Most yinzers moaned and whined at the signings of Russell Martin and Francisco Cervelli, both of whom were veteran catchers who knew how to handle a young pitching staff.
I see this repeating again, with a lot of whining at the signing of this veteran catcher.
Fangraphs has bumped up our projection to 78 wins (77 last week) and a 19.5% chance of making the playoffs (about 16% last week). I guess that's what signing Grandal did for us, adding about a win.
Bigger picture--that a win adds about 3-4% to our playoff probability shows that there is a fairly high marginal value to each win added, a good time to be more aggressive.
Watching several White Sox game, in 2021 Grandal had some power homering every 16 at bats. Watching him in 2022, I felt sorry for him. He looked like he a catcher that caught too many games. Plus he lost the pop in his bat, homering once every 65 at bats to go along with his .202 batting average. Maybe he is a new man this spring, otherwise I don't get it.
I don't think we should assume that Ali Sanchez is a lock to make the roster. If anything, as long as Grandal doesn't come in and just bomb, I'd imagine they just get rid of Sanchez.
I agree with what you're saying, just seems stupid to hurry up and sign a mlb contract with Ali early and taking a 40 spot during the off-season not to have a plan for him.
This could just be the opportunity came so they went with it. Sanchez's deal wasn't guaranteed either, so if they place him on waivers they only pay him whatever the minor league rate was anyways. So it feels by doing that they left it open for them to be able to do this.
Ethan has mentioned it on twitter and in the comments here somewhere I believe. But if it’s contract related stuff, he’s where I get all of my info lol
I don’t hate this signing as much as I did when I initially read the news.
Regardless of their level of trust in Henry Davis, it’s downright idiotic to rely on a rookie to go from just a few innings of MLB catching experience to 100+ games in one season with no viable backup option.
Is Grandal good anymore? Probably not, but I would rather sign a catcher that was above average for an extended period of his career than rely on the next in a long line of Michael Perez/Chris Stewart/etc.
I also think he could benefit from a reduction in playing time. The guy was 34 last year and caught 118 games on a dumpster fire of a team. He also has some versatility, having logged a few innings at 1st in his career.
I think it’s a fine signing, as long as he is here in a backup role.
I’m taking a different view that I normally do and say that signing Grandal instead of Sanchez signals that they are gonna give Davis a legit shot to be our catcher, Grandal at this stage is a back up, not a starter and I will go as far as saying that Delay is better and I don’t think Delay is AAA depth more than a back up.
Another BC move to generate enthusiasm and energize the fan base no doubt. Hedges without the defense. Spring optimism is clearly in the air as witnessed in some comments even here. Oh well, that’s what the spring is for I guess.
The Pirates have spent over $29 million on free agents thus far. A rational GM could have actually gotten an actual major league player or even two for that kind of money. That might get expectations too high though and ownership simply cannot have that.
It's pretty obvious that Defense was the priority and Gary Sanchez is NOT known for his defense. Grandal HAS been known for his defense but not sure what current status is. Also, Grandal just finished off a 4/$72M contract. Not sure what his true motivation is currently.
Grandal is apparently a pretty good pitch framer, but is horrible at blocking and throwing. He is not an overall good defensive catcher at this stage of his career. And he can’t hit any more. This is a pathetic move. But every article about the signing mentions how great he was four years ago, so it’s a win for the PR team at Pirates Central.
I think that the only thing better than 5 catchers on the 40-man roster is 6 catchers on the 40-man roster. I mean, don't all teams carry 5 catchers on their 40-man roster?
I think most pitchers on the staff would prefer Delay over Grandal. My thought is this means that Henry Davis won;t be catching. All just a guess on my part.
Sounds pretty dumb right. Almost as dumb as having him spend his whole career catching, then bringing him to the majors to fail as an outfielder last year.
ZiPS has him projected at 1.2fWAR for 2024. That would be an acceptable signing. It appears the brass does not think Henry Davis is a catcher. Roster Resources still has Davis as the starting C with Yasmani on the bench. Personally, I'd start Davis in Indy and see if he can catch. I wouldn't do that to him in the majors unless they really see something in ST.
