OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Tanking underway

[DJ Spinoza]

I genuinely don't think we have. By now we must have had the same 9 starting players, but I don't think we've had an identical lineup, and even the former might be wrong.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Brubaker's slider looks phenomenal today. For me it's an open question whether he's better developed as a devestating multi-inning reliever or a starter, but with all the injuries and him never getting the chance to start due to injuries, I see the strategy of continuing to start him now. I think my take is that he should keep getting starts, much like Kuhl and Brault, but for a number of reasons we should be conservative with his pitch counts and so on. You do want to give them a full trial, but we don't need any more pitcher injuries. If these guys can get 6 innings a handful of times, that's great, but them turning in solid 5 IP outings in this joke season is good enough – you can assess and then decide what to do next year.

 

[CallArnoldSlick]

Legit question:
Who's worse at their respective sport
A) Gregory Polanco at baseball
Or
B) Jack Johnson at hockey?

Johnson

 

[cookthebooks]

polanco at least building some trade value lol

 

[ChaosAgent]

polanco at least building some trade value lol

Can't believe the Brew Crew didn't stick a lefty in there to face Greg. Is Hader unavailable?

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Trade deadline dream: we somehow pry Touki Toussaint from the Braves. He's scuffled a little bit lately.

 

[ImporterExporter]

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Here's my thought IE – you are right that a winning streak would be bad, but maybe smashing the Brewers got it all out of our system. We have a day off tomorrow, then White Sox for 2, Cardinals doubleheader, and 3 with the Brewers. Brewers will be gunning to make up for lost ground when we face them, so a big question is whether or not carry momentum vs the White Sox. If we stumble, could very easily end up as a 2-5 stretch, which would go a long way towards firming up the terrible record necessary.

Then again, with the way our teams can get hot and cold, I wouldn't be too shocked to see more like a 5-2 stretch. We seem to totally have the Brewers number this year.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Is there any intel on the Altoona camp? Intersquad games or anything like that?

Would be nice to know how the top guys are stagnating (maybe progressing).

 

[cookthebooks]

the polanco superstar breakout is a faded dream, but he was always better than what he was showing. hardly surprising how badly he scuffled right after the evans collision.

 

[Empoleon8771]

One thing I'm watching for this season is how well Stallings can progress. He's currently their best WAR position player by a pretty substantial margin, with providing value both offensively and defensively. I don't think he'll ever be a .300 hitter over the long run, but he was a 1.4 WAR player in less than half a year last year and has continued that stretch this year, so he could actually be a pretty good catcher for the Pirates. The downside is that he's basically 31 already, although that's not "old" for catchers.

 

[OnMyOwn]

Is there any intel on the Altoona camp? Intersquad games or anything like that?

Would be nice to know how the top guys are stagnating (maybe progressing).

I have a bit of inside knowledge of this. One of my friends works in Altoona and has been speaking with a trainer there.

They basically workout and train, but that’s about it. Haven’t heard anything about actual games being played. They’re all staying in apartments together and waiting to be called up.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I've read but I can't recall where that there are something like intrasquad games, but yeah, I think it's mostly practice. I think it is really difficult to underestimate just how bad of a gamble we are taking in order to save money on Hayes in the future. I hope I will be proven wrong and that he can still perform once he gets called up, but we wasted 25 games or whatever already. Given his covid experience, maybe that's more necessary than I have been willing to grant, since the subtle indication seems to be that it may have been a harsher case for him and cost some time in terms of getting up to speed.

I think Stallings is an outstanding piece right now. He's a 1A catcher in my opinion. We need catchers as an organization, but trying too hard to find one can be a fool's errand a bit. My sense is that Maile might be an adequate backup if he's healthy. We do need solutions and depth, but for the near future I think we hope Stallings stays healthy and then otherwise resolve to spend a little bit of money if necessary. Using assets or high draft picks is extremely risky. If MLB pivots to an automatic strike zone of some kind, then strategically you will want to get the best offensive player you can back there, and an average guy like Stallings loses a lot of value. Until then I think the best approach is to just try and get the best defensive guy possible and look for better offense from other positions. Stallings is so ideal because of how elite his defense is while not hurting you so bad on offense.

