The Official 2017 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Season Thread

[columbia]

Missing Jung Ho HiteJinro will hurt, but eff him.

[NailedPenguin]

I confused Glasnow with Taillon while I was distracted at work and took the under.

ivemadeabigmistake.gif

I think it was actually huge mistake, not big mistake. My arrested development knowledge is rusty. Sorry @TobiasFunke

Still hit that under at 8 1/2

*sippin my tea like Kermit the frog*

[shafnutz05]

Has Bastardo given up a run in every outing this year?

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

little concerned about the extreme volume of inside fastballs that josh bell is seeing. also concerned about his inability to do anything with those fastballs

[Morkle]

“I know that there’s sometimes frustration that we’re seemingly not willing to trade away the future of the organization. But had we traded away the future of the organization four or five years ago, we wouldn’t be enjoying Tyler Glasnow here today.”

[DigitalGypsy66]

"Enjoying"

[Morkle]

The defiance of it all is the most frustrating.

[Dickie Dunn]

Start Mid-April in the south, west and dome stadiums for first 10 games. End mid September and playoffs end mid October.

Shave off about 22 games and play 140. Will never happen because $$$.

I really like this idea, and while this:

There aren't enough south, west, and dome stadiums for that plan to work. There are only ~ 12 or 13 of those, and that is including fringey places like SF and Oakland, where it can still be effing miserable this time of year.

is the biggest issue that prevents it from fully happening, today is the Marlins home opener. They played in DC and NY and are now at home against the Braves. This is illogical as hell.

[IanMoran]

Start Mid-April in the south, west and dome stadiums for first 10 games. End mid September and playoffs end mid October.

Shave off about 22 games and play 140. Will never happen because $$$.

I really like this idea, and while this:

There aren't enough south, west, and dome stadiums for that plan to work. There are only ~ 12 or 13 of those, and that is including fringey places like SF and Oakland, where it can still be effing miserable this time of year.

is the biggest issue that prevents it from fully happening, today is the Marlins home opener. They played in DC and NY and are now at home against the Braves. This is illogical as hell.

Teams never seeing a home-opener as their opening day would fight this.

[columbia]

I didn't see any griping, so not surprised to see that the game is delayed.

[NailedPenguin]

If it counts, a few people I follow on twitter are people that take their dogs to baseball games and they're griping about the rain delay and the process of getting in. I'm enjoying that

[shafnutz05]

Uhhhh.... Cool?

That was a dumb play. His jump was terrible, the tag was worse. I'll take it though

[Freddy Rumsen]

Nice run scored on the double steal.

[shafnutz05]

Another solid outing from Taillon wasted. On the bright side Cutch stroked a couple of hits.

[columbia]

Looking at the schedule, im somewhat concerned that they will have dug themselves too steep of a hole by mid May.

[shafnutz05]

Looking at the schedule, im somewhat concerned that they will have dug themselves too steep of a hole by mid May.

Yup, it's a brutal schedule to start. The Reds were predicted to finish near the cellar of the Central, and this was allegedly one of the less challenging series to start the year. Sweeping the Braves was nice, but need to win these games too.

[Troy Loney]

There is some good and bad with this team. The pitching hasn't been great, but it's not expected to carry the team, and if the offense is dormant, they are going to struggle to win.

Some of the biggest prospects in the system are off to slow starts (Meadows and Keller), but they have another potential breakout pitcher in WV with Luis Escobar, he was a guy that Keith Law pointed out two years ago as a top 10 guy in the system when no one had even heard of him. He had 12 K's in 5 innings in his first start. In a world filled with people ranking prospects and herding, Law is probably one of the few that you can count on that provides rankings based on actual scouting metrics as opposed to stat sheets and other ranking sites.

[willeyeam]

keith law is an ass

[Troy Loney]

keith law is an ass

He's full of himself that's for sure, but I've noticed that when his opinions disagree with the industry, he's usually more right. Especially with the Pirates, he always thought low of Alvarez, thought Cole was the best prospect in the 2011 draft when other places were pushing Bundy and Bauer, and was high on Newman when other outlets thought little of him,

[willeyeam]

Oh my post had nothing to do with his baseball knowledge

[Dickie Dunn]

Law was really high on the Pirates farm system (ranked them fourth), but beyond the big names the cupboard seems fairly empty, so Escobar turning into something would be nice. Will Craig's terrible defense has already gotten him moved to 1B and so far his college power has not translated to pro ball, which is crappy.

[Troy Loney]

Any system that has 5 guys that can boast 5 top 50 prospects is going to be one of the best systems in baseball.

And beyond that I think the system has plenty of talent. There was an interesting article on pirates prospects about a change to the organizational approach to hitters development. It was a while ago, but if I remember correctly, it was that hitters at the lower levels were developing the approach to target offspeed pitches. What I think you saw was a guy like Newman, who has that singles swing, thrive in Bradenton with that approach. Which I assume is to let the ball deeper and going the other way with fastballs. Two guys that I would keep an eye on in Altoona this year are Kramer and Luplow. Two strong college bats that didn't thrive in Bradenton, but put up respectable numbers in a pitcher friendly league. They're both 23 in Altoona and starting off very strong.

I guess my point would be that you can't judge a system by statistics, I think a lot of internet prospect scouts would defer to stat lines over scouting reports. I can think of one affiliate that dumped the Pirates because of their development approach over wins and losses in the minors. While that might be circumstantial, it would indicate that other teams have more of a balance between trying to win in the minors and strict development approaches.

[Freddy Rumsen]

https://twitter.com/stephenjnesbitt/sta ... 0680877059

[columbia]

Fly away, little Starling.

[Dickie Dunn]

Thank god Polanco petted it. If Bastardo had touched it a lefty would have turned it into a 400 foot dinger.