2018 Pittsburgh Pirates In-Season Thread

[Freddy Rumsen]

Pirates on a run

[DigitalGypsy66]

Pirates on a run

Just enough not to blow up the team with the added benefit of helping the Cubs win the Central.

[willeyeam]

Go Bucs

[willeyeam]

No Meadows in game 2.

Luplow has 2 HRs and the 3 OFs all have at least a HR

[Freddy Rumsen]

Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco of the @Pirates became the 3rd duo in MLB history to hit back-to-back homers in both games of a doubleheader.

The others:
Pittsburgh's Frank Thomas and Dick Groat on 7/7/1957
Oakland's Sal Bando and Reggie Jackson on 7/7/1968

https://mobile.twitter.com/StatsBySTATS ... 4136184834

[Dickie Dunn]

Feliz is terrible.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

While it is good to see a turnaround, let's face it, even if this team is within striking distance of a wild card spot, they won't add anything meaningful at the trade deadline. By winning, they are only hurting Their draft position.

[dodint]

Honestly go **** themselves.

[NailedPenguin]

But Neal Huntington said..

[Troy Loney]

yeah, screw them, winning games, they’re supposed to lose so we can feel vindicated.

[Dickie Dunn]

Now up to a 5.3% chance of making the playoffs.
Before the Brewers series they were at 3 something %.

[shafnutz05]

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

yeah, screw them, winning games, they’re supposed to lose so we can feel vindicated.

Imo this comment was not directed at the kangaroo, but my take is pretty simple and not exactly earth shattering. If you aren’t good enough to contend, you might as well flat out stink. The pirates has a punchers chance of the playoffs the last two seasons and declined to make meaningful moves at the deadline, and that is fine as long as you are trying to tank. This organization is doing neither.

[Dickie Dunn]

I love how cocky TL gets when the Pirates win a couple.

[Troy Loney]

yeah, screw them, winning games, they’re supposed to lose so we can feel vindicated.

Imo this comment was not directed at the kangaroo, but my take is pretty simple and not exactly earth shattering. If you aren’t good enough to contend, you might as well flat out stink. The pirates has a punchers chance of the playoffs the last two seasons and declined to make meaningful moves at the deadline, and that is fine as long as you are trying to tank. This organization is doing neither.

Williams over on pirates prospects has been arguing for a full rebuild all week. That just doesn’t make sense to me. I think the way the roster is structured, 2018 has to be a punt, but even though I don’t hate the front office, I will be frustrated if they don’t show some urgency to win next year. They have a lot of depth that can fill out a roster now and going forward, so it’s put them in a position where they could add a lot of salary in the offseason and still be under 100M.

They could easily take a roster That could be 65M and keep turds like Harrison, freese and Mercer around to get it up to the 90M range. Or they could shed dead weight and add a real shortstop and starting pitcher.

[Troy Loney]

I love how cocky TL gets when the Pirates win a couple.

I do think the victory laps some people are making are beyond premature. But people like madden and his ilk seem to get genuinely angry when the pirates win

[robbiestoupe]

This team lacks any superstar power. Heck, they lack all-star power. What makes you think they are “almost there” Troy?

[Troy Loney]

This team lacks any superstar power. Heck, they lack all-star power. What makes you think they are “almost there” Troy?

It's not necessary for a team to have an MVP candidate to to compete in baseball. But if you're going for quantity of quality, you need a lot of good quantity. I think the Pirates have actually attained NH's vision for the franchise, a roster filled with homegrown pre arbitration players and a triple A team feeding prospects on to the major league squad when there's injury or failure. While I'm clearly more prone to optimism with this team, there are some encouraging signs for the near future, I'll touch on those:

Elias Diaz, while I'm not ready to make him the everday catcher, he is a huge upgrade at C2 and has been more than capable for stepping in when Cervelli is hurt.
Colin Moran - He's held his head above water at 3B in his rookie season and I think he could be a guy that gets better as he gets more experience.
Kyle Crick - the 8th inning guy is so important and getting a guy like this is so important for this team, NH keeps proving he knows how to build a bullpen.
The rotation - no one is going to confuse them for the 90's Braves, but Taillon, Musgrove, Williams, Kingham and Kuhl are all in their pre-arb years. I'm very much of the opinion that if they were to find a taker for Nova here, and then allocate money to the rotation over the offseason for a guy that could come in and be the number one starter for this team,that would for one push Taillon and co down the order, but also be a strong stabilizing force. I think a guy like Keuchel would be ideal.

Here is essentially what I want to see them do for next year:

C Cervelli $11,500,000
1B Bell $600,000
2B Kramer/Neman $550,000
SS Escobar $15,000,000
3B Moran $600,000
RF Polanco $6,100,000
CF Marte $10,333,334
LF Meadows $550,000

1P Keuchel $25,000,000
2P Taillon $600,000
3P Musgrove $600,000
4P Williams $600,000
5P Kingham $550,000

BN Dickerson $8,500,000
BN Diaz $550,000
BN Luplow $550,000
BN Kramer/Moroff $550,000
BN Osuna/Frazier $550,000

RP Vazquez $4,500,000
RP Crick $550,000
RP Glasnow $550,000
RP Rodriguez $550,000
RP Feliz $1,200,000
RP Santana $550,000
RP Brault $550,000

$91,733,334

[Troy Loney]

Also, to the point of this team finally reaching NH's vision. When the Pirates were contending, the top prospects in their system (Meadows, Taillon, Glasnow, Bell and Polanco) were all basically penciled in to roster spots. Aside from Keller, I'm not sure there's any reason to think the current top prospects (Hayes, Baz, Mitchell, Cruz and Swaggerty) will be as untouchable for this team.

[willeyeam]

Lol Keuchel. Okay

[willeyeam]

While they will certainly have the room, in terms of the $100MM or so ceiling we'll call it that they've hit before, a $20MM contract isn't going to happen. It goes against everything they've ever done to have the risk of a quarter of your payroll tied up in one asset

[Troy Loney]

Right, but that goes to the urgency issue. The FO needs to feel that. If they were to feel that, they would make a bold move.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Where would this year’s club be without Corey Dickerson? We may find out soon, actually, but he’s had some big, timely hits and a decent glove in LF so far.

[willeyeam]

Where would this year’s club be without Corey Dickerson? We may find out soon, actually, but he’s had some big, timely hits and a decent glove in LF so far.

Probably in the same place because Meadows would be playing every day and he did well up in the majors

[robbiestoupe]

Wait, so not only will the pirates sign kuechel for $25m, they are also going to sign a ss for $15m with two ss’s in the pipeline??

smh