2014 Pirates

[thedddd]

Pirates Designate Michael Martinez For Assignment ? MLB Trade Rumors

Took long enough!

 

[psaboy]

Bucs won't do anything until they start winning road series'

 

[Ewa PGH Fan]

Bucs won't do anything until they start winning road series'

True! Their road record stinks and they only have 9 home games vs. 15 away games in Sept. They also only have 3 of their last 8 series at home. With 2 four game away sets at Philly and Atlanta if they don't start winning road series they'll have no shot at the WC not to mention the division.

 

[thedddd]

Yeah being the worst road team out of the contenders left doesn't bode well for them.

About the only thing going for them for the last WC is the fact the Braves can't hit and the Brewers are fading at the wrong time.

 

[element1286]

Bucs won't do anything until they start winning road series'

Really makes no sense why the are so bad on the road, and so good at home. I guess they are what their record says they are at this point, which is probably not going to be good enough by the end of the season.

Just letting too many games get away late.

 

[dare2be]

I'm sorry I was right.

 

[sychmd]

too many injuries, not enough rthym, and too many games lost in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings.

we need to do better getting runners in from 3rd with less than 2 out, especially in key games and key points in the game. our conversion % must be near the bottom.

that being said, i am excited for next year.
OF is dynamic - cutch, marte (not having to lead off), polanco, snider (finally healthy and getting it) and lambo (much more mature showing this year all around)
IF - mercer is stable and good pop for ss, harrison maybe MVP, walker hopefully can repeat and alvarez/lambo/bell/tsanchez at 1B with hanson hovering as a harrison super sub and bell as a mid-season call up at 1B
C - hope we can reasonably re-sign martin, then tsanchez as backup and stewart for 1M as real backup as hitting was OK with minimal D tho
SP - cole, volquez, morton, worley, #5 (cumpton, locke, sadler, kingham, pimentel) with taillon hovering
BP - melancon, watson, pimentel, hughes, wilson, holz???, gomez, or a starter who doesn't stick

offense has really improved and moving forward with #1 in mlb in OBP!!!!!!
power at most positions, but not many key or impactful HR other than walker, cutch, and occas alvarez.

 

[navamind]

Oh man, Russell Martin's a beast.

 

[HammerDown]

 

[Darkstone42]

The Pirates? Sabermetrics Road Show «

This Fitzgerald fellow seems alright, especially since he pushed for the Russell Martin signing.

I hope he's pushing again.

 

[thedddd]

The Pirates? Sabermetrics Road Show «

This Fitzgerald fellow seems alright, especially since he pushed for the Russell Martin signing.

I hope he's pushing again.

Yeah I like the fact they have him actually go on the road and truly scout these players also.
There is still something to be said for actually seeing a player on top of looking at the numbers. You truly need both and if it can be one person that can do both you have a huge advantage.

 

[navamind]

Congrats on making the postseason again. Best of luck in the postseason, I'll be rooting for you guys.

 

[Darkstone42]

Jeff Sullivan wrote a neat little piece on Vance Worley today.

Return of the Most Deceptive Pitcher in Baseball | FanGraphs Baseball

I love this .gif.

He starts walking off right after he let go of the pitch. That's some confidence.

 

[Darkstone42]

More on Pirates' pitching:

If you look at our pitching staff by WAR, it looks pretty pedestrian. Our highest WAR player is Melancon at 1.9, then Cole at 1.7. Volquez, on whom we've leaned quite a bit, sits at 0.4. We rank 29th by this measure.

However, we also have a throw inside and keep the ball on the ground philosophy, which makes it reasonable that our staff could outperform their FIPs, and thus their WARs on the field. So I decided to look at a couple other things.

By RA9-WAR, which focuses a little less on Ks, BBs, and HRs, and a little more on total run prevention, looks a little better. Four guys exceed 2 wins, headed by Watson at 2.9, then Volquez at 2.6, Melancon at 2.5, and Liriano at 2.2. By this measure, we're 19th.

Still not very impressive, but definitely better. Our staff's ERA, though, is 8th. So what explains the discrepancy between our ERA and our WAR and RA9-WAR? Is it strictly ground ball generation (2 standard deviations above the average in terms of ground ball rates) and infield efficiency? And is this why the staff has been far better at preventing runs since Harrison became the full time 3B?

To me, it seems likely. Given how consistently our guys seem to outperform their FIPs, it almost has to be a real impact of strategy. The Pirates have a system in which mediocre pitchers can look good.

This article posted today on Fangraphs seems to agree, as well.

More On The Pirates? Ground-Balling Pitching Staff | FanGraphs Baseball

 

[element1286]

Pretty good stuff, looks like there is a next level of stats that rates contact by how hard a ball was hit, something standard FIP doesn't account for.

I'm not sure the infield defense has been great, but with the current group of Mercer, Harrison, Walker, and Davis/Sanchez, they are at least average to slightly above on a ability to play each of their respective positions. Of course that can be mitigated with good positioning and if possibly weaker contact induced by the pitchers.