Granted the guy is 28 with 4 years in AAA, but at this moment, his AAA stats with the Twins are better than any other option Bucs have at AAA, if not counting Solak.Of course he's having a crap year after being traded to Cards. Anyway, seems someone more interesting than the totally useless garbage BC historically signs in emergencies.
Future Irony: When Pirates win the series in ‘28 a number of international players and draft picks will be on that team….signed/drafted by BC. We will thank him….from afar.
And he'll translate that into a new job--look, I knew what I was doing but six years just wasn't long enough for my advanced planning to reach fruition!
Kiley has a mini mock up. I like his mocks because it’s based more on utilizing his sources of what he’s hearing as possible picks. Anyway he has Carlson:
Pittsburgh is believed to be locked in on Carlson (whose range seems to start here) and Aiva Arquette, with some other players also being considered. Carlson has a number of similarities with Konnor Griffin, so the belief in the industry is he’s the pick if he’s here.
The next month will be big for the college arms (4 or 5 could jump up) could be good at pick 6 potentially. I just don't see enough value in the college bats at pick 6, the floor is there for Arquette and the ceiling for LaViollette.
Thanks for posting, Kiley is good reflection of the process.
As I asked you this last week…only one prep PA kid in his top 150 (prep righty Ethan Grim from Shillington), as well as the SS from Penn State (Ryan Weingartner). In keeping with the cold weather theme, he has three NY kids, two preps and a JC player from Niagara (Matt Barr). One of the NY prep kids is Marcus Stroman’s kid brother.
Gray is a national champion weight lifter and crossfit competitor. Very little swing and miss, top of the prep class in exit velocity, 6'4" 235 with plus speed in the 60 yard. He's built like a linebacker or edge rusher and doesn't turn 18 until after the draft.
I would support a player with that profile who will line up well with Griffin as with the mess that Williams and Cherington have created, I think our next competitive window will be around the time Griffin is ready. Hopefully we'll still have Skenes for a couple of years (can KG be ready by '28?) and Chandler and Barco for a couple more beyond that.
Just read on MLBTR that Jordan Luplow is back in baseball with the Atlantic League after his ACL rehab. Was surprised at his stats - a much better LHP killer than Connor Joe was, mostly due to walks and power. Wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see BC sign him at some point if he plays well at indie level.
FTA:
"The resulting .268 ISO (slugging minus batting average) ranks 13th among the 226 players who tallied at least 500 plate appearances versus lefties during Luplow’s active years in MLB (2017-23), just behind prominent sluggers like Paul Goldschmidt, Austin Riley and Rhys Hoskins. Overall, Luplow is a .212/.314/.423 hitter in 1060 major league plate appearances. He’s picked up five years of MLB service thanks in large part to his ability to consistently hit for power against lefties."
Cool note. I've increasingly felt dudes like Joe and Luplow should be seen as the hitter-equivalent of a lot of the pitchers that our Pirates have gotten credit for developing.
Apparently Sewickley is too far away from PNC and BC wants to move closer.to PNC Park and that the home was listed six months ago.
I checked Google Maps and travel time is 26-31 minutes door to door. I don't know how he cuts his travel time significantly unless he moves to Mt. Washington.
I wondered if the first inning run by Mets was going to come back and bite us, and sure enough it did. How does Mitch not even check
Soto's lead at first base allowing him to walk into second base? I mean this is high school stuff. Would he have scored from first on the double.....I'd have to watch the replay.......probably but Soto is not the fastest guy.
Allowing BC to attempt to make job-saving trades (assuming he even bothers to) when CLEARLY he has no clue how to evaluate and/or develop upper level hitting talent could result in a bunch of additional AAAA players.
His track record on position player prospects is unbelievably bad, so the only way they should allow him to make a trade is if it's for a proven player, and those types of players are unlikely to be available.
Is there even one of his trades that we can point to as a clear win? There are many that were clear losses.
Cherington won me over for a while with trading Musgrove and bringing back Endy, Bednar, Head, Fellows and Omar Cruz. Looking at it now, not a clear win.... but not terrible.
