De Jong has incredible numbers it seems? He was relatively terrible today
Pretty sure that was a combo of small sample size and garbage time work. Put that guy in a leverage situation on a routine basis and see how it goes.
Holistically, the bullpen is extremely shallow. The rotation has been oddly competent for a while, getting Thompson back will also be good. I assume Quintana will be moved for whatever, and unfortunately we can’t assume they will actually try to address that in free agency in a meaningful way. Between lyles, Anderson and now Quintana, it does seem like whatever organizational ability to find decent starters on the bargain bin has carried over from NH. So, the same reason that volquez was a good signing almost years ago, whatever rotation guy they bring in will be better than the price tag.
Offensively, I do think the impact of Cruz’s power can’t be understated. So between Hayes, Reynolds and Cruz, that’s three plus offensive players at key positions, then a whole ton of interchangeable parts, and the difference between a Kevin Newman and Diego Castillo or a Chavis and a tsutsugo is too small to concern oneself with and I think the only hope is that there is enough baseball in 2022 for these parts to arrange themselves.
Then in September give bae, swaggerty and Martin (and Mitchell some more time) some chances to show something, otherwise the 2022 prospect wave has arrived (probably the best one since mccutchen, walker and Alvarez).
Obviously the “pirates optimist”, but I am interested. If they can figure something out with this collection of players (consider what the brought up from brandenton this year), and hang around for a couple months in 2023, then things get real imo. Cause next year you’ll have Davis, Gonzalez, peguero, priester and burrows all pushing for call ups.