The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

willeyeam
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby willeyeam » Fri Sep 03, 2021 3:11 pm


Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Sun Sep 05, 2021 2:52 pm



Chen is struggling numbers wise (sounds like he is behind in every count). But this dude has insane potential.

Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Sun Sep 05, 2021 6:18 pm

https://pirates.pittsburghbaseball.com/ ... 2-payroll/

I think this is mostly right, some definite things that are wrong though. Especially with the 40-man roster, you don’t have to add Bolton or the two Altoona outfielders to the 40-man. If someone wants to waste a roster spot on players like that, then let them, every player that sniffs your top 20 doesn’t have to be protected. I do think they have to protect Martin, that power tool could entice a team to take a flier.

Gamel has earned a tender, theatrics today aside, you can do a lot worse at 4 of. Also, Marcano is not a lock to make the team next year, let alone be an everyday player, Tim Williams brain leaking on to the other writers at his site.

But otherwise this baseline is correct, they probably sign like two guys on one year 5mm contracts, or maybe get one of reynolds or hayes signed to get the payroll to the 40mm range.

Overall, a sad state of affairs, rotation is an absolute joke.

King Colby
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby King Colby » Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:22 pm

If they trot out a $29M payroll... GFY

willeyeam
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby willeyeam » Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:27 pm

Yeah. We tanked for two years. Prospects will be shuffling through soon. Add some decent complimentary pieces and give them some sort of shot. We're not asking to sign a Scherzer or anything

Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:19 pm

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/free-agents ... g-pitcher/

There are absolutely some mid-tier guys that could be enticed with a liriano type contract (3 years 30+mm). Maybe like a DeSclafini, Jon Gray, Eduardo Rodriguez or even bring back Tyler Anderson.

Can't pretend to know what decision they will make regards to payroll, but a few things are objectively true:

- the payroll is completely stripped out (with Polanco gone)
- they have maybe 50% of a starting rotation in-house (Brault, Brubaker & Wilson)
- they have two position player centerpieces (Hayes and Reynolds) with a stable of position prospects that will be in the upper levels next year

I guess I just don't know how you don't look at this circumstance and say, "let's sign some pitchers"

King Colby
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby King Colby » Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:58 pm

So not that we didn't all call this right away, but Clay Holmes as a Yankee:

13.2 IP / 7H / 2ER / 1BB / 16K

1.32 ERA / 0.59 WHIP / 1.04 FIP

Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Tue Sep 07, 2021 8:29 am

Luckily they did actually get something for Holmes. Castillo will make the majors, Park doesn't seem to much of an upside though.

willeyeam
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby willeyeam » Thu Sep 09, 2021 8:21 am

Former Pirate great Drew Hutchison got the W last night against the Bucs

Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Thu Sep 09, 2021 8:57 am

Quite a game for remembering guys.

Robbie grossman went 4/5 and Derek Holland pitched. Del pozo made an appearance the day before

Dickie Dunn
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Dickie Dunn » Thu Sep 09, 2021 9:07 am

Is there seriously so little talent in the sport that teams are still willingly paying these guys?

Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Thu Sep 09, 2021 9:26 am

Is there seriously so little talent in the sport that teams are still willingly paying these guys?
The league is designed to have relegation without actually doing the relegation.

LeopardLetang
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby LeopardLetang » Sun Sep 12, 2021 9:25 pm

23, LHP McGough, Johnstown native turning into a legit prospect with a chance to make it to the big leagues. 7 4 0 0 5 today

21yo Marcano on a mini steak in AAA hitting in 12 of last 13 games

Morkle
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Morkle » Mon Sep 13, 2021 11:39 am

If they trot out a $29M payroll... GFY
The amount of justification that media types allow this to happen, is insane. I feel like they should be talking about this every day, and asking for plans like they used to on why they aren't even interested in spending a modicum amount of money to benefit their team.

robbiestoupe
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby robbiestoupe » Mon Sep 13, 2021 11:55 am

If they trot out a $29M payroll... GFY
The amount of justification that media types allow this to happen, is insane. I feel like they should be talking about this every day, and asking for plans like they used to on why they aren't even interested in spending a modicum amount of money to benefit their team.
Before FGMNH was fired, I came to realization that the press in in the pockets of BN. And why not, his family made a fortune in the newspaper business.

They let loose for a while to get NH fired, but once BC was hired, it was back to puff pieces.

Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:01 pm

For one, I can’t imagine Hayes or Reynolds would sign an extension if they don’t do any short to medium term moves this off-season.

Reynolds is in for a big arbitration pay day as a super two, so he is going to get very expensive by 2025.