I think they'll make one more signing before they break for camp. Too bad they're out on Bauer. I'm guessing SD signs Syndergaard and Bucs make a run at Ryu.
I wouldn’t put much stock in that ZiPS projection. ZiPS tends to move everybody toward the middle, which means it doesn’t deal well with the extremes, like young players breaking out or old guys collapsing. ZiPS projected Grandal at 3.9 fWAR in 2022 and 2.7 in 2023. Instead, he produced -0.4 and -0.1. And the Statcast data shows a very sharp downturn in skills.
This is exactly what ZiPS and other projections systems are. The numbers listed on a player page are 50th percentile projections. Dan also posts 20th and 80th percentile numbers on the team posts so you can see what a breakout or collapse would look like according to the computer. It is by design showing the middle ground outcome projection.
I understand that. In fact, that’s pretty much what I said. And it means that the systems are effectively designed to struggle at the extremes. They’ve missed badly two straight years on Grandal. At some point, don’t we conclude they’re unable to assess him properly?
Yas looks pretty “warshed” to me. I don’t necessarily think it’s some sort of sky is falling signing though. Agree that it seems they don’t think Hard Hands Hank can catch.
Overblown negativity? Pirates' W/L% under Ben Cherington: .399. As long as nobody's predicting a nuclear blast in downtown Pgh., it's hard to see how any level of negativity could be overblown.
By the look of things, the Pirates seem to be screaming out that the real issue right now is catching, not pitching.
They seem to be bringing in an old pro to insure Tank and, after what I've seen that one year when they went through -like- 11 catchers, I'm okay with it.
I think Tank will catch close to half the games this year unless he does very well in which case he will catch slightly more than half. I still believe he is the second coming of Ryan Doumit.
The other thing the team seems to be saying is, we're taking a home grown approach and we have a lot of strong pitching in the system and we're not wasting money on expensive rentals when we have guys in the system who can perform better and bring the team more value.
I mean, someone has to do a comparison between what the value of a Gerrit Cole is when he comes up IN your system to what his value is when you have to acquire him. It may be that the Pirates were too cheap to even get the full value of such a pitcher.
Skenes
Chandler
Jones
Solomento
Harrington
Priester
Ashcraft
Shim
Burrows
Kennedy
Mueth
Barco
Wolf
Nicolas
Kellington
That's 2/3 of your top 25 prospects, all with good upside and most of them at AA or higher. I feel like there is enough there that SOMEBODY is gonna break through. If only 5 of the 15 do, we're still in the bonus round.
So the answer is, you need quality receivers so these guys are not suffering from an iron glove behind the plate.
Furthermore: I like this team around the diamond... I mean, Rowdy was not my idea of what we needed at 1st, but I think the team emerges from spring training with a solid starting nine.
Often, the difference between the bottom and the top is the flick of a switch. I am not suggesting that THIS much young pitching will come up and make their mark this year, but I think inside two years, we're gonna be pretty good.
Standing by my prediction: Pirates finish with more wins than last season. I say they break .500.
Go on and laugh, smart ass!
Much love to the whole crew here at BOD. Enjoy the chat very much!
Did some quick math based on your example, Gerrit Cole. (Using bWAR, valued a $10 mil a year per 1 WAR).
With the Pirates:
5 years, 11 bWAR, $5,334,500 in salary.
11 WAR @ $10mil = $110m in total value.
That’s $104,665,500 in surplus value over 5 years. ($20.93m surplus/yr)
Astros:
2 years, 11.8 bWAR, $20,250,000 in salary + prospect capital to acquire (Musgrove, Moran, Feliz, Martin)
$118m in total value.
$97,750,000 in surplus ($48.875m/yr)
Yankees (so far):
4 years, 17.8 bWAR, $144,000,000 in salary
$178m in total value.
$34m in surplus ($17m/yr)
You can debate bWAR v fWAR, how much 1 WAR / Year is worth, how much prospect capital should weigh in (how much did the Astros pay / should Pirates get credit for subsequent Musgrove trade?).
