More realistically, Carson Benge, Ryan Clifford and Ronny Mauricio would be a pretty good return although Mauricio and Cruz on the same field at the same time playing for the same team would be peak frustration at times.
That’s really interesting because it’s plausible that both could be there at #6 depending on how many of the college lefties go. I think the Nats will take either Anderson or Holliday. Given the pressure on Mike Rizzo as their rebuild sputters, there’s no way he takes a 17-year-old with the first pick.
On trades, I was full on the side that if they do I will hope that it is for MLB ready talent. The only team that might offer that is Boston and the Mets. The Cubs outfielder of Cassie and Alcantara are close to or nearly close to, but trading with Cubs might hurt a little more. The only team that realistically could send young prospects that I wouldn’t mind are the Dodgers. Wouldn’t mind Hope or De Paula even if they are two years away
So I’m intrigued by the rumor that Dombrowski would be willing to trade Justin Crawford. Crawford, the son of former major leaguer Carl Crawford, is 21 years old in AAA and slashing .342/.416/.452. He controls the strike zone reasonably well, is 26 for 34 in steal attempts, and is considered an excellent defensive outfielder. The downside is that he hasn’t shown much power in his career yet —- only two HRs this year. But he is big-league ready now.
My suggestion is Reynolds and Santana for Crawford and a 20-year-old third baseman named Aroon Escobar. The latter is in A ball, but has good power and controls the strike zone. He has 10 HRs in the FSL for Clearwater. Escobar snuck onto the latest MLB pipeline top 100 at 97, while Crawford is 49.
My thinking is that Reynolds is entering his decline phase and Santana, while he has been outstanding, is the definition of high variability as a middle reliever/set up man with low strikeout totals. But it should be an appealing package for the Phillies as neither is a rental.
Crawford would come right up to the majors and replace Reynolds, while the Pirates have numerous options to slot into the Santana role.
I would and include Hayes who has a negative trade value for the difference. The question is would the GM reinvest that money on a good free agent and the answer is a resounding NO.
Mitch Keller is going to be very much in demand - answers the bell every 5th day, pitches very well, and has a very affordable contract with around $6 mil remaining this year and $54.5 mil for the 2026, 2027, and 2028 seasons. Two teams in great need of a dependable SP are the two teams with the most exposure, the Yankees in the AL, and the Dodgers in the NL. If we have to make the trade, and either of these teams is the destination, I am glad he will go to a team with a "NOW" future - he has paid his dues!
The Cubs would be an even better destination for him as they're close to his home in Iowa. Or even the Brewers, Twins, or Cardinals. But I'd hate to see him go to a division rival when he still has three years of control left and the Twins don't strike me as a team that easily parts with good players.
I get your point on trading within the division but we must trade him to the club with the best offer. As is mentioned here frequently can BC pull his head out of his ass and make a deal that will help this offense?
Crazy Bubba idea. Have him pitch a simulated inning or two before the game starts. It seems so many times, it takes him a while to find the strike zone. The downside is he pitches one or two innings less in the game.
Seriously though, I was talking about having him figure it out in the minors. It is easy to say Bubba has a control problem, but it looks more like he has a control problem early in the game then figures it out as the game goes on. I don't know if that is because of his adrenaline or just mechanics
As a basketball coach/cross country coach, the adrenaline has such a huge factor in performance. One of the main reasons for running drills, sprints or just running a 400 before the event was to get the athletes so they would be more physically and mentally prepared. If I didn't do that in basketball, I figured there would be a better chance of some of these guys sucking air and throwing up bricks. In cross country, they would usually start out too fast if I didn't do that. In Bubba's case, I'm just looking for ideas they can try in the minors so he can be game ready for the first inning. Once he is, the opposition is extremely overmatched in triple A.
I think his problems start when someone gets on base. Not sure if he tries to make the perfect pitch, gets behind then has to get pitches over, catching to much of the middle of the zone. I noticed it some last year early in the season. I could be wrong just seems that the walks and hits come in groups. Then a clean inning or 2.
