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Fangraphs has the Cardinals top 36 prospects up and that system is a total mess. How does the best GM in baseball assemble such a system?

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May 17·edited May 17

Probably by picking in the 20's in the 1st round for most of the last 15 years. Finally has a top 10 at pick 7 this year. Hasn't received a comp A or B pick either. The pirates have generally had 3 picks compared to the cardinals 1 in the top 50 picks in comp A years. In comp B years it's been pirates 4 picks in the top 75 plus or minus to the cardinals 2 picks.

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Picking low doesn't help, for sure. But his drafts are just redundant and odd to me. Like the one commenter said, they have like 12 Brendan Donavan clones. He drafted a bunch of outfielders that had similar profiles and traded away the wrong ones (Randy & Oneil). There's no upside in that system. The pitching staff he assembled is a bunch of pitch to contact guys. He traded away Jordan Hicks and suddenly the Giants have developed him into a VG starter, with a nasty splitter. They've won literally one playoff series in the last 10 years. Now, they are a last place team with a payroll close to 200M. It appears the game has simply passed Mozeliak by.

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Maybe the game has passed him by, perhaps Yadier Molina was the glue that held the big league club together. I'd still take his cumulative results over Ben's any day.

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Agree regarding Ben. However, I'd take 20 other GMs over Mozeliak. He is to be this great scout and his farm system is complete dogsh*t and his MLB club is worse than Ben's.

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Read my mind.

Absolutely stellar 2020 draft, too. Life comes at you fast in the baseball world.

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May 17·edited May 17

Not to mention they have used prospect capital to aquire players, Q from us was for 2 top 15 prospects.

They had a damn good 2020 draft.

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Is that draft class appreciably better than the Pirates 2020 draft class?

Gonzales (-0.1 bWAR), Mlod (0.8 bWAR) & Jones (1.5 bWAR). They also flipped an arm from that class for Connor Joe.

Cardinals have accumulated 0.8 bWAR

Pirates have accumulated 2.2 bWAR.

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Yes, it absolutely is.

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The pirates had a good draft as well but the 3 players the pirates drafted that have made the majors were all picked before the cardinals second pick. The cardinals have had 3 players reach the majors as well with another a top 100 prospect. Both teams had really good drafts in 2020.

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With Paul Skenes and Eric Lauer gone from the AAA Rotation, how many pitchers out of AA will be promoted to AAA very soon? Possibility of Ashcraft and Sullivan? Then it all tends to be filling gaps from the next level below. The possibility of seeing some movement from that very deep 2022 Draft - #1s Thomas Harington, #2 Hunter Barco, #4 Michael Kennedy, #6 Derek Diamond, and #11 Dominic Perachi.

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Can they release Dustin Peterson already. 29 year old in AA. Ya, great!!

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I remember the dog and pony show with Ro and Cruz getting called up for the last series of the season in 2021. Roansy was electric, I thought he was going to be what we are seeing from Jones. Alas, the command faded, the velo dropped and is now a shell of the kid that was a former top 100 prospect.

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May 17·edited May 17

A comment in FanGraphs' Cubs report caught my attention in this context. They noted several popup velo pitchers in that system had subsequently seen those velo gains fade as they advanced up the ladder.

Gave me big Priester/Contreras/Ortiz vibes.

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There is a glitch in the system.

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Axiel Plaz promoted to Bradenton. Justin Miknis got hurt yesterday and Forrester was already hurt.

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In my head I figured it’d be Scherrer just because he’s actually been catching in the complex more.

Three games left in the series wonder if we just see Alfonzo the rest of the weekend

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Thursday, May 16

20 down. 61 to go.

Pirates win 5-4 over the Cubs at Wrigley. They’re in 3rd place, 7 games behind the Brewers.

*

CARROTS ON THE HOUSE!!!!

@> ONE bit of crunchy caratin for Nick the Stick for his homer.

@>@>TWO cans of carrot coins for Eddie O for his 2 for 4 day with a homer and a double

@>@>@>THREE shots of carrot juice for Jones for a quality start.

*

If, today, with Baby Skenes on the mound, you would put a lineup out there featuring the top Carrot Getters so far, it would look like this:

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B.Ray (10)

Joe (8)

Cutch (6)

Oliveras (5)

Cruz (5)

Tellez (4)

Suwinski (3)

Bart (2) or Granny (also 2)

Hayes (2 - except he’s a ghost right now, probably in the process of being Hainesed).

