.
Agree. Still doesn’t quite make up the loss, but if I’m them I’m not sure I’d want to commit something like 7/$180 to a guy who is going to be 31 and with some shaky batted ball peripherals.
Think walker is going to be 34 and only getting 4ish years
Walker’s getting three. So he’s three years older and his bat speed is a heck of a lot better than Bregman.
Oop was confused and thought you were referencing Walker in the comment above not Bregman, my bad! So yes youre right
Too bad he is outside the Pirates spending cap. I think he is one of the under-the-radar stars in baseball, which happens sometimes to late bloomers.
What's with all this baseball talk around here?
Isn't this the National Cabbage Council website?
https://www.northcoastgrowersassociation.org/cabbage.html
What happened to the baseball site? Lol, yeah I should have more Holiday cheer. But back to baseball, Nats and Rizzo make their first move of the winter.....$9M for Mike Soroka. See I would be more patient with BC if I knew he
was going to spend some money, but.....?
I just don't see Bob giving him the $30M to spend this offseason like the past 2 offseason. Soroka is a good gamble on a comeback season.
Cherington probably has about $10m to play with and it's gonna go to the pen.
Just so I’m clear on what you’re thinking, you have payroll at about $85 million-ish? Or were you assuming $5 million for Cutch and $90 million-ish?
I was forgetting about Cutch and assuming '25 payroll wouldn't be much higher than '24, if at all, which seems to leave about $10m left to play with.
If they did bring Cutch back it would be part of that $10m.
Mildly optimistic it'll get to around $90m though.
Thanks. I hope you’re wrong as thats pretty lean.
I think the Pirates should give Cutch $6M, just a token raise of appreciation.
oh dang, forgot about Cutch, you're right and I agree.
I think you’re both right. BC has known all along that he didn’t have the space to address the lineup problems through free agency, plus Nuttin isn’t going to allow any FA multi-year deals. He was straight out asked that a few months ago and he dodged the question.
This self imposed poverty is getting old
He might have been able to make space for one good quality free agent signing if he had wanted to. That would require moving 2 of Hayes, IKF, or Bednar. If they could not get anything worthwhile (i.e. a decent controllable relief pitcher) for IKF, or anything at all for Bednar and if he could not unload Hayes on the As, even sending along a prospect, then I don't see where he has any options except to spend what little he has on the bullpen and Cutch (and maybe Laureano).
They prefer to say, "It's OK if we don't win as long as we stick to the plan."
This seems correct.
Though, I suspect if they can get Laureano for $3-4 million and they don't run into another deal in trade that they like, they may drop $4 million or so on Laureano. It would be my move, and so far, Cherington has done things that make sense to me (for a change).
One signing or spread it around??
For me it would be one target for leverage innings, knowing the bullpen is probably the best place to cobble together league-min dudes with the hopes that a handful succeed/exceed.
If that is correct, then I am one of the few on here that would have spent it on Aroldis (who was actually 10.5 million).
There are worse ways to spend it.
you and me both, brother.
He won extra points from me when Denny Santana gave some credit to Aroldis for helping him improve. Santana pitched 33 innings with the Pirates giving up only 16 hits and 6 walks.
He won points with me posing on the mound after strike 3 to end an inning.
The Machado one was a classic. That even made Machado smile.
There is a guy I met once, who is one of the three great geniuses of our times, named Clem. He has some BBQ spots out Rt 22 between the Burgh and the Laurel Highlands.... His wife ran them last I heard in the divorce settlement. It turns out Clem was gay, not that that is important. But he and his sons came to Port Matilda, Pa for a while and they set up shop along SR 220 smoking pork and chicken all day long in a parking lot that used to be a gas station run by some middle eastern folks who disappeared suspiciously right after 9/11....
Well, the point of the story is Clem makes the best BBQ sauce I have ever tasted in my life.
I think they were quite successful and I believe they now supply a lot of product to restaurants in State College now.
Man you stick some good slaw on one of Clem's pulled pork sammies and whooa-nellie!
I used to head out to Johnstown when the chiefs were there. This sounds like a place I knew. And
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-tmus-us-rvc3&sca_esv=c7c67eb20f0b5775&sxsrf=ADLYWIIhces572gJRcs0Y9uEZxoO9QOfrg%3A1734709548502&kgmid=%2Fg%2F1tghqkcj&q=Coney%20Island%20Lunch&shndl=30&source=sh%2Fx%2Floc%2Fact%2Fm4%2F2#ebo=0
Post of the Year.
State put him out of business on Old 220 when they built the new highway.
Yeah, I guess so. Last I knew you could still get Clem's over in State at restaurants. There's Hogs Galore locally also, so the pig is fresh too.... Depending on how you consider porcine freshness.
https://clemscafe.com/
???
