2014 Pirates

[thecrow124]

^
Corner bat the Pirates' focus as Winter Meetings approach | pirates.com: News

From the sounds of this quote below from NH (link above) it does seem as if Burnett is keeping their options to a minimun (I won't use holding them up since yeah that would be stupid on the pirates part!):

"People have written Jeff Locke off; we don't buy that. We feel he's going to be a very capable Major League starter next year. Wandy Rodriguez will be back. We have some depth there, with Taillon and Kingham on the horizon. The cupboard is not bare. But if we lose A..J, it will give us the opportunity to continue to explore the free-agent market."

Yeah you can read that last comment either way meaning they will continue but as we all know they are told to stay within a very specific budget with the other needs. Not knowing what Burnett plans are could come across as stopping them from moving on.

And as we both stated and agree upon they will be better vs the start of last season. I think their holes in the bullpen are bigger than they come across with Grilli's health and Melancon was exposed some late in the year. Another point of issue that doesn't seem to be brought up too often is the middle infield. Yeah Mercer and Walker are fine but who is going to back them up and fill-in long term due to chances of an injury or major slump?

I read that Huntington qoute to mean that out of the FA pitchers still available, Burnett is now their top priority, and they will wait a while, not forever, for word on what he is going to do. Eventually they will move on to try to sign others, but they feel Burnett is the best avaialable and so they will wait a little while, as they should. I would hate to go sign Jimenez or Santana and then have Burnett decide he wants to come back. If Burnett does anything else, then you go after the other pitchers. Heck for all we know, the rest of the free agent pitchers are waiting for Burnett as well, because they know that there could be 3-5 teams in on him, and once he decides, then there are more suitors for their services.

 

[Darkstone42]

I read that Huntington qoute to mean that out of the FA pitchers still available, Burnett is now their top priority, and they will wait a while, not forever, for word on what he is going to do. Eventually they will move on to try to sign others, but they feel Burnett is the best avaialable and so they will wait a little while, as they should. I would hate to go sign Jimenez or Santana and then have Burnett decide he wants to come back. If Burnett does anything else, then you go after the other pitchers. Heck for all we know, the rest of the free agent pitchers are waiting for Burnett as well, because they know that there could be 3-5 teams in on him, and once he decides, then there are more suitors for their services.

I agree. With Burnett, it's likely the best, most certain, most cost-effective, and most familiar option, so he should be our top priority in the pitching market.

But I don't think that should impact how we pursue bats. Unfortunately, there aren't that many good options for us in free agency who we wouldn't have to commit more money than is worthwhile to. I'd be more interested in bring in a good hitting 1B than anything else, though, because I think we simply have more viable options at other positions, like Tabata, Lambo, and eventually Polanco in right.

 

[thedddd]

I read that Huntington qoute to mean that out of the FA pitchers still available, Burnett is now their top priority, and they will wait a while, not forever, for word on what he is going to do. Eventually they will move on to try to sign others, but they feel Burnett is the best avaialable and so they will wait a little while, as they should. I would hate to go sign Jimenez or Santana and then have Burnett decide he wants to come back. If Burnett does anything else, then you go after the other pitchers. Heck for all we know, the rest of the free agent pitchers are waiting for Burnett as well, because they know that there could be 3-5 teams in on him, and once he decides, then there are more suitors for their services.

This is what I mean....Waiting on Burnett put them in a position to not move on and yes I totally agree he should be option 1 but there has to be some deadline in place. With the huge amount of activity already in this off season I can't imagine what next week will bring. I just hope option 2,3 or 4 is still available if or when needed.

I have no issues with their rotation right now but we are looking at 5 guys:

Cole - 1/2 year in the majors
Liriano - comeback player of the year not once but twice. And hasn't been consistent for multiple years.
Morton - looked good in his return I hope it keeps it going and stays healthy
Rodriguez - hope he is healthy and when healthy is durable.
Locke - just hope it wasn't a half year wonder.

While that rotation is not that bad it still has plenty of question marks. Yeah it is WAY better than the start of last year but like most I ready to put this team on a pedestool of continued winning.

As for the quote I understood it the same way as it pertains to starting pitching but this team is on a budget it will affect signing position players also and in both case what this teams needs/afford there isn't much left due to the high price tag of marginal talent (way back from my original post about this).