I actually liked the Taillon trade better but that didn't turn out well.
With the Musgrove deal, a lot will depend on how Endy turns out. Of course with Endy and Head, we may never know if the talent was there and we just couldn't develop it or if the talent was never really there. I still have high hopes for Endy, though.
So you're saying he would have made that trade if Delay wasn't hurt and Bart wasn't dfa'd? It was a good trade but there was circumstances that made it a reality. He did not aquire Bart when the Giants were shopping him in spring training of '24, maybe he was waiting on him to be dfa'd and Delays injury just happened to coincide, nonetheless it happened at a time of necessity.
Bart was a good acquisition but I didn't consider waiver claims because they don't go through the same process of negotiating fair value to get a deal done.
Priester for Yorke may turn out well, though Priester had a good outing last night and Yorke has a sub-.700 OPS in AAA.
Maybe this adds to the frustration but Statcast has Bart's drive last night as a HR in 9 of 30 parks and Baty's HR as a HR in only 12/30 parks. I.e., in all but 3 parks the game would have been tied going to the bottom of the 9th.
Also, a glimmer of hope is that Reynolds hit two balls with EVs of about 101 so maybe he's about to break out of the slump. Those EVs don't surprise after watching live. Seeing him watch that third strike, though, was frustrating. Maybe that doesn't happen if one of the hard-hit balls found a hole.
Nice....higher math! But I'm disappointed in both balls Bart hit to Nimmo......he's big and strong enough to hit it 375 rather than 360. We need his power, and it hasn't been there this season.
He's *improved* his exit velo by 2mph and launch angle by 2 degrees.
The results over 6 week not being there is what the stat nerds mean when they say "luck". Awful hard to put direct intent on a player's ability to hit the same ball in one stadium and not the other when that defines a home run or an out.
I clicked on Indy's box score and if the performance of the major league hitters isn't enough of an indictment on Cherington, then the AAA lineup surely is. Two players with OPS's above .750--Suwinski at .753 (yes, I used .750 as the cutoff so I could give some credit to Jack) and Solak at 1.066. The next highest is Yorke at .672. Five of their starters were below .600.
I expect Horwitz and Yorke to significantly improve their production as they get more reps, but I also expect Gonzales and Rodriguez will experience similar struggles when they start their rehabs. The only real hope for immediate help is that Cruz gets back and Reynolds breaks out of his slump.
Wish they would do a trade of scenery trade with Suwinski. Maybe the Royals for Melendez or their compB, they need an outfielder. Jack probably isn't their answer but he might catch lightning in a bottle.
It's too bad the Pirates can't find room on their stacked 40-man roster for Solak. His career .700 OPS would make him the 2nd best hitter in the lineup last night.
Yeah, but they only have room for a left-handed hitting backup catcher and fourth starter who has two different colored eyes, was born on a Tuesday and collects stamps as a hobby. All the other spots are taken by guys who are going to break out starting on September 12.
Flash's lad is killing it. 5 hr and batting average higher than prob Reynolds, Pham and Frazier combined. I'd trade our entire lot of strikers (can't call them hitters) sans Cruz for him. And maybe whoever their back up catcher is.
Need Cruz, Endy, NG back in the lineup. Need Horwitz, although he needs more ABs since he missed ST. I don't know how much better it makes them, but those guys were expected to contribute. Davis as a backup catcher is a liability. They traded Delay and he gave them better ABs. I guess they like Henry's personality. Bottom line: this team lacks talent.
GMBC needed to be gone yesterday. This organization needs a decisive leader capable of making the tough decisions to improve the ball club. As things stand today, maybe they should consider trading Heaney, Falter, and Keller for hitting. Lean on the young pitching prospects and see what they've got. Move on from Pham and Frazier as well. You don't need either of them to lose 100 games.
Horwitz has a .547 OPS in AAA even after getting a single and a BB last night. Early in ST Cherington in what may have been unintended transparency said that he thought there was a very good chance the Horwitz would help sometime this _year_. That whole 6-8 week timeline was always a bunch of BS from the FO.
