149 Comments

LOL Cubs getting Paredes.

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Biggest loser of the deadline so far is MLB Pipeline.

Fodder for every jackwagon complaining about their favorite team not acquiring Good Player X for Shitty Prospect Y and Z.

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I’m really offended that you’d make fun of my proposal for the Marlins to trade us Jazz for Solometo and Jebb.

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Chapman to the orioles feels inevitable.

They have such a good team with young top prospect coming soon that they will have a 40 man problem this offseason.

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Reporting that the O’s want another lefty in their bullpen. I’m sure we will take their number 22, 29, 52 and 76th ranked prospects, rather than just taking number 10. It’s all about creating illusory depth.

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The Pirates can package Chapem with Keller for one of Mayo or Kjerstad. If it's Mayo, the Pirates may need to include a prospect. If the Nuttington Pirates refuse to spend money on a free agent or two, then tis is the path the ream must take if it intends to win in the short term (that is, during Skenes' time with the organizationni).

I'm not holding my breath waiting for this trade.

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Keller isn’t going anywhere

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Right, because Nuttington is too stupid to trade him.

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It would appear to be a helluva sellers market. If we have any strength it is starting pitching. Of the pitchers with value i would trade Keller before Skenes and he has more value than Jones as he is hurt. This will be the best way to get potentially above average offensive players.

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It would appear to be a sellers market because so many teams are in the race and so few are out. On the flipside, I think there are teams around .500 that are reluctant to go all in with the expanded play-off system. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

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The best way to obtain good offensive players is to have a savvy, brave GM.

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Actually it’s to develop them yourself!

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That's what a savvy GM would do,

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Actually we should just trade skenes

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I believe you are being sarcastic. Whatever the Pirates were to receive in a Skenes trade, the return would be inadequate. It would not be hard to crunch the numbers and determine a trade equivalent for Skenes. But, if it's game seven of the world Series, who would you want on the mound. Skenese is a unicorn. He's your game seven pitcher. More unicorns: Trout, Bonds, Cabrera, Pujols, etc. A unicorn player is one who can prevail over the best opponents. There are a few of those every generation and the Pirates have one of them. The last such Pirates player? Bonds. Loosing Bonds placed a death shroud over this organization. What would losing Skenes do?

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Think the Phillies would send us Andrew Painter, Mick Abel and Aidan Miller for Skenes?

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Jul 28·edited Jul 28

As long as we go quantity over quality lol

Probably need to take a couple 40 man guys in that group.

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I wonder how many quantity guys we acquired that we had to eventually DFA because there wasn't enough room on the 40 man.

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3 of 4 from the Tallion trade 2 of 2 from the Holmes trade, stopping there because it's depressing.

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That was my joke lol

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I know. I was just putting fuel in the fire.

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Herschel Skenes? 😉

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I would try for Emmanuel Rodriguez and Connie Prielipp. He has had multiple TJ’s but is a wild card.

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Rumors all over saying Miami wanted Termarr & Nick Gonzales for Jazz.

Glad Ben said no

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I'll jump on the questioning - rumors 'all over'? I haven't seen a one outside of chats like this.

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It’s all over X

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Ummm . . . . .

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Source ?

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X

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These rumors, if there’s anything to them to begin with, often reflect one side’s opening bid rather than anything that ever had a chance. They didn’t get anywhere near that. And they can’t possibly have thought that the Pirates would have seen swapping Nick for Jazz as helping them contend, which would have been the point of a trade.

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They sure as hell didn’t get anything close to that from the Yankees.

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Jazz and Termarr are sorta similar players.

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Make a trade you cowards.

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I started to say the fundamental problem is that they just don’t care, but on top of that, Cherington no doubt realizes the Archer trade was a big factor in Huntington getting fired. He seems determined to make only moves that’ll stay off the radar screen. Above all else, Ben is about protecting his lifetime tenure.

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Which is why he should have traded Keller to the O's. The Archer trade may have gotten Connington fired, but Nuttington's risk aversion may get him fired. After all, Nutting's claim that there is money available for a mid-season trade and the leaked FO denials that such money was there -- this suggests that the Nuttings might be offended by the Scrooge McDuck comparisons.

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Professor Cherington is the chair of Rebuilding Studies program.

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It's a think-tank, no practical actions.

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How can I get hired to do a field study for the think tank?

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Just do the field study, send it to Federal Street c/o GMBC. If one of the interns gets to it, Ben will send a voucher for a free t-shirt as long as you have a paid ticket for any free t-shirt Friday.

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To be a buyer or to be a seller?

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The million dollar 53 hour question. In the rental market, I hope they don't buy, and have only marked-down items to sell. In the controllable market, I hope they don't sell major league assets (Jones, Keller) and instead sell from depth to buy a controllable bat or two.

I don't think a ''win now" move is going to happen.

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Cherrington's FO has made a point to notify the fans that it will not make a win now move. That does not bother me at all. What he hasn't done is make a win later move. That bothers me a lot.

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In other words, you agree with management that they shouldn't try to win this year despite the fact that they may not win any year. I've always thought that the whole point of a major league team was to win so if there is a team on the fringe, at least try to get over the fringe! Hope-o-meter never really moves in Pittsburgh!

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Me too, but just wait how I change my mind if Keller and Skenes dominate the next 2 games and we move within 2 games of the wildcard.

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Would anyone consider trading Keller to the twins for a combination of players headlined by Brooks Lee.

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Accordingbto BTV, this is what a fair trade return for Brooks Lee would look like.

BTV values do not always make sense to me. Skene has a 57! That's egregiously low. Keller's value seems too low.

https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades/172723

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The values for a lot of players don’t line up and I think it’s inconsistent with some players and organizations. Sometimes I think they overcorrect too much with their evaluations. Overall, the site is fun, but I think they do a better job with some teams and values than others.

