OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Offseason at the Crossroads

[WheresRamziAbid]

Gotcha, thanks.

He literally could have said "i have no f'ing clue" and got the point across better.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

It was based on the comments NH made which vaguely spoke of the same things. There's a rumor going around that seems to connect back to David Todd having sources which say payroll will be under 80 million to start the year next year. I don't believe Todd/vague sources, although that's a totally plausible number considering where it stands right now.

I don't quite get the Stripling for Cervelli idea. I can see that LA would be selling high on Stripling, but there doesn't seem to be any reason that we'd not be all over that deal. Hell, we could probably make that deal, try and flip Newman or somebody for Ahmed, and then sign Andrew Miller and still have a payroll south of 85 million.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Oh Jesus! The Red Sox owe a whopping 12m in luxury tax!!!

That'll teach them not to go over a billion dollars in payroll....only being slightly sarcastic.

 

[dogthateats]

https://nypost.com/2018/12/15/yankees-have-more-competition-for-their-manny-machado-fallback/

 

[Empoleon8771]

Galvis would be a nice pickup to be the SS here, I'd be happy with that acquisition. He's a switch hitter that can play 2nd, 3rd and SS and brings some decent power (for a SS), I'd be happy with that.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

It looks like there's some interest in Galvis now, on top of Iglesias and Ahmed. Clearly the idea that Gonzalez/Newman are fine as the starters is a lot of smoke and mirrors. Honestly, I can buy the idea that Gonzalez's projections are pretty decent, but I'd rather have some guarantee that the starting SS can be a little bit above replacement level. My preference is seeing what assets we could flip for Ahmed, and using some money on a bat or starting pitcher. But if we're not going to use any money on a bat like Dozier, then Galvis on a short term deal isn't the worst safety net.

Edit: whoops, looks like you both beat me to the punch

 

[Empoleon8771]

Report: Pirates interested in Tulowitzki

He missed the entire 2018 season after undergoing surgery on both of his heels, but a team can likely sign him for the minimum salary, according to Rosenthal.

Right up the Pirates' alley.

Pirates interested in Troy Tulowitzki

Rosenthal also says the Pirates have "big interest" in Galvis.

 

[dogthateats]

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Very little risk on Tulo at minimum salary. In fact, given that the worst case scenario is a health problem, there's basically no risk at all, because the risk just really circulates around his roster spot. He certainly could be a risk in that regard with not being anywhere near what he once was, but even in that case, it's hard to see him being manifestly worse than pretty much any of the internal and external options, which amount to hoping for a modest 2 WAR or so.

There might not be huge ceiling with him, but given that the depth behind him includes a number of players he could mentor, I like the idea more as I have kept pondering over it. My ideal would be bringing him into the fold, and then using any leftover money to get Dozier on a one year deal. But given that we're likely talking about having enough money for a modest LHP reliever investment and nothing more, at least getting Tulo would give us a chance at some quality at the SS position. I understand Gonzalez as an under the radar candidate to be just about as fine as anybody like Galvis Ahmed etc., but I just can't shake the feeling that Gonzalez/Newman is anything resembling a reasonable plan, and it seems like NH's comments to that extent are a whole lot of smoke given that these are the only rumors circulating about us.

I still hope we get back in the fold for Gray -- it makes too much sense with a roster spot open for part of the year or more, and as long as the Yankees return to earth in their demands, I'd love to see Tulo + Gray and call it an offseason... in fact, Cervelli for Gray wouldn't be a horrible idea, but I'm only pro-moving Cervelli if we are getting something useful in return and also reinvesting that money directly in the offense somehow (Dozier, Marwin, etc). Since that won't happen, we should just ride it out with Cervelli IMO.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Looks like the Fort is on Team Tulo and also reading Bucs Dugout.

It would be weird to see him in the Pirates jersey. Toronto cutting ties entirely seems like a red flag, although maybe could just be something of a fresh start rather than sit around. Even if he were to come back and show something, hard to imagine him having any trade value, salary almost fully paid or no. I have to assume it entirely comes down to Hurdle, but I like this gamble more than the other ones. Might as well shoot for the biggest payout, even if it's extremely unlikely.

 

[Winger for Hire]

Same read as the Kang situation, except change rust from 2 seasons away from the game to hasn't been really in 4 seasons after surgery on both feet.

Great buy low, but it's still playing it cheap and "low risk" to hope to strike gold. It's still leaving very little room for error. I'm not going to poo-poo it, but I'm not exactly super excited and claiming the team is showing me something. They wouldn't even think about looking at him if he wasn't getting paid by Toronto already.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Tulo or no Tulo, the Bucs are an 80-85 win team that can make a run at 95 if everything breaks right. And that just isn't good enough when the Brew Crew is adding a Yelich and the Cardinals are adding a Goldschmidt.

