More from "Baseball Wit and Wisdom" as we ponder ponderable roster decisions involving players we may or may not be thrilled to see at bat next season:
The way Cohen throws money around and then cries a river full of tears to bring back the fan favorite. Kind of silly to have produced so much drama over what was inevitable.
I still wish the pirates would go after Mauricio, I really think he's going to crush RHPing, lefties not so much. Even if he doesn't become an everyday regular, his floor looks like a capable super utility with power and decent defense around the field. (If his knee is going to be ok???)
I wish Suwinski the best. He was a favorite of my entire family. Unfortunately, pinning hopes on him is simply not realistic. Potential is not enough in this business but hey, I hope he proves me wrong. It is truly a puzzle how downright cheap and ineffective this offseason has been with jobs supposedly on the line this year (I have my doubts about that - no accountability).
These analytics are heavy on Skenes, predicting a 20-win season. That's the only thing pushing the wins above the Reds. Otherwise they've had a much better offseason than Pirates.
A portion of Ben Clemens take, which aligns with my thinking (more on the Reds than the Pirates):
"The Pirates have a former Boston executive of their own in Ben Cherington, and he seemed to like St. Louis’ plan of sitting out free agency, because his biggest signing was arguably Adam Frazier. Feels like quite a waste of Paul Skenes to me, and the model agrees, giving them a scant 20% chance of getting to the playoffs despite an abysmal division and a transcendent talent.
That just leaves the Reds, who I’m surprised to see projected in last place. I don’t know if Gavin Lux, Jose Trevino, Brady Singer, and Taylor Rogers will all work out, but I’d bet on at least one of them exceeding expectations. A full year of Matt McLain and an encore performance from Elly De La Cruz should make Jonathan India’s departure bearable. You can squint and see a very good team here. The model is skeptical of their pitching, particularly their bullpen, and it’s weighing down a perfectly reasonable offense. This feels harsh to me; I doubt their bullpen will be quite as bad as expected, if only by virtue of in-season turnover. That doesn’t make them amazing, but it definitely puts them right in the mix in a desultory division."
That word is a keeper all season long....."desultory" division. If not trying to fill your largest holes this offseason, then when? Does BC and Nutting even know MLB expanded the number of playoff teams?
Totally fair, though I think it's just as probable that we see negative regression from Elly De La Cruz than it is that he repeats what he did last year. We'll see!
Elly had a lower expected wOBA than Oneil last year.
Matt McClain was 40(!) points over his skis in 2023.
That 2023 Reds offense nearly all hit over their heads and then predictably fell back to earth in 2024. Seems like some folks haven't caught up to reality.
I'm going to have to agree with you and the models. I just can't see the Reds doing much this year. Their offense is overrated, and their bullpen is atrocious. My favorite moment of Pirates' baseball in the past 2 years of misery was looking in on the Reds forums to see their fans blowing up at the front office for trading Moreti as their bullpen blew a 7-run? lead against the Pirates and any chance they had for the post-season in 2023.
Most relevant is that we're in a pretty high leverage range where just adding a few wins can mean the difference in making the playoffs or not. That doesn't seem to mesh with such an inactive offseason.
Not that I've taken a deep look, but I think it's more likely that we'll finish above the Cardinals than the Reds. Of course we're talking about less than a game difference in projected wins for those three teams.
This is simply an organization that has no intent to try to be competitive and is managed by an incompetent front office.
Nutting won’t spend even with a truly generational talent leading the rotation.
The FO thought Tellez had value, BDLC was worth trading for, etc. I doubt Frazier would have gotten a guaranteed deal from any other team and only this FO would roll into the season with IKF as it’s starting SS (ok, maybe the Marlins, too…).
I’m not sure I even want Cherington to make a trade for a RF at this point. Based on prior position player acquisitions, is there any reason to believe he’s capable of winning that kind of trade?
Setting Nutting aside, this team will either play over their heads and win in spite of Nutting/management, or play as projected and hopefully bring in better baseball minds next season to try to make the most of Skenes’ (and Cruz and Reynolds and Jones and Keller’s) remaining years of control.
