Would you pay him 63% of "Clayton Kershaw money"? Because Kershaw makes $32M a year. $20M would make Cole the 16th highest paid SP.
OT: Gerrit Cole
- Thread starter Pittguy1980
- Start date
Okay mvk, I'm done. You lost me with this reply.
Gerrit Cole DOES HAVE: a really good fastball and a pretty wife.
Gerrit Cole does NOT HAVE: either a "really good slider" or a "good curveball." Just not true.
Go Pitt.
Kershaw has pitched a lot of big games and won them in the regular season, so....
Still waiting on Cole... Right now, the Pirates are on a losing stretch. When that happens, you depend on your "ace" to pitch a good game. That's what aces do. Once again, he failed yesterday. He pitched deep into the count on every batter he faced.
Aces:
Jake Arietta
Madison Bumgarner
Max Scherzer
Clayton Kershaw (3 Cy Young awards)
Cole Hamels
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Agree he is a very good pitcher but not a true shut you down ACE. He isn't a ARietta, Kershaw or Strasburg. He isn't a great guy to pitch that one game you have got to win, when going up against the elite of the league. But if you had 4 of him you wouldn't be playing in a one game series you would win your division. I think trading him now would be stupid. He has 3 more years of control correct? Give him till midway through 2018 and if the young guys have become good then you move him and get something. If not you got to keep him and get nothing as long as you are contending. This year was always a throw away year while the young arms develope, they get some 4th and 5th type guys back next year like kingman, cumpton(did well last year) and guys like kuhl and brault will battle with those guys to finish off the rotation.
So the "big regular season games" count more than the postseason? Or consistency in big games doesn't actually define an "ace" like you said it did?
I'm just using your definition and applying it to someone (who I think is perhaps the greatest SP ever) you pointed out. He doesn't seem to fit what you defined.
Had cole, Liriano and cutch had season's like last year the Pirates would be in the first wild card spot just like last season. they are a small market club If you get poor play from your stars(cole hasn't been bad like cutch and liriano just not like a ace he is 7-9) you aren't going to win. Teams like the pirates will always have a few holes. Guys like Niese and Nicasio weren't expected to be in the rotation now they were half year stop gaps until guys like tailon and maybe a trade deadline type were ready. If cole and liriano were pitching well and you add in tailon and Nova and thats a pretty good rotation and they would have made the playoff's as the first or second wildcard. They still could if the stars could get on track, though it looks unlikely to happen now.
Yes I agree at some point you have to go for it. But I didn't have a problem not doing it last year. The young pitchers were looking good and you don't want to mortgage your future by trading them or before they are ready. The window is coming in 2017 or 2018. They have the OF signed Kang signed cervelli signed and they added Freise as a backup to Bell at 1b in case he doesn't pan out. Rotation will have Cole,Tailon and 3 from a decent list of guys who look capable in Glasnow,Brault,kuhl,kingman and cumpton. If those guys look good maybe you make a big deal for a position you have a hole at maybe bring in a stud 2nd or SS if Bell looks ok at first.
MVk has a large hatred of nutting and Huntington. Adding one solid kid rotation pitcher adds maybe 2-3 wins. Cole, liriano, and cutch playing up to their standard adds 7-9 probably.
That though, doesn't fit his obsession and narrative.
Well aren't we the smart one????
Let's not get off track here. The question is; Is Cole an ace? The answer is no. He hasn't shown that potential. Is he a good pitcher? Yes.
Don't forget Kang... Thank God for guys like Joyce and Freese who have picked up the slack... Nice pick ups by NH...
His ERA was 2.94 before these past three games. He just pitched his first CG of his career about three weeks ago.
The numbers say otherwise. Both pitches have been above average to very good pitches over the course of his career. They actually track these things now.
Cole has gone 7+ innings exactly 3 times this year. In comparison, arrieta has done it 13 times. Cole has also let up at least a hit per inning in 11 of his 20 starts...arrieta has in 6 of his 25 starts.
