2015 Pirates

[stillmatic32]

Shields is getting 4 yrs/75 mill plus a team option.

 

[thedddd]

Kind of suprised Worley won his arbitration and Walker lost his.

 

[thecrow124]

Kind of suprised Worley won his arbitration and Walker lost his.

Arbitrators reward playing, Walker is hurt almost every year, Worley is not.

 

[Darkstone42]

A pretty nifty breakdown of Kang's swing.

Breaking Down Jung Ho-Kang | FanGraphs Baseball

Reasons for optimism in there, I think. And if he can approach the numbers at the end of the article (.280 average and 25 homers) at any point in his contract with Pittsburgh, man, big win on that signing.

 

[thedddd]

Arbitrators reward playing, Walker is hurt almost every year, Worley is not.

Great point, what truly surprised me more was the fact that Worley was in the minors part of the year and still won and Walker had good numbers at 2B.

 

[thecrow124]

Great point, what truly surprised me more was the fact that Worley was in the minors part of the year and still won and Walker had good numbers at 2B.

Honestly, I expected the Pirates to lose all 3 cases, I thought their best option to win was Pedro.

 

[pixburgher66]

Can we hurry up Spring? SERIOUSLY. HURRY UP.

 

[steelparrot]

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/7417714/v37235231/andrew-mccutchen-phones-in-to-mlb-tonight

 

[steelparrot]

can someone give me the dummy 101 on how to embed that link?

 

[thecrow124]

can someone give me the dummy 101 on how to embed that link?

I would love to, but i don't know how to.

 

[damien232307]

The Communist Sports network errr ESPN writer David Schoenfield ranked all 30 teams in baseball and put the Pirates 3rd. He listed the Cardinals 5th. Some butt-hurt Cardinals fans are offended deeply. I know because I live in St Louis and you should read the posts. Of course the Cardinal fans don't realize that the a Pirates had the best record in the NL after Memorial Day. All they know is Russell Martin is gone. They don't realize that we won't have 30 errors at 3B and a dramatic improvement at both 1B and RF. At worst Polanco will put up the same numbers as last years revolving door and be a dramatic improvement on defense. Alvarez and Hart are a significant upgrade at 1B over Ike and Gaby and our bullpen has been greatly improved. Some more of our deep crop of elite prospects are potentially available as the season goes on and although we lose something behind the plate I think it will not be anything like the other improvements we have made. I would also hope we don't have all of the SP injuries we had last year. Granted the Cardinals made the best move of the offseason in Heyward and he will be a monster in my opinion, but they lost two SP and Wainwright and Wacha are both coming off pitching arm issues. I believe this is the year we win the Central and I believe we can win it easily. I truly believe this is a 95 win team potentially.

 

[pixburgher66]

can someone give me the dummy 101 on how to embed that link?

I don't think you can embed videos that aren't youtube or vine. You can upload files too, though I think that's only for photos. Can only post links, not sure why that's not linking though, maybe mobile link issue?

 

[pixburgher66]

The Communist Sports network errr ESPN writer David Schoenfield ranked all 30 teams in baseball and put the Pirates 3rd. He listed the Cardinals 5th. Some butt-hurt Cardinals fans are offended deeply. I know because I live in St Louis and you should read the posts. Of course the Cardinal fans don't realize that the a Pirates had the best record in the NL after Memorial Day. All they know is Russell Martin is gone. They don't realize that we won't have 30 errors at 3B and a dramatic improvement at both 1B and RF. At worst Polanco will put up the same numbers as last years revolving door and be a dramatic improvement on defense. Alvarez and Hart are a significant upgrade at 1B over Ike and Gaby and our bullpen has been greatly improved. Some more of our deep crop of elite prospects are potentially available as the season goes on and although we lose something behind the plate I think it will not be anything like the other improvements we have made. I would also hope we don't have all of the SP injuries we had last year. Granted the Cardinals made the best move of the offseason in Heyward and he will be a monster in my opinion, but they lost two SP and Wainwright and Wacha are both coming off pitching arm issues. I believe this is the year we win the Central and I believe we can win it easily. I truly believe this is a 95 win team potentially.