-So most likely either a) He needs work pitching out of the stretch or b) He just gets distracted with guys on.
- Then my next "ouside the box" idea to get him to improve is. Always intentionally walk the first one or two hitters every inning. That way he gets practice in the area he needs........ just kidding on that one. :)
Re the thing about Cherington being hard to deal with and overvaluing his players: the same complaint used to be made about Huntington. These comments from opposing teams have always struck me as self-serving. They want the Pirates to function as a bargain basement farm system for the rest of the league.
In Cherington’s case I’m not sure how you overvalue your players and manage to make terrible trades with the Pirates always on the downside of the value. If Cherington is overvaluing his players, he’s doing a really bad job of it.
As to the specifics, the main concrete item is that the Phillies are interested in Santana and Bednar in that order. Since there is clear need and Dombroski is not exactly shy about trading assets, this should be an easy one to pull off in theory.
Edit: The Phillies are not a great match as their only excellent outfield prospect is Justin Crawford, who won’t be traded for Santana. There is a rumor that Crawford might be part of a deal for Luis Roberts. Their other outfield prospects are either too far away or not performing.
Would the combo of Gabriel Rincones (#11, LHH OFer) and Wen-Hui Pan (A#20, RHRP) do it? Pan is at AA now with a power arsenal and closer potential. Rincones is at AAA but struggling a bit. I might ask for Carson DeMartini in his place as a nearer SS/3B prospect.
I wouldn't, Rincones looks more like a 4 or 5 outfielder. Pan and a lottery ticket maybe for Ferguson.
Backend bullpen pieces have historically brought back a surplus in trade value at the deadline. I wouldn't do their 2 for 1 of Santana or Bednar, I'd aim much higher or hold onto them.
"Re the thing about Cherington being hard to deal with and overvaluing his players: the same complaint used to be made about Huntington."
I will translate. Cherington is an idiot whom we can exploit, and he has a lot of trade pieces, so we need to convince him that good players like Heaney, Ferguson, IKF, Keller, Bednar, and Santana are worthless.
Reynolds has an interesting list of teams in his no-trade clause:
"Those six teams, per sources, are the Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Giants and Padres."
Was going to say that he doesn't like major cities, but then why not exclude the Cubs, Angels, or Astros? Or maybe it's distance from Tennessee, but why not exclude the Mariners, A's, Angels (again), and/or Dbacks? Maybe he just likes keeping October free ;)
California has a 12.3% personal income tax at the highest range. That would include the Angels, but he probably figured there was little likelihood of being traded to them.
When you make $15 million per year, a 12.3% is a lot of cabbage. I don't blame Reynolds at all for not wanting $1-$2 million of his money paying for bullet trains to nowhere, big digs, and so forth.
WRT being hard to deal with, the first part seems most interesting (I added the _):
"Multiple sources have expressed that Cherington has long been known as a tough general manager to do business with, due to his continued habits of _over-analyzing potential return_ and, at times, over-valuing his own assets."
Over-analyzing things seems part of his personality, which isn't a bad characteristic in general but would make a GM hard to deal with because teams need to be able to move on quickly at the deadline if a deal isn't going to come together.
-I remember a few years ago when teams were after Bryan Reynolds. He had no need to trade Reynolds. The rumor I got was that he was turning down fair offers because he was only going to trade Reynolds if he got blown away.
-As far as his players that were about to be free agents such as Tyler Anderson, Vogelbach, Quintana and Carlos Santana, I think his trades were fine.
-To me, the Pirates have signed way way too many players to one year contracts (and given way too many at bats to these guys) to find out they have little or no value at the deadline.
Nunez, Oviedo, Tejada, and Severino still with the Pirates. I think the only one not still with the Pirates is Bins. For those 4 getting Oviedo and Holderman in itself is a decent return IMO given they were all rentals. This is not a BC confidence post.. just saying those 4 rental trades have not been terrible.