Cole needed to take a step forward. Instead, he took a huge step back. He has been far too hittable...his k's are down, his walks are up.
Again, keep blaming the fo for not adding more players while ignoring the huge failing of cutch, Cole, and liriano.
Gerrit Cole has pitched in pennant races his entire MLB career thus far. His Sept/Oct numbers -
17 G's, 12-2, 2.95 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 9.8 K/9
Yeah, he doesn't pitch well when it counts.
I mean I know all of you front office fans need scapegoats and his recent 3 game stretch is fuel for your fire, but this entire narrative that Cole doesn't pitch well in big games is as dumb as blaming this season on him and Cutch instead of Neal Huntington.
Literally 60% of the starting rotation (Niese, Locke, Nicasio) was absolute garbage coming into the season and was kept that way for four months, but you want to blame the season on a guy who had a 2.94 ERA in early August.
#SMRTBASEBALL
Cole is a good pitcher. He's not elite and that's ok. However he has been bad lately and not as good overall as he was last year.
In a big game, I have yet to see him pitch a great game when it counts. Could that change? Maybe, but so far I haven't seen any clues that it will. His agent wants the Bucs to pay him elite money for being a good pitcher.
In Taillon's case he has shown flashes of being a dominate pitcher. He has great stuff and unlike Cole, he has outstanding command. He has around 85 pitches in the 8th inning of his last start. He is on the fast track.
Nova who is an ok pitcher, pitched a complete game while throwing less than 100 pitches against the Astros. That's what we need to see from Cole a handful of times a year before we anoint him as elite.
Just my opinion...
So when is Hunnington and Nutting going to be in the starting lineup? Tonight????
You are truely a simpleton....
As for Cole, he is NOT elite. He is not an Ace, He is a good pitcher. Can that change? Maybe...But so far, No....
It's Huntington's job to put good players in the lineup and rotation.
He traded a consistently well above average 2B for a terrible pitcher, downgrading two spots (SP and 2B).
He signed a player at 1B who is well below league average, and refused to call up a hitter that was tearing up AAA to replace him. 1B was a downgrade from last year for almost 5 months.
He brought in a guy who was terrible in the past as a SP, but had some success as a reliever, and put him into the rotation.
He has had one of the worst SP in the league over the past three-plus years in the rotation for pretty much that entire span.
When their MLB catcher went down and had guys like Jacob Stallings, Eric Kratz, and Eric Fryer starting, he refused to make a move to get a legitimate catcher.
He refused to call up a SP who was dominating AAA until June. Taillon has shown he belonged all along and was wasting bullets in AAA.
He had one rotation stalwart retire and he let another guy who helped lead the team to the playoffs walk, replacing them with the aforementioned garbage pitcher (Niese) and miscast reliever (Nicasio).
The idea that NH put together some fantastic team that is just underachieving couldn't be further from the truth. The team was significantly downgraded at several spots from last year. If you want to continue to bury your head in NH's crotch, feel free to do so. But don't misplace blame on this season because you like the way he tastes.
Mvk112 is your typical yinzer.... It's never the players fault when they lose. Except if you're the QB, then it's always their fault no matter what.
If the QB threw 5 TD passes and the team loses then he should have thrown 6. It doesn't matter if the defense gave up 34 points, it's still the QB's fault.
In other sports, it's always the manger / coach or the front office / administration. It's NEVER the players. If the administration or front office spent more money they would have won. How do we know? Ask mvk112! He knows! It works EVERYTIME!
If the manager or coach would have come up with a better scheme, the team would have won! It didn't matter that the other team had better players or countered the scheme by making adjustments, it's because our coach is stupid. Never the players. NH should have known that Kang, McCutchen, Cole and Liriano were going to be bad this year. He should have dumped the entire farm system to get a player that would turn things around!
That is the yinzer manifesto... And mvk112 has read every word....
If the QB threw 5 TD passes and the team loses then he should have thrown 6. It doesn't matter if the defense gave up 34 points, it's still the QB's fault.