Everyone knows I'm a huge Polanco defender/stan, so I am glad to see him heat up. The issue this year to me has really been consistency. When he's connected, the ball is being hit hard, which is a good sign. I don't have any kind of advanced stats perspective on him, but my take has always been that he experienced a true breakthrough right before his shoulder injury at the end of the 2018 season. Since the cliche book on him is that he has always shown flashes of potential but then been inconsistent, this is a difficult take to fully defend. I think right now it's an open book as to whether or not he will be able to find some consistency again.

I wouldn't want to see him traded this season because I think such a move would basically be a cost-saving measure. I understand many people would jump to get anything for him and be out of the contractual obligation, but to me there is very little upside unless his value is higher than most of us would guess. If he can hit very well and finds a level of consistency, then his value will go way way up I assume, since next year you could consider moving him more as a rental. He has team options for the two years following next year as well, and even if he's "just" a somewhat consistent 25 HR guy with some speed, he's really not paid too much.

If he continues to struggle or get injured next year, then you have to make the decision about cutting ties with him, but I think the best play is to continue to wait and see. At the end of the day it shouldn't be forgotten that as an organization, we are sorely in need of power bats. Maybe Polanco won't be one, but even setting aside the crazy expectations people have foisted on him, his baseline if he stays healthy is a decent everyday RF. I like Jared Oliva and Tucker maybe is learning OF well, but it's not exactly like we are bursting at the seams with other options.

I just wanted to kind of lay out this case, even though I get that many people are frustrated with Polanco because they see the potential. If we foist him off now, I think it has to be interpreted as just a cynical cost cutting move. We've already cost-cutted everything to death anyways, and Polanco's contract is hardly a huge investment. We all know that even if we shipped him out, there would just be gestures about spending that money in the future. He makes like slightly more than what 1 win costs, and he's more than a 1 win player even if he takes no steps forward. So if we want to reinvest that money, my rejoinder will just be what it always has to be with this organization: I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[OnMyOwn]

Yea DJ, my buddy just told me they do the intrasquad games periodically over at the curve stadium after I asked. So, there is at least a bit of game-like action going on.

 

[ImporterExporter]

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Carson Fulmer is a pretty interesting pickup. He barely pitched for the Tigers and seems to be bouncing around largely because he's out of options and rosters are fairly thin. Obviously it's not like the Tigers have a ton of urgency to win right now, but they likely needed room on the 40-man for the prospects they just promoted and I think have a strong bullpen in place already.

Could definitely be a case where we lucked out to be at the top of the waiver picking order. I remember reading that Fulmer's spin rates and stuff are quite good. I think he's had some injury issues and so on.

Also, probably don't need to convince anybody that we might as well try out a recent first round pick out of the bullpen than some of the guys who have been thrust into the mix due to depth reasons. Let's hope for the best - could very well be a nice multi-inning reliever pickup. An interesting phenomenon which might be taking shape here is the possibility of rolling out strong middle relievers from the bullpen. If you can take a group of three of them or so, then the whole pitching staff can look sort of different if you have enough guys who can always get you 5 IP at least, with hopefully 1-2 more who can get you more. We'll see.

 

[xlm34]

There’s an article on the Athletic about Hayes that I skimmed but Nesbitt expects Hayes to be called up sometime in the next couple of days.

 

[ImporterExporter]

If we can land a top 10 prospect at P or C for guys like Bell, Frazier, Polanco, Kela, etc we should be pulling the trigger.

Get the youngsters up for the last half.

Tank.

Start fresh next spring.

Not terribly hard concept.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I think they are not going to land exceptionally high prospects for anybody. Maybe Kela but the injury concerns will probably put any damper on his real value. The one advantage Cherington will have is that there aren't a ton of sellers for sure this time, so if he's willing to be bold, he might be able to work into unknown possibilities.

I truly think with the guys like Bell and Polanco, you are better off saving them for next year unless you are totally sold on them being terrible. It's basically just like stock and theirs is too low.

