Your 2022 Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Thread

[faftorial]

[skullman80]

The pirates really are pathetic. Holy ****.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Temarr Johnson was quietly promoted to Bradenton today and got his first hit.

[Dickie Dunn]

Temarr Johnson was quietly promoted to Bradenton today and got his first hit.

Probably belongs on the MLB roster over most of these guys.

[LeopardLetang]

3 for 23 in rookie league. Guess he'd be about average

[faftorial]

3 for 23 in rookie league. Guess he'd be about average

Give him some time to become acclimated to a new team/city/life.

[King Colby]

I'm imagining he can at least match "Kevin Padlo"s pirates batting average

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

On pace for 61 wins. But certainly trending towards fewer than 61 wins.

Kind of depressing to know that the 26(or is it 25 these days, who the hell knows) man roster next year is going to be close to identical to the one we have right now.

[shafnutz05]

There are barely Barves fans in Georgia, but they travel? Or are transplants? Regardless, the stupid chop needs to go.

Leftovers from the days of Superstation TBS? They did seem to have somewhat of a national following from that exposure.

I miss the good old days of Cubs and Bulls games on WGN and Braves on TBS.

[Troy Loney]

On pace for 61 wins. But certainly trending towards fewer than 61 wins.

Kind of depressing to know that the 26(or is it 25 these days, who the hell knows) man roster next year is going to be close to identical to the one we have right now.

It's bleak, but I'm not looking much into it. The team has more or less given up, Reynolds is playing barely above replacement level, and without any sort of presence in the lineup, the rest of it just collapses.

Cruz will obviously have to be better, but contact was always going to be a thing for him, he'll have to adjust or he'll flame out.

But either way, I am not sure how they do anything but make 2023 another tryout year, and another voided season turns some important mid-longer terms assets into short term one. So now Reynolds, Brubaker and Keller are just trade pieces.

2023 looks like a sink or swim year for a bunch of guys on the 40-man that have been AAA/MLB this year. Mitchell, Canaan, Swaggerty, Marcano, Suwinksi, Castillo, Castro, Madris and Martin. Can't really just park this guys in Indy because guys like Sabol, Gorski, Rodriguez, Gonzales, Peguero, Triolo and Nunez need to move up from Altoona (Davis probably too). I can only conceive of three paths.

1. Discard the dead weight (Gamel, VanMeter, Newman) and do another tryout year
2. Sign actual FA's to complement Reynolds, Hayes and Cruz, which would mean probably DFA'ing a number of these guys existing in the MLB-AAA realm (not happening)
3. Repeat 2022, bargain bin FA and weird roster shenanigans to hoard all these "assets" (nightmare scenario)

[DigitalGypsy66]

Lots of games left vs. contenders: Mets, Cards, Brewers, Jays, Phillies... It's probably going to get ugly unless some of the young guys or retreads get white hot.

[robbiestoupe]

TL, I would add a 4th option to your paths: start trading some of your assets of strength to fill in areas of weakness. They need starting pitching. Lots of it. You have Cruz, Peguero, Gonzales, Johnson...all as high end middle infielders. Yes, you can move them around the diamond, but unless you plan to play them at 1st base (literally Pirates' hell: take a look at their history with 1st basemen. Other than Stargell - woof), they're pretty well off with fielders.

Next year is more important for Cherington than anybody else. He better start showing some progression or things are going to be looking even more bleak, however possible that is.

[Morkle]

Kind of bummed. They're on Pace for 61, and I predicted 62 wins thinking the year was going to bad. Didn't realize they were going to be worse than what I originally thought lol.

[King Colby]

How is Reynolds "replacement level"

[Troy Loney]

TL, I would add a 4th option to your paths: start trading some of your assets of strength to fill in areas of weakness. They need starting pitching. Lots of it. You have Cruz, Peguero, Gonzales, Johnson...all as high end middle infielders. Yes, you can move them around the diamond, but unless you plan to play them at 1st base (literally Pirates' hell: take a look at their history with 1st basemen. Other than Stargell - woof), they're pretty well off with fielders.

Next year is more important for Cherington than anybody else. He better start showing some progression or things are going to be looking even more bleak, however possible that is.

