OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: More of the same

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah I haven't felt like watching any of these games with more than one eye, but Roberts seems like he's f***ing up hard.

 

[Winger for Hire]

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

Wow...Dodgers inches away from getting back into the series.

This may cost em. Knew a K was coming on the next pich.

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

Lol dodgers deserve to lose...keep bailing put Eovaldi...so many popouts on 2-0..3-1 counts. Make him pich. We complain about the Pirates and Hurdle but holy shit..has to be the worst approach ive ever seen.

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

Finally get to him. Helluva outing for Eovaldi tho. Hes gonna get paid.

Someone Id love to have...but of course wont happen.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Now Alex Cora is f***ing up. Jesus, you basically got through 6 innings, 1 run with Rodriguez... why would you possibly let hime face Puig there?

Still have faith that Hurdle could be out-managed by both even more extremely, but really...

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Welp, spoke a little too soon. Madson...

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I absolutely take it back. You could clone 5 S-Rods and give them to Hurdle on a world series roster and Roberts would still get out-managed. Embarrassing.

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

City of Boston with 11 titles since 2001. Crazy. And all 4 teams will continue to be a threat. Celtics getting even better. Bruins are legit.

We are in second with 5 lol. Need to get at least 1 more before Ben retires(finishing with a 3-1 record) and 2 more with Sid/Geno( 5-1 record. Giving us 8. And no NBA team. Not to mention the salary difference in baseball.

Steelers will still compete after Ben retires(Will have a ton of talent for whoever takes over at QB and will probably finally have a top defense again because thats how it works..cant have both at same time). Same cant be said for the Pens unless they strike gold for a 3rd time. With the new lottery rules, this is why I say JR should try to acquire first round picks.

If what i said above happens....id be content. But if the Pirates could manage to just win one WS? Takes the cake. Would mean more to the city than what the Steelers and Pens accomplished.

Go for it all these next 3 seasons. Couldnt care less if that means losing young guys in FA down the road. Do whatever it takes to win it just once. Might actually make them a contender going forward..something like what happened to the Cards. And now the Astros. Suddenly better coaching..FO personnel. FAs coming to Pitt. It wouldnt be like the Marlins winning it and being one and done. This is a sports town. Fans will still support. Just need that one win to make people forget about the past 20 years and how cheap Nutting has been ..etc. He sees the result of the win and wants more of it.

 

[TNT87]

Congrats to the Red Sox. Don't know how they were able to win the World Series with a payroll over $238 million but somehow they accomplished it.

Looking forward to the Pirates to make a splash this offseason and sign a backup infielder.

 

[Pens x]

Congrats to the Red Sox. Don't know how they were able to win the World Series with a payroll over $238 million but somehow they accomplished it.

Looking forward to the Pirates to make a splash this offseason and sign a backup infielder.

But but but the A’s made it to the wildcard! Team salaries don’t matter!

 

[GarbageGoal]

Steve Pearce. World Series MVP.

Say that slowly.

 

[Winger for Hire]

The universe is just raining shit down on Pirates fan now...

 

[ImporterExporter]

Congrats to the Red Sox. Don't know how they were able to win the World Series with a payroll over $238 million but somehow they accomplished it.

Looking forward to the Pirates to make a splash this offseason and sign a backup infielder.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I absolutely share the cynicism on this first day of the offseason, but perhaps noteworthy:



There are maybe a handful of exceptions to this, but given the disparity of players in free agency and our needs basically being concentrated on offense, I think what is probably the most important kind of call Huntington has to make is exactly what kind of angle to take on the young players: Newman, Kramer, Tucker, Hayes, to some extent Reyes, and maybe toss Moran in as well. Specifically, how bullish can we be with the guys like Hayes and Tucker, who are further away from MLB on a normal Pirates pattern of development. What are realistic expectations for the other players who are all MLB-ready in some capacity?

He has to identify which players to rely more on, and make more good than bad calls in that regard. And by that I mean more than just opening up a few roster spots for spring training competition. Backup/average quality SS seems like a no brainer necessity, and should not be overly hard to find. But some kind of decisions need to be made regarding 2B, 3B, and Polanco's temporary replacement in RF heading into spring training. We need to prioritize one or two internal options, and then use free agency money to get some combination of upside and safety net. It won't move the needle in terms of putting us over the playoffs threshold, but having a 1.5-2 WAR player be mostly in a starting role, and upgradable either with a younger player really stepping into a role by midseason, or with a deadline acquisition, is going to go a lot further towards making the team in general viable in 2019.

 

[Winger for Hire]

 

[Empoleon8771]

It should be noted that it looks like the Pirates are going to re-sign Kang, just for less than what he was due to make in his option year. It's a smart move by them if they can retain him for $3 million or so less.