As disappointed as I am with Davis, I still think he’s developing. We all want it to be immediate impact but it rarely goes that way despite his draft status. That being said, everyone is clamoring for Endy but he’s proven nothing yet either. .178 this yr and .212 in the majors doesn’t scream impact player. Small sample size for sure and he missed all last yr but we have no idea what these two will be for their careers.
So I’m so appalled by Davis’ lack of offense that I went back and looked at some of the pre-draft coverage. Contrary to what I think we’ve all come to assume, Davis was not a pure lowball pick. For example Keith Law had him as the 1A prospect in the draft behind only Marcelo Mayer. Law wrote that his swing was perfect and compared him to Buster Posey.
OK, Law was wrong, but my point is that Davis was a totally plausible #1 pick. I ask again, what the hell has happened to this guy?
My goodness. That take might be more preposterous than his take on Kevin Newman, which is saying something.
The reality is that Hank has a very *un*conventional swing. I mean, we all watch the games. How many other big leaguers swing like him?
I can remember reading more than one draft report mention this at the time, but the thought among scouts was that it would work based on his college contact and power. Well, turns out they were wrong. Baseball is hard and projecting hitters seems to be something between guess and luck.
I think Nick Gonzales is much the same. He was lauded for a swing that was compared to dudes like Keston Hiura, Carter Kieboom, and Jeter Downs riiiiggghhhtt before those dudes ended up busting against big league arms. Oops again.
Hank's swing just isn't gonna work. He's already a Driveline guy and came back from a winter with them worse. Gonzo has managed to adjust enough to make it work and the only hope is that Hank will as well.
I know nothing about nothing but…God, his stance looks uncomfortable. He looks like he’s trying to sit on a stool that’s a little too tall for him, but he’s still trying to get his feet to touch the ground.
I’m glad you mentioned those swing guys because I was thinking the same thing. As a swing Luddite, is Hank’s swing issue different from theirs? EL, I believe, noted that Hiura and Kieboom had some sort of action with their hands that they were unable to correct (a loop maybe?). I dunno.
Some weird swings (like some weird deliveries for pitchers) work and some don’t. And often you don’t find out till the last stop.
Baseball is hard which is the first thing that comes to mind. Having to put so much effort into his catching maybe has something to do with his struggles?
I don’t understand the comment about Davis. He put together some good at bats last night and has been solid behind the plate. I think it is important they just commit to him being the backup and let him keep playing against MLB pitching and see if he is able to solve it. This is a lost season anyway…
I wondered if those better ABs were the result of having the rare opportunity to catch back-to-back games.
Somewhat shockingly, to me anyway, is that Davis has 0.3 bWAR which is barely behind Bart (0.5) and barely ahead of Shelton favorite Valdez (0.1). His fWAR is below water, but no worse the Triolo's and better than a host of others including just about all of our corner outfielders.
Do I have high hopes for him? No. But I completely agree that we should use this season to find out more. As noted previously, same with Suwinski.
🤣 I'm totally in favor of letting the young guys play. Like I said somewhere here, they can lose a hundred games without over the hill veterans. Let the young guys play.
He might have put together some good at bats last night, but overall he’s still looked pretty hopeless. I’m not sure if it’s all swing related and if it’s fixable. Given the trajectory of the season, I feel somewhat indifferent as to what they do with him or Endy. Neither has hit a lick.
Davis was drafted on the strength of his offensive game. Regardless of last night, he's not been able to hit well in the majors. Maybe I'm being impatient, but I expected more from him.
We all expected more from him, but that isn’t always how it goes.
I note that Darren Daulton was a catcher with the Phillies who had tremendous power but pulled almost everything. For a while he was hitting a ton of foul ball “homers”. Eventually he was able to get more of those into fair territory and became an above average hitting catcher. I see Davis doing a similar thing. I’m hardly infallible but I see a competent hitter in there still trying to figure out how to hit major league pitching. I think he can do it and I hope he does it here.
