OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Tanking underway
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Empoleon8771
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Not like they really have any better options.
I'd rather play someone like Gonzalez everyday so we definitely know what we have with him.
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Polanco is f***ing awful. Sorry DJ.
8 for 59 = .136
31 KO's
Bell isn't much better.
18 for 95 = .189
32 KO's
8 for 59 = .136
31 KO's
Bell isn't much better.
18 for 95 = .189
32 KO's
On the current roster sure, but at this point it’d be nice to get Hayes up and playing somewhat consistently. Gonzalez can split reps with Newman at short and spell Hayes every now and then. There’ll still be plenty of playing time available for him to see what you have Also I get they want Tucker learning the outfield, but I think it’d be good for him get a game or two at SS.
We’ll see what happens after the deadline I guess.
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DJ Spinoza
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Jaded-Fan
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Empoleon8771
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One down, quite a few to go. Curious to see what the return on Dyson will look like, probably will only be crap but worth seeing.
JimmyTwoTimes
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Probably PTBNL and cash.
But like with the Dickerson trade, that player was never named.
Probably PTBNL and cash.
But like with the Dickerson trade, that player was never named.
i think its international pool money. Which is probably the best case scenario rather yhan cash or some D level org arm
DJ Spinoza
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Yeah it's international slot money, which is a terrific return for Dyson. I was assuming we'd be faced with having to DFA him. Presumably we might let Tucker run with the CF job for a while, working Alford in sometimes in RF and sometimes in CF.
I hope this will be followed by a Frazier trade, on top of the trades of Holland and RichRod that I assume are mostly likely.
I hope this will be followed by a Frazier trade, on top of the trades of Holland and RichRod that I assume are mostly likely.
Jaded-Fan
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Deport Ogie
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You'd think a team that sucks this bad would want to have a Dyson onboard.
Thanks folks, try the veal.
Thanks folks, try the veal.
DJ Spinoza
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I am not a fan of Derek Shelton and it is going to take some significant progress to move me on this question. There is no reason in hell that Jason Martin should start over Cole Tucker, let alone that JT Riddle should start over him. The guy learned CF from scratch and can somewhat hold his own out there. It is very difficult to look at their actions and see any conceivable plan besides maybe quasi-intentional tanking.
The Dyson deal was a nice bonus but I don't have a great feeling about Monday. If it's a truly aggressive sell off, we're looking at a rebuild for which guys like Reynolds, Hayes, and Keller are probably not much of a factor – i.e., a rebuild aimed at 2024 or so.
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DJ Spinoza
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I hope Cherington has a suitor for Frazier because it would have been nice to take a flier on Barreto. I'm really not of an optimistic mind about anything right now – I feel like he needs to somehow pull off a trade for Clint Frazier to really salvage my attitude towards him.
My worry is that he blows up the longer-term possible pieces for the sake of alright prospects. Kuhl really shouldn't be moved at all. Unless you do not plan to win for four years, he's an easy supplementary player in a key role to invest a little bit of money in. Williams is a slightly different story because the same is sort of true for him, but if we can sniff a similar deal that Toronto got for Stroman, I'd definitely consider it. We won't get exactly the same but that would be a fine return for Williams.
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I don't understand the dislike on a guy who hasn't even been on the job for a year DJ.
Same with Shelton.
This is a horror show of a roster. What we're seeing now can't be accurately traced to either Cherington or Shelton. I'd like to give them at least 2 full years before I pass any sort of real judgement.
This team is, at a minimum, 3 years away from having a winning roster. And I think that's quite optimistic. IMO.
Our pitching is AAA quality. I'm not joking in the slightest. It's brutal. Atrocious, what have you.
Our hitting is just as bad, though I think that is partly a product of the disjointed lineups and the overall lack of caring in general by the players, well because the team f***ing blows. I don't think Reynolds is as bad as he looks right now. Newman has been better lately. Tucker is up and down but there are flashes. Bell and Polanco are bums. There is waaaaaay more than we need as far as sample size to conclude they aren't helping us now or down the road.
What pitching prospects do we have that aren't years away? Legit guys. I'm not talking number 5 starters and middle relievers.
This team blows and Cherington, should, IMHO, sell off what he can and try to rebuild it from scratch, for better or worse. Do it now. Get the ball rolling. Don't half ass it for 2-3 years and then burn it down.
This mix and match shit is not going to move the needle. We are nowhere close to even sniffing the postseason, let alone contending for any sort of title.
