2019 Pittsburgh Pirates Season Thread

[willeyeam]

I put zero stock in spring training numbers. I've said this before but they could have had Keller throw 100% fastballs just to work on something, or throw everything on the inside half to work on location.. it's meaningless

[Troy Loney]

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pir ... 1903030160

It's crazy to me that this is considered like state of the art for MLB, but basically the Pirates are early adopters of controlling the diets of their minor league players. They used to just feed their players junk on game days, but now they have nutritionists that travel with all of their affiliates and are tasked with feeding the players. They also have these nutritionists on staff right now working like 12 hour days during ST, learning with the chefs so they can be better food preparers whence on the road.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

I would imagine that it is a pretty easy sell for these guys to say “if you want to play better, eat better” in this day and age. And it cant be that much of a monetary investment to design meal plans for these guys. So hopefully it works.

As far as nutting pointing to something unprovable such as “investments in the minors” or whatever......well, that is great. This team hasn’t drated an impact player on the MLB level since gerrit cole, and that guy was a first overall draft pick.

Speaking of which, a quick rundown of guys with more than 2 WAR drafted in 2011 and beyond (excluding cole):

Adam Frazier 2013 4.9
Chad Kuhl 2.4 WAR 2013
Bell 2011 2.0 WAR

I guess they deserve honorable mentions for drafting walker buehler, Trea tuner, and paul dejong, who have all produced more than those guys but of course went to college and got drafted by some other franchise.

And that list pisses me off.

Anyways, as far as spring training goes, there really isnt a whole lot to observe or comment upon at this point. Josh bell and cervelli are the only two regulars with more than 10 plate appearances. It is nice to see both melky and Pablo Reyes doing enough with the bat to make a case to make the team. Melky in particular should be commended for using these preseason games to work on his batting eye (0 walks in 16 plate appearances).

I’m not really a will Craig fan but again, it is nice to see him playing well. Imo josh bell probably needs to hit 20 homers or something if he doesn’t want to platoon with Craig in 2020.

The pirate broadcast team should be commended for their aggressively regressive takes on using an opener.

I dont really have anything to add to the pitching situation other than brault, his new delivery, and his disdain for meatball hoagies have translated to 4 walks and a home run in 6 innings pitched.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

The more I think about it, the more the pirates should shut up about all the money they invest in the minor leagues and/or player development or maxing out a guys ability.

[willeyeam]

That was a good rant. Also, I don't pretend the Buccos are the only ones with nutritionists, so tooting your horn over that doesn't do anything for me. They'd be best just not saying anything ever.

[Troy Loney]

I would imagine that it is a pretty easy sell for these guys to say “if you want to play better, eat better” in this day and age. And it cant be that much of a monetary investment to design meal plans for these guys. So hopefully it works.

As far as nutting pointing to something unprovable such as “investments in the minors” or whatever......well, that is great. This team hasn’t drated an impact player on the MLB level since gerrit cole, and that guy was a first overall draft pick.

It is pretty crazy how little they are getting from their draft classes. I think Taillon, Bell and Frazier are going to be the only regulars in 2019 that were drafted by the Pirates. Meadows and Glasnow will both be very productive Pirate draft picks in 2019, not sure how that should make us all feel though. That coupled with their abandonment of the international market for all those years has left a major star power gap in the organization. To be fair though, the AAA squad is going to have Tucker, Kramer, Hayes, Craig, Keller, Holmes and Brubaker all pushing to make the MLB roster this year. They could quickly move to a team with a lot of draft picks.

In terms of watching how these investments are play out, I am going to keep my eye on the guys they graduate from the DSL this year. I think 2018 was the first time they had two DSL teams, we should see a lot of those guys in either Bristol or the GCL. If feeding these teenagers better at their Dominican academy has any sort of demonstrable impact, it would probably be seen in how these recent graduates perform. There will be way more high profile graduates this year than last, I think last year was really just Samuel Inoa, Sherten Apostel and Jean Eusubio. The former two both performed really well, while Eusubio was crap in the GCL.

