37 Comments

Brutal news on Endy. This club is cursed. At least Davis gets a bunch of starts at catcher to see if he can hack it in yet another lost season.

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Lugo to KC 3/45

Your move, Ben.

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Ben sees your Seth Lugo and raises a Cookie Carrasco.

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Christ, how are small markets like Pittsburgh supposed t compete with behemoths in...checks notes...Kansas City. The system is broken.

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Incredible how much baseball media completely fucked the entire Ohtani signing and turned him into a villain in the process.

No more worthless, incompetent group of writers exist.

No clue how you people continually fall for their bullshit.

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Are you referring to the likes of Heyman and Olney who said that he was doing a disservice in not speaking? Yeah that was weird. That makes their job as journalists a bit more difficult, but that’s about it.

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From that to the complete shitshow of the plane to Toronto to the fact that 99% of fans I read pissed about this contract have no actual clue of what the contract contains.

Abject failure, all around. The only thing they care about is engagement, which means figuring out how to make us all pissed off at the world. Media in general, frankly.

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I'm totally happy for Ohtani if anything he left upfront $ to help add players. I do thunk its total bullshit that the Dodgers can defer 680m just to get them an extra 44m per yr in cash to spend on more stars. No one but the Dodgers were offering that extra 240m on top of the 460m.

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My understanding of the contract is that they have to fund it annually, so no, they do not get to literally wait ten years to start encumbering such a sum which in and of itself would be crippling to future teams...even for the Dodgers.

It's a minor dodge of the bullshit cap that shouldn't exist to begin with.

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They just need to show the 680 in an account 1 day a year they can pull it out the next day to invest. Meanwhile Guggenheim has 300 billion in assets

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Forgetting where I read it, but someone wrote that the luxury tax was the best thing for the owners as they treat it as a cap and without a floor.

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Bingooo

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To some degree, I empathize with journalists and their current predicament, as I come from a family in the media industry. Social media has made it more difficult for those in the business of breaking news and in that industry as a whole.

But thats the world we live in. And the response to that difficulty by professional journalists has been similar to situations like this: publishing or tweeting news before it’s been verified or isn’t accurate at all. Remember Aaron Judge to the Giants last year?! Listening to the Five and Dive Podcast, they remarked on a “what will we all learn” from this and the collective decision was...probably nothing. I have no idea how that changes. It probably won’t.

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That's fair, Arky.

The irony to me is that it seems to be the most experienced ones who debase the profession. Each town I've worked in, reporters/journalists straight out of school are far superior to those who already are "big names".

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ill be booing him from now on like I did Hollywood Hogan

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There's the Kevin Newman comparable signing with Alcantara. Good, shows me Alika is not in their plans.

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My first thought when I saw that they signed Alcantara was that it would free them up to try to pass Williams through waivers when they need a 40-man spot. My more cynical thought was they're building depth because they're not convinced Cruz can play SS post-injury.

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Wish it was Sandy not Sergio, lol.

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Dec 12Edited

we got the Broke-ass Alcantara

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Aren’t they both broke-ass? At least currently, Sandy is.

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I’m more inclined towards the former.

It’s possible, though, that they’re loading up on guys who already can’t hit so there’s less for Haines to do.

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I agree about the former - had Cruz shown any issues during the instructional games in the DR, it would have been news. That said, I hope we go with a MI of Oneil Cruz and Liover Peguero - lots of power and Peguero can easily slip over to SS, if needed. Add the Utility of Jared Triolo for 2B/3B/1B. We needed to add RH bats and Peguero and Triolo did very well in 2023. Endy and Reynolds as Switchhitters help that balance also. This could be one of our best defensive teams in years.

It's still about pitching and we should be getting that IL AAA All Star, Quinn Priester back to start 2024 - more experienced than the 22 year old kid called upon in 2023 to provide an average of 5 innings a Start and absorb some beatings in the process. In his first two months of starts he was allowing a run per inning pitched; In the last month he threw 21+ innings and gave up only 14 runs - not great, but progress.

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You’re really trying to polish that turd that was Priester’s rookie season aren’t ya?

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I'm concerned about Priester's development.

I have a hunch he is on the same schedule as Keller......alot of suck in the next couple years.

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The scary part about Priester is that he's already implemented much of what took Mitch 3 years to figure out. He just isn't good.

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Boy the FA starting pitching market is garbage. I can’t get into anyone. Real reaches like clevinger are gonna get 3 years. Hope Velasquez is an option.

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The negative is that most of the starting pitchers out there were garbage for the last year or two. The positives 1) Most of them had all star or close to all star numbers for their peak years. 2) Some might prefer a one year contract to move on. 3) PNC is pitcher friendly.

The main question is will the Pirates be able to identify the next Carlos Quintana.

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I disagree I really like a lot of the guys left. Especially on shorter term deals. If they can keep a line of pitching coming through its ideal to supplement with guys like Manaea or Flaherty on short term stuff yearly. IMO

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Manaea is out automatically as a Boras Client. How about Seth Lugo?

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Manaea should be out because he is not very good. He is a fastball/slider/change leftie who lacks the arsenal to be "crafty" ala Quintana. One would think that he was a groundball guy, but he is not. He gives up a lot of hard contact and a lot of that in the air. His topline stats benefits greatly from pitching in Oakland and San Fran. San Diego had to move him to the bullpen last year and use him as a loogie and long reliever, which is about what is best-fitted for. Give me someone else please.

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I don't think Boras should eliminate anybody. All agents basically have a bidding war. Yes, he is known for extracting a lot for his clients, but at some point supply / demand -> opportunity kicks in. Manaea (for Pirates sake) I hope still wants to start but may no longer be viewed as a starter by some teams as he did pretty well out of the Giants bullpen last year. Pirates could offer one of the better opportunities to start.

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Yep, a reasonable 1 or 2 year deal could be good for both sides. 2nd year could be an option year with a raise, I wouldn't put in an opt out after year 1. With reasonable, I don't mean cheap lol.

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Lugo is definitely one of my top choices at this point. I think the deal would certainly within what bob is willing to pay and he could really have a strong year

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Womp womp Royals 3/45 lol

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Damn! Easily something we could have and should have done imo

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Glad to see Hunter Stratton signed to a contract for 2024. A local kid from East TN (Bristol), and attended Walters State CC in Morristown, TN. Now the Bucs have he and Colin Selby back for 2024 - they were the leaders of the AAA Indy team with 6 Saves apiece, and both saw late season action with the Pirates. Selby has 2 Options remaining and Stratton has 3 Options remaining.

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Hey, too bad Evan Carter and Hunter Stratton would not have crossed paths in high school. I think they're about 6 years apart. But, hey, let's indeed hear it for NE TN products!

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