I don’t think this is a great analogy - Cherington wasn’t forced to acquire BLDC.
That being said, if a club is forced to rely heavily on shitboxes to get to the end of a season, they should invest in having some of the best mechanics around to keep those shitboxes running decently. Otherwise, they end up being bled dry and in last place.
Most discouraging was trading for BDLC repeated the mistake of signing Tellez--acquiring a guy who hit HRs but added little or nothing else of value. At least they hired a number of new FO personnel this offseason to replace or add to a group that wasn't evidently learning from mistakes.
I am optimistic that the FO will make better decisions moving forward which is why I want to see them making trades. However, our ceiling will be limited by Nutting's unwillingness to spend and perhaps by Cherington's risk-aversion.
De La Cruz was on pace to hit 30 homers, at the time the Pirates traded for him. The most discouraging part for me was that he only hit 3 more homers...... plus everything else you said.
I was pretty excited reading all about Jun-Seok Shim when the Pirates signed him, so I wasn't sure what to think when we made the De La Cruz trade. It sounds like you were down on him from the time of the trade, probably because he strikes out, can't run and is a bad fielder. I would gladly take a guy that can hit .245 and hit 30 homers(which he didn't), but we already had 2 DHs starting every day. The deal didn't make a lot of sense.
I'm guessing the Pirates brass sees this as well. Suwinski has better projections and more upside than Verdugo, Laureano. Bader really has no value off CF and he's not replacing Cruz.
Also guessing they explored the trade market for guys like Ward and the asking price was too high.
At the end of the day, a Suwinski/Yorke platoon makes more sense than anything that was in their budget.
All of that is possible, but with the signing of Frazier, is there even room for both on the roster? Figure we need 13 position players. Bart, Endy (or Davis or Delay), Gonzo, IKF, Hayes, Triolo, Horwitz, Frazier, Cruz, Cutch, Reynolds. That means two roster spots for Cook, Yorke, and Suwniski if they don’t sign anyone else. If Cook or Yorke go down, that OF becomes very left handed. I assumed Cook makes the team in the Connor Joe role, but who knows. Would love for them to have roster crunch problems, but with actual baseball players
I really like Yorke's approach but think it hurts him against lefties. His gap to gap (right center focus) has him hitting the ball deep, jamming him on pitches coming in and hitting the ball off the end of the bat on pitches with arm side run (lefties). With more exposure against them I think he'll find the barrel more often, his walk and K rates aren't far off from his at bats from RHPers.
If he still struggles, he could try to be more pull oriented by hitting the ball out front against lefties.
With Kepler, Winker and Conforto off the board, there’s really no one that’s in their price range that’s a substantial upgrade over what they have. And Conforto ended up being out of their price range anyways. If they had moved Reynolds to first, there’s probably logic to signing Bader to play left field? With how our right field is, is it really worth it to take the offensive hit from the guys we have to play Bader there? And knowing us, money is gonna be a factor there too. Some of these other guys might come cheaper.
Those guys weren’t really out of their price range, but that’s a different story.
What they have sucks though. So even though this list isn’t great, it still may improve a bit. I know the ZIPS projections on Jack are surprisingly not bad, but I wouldn’t think “oh, that’ll be enough,” then. I’d be cool with Pham or Manny Margs too.
After saying all that though, the biggest move is probably just signing David Robertson.
Conforto shouldn’t have been out of their price range. But he was. I’m not convinced they even had the $17 million in open budget space to match the Dodgers, let alone beat it. RE Margot, WTM mentioned Yorke’s weird splits , Margot could help with that.
I agree on Robertson. Beefing up the bullpen, or signing another starter and shifting someone like Oviedo into the bullpen might the best moves at this point. Might as well double down on the pitching?
The idea behind my comment there was, with the notch and spacious dimensions of our left field, as well as an unproven CF, it would help to have a guy who is basically a second CFer. He’d be more valuable in LF than our RF?
Disclaimer of, I recognize this is all obviously far from ideal. As I alluded to in my first comment, they aren’t paying someone what I would imagine Bader would command to essentially play LF part time.