I have some great friends that are Cards fans, and we can hold good baseball discussions 98% of the time (I can't get them to see my POV on "the Cardinal way"), but they're good ones. It's remarkable how loud their idiotic portion of the fan base is. "BestFans" on twitter is simply the best. And regarding your optimism, I'm in a similar boat. I don't think replacing Russ' offense will be too hard. I'm not sure it's coming from the catchers spot (although it could), but I don't think his bat will be sorely missed. Honestly I don't think he'll have an offensive season like that again in his career.

 

[stillmatic32]

Was listening to the fan on the way to work. Dunlap was saying it "got ugly" in the room during the arbitration hearing for Pedro. Maybe it will inspire him to hit 40 bombs and go collect 100 million from not the Pirates next offseason.

 

[thecrow124]

Was listening to the fan on the way to work. Dunlap was saying it "got ugly" in the room during the arbitration hearing for Pedro. Maybe it will inspire him to hit 40 bombs and go collect 100 million from not the Pirates next offseason.

Not surprised that it would get ugly. That is what happens, the team destroys the player for every fault he has and the player has to sit there and listen to it.. But, that is what Pedro wanted, so he got it. What exactly was he expecting, the team was going to say how great of a guy he is? It will be interesting to see how butt hurt he is when he shows up for ST.

That being said, Boras is his agent, so I am sure he attacked the team from every angle he could. Making him play hurt, moving him to first base to save money, negotiating his first contract after midnight, whatever he could think of.

 

[element1286]

Was listening to the fan on the way to work. Dunlap was saying it "got ugly" in the room during the arbitration hearing for Pedro. Maybe it will inspire him to hit 40 bombs and go collect 100 million from not the Pirates next offseason.

I'd take it with a grain on salt, Dunlap likes to push the 'everyone hates Pedro' narrative way too far.

There is a reason guys want to avoid arbitration, they are inherently ugly.

 

[pixburgher66]

I'd take it with a grain on salt, Dunlap likes to push the 'everyone hates Pedro' narrative way too far.

There is a reason guys want to avoid arbitration, they are inherently ugly.

+1 on this. I don't absolutely hate Dunlap, but he enjoys his "controversial voice" more than most on that station. Honestly there's not a lot of Pedro supporters at the fan any longer. They're the ones pushing the "lazy, arrogant, selfish, didn't even go to that optional camp thing that no one did" narratives. Which is crap. The guy is reserved, they hate that, so they turn it into him not caring. He was working out all offseason, showed up on pitchers/catchers report day (which is still early), but people don't think it's enough and it's amazing to me. I agree with most that his time with the Pirates is likely winding down, but I've enjoyed him on the team 95% of the time. The other 5% is somewhere in the stands behind first base.

 

[thecrow124]

I'd take it with a grain on salt, Dunlap likes to push the 'everyone hates Pedro' narrative way too far.

There is a reason guys want to avoid arbitration, they are inherently ugly.

I would not discount that view so quickly, there are some of us that legitimately do not like Pedro at all. I would go so far as to say hate him, but I do hate the moments that he is on the field.

 

[stillmatic32]

I'm not a fan of Pedro but just like every year there is a lot riding on him going into the season. As usual.

 

[sychmd]

I'm not a fan of Pedro but just like every year there is a lot riding on him going into the season. As usual.

in the past, besides cutch, alvarez was our big difference maker we needed to come thru on offense to compete. last year, we saw an emergence of marte and harrison, along with walker being more consistent, then martin and mercer adding a lot of positional value.
now we have cutch, marte as givens and walker, harrison, mercer as strong seconds, and polanco as the big wild card. if we get anything from alvarez, oh my gosh will we be deadly. but we wont live and die based on alvarez as we once felt in the past.