Pirates Offseason Thread 2022-23

Postby **willeyeam** » Sat Jan 14, 2023 9:31 am

Also trading him with more years of control gets you more back, theoretically. If you wanted to trade him

Postby **willeyeam** » Sat Jan 14, 2023 9:32 am

I'd rather not, but if we can get an MLB ready SP of his caliber I'd do it. Like Edward Cabrera

Postby **LeopardLetang** » Sat Jan 14, 2023 10:19 am

If you were trading Reynolds to "the pirates" who would you target and what would be reasonable. I haven't looked into all the targets projected from other teams but who are the prospect comps from the pirates system? Say the Pirates weren't willing to deal Cruz or Endy or "Reynolds".

I guess one or two of Keller, Contreras, Priester and Burrows would be targeted. Ortiz, Davis, Peguero, Gonzales? "Add ons" like Oviedo, Bae? So like AAA and up SPs as a focus and position players to get the value up?

Postby **Troy Loney** » Sat Jan 14, 2023 10:39 am

If you were trading Reynolds to "the pirates" who would you target and what would be reasonable. I haven't looked into all the targets projected from other teams but who are the prospect comps from the pirates system? Say the Pirates weren't willing to deal Cruz or Endy or "Reynolds".

I guess one or two of Keller, Contreras, Priester and Burrows would be targeted. Ortiz, Davis, Peguero, Gonzales? "Add ons" like Oviedo, Bae? So like AAA and up SPs as a focus and position players to get the value up?

Would depend on the type of package the team wants. I think if i were looking for cheap MLB ready players, I'd be asking for De Los Santos and Suwinksi then one of Chandler/Solemeto/Gonzalez/Priester and one of Burrows/Smith/Peguero

I'd say for the Pirates, Contreras, Ortiz and Davis are also untouchable. I probably don't want Keller as he's already in his arb years, and not sure Oviedo or Bae have much trade value.

Postby **willeyeam** » Sun Jan 15, 2023 10:16 am

Postby **Troy Loney** » Sun Jan 15, 2023 10:42 am

Have to keep the pipeline flowing

Postby **Dickie Dunn** » Sun Jan 15, 2023 6:49 pm

No idea what the Pirates paid this dude but the Padres pulled from their unlimited well of money and paid $5.6MM to a 16 year old catcher.

Postby **Troy Loney** » Sun Jan 15, 2023 7:03 pm

No idea what the Pirates paid this dude but the Padres pulled from their unlimited well of money and paid $5.6MM to a 16 year old catcher.

There are caps on the spend here. That's gotta be 90+ percent of their pool. You have to be quite convinced this guy is a legit Wander Franco / Juan Soto type prospect. I am not sure what the consensus is on him, but I think most have him as the #1 in the class, which is the first step, but being best in class doesn't always mean that holds.

Postby **iamjs** » Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:54 am

No idea what the Pirates paid this dude but the Padres pulled from their unlimited well of money and paid $5.6MM to a 16 year old catcher.

If I'm understanding this correctly, they threw almost all of their int'l pool money at this catcher.

Under the terms of the 2022-26 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the current international amateur talent system will continue for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 signing periods.

As per the existing rules established in the 2017-21 Collective Bargaining Agreement, clubs are each subject to a spending cap for amateur international free agents. Each club will have at least a $4.75 million bonus pool to spend, with those that have a pick in Competitive Balance Round A receiving $5.25 million and those with a pick in Competitive Balance Round B receiving $5.75 million.

https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactio ... pool-money

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:34 pm

Postby **King Colby** » Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:17 pm

Love it

Postby **willeyeam** » Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:22 pm

im not crying ur crying

Postby **willeyeam** » Fri Jan 20, 2023 3:36 pm

Postby **King Colby** » Fri Jan 20, 2023 3:40 pm

Stay hot, KC

Postby **King Colby** » Fri Jan 20, 2023 3:43 pm

At quick glance, people think he will clear waivers due to his 1.5M guaranteed contract but who knows

Postby **Ad@m** » Sun Jan 22, 2023 2:33 pm

Postby **Troy Loney** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:45 am

https://www.justbaseball.com/prospects/ ... -for-2023/

Some prospect content on the Pirates as we wait for the main ones for the other writers to finish their Pirates' analysis. Never heard of this one before, but was actually surprised to see the quality of these player writeups. The MLB.com ones are just blurbs, Keith Law is just about why his impression of the player is correct, and has always been correct. Pirates Prospects is the equivalent to something I would write about the player sitting at my desk and looking at Baseball Reference and Fangraphs, so it was good to see another outlet that is both not-paywalled and informative.

