This trade looks like the typical Pirates deal. Other division teams have nothing to fear with a move like this. Probably do 2-3 more like it and Shelton/Cherington will say they made great moves to improve the team and coupled with the continued development of our young players, we expect to compete for a playoff spot. Sadly, Pirates are simply not a serious organization.
Well hey, at least we can be assured that they're using sound logic in teambuilding as evidenced by their announced intention to play Tank Davis, Oneil Cruz, and Jack Suwinski at the three most important defensive position on the diamond the same week they acquire the guy with the 6th-highest contact rate in baseball over the past two years.
Well, he had already said that he "was most proud" of their player development with guys like Keller, so I think he had to add the term "globally" so that the statement sounded a little different ;)
As to what that plan is other than trading veterans for prospects which every rebuilding GM tries to implement, I'm still seeking some clarity.
I assume the "cash consideration" part of the trade is some significant portion of the $12 million Gonzales is due next year. He's not going to dazzle anyone with velocity but the Pirates certainly need someone to pitch and at least it's not Rich Hill.
I think Sea covered all but $7.5M, or something like that. With Atl sending cash, too, the Pirates won’t be paying that much. Which, of course, is the only criterion.
Marco at like $4m is very fair move given what we need. I just hope we do something more too - otherwise we are just tanking for the latest Holliday to draft and kidding ourselves. If we do things like sign a 1B like Belt with the lets say $3M savings, then its a real move in trying to not just compete, but win. If O'neil is back to healthy, with what we saw from Key to end the year, and if triolo can move to 2b and improve a full year removed from hammate surgery I have optimism. JUST Marco is not optimism....
The draft lottery is the perfect example of Major League Baseball trying to do anything but actually fix the economic issues causing teams to tank. They also, I’d imagine intentionally, created a system where the larger markets benefit in the aggregate.
I respectfully disagree. When you have one team making $300 MM in revenues and another team making $600 MM in revenues, the only way the team generating half of the revenue can access premier talent is by earning top draft picks.
Teams in markets like Milwaukee or Kansas City will always be at a disadvantage under the current system because they can’t charge $300 a game for box seats like NY or LA can, and don’t have the massive population generated TV contracts. In short, the money simply isn’t there in smaller markets.
And yet Milwaukee is explicitly an example that shows taking *isn't* necessary to sustain winning. As is Tampa. As is Cleveland. As is Arizona.
When teams like the Nationals are tanking you can be sure than revenue isn't a cause.
I appreciate your argument but the premise that you cannot succeed as a lower-revenue market without tanking is just not true. long, slow, tanking rebuilds are chosen not forced.
It’s preference? The drive for 75 we did from 2001-2007 was awful and aimless, and I hope we never do that again. I prefer to be all in or all out. If you’re winning that’s awesome. Not winning? You should be trying to accumulate talent so you can, and that generally involves picking higher in the draft or trading established talent for quantities of prospects.
Sure if you’re making wise choices like many organizations have done, and are trading players at peak value, then no, destructive rebuilds don’t need to happen. But the Pirates in 2008? The Orioles in 2018? Those teams, and others, really didn’t have viable options forward.
To do the anti-tank thing properly you have to trade guys at peak value for great returns like the Rays have done with Chris Archer, Blake Snell, etc etc etc. The Pirates consistently hold onto guys until it’s too late to cash in on their value.
And yet five years of tanking have left us with no better outlook than mediocre.
If the options are competent, watchable clubs or 5 years of awful baseball with no promise of anything better on the other end then the decision is exceptionally clear to me.
EDIT: Let me add that there were years where I very much wanted them to rebuild! But in hindsight, it was clearly a mistake and one i have no interest in repeating every single decade. What an abomination.
There’s a question of competence first of all. Tanking should lead to results like the orioles. We are a ways from that obviously. Second of all, specific to us, a lot of the talent we’ve collected during this tank are high school players or international amateurs. Some of these guys won’t be producing at a high level in Pittsburgh for years, if ever.