In other sports, it's always the manger / coach or the front office / administration. It's NEVER the players. If the administration or front office spent more money they would have won. How do we know? Ask mvk112! He knows! It works EVERYTIME!
If the manager or coach would have come up with a better scheme, the team would have won! It didn't matter that the other team had better players or countered the scheme by making adjustments, it's because our coach is stupid. Never the players. NH should have known that Kang, McCutchen, Cole and Liriano were going to be bad this year. He should have dumped the entire farm system to get a player that would turn things around!
That is the yinzer manifesto... And mvk112 has read every word....
You got it backwards pal, yinzer nation constantly is blaming the best players for everything. Cutch, Cole, Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Ben, it goes on and on. It's never on the management... In Art We Trust, Le Magnifique, Trust the Process....
If you can't see that the crap NH did since last October significantly downgraded this team, it's because you're a front office fan, and come hell or high water, Neal gets all of the credit and none of the blame. Neal Walker for Jon Niese? Harrison an everyday player? Nicasio in the rotation? Locke in the rotation? John Jaso an everyday player? Yeah, none of those moves are why the Pirates are much worse off than last year, can't be.... NEAL made those moves! Have to blame Cutch and Cole, it's not NEAL's fault!
No, I believe that PLAYERS win games. Are Kang, McCutchen, Liriano and Cole playing as well as they did last year? They are being paid at a high level to perform at a high level. It has made a difference in the win totals this season.
Is Joyce, Freese, Frazier and Rodriguez an upgrade over Alvarez's and Walker's production from last season? Yes. So that cancels that out. You only see one side of the equation. The Yinzer side!!!!
Pitching wise, you have a point. However, he can't be perfect in every trade. No GM Is perfect. As far as Locke is concerned, I'm sure he was counting on one of the younger pitchers to displace Locke. Guess what? It happened.
Wrong again!
Owner and GM are two separate issues. The GM plays the cards he's dealt with. So far NH has done a good job under the circumstances .
The players win games, but it's the GMs job to put a bunch of good players on the roster. The entire offseason right through the deadline was a failure. Look no further than the crap that occupied three spots in the rotation for four months, as well as 1B and 2B since the beginning of the season.
You can't reasonably expect a team with Niese, Locke, and Nicasio in the rotation for over half the season, and John Jaso at 1B alongside JHay at 2B, to win enough to make the playoffs.
The GM wastes a ton of money that he is allocated each season. See Niese, Locke, Nicasio, Jaso, Harrison, Corey Hart, Jose Tabata, Charlie Morton, etc etc etc.
Does the front office not get any respect for having Cole and the Pirates playing pennant race baseball for his entire career, up till this point. Especially, this year given the lack of performance by their top players on the roster, and they are still sniffing the 2nd WC.
No doubt he has a had a bad month. Jettisoning him because of that would be foolish. It is not a situation like Liriano. Cole is a part of at least the near future and has the stuff to completely turn it around overnight. Cutting him loose after 5 or 6 bad starts would be an over reaction. His first year of arbitration is coming up. 2 years from now will be the when a decision on Cole will be made.
They are wasting years of some of the best players they have ever had by not trying to win a championship. Sniffing distance of 2nd wild card. LOL.
Does NH give credit to Littlefield for handing him Cutch, Marte, and Walker, three major catalysts of this run? Does NH get dinged by you for getting absolutely nothing for Bay, Nady, Bautista, Walker, and Melancon, by far the best five players he has traded?
Big deal, they are two games over .500 with five weeks to play. A real front office wouldn't have saddled these players with crap like Niese, Locke, Nicasio, Jaso, etc.
Shhhhhhhh.
You're supposed to cherry pick transactions that have failed and completely overrate the importance of one or two players to a team's success.
That's #analysis.
Perhaps if the GM had made a few moves, they'd have won a World Series, or a pennant, or a playoff series, a division, or hell even had them more than just 'sniffing distance of 2nd wild card'.
Sniffing distance of 2nd wild card.
That's what makes people happy.
I think it's time to bury your head in Neal's crotch again.
Way to change the subject.
