86 Comments

Some Greensboro impressions from the game at Asheville:

Barco works fast, throws a ton of non fastballs but when he does throw a fastball it was usually 93-95. Not afraid to throw inside to righties (8/9 batters were RH) either the fastball or the breaking pitch which he often went back foot to the RHH. HR was on a breaker he left up in the zone.

The home runs were not cheap ones, all were hit very hard. I didn’t see Cimillo’s but I could hear it from the concession area.

I don’t really like how McAdoo handles ground balls (he turns to the side and backhands everything) but he didn’t make an error. He has a line drive swing and hit the ball hard. His first hit was a gift of sorts, should have been handled by the 3B although it was a bit of a tough hop.

Even a lot of the outs were loud in the middle innings.

All the Greensboro pitchers were LH.

Johnson has good plate coverage. His first double was a slicer down the third base line, not hard hit but not sure how he even made contact with it. His second one one hopped the right field fence. It was a liner with lots of top spin. His K at the end was looking, he didn’t like the call.

Brown’s first three at bats - two HR way over the very high right center fence and third off the middle of the equally high RF fence.

Ross was clearly the worst hitter tonight. He looks good at catcher though. He’s also huge, like an NFL linebacker.

Lonnie White had a good night too. The grand slam in the 1st was on a meatball of a pitch but that’s what a good hitter does with it. It was over 400 feet.

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Peralta for Greensboro has a wicked breaking pitch. Fastball has good life, he’s throwing it up in the zone 93-96.

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As a starter, Peralta would sit 92-93, but in tight spots ramp it up to 94-95. And, yeah, he’d throw up in the zone. His stuff seemed to play above the velocity, which was good for a lefty anyway. Especially a relatively small guy.

The killer for him wasn’t always walks. Often it was just out-of-control pitch counts. Then he got hurt, don’t know what.

Bottom line — seems very possible to me that he’s a really good reliever and this isn’t just a hot streak.

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He's always had great stuff. The issue was throwing it for strikes. The move to the bullpen seems to suit him, and that is potentially his ticket to the majors.

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Yeah, looks like a very good choice. Weak ground out, 5 strike outs. The HBP was on the foot with a breaking pitch, the walk wasn’t even too bad. Nobody could touch the fastball when he got it above the letters.

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Grasshoppers up 10-0 in the 3rd, somehow Johnson 0-3 though…

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Got 2 doubles right after.

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Bubba had "an old surgery" on his elbow? Hmmm, hope BC was aware of that. 3rd round overslot at $3M is not something to hide the medicals on. Yeah, I'm prolly just being a Nervous Nelly......but you never know with this org.

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They were aware.

When Bubba was in the FCL, I saw a Pirate player warming up one of the outfielders before an inning who was throwing left-handed. I was baffled because he didn't meet the description of any player I could think of. I eventually realized it was Bubba, which was weird because he looked perfectly natural throwing LH. Somebody told me he had an elbow injury in HS and was able to hit, but couldn't throw. To stay involved with stuff, he started throwing LH, which he does quite well.

Anyway, the injury wasn't secret.

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Holy shit

So he could be a hitter and pitcher and throw from both sides

Yinz should be buying low . This dude is the best banana of the bunch

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Great story. And that's why we like having you in Bradenton. Thx.

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Perusing FanGraphs and filtering.... There's some real interesting stuff

-Elly De La Cruz 31 SBs in 56 games

- Benintendi -1.7 fWAR. Castellanos -1.0. Andrew Vaughn -0.8. Mitch Haniger -0.6. Baez -0.6. Torkelson -0.5.

-Top 5 defensive rated players are all SSs

-Highest ave velo. Hunter Greene 98.2 is 1st. Jared Jones 97.5 is 2nd. Paul Skenes would be 1st if qualified 99.4

-Best FIP in baseball is Skubal 2.05. Skenes would be 5th with 2.40.

-slowest qualified ave velo is Tyler Anderson with 89.6

-Trevor Williams 2.29 era, 2.78 fip and 1.5fWAR through 10 starts

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The Trevor Williams resurgence is somethin else.

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Happy for him. He’s a good dude.

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Growing my mustache, not the Skenes’ stache, the Nick the Stick stache.

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Absolutely. The bigote is the defining characteristic of where I live. Every man worth his salt has one. I do not... of course... because I am not worth salt.

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The one time I tried to grow a mustache, it came in as a football mustache, 11 hairs on each side.

