OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: The Condemned of Altoona

[gtpeli2]

Hurdle needs to be fired.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Since there's no need to waste hundreds of words on this bullshit:

Kang is finally in Indy, Kingham got sent back down for Nova, Frazier just got optioned for Stallings, and we are definitely going to lose today.

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

Because we can't just put Cervelli on the dl now. Got to play a few games with a short bench first for funzies.

More veteran worship. Kingham has been solid and has a future. Nova has been a dumpster fire and is old.

Once again, a sub-optimal outfield plays today in the interest of protecting El Coffee's feelings. Maybe he can keep it to one k today.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

These decisions are definitely a series in the same old Pirates, unlike the Kontos one. Rodriguez should be DFAd.

I hesitate to read too much into them, because in the event of Cervelli going on the DL, Frazier can be called right back up, but this could be an indication of where the team is at with Frazier (and it's not really a bad assessment of him as a player IMO).

 

[DanielPlainview]

Frazier was obviously in the dog house with Hurdle even before his baserunning blunder the other day. Yet SeanRod gets a dozen starts no matter how poorly he plays. Stuff like this is just another reason why Hurdle must go.

 

[DanielPlainview]

Why did they option Kingham to Indy after a 6.1 IP, 2 ER performance? Especially when William's has tossed a 6.30 ERA over his last 6 starts?

 

[DanielPlainview]

Just because I was curious...the Pirates' slashes in June:

Bell: .045 / .154 / .245
Cervelli: .150 / .292 / .692
Diaz: .143 / .125 / .696 (only 7 ABs)
Dickerson: .417 / .458/ .898
Frazier: .273 / .333/ .879
Freese: .250 / .368/ .681
Harrison: .333 / .417/ .798
Marte: .111 / .219/ .330
Meadows: .292 / .346/ .846
Mercer: .222 / .263 /.541
Moran: .300 / .375 / .875
Polanco: .111 /.150 /.372
Rodriguez: .077 / .200 / .277

 

[DanielPlainview]

Well, at least they managed to gain a game on the three ahead of them

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Optimist take: maybe with some bounced going our way, we can get on a little roll. Pull out a win in Arizona, then a big home stand. Sometimes baseball just turns around.

Pessimist take: it's a blessing in disguise that Cervelli might need to be out for a couple of weeks, since we'll get some glimpse at Diaz as a more everyday player, and maybe have some more information to go on if we want to cash in on Cervelli's big year at the deadline.


I ended up actually watching this game, and to his credit, Nova was really sharp today. Looks like we'll see Corbin tomorrow, and Grienke at the end of the series (I guess with Clay Bucholz in between? Didn't realize he was even still in baseball). Mercer has looked like he might be ready to go on a little hot streak.

 

[DanielPlainview]

Maybe this will feed your optimism a little bit:

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yesterday was the height of absurdity. We literally lost the game because the outfield in Wrigley Field is garbage and Marte took a tumble on a routine fly ball.

A run of bad luck can't continue forever, until it does...

Really, I think what we need offensively is just for two of the following players to heat up: Harrison, Bell, Polanco, and maybe to a lesser extent Mercer. But I think the big test will be the pitching. Can Musgrove turn in some more starts like his first couple, can Taillon keep up the pace with his slider, can Kuhl basically continue the same performance, and will Nova be passable again? Will Williams rebound, or if he doesn't will we pull the plug quickly and go with Kingham?

The offense will continue to produce at an above average clip, and if it's coupled with good pitching, I can see pulling ourselves back to 4 or 5 games over .500 in the next couple of weeks. Obviously, the best way to do that would be to just get red hot here and erase some of the bad weeks we've been on -- seriously, firing off a 7 or 8 game winning streak would do absolute wonders, as long as it's followed up by solid play. But the Diamondbacks are white hot, and 7 of the next 10 are against them.

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

Problem has been matching the bats with pitching. Hasnt happened over this month.

Can also see how much of an impact Bell and Polanco were in this team losing. Polanco has a great day and they win. Think they did the last two times too. Couldnt afford to have both of them fall off like that.