[robbiestoupe]

What's the bucco faithful's opinion on the Pirate's ability to home grow talent? Let's assume it's a mixture of the two, but between bad drafting and bad development, which is hurting the Pirate's cause more?

I'm leaning 70/30 in favor of development being the leading cause. It seems to be stuck somewhere between AAA and the majors where top prospects peter out.

[willeyeam]

development by far

[Troy Loney]

In terms of hitters, at the moment, I don't think there's any reason to have confidence in the organization being able to derive excess value from a prospect. I think the way I would express this particular thought is, had the Pirates picked Max Muncy up off the scrap heap, there would be no chance that he would have broken out.

I think they have shown competencies with the pitchers, but it's a bit of a mixed bag as they botched Cole and Glasnow, but to counter that they have turned a bunch of relievers around and gotten a ton of solid innings from Nova and WIlliams.

[robbiestoupe]

I just don't understand how there is no accountability in the minors. If I were NH, I'd clean house and get some people who know what they are doing. Unfortunately, I don't think things will change until the GM changes.

Instead, we get catered buffets for the minor leaguers.

[Troy Loney]

I just don't understand how there is no accountability in the minors. If I were NH, I'd clean house and get some people who know what they are doing. Unfortunately, I don't think things will change until the GM changes.

Instead, we get catered buffets for the minor leaguers.

They could be more scouting than development though.

[robbiestoupe]

In terms of hitters, at the moment, I don't think there's any reason to have confidence in the organization being able to derive excess value from a prospect. I think the way I would express this particular thought is, had the Pirates picked Max Muncy up off the scrap heap, there would be no chance that he would have broken out.

I think they have shown competencies with the pitchers, but it's a bit of a mixed bag as they botched Cole and Glasnow, but to counter that they have turned a bunch of relievers around and gotten a ton of solid innings from Nova and WIlliams.

Good observation. They are perhaps a wash with pitchers, but a net negative with hitters.

Glasnow is a tough one. He was drafted later, so not much was expected of him. Hopes were raised after 2-3 good years in the minors. There was always the caveat that he had control problems. Just never got over that.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

it is impossible for fans to really judge draft picks beyond the first round because we truly don't know anything.

That being said, some of the first round picks are easy to second guess. A small catcher like reese McGuire? limited ceiling guy like tony sanchez. I know craig was productive last year, but I still question drafting a corner infielder without a lot of pop. I do not fault the hayes tucker or Kramer/newman picks.

[Troy Loney]

it is impossible for fans to really judge draft picks beyond the first round because we truly don't know anything.

That being said, some of the first round picks are easy to second guess. A small catcher like reese McGuire? limited ceiling guy like tony sanchez. I know craig was productive last year, but I still question drafting a corner infielder without a lot of pop. I do not fault the hayes tucker or Kramer/newman picks.

They seem to have an ability to get players to tread water through the system. I think to me, that indicates a lot of risk aversion in their draft strategy. They haven't had a legit bust in a while, but they haven't targeted risky high upside guys in the early rounds. They pluck those types later in the draft, where you are basically just buying a lottery ticket.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

In terms of hitters, at the moment, I don't think there's any reason to have confidence in the organization being able to derive excess value from a prospect. I think the way I would express this particular thought is, had the Pirates picked Max Muncy up off the scrap heap, there would be no chance that he would have broken out.

Imo the perfect examples of this thought are osuna and luplow. these guys have some pop. why not just tell them to go experiment with their swing and hit some home runs? They aren't cracking this lineup unless they bring some added value.

[Troy Loney]

I think Osuna sucks, quintessential 4A player. I fear Luplow is going to prove to be a solid starter for the Indians going forward.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

osuna probably is a 4A player. but the whole point of my original rant was to dodint about how the pirates *claim* to put all these money into maximizing minor league talent. osuna is the type of guy that they should experiment with to see if they can eek out some production. but that doesnt seem to be the case.

