OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Good Vibes Only

[MrBrightside]

They've scored 2 runs or less in 14 of 21 games in May. Hayes and Moran will help the offense somewhat, but best case scenario is that the offense is merely below average instead of total trash. Even fully healthy they have major holes at SS, CF, and RF and while Frazier/Reynolds/Stallings are good major league players, they aren't really impact players - Hayes is the only potential impact bat who will see time this year.

The bullpen is fine. Probably a little better than fine - it's good. But with Anderson coming back to earth and Brubaker not being Greg Maddux, the rotation is pretty scary. If it was me I'd dump Cahill and roll with Yajure and Crowe and see what you have, but the results aren't going to be good no matter who they roll out there.

They are on pace to be outscored by 275 runs. The 2010 team that lost 105 games was outscored by 279 runs...so yeah. I dunno. Really hard for me to see this team not lose 100.

 

[ImporterExporter]

I've tried to tell you guys things.

I still think we end up with the worst record. Certainly a top 5 pick will be coming again in 2022. I wavered a bit early on as we did well enough in the division and were floating close to .500 there but you can really see the major issues with this roster (SP is horrible and that will impact the bullpen as the innings tick way up, and lacking of hitting depth). Plus you have to account for some vets getting moved out over the next 2 months and that probably doesn't help the win/loss totals moving forward.

At least Hayes has been playing the last few games in Indy so he should be back the first week of June, providing no setbacks (knock on wood).

 

[cookthebooks]

wait a second are you taking credit for telling us that this is a bad baseball team?

 

[ImporterExporter]

wait a second are you taking credit for telling us that this is a bad baseball team?

As I said a while back. The amount of sheer absurdity that I've read in this sub forum the past few years, most of which, not surprisingly didn't come to pass, means I just have to yawn at your snarky comment. My track record speaks for itself and I have the posts in the back pocket to prove it.

You don't like me calling out people for continually getting shit wrong around here? Leave.

Or just hit the report button. I'm sure a 19 year old mod will find some half assed, bullshit reason to infract me. Par for the course around the gestapo.

 

[cookthebooks]

As I said a while back. The amount of sheer absurdity that I've read in this sub forum the past few years, most of which, not surprisingly didn't come to pass, means I just have to yawn at your snarky comment. My track record speaks for itself and I have the posts in the back pocket to prove it.

You don't like me calling out people for continually getting shit wrong around here? Leave.

Or just hit the report button. I'm sure a 19 year old mod will find some half assed, bullshit reason to infract me. Par for the course around the gestapo.

good vibes only man here is your thread participation trophy and thank you for keeping score

 

[since70]

Is there a big bat in this draft? I honestly would rather them draft a guy I can watch every day than a pitcher that goes an average of 5 innings every five days, even if he's Feller, Gibson, and Clemens wrapped up in one guy. The reality of this organization is regardless of who they draft this team is a major league apprentice program, so selfishly I'd rather watch an everyday impact guy for the brief time they're here. I wish it was different obviously, but unless there's a perfect storm of guys hitting the ground running we're always in rebuild mode.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

The problem I have with pythagorean W-L is that outsized blowouts can play a huge role in swaying the results, and we've been blown out a number of times (i.e., should the 10 runs or whatever that Difo gave up be factored in?, etc). I do not want to suggest that we aren't a bad team or that there's no chance 100 losses will happen, but we've only really just "gotten back" to a 100-loss pace and we did it because we took a nosedive. We now have relatively weak competition at home and then Hayes and Moran will be back.

I think it's well within the bounds of possibility that we'll have a decent 10-game stretch. It's going to continue to be a roller coaster year and I just don't see ironclad 100-loss performance. It's a long season -- I'm just not going to rush into a definitive judgment about that after a series in which our pitchers threw home run derby practice to a white hot team.

The firmest path to that many losses will be through the pitching staff, and barring injury, I think ours will trend ok later in the year, with Keller finding consistency and Yajure no longer having his service time manipulated. 70 wins is not really the mark of a good team, more the mark of a bad team that isn't in the worst circumstance (that's the Rockies, especially if you think the Giants are for real).