You’re not GW. Davis hasn’t done anything in the big leagues yet. I mean nothing. But I would still give him another 250 at bats this year to see if there is any magic in that bat. We have the second worst record in baseball. Giving him more bats is not gonna make us any better or worse. Just my thoughts.
Right and he hasn’t shown the ability to make adjustments since then. Baseball is littered with guys who had a good first month, the league adjusted and they never fixed (or were able to fix) what the league exploited. It’s up to him to make those adjustments and if he can’t…
Each player is his own story. It is also “littered” with guys who struggled quite a bit and then figured it out. We’ll see what his career ends up looking like. I say he figures it out, perhaps elsewhere, but my money says he ends up with at least 15-20 Career WAR.
Canario - good first bit and then nothing. Problems - playing players that obviously just don't have the skills or ability to hit in the majors over several years of evidence.
Right, giving Davis and guys like Canario, Suwinski, and Bae more ABs will help one way or another. Something either clicks for them or playing them improves our draft position for the next GM. Since Ben should feel like he's on a very hot seat, I don't think that will happen though even though one or more of them succeeding would make his best case for keeping his job.
Valdez to 60 day IL, and Michael Helman was claimed from the Cards
Ugh I was really thinking we had something with him too
Granted the guy is 28 with 4 years in AAA, but at this moment, his AAA stats with the Twins are better than any other option Bucs have at AAA, if not counting Solak.Of course he's having a crap year after being traded to Cards. Anyway, seems someone more interesting than the totally useless garbage BC historically signs in emergencies.
Whatever hitting ability he had before becoming a Cherington . . . You can kiss it good-bye!
Future Irony: When Pirates win the series in ‘28 a number of international players and draft picks will be on that team….signed/drafted by BC. We will thank him….from afar.
And he'll translate that into a new job--look, I knew what I was doing but six years just wasn't long enough for my advanced planning to reach fruition!
Kiley has a mini mock up. I like his mocks because it’s based more on utilizing his sources of what he’s hearing as possible picks. Anyway he has Carlson:
Pittsburgh is believed to be locked in on Carlson (whose range seems to start here) and Aiva Arquette, with some other players also being considered. Carlson has a number of similarities with Konnor Griffin, so the belief in the industry is he’s the pick if he’s here.
I like Carlson but he's my 4th prep position player 5th if you count Schoolcraft as a two-way.
Holliday 1, Willits 2, Parker 3, Carlson 4.
Overall prep players
Holliday/ Hernandez 1/2, Willits 3, Parker 4, Schoolcraft 5, Carlson 6.
The next month will be big for the college arms (4 or 5 could jump up) could be good at pick 6 potentially. I just don't see enough value in the college bats at pick 6, the floor is there for Arquette and the ceiling for LaViollette.
Thanks for posting, Kiley is good reflection of the process.
I’m higher on Willits if we are looking at HS middle infielders. Everywhere I read there are big questions on whether or not Carlson will hit.
As a bonus, he runs the draft rankings out to 150. To correlate the player with the Bucs picks:
50-JB Middleton, college arm (Southern Miss).
73-Malachi Witherspoon, college arm (Oklahoma). Believe this is Kyson’s twin brother.
82-Henry Godbout, 2B, college position player (Virginia).
113-Kade Elam, 3B, prep position player.
144-Ryan Mitchell, SS, prep position player.
I'm hoping for Taitn Gray and Josiah Hartshorn with picks after the 1st round (Jacob Parker if we take JoJo in the first).
Ryan Mitchell is moving up boards supposedly.
Prep C and a prep LF?
As I asked you this last week…only one prep PA kid in his top 150 (prep righty Ethan Grim from Shillington), as well as the SS from Penn State (Ryan Weingartner). In keeping with the cold weather theme, he has three NY kids, two preps and a JC player from Niagara (Matt Barr). One of the NY prep kids is Marcus Stroman’s kid brother.
https://youtu.be/VIjR6qWC_rY?si=yiZeBDRG2ERTDlEN
Taitn Gray is very athletic for a catcher and is bigger than Griffin now, not as fast but better than average speed overall.
https://youtu.be/87NiHY5xzVA?si=T9s1gxSI8--Tv0Vf
https://youtu.be/_EaZ7S-qwNc?si=idYXw9UA4YLvQDAG
Tommy Case is a good one from NY, rhp under the radar 90 to 94. I'm sorry I forgot to look some up on Sunday.