What I would like to see most of all is an aggressive move to get talented young players who are ready to play right away and need a change of scenery perhaps on a team more angling to win now. Franklin Barreto and Touki Toussaint are the two most obvious ones who come to mind, as well as the other obvious guys in Frazier and Andujar with the Yankees. If he can pull any of those guys, then to me it makes a lot more sense than the likely prospect scenario he might be able to do, which is basically going to be PTBNL guys who are lower down people's lists – think 15-25 on a Fangraphs list. If you get the right players, you can still get some nice talent that way, but I really don't see any scenario where we get anything close to a top prospect. It's better to specify the type of FV or ranking, since organization depth varies. I think we could probably lean towards one 45 FV in certain deals if we're really lucky, but more than likely not.

Barreto would be a perfect target to scoop up in a Frazier deal, especially if there's a longer term plan for Tucker to be more of a utility guy who moves around. We need power and he was once a really highly rated guy. Similarly, Toussaint's stuff is out of control good at times, and I think at worst you basically have an outstanding 2-3 IP reliever. He's scuffling in a starting role for the Braves and I could see them making him available because they have so much pitching in their organization. I covet guys like Frazier and Andujar too but my suspicion is that Cashman won't really be moving them. I think Barreto especially shouldn't be too hard to get.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Trading Kuhl for anything less than a big haul would be quite stupid.

One possibility which we haven't quite broached explicitly in a while is that Cherington's rebuild will be truly full-throated, in the sense that he will start aggressively taking apart guys like Kuhl or even Williams who still have 2-3 years left of control and could conceivably be invested in as supplementary pieces for hopeful runs starting in 2022 or so. I.e., the target competition window being deferred more to like 2023 or 2024.

Can't draw that conclusion from a rumor but it's possible.

 

[ImporterExporter]

The way I look at it is this.

If a player legitimately (metrics, scouting, etc) isn't in the plans for 3 or more years out, they should be moved. Cherington can't half ass this like Huntington did. The biggest problem I have with GMNH was he never really seemed to pick one way or the other. Even the few years where we were a playoff team, we never REALLY went all in. Players like Marlon Byrd were fliers. Archer was probably the closest thing to a "big" trade we ever made and that was, one of the worst baseball moves in the history of the game on our part. I'm not joking in the slightest.

Then again, I'm not easily convinced Nutting didn't/doesn't basically dictate everything from a purely financial aspect. Basically him telling his front office people NOT to spend more and NOT to improve the analytics departments and things of that nature. I know that is pretty deep down the rabbit hole but does anyone truly believe Nutting actually gives the people under him actual resources to win at this point?

I agree, the return on players is probably going to be shit. The flip side is if you keep Bell and Polanco and Frazier, they are just going to eat up reps that guys like Hayes, Tucker, and say an Oliva would be getting.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I don't totally disagree with you but I think it's a bit less of a binary. It's hard to navigate the right attitude, but I think to some extent, the young players need to force the hand of management and make them open up opportunities for them. It's a difficult problem, because now we are seeing Tucker start to do that and he's still being sat for JT Riddle, so I can't exactly try and take the tack of defending management in any way.

Concerning Huntington, I have arrived at a relatively dogmatic reading of his tenure. He is an outstanding executive who would be much more highly regarded if he wasn't handicapped by Nutting so much. He made some mistakes, but his balance sheet of moves is still impressive. At the end of his tenure I am absolutely convinced he was forced into unstrategic moves because Nutting introduced an imperative to win without giving him the necessary leeway to either rebuild or have the resources to make up deficiencies in the way that teams who win consistently always do, or at least make the effort to do. I don't think it's fair to write a total apologia for his mistakes, but Nutting is the chief culprit IMO, and it's not even close.


I would continue to stress patience with Polanco and Bell. At some point you have to pull back from that, but barring something unforeseen, I just don't see the upside to being hasty. With Bell, I think more and more that your very pessimistic reading is being borne out, in the sense that unless something changes, he is just not a very valuable player. He's heading towards a situation where if things don't change, and you want to deal him, you start looking to other rebuilding/retooling teams for a similar kind of player at a different position, and make a change of scenery swap.

With Polanco, of course it is one of my major biases, but I think it's different. As long as he's healthy, he's a useful everyday option in RF and doesn't make too much money. Even in terms of trade value, I think you just play it out for another year or so, and if it's still no good next year, then you see if you can get any kind of value for him or be forced to make the decision to cut ties.

