...It is appearing more and more likely that Oneil Cruz is the second coming of Gregory Polanco. Getting picked off as the inning start ghostie on second in the tenth as the first batter is up at the plate? Gee, that has to be a first in the short history of the rule change. Failing to touch the bag when returning to first on a fly out and being called out for it the day before? Just dumb.
OT: After Initial Optimism...
- Thread starter upj87
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Again, Barry Bonds batted ,223 his rookie year when the average MLB batting average was .280. Cruz is hitting what, .215 when the MLB average is .240.
I see no comparisons with Polanco.
That being said, I think the Pirates need a new hitting coach because their approach at the plate is horrible.
I see no comparisons with Polanco.
That being said, I think the Pirates need a new hitting coach because their approach at the plate is horrible.
I see no comparisons with Polanco... If you read what I wrote you would see I was not talking about batting averages. I was talking about what is (or is not) between the ears....Polanco played dumb. Cruz appears to be well on his way to taking that baseball smarts dunce cap...
One thing history tells us for certain: If he does reach his potential, it almost certainly won't be in this city.
I'm dating myself but I fondly recall the days when the Pirates were renowned as an organization that developed sluggers like Stargell, Oliver, Hebner, Robertson, Clendenon, Zisk and the like. The Pirates would trade from a surplus of offense to bolster the pitching, which was never a strong suit of the club. Somewhere along the line, perhaps around the time the Galbreaths sold out and different regimes took over, the Bucs became fixated on pitchers over hitters. And so for a few decades we've had a parade of pitchers who fit the physical profile (tall righthander with stuff) but who have the combativeness of a banana slug (Kip Wells). And the hitters are an endless sequence of poorly disciplined, low-power guys like Jermaine Allensworth. Rinse. Repeat.
I don't know that Cruz will be boom or bust. Same with Hayes. Reynolds is a nice player who is built by the Bucs into another Mike Trout. One thing is sure -- the baseball IQ of the Pirates in general is very low. They do some very stupid things consistently.
Have you noticed the soft sell given the Pirates by the PG and Trib? Happy articles, try-guy pieces. Very little harsh criticism from the news hacks. It's maddening because Pitt gets crucified for the slightest misstep.
I don't know that Cruz will be boom or bust. Same with Hayes. Reynolds is a nice player who is built by the Bucs into another Mike Trout. One thing is sure -- the baseball IQ of the Pirates in general is very low. They do some very stupid things consistently.
Have you noticed the soft sell given the Pirates by the PG and Trib? Happy articles, try-guy pieces. Very little harsh criticism from the news hacks. It's maddening because Pitt gets crucified for the slightest misstep.
I saw a highlight of “neck lips” the other day when he threw out a runner from the right field warning track to 3rd base on a rope. Everyone thought he could be the 2nd coming of Clemente. It was a tad reminiscent of the Polanco hype and the current Cruz hype. We definitely should pump the brakes.
That was when we were infatuated with teams' former top prospects. Jeff Clement, Jose Tabata, Lastings Milledge, Ika Davis, Travis Snyder, Andy LaRoche, etc. We were absolutely obsessed with the idea of extracting something out of these guys that their former teams were never able to cultivate. And it worked zero times.
That was one play. I have seen him make some pretty intuitive plays that I never saw from Polanco.
Actually that was not "neck lips" but Jose Guillen. But your point remains. He was hyped, as was wow.....let's start naming them, Chad Hermansen, Brad Eldred, Jermaine Allensworth, etc.....Aramis Ramirez and the really fast guy who was a bust here but amazing got to San Fran and become a solid starter on some World Series teams.
There are just some franchises where there is a culture of failing and some with winning.
Yeah, I was thinking that didn't sound like a throw Tabata could make, haha. That's just it, though: Our culture sucks. Everyone the Cardinals bring up seems to perform well, and everyone we bring up seems to suck. We're like the exact opposite of what the Steelers are in football.