So regarding what you do with the other 81 games, you wouldn’t be signing him in such a scenario to play full time. He’d be in a timeshare with Jack/Yorke/Palacios. And regarding the lack of offense, it’d just be a reversal of what they did with MAT last year. Except instead of playing CF, where Cruz is now, you’d have him in LF, where the defense plays better than our RF.
The pirates have to be working on a trade for an impactful RFer. If not this off-season makes no sense because a lot of these RFers who would have fit great here signed for cheap.
Maybe. But do you want a FO that signed Tellez and Frazier and traded for BDLC in charge of picking which starting pitching assets to trade for said right fielder?
Yes, if it's a known commodity, I don't think you can go wrong with Ward or Robert. But, like you said, they mess up pretty much everything, so it'll probably be some guy we've never heard of, and they'll overpay for him. It's hard being a Pirates fan…
Dodgers sent Ryan Brasier(reliever) to the Cubs and also sent the Cubs some money. Brasier will lol be making around 4.5 mill this year~ the $$ the Dodgers sent. Good reliever the last 2 years. WHIP basically undet 1 the last 2 years. This is a player that the pirates should’ve had.
More from "Baseball Wit and Wisdom" as we ponder ponderable roster decisions involving players we may or may not be thrilled to see at bat next season:
"Fans don't boo nobodies."
-- Reggie Jackson
Meanwhile, in the major leagues, Alonso back to Mets.
we need a Marte Parte
Send Ashcraft or another 40 man arm for Marte and Mauricio and bag full of cash to cover a chunk of Marte's salary.
Gives them a spot for Alonso on their 40 and it shouldn't be too hard to find a dfa candidate on the Pirates 40 man.
The way Cohen throws money around and then cries a river full of tears to bring back the fan favorite. Kind of silly to have produced so much drama over what was inevitable.
their pitching looks pretty shabby
i bet we have a better record than them this year
I still wish the pirates would go after Mauricio, I really think he's going to crush RHPing, lefties not so much. Even if he doesn't become an everyday regular, his floor looks like a capable super utility with power and decent defense around the field. (If his knee is going to be ok???)
Bader to Minn, which is fine.
Come on Angels, sign Verdugo before BC makes an offer.
Verdugo said he wants to go somewhere he can grow out his beard and wear his chains.
Sounds like he wants to dress like an actual pirate, hope he doesn't link the 2.
So we send him photos of hippies and have them postmarked Milwaukee.
Is there a gofundme we can give to?
maybe they let him play centerfield and we trade KeBryan for Buxton?
Still guessing the Verdugo signing which would make this the worst offseason ever is on its way
I wish Suwinski the best. He was a favorite of my entire family. Unfortunately, pinning hopes on him is simply not realistic. Potential is not enough in this business but hey, I hope he proves me wrong. It is truly a puzzle how downright cheap and ineffective this offseason has been with jobs supposedly on the line this year (I have my doubts about that - no accountability).
I want that Heston guy from Baltimore and I want them to trade Mitch Keller for him
Then I want them to sign Cantina
The Os really don’t seem to be giving him a starting spot which is surprising to me
they have a lot of outfielders in that organization
even cedric mullins i wouldnt mind taking a flyer on
Just like with PECOTA, Fangraphs' playoff odds have the Pirates finishing above the Reds:
https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds
These analytics are heavy on Skenes, predicting a 20-win season. That's the only thing pushing the wins above the Reds. Otherwise they've had a much better offseason than Pirates.
I promise "these analytics" do not project Paul Skenes as a 20-WAR pitcher.
We hate ourselves so much we're anointing rivals as offseason champions and pretending that matters...
Austin Hays and Terry Francona not even in the analytics (yet).
And we still have Shelton. Reds>Bucs......but that's why we play the 162.
I legitimately think the pirates have an all around more talented roster. Time will tell.
You may be right about the roster. But I know I'm right about Reds having a more talented manager. And that's worth about 6 WAR.
I would certainly take Francona over Shelton, yes.