THAT'S IT!!!! Srsly good bbq sauce.
What in the name of the Good Lord above is that man doing with that grill on the website. They would literally deport him, documents or no, if he did that to a fine piece of meat on a grill in Argentina.
whoever that guy is, it isn't Clem. Clem's neither a big dude nor a cowboy.
Kepler signing shows the latest value of 1.0 WAR is $10M.
That's a lot of cabbage.
Cabbage was better - and I don't even like cabbage that much.
Cabbage.
The Rich Man's Lettuce.
Marketing right there. I like your style. I bet wabbits are all about cabbage. I plant an ass ton on my farm.
YOU HAVE A CABBAGE FARM....
that would be like... heaven....
I plant the seasons. Collards, kale, beet root, radish ect. Deer eat some. Then I eat deer. Start all over in spring. Kind of like bucco fandom. Excitement in spring. Then gets in the 90s for a few months and I think why even bother. Then October comes. And I say wtf start planting kids.
You are a fine example of the circle of life.
Call me Simba my man.
Read Bill Mollisons permaculture manual, Dick proennekes book. Kept reading. Bought a farm. Left the physical therapy world. Family lives off land. No regerts like the snickers commercial.
Danatural did the same. You're my boy d natty
Random rant over
Sung to the tune of that song at the beginning of Lion King....
"Peeeeeeeennnnnnsssssssylvania wanna Hershey Bar!
(Vania-ha)
"Peeeeeeeennnnnnsssssssylvania where they MAAAAAKE chocolat!
(Vania-ha)
I can actually hear Sir Elton singing that.
You should trey it sometime
Fred you done it again. I love cabbage. Always have trey in the fridge at all times. 2 green and one purple.
I introduced my wife and in-laws to coleslaw. Now, we wouldn't survive a week without cabbage.
Cabbage is an important part of a balanced diet in Poland.
Were you just talking to Bobby Ski? Aldi has cheap and decent kraut. Fermentation is the place to be.
I agree with the fermentation as a place. Where everybody knows your name.
My wife makes a mean batch. My love affair started at the new Kensington long John silvers as a wee lad. If on the menu or available I'm all in. Like to think of myself as a connesieur. Not a huge fan when they load dill in it.
with your wife or slaw?
Good shout. Slaw. Wife is a Charleston SC lass. They eat real fish. Plus it's Captain D's round here. She also loves counting crows. Catch that?
And the farts later on. If you pile a good lager or two on top of a good pulled pork with slaw, the farting gods come down and give you this gigantic column of poo-stink that builds up in your system allowing for farts that can last more than ten seconds with no threat of butt-smudge whatsoever.
The cole slaw at Long John's is SO good when you ask for a bunch of those crunchies and you mix them together..... ooooooooo. Show Me The Cabbage.
Free crunchies. They do wonders for the arteries. Been known to drown them with some tartar and cocktail.
NO DILL! Sacrilege. It is all in the vinagre to mayonnaise ratio, and homemade mayonnaise is the best. NO MIRACLE WHIP (not that we even have that in Argentina).
When the sauce is yellow and the slaw is finely grated I give low grades.
Yeah, right, Dill? Gawd. And it IS all in the vinegar to mayo ratio. AND in the relative coarseness of the cut. When you get slaw that is cut like sawdust, I just wanna puke.
Let me do a little Ethan stuff this morning. The Pirates in 2025 should take the field with a Starting Pitching Rotation that would be at least Top 10, and possibly very close to Top 5. It is a Playoff Rotation. On the position player side, Oneil Cruz came back better than expected, Joey Bart was an unexpected plus from last year, we added Billy Cook and Nick Yorke at the trading deadline, and so far we have added Spencer Horwitz a LH hitting 1B/2B from Toronto. We need another bat or 2 for the middle of the order.
All contract numbers are from Cot's. Adding up the salaries that will exceed the minimum we have 11 players who will make $58.4 mil. The minimum salary in 2025 will be $760,000. If the other 15 players who will make up the Final 26 man roster make an average of $800,000 apiece that will amount to $12 mil, and a 26 Man Total of $70.4 mil - probably still a bottom 6 Franchise in salaries!
Opening Day 2024 - 26 Man - Cubs were at $214 mil; Cardinals were at $175 mil; Brewers were at $104 mil; the Reds $90 mil, and the Pirates were at $86 mil. It got to $86 due to an increase of $13 mil from 2023 to 2024, and an $18 mil increase from 2022 to 2023. Based on the $86 mil in 2024 and the rate of increase since 2022, we should be expecting a 26 man payroll of at least $100 mil to start 2025. Does that mean we could expect a few signings to add the additional $30 mil, or one big signing for about $22 or $23 mil, and another add of an $8 mil player?