Haha, no worries! Always cool to keep an eye on the cold weather kids.
Cold Weather Kids sound like a Canadian boy band.
Gray is a national champion weight lifter and crossfit competitor. Very little swing and miss, top of the prep class in exit velocity, 6'4" 235 with plus speed in the 60 yard. He's built like a linebacker or edge rusher and doesn't turn 18 until after the draft.
Josiah Hartshorn sounds like a Justified character.
https://youtu.be/lhFS61uzWEI?si=EoKWY7XJzQJ41onf
Yep
I wanted Roman Anthony with the compA pick in '22 from a homerun derby in '21.
Too much power to be a Pirate. You promised me a fat kid with short arms and a limp (maybe a stutter too for bonus points) as the 2nd round pick.
Babe Ruth was nothing more than a fat old man with little girl legs!
I would support a player with that profile who will line up well with Griffin as with the mess that Williams and Cherington have created, I think our next competitive window will be around the time Griffin is ready. Hopefully we'll still have Skenes for a couple of years (can KG be ready by '28?) and Chandler and Barco for a couple more beyond that.
Just read on MLBTR that Jordan Luplow is back in baseball with the Atlantic League after his ACL rehab. Was surprised at his stats - a much better LHP killer than Connor Joe was, mostly due to walks and power. Wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see BC sign him at some point if he plays well at indie level.
FTA:
"The resulting .268 ISO (slugging minus batting average) ranks 13th among the 226 players who tallied at least 500 plate appearances versus lefties during Luplow’s active years in MLB (2017-23), just behind prominent sluggers like Paul Goldschmidt, Austin Riley and Rhys Hoskins. Overall, Luplow is a .212/.314/.423 hitter in 1060 major league plate appearances. He’s picked up five years of MLB service thanks in large part to his ability to consistently hit for power against lefties."
Cool note. I've increasingly felt dudes like Joe and Luplow should be seen as the hitter-equivalent of a lot of the pitchers that our Pirates have gotten credit for developing.
Uh, guys. Ben Cherington’s house was just put on the market.
Just confirmed it’s for sale.
You sure it’s not his place up in the Finger Lakes in my neck of the woods?
Is this real newz or fake newz
Apparently Sewickley is too far away from PNC and BC wants to move closer.to PNC Park and that the home was listed six months ago.
I checked Google Maps and travel time is 26-31 minutes door to door. I don't know how he cuts his travel time significantly unless he moves to Mt. Washington.
In a van down by the river?
Maybe he’s crashing on the couch in Federal Street. Yes, they only have one couch…
Sitting on a park bench . . . .
Eyeing little girls with bad intent
How’d you see that?
A follow-up Poni tweet.
I can post the listing and property records if that’s kosher with AM and co.
I’ll ask AM, but with two folks backing this I don’t personally need any more convincing.
Poni just posted the full Monty on Twitter anyway
Let’s hope he’s in a gated community.
Best news that I have heard all week.
trading Keller NOW for a bat and calling up Bubba is the move we need immediately
Maybe in 4 or 5 weeks, this time of the year Mitch morphs into ACE Keller. Let him build value.
Yeah... warm weather Keller made his first appearance last night.
I wondered if the first inning run by Mets was going to come back and bite us, and sure enough it did. How does Mitch not even check
Soto's lead at first base allowing him to walk into second base? I mean this is high school stuff. Would he have scored from first on the double.....I'd have to watch the replay.......probably but Soto is not the fastest guy.
Allowing BC to attempt to make job-saving trades (assuming he even bothers to) when CLEARLY he has no clue how to evaluate and/or develop upper level hitting talent could result in a bunch of additional AAAA players.
His track record on position player prospects is unbelievably bad, so the only way they should allow him to make a trade is if it's for a proven player, and those types of players are unlikely to be available.