 

[DanielPlainview]

Williams has been interesting. I thought they might go with Musgrove as scheduled today and then go with Nova tomorrow to give him a day off. But looking at things, Williams has been incredibly unlucky. It's not often you see a run of 5 outings where a pitcher has an ERA of 6.12 and a FIP of 3.76. At some point this has to correct. Hopefully tomorrow we get a 7 inning gem from him.

 

[cookthebooks]

prospect performance this season has not been encouraging. that will craig pick looking worse by the second

 

[cheesedanish87]

Anybody else starting to wonder about Searage?

He got a good reputation for fixing pitchers early on, but the results lately haven't been great.

Taillon and Glasnow haven't developed as well as i thought they would.

Then you see pitchers like Cole and Morton go on to Houston and have a lot more success then they did here.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I think Musgrove is today, and Williams tomorrow. I agree that he should recorrect soon. Without looking at numbers, I suspect the issues with him come down to strikeouts and walks. In general, he's a pitch to weak contact type guy, and when he was really dealing earlier this year, he was also getting tons of Ks. However, his walks have seemed to also go up. I'd imagine these aren't too out of whack given that FIP, but I think part of the path out of his slump for him is figuring out what kind of pitcher he'll be.

I think in general, he has limited upside, but is still an incredibly useful pitcher to have at 3,4,5 in the rotation. His issue is really more that most of the other pitchers are somewhere similar to him, than anything he's doing specifically. We need Taillon to get at that next level, and hopefully Musgrove too. As we're built, all of the pitching can be adequate enough to really give a solid foundation to an offense that's clicking well, but there are enough question marks both with many of them and in the bullpen that it can come crumbling down quickly.

Craig definitely doesn't look like a good pick. I guess he's at least somewhat less of a big deal if you are high enough on Bell. Newman, Kramer have seemed solid, as has a lot of the secondary pitching in the high minors: Eppler, McRae, Holmes (who makes the most sense to me as someone to convert to bullpen). Altoona looks ok: Hayes has broken out of his slump, Martin obviously, some pitchers headlined by Keller. WV is where the best stories might lie, with Mitchell, Stafford, and (to some extent) Cruz.

I think nobody besides Mitchell and Martin are doing much to jump off the page, but the system is about where you'd expect for a solid, but not great one. I'd like to see Keller even more dominant, but he's not a disappointment really. The biggest one is Tucker, who had tons of hype for this year but has fallen off. It's been met with Newman really hitting, and I would like to get a look at his defense in Pittsburgh, but he's probably going to be a victim of Kang's re-emergence, so I doubt we see him unless there's an injury to Mercer.

The cluster of infielders promises to be an interesting story. Harrison is the most obvious trade candidate, and if we're out of it at the deadline, he makes a lot of sense to shop aggressively, since 2B can be filled pretty easily without even tapping Kramer or Newman. I doubt Kang or Moran would be players we'd look to move, and Mercer would only have value in a very specific situation. I like Kramer a good bit for that 2B spot, solid glove and some LH pop, but really, the prospect of selling doesn't interest me a lot. There's something to be said for maxing value on guys like Harrison and Cervelli, but the general issue we seem to keep coming up against is that we're built to be a little above average, but lacking in the real impact players that we'll take us over the top. I don't think any trade is going to fix that, outside of going after a front line starter, or Machado (which obviously isn't happening).


It's a topic for another day, but Fulmer is pretty intriguing as a trade candidate. You have to assume the Tigers will just wait, as there's not much utility in trading him when he's mediocre, but maybe there's a shot for an outside the box trade, centered around us giving up some young MLB talent plus also some prospects. I realize this absolutely sounds like the kind of bullshit that armchair fans say all the time, but if we start a package with Kuhl, Frazier and/or Osuna, then I don't think it's insane to wonder if we could land Fulmer without moving Baz or Meadows. Maybe tap into the depth arms as sweeteners, and utilize Martin or Mitchell as a bigger prospect piece.