I am anxious to hear the cash amount, but more importantly the player to be named later. I remember the day you could assume the PTBNL was always a scrub and not a first round draft pick.
In hindsight, what looked like a horrible deal because Archer got hurt shortly after getting him has turned out just kinda ugly at the moment. Glasnow has been on the IL a good bit of the time, Meadows started good, then IL, now might be out of baseball, Baz has been hurt only pitching 9 MLB games and has had setbacks rehabbing from his TJ surgery. Who knows what he will be when he finally hits the mound again. For his sake hope he is 100% and as good as he ever was but who knows.
It ended not hurting them as much as we feared, but the reality is they could have traded Glasnow, Meadows, and Baz for OTHER significant players or prospects who could (should) have provided more value than Archer. All the players involved in the trade basically all became injury problems, but the Pirates could have spun those guys into SO much more than Chris Archer.
Blake Snell's name was pretty big in the rumors around the deadline. When I heard "The Pirates and Rays have made a deal, the Pirates trade Glasnow, Meadows....." I was expecting more names , then Snell in return. not a struggling pitcher in Archer that we were going to try to get back on track.
So now that there have been two lotteries, who can’t make it in the lottery next year? Are you banned the third year if you make it in the top six for two years in a row?
The draft lottery is pretty crazy. Guardians and Reds get the top two picks despite having among the lowest odds. Did you see the quirk that the Nats actually got the top pick initially, but they couldn’t have it because it would have meant picking in the lottery two years in a row and teams paying into revenue sharing are not allowed to do that? And they’re paying into the lottery because of the millions they’re paying to Strasburg (effectively retired), Corbin (worst pitcher per dollar in baseball), and Scherzer (backloaded contract).
I know we’re not supposed to care now that they’re moving to Vegas, but I feel really bad for the A’s. Two years in a row they have the best odds for the top pick and they end up 6th and 4th. Last year was especially brutal ending up out of the top 5.
The owner sabotaged the team. I do have sympathy for the A’s baseball staff. And it’s unbelievable that they had such bad luck in the lottery two years in a row. So, yes, I stand by my position.
My son told me that my 2023 pre-season prediction that Manoah having a terrible year was one prediction I actually got right. If you have watched Manoah, you can see he is not in the best of shape. In 2022, he would throw max velocity and then take forever to catch his breath. In 2023 he could not do that with the pitch clock. He pitched 87 innings and gave up 150 plus baserunners.
I think you are talking about the legend Exicardo Cayones that we traded for Burnett. Cajones is the combination of Canaan and Jones that you want us to trade.
This trade looks like the typical Pirates deal. Other division teams have nothing to fear with a move like this. Probably do 2-3 more like it and Shelton/Cherington will say they made great moves to improve the team and coupled with the continued development of our young players, we expect to compete for a playoff spot. Sadly, Pirates are simply not a serious organization.
Well hey, at least we can be assured that they're using sound logic in teambuilding as evidenced by their announced intention to play Tank Davis, Oneil Cruz, and Jack Suwinski at the three most important defensive position on the diamond the same week they acquire the guy with the 6th-highest contact rate in baseball over the past two years.
As Shelton said the other day, we can be "most proud of globally that Ben came in with a plan and we have never veered off that plan".
What does that even mean?
Well, he had already said that he "was most proud" of their player development with guys like Keller, so I think he had to add the term "globally" so that the statement sounded a little different ;)
As to what that plan is other than trading veterans for prospects which every rebuilding GM tries to implement, I'm still seeking some clarity.
Nola rebuilt my trust in Jared Jones on Twitter last night.
Apparently, as judged by these silly "Stuff" metrics, Marco Gonzales is better than Eduardo Rodriguez.
I no longer give AF that Jared Jones didn't measure up with the top AAA arms based on such useless analysis.
Ah, Cherington found his Jon Niese.
I assume the "cash consideration" part of the trade is some significant portion of the $12 million Gonzales is due next year. He's not going to dazzle anyone with velocity but the Pirates certainly need someone to pitch and at least it's not Rich Hill.