We are both pretty high on Oliva, but I don't quite want to put that on Polanco, with Dyson still being the everyday CF. There is also a bit of a longer-range organizational thing we have to do, IMO. Dyson is competent defensively and it would send a bad message to other FAs to just totally jettison him, as silly as this is to bring up.

My best guess as to what is about to happen is that Cherington will be pretty active so that he can truly open up some spots with deadline deals.

 

[Winger for Hire]

 

[ImporterExporter]

I don't totally disagree with you but I think it's a bit less of a binary. It's hard to navigate the right attitude, but I think to some extent, the young players need to force the hand of management and make them open up opportunities for them. It's a difficult problem, because now we are seeing Tucker start to do that and he's still being sat for JT Riddle, so I can't exactly try and take the tack of defending management in any way.

Concerning Huntington, I have arrived at a relatively dogmatic reading of his tenure. He is an outstanding executive who would be much more highly regarded if he wasn't handicapped by Nutting so much. He made some mistakes, but his balance sheet of moves is still impressive. At the end of his tenure I am absolutely convinced he was forced into unstrategic moves because Nutting introduced an imperative to win without giving him the necessary leeway to either rebuild or have the resources to make up deficiencies in the way that teams who win consistently always do, or at least make the effort to do. I don't think it's fair to write a total apologia for his mistakes, but Nutting is the chief culprit IMO, and it's not even close.


I would continue to stress patience with Polanco and Bell. At some point you have to pull back from that, but barring something unforeseen, I just don't see the upside to being hasty. With Bell, I think more and more that your very pessimistic reading is being borne out, in the sense that unless something changes, he is just not a very valuable player. He's heading towards a situation where if things don't change, and you want to deal him, you start looking to other rebuilding/retooling teams for a similar kind of player at a different position, and make a change of scenery swap.

With Polanco, of course it is one of my major biases, but I think it's different. As long as he's healthy, he's a useful everyday option in RF and doesn't make too much money. Even in terms of trade value, I think you just play it out for another year or so, and if it's still no good next year, then you see if you can get any kind of value for him or be forced to make the decision to cut ties.

We are both pretty high on Oliva, but I don't quite want to put that on Polanco, with Dyson still being the everyday CF. There is also a bit of a longer-range organizational thing we have to do, IMO. Dyson is competent defensively and it would send a bad message to other FAs to just totally jettison him, as silly as this is to bring up.

My best guess as to what is about to happen is that Cherington will be pretty active so that he can truly open up some spots with deadline deals.

Absolutely spot on analysis.

I personally think Huntington sank his resume with the Archer trade and then not moving Vasquez when everyone knew it should have happened.

The only justification for not moving FV was the Pirates already knew the horrendous charges were in the pipeline, but then again, if that was the case why the reports of him being shopped for days leading up to the deadline? I think Neal got hung up with LA and when they wouldn't pay, he just folded the tent. Maybe there were no offers of quality value but I don't believe it one bit. Vasquez was dominating people. Years of control, lefty, closer. Should have been a relatively easy sell to someone, Dodgers or otherwise.

Before that I'd absolutely give him positive marks given the restraints he faced with Nutting as the bank. He did a lot with a little.

I've been a pretty hard critic of Bell/Polanco and I don't want to get into the "I told people so" but they're both playing out how I expected. I was in favor of moving Polanco in a deal way back when Stanton was on the block and we were actually contending (not that we could have made it happen for sure) . I'm sure Nutting would have never allowed it but those were precisely the types of moves I wanted to see from the Pirates. Prove you actually WANT to win. Go big or go home. Instead we traded for Marlon Byrd and Aramis Ramirez and fiddled around with guys like Soria, and Drew Hutchinson. None of those moves were true difference makers. And that always left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then again, I think Nutting is the root cause of all the shitty situations, but we don't need to beat that horse for the 1300th time lol.

This team needs PITCHING and CATCHING.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I think in general, and with respect to Biertempfel's idiocy published today, it's a much better thing for us fans to ask if Nutting wants to win, rather than somebody like Polanco, given how hard he's worked to get back into game shape and recover from his injury.