OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Let the Kids Play

[Big McLargehuge]

Damn. Just after getting back too. Seems like a good dude, hope he’s ok.

Burdi's inning count across all levels the past four years:
2019: 8.2
2018: 11
2017: 17
2016: 3

My heart breaks for him.

 

[Winger for Hire]

$15m for the setup man. Lol. 420 ended a few days ago, Colin.

I get harping on Colin for thinking giving Kimbrel the 8th inning role is something of a gift, but having both an elite lefty and righty capable of coming in and shutting it down in back-to-back innings (when needed) and alternative nights so you almost always have one available would be a giant boon to this team. Call it set-up, co-closer, stopper, fireman, whatever. It's not a bad idea.

The big problem is it would take some non-traditional bullpen usage from the bench and fluid roles up on down the pecking order. The Pirates staff isn't one that would do that.

Of course the unspoken barrier is the price point, but I think that's been covered in depth over the past 15 years.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah, I think it's basically a double-bind: not only does Hurdle manage his bullpen for the save (even if he's at least willing to have Vazquez get multiple innings in doing so, unlike Callaway for example), but Kimbrel also seems like a guy that wants to only have the 9th inning, and has a reputation for not being good when that's not the situation.

I guess Vazquez has the same reputation, but the time to start using Vazquez more intelligently was after he signed his extension, since it's not like specific save stats are connected to his bottom line in arbitration any more. We could be using him in the highest leverage situations, and then trying our hand at any number of other relievers for a clean 9th inning in a lower leverage spot. Our analytics reliance hasn't extended to this approach, though.

It'll be curious to see what the corresponding move might be. Maybe with an injury, we can have a loophole for re-summoning Brault immediately. Hartlieb is another candidate, and he's got good Ks and a great GB%, but has also walked a batter an inning. The moderately aggressive move would be to see what the Giants asking price is for Will Smith or even Tony Watson. If they would take a guy like Newman or Kramer, it's probably worth pulling the trigger.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Looks like some partial good news about Burdi:



I'm still guessing he'll be out of commission for a couple of months, but that seems more like a dangerous touch and go that might be a go by the ASB or so, or re-flare up.

 

[DanielPlainview]

TJ and now this. The guy needs to, when healthy, completely change his delivery.

 

[DanielPlainview]

I get harping on Colin for thinking giving Kimbrel the 8th inning role is something of a gift, but having both an elite lefty and righty capable of coming in and shutting it down in back-to-back innings (when needed) and alternative nights so you almost always have one available would be a giant boon to this team. Call it set-up, co-closer, stopper, fireman, whatever. It's not a bad idea.

The big problem is it would take some non-traditional bullpen usage from the bench and fluid roles up on down the pecking order. The Pirates staff isn't one that would do that.

Of course the unspoken barrier is the price point, but I think that's been covered in depth over the past 15 years.

No. You don't pay that kind of money for "it's not a bad idea". If they can get him for $2m, 3 years fine. But the guy is a month away from 31 and wants a $100m, 6 year deal. Even bringing up his name is crazy talk.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

A version of the idea of Kimbrel has definitely occurred to me, but there are some huge ifs. It's really not worth going into much detail, because IMO the twin ideas of Kimbrel accepting a setup role and the Pirates investing any significant money, even short term, are ludicrous, but... he'd have to back down from the term, and possibly be willing to do something like 2 years, 36 million, maybe with an opt-out after one year and like some kind of option that could extend it, I dunno.

And if that were the case, I don't even know how smart of a baseball deal it would be. Best case scenario, you get him as a weapon about three or four weeks from now, meaning you have him for about 5-6 weeks pre-ASB and then the rest of the season. While in an ideal world, that's still a huge boost, I'm not sure how much better it is than paying the prospect cost for Will Smith, Alex Colome, or Shane Greene.

The problem really is, the Pirates don't have many bullets left to fire on that front, either. With both Jason Martin and Bryan Reynolds emerging, maybe we could float Martin in a trade. I don't really think it makes a lot of sense to shop Brubaker in this scenario, and obviously not Keller either. So from the perspective of us having limited assets, throwing money at the problem does contain a logic to it. However, Kimbrel's almost definitely not taking such a short deal. The only kind of thing I could see is maybe him getting desperate and agreeing to a one year payoff, in order to try and re-solidify his value in advance of next year.

