OT: Gerrit Cole
- Thread starter Pittguy1980
- Start date
Gerrit Cole is going to sign for $20M+ somewhere and he'll be worth every penny of it. Hell, he was worth $20m each of the past two seasons, and probably will be this year too by seasons end.
The ship was right for his entire career, he's had a rough couple of starts. His ERA prior to these past three was 2.94, I'm not sure what you're looking for.
I see him as a very good number 2, I wouldn't pay him Kershaw money, not even close to that. Santana for the Twins then deserves 20 million a year. I agree he is a good pitcher, just not an ace that the contenders have
I've repeatedly said when their farm system is barren and their team is getting old/expensive that my expectation is for them to go for it -- just as the Royals did at the trade deadline (their money spent in the offseason leading up to 2015 was pretty Pirates-esque; Rios is/was bad, Volquez is Volquez, Morales was the exact type of player who gets dismissed as a dumpster dive in Pittsburgh).
The Twins killed themselves by spending money too early (among other things). Same thing the Reds and Brewers did. Those teams could have been good for a solid 4-5 years longer if they'd just managed their assets better.
I think you and I both know you're being intentionally dishonest on limiting the "some moves work out, some don't" to prospects and buy-low trades. There have been plenty of articles written recently about how poorly big-dollar free agent signings have fared in the post-steroid era. No class of player is free from risk or guaranteed of strong performance.
I mean, there were 2 separate sites last week already in awe of how bad the class of 2016 contracts are shaping up.
The Pirates were contenders last year. They won 98 games and he finished fourth in Cy Young voting. That is an ace for a contender. It's been a slump like Arrietta had his three starts prior to the All Star Break. Were Cubs fans this dumb then?
Cueto. Zobrist. Get a clue. The Royals went for it with high end talent and it paid off big time.
The Twins didn't spend money. They let David Ortiz go because they didn't want to go to arbitration. They never added high end players to the team to put them over the top.
You add high end players to supplement your core when they are in their prime, not when the window is closing. That's how you win. That's how the Cubs are doing it with Lester, Lackey, and Heyward. That's what the Red Sox do (Price the latest example).
My comments about some moves work, some don't... That's all about NH trading good talent off. He has been horrid at it, and you can't deny it. Nobody with a brain should trust him to trade Cole or Cutch.
You're aware that they got Cueto and Zobrist via trades at or near the deadline and not in free agency, right? Hell, Cueto was so bad for them that there were legitimate concerns he was injured and I'm still saying the Pirates should go for it like that when they're near the end of their contention period. I don't know what else you want. Should I lie and pretend like they signed them in the offseason and it was brilliant and the sole reason they won? I know we all love a "this move is the reason they were Champions" narrative, but there's only so much revisionist history we can use when evaluating these things.
The Twins completely hamstrung themselves with Mauer's albatross. I'm talking only post-steroid era here, when payroll became completely unrelated to winning percentage. In the steroid era, yeah, get old guys. They didn't age nearly as quickly as they do now.
I'm not really sure what you're going for with the "but the Cubs/Red Sox do it" line of argument. Those are also teams that can just throw money repeatedly at a hole until it's plugged. They aren't just casually supplementing a core with some carefully chosen veteran -- the Red Sox threw a ton of money at Pablo Sandoval and Rusney Castillo 2 years ago and were still able to sign Price so you're not talking apples-to-apples with the Pirates in any way. Also feel like you're all over the board with Lester (he's been fine), Lackey (comparable money to Liriano), and Heyward (big money, but hasn't been good at all).
Like, are we still just making the "payroll = trying" argument and acting like it's reasonable in the modern era?
I would say the Royals are probably closer to what the Pirates will do than the Cubs and Red Sox, by a significant amount. Cardinals, too, although they have a larger margin for error with some of their financial decisions (for instance, I don't think the Pirates will extend their starting pitchers). But, these are franchises that haven't acted irrationally until they got near the end of their windows. They've been very principled and asset-conscious. The Cards' biggest trades were for guys still in their prime. They let a local hero walk away over money.
I don't really have a strong opinion on Huntington's trades. Sorry. You seem to have a moving target between getting good value on the day of the trade and winning the trade on the field so I can't really say a whole lot with much conviction. I'm not sure which hindsight lens I'm supposed to be looking through when forming an opinion.