When we're talking about recent top prospects of ours who both panned out to what their potential was thought to be and did so here, the list is like Cole and McCutchen.
Cole was fine here but he immediately got better when he left. McCutchen and Marte are the only top prospects that really panned out here. Marte always seems like he *could* be a superstar if he had better plate discipline, but he has been a really good player for about 10 years now. Walker turned out pretty good too, but he wasn't a highly regarded prospect like the others.
I just listed two extremely boneheaded plays in a 24hr timespan...RIF
Last Newman tries to score from third on a short high hop, out by a mile. Next player up base hit, would have given the Suckoes the lead late, probably a win. Third base coach has killed them several times
Cole definitely got better when he left, but he had a 3.4 ERA here which isn't that much lower than what he's posted the last two years with the Yankees, both All-Star seasons. His last year here was pretty pedestrian, but it's tough for me to say he didn't both pan out and perform extremely well while here.
Maybe I'm being too harsh of a critic with Marte, but I never thought he quite lived up to his billing. Not sure what it was, but I always thought he should be doing more. I have him down for hitting .287 here with about 18 homers per year (played eight seasons here, but really only about six full seasons). And I get that those are lazy stats and only two measurements, but neither were particularly great for that era. Combine that with him being lackadaisical in the field and continuously chasing that low and away breaking ball, and he was downright frustrating at times. Good player; I just thought he would be great. Two All-Star appearances in 11 years is just ok.
The comparison to Polanco is indeed valid. If not for skill set then certainly for lack of fundamentals. Throwing to the wrong base, poor baserunning, swinging at a ball with a 3-1 count.
Its all there with Cruz.
I would throw in marte as another excellent comp for lack of baseball awareness.
No offense but just STFU. He’s a rookie up for a couple of weeks. It’s a little early to put him in Polanco category. The failing to retouch was a rule I never knew since he never touched second in the first place. His mistake was stopping on the 3rd base side of second so he was considered to have rounded the bag.
My guess is that like 99.9% of all baseball fans, almost certainly including the poster who bitched about it in the first place, he thought that as long as he did not touch the base in the first place he didn't need to "retouch" it when he went back to first.
I have never seen someone called out for not retouching a base that they never touched in the first place. And not only that, but that they never made any attempt to go past the base in the first place.
The third base coach doesn't have anything at all to do with that decision.
First of all, Newman was almost certainly running on contact. That comes from the manager, not the third base coach. And if he wasn't he certainly didn't wait for the third base coach to tell him to go, he went on his own when he saw the ball hit because he thought that he could make it.
Since it is really unlikely that he would have thought that he could make it there, he was almost certainly instructed to run on contact.
Well I have been a baseball fan all my life and know the rules pretty well. My first thought was he never touched the bag so he doesn’t have to retouch. But when you think about it the second base ump didn’t know either and it’s his job to know.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
Once you are past a bag and you make a move towards the next (pretty much any time you go past a bag), you still have to retouch if you retreat. You don't get a break for improperly running the bases because you have to return.
Perhaps it is just the coaching within the pirates organization. They have proven themselves to be rather ineffective over the last 12-15 years or so. Terrible hitting and pitching coaches during that time period. Way to many pitchers who did average to below average here and then after being traded turn into MLB All-Stars. In regards to their hitting coaches, when have the pirates developed a good hitter? My God, they took an All-American talent in Pedro Alvarez (a man who's college coach called the best 3rd baseman in the country, he "flashes the 5 tools", hit for a high average and power while at Vanderbilt) and turned him into a headcase worrying about how many times he struck out. For me, if I can have a player hit 35-40 HR's each year, I could care less how many times he strikes out.
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The similarities between Polanco and Cruz are they are both tall, bat lefthanded and neither speak English as their first language. It's that third one that allows us to say they both play dumb and have nothing between the ears. It's shameful.