The whole bit rings true. The over-analyzing part fits with the extreme lack of urgency throughout his failed tenure. The idiotic delay in ditching Shelton, which apparently only happened because Nuttin stepped in, is just one recent example.
The over-valuing part fits, too. This is a guy who keeps losing yet keeps insisting the team is actually good, it’s all just bad luck. There’s a reason that, since the early, poor-return salary dumps, the closest thing to a “significant” trade he’s managed is Horrorwrist. He just can’t manage it.
The over-analysis part also reminded me of reports (I forget if it was Mackey or Kovacevic, or both) that Cherington didn't settle on Skenes until the afternoon of the draft. Unless you're trying to negotiate an under-slot deal with someone like Davis at 1-1, I've never understood why after months of evaluation you couldn't finalize your decision until hours before the draft. But maybe they were waiting to see if one of the other top 5 would give a big discount to go 1-1. Or it could have been posturing in hopes of signing Skenes for slightly less.
Ben would benefit from having a team president with experience in baseball, someone to prod him along a bit and perhaps challenge his evaluation of assets. We might expect that to come from his many assistants but if he's prone to over-analysis, it must be hard to just take assistants' recommendations.
Speaking of owners, I hadn't realized until listening to Effectively Wild earlier this week that the Rockies owner and CEO, Dick Monfort, had hired one son to be director of professional scouting and just promoted another son to be executive VP of the front office. The Monfort sons have spent years in and around baseball, so it's not necessarily worse than hiring a hockey guy to oversee the front office, but still wouldn't give me much hope if I was a Rockies fan.
What drives me nuts is that we already have a ridiculously low payroll and part of the discussion is about removing one of the few players who makes a decent amount of money to “make room on the payroll.”! What the heck? I’m fine trading Keller for a baseball move, but c’mon! Nutting is a joke if these conversations are actually happening.
-I think many of us accepted the rebuild with the expectations it was done like the last one. We had a low payroll, but when the window hit, we spent the money. Where is our Russell Martin? Where is our AJ Burnett, Liriano, Nova, Cerveli? Who are the young guys we are locking up like we did with Marte and Cutch?
Pham,Frazier, and Heaney are those guys, for better or worse.
As for extending our young players, this is the one place Nutting has invested in the roster, and taken on some risk. Hayes, Keller, and Reynolds were all extended past their first year of possible FA.
Unfortunately Skenes is just too damn good for any small/mid market team. He’s going to bet on himself and look for a contract only a big market team could afford when he’s eligible for FA.
I agree 100% on Hayes. That is the perfect example since it was done before he was proven to be successful. Keller and Reynolds were done a few years into their careers which costed a little more.
Hat's off to the GBO SP's for the Perfect Game. Khristian Curtis, a 12th Rounder, led the way. He started off rough in April with two Starts and an 11.48 ERA. Since then he has been 2.61 ERA in 20.2 IP in May, 3.80 ERA in 21.1 IP in June. In his last 2 starts - 11 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB/16 K.
Loved to see that 105.8 Exit Velo for Edward Florentino at BRD. This is an 18 year old, 6'4" 200 LH Hitting OF just promoted to A recently and has a slash of 293/362/512/874 OPS. Another plus so far is the 0.38 GO/AO! Lots of excellent prospects starting to make a name for themselves in the Pirate System!
Few teams in MLB can match the Pirates in young SP's, but the Mariners are one of those teams. We needed to see that comeback by Bubba. I think he had 46 pitches in the first two innings and finished with 91 total for 6 IP.
Griffin seems pretty special. That avoided tag on the stolen base was pretty awesome: http://www.mlb.com/stories?s=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mlb.com%2Fstories%2Fkonnor-griffin-804606%3Fap%3D1%26storylocal%3Darticle-embed
Guess who BTV has as the best match for value with Mitch Keller on the Mets? Francisco Lindor. Go grab that $30M contract, Bob.