In the end, I think the Astros got the best value, Yankees got the best pitcher & the Pirates spent the least money. So it goes.
Love this. And thank you. So, if I'm reading you right, the Bucs kind of created the most baseball value... I am not sure they benefitted from the value they created.
The strohs cleaned up with him.
And the Yank-offs did pretty well too... Would seem like the Bucs, once they create the mother load of pitching talent coming up through, should find a way to maximize that talent and keep adding pitching to the system....
I stopped reading after the first sentence. $10M = 1 WAR may be accurate in 2024 for a FA, but certainly is not in Cole's years, and during Arb years. Just saying.
Most whiners thought AJ Burnett, Franciscos Liriano and Cervelli, and Russell Martin were "washed up." Then they turned to cheerleaders. Yasmani's key attibute is his EXPERIENCE. This is invaluable. Chapman brings this to the backend; Rody the IF nd of course Cutch to the OF .... here's my batting order, and I'm certainly haooy with this lineup:
I gotta wait. I've been watching the new ones on HBO Max. Not as good overall, but some funny spots.
I'm'a go on and do a Carrots On The House style countdown this year and that takes real deep breathing and prep! Gotta focus, man! 'Cause ya gots to find 81 different ways to get to FREE CARROTS!
Being an optometrist is not easy.
"Okay, Lil' friend. This game is called poker. You get five cards. And I get five cards. And whoever has the biggest hand wins. They win, y'see? ... CUT IT OUT, CAN'T YA??!!!"
I had assumed that Grandal would be retiring this off-season. That is usually what formerly good players do when they fall off a cliff several seasons in a row in their mid 30s. But why retire, when Big Ben Cherington is free-spending Nutting money?
He has 2 bad seasons, not several. Prior to those 2 bad seasons he put up 3.6 fWAR. Certainly, worth seeing if there's anything left for the 2.5M they paid him.
These are the overly negative trying too hard to be funny comments.
So... instead of giving tryouts to AAAA minor leaguers, we have moved on to giving tryouts to declining veterans every year to "see if they have anything left in the tank." Great. I can see the improvement already.
We should all heed to your vast knowledge and experience of building Major League Baseball Teams.
I'm not sure who you expect them to sign with the budget allotted. I'm far from a BC fan, but I think he's done ok all things considered. I think he's tried on several FA's but they don't want to come to Pittsburgh, they want to play for a contender.
They have spent $30 million on junk and a luxury RP that they did not need while ignoring glaring holes in the roster or patching them over with the Olivares' and Grandals of the league. The budget is not the major problem here. I don't want to hear complaints about how they can't can't sign anyone while they fritter away millions on luxury players like Chapman and guys like Grandal, Olivares, Perez, etc... . How is Olivares an upgrade over CSN? How is Grandal an upgrade over Sanchez? How is Tellez an upgrade over Connor Joe? None of these guys upgraded the team. Every other team in baseball.... every one.. can pick up a #3 starter en passant in the offseason, especially an offseason like this one, where half the #3 starters in the league were free agents. Only the Pirates make this seem like some sort of mission impossible, because they will not give out multi-year contracts... prefering instead to fritter away 30 million every off-season on one-off "bounce-back" contracts. Just stop it and sign 3 real players instead of 9 guys who do little to upgrade the team.
I guess if I'm being optimistic, the main difference in Grandal's and Sanchez's '23 seasons were August and September. For example, Grandal was above .700 in OPS as late as July 27 and Sanchez had a .672 OPS as late as July 23. Maybe Grandal was nursing an injury, or maybe just got caught up in the demoralizing atmosphere that seemed to surround the Sox last year? I know this is reaching.
I agree, he is the back up and if he sucks they can just dump him. It’s only $2.5M just gives them another option in case Davis can’t catch. I think he can and will catch, but we will see. Would have rather had Gary Sanchez but Grandal was the only guy left I thought was worth a big league deal. Now go sign Lorenzen please.