• if Bell takes a step forward
• if Kang and Archer bounce back
• if Williams is as good as last year - this one is extremely unlikely
• if Polanco comes back as the player he was in August

I wish there were more, but I just can't count on it. I hate the ownership but I can't blame them when attendance fell so badly despite the team improving. Perhaps if/when the Penguins miss the playoffs or crash out early this year, the Pirates will look better by comparison and attendance will pick up.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah, I mean the idea that we are an 80-85 win team with a chance at 90-95 if things go well is pretty much the general orienting horizon, and short of signing Machado or trading for Thor, I don't think the needle moves significantly in any direction. So most of my opinions about upgrades boil down to "why not?" -- we definitely need something more solid at SS, and Tulo can do that if he's healthy, and maybe more, even if it's just for a couple of a months. I'm not totally infatuated with him, but with a relatively young team, having him around as a veteran could also be a big plus, and I think he brings some more flexibility in terms of maybe taking more of a breather and getting Gonzalez into the mix, etc.

Galvis or a trade for Ahmed would also be fine moves, maybe with sneaky power upside for both too. Neither moves the needle significantly either, and arguably "blocks" the current options we have more, and for more of an investment. Beyond the general name brand excitement, the best thing about Tulo is probably what won't happen if we brought him: the money would be so minimal that we should still be able to pick up some additional help. I'd prefer another power bat from the right side like Dozier, but with Chisenhall already signed and any SS move making Gonzalez effectively the utility IF, I can see the logic to just going with Frazier as the everyday 2B. But we should still be able to add Gray's salary and somebody like Diekman or Sipp and not "break the bank," even by the ridiculous standard that seems to be set currently.

My hope is that the talk of Lyles as an inside track on the #5 job is equally as much of a smokescreen as the talk about the SS situation a few weeks ago. Probably too many teams in on Gray, but the Yankees have to move him and aren't going to be able to command what the rumored ask is.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I just don't see the Pirates embracing the idea of "success windows" the way they should. They should be going-for-it then tearing it down every few years. They found themselves in the middle the last 3 years and have no signs of getting out. Average team, average farm system.

Some fans thought that Archer trade would be the turning point, when it was really just a desperate ploy to help attendance and flip the narrative in this town (frankly, the Pens continuing to suck would do the Pirates a world of good here).

This team has a lot of good, useful 1-3 WAR players - no obvious holes aside from shortstop and maybe a SP but nothing exceptional either.

 

[Empoleon8771]

This team has a lot of good, useful 1-3 WAR players - no obvious holes aside from shortstop and maybe a SP but nothing exceptional either.

That's just their problem, they have no glaring holes but have a ton of mediocre players on their team. It's hard to improve on that without being really aggressive, because no one on your team is really a "problem".

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I do think that there's somewhat of a reasonable logic to the plan of "mediocrity," i.e., more or less solid competitiveness on the fringes. While there is decisive proof in the results of the all-in + complete tear down method, I think there is weirdly a sort of longer play gamble with the more conservative approach Huntington has carved. The longer play is that eventually, things will work out in terms of something breaking right, and if you give yourself a perennial chance to do that, then you are more likely to make a run at it.

I know this is somewhat of a hot take on NH, and I want to say that I've soured on him a decent bit, and have become more skeptical about the effectiveness of this "conservative gamble." I think it really needs to be judged in terms of playoff appearances over the longer haul, and clearly we've fallen off in this regard. Once you get into the playoffs, it's significantly about luck, so there's some logic towards leveraging at least a chance to get into the playoffs year in and year out.

And from a fan perspective, I enjoy a generally competitive team, which despite the length of fair criticisms that can be levied at NH, especially in terms of the timing of certain things he's done or not done, I think that's still also a fair assessment of his tenure overall. But in terms of carving a way forward, I'm not sure there really is one within the framework that he's laid out. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block towards getting at the extra 7-10 wins we need and will keep needing is the loss of any clear analytical edge. Hurdle is also a factor in this lack of extra wins, probably, and I think a better performance out of Bell is probably one of the biggest reasons we're in the situation we're in. If he were closer to the level of Marte, we'd be in a lot different shape over these next years.

 

[Winger for Hire]

If Bell can find his missing power, Tulo is signed, and a couple more depth MLBish arms are signed (pen or 5th/swing) then I will feel better about the team. Not full on optimism, but better.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Tulo makes too much sense, especially with Hurdle still running the lineup card. I'd rather take a low price gamble on him than Ahmed or someone else who makes Jordy Mercer look like an AS.