A portion of Ben Clemens take, which aligns with my thinking (more on the Reds than the Pirates):
"The Pirates have a former Boston executive of their own in Ben Cherington, and he seemed to like St. Louis’ plan of sitting out free agency, because his biggest signing was arguably Adam Frazier. Feels like quite a waste of Paul Skenes to me, and the model agrees, giving them a scant 20% chance of getting to the playoffs despite an abysmal division and a transcendent talent.
That just leaves the Reds, who I’m surprised to see projected in last place. I don’t know if Gavin Lux, Jose Trevino, Brady Singer, and Taylor Rogers will all work out, but I’d bet on at least one of them exceeding expectations. A full year of Matt McLain and an encore performance from Elly De La Cruz should make Jonathan India’s departure bearable. You can squint and see a very good team here. The model is skeptical of their pitching, particularly their bullpen, and it’s weighing down a perfectly reasonable offense. This feels harsh to me; I doubt their bullpen will be quite as bad as expected, if only by virtue of in-season turnover. That doesn’t make them amazing, but it definitely puts them right in the mix in a desultory division."
That word is a keeper all season long....."desultory" division. If not trying to fill your largest holes this offseason, then when? Does BC and Nutting even know MLB expanded the number of playoff teams?
Totally fair, though I think it's just as probable that we see negative regression from Elly De La Cruz than it is that he repeats what he did last year. We'll see!
Elly had a lower expected wOBA than Oneil last year.
Matt McClain was 40(!) points over his skis in 2023.
That 2023 Reds offense nearly all hit over their heads and then predictably fell back to earth in 2024. Seems like some folks haven't caught up to reality.
The projections see data, not hype.
I'm going to have to agree with you and the models. I just can't see the Reds doing much this year. Their offense is overrated, and their bullpen is atrocious. My favorite moment of Pirates' baseball in the past 2 years of misery was looking in on the Reds forums to see their fans blowing up at the front office for trading Moreti as their bullpen blew a 7-run? lead against the Pirates and any chance they had for the post-season in 2023.
I just looked it up. It was a 9-run lead... lol. No wonder they were apoplectic.
Most relevant is that we're in a pretty high leverage range where just adding a few wins can mean the difference in making the playoffs or not. That doesn't seem to mesh with such an inactive offseason.
Not that I've taken a deep look, but I think it's more likely that we'll finish above the Cardinals than the Reds. Of course we're talking about less than a game difference in projected wins for those three teams.
I have this weird feeling that Grichuk is gonna hurt us somehow this season.
This is simply an organization that has no intent to try to be competitive and is managed by an incompetent front office.
Nutting won’t spend even with a truly generational talent leading the rotation.
The FO thought Tellez had value, BDLC was worth trading for, etc. I doubt Frazier would have gotten a guaranteed deal from any other team and only this FO would roll into the season with IKF as it’s starting SS (ok, maybe the Marlins, too…).
I’m not sure I even want Cherington to make a trade for a RF at this point. Based on prior position player acquisitions, is there any reason to believe he’s capable of winning that kind of trade?
Setting Nutting aside, this team will either play over their heads and win in spite of Nutting/management, or play as projected and hopefully bring in better baseball minds next season to try to make the most of Skenes’ (and Cruz and Reynolds and Jones and Keller’s) remaining years of control.
Have you ever been so broke you had to buy a shitbox just to get to work, knowing full well it would bleed you dry just to keep it running? I have.
Was that a bad decision or one I had no choice but to make?
This would make more sense if there was no such baseball team as the Rays.
I make no claim that Ben Cherington runs the best organization in baseball.
I don’t think this is a great analogy - Cherington wasn’t forced to acquire BLDC.
That being said, if a club is forced to rely heavily on shitboxes to get to the end of a season, they should invest in having some of the best mechanics around to keep those shitboxes running decently. Otherwise, they end up being bled dry and in last place.
Not BLDC specifically, but pretty clearly someone who was free like BDLC.
Maybe I guessed wrong on my 12 yo Blazer, but I'm not sure I could've expected better from the 12 yo silverado.
So again, when those are your only options, you should expect similar result.
Maybe the Pirates feel they have 3 or 4 cars that even though they haven't seen them start yet, they are hoping one of them will.
that's basically the gig!