The Sox were for real a full on dumpster fire, and I do believe it likely bled over into some players’ performance. I’ll be an optimist and hope you are right. 🙂
Wasn't being a smart a$$ (to you). Just if you were 35 and wanted to maybe compete for something you would be more likely to sign with a team that sniffs the playoffs occasionally. Not just in early April. People take "hometown" discounts or whatever all the time to win.
Most yinzers moaned and whined at the signings of Russell Martin and Francisco Cervelli, both of whom were veteran catchers who knew how to handle a young pitching staff.
I see this repeating again, with a lot of whining at the signing of this veteran catcher.
Fangraphs has bumped up our projection to 78 wins (77 last week) and a 19.5% chance of making the playoffs (about 16% last week). I guess that's what signing Grandal did for us, adding about a win.
Bigger picture--that a win adds about 3-4% to our playoff probability shows that there is a fairly high marginal value to each win added, a good time to be more aggressive.
Watching several White Sox game, in 2021 Grandal had some power homering every 16 at bats. Watching him in 2022, I felt sorry for him. He looked like he a catcher that caught too many games. Plus he lost the pop in his bat, homering once every 65 at bats to go along with his .202 batting average. Maybe he is a new man this spring, otherwise I don't get it.
The only way I even kind of understand this signing is if...
1) Grandal is the right handed platoon with Tellez, meaning Joe is being traded for another position of need. (I like Joe a lot if used properly)
2) Grandal is the emergency catcher behind Davis and Ali Sanchez while Delay is in Indy working with the young pitchers we have coming up.
I don't think we should assume that Ali Sanchez is a lock to make the roster. If anything, as long as Grandal doesn't come in and just bomb, I'd imagine they just get rid of Sanchez.
I agree with what you're saying, just seems stupid to hurry up and sign a mlb contract with Ali early and taking a 40 spot during the off-season not to have a plan for him.
This could just be the opportunity came so they went with it. Sanchez's deal wasn't guaranteed either, so if they place him on waivers they only pay him whatever the minor league rate was anyways. So it feels by doing that they left it open for them to be able to do this.
I didn't realize the Sanchez deal wasn't guaranteed. Not as bothered at this point now. :)
MOAR details please! Grandal makes much more sense if Sanchez is a split contract. Btw, what is the source for checking guaranteed vs non.
Ethan has mentioned it on twitter and in the comments here somewhere I believe. But if it’s contract related stuff, he’s where I get all of my info lol
I don’t hate this signing as much as I did when I initially read the news.
Regardless of their level of trust in Henry Davis, it’s downright idiotic to rely on a rookie to go from just a few innings of MLB catching experience to 100+ games in one season with no viable backup option.
Is Grandal good anymore? Probably not, but I would rather sign a catcher that was above average for an extended period of his career than rely on the next in a long line of Michael Perez/Chris Stewart/etc.
I also think he could benefit from a reduction in playing time. The guy was 34 last year and caught 118 games on a dumpster fire of a team. He also has some versatility, having logged a few innings at 1st in his career.
I think it’s a fine signing, as long as he is here in a backup role.
I think this is a pretty fair, glass half full, take
Agree.
Lets get Rowdy!
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/reversing-the-rowdy-tellez-curse/
Another data point for Team Patience...
Kinda squinty but also the most real perspective that the signing might not be a complete waste so Ill take it
I’m taking a different view that I normally do and say that signing Grandal instead of Sanchez signals that they are gonna give Davis a legit shot to be our catcher, Grandal at this stage is a back up, not a starter and I will go as far as saying that Delay is better and I don’t think Delay is AAA depth more than a back up.
BOO THIS MAN.
Another BC move to generate enthusiasm and energize the fan base no doubt. Hedges without the defense. Spring optimism is clearly in the air as witnessed in some comments even here. Oh well, that’s what the spring is for I guess.
The Pirates have spent over $29 million on free agents thus far. A rational GM could have actually gotten an actual major league player or even two for that kind of money. That might get expectations too high though and ownership simply cannot have that.
