squally1313

Colin Rea sucks, go get a pitcher

The Pirates scored more than four runs last night. The last time they scored more than four runs in a game was April 23rd.

This is not the lesson here.

I read the post, decided it was sarcasm, had a quick second thought given how hard it is to tell around here these days, and then decided it was best for me if I just moved on. PCA, and this team, are exceeding everyone's wildest expectations (especially because all these same people said the team sucked going into the year). But given 54 outs of almost daily baseball, I guess you can always find, and endlessly linger on, some perceived fault.

This obsession with one pitch in a series we won is getting to be a little much, no? Hill's first AB of the year he pulled a 96 mph Skenes sinker 112 mph down the line for a double. He's a major league hitter, this isn't some black and white decision, people do occasionally get hits in an 0-2 count, even below average hitters.

Eh, win on a blown save, lose on a blown save. Those things happen.

97 win pace through the first 50 games of the year. We probably lose the pitching matchup all three games in Cincy, but I'm fine just making sure we win one of them. 7-2 so far on the easy stretch. Wanted 14-7, so very good start.

94.4, 95.7, and 98.2 mph off the bat from those three, but outside of the last one nothing too threatening.

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Anytime someone turns on that much velocity at a reasonable launch angle I just assume it's gone.

Kinda like this Palencia decision from Counsell (I reserve the right to hate this decision)

lol. I'm almost always Team Send. But...lol.

Alright, get him in

I assume he came back as soon as he was healthy, unless you're suggesting he could just like, stood in the box in Iowa to time pitches or something. Ballesteros gave us a sub-500 OPS in his time here and we went up against a lefty starter yesterday.

A rusty Ian Happ is very likely going to be better than whatever the other option is.

League average wOBA: .314 xwOBA by our top 6 hitters: .362 .412 .352 .342 .372 .365

All fair. But I also think it's maybe giving them too much credit (and, trust me, I love giving them credit) to think that they did all this while also anticipating Steele going down for the year and Shota for over a month. Feel like there was a lot of talk of them going with a 6 man rotation early on, or at least were making those decisions based on how many days off were built into the early schedule. We've got a day off tomorrow, and then three days off between that and June 30th. It's a real tenuous situation now, and if we're going to have to fix it at some point anyways, I'm hoping they're doing what they can to kick the tires now.

I think my urgency is basically Horton and Brown both represent a talent level that could play in October, but given the current situation I don't see how you're going to be able to use them much past the ASB. I'm certainly not going to say no to a Gore type pitcher, but even just adding a Heaney or Trevor Williams gives you so much more flexibility and ability to be gentle with Horton and Brown. You're right in that there's plenty of reasons these trades don't happen in May/June, but I don't see the current pitching staff situation as like, just trying to endure a tough stretch. I think it's going to get worse, because I think Horton and Brown hitting 100 innings within a few weeks of Shota coming back more than offsets the improvement that Shota brings.

I realize you're talking control in the sense that goes beyond just balls and strikes, but he's now gone three of his last four starts without a walk, 1.09 BB/9 in his last 5 starts. For all the (mostly deserved) grief the bullpen gets (19th in walk rate), the starters have been pretty fantastic at limiting free passes (1st in the majors after yesterday).

Max Mayer has been pretty good, strong K and BB rates, but when people connect, they hit it hard. Cade really hasn't been (though he's one to improve rapidly), and despite the clear difference in line up strength this is one of those games I wouldn't be too upset about. Only problem is that we already had that game this series, and so I'd strongly prefer a win.

I'm usually one to preach patience, but I just feel like big picture decisions are going to need to be made soon. You've got two top five outfielders in baseball, one with years of team control and one who the entire fanbase wants to give all the money to, and then two behind them that are also very good and signed comfortably through next year. You can't just let Caissie and Alcantara (and probably Ballesteros) sit in Iowa until 2027. If you think that the current offense in Chicago can threaten for a championship in the next few years, you've got a lot of talent in Iowa without spots (and you've got this theoretical money under the cap this year 'earmarked' for in season additions). Sitting at 29-20 with the toughest schedule YTD (still) should lead you to that conclusion. Kicking ass for the next few weeks should help even more. If you don't think this is the group for you (or all the doomsayers were right and payroll is being permanently slashed), then you realistically ride out this year (even worst case scenario I can't see them being sellers, barring a collapse) and hope you get lucky with a flawed roster, let Tucker walk, put Happ, Suzuki, and Hoerner on the market and start next year with a line up of like PCA/Moises/Busch/Shaw/Caissie/Alcantara/Long/Swanson/Amaya and whatever pitching you can buy. This is not what I would pick, to be clear, that's a 76 win, 'up and coming' punt of a team. So, in conclusion, force the front office's hand. Go be 50-35 or something at the end of June. It's right there for them.

Realize I sound like a broken record, but today is another great day to go overpay for a starter. Most of the good bullpen guys out there are already playing on good teams. The best options for significant bullpen upgrades are Ben Brown and Cade Horton throwing at max effort for 2 innings at a time every couple days. But they are (already) in the rotation. Here's how many innings the following guys have left this year to hit 120% of their total innings from last year: Boyd: 36.1 Brown: 20 Horton: 3 Taillon is fine, not worried about overworking Colin Rea but that's mostly because I'm still convinced he sucks. Shota is at least a month away. Chris Flexen sucks. The time to move Brown/Horton to the bullpen in an ideal world is now, because if they stay in the rotation into July they're not going to have anything left to even be responsibly moved to the bullpen for the stretch run. Eflin, Drew Rasmussen, Luis Severino, Kikuchi, Gore, Trevor Williams, Alcantara, Keller, Heaney, Freeland. Obviously different profiles/costs/commitments listed there but all should be looked at.

I wanted 14-7 in this stretch. 6-2 so far, challenge will pick up a little with the reds games but also have the Rockies in there. Day game tomorrow with Horton, pick up a road series win and you’ve put yourself in a real good spot.

Moises isn't a first baseman, and he has a .716 OPS against LHP in AAA.

Overall though, beyond Brown, I remain very worried about the pitching. It was basically projected as an average group going into the year and that was with Steele and Shota. Steele is gone for a while and Shota seems to already be having setbacks and also wasn't that good before he got hurt. Boyd has been solid but will eclipse his 2024 innings total in about a month at his current pace, and I'd throw Taillon/Horton/Brown all at about the same level of mid grade performance. Rea made a couple encouraging tweaks but the metrics still say he's bad. AAA is pretty barren, and even a fixed version of Wicks is more innings eater than elite performance. This is all going to have a knock on impact to the bullpen, now minus Hodge. There's no real multi inning guy there (because ideally it should be Horton or Brown). There's still enough bodies floating around between Chicago and Iowa, but short of a Bautista type move, the best way to fix this is to get a couple starters and push Horton to the pen.