There's also an accompanying podcast if you care to listen to the writer discuss the list with the Indy broadcaster, but it doesn't say anything really more than what's written there.

The things that stood out to me:

Looks like Priester is rotating out either his four seamer or two seamer (doesn't mean anything to me), but his OPS against with one of his fastballs was .900 OPS+, and he saw some improvement with less usage
Davis and Gonzales are still prospects, Davis' 2022 can be pretty well ignored as it was more in and out with injuries as opposed to maybe on single injury between continuous playing time, and with wrist/hand injuries, those are hard for hitters to come back from.
Solemeto still has a lot to prove, I have been very bullish, but he does have that pronounced delivery, where repeatability is challenging if fatigued, and his workload was so limited last year that he was never challenged. So basically, needs to prove he perform and handle an actual workload
Chandler could be a Cole 2.0, huge athletic pitcher with effortless velocity, they were saying that he was up there just trying to overmatch hitters with his fastball, he will need to learn how to be a pitcher.
Peguero's tools are greater than his production right now, apparently has an issue with giving away at-bats by chasing in hitters counts, maybe some upper level coaching will help
More encouraged by the 2022 draft than I had been. I guess I always want to see them grabbing as many prep guys as they can, and I think they only really took one that they had to sign away from a commitment last year. But that Barco pick looks real savvy, he had what I guess was a more precautionary TJ surgery last spring, and might have been the top college pitcher had he not been out all year. Guess he'll start rehabbing some time this summer, and we'll get to see if that investment paid off next year

Postby **LeopardLetang** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:58 am

Yeah i saw that on reddit the yesterday and commented surprised praise for it. Good stuff

Postby **King Colby** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:33 am

Great find, Troy.

My thoughts on the 3 more "disappointing" prospects from last year:

Davis - every downside they outlined seems easily addressed via reps. He will start in AA but I doubt he's there long provided he stays healthy. He needs to have a big year though because he's already 23.

Gonzales - I liked what I saw from him a lot in person. Needs to stay healthy, and again a make or break year lest he turn into the next cole tucker. Never going to be a star, but maybe he can bring solid production in the bottom third of the lineup. He will also start in AA.

Peguero - didn't realize how young he still was, which is exciting. If Cruz ends up moving to RF, this will likely be our starting SS. If he doesn't, this is a guy we should look to include in a deal for pitching. Probably also starts in AA but would be an early season callup.

There just aren't a ton of ABs available in AAA especially if triolo and bae both start the season there (bae shouldn't but I bet they both do especially if Vilade makes the team). Plus, the pirates have said generally AA pitchers have better stuff and these young hitters stand to improve more by seeing those pitches as opposed to the max kranicks, Adrian Sampsons, Brandon Comptons of the world in AAA

Postby **MrKennethTKangaroo** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:42 am

I forget who I was listening to but they made it seem like the pirates want to carry 6 starting pitchers this year

It might have been Mackey on the fan

Postby **Troy Loney** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:48 am

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... &year=2022

Just looking at Davis' game logs from last year. His Altoona numbers were not good, but that's not the whole story. He comes out raking in A+. gets promoted to AA, great debut, then gets injured in his second game in mid-May. Returns in mid-June, struggles the first 10 games back, then starts hitting again, then bust, another injury and is out from early July to late August. Returns to Altoona to finish out the year and does pretty good, with a a strong last stretch.

Postby **Dickie Dunn** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:50 am

I forgot Brandon Compton even existed.

Postby **Troy Loney** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:51 am

I forget who I was listening to but they made it seem like the pirates want to carry 6 starting pitchers this year

It might have been Mackey on the fan

That's fine. It won't be long before Velazquez pitches his way out of that arrangement.

Postby **King Colby** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:54 am

I can only assume they need that 6th spot for Trevor bauer

Postby **Troy Loney** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:03 am

Great find, Troy.

There just aren't a ton of ABs available in AAA especially if triolo and bae both start the season there (bae shouldn't but I bet they both do especially if Vilade makes the team). Plus, the pirates have said generally AA pitchers have better stuff and these young hitters stand to improve more by seeing those pitches as opposed to the max kranicks, Adrian Sampsons, Brandon Comptons of the world in AAA

Thx, like LL, I also saw it on reddit.

Will be a good year for prospects in both Altoona and Indy this year.

Indy will have Endy, Ortiz and Priester, then a bunch of guys grinding for promotions (Mitchell, Canaan, Nunez, Burrows, Marcano, Swaggerty (lol), and Triolo).

AA will have Davis, Gonzalez, Pegeuro and Lopez. Not much in the way of pitching though