It's pretty obvious that Defense was the priority and Gary Sanchez is NOT known for his defense. Grandal HAS been known for his defense but not sure what current status is. Also, Grandal just finished off a 4/$72M contract. Not sure what his true motivation is currently.
Grandal is apparently a pretty good pitch framer, but is horrible at blocking and throwing. He is not an overall good defensive catcher at this stage of his career. And he can’t hit any more. This is a pathetic move. But every article about the signing mentions how great he was four years ago, so it’s a win for the PR team at Pirates Central.
ZIPS 2024 projection for Ali Sanchez: 1.2 WAR
Pirates: let’s go sign another ZIPS projected 1.2 WAR catcher making 3x’s as much!
That is insane. That' the same WAR than McCutchen had last year. ZIPS has McCutchen projected at 0.1 WAR this year.
For a guy who hasn’t had but a handful of AB, that’s a bit strange…..great defense, I guess.
Delay is projected 0.4 fWAR
I would assume this means Sanchez probably doesn’t make the team. Delay might not either. They might want to roll with just Hank and Yasmani.
I think that the only thing better than 5 catchers on the 40-man roster is 6 catchers on the 40-man roster. I mean, don't all teams carry 5 catchers on their 40-man roster?
They really only have 3 according to their .com page.
Delay
Sanchez
Grandal.
Endy is out for the year and he'll be moved to the 60 to make room on the 40.
Davis is classified as an outfielder.
By their own statements I’d say Davis should be considered a catcher.
What about their actions?
I'm guessing if Davis makes the team, Delay will be optioned to Indy as he has options.
I think most pitchers on the staff would prefer Delay over Grandal. My thought is this means that Henry Davis won;t be catching. All just a guess on my part.
Isn't Delay Keller's personal catcher? Why would they want to change anything there
After they had him spend the offseason working on catching? 🤦🏻♂️
And that entailed what, exactly?
He claimed that he’s been splitting time between Driveline and Pirates City working on his catching, according Jake Crouse.
Sounds pretty dumb right. Almost as dumb as having him spend his whole career catching, then bringing him to the majors to fail as an outfielder last year.
ZiPS has him projected at 1.2fWAR for 2024. That would be an acceptable signing. It appears the brass does not think Henry Davis is a catcher. Roster Resources still has Davis as the starting C with Yasmani on the bench. Personally, I'd start Davis in Indy and see if he can catch. I wouldn't do that to him in the majors unless they really see something in ST.
I think they'll make one more signing before they break for camp. Too bad they're out on Bauer. I'm guessing SD signs Syndergaard and Bucs make a run at Ryu.
I wouldn’t put much stock in that ZiPS projection. ZiPS tends to move everybody toward the middle, which means it doesn’t deal well with the extremes, like young players breaking out or old guys collapsing. ZiPS projected Grandal at 3.9 fWAR in 2022 and 2.7 in 2023. Instead, he produced -0.4 and -0.1. And the Statcast data shows a very sharp downturn in skills.
This is exactly what ZiPS and other projections systems are. The numbers listed on a player page are 50th percentile projections. Dan also posts 20th and 80th percentile numbers on the team posts so you can see what a breakout or collapse would look like according to the computer. It is by design showing the middle ground outcome projection.
I understand that. In fact, that’s pretty much what I said. And it means that the systems are effectively designed to struggle at the extremes. They’ve missed badly two straight years on Grandal. At some point, don’t we conclude they’re unable to assess him properly?
You either trust the computerz or trust the overblown negativity in these rooms of the guy sucks.
Yas looks pretty “warshed” to me. I don’t necessarily think it’s some sort of sky is falling signing though. Agree that it seems they don’t think Hard Hands Hank can catch.
But computerz know ball!
Overblown negativity? Pirates' W/L% under Ben Cherington: .399. As long as nobody's predicting a nuclear blast in downtown Pgh., it's hard to see how any level of negativity could be overblown.
Boom!
By the look of things, the Pirates seem to be screaming out that the real issue right now is catching, not pitching.
They seem to be bringing in an old pro to insure Tank and, after what I've seen that one year when they went through -like- 11 catchers, I'm okay with it.