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Is there a big bat in this draft? I honestly would rather them draft a guy I can watch every day than a pitcher that goes an average of 5 innings every five days, even if he's Feller, Gibson, and Clemens wrapped up in one guy. The reality of this organization is regardless of who they draft this team is a major league apprentice program, so selfishly I'd rather watch an everyday impact guy for the brief time they're here. I wish it was different obviously, but unless there's a perfect storm of guys hitting the ground running we're always in rebuild mode.

Not really – the best bats are high school kids and there's not necessarily a standout, elite talent. There are a couple of very good college bats, one being a catcher and the other being an undersized CF. The former (Henry Davis at Louisville) is being lumped into the top tier of the draft and some people think he's a possibility for the Pirates -- big power, good plate discipline, while the latter (Sal Frelick at Boston College) is not really considered in the top group because his power is mostly projection to be average/above average).

I think the recent trend among analysts is to mock the projectable high school SSs at the very top. BA's newest mock has 1-2-3 Lawlar-Mayer-House. I think it's just recency bias because the college pitchers had a few hiccups and have been around for what seems like forever at the top of the board. In general this year is very hard to scout because of the lost offseason and particularly the lack of a Cape Cod season last year. I think the stuff with the pitchers can mostly be explained by this interruption, and the batters aren't getting a boost from looking good with a wood bat, etc.

I really think taking a catcher is a giant risk, but if you aren't fully sold on the pitchers, then he's probably a "safe" bat to fall back on. A really interesting combination that I haven't seen anyone talk about would be Davis 1.1 and then Florida OF Jud Fabian, who was once talked about in the top group, in the comp round. Fabian's got standout tools, didn't get to showcase in the Cape Cod league last year, but came out of the gate King at a huge rate, which might have teams stay away. He's picked it back up recently and now some think he'll sneak into the backend of the first round, but the risk might be enough to push him to a team's second pick, in which case he'd be a guy I am eyeballing for us, regardless of our first pick.

 

[MrBrightside]

The problem I have with pythagorean W-L is that outsized blowouts can play a huge role in swaying the results, and we've been blown out a number of times (i.e., should the 10 runs or whatever that Difo gave up be factored in?, etc). I do not want to suggest that we aren't a bad team or that there's no chance 100 losses will happen, but we've only really just "gotten back" to a 100-loss pace and we did it because we took a nosedive. We now have relatively weak competition at home and then Hayes and Moran will be back.

I think it's well within the bounds of possibility that we'll have a decent 10-game stretch. It's going to continue to be a roller coaster year and I just don't see ironclad 100-loss performance. It's a long season -- I'm just not going to rush into a definitive judgment about that after a series in which our pitchers threw home run derby practice to a white hot team.

The firmest path to that many losses will be through the pitching staff, and barring injury, I think ours will trend ok later in the year, with Keller finding consistency and Yajure no longer having his service time manipulated. 70 wins is not really the mark of a good team, more the mark of a bad team that isn't in the worst circumstance (that's the Rockies, especially if you think the Giants are for real).

Have to disagree on the Pythagorean take. Close games are much more prone to being determined by luck or a call or random variation, while teams that get blown out regularly do so on merit, and the Pirates have lost by 3 or more runs in 9 of the last 13 games....that's a sign of a really bad team. Yes, we can point to injuries but so can the Mets and Brewers and Dodgers and Braves and they haven't become a AAA team as a result.

As to what just happened in Atlanta, that's the same thing that was said after the series in Cincinnati and the same thing that was said after the series in St. Louis. They simply aren't competitive right now and while Hayes is a big loss, they aren't really missing that many key pieces that should lead to going 6-17 and getting punked every night.

You are more optimistic about Keller than I am, but with no real help at AAA, I'd just roll with Keller and Crowe and Yajure and see what happens. Any inning pitched by Cahill or Kuhl (I know many still hold onto hope for him, but no) is just a wasted inning the rest of the way.