It was an embarrassment to the entire family name.

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Anyone else notice that Cutch is in a full-blown pull mode? After his early season struggles, he (they) made an adjustment in his approach and now he is hitting like it's 2017.

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His adjustment was to stop that stupid strategy of taking walks and looking at strike three

Somebody told him he was told old to swing the bat fast enough and somebody was wrong

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Andrew McCutchen has swung at 42.2% of strikes he's seen over his last two-week hot streak.

Andrew McCutchen has swung at 42.3% of strikes he's seen on the season as a whole.

Andrew McCutchen has taken called strikes 18.9% on the season as a whole.

Andrew McCutchen has taken called strikes *21.8%* of the time over his last two-week hot streak.

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Lies, damn lies, statistics.

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I think Cutch is a bit beyond the tinkering stage.

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Take advantage of those fast hands...grip it and rip it

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Curious to opinions on batting approach changes that have been made. I read Nick Gonzalez went back to his college stance and is hitting better?Davis is also going back to his old approach in AAA and maybe hitting better. I'm not sure if what I'm reading is substantiated but if so are the pirates coaches just breaking the hitters with these new approaches? Are they doing the same thing with Jebb or others?

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Shelton said the other day that they're looking to be more aggressive and it does appear that's been the case. Whether that is a less dogmatic approach by their coaches or confidence breeds aggressiveness, only those in the clubhouse and FO know.

It does seem that when players find success, it's often due to changes they made separate from the Pirates' coaching/developmental staff but I give the Pirates coaches credit for allowing that to happen. In Gonzales's case, I also give (as does Nick) credit to them for giving him a taste of the majors in September so that he could better identify what he needed to work on in the offseason. And it's been nice hearing Shelton heap praise on Gonzales for his work without giving credit to himself or Haines.

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Nick's swing still gets through the zone extremely fast, I could be wrong but he seems to be more upright allowing his bat to have a little longer time in the zone and less of an uppercut. It probably came from inside the organization, I think they had Triolo more upright with higher hands pre-load last year.

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Not sure what changes he has made in the stance, but it sure seems that his timing is much better on all types of pitches.

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The biggest thing I've noticed is his bat path, he had an extreme uppercut last year. It's way more level this year. I'll have to look at some highlights from last year and this year, but off memory he is more upright with higher hands pre load.

Keeping his bat in the zone longer helps him get the barrel to the ball more often and he's not chasing as much. I think he might keep getting better just by playing off what is working for him, he just needs to adjust when pitchers adjust to him.

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All of these things could be true. His swing path is less extreme; his hands are higher pre-load; and his timing is better.

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The pre-load stance helps tremendously with bat path and timing (because his hands/wrists are so fast). Nick kinda of brings his hands down on the load but they stay higher than last year, his barrel approaches the ball on the same plain now. Last year with the hands lower his barrel would drop/dip to the ball then be coming right back up causing the uppercut.

Really think he might even get better with more pitch recognition and experience facing mlb pitchers as his confidence grows.

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Yes... I noticed the hands lowering, which seems to be a timing move. I think all of the above is the case then. His improved stance and load has allowed him to improve his timing and not try to jump out in front of every pitch. I think also, he needed to just trust his swing against velocity and not think he had to rush everything because the pitchers were throwing harder.

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May 30Edited

New fan grievance:

Pirate coaches get no credit when player positively develops under private coaching yet take all blame when player negatively develops under private coaching.

Henry Davis, for one, didn't exactly light the league on fire last year after torching AAA pitching for a few weeks. Completely reasonable to seek improvement, which he did through training all winter at Driveline. He was obviously even worse this spring, was demoted, and is now going through the process of making adjustments in the minor leagues where the games don't count. There is no more fundamental definition of how minor league baseball and player development works than this.

Nick Gonzales is an unmitigated developmental win. He left college with the same swing flaws that busted Keston Hiura, Jeter Downs, and Carter Keiboom before him, proceeded to fail in the exact manner predicted, and then returned to the big leagues this year far improved.

Current company excluded, the quality of what is written about the Pittsburgh Pirates right now is both insufferable and incredibly dumb. Just looking for grievances wherever they can be made up, over and over.

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Development drives a lot of these complaints, but what if the problem is that they just aren’t good at acquiring offensive talent? We’ve been hearing development development development for years, but it’s hard to develop guys who lack offensive upside in the first place.

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An age-old question for sure, and an answer that almost certainly includes "both" to some degree.