Take a f***ing risk! Hell, it seems it would be a fairly cheap one too! That's right up ole Bob's avenue

 

[Brandinho]

Tulo makes too much sense, especially with Hurdle still running the lineup card. I'd rather take a low price gamble on him than Ahmed or someone else who makes Jordy Mercer look like an AS.

Take a ****ing risk! Hell, it seems it would be a fairly cheap one too! That's right up ole Bob's avenue

Ahmed is twice the player that Jordy Mercer is, easily, but I agree with everything else. Tulowitzki is risky, but never taking any risks is just ensuring mediocrity.

 

[OnMyOwn]

Tulo is literally no risk with the salary he’ll get and makes a ton of sense. He’s also a “name” player that fans will actually know if he’s signed.

If he sucks, you move on.

 

[Empoleon8771]

The worst case scenario with Tulowitzki is that you get a great defensive SS who can't hit all that well, how is that different than signing say Iglesias? Even though Tulowitzki missed a bunch of time in the last 2 years, I really can't imagine that his play has fallen off that much. He's still projected to be like a 3.0 WAR player over a full season next year.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I know this is somewhat of a hot take on NH, and I want to say that I've soured on him a decent bit, and have become more skeptical about the effectiveness of this "conservative gamble." I think it really needs to be judged in terms of playoff appearances over the longer haul, and clearly we've fallen off in this regard. Once you get into the playoffs, it's significantly about luck, so there's some logic towards leveraging at least a chance to get into the playoffs year in and year out.

I think what will define NH is the off-season between 2015 and 2016 - in going from 98 wins to a .500 team again. A lot of it was his fault, some of it wasn't.

NHs fault:

• Walker for Niese
• Replacing Happ with Vogelsong

Not NHs fault:

• Andrew McCutchen goes from MVP-caliber to bad. Cutch went from a 5WAR player to replacement-level. No one could have predicted that.
• Gerrit Cole goes from a 5 WAR pitcher to a 1.5. And this is generous because WAR doesn't weight things like run prevention. Cole became awful at that.
• Between these two players I'm confident we lost 10 wins between '15 and '16.
• The Cubs becoming a dominant team in 2016, which was inevitable

Kinda-maybe NHs fault:

• Liriano. The warning signs were there in 2015 that he was losing the strike zone and was due to implode. He did. I can't totally fault NH for this - he would have been ripped like crazy had he dealt him in the offseason - but this was avoidable.

I guess, mistakes aside the Pirates lost 3 stars in 2016 (McCutchen, Cole and Liriano) and haven't gotten them back since. That plus two valuable pieces in Walker and Happ.

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

I do think that there's somewhat of a reasonable logic to the plan of "mediocrity," i.e., more or less solid competitiveness on the fringes. While there is decisive proof in the results of the all-in + complete tear down method, I think there is weirdly a sort of longer play gamble with the more conservative approach Huntington has carved. The longer play is that eventually, things will work out in terms of something breaking right, and if you give yourself a perennial chance to do that, then you are more likely to make a run at it.

I know this is somewhat of a hot take on NH, and I want to say that I've soured on him a decent bit, and have become more skeptical about the effectiveness of this "conservative gamble." I think it really needs to be judged in terms of playoff appearances over the longer haul, and clearly we've fallen off in this regard. Once you get into the playoffs, it's significantly about luck, so there's some logic towards leveraging at least a chance to get into the playoffs year in and year out.

And from a fan perspective, I enjoy a generally competitive team, which despite the length of fair criticisms that can be levied at NH, especially in terms of the timing of certain things he's done or not done, I think that's still also a fair assessment of his tenure overall. But in terms of carving a way forward, I'm not sure there really is one within the framework that he's laid out. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block towards getting at the extra 7-10 wins we need and will keep needing is the loss of any clear analytical edge. Hurdle is also a factor in this lack of extra wins, probably, and I think a better performance out of Bell is probably one of the biggest reasons we're in the situation we're in. If he were closer to the level of Marte, we'd be in a lot different shape over these next years.

Hurdle aside...alot of the losses(before deadline) were due to them figuring out the pitching. Starting rotation wasnt set yet nor was the pen. What did we go...14-32 or something like that? We can def avoid that next season. Once the pitching was set we went on that streak but then injuries to Marte and Dickerson ended that..and they couldnt recover for the whole month of August. Wasnt til September(when basically out of it and pr2ssure off) that the offense picked it up again.

So if we can start the year with the pitching we had to end this season...see no reason why we cant contend. And go all in again at the deadline. But this time being further ahead.

 

[dogthateats]

I bet Tulo would draw a lot of casual fans—for at least a game or two.

 

[DJ Spinoza]