 

[Gallatin]

They've scored 2 runs or less in 14 of 21 games in May. Hayes and Moran will help the offense somewhat, but best case scenario is that the offense is merely below average instead of total trash. Even fully healthy they have major holes at SS, CF, and RF and while Frazier/Reynolds/Stallings are good major league players, they aren't really impact players - Hayes is the only potential impact bat who will see time this year.

The bullpen is fine. Probably a little better than fine - it's good. But with Anderson coming back to earth and Brubaker not being Greg Maddux, the rotation is pretty scary. If it was me I'd dump Cahill and roll with Yajure and Crowe and see what you have, but the results aren't going to be good no matter who they roll out there.

They are on pace to be outscored by 275 runs. The 2010 team that lost 105 games was outscored by 279 runs...so yeah. I dunno. Really hard for me to see this team not lose 100.

Like I said, I don't get the 70 win thing. At all. This is a for-sure 100 loss team AFAICT, and it ain't even close really. Would love to see 50ish wins - probably what it takes to beat out the other bad teams this year.

 

[Gallatin]

As I said a while back. The amount of sheer absurdity that I've read in this sub forum the past few years, most of which, not surprisingly didn't come to pass, means I just have to yawn at your snarky comment. My track record speaks for itself and I have the posts in the back pocket to prove it.

You don't like me calling out people for continually getting shit wrong around here? Leave.

Or just hit the report button. I'm sure a 19 year old mod will find some half assed, bullshit reason to infract me. Par for the course around the gestapo.

I see your point, I'm kind of in the same place. However I'm also very aware this is the only upbeat Pirates discussion on the Internet.

And that my friends is exactly why I'm here.

 

[MrBrightside]

Are we really required to be upbeat? I mean, I thought that was tongue-in-cheek...being upbeat about this team is kind of requiring us to suspend logic and reason, is it not?

 

[cookthebooks]

i dont think anyone is upbeat about anything? just like no ceaseless braying about nutting being cheap and rather some talk about how gmbc might be approaching trying to win a deeply unfair game

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I don't think the issue is so much upbeat or optimistic or not as it is just making the same kind of low-flying troll comments that spring up from time to time. That's not the case with any discussion lately, not that I'm the arbiter of these kinds of things, but this reputation is a product of this thread having less than 10 or so regulars (and so trying to exclude randos coming into the thread to assure everyone of the fact that the Pirates will never win with Nutting as the owner, etc etc).

I promise I will not gloat all that much when we don't lose 100 games. I think people in general overestimate how difficult it is to lose 100 games, and my creeping suspicion (I don't say this with snark, though I guess I can't be the judge of that) is that anyone who really thinks this is the worst team is baseball just doesn't watch enough baseball. If Hayes comes back and re-injures himself to again miss significant time or the season, then I think 100 losses is much more within the realm of possibility. I think it's plenty possible even without that caveat, but not likely. In my opinion the ceiling/floor (depending on one's perspective) remains the 4th worst record in baseball.

As for pythagorean records, I just don't find it to be too predictive. I don't think the blowouts should be ignored, but there are other contextual factors such as injuries and schedule that are important, and in any case, the widespread preference to let position players take part of the shellacking now also throws a wrench into what it even tells.

 

[MrBrightside]

Good article today on Fangraphs about Bryan Reynolds.

Bryan Reynolds Is Shrugging Off His Sophomore Slump

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Kevin Goldstein has a piece up at FG this morning about the odds of each player going 1.1: 2021 Draft Notebook: Setting the Odds for 1-1

Looks like he very much thinks position player over one of the Vandy pitchers, going so far as to give Davis better odds than either of them, and having Rocker as a long shot at 25-1.

This seems to be a growing consensus, and even within the piece you get a sense for why -- the longer hover around the conversation, the more scouts start to poke possible holes in the profile. Goldstein's little writeups here are good primers for anyone who hasn't been following super closely, because he gives you the succinct lowdown while also not mincing words as part of the critique.