More realistically, Carson Benge, Ryan Clifford and Ronny Mauricio would be a pretty good return although Mauricio and Cruz on the same field at the same time playing for the same team would be peak frustration at times.
Benge, Mauricio, Santucci, and Serrano maybe add Reimer for Keller and Ferguson.
Mauricio can take over for Hayes when he's traded alongside $15M to the Yankees for Spencer Jones
https://www.mlb.com/news/pipeline-inbox-ranking-top-draft-prospects-on-the-top-100
even moer reason to go over slot in the first round
BP has their top 50 draft board out. Willits at 1, Parker at 2. Players who line up at the Buccos picks are Kade Anderson at 6 and Matt Barr at 50.
That’s really interesting because it’s plausible that both could be there at #6 depending on how many of the college lefties go. I think the Nats will take either Anderson or Holliday. Given the pressure on Mike Rizzo as their rebuild sputters, there’s no way he takes a 17-year-old with the first pick.
If you’re around 5 or 6 in this draft, your board must look like a Rube Goldberg contraption.
What is the percent chance Holliday makes it to #6. 5%?
Less. Rockies or Cardinals 100% grab him up if he gets past 1.1
Dunno. I've seen a couple mocks with him much lower.
On trades, I was full on the side that if they do I will hope that it is for MLB ready talent. The only team that might offer that is Boston and the Mets. The Cubs outfielder of Cassie and Alcantara are close to or nearly close to, but trading with Cubs might hurt a little more. The only team that realistically could send young prospects that I wouldn’t mind are the Dodgers. Wouldn’t mind Hope or De Paula even if they are two years away
Tigers have a few outside their top 2 I like, Briceno and Rainer (compA pick also) but they'd be tough to get.
So I’m intrigued by the rumor that Dombrowski would be willing to trade Justin Crawford. Crawford, the son of former major leaguer Carl Crawford, is 21 years old in AAA and slashing .342/.416/.452. He controls the strike zone reasonably well, is 26 for 34 in steal attempts, and is considered an excellent defensive outfielder. The downside is that he hasn’t shown much power in his career yet —- only two HRs this year. But he is big-league ready now.
My suggestion is Reynolds and Santana for Crawford and a 20-year-old third baseman named Aroon Escobar. The latter is in A ball, but has good power and controls the strike zone. He has 10 HRs in the FSL for Clearwater. Escobar snuck onto the latest MLB pipeline top 100 at 97, while Crawford is 49.
My thinking is that Reynolds is entering his decline phase and Santana, while he has been outstanding, is the definition of high variability as a middle reliever/set up man with low strikeout totals. But it should be an appealing package for the Phillies as neither is a rental.
Crawford would come right up to the majors and replace Reynolds, while the Pirates have numerous options to slot into the Santana role.
Maybe
Schmidt needs TJ surgery. Would you trade Keller for Dominguez?
I would and include Hayes who has a negative trade value for the difference. The question is would the GM reinvest that money on a good free agent and the answer is a resounding NO.
Nope, it would take more. Not a lot more but an interesting piece or 2.
The Yankees are struggling on the bump. They are desperate for SP help right now, and Keller is a Top 20 Starting Pitcher.
Mitch Keller is going to be very much in demand - answers the bell every 5th day, pitches very well, and has a very affordable contract with around $6 mil remaining this year and $54.5 mil for the 2026, 2027, and 2028 seasons. Two teams in great need of a dependable SP are the two teams with the most exposure, the Yankees in the AL, and the Dodgers in the NL. If we have to make the trade, and either of these teams is the destination, I am glad he will go to a team with a "NOW" future - he has paid his dues!
