2019-2020 Pittsburgh Pirates Off-Season Thread

[willeyeam]

Nice

[willeyeam]

But really yeah, it's a joke. If you are so obviously not going to compete then sell the players with value. This stand pat bs sucks.

[robbiestoupe]

There were multitude of instances in kaiser Bob’s tenure where taking on a large chunk of salary would not have hurt the team. 0 times did he add payroll. Status quo

[slappybrown]

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

I saw a tweet that said the Pirates receive $92mm from the MLB national TV contract. Is the $40mm or so they get from baseball socialism in addition to that? Because if these clowns receive $130mm per year before doing a single thing and they are running a $70mm payroll, its even worse than I thought. I am not suggesting they must automatically throw $60mm at free agents right this minute as that would make no sense, but what exactly is the plan here? I remember reading their farm system is middle of the pack talent-wise, too. What's the point of this franchise?

[Troy Loney]

Random loosely connected thoughts on all this.

- The 60mm payroll is a clear indication that there is no intent to compete in 2020.

- I think they view spending on baseball operations and prospects as better value, while the payroll is not moving and they are not really interested in either handing out extension right now, nor signing free agents. They do spend a lot in other areas, like the Dominican academy, international players (only after their inexcusable departure during the crazy years - when the MLB created the dumbest incentives imaginable, this being when a team hit the bonus cap, they were forbidden from signings the next 2 years (I think). So when teams were over the cap, the incentive was to spend like crazy cause they banned the next years). The Pirates were just like....nah, we're not paying millions for 16 year olds. But also, they are investing in things like organizational dieticians.

- It's hard not to conclude that they have a self-imposed cap of a 100mm payroll. I think really that 2020 is the final unwinding of that spending era with Cervelli and Dickerson off the books. The next two years will likely see massive roster turnover, Polanco, Marte, Musgrove, Williams, Bell and Taillon all likely to go. With that, an absolute rebuild to take place, they will need to get successive top-3 picks to get a foundation for the rebuild, cause I don't see any player through the entire organization that would get a top 15-20 prospect in return. We'd need someone like Keller or Hayes to have stud pre-arb years and then trade them.

- The farm system lacks high profile prospects at the moment, but the have built up lower level depth that we haven't seen in a long time. There are some guys taken out of high school in the last few years (Mitchell, Martin, Bolton and Herman) that have upside, and also two large international classes that will be playing stateside in 2020. Any potential prospect wave will have to come from that group of HS draft picks and international signings. Breakouts from that group would join Cruz and Tahnaj Thomas to build any sort of wave of impact talent. The current crop of guys looking to break the majors aren't going to be able to change the organizational direction at all (Craig, Hayes, Keller, Tucker, Kramer, Oliva).

[robbiestoupe]

Good article on the Pirates in the PG (go figure). It pretty much summarizes my thoughts on why they haven't spent or traded away any players yet.

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pir ... 2001230090

A big part of the issue right now, Shelton would explain, is that the Pirates must evaluate things independently and judge players on how they produce for this regime, not the old one. That won’t happen during the offseason, nor will those projections be linear.

For example, Chris Archer could thrive while working with Marin. Perhaps Cole Tucker or Ke’Bryan Hayes can take a Kevin Newman-type of step forward this season, Mitch Keller does what Tyler Glasnow finally did in Tampa or Trevor Williams rediscovers his form from the second half of 2018.

Having a resuscitated Archer might allow them to ask for more, should they flip him for prospects at the 2020 trade deadline. It’s also logical that the situation could be worse than anybody thought, thus necessitating a few more serious trades and undergoing a more significant rebuild.

[Troy Loney]

So basically, they want to think that Hurdle/Searage torpedoed the value of numerous players currently under contract. They want to use 2020 to resuscitate some value before dumping those contracts at the deadline (Archer, Polanco, Kela, and probably a few of those guys who will be ARB2 in 2021).

[willeyeam]

fair enough actually

[Freddy Rumsen]

Yeah, that all makes rational sense.

[King Colby]

The frustrating part is that it will do nothing except add one extra lost year between now and competing. I guess a conservative approach is required when you're on a minuscule budget. Except that approach requires short-term aggression when the time is right (2016).

[King Colby]

The other thing that sucks is the current roster has the potential to win close to 80 games if the guys who inexplicably sucked in 2019 return anywhere close to form. Then how would spending another 25M look?

[LeopardLetang]

Still doesn't excuse why they wouldn't spend to bring in some talented arms. They'll need them even if they turn some guys around. It's going to be a huge workload figuring out what they have, but may as well add some reclamation potential to it as well.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

The bullpen sucked ass last year and you don't need another year (or a lot of money) to figure out if it can be fixed.

[Freddy Rumsen]

[willeyeam]

No

[Troy Loney]

I think the double whammy of the Taillon injury and the Vazquez arrest triggered operation shutdown. The Glasnow-Meadows trade turned has turned into a franchise killer, ultimately that trade is going to put NH in the Littlefield legacy territory.

My grudge is definitely on the Glasnow side of that trade, Meadows is meh, he's still injury prone and not a ton more than what you expect from a starting corner OF/DH. There is no way NH is able to pull the trigger on that trade if Hurdle and Searage had any idea that Glasnow was going to do that immediately upon release from their cookie cutter pitching model. Meaning, they were half comatose in the last three years and didn't realize that all they had to do was let glasnow throw fastballs anywhere in the zone.

The extremely depressing part is that this is a 60mm payroll that is on a downward trajectory to continue going down as the "core" are moving from long term to short term pieces. Marte, Archer and Kela are definitely in their last pirate seasons. As is Polanco if all things go well, and then by the end of 2021 Musgrove, Frazier, Williams, Taillon and Bell will all be out the door as they will otherwise walk at the end of 2022.

[willeyeam]

Oh yes

[Freddy Rumsen]

Nice

[willeyeam]

Mother of God

[faftorial]

Nice

[faftorial]

Mother of God

Eh.

[King Colby]

The bullpen sucked ass last year and you don't need another year (or a lot of money) to figure out if it can be fixed.

Crick, Feliz, kela, and Richrod should all be decent. Kuhl and Santana are wild cards.

Just dont make me watch guys like Geoff Hartlieb accumulate a 9.00 ERA over 35 innings.

[faftorial]

Is SRod a free agent?

[Dickie Dunn]

Indeed. Dude hit 10 years of service time last season, fully vesting his pension plan so good for him.

[willeyeam]

That means he has his golden ticket. He and Hurdle can travel the country and take in any MLB game they wish together