I tend to lean towards dev being the bigger share, from more of a philosophical perspective that pitchers inherently have the upper hand and hitter success depends on constantly adapting.

BUT, it's at least an interesting signal that the Huntington and early Cherington era never really had the Cole-Morton-Glasnow hitter version of a guy that went elsewhere and got much better.

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Pearse looked a lot better after he left but it took awhile. Always was good in the minors just never could pull it together at the mlb level in Pittsburgh. He wasn't on the same level of success as the pitchers you mentioned, can't think of a hitter besides the flash success of Meadows but it wasn't sustained.

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I think there is only one correct answer - Jose Bautista.

Cutch, Bell, Marte, Pedro, Mercer, Walker, Harrison all left under different circumstances, but their best years were with the Pirates.

Meadows would probably be up there with Bautista, but anxiety presumably ended his career.

Pearce had that heater for Boston in the WS, but his run was pretty short. Not sure I’d classify him as one that left and did great things. Although, WS MVP is a great thing.

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Good call on Bautista. I always thought Pearse did pretty well other than his bounce around '12 year (did good once he landed in Baltimore), his last full year in Baltimore '15 and he was pretty much finished in '19 after the great '18 season.

Had to look up the last full year in Baltimore, years are moving too fast lol.

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That last paragraph has always been noticeable to me and yes, quite interesting as well👍

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Happy to give credit to wherever it is due. Whether that be the players, pirates org, or elsewhere. I thought I was reading about these changes on this site so I was thinking there was something to it since most here are generally well informed. Mostly looking to see if there were patterns. Of course every player being their own development journey is just as valid.

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Why in the world would Shelton say the Pirates drafted and developed Skenes and Jones?!?!?!? What an idiot! Pirates didn't help him with better command than he had at LSU, and they didn't help him with the Splitter (I refuse to call it a splinker). As for Jones, he was developed by Harrington!

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Skenes strikes me as a guy you just leave alone most of the time. He seems very clear what he's about. Which is all the more reason you draft a guy like that.

Jones was a prep draftee. It's a long road between here and there, and we can't know what all has happened along that road. The Harrington thing can't be all of it. We just know where Jones is now, which is a place he doesn't get to unless he had a s***load of talent when he was drafted, among other things.

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Skenes decides to develop a new pitch, and then the pitch plays right away. It not only plays, it's a plus pitch. He has so many average or better pitches that he'll likely never have a day when one or more if them fail him. When I first saw Bonds hit, I was amazed by his stroke and bat speed. His second peak did not surprise me. I wondered why it took him so long to get there. Skenes amazed me like Bonds. Only injuries can scuttled his HOF career, as they did for Strasberg, Prior, etc.

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Well you can usually find the answers to the changes they made, why they made and who the catalyst was.

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If I knew nothing about any of the Indy players, but just based this on what I saw over the last 2 games, the one player that looks like a major league player is Matt Gorski. He displayed a cannon for an arm on one of his throws to the plate from left plus he is growing a mustache.

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He's near earning a call up, wouldn't shock me if he improves, his swing use to look so bad even when he would crush a ball. Swing looks better but it could still get better. If he can cut down the strikeouts and find the barrel enough he has top of the scale power. Other than the hit tool, the others are all there.

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Could he be a cheaper and younger MAT for next year? Good defense and speed, power bus suspect hit tool

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Gorski has been playing left. I am guessing he has a better arm than Taylor, but I don't think too many people can chase down fly balls better than Taylor.

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Potentially later this season. I actually like MAT but he needs to be used properly: short side platoon, defensive replacement and a pinch runner in key situations. It's what makes Tellez so frustrating, MAT has good value on a playoff team as long as there's not a roster spot going to someone not bringing any on field value. Tellez makes MAT look like he's worse than he really is because the bench looks empty.

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Very well said.

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Taylor approaches the ideal as bench-piece in my mind.

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Also with Alika and soon to be Delay, the bench has no attempt at a bat other than Olivares and he's more a situational bat in my opinion. Absolutely no hope from a left handed bench bat currently.

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When I saw him with Greensboro a couple of years ago he was lost at the plate but he definitely had a great arm.

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Finally able to get over to see Greensboro play at Asheville this evening. Barco pitching. Of course I missed two 10+ run games in a row....

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15 -- 2, GB wins big! Ya got your money's worth.

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For sure, I was joking with the guy I went with that they would probably get shut out with all the runs they scored in the previous two games. Glad to be wrong! Even their pitching was pretty darn good.