 

[thecrow124]

Another reason to wait a little bit on Burnett, he will be on a one year deal where all the other pitchers will want multiple years. I wouldn't feel any more comfortable giving multiple years to them than I was giving multiple years to Liriano. That one worked out well for us, but Liriano was also a better talent than Jimenez or Santana.

In reality, we are likely to take a step back next year, and no free agent signee will change that. So waiting for a guy that you know will only want a 1 year contract makes more sense than overspending on a 3-4 year deal.

 

[element1286]

Team is still young enough where it can get internal improvements.

I know as a fanbase were used to guys getting worse, but it can go the other way. The organization has talent, if a guy disappoints there are internal options at a lot of places.

 

[ramburgh]

What if the Pirates brought back Burnett and made a trade for Samardzija or Price?

The Pirates may be trying to down play their interest and money available for Burnett.

That would create a rotation of Samardzija/Price, Liriano, Cole, Burnett, Morton/Rodriguez

If the Pirates only offensive move in Loney, this might be possible.

Line-up would be okay with Polanco up mid-season:
now: Marte, Mercer, McCutchen, Loney/Sanchez, Alvarez, Walker, Martin, Snider/Tabata
then: Marte, Polanco, McCutchen, Loney/Sanchez, Alvarez, Walker, Martin, Mercer

Maybe a package of Taillon, Locke and Bell or T. Sanchez for Price or Samardzija? Possibly a bigger package to the Cubs for Samardzija and Castro with Mercer becoming the utility middle infielder?

Something has to be brewing with no legitimate trade rumors being published.

 

[Illinest]

There is no way to spin this into a good thing. We took a playoff team and we subtracted Byrd and a few role players and probably also AJ Burnett, and so far we've made no moves to address those losses let alone improve the roster. Now we're in a situation where we're stuck looking at guys like Loney. Loney sucks. He hasn't been signed by anyone yet because he sucks.

Meanwhile the owners are known to have added 25 million or so to their income in addition to the increased revenue from improved attendance in 2013, but they're trimming payroll and have publicly admitted that they don't expect to be able to work out a contract with Pedro. They blew an opportunity with how they mishandled aj burnett.

This is disgusting.

 

[thecrow124]

The thrill of the hot stove. Gotta love that we haven't even hit the Winter meetings yet and people are jumping ship. Guys we won 94 games last season with no one playing 1B or RF. If our young players continue to improve we only need those 2positions to not suck quite as bad as last year and we will have a better offense. Also remember that our core players haven't even began to hit their prime years yet except Walker.

Illinest, as for not extending Fat Pete, you do realize he is a Boras client right? He is going to free agency. I for one will be happy to see him go as I have never, nor will I ever like him. It is just a matter of if he plays well enough to get more value in a trade or if we hold onto him until he becomes a free agent. I would probably trade him early to increase value since I don't think he will ever be good enough to be worth a compensation pick.

I would like to see AJ come back, but if he doesn't it isn't the end of the world. Taillon, Kingham and Cumpton could all be in the rotation by seasons end and at least 2 of them are more talentd than anyone currently on the FA market outside of AJ. Will they ultimately be better pitchers? Time will tell. But I would rather have them in our system when we do find out.

On the trade front, I don't really care who we trade for, however I will give a list of players that would be off limits in trades, just remember, this is just my list.
1. Taillon
2. Polanco
3. Glasnow
4. Hanson
5. Meadows
6. Sanchez
7. McGuire
8. Ramirez

That list is in no particular order, and not a list of my top 8 prospects, just 8 guys I wouldn't trade for anyone. Even with them off the board, we have enough talented minor leaguers that we could still build a strong package for just about anyone.

 

[Illinest]

YOU CAN'T RUN A BUSINESS IF YOU'RE AFRAID TO PAY FOR THINGS.

These skinflint motherfuckers aren't even trying.

"Well we wanted to bake a pizza, but finances being what they are we didn't feel that our internal value of the oven matched the offers that were made, but I am proud to announce that we found an EZ-Bake oven at a yard sale. We should be able to warm up our cheese sandwiches now. Here's the phone number for our ticket offices. We only raised prices a little bit and btw we have more bobbleheads than ever this year."

"We're not planning to purchase the oven, because the oven salesman is too big and scary for us. Now excuse me while I use team profits to finance the purchase of another mountain."