If only they would increase payroll to $100 million. Remember those tanking years, when payroll was as low as $45 million. We were told that money would be saved and added to the competitive years. It has not been. That much is obvious. Nutting pocketed it. I fully support any and all action by the players' union against Nutting. The guy is just so cheap. Even if $80 million is their baseline, there should be a warchest of some $70 million from 4 years of sub $60 million payrolls.
I’m not sure there was ever any statement from them that flat out said they were setting money aside. Some talking heads, I recall the Bucs in the Basement guys in particular, speculating they were setting aside money for future years, but I don’t recall the team directly saying this. All I can recall is that they said they would spend when the time was right, a statement that is very much open to interpretation.
Not unfair to speculate why they aren’t spending more. What happened to their portion of the Bamtech money, for example?
I think that Williams or some such did make a statement to that effect at some point. Whatever... if they find the money to extend Skenes, I will be Ok with $85-$90 million in payroll this season, The problem is that I just don't see how Cherington can ever win on that budget. He just doesn't seem to be very agile in terms of acquiring talent via trade. Every move that he makes seems to be glacial in speed. How long did it take him to replace the Latin American scouting director? The head scout? The batting coach? I mean... he was like 2 years behind everyone else in noticing that these were problem areas.
I don’t recall any comments like that, but if someone digs something up post it here, it’d be interesting to see.
I agree the moves he made were a long time coming. I know the Astros did a lot more thorough house cleaning when Luhnow took over, and the Marlins under Bendix have been extremely aggressive, to the point of reportedly firing even clubhouse attendants. But, better late than never right? The change in pro scouting might pay quick dividends. Fingers crossed for this season. And of course some the changes, like the international director, might take more time to pay dividends.
Doing everything deliberately, and staying quiet has been a part of this management team's dunna (DNA). BC is not dumb and knew what he was getting into when he took the job. But, having his legs cut from under him in Boston for a more aggressive program when they hired Dave Dombrowski and placed him above BC, I had hoped that he would not want to suffer the same fate with another team. Of course, this is just the type of guy Nutting appreciates.
IMO, the Pirates have a 4 year window with 2 or 3 of the Top 20 SP's in the game - Skenes, Chandler, and 3 guys very close are Jones, Harrington, and Barco. We'll see what they are thinking by how they treat Chandler. If they think they cannot sign Skenes, then they will keep Chandler in AAA as long as necessary so that he cannot get his first year of MLB Service until Skenes is in his 3rd year (2026).
Nope Cherington is far from dumb. Like you said just very deliberate. And some of the moves I understood, they just appear to have been wrong in hindsight, like keeping a lot of the scouting personnel in place.
But, I’m not sure deliberate is what the team needs. Most things that pay large dividends come with risk, and require aggressive moves.
There's a story about Luhnow (one of my GM heros), where, in his first season, he went to watch the AA team. He told the AA pitching coach that studies show that long-toss is very helpful for pitchers and that he wanted the whole minor-league system to implement a long-toss program for pitchers. The coach said that he didn't see any benefit from it. Well... the next day... Luhnow comes back and still sees no long-toss, so he fired the pitching coach that same day.
Luhnow must have been a fan of Gary Adams, long time Manager of UCLA Baseball who put a long toss program into place for his whole team which included an hour of full body stretching, arm circles and surgical tubing exercises which led to long toss done in a specific manner. Remember reading about it in an article in Collegiate Baseball about 25 years ago.
Oakland will need about a 15 win improvement or so to make the playoffs. Not sure I see that happening, but it should be really interesting to see how this flurry of moves works out. Definitely a storyline I’ll be watching during the season.
And those kids on that team do not know they are not supposed to win. Wake up Ben!
Everything good TN Mel? I was ready to read your daily briefing in the comments of our daily briefing
We do the Feast of the 7 Fishes on Christmas Eve (or as close as the family will allow us) and the cooking and baking has already started. I am the Gopher - go for this, go for that, etc. I started writing something shortly after 6 and am just getting back to it!
If you are wondering how a guy with a German last name does the Feast, my Mother was full Italian, and my wife is full Italian. A long and well appreciated tradition.
Well you messaging a Bianco. You can guess my ethnicity. Also had a ski in there. Thus my love of pierogies. Do yourself a favor and put spaghetti sauce on some potato pierogies sometime. Hot damn.
Have fun. Off to Chucktown SC for a pre Xmas Xmas. Oyster roast.
Safe travels.
i know he wasn’t a particularly exciting option, but i had convinced myself Kepler would be a good fit here. back to the trade market!
I had recently talked myself into being ok with it if that's what they did. I'll have to go over the free agents again, but yea trade is starting to feel like the best route
We're deep only in mediocrity.
We needed some sub-replacement guys to balance out the replacement-level guys.
A jewel hidden in the last post!
I like Ke’backinjury better than Ke’groundout!