Why do you refuse to place any blame on the several underperforming players on the team? Add one pitcher, which is reasonable, and you maybe add 2-3 wins. If liriano, Cole, and cutch play up to expectations they have 7-9 more wins.
Perhaps. Or, perhaps they wouldn't have and they would have limited their competitive horizon. It's impossible to say, because baseball is impossible to predict. I think any front office person would be absolutely thrilled if they had 1/10 as much control over the outcome of the season as you think they do.
All you have to do is look at the adjusted standings to see how much variance there is in a season. And, of course, the playoffs are a complete and total crapshoot. You're putting 2 teams that are legitimate equals on a field and pretending like a 7-game series determines everything.
I see you're starting to get flustered and beginning with the ad hominems, though, so I'll leave you alone.
You and your CIA friends who call in to the Fan half drunk on a weekday make sure you stay woke and can alert the Pittsburgh population of what's REALLY going on with the Pirates.
Because Gerrit Cole has had three straight bad starts. He had a 2.94 ERA coming into those starts. I'm not pinning a .500 season on him.
Liriano was bad for the first half of 2014 too, but he rebounded in the second half and was really really good in September. He's pitched well in two of his three starts in Toronto and was pretty damn good his last start.
If they had three legitimate SP instead of Locke, Niese, and Nicasio, that's at least 9 more wins. Those three were all amongst the very worst SP in the NL. At least with Liriano there is a track record of turning it around. But the bum GM decides now it's time to drop two top ten prospects (when he hadn't previously) just to dump a market level contract, getting a terrible pitcher in return. Don't trade Walker, that's another couple wins.
But yeah, blame Cutch and Cole, because that's what yinz do. Cutch, Cole, Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Ben. Those guys are the reasons the local teams lose. What a terrible sports town this is.
You keep trying to sell the playoffs are a crap shoot. Of course you have to believe that because that's what the front office fans and shills like Tim Shilliams push, so there is no accountability.
So totally random that the Royals have been in World Series the past two years, that the Giants have won three World Series since 2010, that a team like the Mets who lined up top end pitching with an offense supplemented by a big time midseason trade acquisition won the pennant last year. Yep totally random. Also totally random that the Pirates haven't won a playoff series. Nothing to do with not adding high level talent to the roster to put them over the top. Just random.
Yes, it's random. I have no idea what front office fans or local media say, only what people who are actually reputable within the baseball industry say. It would take a 251 game series to give reasonable certainty as to which of 2 playoff teams is better. They're all equally matched and it's entirely contingent on who gets hot at the right time and who goes cold at the wrong time. Like, we don't know the merits of each particular team after a 162 game season but somehow everything comes out in the wash in a tournament? How is that logical, other than just falling into the "well that's how it's always been done and the media makes a big deal out of it so that's the best way to determine the best team"?
You're using hindsight and revisionist history to justify those teams doing well in the postseason, not looking at it rationally.
If the Pirates do well, I'll still say it's random, because there's no point in trying to make a storyline where there isn't one.
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You can't say the offseason was a failure without it being an agenda. The pitching side was pretty bad. Nicasio was never brought in as a starter but ended up there. Believe it or not, vogelsong has been decent. Feliz has been really good. Niese was awful.
On the offensive side, the acquisitions were Jaso who looked like a solid acquisition but has underperformed.
However, you TOTALLY ignore the signings of freese, Rodriguez, and Joyce, which honestly, if you're doing that you lose all credibility.
At worst the offseason was a C+/B-.
The real problem is the team's best players not performing.
BTW, josh Harrison WAR 1.3 and walker's is 2.2. About a win differenc. Adding a decent mid rotation starter about a 2-3 win difference. There you go, 3-4 wins.
Now, Andrew Mccutchen -0.5 WAR as popes to his normal 6-7. There is about 5 wins so far. Who knows what liriano cost the team. Conservatively 2-3 wins I would say. 6-7 wins. Cole, I would say 1-2 wins also.
Also, freese, Joyce, and srod have combined for about 5 WAR to this point.
Please try to argue this.
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