[Troy Loney]

osuna probably is a 4A player. but the whole point of my original rant was to dodint about how the pirates *claim* to put all these money into maximizing minor league talent. osuna is the type of guy that they should experiment with to see if they can eek out some production. but that doesnt seem to be the case.

They seem to just nurse these guys through the system to make sure that the player remains ML viable for as long as possible. But then send them up to the majors with little hope of having produced an impact player.

[LeopardLetang]

Until maybe last year they were sold on drafting and nursing high contact line drive hitters to beat the shift. But instead launch angle prevailed around the league and left them in the dust.

Also troy i may be remembering wrong but i think they had 2 dsl teams some years ago and then scrapped it maybe and then went back to it. I just remember many years of 2 teams unless I'm just remembering the vsl

[Troy Loney]

Until maybe last year they were sold on drafting and nursing high contact line drive hitters to beat the shift. But instead launch angle prevailed around the league and left them in the dust.

Also troy i may be remembering wrong but i think they had 2 dsl teams some years ago and then scrapped it maybe and then went back to it. I just remember many years of 2 teams unless I'm just remembering the vsl

You are right. in 2012 and 2013 they had two DSL teams, then moved back to one. Though for most years, the second foreign rookie league team was a VSL squad.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... cgi?id=PIT

[robbiestoupe]

Source of the post Until maybe last year they were sold on drafting and nursing high contact line drive hitters to beat the shift. But instead launch angle prevailed around the league and left them in the dust.

See, this is just stupid imo. Draft good f'ing baseball players, not analytical robots

[LeopardLetang]

I think ther point was to draft good ballplayers that were athletic and could play many positions and NOT draft guys with power but bad D and swing and miss

[LeopardLetang]

So we're left with lots of low upside utility guys

Especially their college position player picks.

They drafted for size and projection with pitchers. Which included some high risk high upside. Then with international players and high school position players it was a bit scattershot but they'd look for as many tools as they could in a guy rather than really high power only

[Troy Loney]

It seems as though players are less willing to sign team friendly extension and choosing to go through the arbitration process instead. If this is the case, I fear we may see the Pirates start operating with an even lower payroll. Right now, they have Vazquez, Archer, Marte and Polanco under those type of deals, but what are they going to do when all these guys under team control start entering their last two years of arbitration? If Cole is an indication, they will shop those players for guys with more years of control. I think Coonelly or NH made a comment about how the low payroll this year is a product of so many players in their last pre-arbitration year, but looking at next years potential team, they are actually in line to drop payroll down to 60mm.

C Diaz $1,800,000 (proj)
1B Bell $2,000,000 (proj)
2B Frazier $1,800,000 (proj)
SS Gonzalez $1,000,000 (proj)
3B Hayes $575,000
RF Polanco $8,600,000
CF Marte $11,500,000
LF

1P Archer $8,250,000
2P Taillon $4,000,000 (proj)
3P Musgrove $2,500,000 (proj)
4P Williams $3,500,000 (proj)
5P Kingham $550,000

BN Kramer $550,000
BN Stallings $550,000
BN Reyes $550,000
BN Moran $600,000
BN

RP Vazquez $5,750,000
RP Kela $5,000,000 (proj)
RP Crick $550,000
RP Rodriguez $550,000
RP Brault $600,000
RP
RP


Total $60,775,000

[robbiestoupe]

Speaking of arbitration tendencies, the next CBA should be interesting. There are whispers that a segment of the players union is unhappy with the amount of service time required before free agency. Players are playing their prime years under cheap contracts, and teams are starting to pull away from signing big name FA's in their 30's to long term deals (which is the smart move).

But I just don't see how older veterans will agree to a new CBA where younger players are taking up more of the money allocated to payroll. Teams aren't just going to start paying younger players AND older players buttloads of money, so if arbitration length is cut in half, for example, veterans in their 30's will see a drop in salary.