 

[element1286]

There is no way to spin this into a good thing. We took a playoff team and we subtracted Byrd and a few role players and probably also AJ Burnett, and so far we've made no moves to address those losses let alone improve the roster. Now we're in a situation where we're stuck looking at guys like Loney. Loney sucks. He hasn't been signed by anyone yet because he sucks.

Meanwhile the owners are known to have added 25 million or so to their income in addition to the increased revenue from improved attendance in 2013, but they're trimming payroll and have publicly admitted that they don't expect to be able to work out a contract with Pedro. They blew an opportunity with how they mishandled aj burnett.

This is disgusting.

Do we even want Pedro on a long term deal, honestly?

 

[thedddd]

Ron Cook: Burnett can't keep stringing along Pirates - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This might be the first and last time I ever agree with Ron Cook!

I know it is way too early to wonder but comments like this from the article are starting to make you wonder what will be the true focus of this team?

"Quite candidly, the best free-agent acquisition we can make for the 2014 Pirates is A.J. Burnett," Huntington said. "He would be a great addition to our club."


How could resigning your own player be the best free-agent acquisition you make? Makes me think they are statisfied with the status quo. I would be also if this was next off season with another Alvarez all-star season, McCutchen MVP type season (this is the only one I feel comfortable with), Cole is a bonafied Ace, RF is Polanco by mid season, Marte doesn't strike out like he is a power hitter, Liriano has 2 quality seasons and Tailon is a mid summer call up and does what Cole did.

 

[thedddd]

Do we even want Pedro on a long term deal, honestly?

He needs to play like he did in the playoffs then I would feel comfortable with a long term deal. If we get the .230/.296/.473 again then no.

 

[thecrow124]

YOU CAN'T RUN A BUSINESS IF YOU'RE AFRAID TO PAY FOR THINGS.

These skinflint motherfuckers aren't even trying.

"Well we wanted to bake a pizza, but finances being what they are we didn't feel that our internal value of the oven matched the offers that were made, but I am proud to announce that we found an EZ-Bake oven at a yard sale. We should be able to warm up our cheese sandwiches now. Here's the phone number for our ticket offices. We only raised prices a little bit and btw we have more bobbleheads than ever this year."

"We're not planning to purchase the oven, because the oven salesman is too big and scary for us. Now excuse me while I use team profits to finance the purchase of another mountain."

I think you are downplaying the value in an easy bake oven. Those are easily the most versatile toy available. You can back cookies, cakes, grilled cheese, hash browns, pancakes etc.......all in a matter of minutes. All that for the peice of a plastic toy that continues to take ridicule from those that just don't know of its true versatility. Heck I bet the easy bake could pull off one heck of a french bread pizza.

 

[Illinest]

I think we're all aware that the Pirates aren't going to spend 189 million in salary every year like some teams, but you don't need to have access to the books to get an idea of what the Pirates can afford to spend. I will assume that the team can afford to have 100 million dollars in salary. The spending of other markets of similar size suggests that this is reasonable, and it is also supported by the evaluation of independent researchers such as Forbes. It's also supported by the financial documents that were released in 2010.
MLB Pirates made $29.4M in 2007 and 2008 - ESPN

The team isn't being run to be competitive. Maybe you're tired of hearing this. Maybe i'm tired of saying it too.

I'm not getting any enjoyment of playing this role, but when it's suggested that we "can't afford" to extend Pedro Alvarez it's like rubbing salt in the wound. Not only do we know this to be false, but we're trying to make people like Boras and Alvarez the scapegoat for Nutting's cheapness. That's bullshit. Boras is just an agent and Pedro has no obligation to play baseball at a discounted rate just because the team's owners are trying to maintain a hefty profit margin.

Alvarez is under team control for 3 more years. We can make a pretty educated guess by now about how much it'll cost each year. The team knows that they can offer that money now or fight about it every year and still probably end up paying it. Cost certainty and player relations alone are sufficient justification for avoiding having annual arbitration battles. I don't even care about buying out a year of free agency, just get the contracts settled.

Then when it comes time to identify weaknesses i would like it if the organization would start to target players who will address the weakness. Napoli and Burnett address weaknesses. Loney does not. Stewart does not. We supposedly talked to Lance Berkman too. What a joke. It's bad enough having a self-imposed budget, but the least they could do is use that money to acquire solid ballplayers.