Greg Brown is why every TV has a MUTE button. And so does my radio.
i love Brownie. Kevin young i'd say i hate but he's more comical than anything. He's like if you took a fan out of the stands, let him smoke a ton of weed and do the game, it would sound how Kevin Young does a game.
KY is unbearable. So monotone. Has some good insights, but is dreadful to listen to. Matt Capps isn't much better. Neil Walker, Bob Walk and Rock are terrific. Joe Block is not the greatest and Greg Brown is such a homer, it's pathetic.
Cruz being 6'7" will probably always have high strike out numbers, can he make up for that with high HR numbers is the question. im fine with a guy who hits only .240 but he needs to be driving in runs or hitting 25+hrs.
I am actually impressed with his defense, his arm is ridiculous but his glove has been good too. the mental gaffes arent too bad i dont think, minus getting picked off 2nd in extra innings. Which quite frankly, is absolutely absurd but lets chalk that up to being a rookie and pray we never see it again.
I am actually impressed with his defense, his arm is ridiculous but his glove has been good too. the mental gaffes arent too bad i dont think, minus getting picked off 2nd in extra innings. Which quite frankly, is absolutely absurd but lets chalk that up to being a rookie and pray we never see it again.
His broadcasts are good. I should clarify. When he's asked his opinion, he is a shill for the organization.
Marte’s managed to be a starting MLB outfielder for more than a decade, and looks primed to keep being a starting MLB outfielder until well into his mid/late 30’s. He’s not a Hall of Famer, but he’s absolutely lived up to his billing as a top prospect.
True, but he never really made a move to go to third. He stood next to the base, but he happened to be standing on the third base side of the base and the umpire, or more specifically the replay umpires because the guy on the field was staring right at the play and didn't make the call, decided that standing on the third base side of the base meant that he had made a move to go to third.
My problem with the umpiring on the play is that the replay umpire substituted his opinion, that Cruz made an attempt to go to third, for the game umpire's opinion, that he did not make an attempt to go to third. And replay umpires aren't supposed to do that.
My problem with the play in general is that I'm not sure why you would stand where Cruz was standing, even if you knew it was allowed. Just put your foot on the base and keep it there. If the ball isn't caught you can go straight to third. If the ball is caught you can run back to first. No retouching the base necessary, because you are on the base at the critical moment.
The thing with Marte is that people see the talent level and decided that he should have been one of the best players in the league. Instead he's be a pretty consistent good major league baseball player for a long time. He's basically had one bad season in 11 years, when he was hurt and missed a lot of time.
If a team drafted a guy in the first round and got Marte's career out of him they should be really, really happy.
He made no move toward third. He simply stopped on the third base side of second as the ball was caught in the outfield. Simple mistake and now we all know.
One was here like 7 years and the other like 7 weeks. But yeah, let’s paint them with the same brush.
It's that third one that allows us to say they both play dumb and have nothing between the ears. It's shameful.... In that I listed two extremely dumb things done in a two consecutive day span there is nothing shameful about it... The only thing shameful about it is race baiters in constant need of seeing offense in everything thinking that when people of a certain persuasion do dumb things they, for some reason, cannot be called dumb (in a sports talk forum..hahaha).
Ok, I apologize.. Getting picked off at second when one run down with nobody out the day after being called out for missing a bag on a return trip to first base is not dumb. Kind of thing Polanco would do on occasion. It is a sign of solid baseball accumen...my bad.
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Greg Brown over reacts to every single play that is positive for the Pirates. Thank God that he works for the Pirates and not the Yankees or Dodgers. If he did, the man would have to change his underwear in between innings of most games. Kevin Young on the other hand is so soft spoken and very monotone in his delivery. The man could make millions more by just doing by just reading the stories for companies that produce sleep inducing CD's.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
I can tell you that as a general rule of thumb, once you're on the other side of that bag, you've made a "move" towards the next one. And you're right. Just put your foot on the stupid base and wait. There isn't any upside at all to not touching that base.
