Fifth Avenue Forum

Cool, nobody cares Zeise.

DK must have done another round of spring cleaning on his block list. I'm seeing his tweets again. I give it 2 weeks before he follows me then blocks me again. It's happened twice before. Weird, weird guy.

Uhhhhhh












No

Nutting's press release about canning FGMNH reads like his daddy yelled at him for **** up the family toy.

Lololol

Yeah, so he's mad now?

Nutting should be a politician:

Tampa, Oakland, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Minnesota owners are playing the world's smallest violin.

Minnesota is a small market?

At least #Nutting is trending on twitter

This clown was on twitter trying to get elected officials to seize the means of Pittsburgh baseball production and all it took was one meeting where their serious rating/9 was at lunatic levels for him to change his tune. Throw this man and his writing directly in the garbage.

Did the Pirates hire Stubby Clapp yet?

Minnesota is a small market?

Metro markets

Minny: 3.3 million
Pittsburgh: 2.4M
Oakland: 4.7M
Cleveland: 2.1M

Minnesota is a small market?

Metro markets

Minny: 3.3 million
Pittsburgh: 2.4M
Oakland: 4.7M
Cleveland: 2.1M

I think something that needs taken into effect is the zone in which the team operates. In other words Minnesota is the baseball team for the Dakota's and the entire state of Minnesota. This is similar to Milwaukee, and to an even greater extent Saint Louis. Even Cincinnati has a large regional following.

Teams like the White Sox, Oakland, Tampa, the Indians, and Pittsburgh serve a much narrower slice than the aforementioned teams.

nutting doing a good job running interference here to erase the sour taste in yinzer's mouths just to go through through the whole cycle again

Minnesota is a small market?

Metro markets

Minny: 3.3 million
Pittsburgh: 2.4M
Oakland: 4.7M
Cleveland: 2.1M

I think something that needs taken into effect is the zone in which the team operates. In other words Minnesota is the baseball team for the Dakota's and the entire state of Minnesota. This is similar to Milwaukee, and to an even greater extent Saint Louis. Even Cincinnati has a large regional following.

Teams like the White Sox, Oakland, Tampa, the Indians, and Pittsburgh serve a much narrower slice than the aforementioned teams.

It only matters if those regions are part of the TV viewership, and therefore pay into the pockets of the owners. In that case, you have to open up much more of the Pittsburgh market as well. I'm sure Forbes or some other outlet have done a study on this.

Even so, I don't fully buy into market size being the main issue here. Pittsburgh is a sports hungry city. You put a winner together, you are going to draw a large amount of fans. Look at what the Penguins have done. I won't use the Steelers as an example, because it's easier to sell 8 games a year vs. 81.

While I don't think Pittsburgh would ever turn into a St. Louis type of city if they were consistently successful, they would also not be an Atlanta like city with regards to apathy for good teams.

Anyway, my main point for the comment was for Nutting to stop crying foul about the economics of baseball and citing that as the reason you can't compete. Especially since you pocket more money than just about any other owner (as a percent of revenue). It's not wrong to want to change how the game is economically run, but using that as a crutch for his ineptitude reeks of sour grapes. Push for change, but also use your resources wisely to be the best you can be with the money you have.

Minnesota is a small market?

Yes because the 'market size' is determined a lot of times by the revenue stream brought in by the local TV rights. The Dodgers and Yankees pull in close to a billion dollars while the Twins, A's, Rays, etc. pull in significantly less than that. In the Twins case, though, they're owned by billionaires who have been notoriously Scrooge-like with their cash. As a result, the Twins are often not in the running for any sort of big free agent splash because they won't spend the cash for it. It's always been a gripe among the Twins fanbase and as long as the Pohlad family owns the team, it likely will continue.

well that sounds familiar

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-top-50-free-agents/

I can see a path for the Pirates to pursue in free agency that would address some things (I understand that it's foolish to consider they'd take that path).

The big spenders are going to be bidding for Cole, Rendon and Strasburg, but there are mid tier options to pursue. I would argue anything less than a Wheeler/Keuchel type top signing, a Miley/Hamels/Roark type and one of the top relievers (Smith/Betances) on the market is the only way to pretend to contend in 2020. Based on these fangraph projections, that would be adding ~46 million to the payroll.

You could probably make a case for signing just one starter to go with Archer/Musgrove/Keller/Williams, but then it would have to be the Wheeler/Keuchel tier. A back end BP piece is also an absolute must, they also have to sign a catcher. Currently they are looking at a 60M payroll that can be trimmed slightly by non-tendering Feliz. Also no clue as to what they are going to do with Kuhl.

Assuming they do nothing, maybe sign like Wade Miley and some catcher. You are counting on Williams to be good, Kela to be a competent closer and Santana to re-assume a big role in the bullpen. And also that Polanco can both play and not be sucky.

Who had the closest prediction on the Bucs record? I have that 1979 WS yearbook if you want it.

imo kuhl gets treated similarly to the way Brault was treated for most of the first half of 2019. sometimes a long man, sometimes a starter.

I think we all agree that in the long term, kuhl ends up a bullpen guy (assuming he regains his velocity)

You are counting on Williams to be good, Kela to be a competent closer and Santana to re-assume a big role in the bullpen. And also that Polanco can both play and not be sucky.

So the philosphy is "hopefully guy x bounces back, guy y maintains last year's production, and player z sucks less." Which would essentially be the same exact philosophy as the last two offseasons.

and the more I think about it, the more obvious it seems that the bullpen will continue to be a trainwreck.