It's maybe a bit similar to the idea of the Brewers getting Grandal. But we aren't that franchise, and even if we could just snap our fingers and have our owner/GM do something like this, I honestly doubt how well it would work out. We would have needed to be shifting towards non-save uses for Vazquez, having him as currently the super reliever + closer when things are more boring. There's not even a hint that that's how we'll use him, so added a guy to the mix who has always been 9th inning closer only doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[Winger for Hire]

No. You don't pay that kind of money for "it's not a bad idea". If they can get him for $2m, 3 years fine. But the guy is a month away from 31 and wants a $100m, 6 year deal. Even bringing up his name is crazy talk.

Yeah, pitchers magically have their arms fall off at 31.

 

[pistolpete11]

I doubt he does either, but he's certainly not going to accept a short term deal AND a set-up role.

 

[cheesedanish87]

I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but i think Nutting has a lot of Pirate fans brainwashed.

Every Pirate fan should hope that the Pirates would sign Kimbrel because he would make the Pirates better.

Why would a Pirate fan care if he gets over payed? Are you worried that Nutting isn't going to make enough money this year?

 

[DanielPlainview]

Yeah, pitchers magically have their arms fall off at 31.

Thank god yinzers don't control this team

 

[Empoleon8771]

The fact that it's only the 10 day DL makes me think that it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

 

[cheesedanish87]

I'm not crazy about Cerv over Diaz.

I'd probably also put Martin in over Cabrera.

Cabrera didn't really cost the Pirates in left field last night on any particular play, but he didn't look comfortable playing left field.

 

[Winger for Hire]

The fact that it's only the 10 day DL makes me think that it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

I'm not saying your read is wrong, but it's likely a procedural move. If they immediately put him on the 60 Day, he's locked into missing at least 60 days. If he heals in 1/2 the time, they're still not allowed to activate him. So the 10 Day is likely to assess and see how things are going early in the rehab and if a 40 man spot is needed later on and he's going to miss more, they can easily transfer him with no penalty to the time on the DL (I believe).

So it could still be a fairly major and long term injury.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I'm not saying your read is wrong, but it's likely a procedural move. If they immediately put him on the 60 Day, he's locked into missing at least 60 days. If he heals in 1/2 the time, they're still not allowed to activate him. So the 10 Day is likely to assess and see how things are going early in the rehab and if a 40 man spot is needed later on and he's going to miss more, they can easily transfer him with no penalty to the time on the DL (I believe).

So it could still be a fairly major and long term injury.

Yeah, unless the team absolutely needed the 40-man roster spot there's no reason to place a player directly on the 60 day IL.

I'm extremely happy for Burdi that he avoided a worst case scenario there, but even a best case involves him likely being shut down for weeks.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but i think Nutting has a lot of Pirate fans brainwashed.

Every Pirate fan should hope that the Pirates would sign Kimbrel because he would make the Pirates better.

Why would a Pirate fan care if he gets over payed? Are you worried that Nutting isn't going to make enough money this year?

I hear what you are saying, but it highly depends on exactly what kind of overpayment we are talking about. Meeting Kimbrel's 6 year contract demand is basically playing Russian Roulette with the roster construction after another year or two, all for a guy who has legitimate questions about his performance and ability to stay consistent.

If we're talking 2 years at some crazy figure or something, then sure, I'll sign up for the Nutting is cheap argument. But even in terms of stupid money, I don't want much of a part of either him or Keuchel. There are plenty of other ways that money could be used more aggressively on the free agent market, but I think both of these guys carry a big risk of being huge burdens, doubly so when we're talking about a team who won't consistently commit reasonable money to the payroll.

In any case, my point is not to construct a hypothetical defense of NH or Nutting, and more to say that the better bang for the buck is working out a trade for a reliever on a bad team. In terms of roster construction, I think the biggest critique I probably have is Liriano over somebody like Tony Sipp, but that wouldn't really do much in terms of the Burdi injury. The young Freddy Galvis talk was obviously bullshit, and I was more critical of Lyles than anything else, but so far I'm eating crow on the last one, and it's hard to complain about circumstances leading to Tucker's promotion.

 

[TimmyD]

No. You don't pay that kind of money for "it's not a bad idea". If they can get him for $2m, 3 years fine. But the guy is a month away from 31 and wants a $100m, 6 year deal. Even bringing up his name is crazy talk.

