41 Comments
Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Big respect for your writing, Nola.

My view of what is now clearly a case of organizational arrested development is their discomfort in the reality of "IFs".

No club that plays in our end of the pool doesn't have "Ifs". The Rays succeed not by fielding a stable roster of homegrown talent that settles into 9 positions and 5 rotation slots for some ambiguous period of time. They constantly churn talent and give up on absolutely zero roster slots on their way to squeezing out wins any way possible. Errybody wanna be the Rays, nobody wanna act like the Rays.

The fact that the Pirates have now gone a decade without seriously sniffing at contention is a product of their unwillingness to just *try* putting an actual winning team on the field. A constant look toward the perfect plan five years away robs us of not only winning clubs but the bare minimum of watchable, competitive baseball teams.

The narrative around "inequality" in baseball belies the reality that every single organization can fund a payroll that can build a roster that's within a few percentage points of even the highest spenders. That extra hundred million bucks the big boys spend buys them literally a couple percentage points in fewer "Ifs". Of course this matters, and is a big part of why spending does in fact correlate with winning, but the enormous advantage that these clubs get in reality is due to clubs like the Pirates refusing to even try.

30 clubs actually fucking trying is not only a better product but far more "equal" than one in which a third of the league at any given time decide to stop trying in an effort to craft the perfect club five years away.

Embrace the Ifs, just fucking try.

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"They constantly churn talent and give up on absolutely zero roster slots on their way to squeezing out wins any way possible. Errybody wanna be the Rays, nobody wanna act like the Rays."

Nutting's business model doesn't allow it. He wants a guaranteed low payroll years into the future. If you churn talent, you have to keep acquiring talent. That means sometimes spending money to fill the resulting holes, unless you're legendarily good at what you do, like the Rays. Nutting won't take that risk. And the Pirates can't do it without spending money. They can't operate anywhere close to the Rays' level. The Rays are painting Rembrandts while the Pirates are trying to figure out how many arms to put on a stick figure. Cherington isn't qualified to be a clubhouse attendant in Tampa.

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Jan 15Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

The Cherington-Arnold decision continues to be the most subsequential choice of this generation. That choice determined the direction for the franchise.

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I’m not convinced Arnold would’ve made a difference. In the prior management team Coonelly was blamed for various misdeeds. Now Cherington is apparently calling all the shots. But I’m increasingly wondering if the whole “Nutting is a hands off owner” thing is a sham. A lot of the decisions they’ve made over years across various GM’s look oddly similar. Things like the Matt Morris and Chris Archer trades, the general approach to free agency and spending hasn’t changed a bit since the early 2000’s, and the focus on quantity over quality in trade returns. So other than at the margins, how much has the organizational philosophy really changed from Huntington to Cherington? We can believe that Huntington and Cherington are similar people, or maybe things are similar because that’s the way the owner wants it?

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We're actually not far apart on this...

"So other than at the margins, how much has the organizational philosophy really changed from Huntington to Cherington?"

None at all, which is precisely the point of my comment.

Choosing Arnold would've signaled a philosophical change, not just on of personnel. A different way of doing things as opposed to a different person doing the same things.

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But only if they empowered Arnold to make baseball decisions. I was hopeful we might see a philosophy shift with Cherington, and the fact that we haven’t makes me wonder if the GM isn’t the problem.

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Jan 15Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

It’s looking worse almost hourly.

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

“Everybody wants to be the Rays, nobody wants to act like the Rays.”

Mmm hmm. I’m convinced part of the reason the Pirates can’t/don’t try is related to various PR concerns. They don’t want the PR hit of trading players they are inevitably going to have to trade anyways. They seem to want to have “marketable players” for the fan base, hence the Reynolds extension. They seem to think they can thread this needle whereby they can be a low rent St Louis Cardinals without having to act like the Rays, while having a Rays budget. The ill-advised extension frenzy in the middle part of the last decade is a good example. The Rays would’ve cashed in on Cervelli, for example. We extended him for what I presume was marketing reasons.

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The Rays really DGAFOS, but this could be a function of baseball economics at the Trop. Their attendance is abysmal, and they only draw fans when opposing teams like the Yanks or Sox are in town. Also, their corporate sponsorship revenue is about 1/3 of league average equivalent. They don’t really have allegiances to particular players. I wonder if this changes when they get a new stadium, and their revenue streams change.

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Great points, but I think that’s where the Pirates are off base. Revenue sharing and TV money offers them the exact same opportunity. None of these teams need tickets sales to be profitable. And I’m skeptical that keeping guys like Reynolds around really makes that much of a difference anyways. If the Pirates operated as the Rays did, I’m guessing their ticket sales wouldn’t be all that different because they would be consistently competitive.

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Man does that hit for me.

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author

Biggest difference between the Pirates and the Rays "IF" is the fact the Rays have also shown an ability to be good at something. We've discussed it before, and that something is bringing in arms they specifically like and getting more than just innings out of them. So much that an Uwasawa (who doesn't seem anything special) signed a MiLB deal just to go there. There's also the fact they've shown an ability to find gems by trading fringe players/prospects as 40-man casualties for a flier that hits (see Mead and Caminero trades).

The Pirates still don't have a niche. Which illuminates their "IF" more, cause we still don't have an idea of what could even potentially follow through.

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Jan 15Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Caminero was a nobody when the Rays traded very little to get him. He is now the #6 prospect in baseball. Is this done by having a good scouting team (that scouts minor league players from other teams)?