The Cubs would be an even better destination for him as they're close to his home in Iowa. Or even the Brewers, Twins, or Cardinals. But I'd hate to see him go to a division rival when he still has three years of control left and the Twins don't strike me as a team that easily parts with good players.
unless it is Ian Happ, all the Cubs have to offer is hot garbage along the likes of Canario
Forget Happ he definitely won't be traded.
I’ve come to that conclusion as well
I get your point on trading within the division but we must trade him to the club with the best offer. As is mentioned here frequently can BC pull his head out of his ass and make a deal that will help this offense?
Plus you have to get other teams involved to get the best offer. You don't want to exclude any team from the negotiations process, imo.
Exactly! We're open for business and give us your best offer.
Crazy Bubba idea. Have him pitch a simulated inning or two before the game starts. It seems so many times, it takes him a while to find the strike zone. The downside is he pitches one or two innings less in the game.
How about have him continue to work through it while he’s in AAA? Isn’t the minor leagues designed for young players to develop their skills?
Plus, there’s no way a simulated game gets the juices flowing like a real game.
Thanks for shooting my idea to hell Scott. :)
Seriously though, I was talking about having him figure it out in the minors. It is easy to say Bubba has a control problem, but it looks more like he has a control problem early in the game then figures it out as the game goes on. I don't know if that is because of his adrenaline or just mechanics
As a basketball coach/cross country coach, the adrenaline has such a huge factor in performance. One of the main reasons for running drills, sprints or just running a 400 before the event was to get the athletes so they would be more physically and mentally prepared. If I didn't do that in basketball, I figured there would be a better chance of some of these guys sucking air and throwing up bricks. In cross country, they would usually start out too fast if I didn't do that. In Bubba's case, I'm just looking for ideas they can try in the minors so he can be game ready for the first inning. Once he is, the opposition is extremely overmatched in triple A.
Now I get what you’re saying. I understand your thinking, but I still don’t think that’s a tactic they’ll consider.
I’m sure they have performance coaches to help them be their best during high stress.
I’m hopeful this is just a temporary blip on the way to a great career.
I think his problems start when someone gets on base. Not sure if he tries to make the perfect pitch, gets behind then has to get pitches over, catching to much of the middle of the zone. I noticed it some last year early in the season. I could be wrong just seems that the walks and hits come in groups. Then a clean inning or 2.
-So most likely either a) He needs work pitching out of the stretch or b) He just gets distracted with guys on.
- Then my next "ouside the box" idea to get him to improve is. Always intentionally walk the first one or two hitters every inning. That way he gets practice in the area he needs........ just kidding on that one. :)
So crazy it just might work lol
Top 40 Trade Candidates For The 2025 Deadline…..From MLB trade rumors. 4 of the top 9 are Pirates. Could get real interesting
P-G re trade rumors, including not for attribution comments from other teams:
https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2025/07/05/mlb-trade-deadline-rumors-pirates-mitch-keller-kebryan-hayes-bryan-reynolds/stories/202507050008
Re the thing about Cherington being hard to deal with and overvaluing his players: the same complaint used to be made about Huntington. These comments from opposing teams have always struck me as self-serving. They want the Pirates to function as a bargain basement farm system for the rest of the league.
In Cherington’s case I’m not sure how you overvalue your players and manage to make terrible trades with the Pirates always on the downside of the value. If Cherington is overvaluing his players, he’s doing a really bad job of it.
As to the specifics, the main concrete item is that the Phillies are interested in Santana and Bednar in that order. Since there is clear need and Dombroski is not exactly shy about trading assets, this should be an easy one to pull off in theory.
Edit: The Phillies are not a great match as their only excellent outfield prospect is Justin Crawford, who won’t be traded for Santana. There is a rumor that Crawford might be part of a deal for Luis Roberts. Their other outfield prospects are either too far away or not performing.
Pirates GM refuses to give his valuable players away to the Yankees and Dodgers for a case of beer and a reliever: “Pirates GM overvalues players.”
Totally agree. It’s baked into the system at this point. Large market GM’s think they are entitled to small market assets for .5 on the dollar.