Now there are almost no players left who address weaknesses. All of the best fits were signed by other teams, and most of the risky players are gone too. Now we're left with warm bodies who won't be good even if they play up to their potential.

 

[thecrow124]

I think we're all aware that the Pirates aren't going to spend 189 million in salary every year like some teams, but you don't need to have access to the books to get an idea of what the Pirates can afford to spend. I will assume that the team can afford to have 100 million dollars in salary. The spending of other markets of similar size suggests that this is reasonable, and it is also supported by the evaluation of independent researchers such as Forbes. It's also supported by the financial documents that were released in 2010.
MLB Pirates made $29.4M in 2007 and 2008 - ESPN

The team isn't being run to be competitive. Maybe you're tired of hearing this. Maybe i'm tired of saying it too.

I'm not getting any enjoyment of playing this role, but when it's suggested that we "can't afford" to extend Pedro Alvarez it's like rubbing salt in the wound. Not only do we know this to be false, but we're trying to make people like Boras and Alvarez the scapegoat for Nutting's cheapness. That's bullshit. Boras is just an agent and Pedro has no obligation to play baseball at a discounted rate just because the team's owners are trying to maintain a hefty profit margin.

Alvarez is under team control for 3 more years. We can make a pretty educated guess by now about how much it'll cost each year. The team knows that they can offer that money now or fight about it every year and still probably end up paying it. Cost certainty and player relations alone are sufficient justification for avoiding having annual arbitration battles. I don't even care about buying out a year of free agency, just get the contracts settled.

Then when it comes time to identify weaknesses i would like it if the organization would start to target players who will address the weakness. Napoli and Burnett address weaknesses. Loney does not. Stewart does not. We supposedly talked to Lance Berkman too. What a joke. It's bad enough having a self-imposed budget, but the least they could do is use that money to acquire solid ballplayers.

Now there are almost no players left who address weaknesses. All of the best fits were signed by other teams, and most of the risky players are gone too. Now we're left with warm bodies who won't be good even if they play up to their potential.

You also cannot run a business with a negative profit margin. The truth of the matter is that not one person outside of the ownership group knows what happens to the money the team brings in. It could be used to pay down debt, pay our current roster, sign free agents, or any other of a million different things. The one thing we know for positive is that it does not go directly to any of Bob Nuttings other ventures. If it did MLB would have come down on him like they did Miami a few years back.

My problem with all the incessant rants about Nutting being cheap is this, who would you have him sign? Everyone everywhere can admit that we can not afford to pay the top tier of free agents. That leaves us bidding on injured and not very good players, most of them still have 2 agendas, get as much money as possible and avoid the Pirates. I don't care that we made the playoffs, or that the NL MVP is on our team, we are still viewed as the perrenial losers. So we are still fighting an uphill battle for even the midlevel free agents.

The one thing I will say for Huntington, although I am still not a fan, since our window has begun to open, he has brought in the talent that made us a playoff team last season. Two years ago he traded for Burnett late in the offseason. Last year he brought in Russel Martin and Liriano early in the offseason. There are also enough names being thrown around in trade rumors that I, just me personally, believe that he is having discussions with teams, to the point where he has said Taillon could be available. Trust me when I say, a trade package centered around Taillon would carry a lot of value.

Again on Pedro, I don't care that he hasn't been extended, he provides nothing to the team outside of a #6 hitter with a lot of power. He is just not a valuable baseball player. Again, I will be glad when Fat Pete is gone, so in essence I am happy that he hasn't been extended.

Lastly, I only want the Pirates to win, don't care if they spend $25 million dollars on a bunch of league minimum guys or $75 million on a spattering of free agents or $200 million on nothing but overpriced free agents, just so long as they are set up to win for a long time.

 

[Illinest]

If you cared about fielding a winning team your thought process would start with adding talent.

There were many available players that are known to be better players than the ones on our roster and we've added none of them. We're also apparently losing some talented players and have no plan to replace them except for using less talented players instead.

Why does that not bother you?

 

[sychmd]

sure the pirates, any team for that matter, can afford to spend 25M on a free agent.
but how many of those can you afford.
3, then you have to pay league minimum to there rest to be at 95M for the year.
league minimum for the other 37 on the 40 man means a lot of young or role players.
probably not a winner.