DJ Spinoza
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For me it is very simple: I do not see a plan. I see a holding pattern and an inexcusable cheapness in being willing to sacrifice playing time for a top prospect in favor of at-bats for journeymen like JT Riddle who offer little to no conceivable upside even as trade chips.
I don't disagree with a lot of what you are saying, but I would again just reiterate two things: 1) there isn't a lot to sell and 2) if you completely sell whatever you can, you better have clear options for getting back certain supplemental talent.
The overall organizational problem as I see it remains tied up with what I'd call Huntington's success given the farcical constraints placed on him by Nutting with a simultaneous imperative to win as many games as possible without even retooling. As a result, we have an ok amount of decent talent spread across various positions. This season, which I agree should just basically be written off, there is a combination of bad injury luck and underperformance basically across the board. Even in a hypothetical fully healthy year of 162 games and no pandemic, the team is still likely the worst in the division (though I can't help but add that I'd have liked to see the Reds fail on a more spectacular scale, once again).
This creates difficulties in terms of how you actually go forward. I think the only option, given the likely constraints that will still exist in a few years from Nutting if we get some luck with top prospects, is to do whatever you can to develop star talent internally. This is why Tucker should now be playing every day and why Hayes should have been up and playing every day as of two weeks ago.
The bad wrinkle, IMO, comes into play when you start to look at glue-type pieces, which we already have a number of and which I'd argue is the reason why in a normal season, we likely wouldn't find ourselves coming to close to a top-3 pick (even if we'd have a shot at say pick 7 or so again). We often hear the refrain about rebuilding and not chasing mediocrity, and I don't so much disagree as insist on a depressing fact: without any exception at all, the teams who were successful in stripping everything to the total screws and developing their own stars, when it came time to really enter their competitive window, spent free agency money on supplementary type players.
That doesn't even get into the big extensions eventually given to their own stars, nor does it consider the questionable futures that the Cubs, for example, and probably also the Astros, now face. My point in raising all of this is to suggest that there is not one path to winning in MLB that can be easily emulated by the Pirates, for a variety of reasons. I think a component of this path has to include some measure of caution about auctioning off a guy like Kuhl rather than investing in him.
But more importantly than anything else, IMO, is the fact that we are wasting developmental time of our best current chance at a cornerstone player in the upper minors. The situation is probably made more depressing because Keller's velocity ticked down and now he's hurt – a shitty year and a continued muddy future would probably be more stomach-able with Keller having a great campaign – but nothing changes the fact that, judged harshly from the perspective of what seems like the only viable option for this team, Shelton is failing to incorporate Tucker in favor of no-upside players and Cherington is failing to promote Hayes for reasons unknown, but I'd speculate largely due to service time manipulation.
I will admit to somewhat of a bending the stick approach. I'm fed up with the ongoing decisions, but if we either clear some house by Monday or pivot forcefully for the final 30 games, I may be willing to sing a slightly different tune. To put a fine point on it, barring injury and regardless of how the house is cleared (trades, DFA, whatever), there is no conceivable baseball reason whatsoever that the lineups for the final 30 or so games of the season should be without Hayes or Tucker in them a combined five or six times.
I don't disagree with a lot of what you are saying, but I would again just reiterate two things: 1) there isn't a lot to sell and 2) if you completely sell whatever you can, you better have clear options for getting back certain supplemental talent.
The overall organizational problem as I see it remains tied up with what I'd call Huntington's success given the farcical constraints placed on him by Nutting with a simultaneous imperative to win as many games as possible without even retooling. As a result, we have an ok amount of decent talent spread across various positions. This season, which I agree should just basically be written off, there is a combination of bad injury luck and underperformance basically across the board. Even in a hypothetical fully healthy year of 162 games and no pandemic, the team is still likely the worst in the division (though I can't help but add that I'd have liked to see the Reds fail on a more spectacular scale, once again).
This creates difficulties in terms of how you actually go forward. I think the only option, given the likely constraints that will still exist in a few years from Nutting if we get some luck with top prospects, is to do whatever you can to develop star talent internally. This is why Tucker should now be playing every day and why Hayes should have been up and playing every day as of two weeks ago.
The bad wrinkle, IMO, comes into play when you start to look at glue-type pieces, which we already have a number of and which I'd argue is the reason why in a normal season, we likely wouldn't find ourselves coming to close to a top-3 pick (even if we'd have a shot at say pick 7 or so again). We often hear the refrain about rebuilding and not chasing mediocrity, and I don't so much disagree as insist on a depressing fact: without any exception at all, the teams who were successful in stripping everything to the total screws and developing their own stars, when it came time to really enter their competitive window, spent free agency money on supplementary type players.
