OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: New season of plundering begins

[BusinessGoose]

How do you people actually spend time watching this bullshit?

I just listen while at work

This ship is siiiiinking

 

[Rakell67]

Heading into the season I thought their weakness would be starting pitching, it's not tho Keller could be better. Their hitting is atrocious and Bednar is shitting the bed. Defense also hurting a bit.

 

[metalan2]

Lol, no runs and Cruz's "nevermind the yips, look at how hard he throws!" costs us.

Beyond his offense, people ignoring the throwing demons are delusional. Ticking time bomb.

Not sure what can be done with him. Immense physical specimen, but just sucks at baseball.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

They should probably fire the guy who almost ruined Christian Yelich's career, and the guy(s) who hired him.

 

[sovietsanta87]

https://www.mlb.com/news/pirates-hitting-coach-andy-haines-discusses-offensive-struggles

Love this. Full steam ahead. Just a little hiccup. Lmao

They should probably fire the guy who almost ruined Christian Yelich's career, and the guy(s) who hired him.

Easy now. People are going to think you and I are the same person lmao

 

[ChaosAgent]

They should probably fire the guy who almost ruined Christian Yelich's career, and the guy(s) who hired him.

Absolutely fire Cherington, the specialist in failure who is also the highest up fireable person.

 

[BusinessGoose]

https://www.mlb.com/news/pirates-hitting-coach-andy-haines-discusses-offensive-struggles

Love this. Full steam ahead. Just a little hiccup. Lmao


Easy now. People are going to think you and I are the same person lmao

Lol you would love listening to the dumb shit Shelton says on the radio pregame lol

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

The Bucs are one of the top teams in ab's with runners on and risp as well as near the tops in strikeouts looking.

But there is definitely nothing wrong with the coaching staff, all the players just happen to suck.

 

[Fogel]

I am absolutely perplexed how this team is trying literally nothing to spark the offense.

At least Priester looks encouraging?

Pirates are maybe learning the wrong lessons from the Pens.

Small sample size, but Keller's velocity is a tick below last year and it shows up in his batted ball profile, more balls are being pulled, hit harder and in the air. Not a good combo.

 

[BusinessGoose]

I mean, priester kinda flubbed like an entire inning and a half of outs with bad fielding

I know he's a pitcher but shit like that kills games

They've been playing Sloppy Pirates style baseball again and it's costing them

 

[Pens1566]

Ah, back where we belong ... last place.

 

[sovietsanta87]

They’re at a tipping point. Usually teams wait until a home stand to make any moves. The cynic in me says they call up skenes for publicity but he also deserves to be in the majors regardless.

The hitting approach is systemic. Call up guys, send some guys down. Whatever lol

 

[sovietsanta87]

The pirates needed Cruz to develop into a star and Davis to be power bat with decent average. Whether it was poor development, misidentifying talent or a combination, it doesn’t matter.

 

[ImporterExporter]

The track record of this org. says it's the org f***ing up the players. Not the other way around.

I don't think for one second Cruz and Davis are THIS bad.

It's a rotten business and it all goes back to Bob. With a better owner who was actively trying to win, we're not having any of these discussions. It's that simple.

I'll watch Jared Jones pitch. And Skenes when he comes up. Beyond that, they can get f***ed.

 

[sovietsanta87]

The track record of this org. says it's the org f***ing up the players. Not the other way around.

I don't think for one second Cruz and Davis are THIS bad.

It's a rotten business and it all goes back to Bob. With a better owner who was actively trying to win, we're not having any of these discussions. It's that simple.

I'll watch Jared Jones pitch. And Skenes when he comes up. Beyond that, they can get f***ed.

Yeah pretty much. I mean he hired a hockey guy as team president. And I know it’s been said that his responsibilities run more with day to day operations but the food has gone downhill at Pnc park as well.

I mean Oneil Cruz had elite level foot speed, exit velocity, throwing velocity. And by elite, we’re talking a true physical freak. The 1% of 1%.

Shame on me for thinking that would translate

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Small sample size, but Keller's velocity is a tick below last year and it shows up in his batted ball profile, more balls are being pulled, hit harder and in the air. Not a good combo.

Yeah, it's getting hit very well. It's a pretty worrying sign, because it seems to be the fine line between him being pretty consistently effective and him being mostly up and down on a start by start basis.

Cruz and Davis are massive steps back for young players, but I think from a general perspective, Keller and Hayes' struggles are the most foreboding.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Apparently Grandal is in Pittsburgh, which must mean Davis has finally been sent to AAA.

I kind of wonder if that's the only change we'll see. They aren't going to fire anybody and something has to give. I think it's probably too drastic to suggest Cruz could get optioned, but it might not be the end of the world if he is. Better to get him back into some kind of successful routine than have this continue too much longer.

My actual thought is that maybe we'll see a Triolo for Gonzales swap. We're getting so little offense from basically everywhere that it seems like we should see whether Gonzales can keep it up at the MLB level.

 

[BusinessGoose]

Let's
Go
Bucs!

Get back on tack ya scraggy sailors

 

[Fogel]

Yeah, it's getting hit very well. It's a pretty worrying sign, because it seems to be the fine line between him being pretty consistently effective and him being mostly up and down on a start by start basis.

Cruz and Davis are massive steps back for young players, but I think from a general perspective, Keller and Hayes' struggles are the most foreboding.

Agreed, people forget that Davis has about a season's worth of ABs in the minors and half a season in the majors while Cruz has a little under a season's worth of ABs at the majors. Going up levels is always an adjustment and sometimes it takes some time, particularly after a major injury like Cruz had.

On the other hand, Keller and Hayes are 28 and 27 with about 3 seasons under their belts, it is a little harder for them to break bad habits and change approaches.

 

[WickedWrister]

 

[DJ Spinoza]

My hope is that Cruz will snap out of it and get things going, but I would say that if he's floundering for a few more weeks, then a AAA reset won't be the end of the world. He's looked really good at times, but since spring training the general trend seems to be that the game has sped up a little bit on him.

 

[ImporterExporter]

It's absolutely bizarre to me you have a recent 1st round pick you invested multi millions into already, hitting really well in AAA and a couple of absolute bums trying to play the position now just mucking it up daily at the ML level.

Doesn't seem like there will be any movement in the near future either.

Maybe Gonzo will come up and just revert to being mostly overmatched but my goodness, they're not even playing the guys who are costing them significantly more in $ amount against the bottom line.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Charlie Condon of Georgia is having the hitters version of Skenes' 2023 for LSU.

31st homer tonight, OPS nearly 1.700. Video game numbers against the SEC.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Lol, they may go 3-4 games without scoring. This is getting into record setting range, no?

 

[BusinessGoose]

Lol, they may go 3-4 games without scoring. This is getting into record setting range, no?

Shit, I'm sure we hold a much longer record lol

But we're about to lose with a shot to the river lol... To a team that's supposed to be far worse than us