Honestly, he's probably not as good as Hill was for Pittsburgh last season.
I think Sea covered all but $7.5M, or something like that. With Atl sending cash, too, the Pirates won’t be paying that much. Which, of course, is the only criterion.
Marco at like $4m is very fair move given what we need. I just hope we do something more too - otherwise we are just tanking for the latest Holliday to draft and kidding ourselves. If we do things like sign a 1B like Belt with the lets say $3M savings, then its a real move in trying to not just compete, but win. If O'neil is back to healthy, with what we saw from Key to end the year, and if triolo can move to 2b and improve a full year removed from hammate surgery I have optimism. JUST Marco is not optimism....
Feature will probably run a little late, Ethan submitting something, waiting on it to be ready
Stumpf gave Ethan and BoD a shout out in a QA yesterday.
Amazing
Is Marco the type of pitcher that we hoped that Omar Cruz would be?
Murphy upon finding out the Pirates draft spots.
"First pick, prep pitcher. Second pick, prep pitcher. And third pick, uhhhhhh, make it a prep pitcher"
I'm still Montgomery, Ethan Anderson, prep or Burke lol
No leaks! lol
Anyone who has read half a Murphy article knows this! lol
The draft lottery is the perfect example of Major League Baseball trying to do anything but actually fix the economic issues causing teams to tank. They also, I’d imagine intentionally, created a system where the larger markets benefit in the aggregate.
There are absolutely ZERO economic issues forcing teams to tank. It's an explicit choice owners make to fuck over their fans.
I respectfully disagree. When you have one team making $300 MM in revenues and another team making $600 MM in revenues, the only way the team generating half of the revenue can access premier talent is by earning top draft picks.
Teams in markets like Milwaukee or Kansas City will always be at a disadvantage under the current system because they can’t charge $300 a game for box seats like NY or LA can, and don’t have the massive population generated TV contracts. In short, the money simply isn’t there in smaller markets.
And yet Milwaukee is explicitly an example that shows taking *isn't* necessary to sustain winning. As is Tampa. As is Cleveland. As is Arizona.
When teams like the Nationals are tanking you can be sure than revenue isn't a cause.
I appreciate your argument but the premise that you cannot succeed as a lower-revenue market without tanking is just not true. long, slow, tanking rebuilds are chosen not forced.
Personally, as a fan I prefer tanking when retooling/rebuilding. There’s no honor in trying to win 75 games.
Honor?! What's the honor in quitting? In not trying at all. In bastardizing the game itself.
To each their own, I suppose...
It’s preference? The drive for 75 we did from 2001-2007 was awful and aimless, and I hope we never do that again. I prefer to be all in or all out. If you’re winning that’s awesome. Not winning? You should be trying to accumulate talent so you can, and that generally involves picking higher in the draft or trading established talent for quantities of prospects.
Sure if you’re making wise choices like many organizations have done, and are trading players at peak value, then no, destructive rebuilds don’t need to happen. But the Pirates in 2008? The Orioles in 2018? Those teams, and others, really didn’t have viable options forward.
To do the anti-tank thing properly you have to trade guys at peak value for great returns like the Rays have done with Chris Archer, Blake Snell, etc etc etc. The Pirates consistently hold onto guys until it’s too late to cash in on their value.
And yet five years of tanking have left us with no better outlook than mediocre.
If the options are competent, watchable clubs or 5 years of awful baseball with no promise of anything better on the other end then the decision is exceptionally clear to me.
EDIT: Let me add that there were years where I very much wanted them to rebuild! But in hindsight, it was clearly a mistake and one i have no interest in repeating every single decade. What an abomination.
There’s a question of competence first of all. Tanking should lead to results like the orioles. We are a ways from that obviously. Second of all, specific to us, a lot of the talent we’ve collected during this tank are high school players or international amateurs. Some of these guys won’t be producing at a high level in Pittsburgh for years, if ever.