Most discouraging was trading for BDLC repeated the mistake of signing Tellez--acquiring a guy who hit HRs but added little or nothing else of value. At least they hired a number of new FO personnel this offseason to replace or add to a group that wasn't evidently learning from mistakes.
I am optimistic that the FO will make better decisions moving forward which is why I want to see them making trades. However, our ceiling will be limited by Nutting's unwillingness to spend and perhaps by Cherington's risk-aversion.
De La Cruz was on pace to hit 30 homers, at the time the Pirates traded for him. The most discouraging part for me was that he only hit 3 more homers...... plus everything else you said.
He was also on pace to be below replacement, so it’s not like he became a different guy after the trade.
And was also the only option available that came free...
I was pretty excited reading all about Jun-Seok Shim when the Pirates signed him, so I wasn't sure what to think when we made the De La Cruz trade. It sounds like you were down on him from the time of the trade, probably because he strikes out, can't run and is a bad fielder. I would gladly take a guy that can hit .245 and hit 30 homers(which he didn't), but we already had 2 DHs starting every day. The deal didn't make a lot of sense.
Word
I saw some questions on serviceable outfielders so I put together a list of possibles with their ZIPS wRC+ and WAR projection.
Mark Canha 103/.7
Harrison Bader 85/1.7
Alex Verdugo 99/1.6
Tommy Pham 99/.4
Manuel Margot 101/1
Jason Heyward 90/.6
That’s roughly the best of what’s left. The remaining names on the list I consulted were the Ben Gamel’s and Kevin Pillar’s of the world.
Suwinski 109/1.7
Yorke 84/1.3
I'm guessing the Pirates brass sees this as well. Suwinski has better projections and more upside than Verdugo, Laureano. Bader really has no value off CF and he's not replacing Cruz.
Also guessing they explored the trade market for guys like Ward and the asking price was too high.
At the end of the day, a Suwinski/Yorke platoon makes more sense than anything that was in their budget.
Now watch them sign Verdugo.
Or worse, Jason Heyward. 😡
Suwinski was just down right terrible last year.
Verdugo is the worst possible choice, which is why I’m expecting his arrival any day now.
One problem with Suwinski/Yorke, though, is Yorke’s bizarre reverse split.
One solution for a platoon partner for Jack, which has gone unnoticed, is Nick Solak, but Frazier scuttles that.
All of that is possible, but with the signing of Frazier, is there even room for both on the roster? Figure we need 13 position players. Bart, Endy (or Davis or Delay), Gonzo, IKF, Hayes, Triolo, Horwitz, Frazier, Cruz, Cutch, Reynolds. That means two roster spots for Cook, Yorke, and Suwniski if they don’t sign anyone else. If Cook or Yorke go down, that OF becomes very left handed. I assumed Cook makes the team in the Connor Joe role, but who knows. Would love for them to have roster crunch problems, but with actual baseball players
Vibes tell me yorke’s reverse split is gonna go away and he’s going to be a solid offensive contributor this year
Statistically speaking, RH hitters’ splits usually level off over time. But that’s normal splits. I dunno, this one’s weird.
I really like Yorke's approach but think it hurts him against lefties. His gap to gap (right center focus) has him hitting the ball deep, jamming him on pitches coming in and hitting the ball off the end of the bat on pitches with arm side run (lefties). With more exposure against them I think he'll find the barrel more often, his walk and K rates aren't far off from his at bats from RHPers.
If he still struggles, he could try to be more pull oriented by hitting the ball out front against lefties.
I don’t know who Vibes is but I agree. 🤪
Not great, but is Bader’s value basically in his defense right? If this team ain’t gonna hit a lick…
With Kepler, Winker and Conforto off the board, there’s really no one that’s in their price range that’s a substantial upgrade over what they have. And Conforto ended up being out of their price range anyways. If they had moved Reynolds to first, there’s probably logic to signing Bader to play left field? With how our right field is, is it really worth it to take the offensive hit from the guys we have to play Bader there? And knowing us, money is gonna be a factor there too. Some of these other guys might come cheaper.