 

[Winger for Hire]

Yeah, if they can bring him back in at a cheaper price it's always a good thing. I still hesitate to hang too much hope on him being a key piece in 2019. Again, I'm looking at anything Kang can produce at found money and hope they would still consider fortifying the 3B depth chart in the off-season (along with swinging that Puig trade and getting Machado's Herbie Hancock on a contract).

 

[Empoleon8771]

Yeah, if they can bring him back in at a cheaper price it's always a good thing.

I'm perfectly content with going with a Kang-Moran tandem next season at 3B, I think Moran had a solid season last year and he should only improve, I'm hoping he can be a 2-3 WAR player next season. He just needs to add a little power in his bat and improve a little defensively. I will say that I'm not exactly sure how WAR is calculated though, Moran was a 1.0 WAR player last year while hitting .277 with 11 homeruns and a .407 slugging%. Brian Anderson was a 3.9 WAR player last year while hitting .273 with 11 homeruns and a .400 slugging%. Moran isn't good defensively, but it's just weird to see him at a 1.0 WAR while guys who hit dramatically worse are higher.

The only thing I'm concerned about is that despite being a righty, Kang hits off of RHP way better than he hits off of LHP. I'm not sure he's a great platoon option for a LHB.

 

[Brandinho]

I'm perfectly content with going with a Kang-Moran tandem next season at 3B, I think Moran had a solid season last year and he should only improve, I'm hoping he can be a 2-3 WAR player next season. He just needs to add a little power in his bat and improve a little defensively. I will say that I'm not exactly sure how WAR is calculated though, Moran was a 1.0 WAR player last year while hitting .277 with 11 homeruns and a .407 slugging%. Brian Anderson was a 3.9 WAR player last year while hitting .273 with 11 homeruns and a .400 slugging%. Moran isn't good defensively, but it's just weird to see him at a 1.0 WAR while guys who hit dramatically worse are higher.

The only thing I'm concerned about is that despite being a righty, Kang hits off of RHP way better than he hits off of LHP. I'm not sure he's a great platoon option for a LHB.

Anderson is a slightly better hitter than Moran, but a much better defender.

The thing about Moran adding power is that it's always been his issue. He dramatically overhauled his swing and actually did add power. 11 homers is the power-added version of Moran.

I hope there's some more upside in him, but at 26 I'm skeptical.

 

[Winger for Hire]

I'm fairly certain Anderson getting 200 more PA makes his rates carry more weight than Moran's and average doesn't factor into WAR. I believe wOBA is the big rate factor in WAR and Anderson's 34 doubles will drive up his wOBA more than Moran's paltry 19, as well as 161 hits vs 115. There's a .011 difference (Anderson at .333 and Moran at .322) in wOBA so if they had equal playing time, then the WAR would be closer as you would think, but the extra 200 PAs really strengthen Anderson's wOBA and, in turn, WAR.

I will say that I don't hate Moran, but I'm less inclined to feel comfortable with him getting the bulk at 3rd with the current lineup. They need to add a significant power source or two next season for me to be at ease with Moran getting 450 PAs.

 

[Winger for Hire]

I feel like not enough attention is paid to the fact that Moran isn't exactly your young rookie. He's at an age when most players seeing regular time are considered to be entering their prime years (age 26 season to age 28 season).

And as Brandinho mentioned, last year was supposedly Moran buying into the Launch Angle Revolution (TM). I mentioned many times to take his 2017 minor league power revolution with a salt shaker as the PCL is a launching pad that makes Coors seem normal.

 

[cookthebooks]

turned jhay into nothing as a result of being a streaky team

 

[Empoleon8771]

turned jhay into nothing as a result of being a streaky team

Harrison sucked this year, so they weren't going to be able to get anything for him anyway.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I'm not totally giving up on Moran either because he seems like the kind of guy to work in concentrated ways, but tend to agree the upside seems limited. Although there were rumblings about him making a Polanco-like adjustment to his swing, I think the power thing is a real issue. Maybe he can improve his defense, but he's just too slow, which is reflected in his doubles total. If he got to 20 HRs, that would be a nice step up, but I still don't know what the real upside is.

I don't love the combo with Kang, but I'm not sure how many options we realistically have, especially with Escobar as SS/3B combo off the table. I'd like to see Kramer in a utility role to be honest, but given that Newman is supposedly a better defender at SS, he probably has an edge, even if we do the inevitable and sign a stopgap SS option. Even assuming Frazier is the first RF option, I don't think we can just have a spring training situation where several jobs are up for grabs. We need some kind of decisive upgrade from outside the org, and it seems like it might have to come via trade.