I am anxious to hear the cash amount, but more importantly the player to be named later. I remember the day you could assume the PTBNL was always a scrub and not a first round draft pick.
At least it is not the same GM in town that made Baz the PTBNL.
In hindsight, what looked like a horrible deal because Archer got hurt shortly after getting him has turned out just kinda ugly at the moment. Glasnow has been on the IL a good bit of the time, Meadows started good, then IL, now might be out of baseball, Baz has been hurt only pitching 9 MLB games and has had setbacks rehabbing from his TJ surgery. Who knows what he will be when he finally hits the mound again. For his sake hope he is 100% and as good as he ever was but who knows.
It ended not hurting them as much as we feared, but the reality is they could have traded Glasnow, Meadows, and Baz for OTHER significant players or prospects who could (should) have provided more value than Archer. All the players involved in the trade basically all became injury problems, but the Pirates could have spun those guys into SO much more than Chris Archer.
Who knows what those guys may have fetched.
Failure to fetch what they're worth remains the fault of the GM, not an excuse.
Blake Snell's name was pretty big in the rumors around the deadline. When I heard "The Pirates and Rays have made a deal, the Pirates trade Glasnow, Meadows....." I was expecting more names , then Snell in return. not a struggling pitcher in Archer that we were going to try to get back on track.
So now that there have been two lotteries, who can’t make it in the lottery next year? Are you banned the third year if you make it in the top six for two years in a row?
The A's can't, they'll pick at 10 most likely.
Teams that get revenue sharing can only win in the lottery 2 years (top 6 picks).
Teams that pay in to revenue can only win in the lottery 1 year then miss a year. Ex The Nats
I wonder after the A's move to Vegas how much longer they will get revenue sharing. Will be interesting if the move will change their budget.
I guess it'll be determined by their attendance and TV revenues. Not sure
The draft lottery is pretty crazy. Guardians and Reds get the top two picks despite having among the lowest odds. Did you see the quirk that the Nats actually got the top pick initially, but they couldn’t have it because it would have meant picking in the lottery two years in a row and teams paying into revenue sharing are not allowed to do that? And they’re paying into the lottery because of the millions they’re paying to Strasburg (effectively retired), Corbin (worst pitcher per dollar in baseball), and Scherzer (backloaded contract).
I know we’re not supposed to care now that they’re moving to Vegas, but I feel really bad for the A’s. Two years in a row they have the best odds for the top pick and they end up 6th and 4th. Last year was especially brutal ending up out of the top 5.
Sympathy for a club who has made the choice to be intentionally awful numerous years in a row? The fuck?
The owner sabotaged the team. I do have sympathy for the A’s baseball staff. And it’s unbelievable that they had such bad luck in the lottery two years in a row. So, yes, I stand by my position.
A's fans, I'll agree. The staff knew exactly what they were getting when they singed their contracts.
Derek Law closing on a major league contract
Cueto too
Holderman and Peguero to the Marlins for Eduardo Cabrera and Trevor Rogers
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sources saying Brubaker and Burrows to the Twins for Kirriloff
We need pitchers so let's trade some away. Sources?
sources say convert out infielders to pitchers instead of converting them to outfielders is the new market efficiency
Two thumbs up!
deal pending physical
Jared Jones, Roansy, Canaan and Bae to Toronto for Alex Manoah and Daulton Varsho
Too much. Take Jones out and the opportunity for failure is not so one-sided.
My son told me that my 2023 pre-season prediction that Manoah having a terrible year was one prediction I actually got right. If you have watched Manoah, you can see he is not in the best of shape. In 2022, he would throw max velocity and then take forever to catch his breath. In 2023 he could not do that with the pitch clock. He pitched 87 innings and gave up 150 plus baserunners.
he is the best gamble we can make to acquire the best ace starting pitcher since AJ Burnett
except for Burnett the Pirates were gambling money, while you are proposing to gamble players. :)
Cajones held his weight
I think you are talking about the legend Exicardo Cayones that we traded for Burnett. Cajones is the combination of Canaan and Jones that you want us to trade.
well done