I guess I just can’t see any reason to keep trying to add to the farm system. That string of deadline trades created a bit of a 40-man crunch, manageable in 2022, but will get very tight unless , bunch guys flop next year (basically the altoona crew, if they hold their own in Indy next year, they will have to be added after 2022, and there are going to be oncoming waves of prospects that will need to be added each year. Point being, by the next deadline they should be looking to trade prospect depth and adding payroll.

Will this happen, not sure, want and should are had to qualify, and it’s also easy for bc to just kick the can down the road, expose ok prospects like Bolton and Calvin Mitchell and just keep flipping short term assets

LeopardLetang
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby LeopardLetang » Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:01 pm

I haven't watched much mlb baseball or looked at stats in a few years really but wow suarez. .176 avg with 26hr. Is that what it's come to. Interesting.

LeopardLetang
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby LeopardLetang » Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:09 pm

Hmm their last two hitters. Batting .188 9hr. And deshields .176. Eh he's sss i see

faftorial
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby faftorial » Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:29 pm

I haven't watched much mlb baseball or looked at stats in a few years really but wow suarez. .176 avg with 26hr. Is that what it's come to. Interesting.
It's an exciting product.

Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Tue Sep 14, 2021 8:24 pm

I haven't watched much mlb baseball or looked at stats in a few years really but wow suarez. .176 avg with 26hr. Is that what it's come to. Interesting.
Bellinger's collapse is more shocking to me.

willeyeam
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby willeyeam » Tue Sep 14, 2021 9:06 pm


Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:26 am

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/daily-prosp ... 9-14-2021/

A couple of Pirate pitchers get a blurb here. Sounds like Chen needs to boost his velocity and Malone found some sticky stuff.

Po Yu Chen
The 19-year-old Chen didn’t walk a single hitter in any of his six mid-summer Complex Level starts before his recent promotion to Low-A. He generated 15 whiffs on Sunday — mixed evenly among his sinker, curveball, and changeup — even though he only sat 86-90. Chen’s delivery is fluid and graceful, and he has very advanced feel to pitch for a teenager, with especially precocious changeup consistency. His breaking ball has depth but lacks power, and Chen needs to find more arm strength generally to be any kind of impact starter. Of the ingredients that indicate that’s possible, he has the looseness and athleticism component, but not the obvious physical projection piece.

Brennan Malone
A former sandwich round pick of Arizona traded to Pittsburgh as part of the Starling Marte deal, Malone missed a couple of months with a strained lat. He’s been back for about five weeks, slowly building his in-game workload up to three innings. Last night was by far his best outing of the year, though his pre-injury arm strength has been back for a while now (93-96) and the Pirates seem to have found a way to increase his breaking ball spin rate pretty significantly: according to a source, it’s up from 2,300 rpm in 2019 to 2,900 rpm now.

robbiestoupe
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby robbiestoupe » Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:36 am

Sounds like Chen needs to boost his velocity...
Don't you think there are a certain subset of pitchers that are more Maddux-esque in the way they pitch? In other words, being more deceptive in their pitching mechanics, i.e. repeatability and changing speeds, vs. being a power pitcher. Wish more instructors would see this and let these types of pitchers go down that route rather than trying to get a few more mph in velocity and possibly injure or mess with their approach.

Troy Loney
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby Troy Loney » Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:49 am

Sounds like Chen needs to boost his velocity...
Don't you think there are a certain subset of pitchers that are more Maddux-esque in the way they pitch? In other words, being more deceptive in their pitching mechanics, i.e. repeatability and changing speeds, vs. being a power pitcher. Wish more instructors would see this and let these types of pitchers go down that route rather than trying to get a few more mph in velocity and possibly injure or mess with their approach.
For sure, when I saw that clip recently, I immediately thought maddux. But also, the clip of him was his strikes, we have to see where his balls out of the zone are going. It's great that he can land pitches in the zone with so much movement, but I think to have staying power with that approach, he's got to get swings at pitches out of the zone. The disparity between his number in rookie league, and his three starts in low-a are massive, it'd be nice to get some good analysis on what happened there. Were low-a hitters laying off the junk? I think i saw he was basically down 2-0 in every at bat. if it's just a matter of hitters taking the first two pitches every at-bat to make him come into the zone with a straight ball, then he's not worth anything.

faftorial
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The 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Team Season Thread

Postby faftorial » Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:00 pm

Sounds like Chen needs to boost his velocity...
Don't you think there are a certain subset of pitchers that are more Maddux-esque in the way they pitch? In other words, being more deceptive in their pitching mechanics, i.e. repeatability and changing speeds, vs. being a power pitcher. Wish more instructors would see this and let these types of pitchers go down that route rather than trying to get a few more mph in velocity and possibly injure or mess with their approach.
:thumb:

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