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They undervalue starting pitching severely and tend to overvalue certain teams prospects.

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They sure as hell overvalued Jazz.

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Trade deadline, it seems pitchers values have always gone up. In the offseason, teams seemed to avoid giving pitchers contracts with ridiculous amounts of years on their contracts. I wonder if that has anything to do with anything at all.

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I was going by BTV, deadline trades for pitching is always higher it seems. Off-season it's usually quantity over quality (at least for the pirates).

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Yep. A 57 value for Skenes is nuts. He's the third most valuable trade asset on FG's current ranking. He's third because the ranking system docks pitchers for being pitchers. Longenhagen and coworkers gave Skenes a 65 FV in its recent Top 100 list. That likely suppressed Skenes' trade value. Knowing what we know now, a 65 FV is quite low. BTV uses prospect rankings to assign a value to prospects. Harrington, Barco and others seem to be undervalued. Yet Harrington recently outmatched Jobe in a head to head match, and no one found that astonishing.

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I'd rather make a play for Crochet and a rental bat or 2.

Go to a 6 man rotation, hope for the WC but setup next year with a top 3 rotation.

Off-season actually try to aquire a bat or 3.

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I think because of Keller's durability and what he can offer younger Pirate pitchers, he is more valuable than what his numbers show. I would not do it straight up for Brooks Lee, but would be listening to what else you want to throw in.

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The Rays are 4 GB wildcard with only two teams ahead of them plus the dubious Royals. Yet they're sellers. Pirates fans would have a mutiny if BC sells without adding a hitter. But selling Chappy, Marco and Martin would be appropriate.

Giving away Martin would be fine too.

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The time for the pirates to trade for a bat or 2 was a month ago or more. The NL Central is not the AL East, the pirates front office is not the rays front office. The rays front office has a better track record that says they know what they are doing.

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Nuttington is gutless. The Rays FO iscsavy and willful.

At this point of the build, I'm trying to determine WTF Cherrington is doing. I can accept that he does not want to go all in on the 2024 season. And I'm aware that I and every other fan knows nothing about trade talks between teams. But Cherrington has made it clear that the fans should keep their expectations low for the trade deadline.

It's ironic that Nuttington might face another fan explosion if they sell Chapman at the trade deadline.

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Jul 28·edited Jul 28

Lowered Expectations!!! Someone needs to do a parody from the Mad TV sketch of Bob and Ben making their pitch to angry pirates fans.

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That person should review footage of McClatchyfield selling their teams to the fans! Fireworks! Who wants to pay >$20 per ticket to take the family to PNC to watch the Pirates team get its ass handed to it just to watch a lame Fireworks display afterwards?

It's a good thing that Yinzers like Fireworks because the alternatives are bear baiting, dog fighting and demolition derby races.

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A demolition derby would be a great draw after a Sunday lineup.

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It’s just that it’s been such a long time since we’ve been close to it

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Give away Grandal too.

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Tank for jazz would have made me upset

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Seriously

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I do think they are about to trade tank though

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I hope not.

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Why do you think that?

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Bc of that speed off the bat last night from Bart

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Would be nice to have both Bart and Davis hitting in MLB :shrug:

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Jason Adam to Padres for Lesko

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Jason Adam's whip over the last 3 years is .89. Even though I am a little surprised they got a top 100 prospect for him, I think Adam might be a little underrated.

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pirates should sell bednar if those are the prices, god damn

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I wanted to trade Bednar last year

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me too. can't trade the hometown boy tho

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That’s probably the first overpayment I ever seen, then again Lesko is struggling….

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i'd still bet on the talent. coming back from tj surgery isn't always smooth sailing

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Agree, command is the last thing and he is a command, great change up guy. Hope Burrows find his command soon he too is struggling with command.

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and Holderman yep

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Also Homer Bush and another prospect not mentioned yet

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JD Gonzalez is #3

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Seems to be a pretty steep price

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According to BTV the Padres way overpaid, yeah. 14.1 to 6 surplus.

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Damn. I'm not sure how much control Adam has after this year but that's a bit much to me

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Padres window is now, the players they traded are 2 to 3 years away from the majors at least.

The Ray's have an ability to find hidden gems for the bullpen (think last year pirates). The Ray's cleaned up, but the Padres got what they need now, a win win.

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2.4 years. Maybe the Pads felt they had a 40 man crunch coming and just wanted to get a few guys off there they didn't so much believe in?

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Justin Martinez is a new name for me. Has closer velocity after having TJ in 2021. Much rather see Sewald than him today. What an arm.

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Yeah 102 and then a brutal breaker

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As the sun rises in the East, the certainty of Quinn throwing BP for at least one crooked number inning is a foregone conclusion. And usually that means game over.

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Tweeted Mayo yesterday asking about Griffin signing. Surprisingly he tweeted back but said probably closer to deadline

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I believe he's acyinzer.

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Real classy of Shelton to throw Priester under the bus in the postgame after not having pitched him for 8 days. What a leader.

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Yep, Priester pitched against the ChiSoc before the break then against Philly the first game back, (pretty inconsistent of Shelton claiming Priester was the long man when he pitched 1 inning when already down 7 to 4, I guess that changed after scoring a 2 runs). Didn't use him on Sunday against the Phillies although they were down several runs early, then didn't get him some work against the Cards on Wednesday when they were up 5.

I'm not a huge Priester fan but Shelton really can put guys in a position to fail then place the blame on them. Priester didn't do well but I put more blame on Shelton.

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I surely wouldn't want to play for the guy.

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Time for Bae to show he can do something at the MLB level.

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This might be and likely is his last chance with the Pirates.

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