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-Are we certain Solo hasn't been transitioned to the pen permanently?

-I have a feeling that McAdoo is going to be promoted to Altoona soon

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Reliving Kent Tekhulve would be an interesting approach

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On Mac . . . I hope you're right. Not just because the Curve are a dumpster fire. I've never thought High A performance meant much for college guys in most cases (a pitcher coming off injury would be one exception). Once a guy has had a decent introduction to pro ball, I think he should be able to figure out AA. May take a couple months, but if he can't do it at that point I don't think he's going to be a prospect.

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Yeah, let's see what they have.

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Seems more like a situation where they are taking advantage of having so many arms they can take a step back with him and work on somethings.

21 is way too young to be packing in being a starter for Solometo. Especially someone they invested so heavily in.

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If they can manage a win on Friday, they will finish the month at 13-13. The offense is not nearly as bad as I feared. The Brewers will finish the month with the most runs scored, the Bucs and the Cards next, and the Cubs and the Reds far behind.

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Fun facts...

-Pirates have the same number of HRs as the Cubs & Reds and more than STL. Only team in the division with more HRs than PGH is MIL.

-Cubs might be smoke and mirrors...pitching isn't as good as advertised. Imanaga got drilled last night and it's only a matter of time before the league adjust against a junk baller. Cubs also have some holes in the lineup, particularly 3b, C & DH. (These of course are not fact, just my opinion)

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They need a C and a 3b, Morel would be good at DH but kills them at 3rd.

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I'm not bullish on Morel.

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Come on, he's a fun guy!

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I haven't really watched him much outside games against the pirates, he seems to do well against them.

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He seems to be about as you imagine... nice bat... real butcher in the field with little range. Should probably be at 1B, but the Cubs have a shortage of infield bats.

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Wednesday, May 29

26 down. 55 to go.

Pirates win 10-2 over Detroit with strong pitching and ogres at the bat rack. The Pirates stand in 4th place in the central, 6.5 games out of first, 2 games behind the 3rd place Cards and 2 games ahead of the last place Reds.

CARROTS ON THE HOUSE!!!!

@> Nick the Stick who is starting to click! The Stick is hitting in the 5 hole. Impressive! And his 3 for 5 day with a double and a bomb says to da wabbit that the stick is here to stay!

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@>@> Cutch is heating up with the weather! El Tigres could not get the old timer out! 3 for 4 with a double and a bomb, scored 2 and drove in 4. It was a deluxe day for Pops!

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@>@>@> Baby Skenes for the quality start. Six strong with nine strikeouts and only one walk and three base hits. Baby Skenes is our STOPPER yo.

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Sweet corn for the bullpen for three innings of what they are supposed to do.

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You can see the Carrot Leader Board below as of Rememboral Day. Things are starting to shape up! Now we gots to get Hayes going.

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The Carrot Tally So Far:*

Keller. 16

Jones. 12

Falter 12

B.Rey 10

Nick the Stick 9

Joe 8

O’Cruz 8

Cutch 8

BabySkenes 7

M. Gonzales 6 injured

M. Perez 6 injured

Oliveras 6

L. Ortiz 5

Bednar 5

Tellez 4

Chapman 4

Flemming 3

Suwinski 3 minors

Granny 3

Triolo 3

R.Ryan 2 minors

Davis 2 minors

Bart 2 injured

Williams. 2

Hayes. 2

Bae 2

Contreras 1 traded

Hernandez 1

Holderman 1

Taylor 1

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*updated 5/29/24

_____________________________

“Now just a minute, Mac! Just what kinda tracks was you followin’?”

-Wabbit

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like the leaderboard!

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Because of the rainout, I think the Pirates will need a 5th starter for Sunday. They're not going to want to pitch Jones or Skenes on 3 days rest, nor should they. However, with yet another off day on Monday, going with a bullpen game would be a possibility but could also be ugly with the way most of the pen has pitched.

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The Pirates have a 30 year old pitcher in triple A that went 18-4 for they Yankees 5 years ago. Last year he finished the season with a 1.08 whip and less than a year ago pitched the 24th perfect game in baseball. Domingo German won't be ready for this Monday, but hopefully he will be helping out soon.

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QP will be pitching on Sunday. Any other answer is a worse choice.

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Any interest in Jorge Lopez🤔

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He’s definitely an upgrade over most of our middle relievers, but I don’t think Pirates will acquire him.

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