Would the combo of Gabriel Rincones (#11, LHH OFer) and Wen-Hui Pan (A#20, RHRP) do it? Pan is at AA now with a power arsenal and closer potential. Rincones is at AAA but struggling a bit. I might ask for Carson DeMartini in his place as a nearer SS/3B prospect.
I wouldn't, Rincones looks more like a 4 or 5 outfielder. Pan and a lottery ticket maybe for Ferguson.
Backend bullpen pieces have historically brought back a surplus in trade value at the deadline. I wouldn't do their 2 for 1 of Santana or Bednar, I'd aim much higher or hold onto them.
"Re the thing about Cherington being hard to deal with and overvaluing his players: the same complaint used to be made about Huntington."
I will translate. Cherington is an idiot whom we can exploit, and he has a lot of trade pieces, so we need to convince him that good players like Heaney, Ferguson, IKF, Keller, Bednar, and Santana are worthless.
Reynolds has an interesting list of teams in his no-trade clause:
"Those six teams, per sources, are the Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Giants and Padres."
Was going to say that he doesn't like major cities, but then why not exclude the Cubs, Angels, or Astros? Or maybe it's distance from Tennessee, but why not exclude the Mariners, A's, Angels (again), and/or Dbacks? Maybe he just likes keeping October free ;)
Taxes. If he had an 9-team list, it would probably include the Cubs, White Sox, and Red Sox. That covers all the high local tax teams.
Doesn’t make sense as SD has low taxes. Much lower than places like Philly, Baltimore, Milwaukee or Detroit.
California has a 12.3% personal income tax at the highest range. That would include the Angels, but he probably figured there was little likelihood of being traded to them.
When you make $15 million per year, a 12.3% is a lot of cabbage. I don't blame Reynolds at all for not wanting $1-$2 million of his money paying for bullet trains to nowhere, big digs, and so forth.
That’s income tax. I thought we were talking local. Oh well
Lol... yeah, I forgot about those taxes too in the U.S. . Haven't lived there in a long time.
I meant in the broader sense of "local" meaning anything that is not national.
LA, NY & especially SF are much different than Brentwood TN. He’s human and wants to live in a place where he feels comfortable.
Had the same reaction. Being a part of a contender is clearly not a priority. Seems to like the small media market no pressure lifestyle!
WRT being hard to deal with, the first part seems most interesting (I added the _):
"Multiple sources have expressed that Cherington has long been known as a tough general manager to do business with, due to his continued habits of _over-analyzing potential return_ and, at times, over-valuing his own assets."
Over-analyzing things seems part of his personality, which isn't a bad characteristic in general but would make a GM hard to deal with because teams need to be able to move on quickly at the deadline if a deal isn't going to come together.
-I remember a few years ago when teams were after Bryan Reynolds. He had no need to trade Reynolds. The rumor I got was that he was turning down fair offers because he was only going to trade Reynolds if he got blown away.
-As far as his players that were about to be free agents such as Tyler Anderson, Vogelbach, Quintana and Carlos Santana, I think his trades were fine.
-To me, the Pirates have signed way way too many players to one year contracts (and given way too many at bats to these guys) to find out they have little or no value at the deadline.
Holderman is only player I believe we have that are still with us from those 4
Nunez, Oviedo, Tejada, and Severino still with the Pirates. I think the only one not still with the Pirates is Bins. For those 4 getting Oviedo and Holderman in itself is a decent return IMO given they were all rentals. This is not a BC confidence post.. just saying those 4 rental trades have not been terrible.
The whole bit rings true. The over-analyzing part fits with the extreme lack of urgency throughout his failed tenure. The idiotic delay in ditching Shelton, which apparently only happened because Nuttin stepped in, is just one recent example.
