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OT: Hodgepodge of nonthingness, ridiculous, pathetic

The worst part is, mega prospect Oneil Cruz can't catch a pop-up, so when they move him to corner outfield, he'll be even worse than Cole Tucker. Both hit under .200 (completely unacceptable for corner outfield), but at least Cole Tucker could catch a ball.
 
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I figured someone would post about this. It’s funny but spot on correct.

But it’s also funny when you think about it coming from an announcer for a last place team with a $207mil payroll getting on another last place team with a $68mil payroll.
Agreed. You can’t expect someone working for one of about 8 major league teams to understand that their owners have also contributed to this.
 
The worst part is, mega prospect Oneil Cruz can't catch a pop-up, so when they move him to corner outfield, he'll be even worse than Cole Tucker. Both hit under .200 (completely unacceptable for corner outfield), but at least Cole Tucker could catch a ball.
his fielding isnt even what im concernced about. He made zero adjustments at the plate and mlb pitchers are owning him. to say he looks lost at the plate is an understatement.

he needs to have a huge off season with hitting instructor.. Once again, pirates mngmnt and their lack of development strikes again.
 
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So I turned on the game last night....5-0 and saw a guy up to bat for the Pirates that I literally never, ever heard of. So he obviously wasn't a prospect getting promoted from Indy or Altoona. What, did he was the "1B for a Day" contest?
 
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To pile on. All of these trades......all of these top 5 picks.......and Baseball America has come out with its latest Top 100 prospects list. Last year, the Pirates had 6, 3 guys in the top 50.

This year? 4. None in the top 50.

Meet the new boss.......same as the old boss...... don't get fooled again.
 
In general, I get it. But what do you guys want to see - us fielding a bunch of Daniel Vogelbach's out there?

The formula should be to spend almost nothing certain years while the prospects are developing and then, once they're up here, try to buy out their arbitration years and lock them up with team-friendly contracts, along with picking up a few free agents to help fill the voids.

Not defending the Pirates as a whole here, but it would have made no sense to spend money this year, and it makes no sense to bring up prospects too early and start their clock. They're a clown show, but they're doing what they should be doing now in seeing what they have with some of the younger guys.
 
In general, I get it. But what do you guys want to see - us fielding a bunch of Daniel Vogelbach's out there?

The formula should be to spend almost nothing certain years while the prospects are developing and then, once they're up here, try to buy out their arbitration years and lock them up with team-friendly contracts, along with picking up a few free agents to help fill the voids.

Not defending the Pirates as a whole here, but it would have made no sense to spend money this year, and it makes no sense to bring up prospects too early and start their clock. They're a clown show, but they're doing what they should be doing now in seeing what they have with some of the younger guys.
lol, yes, there are still people out there that fall for this scam. i love it.
 
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lol, yes, there are still people out there that fall for this scam. i love it.

I've watched like three games this year - the first three I watched in years. I don't even remember the last time I attended a game. I'm not falling for a damn thing; It's not my fault people want to make everything black and white. If it's the same old shit in two years, then I'll host the pitchfork parade. Do I have faith in them to turn it around? Not a ton. But they weren't going to go out and buy a contending team this past offseason, so what else are they supposed to do at this time?
 
I've watched like three games this year - the first three I watched in years. I don't even remember the last time I attended a game. I'm not falling for a damn thing; It's not my fault people want to make everything black and white. If it's the same old shit in two years, then I'll host the pitchfork parade. Do I have faith in them to turn it around? Not a ton. But they weren't going to go out and buy a contending team this offseason, so what else are they supposed to do at this time?
they dont know what they are doing. they bring up cruz and he's lost. they bring up madris and Suwinski and send him down cause he's lost. They dont even have a position for cruz yet, something that should have been ironed out 2 years ago. your top prospect and they dont even know where they want to play him..

Pitchers leave here and go on to have great careers. We havent developed a player thru our system in decades.. How many sure fire prospects have flamed out..
 
they dont know what they are doing. they bring up cruz and he's lost. they bring up madris and Suwinski and send him down cause he's lost. They dont even have a position for cruz yet, something that should have been ironed out 2 years ago. your top prospect and they dont even know where they want to play him..

Pitchers leave here and go on to have great careers. We havent developed a player thru our system in decades.. How many sure fire prospects have flamed out..

Okay, well part of Eckersly's rant is that the guys up here aren't legit prospects. But then we also bitch that Cruz is up here and shouldn't be? I just don't see how it can be had both ways. We knew coming into the season that most of our better prospects were young and a few years away.

Again, not defending them, and I know the franchise as a whole is tainted with stank. I just don't know what else people want to see right now.
 
Okay, well part of Eckersly's rant is that the guys up here aren't legit prospects. But then we also bitch that Cruz is up here and shouldn't be? I just don't see how it can be had both ways. We knew coming into the season that most of our better prospects were young and a few years away.

Again, not defending them, and I know the franchise as a whole is tainted with stank. I just don't know what else people want to see right now.
Fans know that the money he's saving on payroll isnt going back into minor league development/scouting. That's the problem. This idea that we have a pathetic payroll and are putting the dollars back into the team is laughable.

Like years ago nutting tried to push that he's investing so much into latin america. Building a baseball field in the Dominican Republic, great. that's yielded so much results for us that it was worth a 40 m payroll. thanks for that "out of the box" thinking, we now are where we are.
 
Fans know that the money he's saving on payroll isnt going back into minor league development/scouting. That's the problem. This idea that we have a pathetic payroll and are putting the dollars back into the team is laughable.

Like years ago nutting tried to push that he's investing so much into latin america. Building a baseball field in the Dominican Republic, great. that's yielded so much results for us that it was worth a 40 m payroll. thanks for that "out of the box" thinking, we now are where we are.