Those guys weren’t really out of their price range, but that’s a different story.
What they have sucks though. So even though this list isn’t great, it still may improve a bit. I know the ZIPS projections on Jack are surprisingly not bad, but I wouldn’t think “oh, that’ll be enough,” then. I’d be cool with Pham or Manny Margs too.
After saying all that though, the biggest move is probably just signing David Robertson.
Pham could be pretty funny to have on the team, if he could hit at all. I think Shelton would be a little scared of him.
Conforto shouldn’t have been out of their price range. But he was. I’m not convinced they even had the $17 million in open budget space to match the Dodgers, let alone beat it. RE Margot, WTM mentioned Yorke’s weird splits , Margot could help with that.
I agree on Robertson. Beefing up the bullpen, or signing another starter and shifting someone like Oviedo into the bullpen might the best moves at this point. Might as well double down on the pitching?
Right, and that’s kinda my thought with signing a better defensive OF. But bullpen might be a bigger impact.
Bader loses all value in LF. It would be like signing Michael A Taylor and have him play LF.
CF's move off CF all the time as they age.....ie. Cutch, Marte, etc. The skills easily transfer with a little work in the corners.
Problem there is Marte and Cutch can still hit.
No hit, all defense CF'er don't transition to corners when they age. They retire.
The idea behind my comment there was, with the notch and spacious dimensions of our left field, as well as an unproven CF, it would help to have a guy who is basically a second CFer. He’d be more valuable in LF than our RF?
What about the other 81 games away from PNC? And the fact of not being able to hit.
Playing him in LF would be a waste. Other than 1b, LF is at the bottom of the defensive spectrum.
LF is where all hit, bad D players go. Not the other way around.
Moot (and probably absurd) discussion as the Twins just signed Bader.
Disclaimer of, I recognize this is all obviously far from ideal. As I alluded to in my first comment, they aren’t paying someone what I would imagine Bader would command to essentially play LF part time.
So regarding what you do with the other 81 games, you wouldn’t be signing him in such a scenario to play full time. He’d be in a timeshare with Jack/Yorke/Palacios. And regarding the lack of offense, it’d just be a reversal of what they did with MAT last year. Except instead of playing CF, where Cruz is now, you’d have him in LF, where the defense plays better than our RF.
More from "Baseball Wit and Wisdom", as I rummage through closets searching for extra shoelaces and my lost bottle of neatsfoot oil:
"You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."
- Jim Bouton, "Ball Four"
I love that quote.
The pirates have to be working on a trade for an impactful RFer. If not this off-season makes no sense because a lot of these RFers who would have fit great here signed for cheap.
That the Pirates “have to be working” on anything that makes sense doesn’t make sense.
Brandon...
.... But.... Second Base.....~~~!!!!!!
Maybe. But do you want a FO that signed Tellez and Frazier and traded for BDLC in charge of picking which starting pitching assets to trade for said right fielder?
Yes, because if they continue the incompetence, they will be replaced.
Yes, if it's a known commodity, I don't think you can go wrong with Ward or Robert. But, like you said, they mess up pretty much everything, so it'll probably be some guy we've never heard of, and they'll overpay for him. It's hard being a Pirates fan…
Grichuk base salary is $2m, $3m buyout & a mutual option for next season at $5m, plus some incentives. So it’s basically 2/$7m or 1/$5m.
Bucs must not have even been interested. BC is actually going to roll with what we’ve got at RF & SS… sigh.
And SS and 3rd base
And C and 1B
*flips desk*
Dodgers sent Ryan Brasier(reliever) to the Cubs and also sent the Cubs some money. Brasier will lol be making around 4.5 mill this year~ the $$ the Dodgers sent. Good reliever the last 2 years. WHIP basically undet 1 the last 2 years. This is a player that the pirates should’ve had.
Pass....I could not watch that guy all season contort his head and body as he delivers each pitch. Cubbies can have him.
SEAN SULLIVAN SZN!!!!!!!!!!
Pirates deep dive podcast is up from BA
Good drop, thank you!
A drop just like the Bucs dropped this offseason!