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His slider does not have a sharp break at all. With his fastball, even his below average slider would be good enough if he could put it where he wanted it more often, but he struggles to throw good strikes or good chase pitches with it.
What curve ball? Melancon had a curve ball - I don't see a curve ball from Cole, more of a slurve.
His "stuff" is AJ Burnett, The Sequel. Which means he's blessed with one of the best arms of his generation, but can he learn to not have to depend so much on his fastball? His fastball mistakes are getting hammered.
Go Pitt.
You aren't watching then. He has always had a really good slider and has a good curveball as well.
That's a lot of words to defend a front office who deserves a F for the past 10 months.
The Royals went all in by trading for high end talent. The Pirates dick around on the margins when acquiring players, just like the Twins did both in the early 00's and their recent run. The Rays could've put themselves over the top too, but, like NH, refused to give up any of his top prospects. Mind you, these top prospects were guys like Jeff Niemann, Reid Brignac, and Jeremy Hellickson. It's just very amusing that NH wouldn't give up top prospects to make the team better, but was more than happy to in order to dump a salary that is market value.
You keep whining about financial constraints and what teams like the Pirates can't do, yet ignore the reality that the sport is awash in cash and the team clears alit more money prior to selling a ticket, hot dog, or beer than they spend on payroll. But but but... They built a $5m building in the Dominican Republic! Big F'n deal, every team has one if those that are similar.
The guy is a poor drafter and a poor trader. The teams the past few years were carried by guys he didn't acquire like Cutch, Walker, and Marte... And he refused to supplement with high end talent to put them over the top. Then on top of that, he put together a joke of a rotation that has put the team in position to lose 15-20 more games than a year ago, and not in a great position next year either.
All hail the great NH.
That's a whole lot of strawmen and mental gymnastics to go through just to make a tenuous-at-best argument against the front office.
Like, man, you've just glossed over literally everything I've said about the Royals and my expectations for the Pirates when they get to the point the Royals are at. I'm gonna let you go because you're rolling at this point and are completely outside of the realm of reasonable and measured discussion, but wow.
Impressive.
When they get to the point the Royals are? They were in that same position the past three years. The Royals had homegrown talent everywhere... Sal Perez, Eric Homer, Mike Moustakas, Yordano Ventura, Danny Duffy, and most of that great bullpen. But they weren't content with just contending, so they went out and acquired really good players to put them over the top.
Keep kicking the can down the road. 2017 will be another 'transition' year I guess, can't wait until 2022 gets here, or is the narrative 2023 now?
It would depend on when the farm system is empty. I have no idea when that will be. Ideally a team won't have a window, although in practice that's nearly impossible because farm systems are always going to be finite resources. I don't evaluate teams based only on their major league roster, because that's not how they're evaluated in reality. Why make myself upset over things solely because I don't understand them? It makes no sense.
Baseball's all about the long game. Never put all your chips in on just one season, because that could be the season that McCutchen falls off or Liriano sees the league adjust to him and he becomes totally ineffective. Every decision is made with 2 or 3 seasons down the road in mind.
This is from an article posted yesterday on Baseball Prospectus (a site that acts as a feeder into baseball front offices), and it encapsulates well how teams with a solid base of talent operate:
"That’s my biggest argument for the main thesis of this piece: the Mets ought to trade Cespedes. They ought to do it, right now, because every individual season is fragile. Every division title or playoff appearance, in isolation, is a happy accident. Teams in positions like the Mets’ should always, always think past any particular season, and try to make the most of all the seasons in front of them. ... The Mets might run out of tomorrows, if they can’t take their eyes off today."
If you never try to win big, you'll never win big. The Mets acquired Cespedes last year to put them over the top. He did, in a big way. They went for it, and they won the pennant.
Continue to put off winning until down the line will lead to never winning. As you've stayed yourself, prospects and trades don't always work out.
Continue to put off winning until down the line will lead to never winning. As you've stayed yourself, prospects and trades don't always work out.
