The claiming of Lawrence and 60-day DL-ing of Oviedo made things interesting. Strzelecki, Wentz, and Lawrence are all out of options. I’m projecting 2 of them make the Opening Day roste with the newest guy getting left out. Nicolas could easily make it too, but another one of the guys above would have to be DFA. Burrows gets a bump as he could be the 5th SP if any injuries occur. Hunter Stratton, Isaac Mattson, and Burch Smith all drop to 0% as none of them have pitched yet this spring. And despite popular opinion, I’m still not giving Lean Eddy Yean a chance.
Unique - Top Exit Velo's #1 HR, #s 2 thru 5 all resulting in outs!
TRADES - Need to be showcasing Braxton Ashcraft and Kyle Nicolas. If the Pirates are entertaining the possibility of trading for a solid, young LH or SW Hitting OF or SS, these two will be two of the best Pitchers we could be willing to offer. Also possible a team would ask for both pitchers, and/or an MLB ready MI. A lot depends on the perceived value of the player coming to the Pirates.
A lot of my opinions are hopes they will try to find that MOTO hitter we desperately need. It hurts when you see a guy like Santander with a couple of hits and 3 RBI. Sure, it would have stretched the budget, but with the pitching we have, it is now or never.
Bubba and Barco…you’re still my two favorite pitching prospects. Learn and grow from each outing no matter how good or bad it was. Never more true than outings in ST.
They both need to tighten up the command. Bubba threw one off the backstop! He needs at least half a season to clean some things up. They call him up too early and they might have another Glasnow situation.
I'm sure Bubba would like to get a do-over on that inning. I'm guessing that is the first time he faced batters as good as Jazz, Judge, Bellinger and Volpe in the same inning.
Joey Bart continues to impress behind the plate and with the bat. Nice seeing Nick Yorke get the start at 2B and was one of the Pirates with a hit. Not sure what BC had in mind for Yorke when he traded for him, but he has hit well at AAA for us (900+ OPS) and pretty good for a 22 year old in MLB (650+ OPS).
First time I had seen Hunter Barco and he is very impressive. The Velo at 97 mph for a lefty puts him in a very small number of LHSP's. Only thing that went through my mind was how the FB and "off speed" (?) were all thrown FAST. Possible to drop a few ticks off the off-speed stuff? The pitch that Lombard hit for a HR was well located down and in but - it happens.
I personally think Bart is a little below average defensively. And I think his poor athleticism would not play well at 1B. If he has a good first half, and our other catchers stay healthy, I would look to trade him to a team that catches the injury bug.
To be fair, Bart put in a lot of work on defense in the offseason and is working on some new techniques, which he says are "uncomfortable" for the moment, especially working off of one knee much more often to give him more stability and less herky-jerky movement, which is supposed to help with framing.
We'll see if his defensive game improves. All the more reason though, IMO, that he should be getting reps at 1B.
I definitely liked more of the two how Endy looked catching Barco late, but did not think Bart was "bad". Bart is a lot like Tank - if he can bring the bat with him, a whole lot of what we like in a Catcher defensively, is sacrificed for what we get offensively. I think Endy is the closest we have to having both offense and defense.
He’s definitely the board optimist. He’s still even pumping up Peguero. Not to mention his daily trade proposal to solve the outfield offense problem. I guess someone’s got to be the glass three-quarters full person among the rest of us gloom and doom types.
He let a pop-up land right in front of him, he had a passed ball that immediately led to a run and gave up 2 SB. But, other than that, he didn't look bad
Pitching battles……….original….now
11. Carmen Mlodzinski..90%…..90%
12. Pete Strzelecki………60%…..60%
13. Joey Wentz……………50%…..50%
————————————————————
14. Justin Lawrence…….n/a…….40%
15. Michael Burrows……20%…..40%
16. Kyle Nicolas………….30%…..30%
17. Tanner Rainey………..10%…..10%
18. Ryan Borucki…………10%…..10%
19. Braxton Ashcraft……10%…..10%
20. Bubba Chandler…….10%…..10%
21. Chase Shugart……….10%…….5%
22. Carson Fulmer…………5%…….5%
23. Yohan Ramirez………..5%…….5%
24. Ryder Ryan……………..5%…….5%
25. Johan Oviedo………..50%…….0%
The claiming of Lawrence and 60-day DL-ing of Oviedo made things interesting. Strzelecki, Wentz, and Lawrence are all out of options. I’m projecting 2 of them make the Opening Day roste with the newest guy getting left out. Nicolas could easily make it too, but another one of the guys above would have to be DFA. Burrows gets a bump as he could be the 5th SP if any injuries occur. Hunter Stratton, Isaac Mattson, and Burch Smith all drop to 0% as none of them have pitched yet this spring. And despite popular opinion, I’m still not giving Lean Eddy Yean a chance.