Is there even one of his trades that we can point to as a clear win? There are many that were clear losses.
Cherington won me over for a while with trading Musgrove and bringing back Endy, Bednar, Head, Fellows and Omar Cruz. Looking at it now, not a clear win.... but not terrible.
I actually liked the Taillon trade better but that didn't turn out well.
With the Musgrove deal, a lot will depend on how Endy turns out. Of course with Endy and Head, we may never know if the talent was there and we just couldn't develop it or if the talent was never really there. I still have high hopes for Endy, though.
Good call. He actually made trades that we thought were going to turn out pretty good.
Bart but that was out of necessity and Bart was dfa'd.
Come on dude. This thing where we qualify every good outcome away from intent but place intentional blame on equivalent bad outcomes is just dumb.
So you're saying he would have made that trade if Delay wasn't hurt and Bart wasn't dfa'd? It was a good trade but there was circumstances that made it a reality. He did not aquire Bart when the Giants were shopping him in spring training of '24, maybe he was waiting on him to be dfa'd and Delays injury just happened to coincide, nonetheless it happened at a time of necessity.
Bart was a good acquisition but I didn't consider waiver claims because they don't go through the same process of negotiating fair value to get a deal done.
Priester for Yorke may turn out well, though Priester had a good outing last night and Yorke has a sub-.700 OPS in AAA.
No question he needs to be replaced immediately.
meh - he deserves to make one big trade
Wasn't Spencer Horwrist his big trade?
How in the hell is Luis Ortiz considered "big"?
It's all relative. I think we were all expecting a truly big trade but when that didn't happen the focus was shifted to the Horwitz trade.
very well said.
C'mon man...dude is 6'2" 240...that's pretty big!
Hahaha no argument there.
I prefer Horrorwrist.
Lol well done WTM
I doubt he has the brain or balls to do so.
1 good game. That was exciting when he hit two home runs off him though.
Maybe this adds to the frustration but Statcast has Bart's drive last night as a HR in 9 of 30 parks and Baty's HR as a HR in only 12/30 parks. I.e., in all but 3 parks the game would have been tied going to the bottom of the 9th.
Also, a glimmer of hope is that Reynolds hit two balls with EVs of about 101 so maybe he's about to break out of the slump. Those EVs don't surprise after watching live. Seeing him watch that third strike, though, was frustrating. Maybe that doesn't happen if one of the hard-hit balls found a hole.
So another laptop win! Progress!!
Nice....higher math! But I'm disappointed in both balls Bart hit to Nimmo......he's big and strong enough to hit it 375 rather than 360. We need his power, and it hasn't been there this season.
He's *improved* his exit velo by 2mph and launch angle by 2 degrees.
The results over 6 week not being there is what the stat nerds mean when they say "luck". Awful hard to put direct intent on a player's ability to hit the same ball in one stadium and not the other when that defines a home run or an out.
I clicked on Indy's box score and if the performance of the major league hitters isn't enough of an indictment on Cherington, then the AAA lineup surely is. Two players with OPS's above .750--Suwinski at .753 (yes, I used .750 as the cutoff so I could give some credit to Jack) and Solak at 1.066. The next highest is Yorke at .672. Five of their starters were below .600.
I expect Horwitz and Yorke to significantly improve their production as they get more reps, but I also expect Gonzales and Rodriguez will experience similar struggles when they start their rehabs. The only real hope for immediate help is that Cruz gets back and Reynolds breaks out of his slump.
Jack was red hot when he got to AAA, now he's stopped hitting. He's an absolutely confounding guy. They need to move on.
Wish they would do a trade of scenery trade with Suwinski. Maybe the Royals for Melendez or their compB, they need an outfielder. Jack probably isn't their answer but he might catch lightning in a bottle.
I wouldn't expect much from Melendez either.
It's too bad the Pirates can't find room on their stacked 40-man roster for Solak. His career .700 OPS would make him the 2nd best hitter in the lineup last night.