For my part, I think I still prefer Davis to the two high school shortstops, but it's so hard to have much of a read on prep players. I'm not seeing enough from anybody to be fully off the two Vandy pitchers, so my hope is that at least one of them will overwhelm in postseason play and seal the deal. Part of the reason I lean Davis over the prep guys is that if we're vacillating over everybody, then I see some logic to increasing the amount of overslot we can do for the comp round pick or round three. Frelick is a much longer shot to let us to that, so while I'd like rather avoid the risks that come with a catcher, Davis seems like the most likely option. There was some talk I saw that Mayer could be that kind of underslot guy, but with him essentially being neck and neck with Lawlar, it's hard to see that as possible.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Davis makes a ton of sense because his profile is that of a 2 way C, not much different than Rutschman IMO. The latter being a better receiver at their draft stage, but I don't think there is much/if any difference with the bat, and Davis has an absolute cannon (accurate from reports) of an arm, getting a lot of 70's on the 0-80 scale. Good leader/work ethic and he'd fill a position we're sorely lacking in organizationally.

I wouldn't take him over the Vandy guys, but if they don't really start stringing some dominant starts together in the CWS, there is a strong chance neither are going to be the pick, even if I think scouts and people in general are underselling how good they both were for the overwhelming majority of the year. I looked at some stats from past top 5 P's and it's unconscionable that people could drop either one out of the top 5 picks, and yet I've seen Rocker as low as 7 and Leiter as low as 5. Rocker has really been hammered and undersold IMO but that's a horse that has been beaten to death, a few times over.

At 1.1 you need to take the guy you think is the best overall player. Money shouldn't matter. I hate that mindset. The difference in talent from pick 1 to pick 30 or 60 something is massive. You taking Mayer to save a couple hundred thousand or possibly more is a huge risk IMO. Not that I don't like Mayer from the reports I've read, but he's 3-4 years away almost surely and one of the biggest strengths of the team as it stands is infield talent (ML to low A ball). I get "never having enough MI'ers", but there is a position that I'd want to stockpile even more talent at and that's SP. Period. Pitching, more than anything wins you games and subsequently playoff/WS games.

I don't see any way you get a Mayer, or Lawler, or Davis over Rocker/Leiter. None of those guys produced better than the Vandy pair (maybe Davis I guess but hard to compare C to P) and none of them fill a need as large as SP, beyond maybe Davis, which is why I have the latter 3rd in my current draft rankings.

Unless Rocker/Leiter falter, one of them needs to be the pick. They'll help the ML team much quicker than a HS bat and they would potentially fill a massive hole (bonafide #1 ace). Say Cruz sticks at SS or 2nd or even moves over to 1B. You have Hayes long term at 3B. You have Peguerio coming. Gonzales coming among others.

SP, SP, SP. I can't stress it enough. Cherington really focused on it last draft and got some quality prospect arms in trades the past 12 months. Don't stop now.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Are we really required to be upbeat? I mean, I thought that was tongue-in-cheek...being upbeat about this team is kind of requiring us to suspend logic and reason, is it not?

It is mostly tongue-in-cheek.

Of course, we can be critical of some decisions, be pissed at bad plays, etc.

What we want to avoid here is a bad atmosphere to discuss baseball. I want people to feel good vibes on this thread. I want it to be fun to discuss and read about the Buccos.

For the most part, we are succeeding. We have all the regulars to thank for that.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Nobody needs to read me going on a fresh anti-Nutting diatribe every week. That's the kind of negativity that only breeds more negativity. There's nothing to be gleamed from those kinds of rants because we all already know that and are basically helpless to change it unless you're willing to entirely unplug.

This thread originally broke off from the Pittsburgher thread because nobody could mention the Pirates without a page of the same posts derailing everything. I'd say the 'good vibes only' plea was an attempt to get this place somewhere for people who actually enjoy baseball to be able to talk about it without needing to sift through the same arguments every day.

