Pirates finished with 692 runs scored, and 790 runs against. Both around 22nd in MLB.
The average for the 12 playoff teams is 807 runs scored, with a high of 947 and a low of 666. The average runs against is 696 runs with a high of 761.
Clearly Pirates need to find a couple of SP’s and at least one more high leverage RP this winter to even begin to think about being good enough at run prevention to make playoffs.
I expect the Pirates believe the return of Cruz and natural development of Hayes, Suwinski, Triolo, Davis, and Endy will be all that’s needed to bring offense up to a playoff contender. Color me skeptical. They need a big LH power bat to play 1B. If only Cody Bellinger were available.
Tim Williams wrote an article on Nunnally and the hitting approach at Altoona last year. Unclear what philosophical differences there could be, in as much as it’s unclear what Haines’ philosophy is. Unless staring down backwards K’s counts.
The 2023 Pirates took the 9th most called strikes in baseball and every team above them posted a better offense.
We do this thing where we try to overlay systemic coaching failures over the unmistakable fact that the players just mostly stink.
The pitching hasn't gotten any better after Searage, the prospect development hasn't gotten any better after Stark, and there's an awful good chance a different hitting coach isn't gonna move the needle with this bunch either.
The Brewers also have the exact same swing rate and a *higher* called strike rate in the two years since Haines was fired compared to the three he was there.
And for me, you know who did great in Altoona? The high end prospects we expected (hoped) to. Peggy made huge strides from 2022 to 2023. You know who didn't? Players like Lolo Sanchez who had Greensboro aided pop up years, and then reverted back to what they always were. I never bought the Jacob Gonzalez hype, cause watching him in 2022, he was a singles hitters. Even for his size. I'm not down on Cheng, but it was effectively exactly as I presumed would happen. Gorski was better than league average OPS. Mason Martin had a great year, ballooned walk rate and all, till he got back to Indy.
I said to someone on the bird app yesterday, expecting the Curve to perform well this season, would've been like expecting the 2022 Pirates offense to have led the league with the likes of JVM, Castillo, Madris, and Chavis.
Your 2023 Buccos beat expectations, outperformed their 2nd and 3rd order win estimators, excelled in one-run games, and held together strong through the dog days with a .500 record over the last two months of the season.
All direct indicators of Manager competency and confirms the decision to extend Derek Shelton.
I don't know about extending him, but I don't hate Shelton like so many. He is a typical meathead, pushbutton manager and no worse than 26 of the managers in baseball right now.
I do like the Pirates base coaches though. I thought that they ran the bases very well this year, and if Shelton had something to with that, then great, give him another year. Shelton does seem to keep guys motivated: not that motivation should be a problem for a group of rookies and guys hanging on by a thread to MLB careers, which is all the Pirates have had for 4 years.
To your point about motivation, if Clint Hurdle had gotten his early clubs to play like Shelton did this year they'd have broken the streak two years earlier!
Teardowns/rebuilds seem to have some odd effect on a player's psyche, and I'll give any manager props for holding a club together as they endure one.
Yeah... I guess that isn't the best choice of words. He is the sort of automated, pushbutton guy that baseball seems to like now. Most major decisions are made by the front-office, and most managers make in-game decisions based upon a paradigm created by the front office. In effect, they are like restaurant or retail franchise managers. Their job is to implement the policies designed by the corporate office and sell that policy to the employees. My point is that, with this job description, Shelton is fine. I would even go so far as to say, he seems to be pretty good at it. I don't think he is very capable of forming his own strategies or thinking quickly on his feet (forgetting to bring in Williams a week or so ago and losing the game as a result being exhibit A).
That’s the good news. The bad news is team could’ve scratched out 8-9 more wins if they would’ve actually tried to compete for a playoff spot last winter and earlier this summer.
Good season, comment section & good season to the writers! Blockbuster deadline day move from P2 to BoD & didn't miss a beat! Time to look back on some pre-season predictions (March 30 @ P2):
1. 74-88, 3rd in the division
- Better record, but worse finish. Not great getting passed up by the Cubs/Reds, but feels good to finish ahead of the Cards
2. TJ for Brubaker
- Wasn't exactly a hot take, but it was correct, he got TJ a few days later
3. 6/$104 for Reynolds announced the day of the home opener
- 8/$106 a week later than I expected
4. Hayes wins the GG and hits >15 homers
- Hayes should win the GG and hit 15 exactly. This is by far the biggest positive from this season IMO
5. Cruz goes 30/30 but strikes out 35%+ and leads the league in errors, OF transition starts this offseason
- I think I would've taken this outcome over the reality. Still may be in the cards for 2024.