It wouldn't make a ton of sense for Detroit, but that's also only on the assumption that Fulmer will really restore value in a future year. The Kuhl starter would really be the big question mark, but as a partial change of scenery type thing, and partially the Tigers trying to spread out some pieces (landing some DH/1B/OF help that's already proven, some backend starting depth), maybe it's not too much of a fantasy. People seem not to love Fulmer because he's not a strikeout pitcher through and through, but he seems like the kind of guy who would get a definite boost in the NL. It would not be unlike Musgrove.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

On Searage, I think part of it is an organizational philosophy, but also stuff I've read from Sawchik suggests that Searage plays a big part in that. His ability as a fixer has been really key for drawing out value in unexpected ways, but the lack of a frontline starter has been what has hurt us in several different ways. Whether you have being overmatched in WC games, or an inability to really lead yourself out of these stretches, an impact pitcher has been a huge problem.

This may ultimately be a copout, but at the end of the day, I don't really see the utility of replacing most of the management. It's beyond even discussable that we have an owner who won't contribute beyond the bare minimum. Huntington has flaws, but he's undoubtably also rescued the organization from obscurity, and positioned us to at least be relevant, and more than that when some things break the right ways. Hurdle is basically an interior decorator. I dislike him as much as anyone, but I'm also extremely skeptical that the manager matters in any significant way. The bottom line for me is that I think any big shakeups with Huntington, Hurdle, even Searage are likely to be replaced with something worse.

Returning to pitching, one thing I do think is worth keeping in mind is that Taillon is still pretty young. With the injuries from last year, you might even say that this is his first full season, but even still, it's only his second full year. Cole's was in 2015.

I think Taillon's slider bodes extremely well, and I'm curious what we'll be saying about him in about 5 weeks, when the all star break is here. If we are going to blaze a path back to relevance, it will have to be because of him. And in terms of Searage and the organizational philosophy more generally, I think Musgrove will be a big test. Will he put up 6+ innings almost every time, or will he be a bit more middling, struggle with some hard contact, and be more in the mix with guys like Kuhl and Williams?

Translating that into more abstract terms, will Musgrove look like he's the #1 or #2 guy, or will he look more like a #3 or #4? Most probably would guess the latter, which I think is a fair assumption, but I bring all this up because you could probably argue that Musgrove is the biggest investment in terms of the pitching philosophy in the organization. If we look at Happ, Nova, Liriano, and I guess Burnett too, then we saw a lot of solid success, and varying forms of investment (Burnett had more control left, we infamously let Happ walk, and Nova and Liriano were re-signed with mixed results).

Musgrove is the biggest pitcher we've acquired that fits what Searage (and I think Huntington) are doggedly insistent on, which is that the fastball is still king. He can locate and move around different fastballs at will. Taillon's increasing reliance on the slider is a small sign of hope that we aren't going to just pound millions of fastballs into the bottom of the zone forever, so I guess where I'm driving at is that a lot rests on the success of these two guys over the next year and a half or two. They are both at the center of what we've attempted to build, and the contrast with Cole especially is marked.

 

[cheesedanish87]

The Pirates aren't playing good, but they are running into some hot teams.

LA Cubs and Now Arizona.

Their is lots of luck involved in baseball as far as when you play teams.

Playing Arizona 3 weeks ago would of been a lot better then playing Arizona right now.

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

The Pirates aren't playing good, but they are running into some hot teams.

LA Cubs and Now Arizona.

Their is lots of luck involved in baseball as far as when you play teams.

Playing Arizona 3 weeks ago would of been a lot better then playing Arizona right now.

Theyve entered series with teams who were at the bottom of their divisions and were swept...maybe this is a good thing facing a team they know they have to give their best

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Goldschmidt is on an utter tear right now. To me, this series seems even more difficult than the ones we've just passed through. LA was also playing ridiculous, but I think a much better result against the divisional teams was really possible. We probably should have won the most recent series in Chicago, if nothing else.

In any event, I do think big adversity always seems to help Hurdle's teams, and we saw some key good things happen yesterday: Polanco ripping a pitch down the line, Bell drawing a bunch of walks.