I'd be extremely wary of that kind of trade. For one, I'm not ready to consider this a bottleneck, Peguero and Gonzales are still potential busts, Johnson, even if things go right, he's ~5 years from any meaningful MLB contributions, and Cruz we know that there's still bust potential there. Plus, in general, they are probably years away from trading prospects for major leaguers.

[Troy Loney]

How is Reynolds "replacement level"

Sub 2 WAR position player. We can argue the semantics of "replacement level", but he's at best average outfielder right now.

[robbiestoupe]

TL, I would add a 4th option to your paths: start trading some of your assets of strength to fill in areas of weakness. They need starting pitching. Lots of it. You have Cruz, Peguero, Gonzales, Johnson...all as high end middle infielders. Yes, you can move them around the diamond, but unless you plan to play them at 1st base (literally Pirates' hell: take a look at their history with 1st basemen. Other than Stargell - woof), they're pretty well off with fielders.

Next year is more important for Cherington than anybody else. He better start showing some progression or things are going to be looking even more bleak, however possible that is.

I'd be extremely wary of that kind of trade. For one, I'm not ready to consider this a bottleneck, Peguero and Gonzales are still potential busts, Johnson, even if things go right, he's ~5 years from any meaningful MLB contributions, and Cruz we know that there's still bust potential there. Plus, in general, they are probably years away from trading prospects for major leaguers.

You've been harping on the 40-man bottleneck for some time. I don't want them trading away 3, 20 something ranked prospects for a AAAA project. Grow some balls, make a trade, get something good in return, trade from an area of strength for an area of need. You know, be a GM for **** sake.

Yeah, I'm impatient, even to the point where next year I'm ready to fire Cherington. There is nothing different that I see between this regime and the last. Why even fire Huntington if all you're getting is Huntington v2.0? Perhaps it just leads more credence to the fact that Nutting runs the entire show and the GMs are just yes men.

[willeyeam]

Endy is our #1 prospect now imo

[faftorial]

Endy is our #1 prospect now imo

He's been the most promising prospect since mid-season.

[Troy Loney]

You've been harping on the 40-man bottleneck for some time. I don't want them trading away 3, 20 something ranked prospects for a AAAA project. Grow some balls, make a trade, get something good in return, trade from an area of strength for an area of need. You know, be a GM for **** sake.

Yeah, I'm impatient, even to the point where next year I'm ready to fire Cherington. There is nothing different that I see between this regime and the last. Why even fire Huntington if all you're getting is Huntington v2.0? Perhaps it just leads more credence to the fact that Nutting runs the entire show and the GMs are just yes men.

The 40-man crunch is a different kind of realm I think than where you are heading with this.

The risk is that BC gets tries to get to cute and leaves a guy like Tahnaj Thomas unprotected so that he doesn't have to cut like Bligh Madris or some such roster fodder piece. Now Thomas' ceiling is low as a RP, but he has the tools to potentially put it together and be a really good reliever. It's that the current 40-man has so many terrible players, that it would be just an abject failure for the Pirates to have anyone selected in the Rule V draft.

[robbiestoupe]

You've been harping on the 40-man bottleneck for some time. I don't want them trading away 3, 20 something ranked prospects for a AAAA project. Grow some balls, make a trade, get something good in return, trade from an area of strength for an area of need. You know, be a GM for **** sake.

Yeah, I'm impatient, even to the point where next year I'm ready to fire Cherington. There is nothing different that I see between this regime and the last. Why even fire Huntington if all you're getting is Huntington v2.0? Perhaps it just leads more credence to the fact that Nutting runs the entire show and the GMs are just yes men.

The 40-man crunch is a different kind of realm I think than where you are heading with this.

The risk is that BC gets tries to get to cute and leaves a guy like Tahnaj Thomas unprotected so that he doesn't have to cut like Bligh Madris or some such roster fodder piece. Now Thomas' ceiling is low as a RP, but he has the tools to potentially put it together and be a really good reliever. It's that the current 40-man has so many terrible players, that it would be just an abject failure for the Pirates to have anyone selected in the Rule V draft.