That doesn't even get into the big extensions eventually given to their own stars, nor does it consider the questionable futures that the Cubs, for example, and probably also the Astros, now face. My point in raising all of this is to suggest that there is not one path to winning in MLB that can be easily emulated by the Pirates, for a variety of reasons. I think a component of this path has to include some measure of caution about auctioning off a guy like Kuhl rather than investing in him.
But more importantly than anything else, IMO, is the fact that we are wasting developmental time of our best current chance at a cornerstone player in the upper minors. The situation is probably made more depressing because Keller's velocity ticked down and now he's hurt – a shitty year and a continued muddy future would probably be more stomach-able with Keller having a great campaign – but nothing changes the fact that, judged harshly from the perspective of what seems like the only viable option for this team, Shelton is failing to incorporate Tucker in favor of no-upside players and Cherington is failing to promote Hayes for reasons unknown, but I'd speculate largely due to service time manipulation.
I will admit to somewhat of a bending the stick approach. I'm fed up with the ongoing decisions, but if we either clear some house by Monday or pivot forcefully for the final 30 games, I may be willing to sing a slightly different tune. To put a fine point on it, barring injury and regardless of how the house is cleared (trades, DFA, whatever), there is no conceivable baseball reason whatsoever that the lineups for the final 30 or so games of the season should be without Hayes or Tucker in them a combined five or six times.
DJ Spinoza
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Moving away from my long-form meanderings about the team, one advantage that Cherington may have in the current situation is a seller's market. I would sort of exclude the A's somewhat, but even so, these three teams especially might be in the situation where they figure that they might as well go for it this year. Preller is always willing to throw down in big deals and the White Sox attitude has been to be more and more aggressive over the past few years.
The White Sox are probably in the position to really become the team to beat in the AL Central I think. Controllable glue-type guys might really appeal to them, since they already have some stars. I'd be inquiring as to what they'd give up for Williams + a bullpen pitcher. They have some lotto ticket types and a really interesting scenario would be to see if we might finally solve our franchise-long 1B issues with Andrew Vaughn, who destroyed in the Cape Cod League and so must be a Cherington favorite, but potentially could be blocked for a bit on the White Sox.
The big name / lotto ticket is obviously Kopech, who opted out this year. He and Vaughn have significantly more value than you would think we could get for any of our trade pieces, but maybe you catch them wanting to gamble. There are some other names who would also be interesting that are more realistic, and it probably doesn't need to be emphasized that San Diego has an even deeper system from which to deal.
The caveat is that some teams are not sharing information from their off site training facilities, but who knows. Obviously if they're willing to part with a talent like Kopech for a Williams-centered deal, you do it.
Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't again bring up the opportunity of an old saw for meL eating a contract to get better talent. It's never going to happen in a million years but that would be an exciting way to swoop in and get a bunch of talent and show some commitment to accelerating the rebuild. For example, you could take on Myers or even Hosmer, send Williams and a bullpen pitcher, and end up with a haul of 3-4 guys who could be decisive contributors for you. In terms of what could be done that would make a big difference, it's hard not to dream on this impossibility, but we should remember that it really remains that.
Just spinning things out, though, if you got a little bit of money to offset Hosmer's contract in the immediate future, then per year he doesn't make such an insane amount, so maybe you figure he can step in as an adequate anchor at 1B and be a stable source of adequate power given the dimensions for LHH in PNC Park. Then you could explore moving Bell in the winter, or even be crazily active and move him now. I have to assume Preller would jump at the possibility to get out from under that contract and that you could probably scoop up two or more high upside, high likely good guys along with some lesser pieces. But if that's a possibility Preller would want, for Nutting it is an impossibility.
bigdaddyk88
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I would be happy moving Kela for PTBNL based on his performance. I think the Yankees are perfect team for Frazier since DJ is a free agent and hurt and they have Judge also hurt. We do well with their C maybe they have on in AA we can get.
richrod Holland should get us lottery tickets
Moran in the offseason
richrod Holland should get us lottery tickets
Moran in the offseason
DJ Spinoza
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Empoleon8771
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Lol Hader blows a 1 run lead by walking 5 batters in an inning.
F*ck that guy, I want this team to tank for a high pick but f*ck his racist ass.
F*ck that guy, I want this team to tank for a high pick but f*ck his racist ass.
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DJ Spinoza
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Yeah I was all for just taking the L and keeping pace on the road to Rocker but I'd be lying if I said watching Josh Hader completely fall apart wasn't satisfying.
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