I'll be shocked if we can get a series win. Corbin is the big motor of this team, so maybe if we can somehow get the win tonight, we'll have them on their heels a little bit. He did allow 6 runs against the Reds a couple starts ago, and the Pirates have some decent numbers against him in extremely small sample sizes. The next 10 games are enormous: 7 against the white hot Diamondbacks, and 3 against our old nemesis the Reds. Are we ready to go on a hot streak ourselves? We need something like 7-3 just to get back to a salvageable position in 4th place in the division. Probably need to sweep the Reds.

 

[DanielPlainview]

Kind of excited for the Taillon vs. Greinke finale. I want to see Jameson rise to the occasion and show that dominant form.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Agreed. In terms of almost impossibly unlikely outcomes, there's a big part of me hoping for the sweep. Musgrove stepping back up tonight, getting a bounce back start from Williams tomorrow, and Taillon Wednesday. Going 5-15 or whatever and then sweeping one of the hottest teams in baseball on the road just seems like an eminently Pirates thing to do.

Realistically, we know that what's going to happen is that Daniel Descalso and Jon Jay are going to each have 15 RBIs in this series.

 

[Return of the Paek]

DJ,

I appreciate the comprehensive analysis. I have a few thoughts:

1. Is Trevor Williams regressing to his mean after a strong start? For awhile he looked like a good #3, but lately he has looked like a fringy #5.

2. The issue with this rotation is, unless Taillon and Musgrove take a step forward, we have a rotation full of #3-#5s: Nova, JT, Musgrove, Taillon and Kuhl (even throw in Kingham).

3. I understand the philosophy of trading guys at their highest value when you wont make the playoffs, but, in reality, what are Cervelli and Harrison really worth? Don't we have enough middling prospects in the system? Id almost rather just ride those guys out and maybe we can sneak into the 'offs next year.

4. Josh Bell is having a dumpster fire season which was under-the-radar until recently. I have no idea why they refuse to give him a week off and use Osuna/Freese at first.

5. While I don't want to give up on Polanco, he also should be sat down for a week or 2 (used as a PH occasionally). No reason not to ride Marte, Meadows and Dickerson in the near term.

6. Our system is average at best. None of these highly touted/drafted guys ever seem to pan out (other than Meadows of course). I like Keller, but I think guys like Kramer, Newman and Moroff are just bench fillers. I guess Jason Martin, Cal Mitchell, O'Neil Cruz and a few other guys are exciting lottery tickets, but we wont see them this year.

7. Jordy is the most overrated defender and maybe player in Pirates' history. From Rum Bunter:
"After going 1-for-4 in Sunday’s victory, Mercer owns a .251/.315/.377/.692 slash line, a .294 wOBA, and a wRC+ of 84. Mercer struggling at the plate should come as no surprise. After all, his lifetime .300 wOBA, 88 wRC+, and .699 OPS are all below league average....Mercer’s struggles this season have not been just at the plate, either. He has also been among the worst defensive shortstops in baseball. Entering play on Sunday Mercer was responsible for -7 defensive runs saved (DRS) at shortstop this season. Out of the 91 players to log at least one inning at shortstop in the Major Leagues this season Mercer’s DRS ranks 88th." I think Mercer can still play occasionally, especially when he is riding a hot streak, but I think Kang should take his spot (assuming Kang does well in Indy). They also have Bostik and Moroff, but not sure if either has played a ton of short.

8. I love Sword, but they should DFA'd him yesterday. He is a complete waste of a roster spot.

9. Nova pitched great, but if he gets into another 3-4 game slump, its going to be hard to justify pitching him over Kingham.

10. Hurdle is a buffoon. I am always hesitant to blame the coach for a loss, but I think his decisions have resulted in about 4-5 extra losses (net). He is too stubborn.

 

[DanielPlainview]

It seems Bucs fans are underestimating him and are always waiting for the "real" Williams to show up, which is assumed to be like a 4.25 ERA type of guy. I think he's better than that. Probably a 3.80 type.

Looking at his stats a little more, he holds a 3.58 ERA with a 3.98 FIP over 33 starts. This excludes his current 4-game slide.

 

[Return of the Paek]

I hope you are right, but thought a lot of his advanced stats were not great. I honestly have not delved into it myself though.