6. CSN & Swaggerty stake their claim in the OF, Suwinski plays less than half the season at MLB
- Dead wrong, still think we need a Swaggerty-esque defensive CF to round out the outfield
7. 1.1 is NOT one of Crews, Skenes, Dollander, much to our dismay
- Thank god I was wrong here and the pick was not Dollander, lol
8. Solid, yet unspectacular debuts from Endy and Priester
- Unspectacular? yes. Solid? ehh.
9. Cups of coffee for Davis, Gonzo and Gorski
- Little more than a cup o joe for the 1st two. Gorski might be that defensive CF as I doubt GMBC spends on the OF in the offseason
10. Lower level breakout ala Ortiz/Endy from…. Rodolfo Nolasco?
- Not quite. There is no hitting prospect left in this system that excites me.
It's actually kind of interesting now that I'm looking at some team stats. What's funny is that the other 3 full-season teams all mostly had K issues (ranked by most): Indy 6th out of 20, Greensboro 7th of 12, and Bradenton 1st of 10. Meanwhile, Altoona was 12th of 12 teams, with 67 K's less than Erie (two less games played).
Altoona just wasn't much in the power department, which, shouldn't be surprising considering the amount of contact over power slap hitters that littered the lineup.
It's just, odd. Cause even in Indy players seem to have breakthroughs, then are absolute poo in majors. Cal Mitchell still boggles my mind. K% under 25% in first MLB tour, then it's almost 30% in Triple-A? Canaan's first taste had a "Who is this guy?" feeling. Contact over power bat turned into he couldn't touch bat to ball?
So when the robot umps come along, will the passive approach all of a sudden prove brilliant? Are they using robot analysis after the game to fine tune what to take? I doubt it, but if they are tracking actual Ks by robot ump behind the scenes and the pirate hitters prove ahead of the game when they are implemented, I will give Haynes retroactive credit.
An excellent season for the Pirates who had been mired in the .300's for winning percentages from 2020-2022 (.317, .377, .383). And they did it in 2023 primarily with youth, and players who will be with this organization moving forward. Adding Oneil Cruz at SS and in the middle of the batting order for the 2024 season will make a big difference. Looking forward to all of them learning from this positive exposure to MLB and coming back in 2024 with a goal to make the playoffs.
The Pirates finished tied for 9th with the Cleveland Guardians, and will get a shot to get into the Top 6 through the Lottery which will be held in December. It worked well for the Pirates last year. Probably an A Comp Bal Pick for the 2024 Draft also?
Cruz has put up 1.5 fWAR over 98 MLB games which translates to 2.5 per 162. And that’s with a 33% K rate. He is a difference maker even if he doesn’t improve a whole heck of a lot and I expect he will. Power works wonders. Sign two professional starters who have at least one 150 inning season in their recent history and go for it.
Pirates finished with 692 runs scored, and 790 runs against. Both around 22nd in MLB.
The average for the 12 playoff teams is 807 runs scored, with a high of 947 and a low of 666. The average runs against is 696 runs with a high of 761.
Clearly Pirates need to find a couple of SP’s and at least one more high leverage RP this winter to even begin to think about being good enough at run prevention to make playoffs.
I expect the Pirates believe the return of Cruz and natural development of Hayes, Suwinski, Triolo, Davis, and Endy will be all that’s needed to bring offense up to a playoff contender. Color me skeptical. They need a big LH power bat to play 1B. If only Cody Bellinger were available.
I'm guessing they bring Santana back. He loves Pittsburgh and he's still productive.
Probably odds on favorite.
Jerrod Prugar of the Altoona Mirror reported on the latest NS9 that Jon Nunnally told him he was fired due to “philosophical differences.”
Nunnally also told Prugar that he thought the way the Ke’Bryan Hayes story rolled out could have influenced the firing as well.
Aw cute, Cherington's first Frank Coonely moment.
Watching the NS9 video now, and the clip of their interview with Prugar, and yeah. Very interesting, to say the least.