I think Tank will catch close to half the games this year unless he does very well in which case he will catch slightly more than half. I still believe he is the second coming of Ryan Doumit.
The other thing the team seems to be saying is, we're taking a home grown approach and we have a lot of strong pitching in the system and we're not wasting money on expensive rentals when we have guys in the system who can perform better and bring the team more value.
I mean, someone has to do a comparison between what the value of a Gerrit Cole is when he comes up IN your system to what his value is when you have to acquire him. It may be that the Pirates were too cheap to even get the full value of such a pitcher.
Skenes
Chandler
Jones
Solomento
Harrington
Priester
Ashcraft
Shim
Burrows
Kennedy
Mueth
Barco
Wolf
Nicolas
Kellington
That's 2/3 of your top 25 prospects, all with good upside and most of them at AA or higher. I feel like there is enough there that SOMEBODY is gonna break through. If only 5 of the 15 do, we're still in the bonus round.
So the answer is, you need quality receivers so these guys are not suffering from an iron glove behind the plate.
Furthermore: I like this team around the diamond... I mean, Rowdy was not my idea of what we needed at 1st, but I think the team emerges from spring training with a solid starting nine.
Often, the difference between the bottom and the top is the flick of a switch. I am not suggesting that THIS much young pitching will come up and make their mark this year, but I think inside two years, we're gonna be pretty good.
Standing by my prediction: Pirates finish with more wins than last season. I say they break .500.
Go on and laugh, smart ass!
Much love to the whole crew here at BOD. Enjoy the chat very much!
Did some quick math based on your example, Gerrit Cole. (Using bWAR, valued a $10 mil a year per 1 WAR).
With the Pirates:
5 years, 11 bWAR, $5,334,500 in salary.
11 WAR @ $10mil = $110m in total value.
That’s $104,665,500 in surplus value over 5 years. ($20.93m surplus/yr)
Astros:
2 years, 11.8 bWAR, $20,250,000 in salary + prospect capital to acquire (Musgrove, Moran, Feliz, Martin)
$118m in total value.
$97,750,000 in surplus ($48.875m/yr)
Yankees (so far):
4 years, 17.8 bWAR, $144,000,000 in salary
$178m in total value.
$34m in surplus ($17m/yr)
You can debate bWAR v fWAR, how much 1 WAR / Year is worth, how much prospect capital should weigh in (how much did the Astros pay / should Pirates get credit for subsequent Musgrove trade?).
In the end, I think the Astros got the best value, Yankees got the best pitcher & the Pirates spent the least money. So it goes.
JT412
Love this. And thank you. So, if I'm reading you right, the Bucs kind of created the most baseball value... I am not sure they benefitted from the value they created.
The strohs cleaned up with him.
And the Yank-offs did pretty well too... Would seem like the Bucs, once they create the mother load of pitching talent coming up through, should find a way to maximize that talent and keep adding pitching to the system....
Because good pitching is pricey.
I stopped reading after the first sentence. $10M = 1 WAR may be accurate in 2024 for a FA, but certainly is not in Cole's years, and during Arb years. Just saying.
My TLDR: Astros got the best value, Yankees got the best pitcher, Pirates spent the least money.
Feel free to adjust the $/war as you’d like. That was written in the 2nd sentence, just saying.
Most whiners thought AJ Burnett, Franciscos Liriano and Cervelli, and Russell Martin were "washed up." Then they turned to cheerleaders. Yasmani's key attibute is his EXPERIENCE. This is invaluable. Chapman brings this to the backend; Rody the IF nd of course Cutch to the OF .... here's my batting order, and I'm certainly haooy with this lineup:
Cruz; Reynolds; Key; 'winski, Cutch, Rowdy, Triolo, Tank, Olive!
I'm in again, for 86 wins.
I also am "haooy" with this lineup.
"ickity-ackity-oop!! Oo-oo-squeak-ah-ah-pthhththt!"
-Wabbit
I like your optimism. It swayed me to be ready to bust out my Pirates hat and wear it to town.
Where was the random bugs Bunny quote?