Unique - Top Exit Velo's #1 HR, #s 2 thru 5 all resulting in outs!
TRADES - Need to be showcasing Braxton Ashcraft and Kyle Nicolas. If the Pirates are entertaining the possibility of trading for a solid, young LH or SW Hitting OF or SS, these two will be two of the best Pitchers we could be willing to offer. Also possible a team would ask for both pitchers, and/or an MLB ready MI. A lot depends on the perceived value of the player coming to the Pirates.
I do not believe you'll see any trades here.
A lot of my opinions are hopes they will try to find that MOTO hitter we desperately need. It hurts when you see a guy like Santander with a couple of hits and 3 RBI. Sure, it would have stretched the budget, but with the pitching we have, it is now or never.
If I remember correctly, last year the team played a night game in Tampa and got massacred. I think Stanton hit like 20 home runs……..maybe it was 3.
Bubba and Barco…you’re still my two favorite pitching prospects. Learn and grow from each outing no matter how good or bad it was. Never more true than outings in ST.
They both need to tighten up the command. Bubba threw one off the backstop! He needs at least half a season to clean some things up. They call him up too early and they might have another Glasnow situation.
I’d wait on seeing how they look the rest of the spring before putting a timeline on their ETA.
I'm sure Bubba would like to get a do-over on that inning. I'm guessing that is the first time he faced batters as good as Jazz, Judge, Bellinger and Volpe in the same inning.
Joey Bart continues to impress behind the plate and with the bat. Nice seeing Nick Yorke get the start at 2B and was one of the Pirates with a hit. Not sure what BC had in mind for Yorke when he traded for him, but he has hit well at AAA for us (900+ OPS) and pretty good for a 22 year old in MLB (650+ OPS).
First time I had seen Hunter Barco and he is very impressive. The Velo at 97 mph for a lefty puts him in a very small number of LHSP's. Only thing that went through my mind was how the FB and "off speed" (?) were all thrown FAST. Possible to drop a few ticks off the off-speed stuff? The pitch that Lombard hit for a HR was well located down and in but - it happens.
Bart looked really bad defensively.
I personally think Bart is a little below average defensively. And I think his poor athleticism would not play well at 1B. If he has a good first half, and our other catchers stay healthy, I would look to trade him to a team that catches the injury bug.
To be fair, Bart put in a lot of work on defense in the offseason and is working on some new techniques, which he says are "uncomfortable" for the moment, especially working off of one knee much more often to give him more stability and less herky-jerky movement, which is supposed to help with framing.
We'll see if his defensive game improves. All the more reason though, IMO, that he should be getting reps at 1B.
I definitely liked more of the two how Endy looked catching Barco late, but did not think Bart was "bad". Bart is a lot like Tank - if he can bring the bat with him, a whole lot of what we like in a Catcher defensively, is sacrificed for what we get offensively. I think Endy is the closest we have to having both offense and defense.
Mel I’m not sure you think anybody is bad.
He’s definitely the board optimist. He’s still even pumping up Peguero. Not to mention his daily trade proposal to solve the outfield offense problem. I guess someone’s got to be the glass three-quarters full person among the rest of us gloom and doom types.
Peguro is due to be inducted into the HOF any day now.
But, yes, Endy is the best C they have, and I don't think it will take long before he supplants bart.
He let a pop-up land right in front of him, he had a passed ball that immediately led to a run and gave up 2 SB. But, other than that, he didn't look bad