Tim Williams wrote an article on Nunnally and the hitting approach at Altoona last year. Unclear what philosophical differences there could be, in as much as it’s unclear what Haines’ philosophy is. Unless staring down backwards K’s counts.
https://piratesprospects.com/2022/08/jon-nunnally-discusses-the-hitting-development-approach-in-altoona.html
The 2023 Pirates took the 9th most called strikes in baseball and every team above them posted a better offense.
We do this thing where we try to overlay systemic coaching failures over the unmistakable fact that the players just mostly stink.
The pitching hasn't gotten any better after Searage, the prospect development hasn't gotten any better after Stark, and there's an awful good chance a different hitting coach isn't gonna move the needle with this bunch either.
it's not the x's and o's
it's the jimmy's and joe's
The Brewers also have the exact same swing rate and a *higher* called strike rate in the two years since Haines was fired compared to the three he was there.
And for me, you know who did great in Altoona? The high end prospects we expected (hoped) to. Peggy made huge strides from 2022 to 2023. You know who didn't? Players like Lolo Sanchez who had Greensboro aided pop up years, and then reverted back to what they always were. I never bought the Jacob Gonzalez hype, cause watching him in 2022, he was a singles hitters. Even for his size. I'm not down on Cheng, but it was effectively exactly as I presumed would happen. Gorski was better than league average OPS. Mason Martin had a great year, ballooned walk rate and all, till he got back to Indy.
I said to someone on the bird app yesterday, expecting the Curve to perform well this season, would've been like expecting the 2022 Pirates offense to have led the league with the likes of JVM, Castillo, Madris, and Chavis.
Pirate hitters who improved in 2023...
Hayes went from an 87 wRC+ to 102
Suwinski 98 to 112
Joe 86 to 107
Cutch 98 to 115
Delay 51 to 82
Only Reynolds regressed out of the regulars.
Your 2023 Buccos beat expectations, outperformed their 2nd and 3rd order win estimators, excelled in one-run games, and held together strong through the dog days with a .500 record over the last two months of the season.
All direct indicators of Manager competency and confirms the decision to extend Derek Shelton.
I don't know about extending him, but I don't hate Shelton like so many. He is a typical meathead, pushbutton manager and no worse than 26 of the managers in baseball right now.
I do like the Pirates base coaches though. I thought that they ran the bases very well this year, and if Shelton had something to with that, then great, give him another year. Shelton does seem to keep guys motivated: not that motivation should be a problem for a group of rookies and guys hanging on by a thread to MLB careers, which is all the Pirates have had for 4 years.
Nice post.
To your point about motivation, if Clint Hurdle had gotten his early clubs to play like Shelton did this year they'd have broken the streak two years earlier!
Teardowns/rebuilds seem to have some odd effect on a player's psyche, and I'll give any manager props for holding a club together as they endure one.
How is he a meathead?
Yeah... I guess that isn't the best choice of words. He is the sort of automated, pushbutton guy that baseball seems to like now. Most major decisions are made by the front-office, and most managers make in-game decisions based upon a paradigm created by the front office. In effect, they are like restaurant or retail franchise managers. Their job is to implement the policies designed by the corporate office and sell that policy to the employees. My point is that, with this job description, Shelton is fine. I would even go so far as to say, he seems to be pretty good at it. I don't think he is very capable of forming his own strategies or thinking quickly on his feet (forgetting to bring in Williams a week or so ago and losing the game as a result being exhibit A).
Yeah I don’t get the “typical meathead” comment at all. In fact, many of those guys seem to be getting phased out of manager positions.
When I think meathead, I think of Dan Campbell.
Derek Shelton isn't talking about biting kneecaps.
That’s the good news. The bad news is team could’ve scratched out 8-9 more wins if they would’ve actually tried to compete for a playoff spot last winter and earlier this summer.
Said as we fans seem to be coalescing around getting the band back together again next year...you schure about that? ;)
Troll!!!😈👿
woke up, chose violence. ;)
Is the environment, streets leave you no choice...
Good season, comment section & good season to the writers! Blockbuster deadline day move from P2 to BoD & didn't miss a beat! Time to look back on some pre-season predictions (March 30 @ P2):
1. 74-88, 3rd in the division
- Better record, but worse finish. Not great getting passed up by the Cubs/Reds, but feels good to finish ahead of the Cards
2. TJ for Brubaker
- Wasn't exactly a hot take, but it was correct, he got TJ a few days later
3. 6/$104 for Reynolds announced the day of the home opener
- 8/$106 a week later than I expected
4. Hayes wins the GG and hits >15 homers
- Hayes should win the GG and hit 15 exactly. This is by far the biggest positive from this season IMO
5. Cruz goes 30/30 but strikes out 35%+ and leads the league in errors, OF transition starts this offseason
- I think I would've taken this outcome over the reality. Still may be in the cards for 2024.