*

I will leave the analysis of such a lineup to the sighted.

___________________________

“Whadda they do on a rainy night in Rio?”

-Wabbit

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Whoever it was in the Pirate org who recommended Charles McAdoo to be drafted in the 13th Round last year should be given a huge raise! His .919 OPS in the A+ Sally League is 5th of all eligible batters. That's about the same OPS that he had last year in A ball (.922), so I doubt he is a fluke. 7 doubles, 1 triple, 6 HR, 28 RBI so far and the 6 HR are also in the Top 10 in the A+ SAL.

6'2, 210 and just turned 22 in March. He played most of his games in 2023 in LF, but in 2024 he has 4 G at 1B, 2 G at 2B, 20 G at 3B, and 6 G in RF.

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Looks every bit as good as Lonnie White to my eye.

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He was on my list as a 6th round or later pick last year. I posted on PP draft thread that they finally picked a hitter I liked. I want to clarify I hated the picks of Jebb and Forrester but I liked the players. Thought we had several similar players as Jebb and that there was several better options than Forrester if he was going to be at first base (being tried at catcher is better).

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McAdoo seems like the swiss army knife of defense - selected for the All Conference Team of the Mountain West Conference in 2022 and 2023 as UTL. He and Skenes (Air Force) were on the All Conference Team together in 2022. Good Catch recommending him 6th Round or later.

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I’m definitely on this bandwagon too.

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Grasshoppers with a big win 11-1 but Termarr with another 0-4. Would love an article by someone who can see him in person. What is going on with him? Why such futility despite a ridiculous number of walks?

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He’s probably trying to work on something. Like going opposite way on sliders or something. The minors are glorified practice. We saw him in ST. Hes the real deal.

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My first take on his slow start at A+ in 2024 was that his head was not quite in the game. It may have something to do with him thinking his excellent ST (>1.000 OPS) that you mentioned, would have propelled him to AA after posting an .842 OPS and excellent BB/K in 132 AB at GBO in 2023.

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I don’t trust the Pirates to develop hitters. They could turn Tony Gwynn into a guy dancing around the Mendoza line.

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Cruz is a giant success story. Ke’Bryan & Endy. We’re probably average.

Every org is bad at “developing” if you ask their fans.

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Cruz is still a work in progress who hasn’t hit well consistently yet. Hayes is a below average hitter — 97 wRC+ career, 86 this year. Endy had a 65 wRC+ in his one shot at the majors. If these are their great successes and they’re “average,” then where do all the good hitters in MLB come from? Mars?

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I question whether it’s a developmental issue, or are they targeting the right types of hitters?

We’ve seen a lot of pitchers move on from Pittsburgh and have success, which I’d say is a fairly solid sign that scouting on the pitching end is doing well. Tyler Glasnow, Robert Stephenson, Gerrit Cole (oddly enough), Miles Mikolas. What hitters have had a ton of success after washing out here?

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great comment.

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Reason we should take Wetherholt in the draft if he's available. Don't want to miss a chance on a bat from Mars.

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-Bryan Reynolds was a 45FV in A ball when the Pirates acquired him, and they developed him into a well above league average hitter.

-Cruz was in rookie ball and now is an animal, who has hit above league average every year in the majors.

-Connor was a journeyman who was barely hanging on to the 26th man and is now an above average bat.

-Hayes was well on his way to being an above average bat, but he's clearly not been healthy this year. Back injuries really effect the swing.

They're certainly not a developmental powerhouse, but they're not exactly terrible either. Now, they have to figure out Jack and at this point, it's probably best served in AAA. Olivares was an awkward fit with Cutch and Suwinski, but if they send down Jack, they could give Oilvares a run at RF and see what they might have. I'm intrigued with the bat, especially the power.

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May 17·edited May 17

All those players have something in common, they were acquired by the prior management. Although Joe was brought back by this group.

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Haha, you’re making my case for me. This is what they have to show for five miserable years, with the worst W/L record and worst offense in MLB?

Reynolds was in the majors when these dimwits arrived. His rookie season, under Huntington, remains his second best, barely below his 2021 season and way better than anything since. He’s *worse* than he was when Blundering Ben arrived. So that and a couple possible spare parts are the case for these idiots? For five years? The jury will need about five minutes with this one.

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