I mean, they traded for him as a plan C after Wilpon vetoed paying Carlos Gomez and they couldn't work anything out for Bruce or Upton so let's not act like they targeted him and paid dearly for him. Michael Fulmer has been good for Detroit, but he was given the same grade (a non-Top 100 FV45) as Adrian Sampson and JaCoby Jones. And I don't know how much Cespedes had to do with winning the pennant, but whatever. It's always the one or two players who make a difference in a team winning and who helped to define the team's season, but nobody better dare blame one or two players for a team falling off. Gotta love when humans romanticize Championships and try to pinpoint "the moment" that their team became the champs.
And yep, prospects and trades don't always work out, but they don't come with near the risk of free agents. I'll take risks when I'm at the end of my window.
You sign players at the end of the window, you just delay the rebuild. Acquire high end players when you're ready to compete and give yourself a chance to win it all. Otherwise you're the Phillies.
Fulmer was a top 100 prospect midseason last year, before the trade deadline. Neither Sampson nor Jones were anywhere close.
You don't delay the rebuild at all. Those free agents are either going to be bad, helping you in your efforts to tank, or they might still have a little value left and you flip them for some prospects to supplement your high draft picks.
Provided the "high-end" free agent you sign is actually good for any period of his contract, he'll probably only be good for a year or two so it coincides perfectly with the rebuild. He either helps you suck or you get a little bonus haul of raw lottery tickets.
You can begin to rebuild in a heartbeat, the timing of signing a free agent has nothing to do with it.
The Phillies refused to believe that their window was going to close while they still had Rollins, Utley, Ruiz, and Howard under contract. Ruben Amaro Jr was a moron with how he handled that, he literally didn't understand aging curves. The Phillies could have rebuilt at any point in time if they chose to -- none of their moves prevented them from doing that.
The Padres went on a spending spree 2 summers ago and were in rebuild mode by the beginning of this season.
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Exactly! BTW- rbis are an irrelevant stat in baseball per Pitt baseball.
Didn't he tell you? You can still win without scoring runs. There's a statistical algorithm that clearly explains this.
If gerrit Cole, Francisco liriano, and Andrew Mccutchen play up to their normal levels, this team has at learn 7 or 8 more wins. Those guys not performing is obviously nutting and the fos fault.
Weren't you pimping taillon as a savior earlier this year? Get your stories straight.
Not a savior, a superior option to Locke, Niese, and Nicasio. And a potential top of the rotation starter. Labeling him the ace after 10 starts is just as dumb as wanting to get rid of Cole for 3 bad starts.
If they had a rotation that didn't include Locke, Niese, and Nicasio for four months they would have much more than 7 or 8 wins. When 3 out of the 5 SP you send out are amongst the very worst in baseball, you aren't giving yourself a chance. That is indeed the front office's fault.
Gerrit Cole had a 2.94 ERA up until his past three starts. They weren't winning a bunch more games if his ERA was 2.75 or so.
you know you are doing the same thing people that blamed Dixon for every Pitt loss? Sure, nh could have added another pitcher. Maybe that adds 2-3 wins over a Jeff Locke. But when the guys you have don't perform, how can you ignore that?
Being contenders and actually winning something is different. The were in contention the past three years but haven't won anything. Not a World Series, not a playoff series, not a division title.
Yep, because you know, having the second best record in baseball and not winning the division is completely the Pirates fault. Obviously, they should have done more to stop the cards from winning 101 games!!
Because the organization didn't even try to put a team on the field that could compete for a championship this year. It would be one thing if the front office went out and put together a team that had a real rotation, and these guys tanked. But the players are at least giving effort, unlike the front office.
Sometimes very good (even great) players have down years, it happens (see Bryce Harper, Zack Grienke, etc). But a front office putting a team together isn't about physical performance, they should never take a year off.
They won 100 games. Perhaps if the Pirates weren't under .500 against them (or even against the Reds or Brewers, two of the worst teams in tbe league) they would've won the division. But hey, you had to have crap like Jeff Locke out there every fifth day, because every team has to have a fifth starter and you don't need to improve, right?
They tell you nothing about an individual player, so yeah, they're useless. They're purely a product of opportunity. Did you not see the batting lines I posted for Starling Marte with men in scoring position and in high pressure situations?
Who are the "Aces" in MLB?
Clayton Kershaw is an "Ace"? He hasn't been "a pitcher that consistently gives you a high quality performance...in big games" in the playoffs, so...