Rosenthal said he is looking for 3 years $40 million

 

[DJ Spinoza]

BTW, Burdi is getting a second opinion according to Passan, so we might not be totally out of the woods yet. I would guess that best case scenario with him is that we won't see him until a little after the all-star break. You figure he was already going to have his innings capped anyways, so we won't rush him back.

I think this lineup is fine offensively, but Cabrera is an adventure in LF. I'm not very optimistic about the pitching matchup or our ability to do much against Weaver. Would be a huge relief to just see a couple of early bombs, even if that means the score is only a moderately good 4-0 or something.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Sorry for the relapse into a triple post, but one thing I don't get is why we aren't trying to experiment with Brault as a one inning, or one inning+ reliever. Reduce him to just fastball/slider and see what kind of results he can get. It doesn't really make sense to have two long reliever spots with this rotation, and so if Brault is going to be the long-term solution, we should see what he can do in a more limited capacity, even as a straight up LOOGY to start.

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

Team could be 16-4 right now. With 4 losses after 6th inning lead. 3 all last season. Yeah we've came back in games too but with the lack of a high powered offense we need to be the ones winning when having the lead thru 6. Alot easier for other teams to come back and score a bunch late. We rely on pitching.

Need to win this tonight....1-6 last year against them and blew that last night. They were apart of that 14-32 stretch we went on

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I think tonight is borderline must-win, but moreso for securing the ability to stay afloat towards the top of the division. If we split this series, we'll still be in extremely good shape. If we lose all four games, suddenly we're facing some pretty big adversity with a five game losing streak and a tough road series, but even then, it's not quite panic mode yet IMO.

I don't want to be brazen, because there's lots of ways that this team could accumulate losses and a similarly bad stretch of losing 2/3, even if it won't extend for 6 weeks. I think the pitching will continue to keep the shit mostly righted, but the question is really if the offense can take some pressure off the need for near perfection on a nightly basis. If they can, we'll be able to keep to the top of the division for quite a while. If they can't and we start sliding a little bit, then the divisional matchups will take on even extra-intensity, but I just don't see us tumbling instantly to the bottom of the division.

I'm trying to stick myself to only viewing out 10 games at a time, and tonight marks the midway point of a current 10 game stretch, but just to play out an extended period: if we do so-so and come back to split this series, but drop the Dodgers series on the road, we'll be 15-11. We then have 7 games against the Rangers and Athletics before a long and likely crucial road trip to St. Louis, Arizona, and San Diego. If we can stay afloat now, and then take care of a little business in that 7 game stretch by going 5-2, that puts us at 20-13 going into the big road trip. I'd guess that would give us a very high likelihood of having the best record in baseball still, or perhaps a game off. That's just a little bit of perspective in terms of what it could look like when Marte and Dickerson are back and we finally have our real OF.

In any case, I do think that tonight is a little bit extra important for keeping the 4-game horror show at bay and regaining a bit of footing.

 

[DanielPlainview]

The pitching is going to have some rough outings. It's up to the offense to plate guys when they have the opportunity. Too many squandered 0 or 1-out w RISP scenarios. Need some timely, pro hitting.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

The sample sizes are pretty minimal, but it does look like lefties have had more success vs. Weaver, and also that he hasn't gone terribly far into games: 4.1, 5, 6.1 against a young Padres lineup, and 5. So hopefully we'll see the lefties connect for some big hits when they get damage, and that the top 6 batters can all make him put a lot of work in.

We basically did everything right against Godley yesterday but didn't grab an additional 2 or 3 runs. Weaver looks to be a lot better pitcher, but he can be beatable. There's some pretty wild variation in his K numbers, so that will be something to watch.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

A Pirate fan's dilemma: would you rather see more poor execution with RISP and Trevor Williams pitch a "Trevor Williams" (6 IP, 0 R), or would you rather convert some chances and see him give up 2-3 runs in 5-6 IP?

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Talk about a nice shutdown inning from Williams. All good vibes so far.

This umpire's strike zone is wide, but that probably benefits Williams, so not sure I care. Weaver was able to get both Reynolds and Tucker to chase a bit on tailing FB/CH outside the zone. Curious how they adjust for round 2.