Yeah, but they only have room for a left-handed hitting backup catcher and fourth starter who has two different colored eyes, was born on a Tuesday and collects stamps as a hobby. All the other spots are taken by guys who are going to break out starting on September 12.
Stamp collecting is a very undervalued indicator of potential. Do not mock the AI Chat bot that told me to pay attention to this stat.
By the end of the year, we'll be leading MLB in xwSC+.
What do the metrics say about the stuff+ of the stamp collection? If its less than a 95 stuff+ stamp collection... no go.
Flash's lad is killing it. 5 hr and batting average higher than prob Reynolds, Pham and Frazier combined. I'd trade our entire lot of strikers (can't call them hitters) sans Cruz for him. And maybe whoever their back up catcher is.
A’s are an exciting bunch, maybe that’ll be my trip to see the Pirates this year.
One can wish for an exciting bunch. Guess the SP are. Again tis why I pay attention to the minors and my fantasy baseball team.
Never mind, the game won’t be in Sacramento this year
Now 12th in MLB in fWAR. He can't possibly continue at this rate, but if he does he'd be worth nearly 8 fWAR by the end of the season.
What’s a first round college drafted arm like Yesavage doing in A ball?
Pirates are so slow to promote prospects am i rite?
Why isn’t Konnor Griffin in Cooperstown yet?!
Arb management
Need Cruz, Endy, NG back in the lineup. Need Horwitz, although he needs more ABs since he missed ST. I don't know how much better it makes them, but those guys were expected to contribute. Davis as a backup catcher is a liability. They traded Delay and he gave them better ABs. I guess they like Henry's personality. Bottom line: this team lacks talent.
GMBC needed to be gone yesterday. This organization needs a decisive leader capable of making the tough decisions to improve the ball club. As things stand today, maybe they should consider trading Heaney, Falter, and Keller for hitting. Lean on the young pitching prospects and see what they've got. Move on from Pham and Frazier as well. You don't need either of them to lose 100 games.
Horwitz has a .547 OPS in AAA even after getting a single and a BB last night. Early in ST Cherington in what may have been unintended transparency said that he thought there was a very good chance the Horwitz would help sometime this _year_. That whole 6-8 week timeline was always a bunch of BS from the FO.
As disappointed as I am with Davis, I still think he’s developing. We all want it to be immediate impact but it rarely goes that way despite his draft status. That being said, everyone is clamoring for Endy but he’s proven nothing yet either. .178 this yr and .212 in the majors doesn’t scream impact player. Small sample size for sure and he missed all last yr but we have no idea what these two will be for their careers.
So I’m so appalled by Davis’ lack of offense that I went back and looked at some of the pre-draft coverage. Contrary to what I think we’ve all come to assume, Davis was not a pure lowball pick. For example Keith Law had him as the 1A prospect in the draft behind only Marcelo Mayer. Law wrote that his swing was perfect and compared him to Buster Posey.
OK, Law was wrong, but my point is that Davis was a totally plausible #1 pick. I ask again, what the hell has happened to this guy?
My goodness. That take might be more preposterous than his take on Kevin Newman, which is saying something.
The reality is that Hank has a very *un*conventional swing. I mean, we all watch the games. How many other big leaguers swing like him?
I can remember reading more than one draft report mention this at the time, but the thought among scouts was that it would work based on his college contact and power. Well, turns out they were wrong. Baseball is hard and projecting hitters seems to be something between guess and luck.
I think Nick Gonzales is much the same. He was lauded for a swing that was compared to dudes like Keston Hiura, Carter Kieboom, and Jeter Downs riiiiggghhhtt before those dudes ended up busting against big league arms. Oops again.
Hank's swing just isn't gonna work. He's already a Driveline guy and came back from a winter with them worse. Gonzo has managed to adjust enough to make it work and the only hope is that Hank will as well.
I know nothing about nothing but…God, his stance looks uncomfortable. He looks like he’s trying to sit on a stool that’s a little too tall for him, but he’s still trying to get his feet to touch the ground.