I gotta wait. I've been watching the new ones on HBO Max. Not as good overall, but some funny spots.
I'm'a go on and do a Carrots On The House style countdown this year and that takes real deep breathing and prep! Gotta focus, man! 'Cause ya gots to find 81 different ways to get to FREE CARROTS!
Being an optometrist is not easy.
"Okay, Lil' friend. This game is called poker. You get five cards. And I get five cards. And whoever has the biggest hand wins. They win, y'see? ... CUT IT OUT, CAN'T YA??!!!"
-Wabbit
GROOOOOOT.
There were 222 players with at least 700 PAs combined in 2022-23. Of those, Grandal ranked 213th in fWAR.
So you're saying of ALL the catchers in the WHOLE world, there were ONLY 212 of them better than Grandal?
Looks like the Pirates waited until Grandal almost became Austin Hedges to sign him, lol.
I had assumed that Grandal would be retiring this off-season. That is usually what formerly good players do when they fall off a cliff several seasons in a row in their mid 30s. But why retire, when Big Ben Cherington is free-spending Nutting money?
He has 2 bad seasons, not several. Prior to those 2 bad seasons he put up 3.6 fWAR. Certainly, worth seeing if there's anything left for the 2.5M they paid him.
These are the overly negative trying too hard to be funny comments.
So... instead of giving tryouts to AAAA minor leaguers, we have moved on to giving tryouts to declining veterans every year to "see if they have anything left in the tank." Great. I can see the improvement already.
We should all heed to your vast knowledge and experience of building Major League Baseball Teams.
I'm not sure who you expect them to sign with the budget allotted. I'm far from a BC fan, but I think he's done ok all things considered. I think he's tried on several FA's but they don't want to come to Pittsburgh, they want to play for a contender.
They have spent $30 million on junk and a luxury RP that they did not need while ignoring glaring holes in the roster or patching them over with the Olivares' and Grandals of the league. The budget is not the major problem here. I don't want to hear complaints about how they can't can't sign anyone while they fritter away millions on luxury players like Chapman and guys like Grandal, Olivares, Perez, etc... . How is Olivares an upgrade over CSN? How is Grandal an upgrade over Sanchez? How is Tellez an upgrade over Connor Joe? None of these guys upgraded the team. Every other team in baseball.... every one.. can pick up a #3 starter en passant in the offseason, especially an offseason like this one, where half the #3 starters in the league were free agents. Only the Pirates make this seem like some sort of mission impossible, because they will not give out multi-year contracts... prefering instead to fritter away 30 million every off-season on one-off "bounce-back" contracts. Just stop it and sign 3 real players instead of 9 guys who do little to upgrade the team.
I guess if I'm being optimistic, the main difference in Grandal's and Sanchez's '23 seasons were August and September. For example, Grandal was above .700 in OPS as late as July 27 and Sanchez had a .672 OPS as late as July 23. Maybe Grandal was nursing an injury, or maybe just got caught up in the demoralizing atmosphere that seemed to surround the Sox last year? I know this is reaching.
I agree, he is the back up and if he sucks they can just dump him. It’s only $2.5M just gives them another option in case Davis can’t catch. I think he can and will catch, but we will see. Would have rather had Gary Sanchez but Grandal was the only guy left I thought was worth a big league deal. Now go sign Lorenzen please.
The Sox were for real a full on dumpster fire, and I do believe it likely bled over into some players’ performance. I’ll be an optimist and hope you are right. 🙂
Wake me when it’s 2027 and we have a new management team in place.
Wake me up in 2030 when their lease with PNC Park is up and the City of Pittsburgh tells Nutting and the team to get lost.
Maybe Gary didn't want to come.
Money talks
Money doesn’t talk, it swears.
So does a team that habitually sucks butt.
Right... If a team offers more money to sign, the player will never pick the higher offer.
Wasn't being a smart a$$ (to you). Just if you were 35 and wanted to maybe compete for something you would be more likely to sign with a team that sniffs the playoffs occasionally. Not just in early April. People take "hometown" discounts or whatever all the time to win.