The over-valuing part fits, too. This is a guy who keeps losing yet keeps insisting the team is actually good, it’s all just bad luck. There’s a reason that, since the early, poor-return salary dumps, the closest thing to a “significant” trade he’s managed is Horrorwrist. He just can’t manage it.
The over-analysis part also reminded me of reports (I forget if it was Mackey or Kovacevic, or both) that Cherington didn't settle on Skenes until the afternoon of the draft. Unless you're trying to negotiate an under-slot deal with someone like Davis at 1-1, I've never understood why after months of evaluation you couldn't finalize your decision until hours before the draft. But maybe they were waiting to see if one of the other top 5 would give a big discount to go 1-1. Or it could have been posturing in hopes of signing Skenes for slightly less.
In any case, at least he got the pick right.
Maybe he’s just a procrastinator and needs the pressure of a deadline to make decisions? I might relate to that.
I was going to say the same thing, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet.
Ben would benefit from having a team president with experience in baseball, someone to prod him along a bit and perhaps challenge his evaluation of assets. We might expect that to come from his many assistants but if he's prone to over-analysis, it must be hard to just take assistants' recommendations.
Makes sense. No idea what his management style is, beyond guessing, but some guys don’t like being challenged by their underlings either.
Yes, exactly. He desperately needs some accountability and Nuttin just isn’t paying attention. Travis the Who is a waste of space.
The next CBA also has to have something in it for holding owners accountable.
Speaking of owners, I hadn't realized until listening to Effectively Wild earlier this week that the Rockies owner and CEO, Dick Monfort, had hired one son to be director of professional scouting and just promoted another son to be executive VP of the front office. The Monfort sons have spent years in and around baseball, so it's not necessarily worse than hiring a hockey guy to oversee the front office, but still wouldn't give me much hope if I was a Rockies fan.
Let the fans vote them off the island.
What drives me nuts is that we already have a ridiculously low payroll and part of the discussion is about removing one of the few players who makes a decent amount of money to “make room on the payroll.”! What the heck? I’m fine trading Keller for a baseball move, but c’mon! Nutting is a joke if these conversations are actually happening.
-I think many of us accepted the rebuild with the expectations it was done like the last one. We had a low payroll, but when the window hit, we spent the money. Where is our Russell Martin? Where is our AJ Burnett, Liriano, Nova, Cerveli? Who are the young guys we are locking up like we did with Marte and Cutch?
Pham,Frazier, and Heaney are those guys, for better or worse.
As for extending our young players, this is the one place Nutting has invested in the roster, and taken on some risk. Hayes, Keller, and Reynolds were all extended past their first year of possible FA.
Unfortunately Skenes is just too damn good for any small/mid market team. He’s going to bet on himself and look for a contract only a big market team could afford when he’s eligible for FA.
From an inflationary standpoint, those guys just aren’t comparable. Martin got 2/$17 MM. Liriano got 2/$14.
I agree 100% on Hayes. That is the perfect example since it was done before he was proven to be successful. Keller and Reynolds were done a few years into their careers which costed a little more.
Hat's off to the GBO SP's for the Perfect Game. Khristian Curtis, a 12th Rounder, led the way. He started off rough in April with two Starts and an 11.48 ERA. Since then he has been 2.61 ERA in 20.2 IP in May, 3.80 ERA in 21.1 IP in June. In his last 2 starts - 11 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB/16 K.
Loved to see that 105.8 Exit Velo for Edward Florentino at BRD. This is an 18 year old, 6'4" 200 LH Hitting OF just promoted to A recently and has a slash of 293/362/512/874 OPS. Another plus so far is the 0.38 GO/AO! Lots of excellent prospects starting to make a name for themselves in the Pirate System!
Left the bats at home. Good to see Bubba get it back!
I'm thinking he'll be up after the Keller trade.
Few teams in MLB can match the Pirates in young SP's, but the Mariners are one of those teams. We needed to see that comeback by Bubba. I think he had 46 pitches in the first two innings and finished with 91 total for 6 IP.