I’m glad you mentioned those swing guys because I was thinking the same thing. As a swing Luddite, is Hank’s swing issue different from theirs? EL, I believe, noted that Hiura and Kieboom had some sort of action with their hands that they were unable to correct (a loop maybe?). I dunno.
Some weird swings (like some weird deliveries for pitchers) work and some don’t. And often you don’t find out till the last stop.
Completely different swings. Nick and the others were of a type that I'm pretty sure were intentional and somewhat taught.
Hank's is pretty much unique.
Baseball is hard which is the first thing that comes to mind. Having to put so much effort into his catching maybe has something to do with his struggles?
Better draft another catcher!
I don’t understand the comment about Davis. He put together some good at bats last night and has been solid behind the plate. I think it is important they just commit to him being the backup and let him keep playing against MLB pitching and see if he is able to solve it. This is a lost season anyway…
this
I wondered if those better ABs were the result of having the rare opportunity to catch back-to-back games.
Somewhat shockingly, to me anyway, is that Davis has 0.3 bWAR which is barely behind Bart (0.5) and barely ahead of Shelton favorite Valdez (0.1). His fWAR is below water, but no worse the Triolo's and better than a host of others including just about all of our corner outfielders.
Do I have high hopes for him? No. But I completely agree that we should use this season to find out more. As noted previously, same with Suwinski.
Just think of all the deadweight you just mentioned there. Suwinski,Bae,Triolo, Davis,Valdez,Canario, Frazier,Tommy Boy…Wow
Davis, Suwinski, Bae, Triolo, and Canario are only mostly dead (weight).
Well, they better have a greater purpose than true love.
🤣 I'm totally in favor of letting the young guys play. Like I said somewhere here, they can lose a hundred games without over the hill veterans. Let the young guys play.
He might have put together some good at bats last night, but overall he’s still looked pretty hopeless. I’m not sure if it’s all swing related and if it’s fixable. Given the trajectory of the season, I feel somewhat indifferent as to what they do with him or Endy. Neither has hit a lick.
Davis was drafted on the strength of his offensive game. Regardless of last night, he's not been able to hit well in the majors. Maybe I'm being impatient, but I expected more from him.
We all expected more from him, but that isn’t always how it goes.
I note that Darren Daulton was a catcher with the Phillies who had tremendous power but pulled almost everything. For a while he was hitting a ton of foul ball “homers”. Eventually he was able to get more of those into fair territory and became an above average hitting catcher. I see Davis doing a similar thing. I’m hardly infallible but I see a competent hitter in there still trying to figure out how to hit major league pitching. I think he can do it and I hope he does it here.
How did Bart do vs ML pitching until last year? Let the young man have some more time to get comfortable in the bigs.
You’re not GW. Davis hasn’t done anything in the big leagues yet. I mean nothing. But I would still give him another 250 at bats this year to see if there is any magic in that bat. We have the second worst record in baseball. Giving him more bats is not gonna make us any better or worse. Just my thoughts.
He hit two homers in one game off of Ohtani. He initially hit well when he came to the Bigs, so your assertion is a bit of an overstatement.
27 games into his career he was batting .295/.391/.463/.854 and had just homered twice off of Ohtani.
Right and he hasn’t shown the ability to make adjustments since then. Baseball is littered with guys who had a good first month, the league adjusted and they never fixed (or were able to fix) what the league exploited. It’s up to him to make those adjustments and if he can’t…
Each player is his own story. It is also “littered” with guys who struggled quite a bit and then figured it out. We’ll see what his career ends up looking like. I say he figures it out, perhaps elsewhere, but my money says he ends up with at least 15-20 Career WAR.
Canario - good first bit and then nothing. Problems - playing players that obviously just don't have the skills or ability to hit in the majors over several years of evidence.
I will say this: If anyone can figure it out, it would be Davis. He seems to have the smarts and work ethic.
Right, giving Davis and guys like Canario, Suwinski, and Bae more ABs will help one way or another. Something either clicks for them or playing them improves our draft position for the next GM. Since Ben should feel like he's on a very hot seat, I don't think that will happen though even though one or more of them succeeding would make his best case for keeping his job.