OK, so it's like a partial differential equation, trying to take into account,
years of control, injuries, and how many of each pot you can have (high priced stars, inflated contracts because they were free agents, valued contracts as buying out arbitration years, role players, arbitration gambles, and controlled minimums), pitchers, rule 5, etc.

we could afford alvarez, but those kinds of contracts are for 4-10 years, and are then hard to trade unless they are performing close to or exceeding their contract.
so if we sign alvarez / boras (and yes boras is important as he has a track record of maxing out dollars and years), what do we have left to sign marte, cole, polanco, taillon, or even morton if he has 2 more years like this past one he will be worth more than burnett.

signing one big one has powerful ripples and makes the margin for error very slim.

regarding alvarez, he keeps improving and getting it. the playoffs were a major step. he has a great attitude and lots of athleticism at 3B. runs the bases very well for a big guy. teammates seem to like him as well. he is a sensitive thinker and progressively getting it. i believe he will be a stellar number 5 hitter and possibly be that cleanup guy we need. he can be a 5 when polanco is our 3 and cutch a 2.

 

[element1286]

If you cared about fielding a winning team your thought process would start with adding talent.

There were many available players that are known to be better players than the ones on our roster and we've added none of them. We're also apparently losing some talented players and have no plan to replace them except for using less talented players instead.

Why does that not bother you?

Cause it isn't, and never is that simple. There is nuance to everything. Arguing from an artificially simplistic viewpoint is uninteresting.

Other than AJ and QO, how many guys would you take on the new deals they signed this offseason? IMO, maybe 5.

 

[Darkstone42]

The big issue with the current free agent environment is that most guys are looking for years nowadays instead of dollars. But the latter years of most of those contracts will be underproductive and very difficult to move, and that's an issue for a small market team.

I don't think Napoli intended to sign anywhere but Boston as long as they made him a decent offer. Johnson seemed to be set on going to the West coast. Cano's contract could be an albatross in four years. Ellsbury's contract is already an albatross.

But we do seem to be doing a good job of building up a good system. We've put ourselves into a good position to bring up contributors through our system and add talent in trades using the talent in our system. That way we don't get bogged down by lots of expensive years.

And the Pirates have a horrendous stadium deal with the city, I seem to recall, so increased attendance does not help them all that much.

 

[Illinest]

Cause it isn't, and never is that simple. There is nuance to everything. Arguing from an artificially simplistic viewpoint is uninteresting.

Other than AJ and QO, how many guys would you take on the new deals they signed this offseason? IMO, maybe 5.

How many? Almost all of them. Not Cano, but aside from that there's only a few shit players who got more than they should've. Qualls and mclouth and guys like that.

You guys like to keep a loose tally of what contracts were like last year and the year before and you like to pretend that that's a fair value for the player, but every offseason it's the same story. "i can't believe he got that much!" The dollars that these players are getting are their free market value. If it's higher than you expected it just shows that you're naive about cost. Hint: it goes up every year.

Now you're all thinking that a playoff appearance vindicates Nutting? No. Maybe it vindicates Neil, but only in the sense that he knew how to draft guys that most anyone with a BA subscription could've drafted. Then he did another really obvious thing in signing bounceback candidates like Liriano. Well he happened to hit on one. You think that's a sustainable source of talent?

The best thing this team has going for it is Gayo, but there's a limit to how much he can do. Drafting guys like Cole and Alvarez was obvious, but it isn't going to happen anymore as long as we're not one of the worst teams in the league. Now we're drafting in the bottom half of the round and there's a slotting system in place too.

So what's the plan? Are we going to sign any talent? No? Maybe eventually Taillon and Polanco get promoted and do reasonably well, but all that gets us is back to where we were in 2013. Maybe. Hopefully we're not below .500 by then, but it seems unreasonably optimistic to think that we'll have any reasonable chance of catching the Cardinals at that point. So we try to finish above .500 and look forward to 2015?

Well now Alvarez and Walker are each getting arbitration again and Liriano and Martin are gone. Morton is starting to get expensive at that point too. We're not willing to pay Alvarez now so what makes us think that we'll want to pay him next year? Possibly the same situation with Walker. Is the farm system going to be able to replace those five players or are the Nuttings going to suddenly decide that they can afford 90 million after all? Cause that's what we've got to look forward to if the Nuttings are really truly at their limit. There is no way in hell we're going to be able to keep those players for 2015 if we can't afford a payroll higher than 70 million.

Basically we're already fucked then.