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author

I'd assume so. They did the same thing with Mead and Phillies. He was a nobody flier. Both Mead and Caminero were 40-man roster crunch trades.

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The Mead trade was a little more fair. That was for Cristopher Sanchez who had a 3.44 ERA last year in his 18 starts with the Phillies.

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Unrelated, but if anyone missed, FG put up their international top 50 and has the bucs projected for a SS at #22 and a RF at #43

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Jan 15Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

The OF, Brazoban, seems to divide opinions a lot. He has the potential to be a power/speed guy, but some scouts question the hit tool. And he just turned 18, so he's old for a top LAm signee.

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Think he turned 17 on September 1st.

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BA and FG have his birthdate as 1/14/06. A difference in opinion here.

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Dang that's a big difference than what mlb pipeline has.

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Yeah, that’s a real big WTF.

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Respectively, these guys are also ranked at 50 and 38 at pipeline

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Well said, BnP. The "IFs" loom large and can give every reason for optimism and also every reason for concern going into this year. The offense feels like it has some of the best combination of floor and ceiling that it has since those wild card year imo. The pitching... I dunno, if they hit on a bunch of these young guys then it could be unbelievably exciting or it could be extremely painful 3 or 4 starts out of 5

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author

It's a huge variance, to me. They could win 90, or they could lose 90. Win 82, lose 82.

And even looking forward, they could have a glut of pitching assets to trade next off-season, or even this trade deadline, cause kids have begun to pan out this season. Or we could be stuck in the perpetual, "Will they ever actually develop an arm?"

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Does feel like a make or break season to me, time see if we are gonna reap what we have sowed

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author

Which is also why I don't think Ben is on the hot seat, but I also think he could be depending how this season goes. Which if so, may lead to some wheeling and dealing NEXT off-season. Everything about the organization as it stands is just a big ol cloud of "Who TF knows?"

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

The Pirates plan seems to be to draw to an inside straight. All the IFs need to come together perfectly.

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That’s about a 12% chance, so you are saying that they have a chance!

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Problem is they need an inside straight flush draw to win the division.

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Maybe that for the last wildcard. Definitely not the World Series.

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

I think a lot of the “what if’s” from the prior regime were a failure to see where the game was headed. At the beginning of 2016, they were on top of the world with some star players signed to affordable contracts, they were a pioneer in shifts, a newer analytics department that seemed to be on top of everything and yet they missed the next trends. They went with pitch to contact and stuck with an empty OBP approach when the environment was becoming more home run and strikeout heavy. They undervalued player development. The early results from the new regime aren’t particularly encouraging to me that they are in front of the latest trends.

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author

And a lot of it too was 2016 was the "bridge" year. A lot of emphasis was placed on "the prospects will be ready mid-year 2016". What they didn't plan for was their stars slipping and prospects unlikely to hit the ground running upon promotion. It was a perfect storm really, for a lot of unforeseen situations

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

This is spot on. There were bad assumptions (hopes?) about who might help in 2016 but when people complain about the bad signings (Vogelsong) or trade that went bad (Niese - I also thought it was a decent trade) the biggest culprit was exactly what you highlighted (and I might have added Cervelli). While you can expect varied production year to year, many of the star players just fell off and it was not necessarily predictable as they were not 'old' yet. It would have taken quite a backup plan to cover those performance drops so the other misfires just exasperated the situation. That was the beginning of the end.

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The trades/signings are frustrating because it highlighted what I view as their ruthlessly utilitarian yet unimaginative approach to running a team. Something I still see today. Trying to trade your best players for established major leaguers isn’t the best philosophy for a variety of reasons, and Vogelsong (and other signings) are the type of low rent/high floor moves that aren’t going to work out except at the margins of the roster.

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Add those 11 lost wins from your stars in 2016 and that's a WC team. Was that also the Kang injury/legal issues and Marte PED stuff? Lol what a cursed franchise. Taillion cancer and TJ just 1 thing after another

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Jan 14Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

IMO, 2017 is the reason the Huntington Front Office deserves absolutely zero leeway for 2016 player performance.

In no reality we're currently experiencing could one expect 2015 performances to continue forever; this just isn't how baseball works.

The 2017 club saw a 4 WAR Cutch, pair of 3 WAR starting pitchers in Cole and Taillon, and the best reliever in baseball...all to win 75 fucking games.

The Front Office quit, simple as that.

They coasted on their view of a perfect plan, much like we've continued experiencing for nearly the next decade, instead of pivoting towards building a club around the talent they very much had.

Part of this was of course a few high-profile prospect disappointments, sure, but it was just as much about giving up on doing anything with up to a third of the roster at a time. This failure was repeated in 2019, where they once again did absolutely nothing to build on an 82-win 2018 club club en route to the 2019 disaster that put on on this path of forever-rebuilds.

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If I reckon, this is when they hit their self-imposed payroll ceiling. Probably not a better time in the last ten years to have stretched it a bit, while they churned the roster.

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It all turned when they dealt away Melancon for the child molester when they were 2 games back in the WC race.

Franchise hasn’t recovered since.

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author

There was a lot of blame to go around. Anything that could've went wrong, went wrong lol

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Tick-tock...

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The countdown to Profit Lock-In Day continues, as Bob waits anxiously to see whether they can get through the offseason without spending anything. So far, so good!

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