I get that, but my point is prospects are prospects, not sure things. Sometimes it makes sense to trade promising prospects for known subsidies. You may end up trading away a future ML'er, but you are also getting one or more in return.

It just baffles me that teams like the Dodgers and Yankees can not only compete at the ML level, but also have guys rip through their farm system and become legit ML'ers while continuing to draft in the 20's. They aren't just a bunch of FA's signed to mega deals. They tend to trade off pieces of their prospect pool to gain high end MLers as well. More often than not, those prospects fizzle out at whatever AAAA ML team acquires them. So apparently they have figured out not only how to compete at the ML level (easy bc of deep pockets) but also at the MiL level (money may have something to do with it, but peanuts compared to what is spent at the ML level).

Yeah, the Pirates aren't going to be trading Peguero and Cruz for Juan Soto, but you have to start doing things like the Padres and get real talent. The Pirates have an obvious weakness for getting guys from AA to MLB. There's a developmental gap there for whatever reason, and it's been there for more than one GM tenure. Perhaps it's time to start trading away some of these AA All Stars for legit ML starters. Or, you know, fix the development problem, which it doesn't seem they know how to do.

[faftorial]

You've been harping on the 40-man bottleneck for some time. I don't want them trading away 3, 20 something ranked prospects for a AAAA project. Grow some balls, make a trade, get something good in return, trade from an area of strength for an area of need. You know, be a GM for **** sake.

Yeah, I'm impatient, even to the point where next year I'm ready to fire Cherington. There is nothing different that I see between this regime and the last. Why even fire Huntington if all you're getting is Huntington v2.0? Perhaps it just leads more credence to the fact that Nutting runs the entire show and the GMs are just yes men.

The 40-man crunch is a different kind of realm I think than where you are heading with this.

The risk is that BC gets tries to get to cute and leaves a guy like Tahnaj Thomas unprotected so that he doesn't have to cut like Bligh Madris or some such roster fodder piece. Now Thomas' ceiling is low as a RP, but he has the tools to potentially put it together and be a really good reliever. It's that the current 40-man has so many terrible players, that it would be just an abject failure for the Pirates to have anyone selected in the Rule V draft.

Who would you drop from the 40 man roster this offseason?

[Morkle]

Changing GMs is just rearranging chairs on a sinking ship. There's nothing that Nutting and co can convince me of, when they can't develop prospects, can't keep those prospects on the team, can barely turn those prospects into good future prospects through trades.

Sucks to suck, basically.

[robbiestoupe]

Changing GMs is just rearranging chairs on a sinking ship. There's nothing that Nutting and co can convince me of, when they can't develop prospects, can't keep those prospects on the team, can barely turn those prospects into good future prospects through trades.

Sucks to suck, basically.

Nutting is a lame duck that has no clue how to run a winning program. He just knows how to make a profit, and realizes no effort is necessary to do so. I actually believe he wants to win through frugal means, but is such a dolt that he doesn't know how to make the right hires. Probably swindled into hiring people that will say the right things and make his ears perk up; all fluff and no substance.

Dude comes from money, he's a 4th generation CEO of a newspaper business. He has a history degree ffs. Probably got into a high end university bc his daddy paid for his admission. This baseball team is his toy, and treats it like any other toy his daddy gave him. It's like his dad gave him the keys to the Lamborghini and he has no clue how to maintain it and just runs it into the ground. But by a stroke of luck, Volkswagen pays him to ruin it.

[Troy Loney]

Who would you drop from the 40 man roster this offseason?

With the caveat that I don't know what to do with the guys that are on the 60-day reserve and thus creating an extra spot. Right now there are 45 guys, so right off the bat we need to get rid of 5. But, as you can imagine, it's not going to be hard to find guys to dump. Let's remove:

Manny Bañuelos or Tyler Beede (don't need both)
Jeremy Beasley 
Blake Cederlind
Chase De Jong
Nick Mears 
Dillon Peters
Yohan Ramirez
Max Kranick 
Eric Stout 
Cam Vieaux 
Delay or Heineman
Kevin Padlo
Hoy Park 
Josh VanMeter
Greg Allen 
Ben Gamel
Bligh Madris