6. CSN & Swaggerty stake their claim in the OF, Suwinski plays less than half the season at MLB
- Dead wrong, still think we need a Swaggerty-esque defensive CF to round out the outfield
7. 1.1 is NOT one of Crews, Skenes, Dollander, much to our dismay
- Thank god I was wrong here and the pick was not Dollander, lol
8. Solid, yet unspectacular debuts from Endy and Priester
- Unspectacular? yes. Solid? ehh.
9. Cups of coffee for Davis, Gonzo and Gorski
- Little more than a cup o joe for the 1st two. Gorski might be that defensive CF as I doubt GMBC spends on the OF in the offseason
10. Lower level breakout ala Ortiz/Endy from…. Rodolfo Nolasco?
- Not quite. There is no hitting prospect left in this system that excites me.
Nice list!!
Pipeline Top 30 is not enthused with the Pirates bats in the system either lol
Nunnally involvement exaggerate? It was Hayes who was quoted, so how was it exaggerated? It doesn’t really matter to me all that much, “just saying.”
If Hayes’ dad was incensed, I’d guess what Stumpf wrote was just spin he got from the Pirates.
I’m really just going off what Alex wrote in that article. I don’t have any inside on that.
Don't know about Gotay, but I know Nunnally was actually let go a week ago. Charlie Hayes Jr was on Twitter ranting about it right after it happened
It's actually kind of interesting now that I'm looking at some team stats. What's funny is that the other 3 full-season teams all mostly had K issues (ranked by most): Indy 6th out of 20, Greensboro 7th of 12, and Bradenton 1st of 10. Meanwhile, Altoona was 12th of 12 teams, with 67 K's less than Erie (two less games played).
Altoona just wasn't much in the power department, which, shouldn't be surprising considering the amount of contact over power slap hitters that littered the lineup.
Dejan has written many times that the ultra-passive approach is Bungling Ben’s thing, not just Haint’s. It’s extreme with Bradenton.
Altoona had a veteran (relative to AA) lineup. Lots of longtime holdovers. They predated the infection.
It's just, odd. Cause even in Indy players seem to have breakthroughs, then are absolute poo in majors. Cal Mitchell still boggles my mind. K% under 25% in first MLB tour, then it's almost 30% in Triple-A? Canaan's first taste had a "Who is this guy?" feeling. Contact over power bat turned into he couldn't touch bat to ball?
Some guys, like CSN, take to the Haint Method right away. Others need more time.
I can't stand the Haint method. So tired of watching Bryan Reynolds watch borderline strikes and pout about strike 3 calls.
One guy who’s been doing that a lot is Davis. It’s alarming.
So when the robot umps come along, will the passive approach all of a sudden prove brilliant? Are they using robot analysis after the game to fine tune what to take? I doubt it, but if they are tracking actual Ks by robot ump behind the scenes and the pirate hitters prove ahead of the game when they are implemented, I will give Haynes retroactive credit.
But not before.
He made Haint look bad. Can’t have that.
'Haint the Weatherman', hardly ever right but can't be fired!
An excellent season for the Pirates who had been mired in the .300's for winning percentages from 2020-2022 (.317, .377, .383). And they did it in 2023 primarily with youth, and players who will be with this organization moving forward. Adding Oneil Cruz at SS and in the middle of the batting order for the 2024 season will make a big difference. Looking forward to all of them learning from this positive exposure to MLB and coming back in 2024 with a goal to make the playoffs.
The Pirates finished tied for 9th with the Cleveland Guardians, and will get a shot to get into the Top 6 through the Lottery which will be held in December. It worked well for the Pirates last year. Probably an A Comp Bal Pick for the 2024 Draft also?
Cruz has put up 1.5 fWAR over 98 MLB games which translates to 2.5 per 162. And that’s with a 33% K rate. He is a difference maker even if he doesn’t improve a whole heck of a lot and I expect he will. Power works wonders. Sign two professional starters who have at least one 150 inning season in their recent history and go for it.