2019-2020 Pittsburgh Pirates Off-Season Thread

[Beveridge]

That will give us some cap flexibi...

oh

[Troy Loney]

Yeah, I'm not sure any of this matters.

That they went so far backwards last year derails their direction more than I think anyone is ready to acknowledge. This is a huge 1st year arbitration class (Taillon, Musgrove, Williams, Frazier, Bell), this was pretty much supposed to be the core of the rotation going forward. In 2020 they are both getting expensive and closer to free agency, they are moving from long term assets to short term assets this year, thus meaning they start being put on the trade bloc.

They could have doubled down on this group and spent a bunch of money to try and plug the holes, like the Padres did a some years ago when they spent a bunch of money and gutted their system for Upton and Myers and some other players.

Canning the front office and coaching staff and holding pat on the roster ensures 2020 is a lost year, so that is a lost year for an integral year in this arbitration class. So basically, I expect the 2020 trade deadline and the 2021 off-season will be spent turning over this roster.

[willeyeam]

Getting Bell at 4.8 should allow them to spend that value elsewhere but that will never happen so who tf cares what his amount ended up at

[Dickie Dunn]

The Bell savings will be put toward his 2021 salary.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

I hope this means they trade bell

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

Pitchers and catchers report in roughly 30 days

I think most, if not all, of the pirates fans of 5af would be open to a wholesale fire sale (which lets face it, means trading like 5 guys at most worth anything on the team) might not be the worst thing in the world. Instead, it is looking more and more likely that the pirates are going with status quo pirates. At what point in the offseason does it seem unlikely that the pirates can find a taker for marte, bell, maybe even Williams or others?

[Troy Loney]

I don’t see how they don’t fire sale, their players are both going to start getting more expensive and are also not going to get better.

The prospect last that are close to the majors (Keller, Hayes and tucker) will likely be starting caliber players, but don’t appear to be impact type talent. So you can plug holes with them, but they aren’t going to change the dynamic of the current core.

Newman and Reynolds are likely to regress, as is bell.

Williams and archer will be better, either that or they are demoted.

I like the farm system, and I think we will like it more in the coming years, but absent significant investment at the major league level, they have to fire sale.

My frustration stems from the absolute unwillingness to take on risk. They have easily 40m in payroll wiggle room. That’s just lost money, they do not have one burdensome contract (they have some 7 and 8 figure salaries that are high, but by not bad by any rational stretch). They don’t have some wave of imminent wave of prospects, but they have a large group of players under team control through at least 2021. What the hell could possibly Hugo wrong by adding some mid tier free agents, who are all accepting extremely manageable contracts (Dallas keuchel). There is now way that contract ever becomes unmoveable. Worst case for Chicago is the young core stalls and the timeframe doesn’t match up and they have to move keuchel for prospects.

Also extremely annoying, there is a chance this lineup breaks out. If Reynolds and Newman repeat and polanco has one of his competent seasons, they have a stacked 1-6. But then you are trotting out archer, Williams, Brault and Keller basically every game without any clue how that will turn out. Not to mention the worst parts of the bullpen all being promoted as your only good rp is in jail.

[robbiestoupe]

I mentioned it earlier but it wouldn’t surprise me if they wait until the trade deadline to unload most of their players. There are some decent trade options now, but all on the offensive side.

The pitching has a good chance to turn things around, making them more of a trade asset. If they traded all their good offensive players now, it may put the team in a rebuild mindset.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

They can’t possibly look at this rotation, this bullpen, and the potential regression in the lineup and say “we have the makings of a contending team.” If they really did believe in this team, they would have added a bonafide major leaguer in free agency. Instead they have done nothing.

Will marte’s value be higher at the deadline than, say, the winter meetings?

I can’t see bell’s value going up much this season unless he hits 45 home runs or something. But his swing is just way way to inconsistent for him to genuinely break out

[robbiestoupe]

I'm not saying they believe this is a contending team, but they also don't want to plant the seed in the players' minds that they are rebuilding. Not that standing pat is a good way to instill confidence, but

**** it, I have no clue what the hell they are doing. It's still early with this new management team so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but if this is going to be their MO as long as Bob is in charge, I will definitely a) root for another team or more likely b) give up completely on baseball altogether.

[Freddy Rumsen]

[faftorial]

That's pay walled for me. Who are they talking about?

[willeyeam]

Hopefully Erik Gonzalez and Brault

[DigitalGypsy66]

@Faftorial

Other names you could potentially hear include Michael McKenry, Kevin Young and Matt Capps, in addition to others on a less-frequent basis.

[faftorial]

@Faftorial

Other names you could potentially hear include Michael McKenry, Kevin Young and Matt Capps, in addition to others on a less-frequent basis.

Thanks. Not the Wehner fan so this is good news.

[iamjs]

That's pay walled for me. Who are they talking about?

Welcome to the show, Lonnie Chisenhall.

[DigitalGypsy66]

@Faftorial

Other names you could potentially hear include Michael McKenry, Kevin Young and Matt Capps, in addition to others on a less-frequent basis.

Thanks. Not the Wehner fan so this is good news.

Oh these were the new names. Wehner is still there.

[Dickie Dunn]

- I did not realize that the Pirates avoided arbitration with everyone:

Josh Bell - $4.8 million
Keone Kela - $3.725 million
Trevor Williams - $2.825 million
Adam Frazier - $2.8 million
Joe Musgrove - $2.8 million
Jameson Taillon - $2.25 million
Michael Feliz - $1.1 million
Chad Kuhl - $840,000

- The Pirates officially announced that utilityman Jake Elmore has been re-signed to a minor league contract and has received an invitation to the team’s big league Spring Training camp.



Opening day payroll is currently projected at just over $60MM, or less than the Lakers are paying LeBron and AD. **** off Pirates.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

len elmore will be 33 next year, didn't appear in a major league game in 2017 or 2018, and hit 213 in 2019

seems like a worthwhile invite.

[Freddy Rumsen]

Nutting is too cheap to cheat.

[Rocco]

Speaking of @rocco the best pirate nicknames of all time were big worthless and little worthless

We all contribute in our own ways.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

https://triblive.com/sports/of-guillerm ... o-pirates/

Bad headline imo

[willeyeam]

Lol

[Gaucho]

[King Colby]

So the opening day payroll is $69M as of right now, which includes $5.75M for the felon (which wont be paid) and $11.5M for Marte.

I've always been the leader of the "payroll =/= wins" team but honestly to be in the 55-65M range with some of the modest contracts we saw this offseason is insane. They could have very easily drawn up some interest and made themselves more competitive by spending like $25M in free agency. They still would have been the 2nd lowest payroll in the NL