I'm not changing my tone about the Nuttings or the organization as a whole, but I do get how little positives there are to be gleamed from endlessly railing against it on a platform populated by fans of the game that nobody with the power to change anything will ever look at.

Anyway...take one of the damn Vanderbilt pitchers and don't give me a reason to bitch loudly.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

The praise for his hit tool in conjunction with the EVs he's posted (albeit with metal bats) are certainly interesting, and when you add in the near certainty of robo umps making his defense slightly less important, it's hard not to start falling back into this as a kind of default option. I still don't like it for two reasons: 1) there is so much attrition at catcher that it really has to be a standout scenario at 1.1, and for any high pick, it's more situational (i.e., maybe if you were picking 4th or 5th and only liked 2-3 guys more, you go with the gamble here); and 2) it'd be part of an underslot strategy which I think is going to be easier said than done this year, and can't really be the move at 1.1 with this class, IMO.

That said, I think he's gone from "I will throw a tantrum if we take a catcher" to, "I can live with the polished bat and positional weakness, not that this matters any. My doom and gloom sense is that Cherington is going to go the organization-building route and take one of the SS. Given the praise they are garnishing, it will be hard to get too worked up, since you won't really start to see the inklings of anything for another year or so, but I just can't get past the idea of taking a projection guy with no huge standout tool.

It is partly the nature of the game with the MLB draft, but I still don't see how you look at the resume of both Leiter and Rocker and turn your nose up. If anything, the grades on their fastball and slider respectively seem to be what stands out the most at the top of the class.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

By the way, if the Mets are truly desperate right now, maybe Cherington can work a high stakes deal out for Frazier + RP for Francisco Alvarez. I have to assume that a 19 year old C who has the scouting grades he does and is hitting very well in high-A is basically untouchable, but the Mets are in an obvious win now mode and have an owner who seems not afraid to mettle.

Their division is going to be a dogfight and although they have a pretty excellent foundation with the pitching (+ Syndergaard coming back), their depth has been hammered and it might be too late if they start sliding. Catchers are really high variance prospects and they clearly have the budget to pay for one in free agency anyways, not to mention they have McCann for 3 more years.

I'd put the likelihood of anything at less than 5% at best, but that's the kind of leverage I'd try to work up if I were Cherington. It's hard to see the Mets really being able to hold out until the trade deadline for reinforcements and they do not really have much of a stable of prospects to deal from in any case.

 

[MrBrightside]

Starting Ponce over Yajure tonight is really curious. Unless Yajure is injured or there's some other back story, this is a bizarre decision.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Part of the back story is that system-wide, they consider a full 5 days to be normal rest for minor league SP (not the standard 4 as in MLB). I think the other part of it is that we are very obviously manipulating Yajure's service time.

Ponce has looked pretty solid to me in the past, and some have mentioned he could be an under the radar trade candidate, since he's reliable SP depth that still has an option year. I wouldn't mind seeing him get some turns, even if it sounds like Cahill's injury is not too serious. The upshot of Cahill is probably simply to eat another month or so of starts.

The service manipulation is whatever, but I don't really like the bouncing back and forth between MLB and AAA for Yajure. He is clearly ready to just stick in the rotation permanently, so I hope his next promotion is done with that in mind.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I want Contreras promoted at this point for the sole reason that Altoona's camera looks like it's in the middle of a contested war zone or something. He looks dominant but you can only really tell so much from this thing.

 

[Gallatin]

It is mostly tongue-in-cheek.

Of course, we can be critical of some decisions, be pissed at bad plays, etc.

What we want to avoid here is a bad atmosphere to discuss baseball. I want people to feel good vibes on this thread. I want it to be fun to discuss and read about the Buccos.

For the most part, we are succeeding. We have all the regulars to thank for that.

It worked well enough to draw me in. Good job realizing your intentions guys - I'm here as a regular now for exactly the reasons you intended.