Yeah, not saying that isn't a problem. But if our baseline is a paltry $75M, I'd rather see us spend $50M for three years and then $100M for three years than scrap up $75M every year just to finish in 3rd or 4th place instead of last. We should be playing for windows.
 
Here’s a question…anyone in this thread under the age of 40? It’s baseball afterall and none of this matters. I can’t imagine where the sport will be in another generation or two.
 
Nutting is only going to do enough to just get by. The league keeps lowering the bar by expanding the playoffs which just enables this crap so that a team can legitimately be a few games over 0.500 and be in the wildcard race. At some point, a Pirates club with zero chance of winning anything will slip into the playoffs and get clobbered and we'll hear the fan boys crowing about how everyone was wrong about "the plan." But "the plan" is to just be good enough to milk a few extra bucks out of the fan base every few years and stay cheap.
 
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Fans know that the money he's saving on payroll isnt going back into minor league development/scouting. That's the problem. This idea that we have a pathetic payroll and are putting the dollars back into the team is laughable.

Like years ago nutting tried to push that he's investing so much into latin america. Building a baseball field in the Dominican Republic, great. that's yielded so much results for us that it was worth a 40 m payroll. thanks for that "out of the box" thinking, we now are where we are.
Like when the Pirates drafted the two players from India and ballyhooed it as something innovative.

The problem is, and a common theme, the local Pgh media largely are complicit in defending and apologizing for the Pirates. I can only guess they are afraid of offending the geezers in town that are still following the team as if it is still legitimate, but many of them gotta be dying off pretty rapidly. If you were 40ish years old when the Pirates last won…heck, even just MADE…the WS, you’d be pushing 85 now (or daisies). Otherwise I figure that Nutting must be putting out a great spread for the media and they don’t want to upset the Apple cart. Maybe that’s Pitt’s problem, just need to improve the grub and drinks we give ‘em.
 
Here’s a question…anyone in this thread under the age of 40? It’s baseball afterall and none of this matters. I can’t imagine where the sport will be in another generation or two.
i have zero data to back this up but baseball seems to be flourishing (around the pgh area at least) with little kids. these rec leagues have a ton of kids and the local communities around the south hills have multiple travel league teams and that's not even mentioning the 'pay for club team" types..

So i think kids like playing it, just not watching it on tv..
 
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i have zero data to back this up but baseball seems to be flourishing (around the pgh area at least) with little kids. these rec leagues have a ton of kids and the local communities around the south hills have multiple travel league teams and that's not even mentioning the 'pay for club team" types..

So i think kids like playing it, just not watching it on tv..
Similar to youth sucker, I mean, soccer 😄 I think it is just more that parents force their kids into playing organized sports, whether because they are stage dads (moms), or frustrated that their own sports careers never happened, or merely just so they are not playing endless video games at home and tearing the house apart.

My street has one of those little league baseball fields that I have to pass every time I go in and out of the neighborhood, I see those youth league games, and it is pretty typical, the kids look bored out of their skulls while the parents in the bleachers are either using it to socialize with each other and not paying any attention, or the flip side you have two or three helicopter parents screaming and b*tching at the 16 year old umpire as if they are Billy Martin abusing Shag Crawford.

What I don’t see at ALL are kids playing pick up games (of any sport) on their own, as we did as kids. That was way more fun than Little league or Pee Wee Football (the latter name now evoking a whole new perspective after learning of the Sandusky/Paterno scandal).
 
Like when the Pirates drafted the two players from India and ballyhooed it as something innovative.

The problem is, and a common theme, the local Pgh media largely are complicit in defending and apologizing for the Pirates. I can only guess they are afraid of offending the geezers in town that are still following the team as if it is still legitimate, but many of them gotta be dying off pretty rapidly. If you were 40ish years old when the Pirates last won…heck, even just MADE…the WS, you’d be pushing 85 now (or daisies). Otherwise I figure that Nutting must be putting out a great spread for the media and they don’t want to upset the Apple cart. Maybe that’s Pitt’s problem, just need to improve the grub and drinks we give ‘em.
Hey, there are like a billion people in India. If half of them bought a Pirate hat, Nutting cashes in big time!
Brilliant!!!!
 
i have zero data to back this up but baseball seems to be flourishing (around the pgh area at least) with little kids. these rec leagues have a ton of kids and the local communities around the south hills have multiple travel league teams and that's not even mentioning the 'pay for club team" types..

So i think kids like playing it, just not watching it on tv..

Seems like sporting interests around here are really gravitating toward an "anything but football" mindset. I've never seen so many soccer games breaking out locally. And it seems like we're seeing more basketball and baseball prospects popping up, too. Even hockey. I guess it's the concussion stuff in conjunction with the internet (i.e. it's easier to keep up with the Euro League, etc.).
 
He is not wrong. But keep in mind he broadcasts for a team with a 200 million dollar roster that has earned them a seat in last place. This was NEVER going to be anything other than a transition year for the Pirates. The bulk of their potential talent is 2 years away. I am not stupid. I know the history. But we have no choice but to wait till '24 and see where we are. But as of now we are easy prey.
 
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Like when the Pirates drafted the two players from India and ballyhooed it as something innovative.

The problem is, and a common theme, the local Pgh media largely are complicit in defending and apologizing for the Pirates. I can only guess they are afraid of offending the geezers in town that are still following the team as if it is still legitimate, but many of them gotta be dying off pretty rapidly. If you were 40ish years old when the Pirates last won…heck, even just MADE…the WS, you’d be pushing 85 now (or daisies). Otherwise I figure that Nutting must be putting out a great spread for the media and they don’t want to upset the Apple cart. Maybe that’s Pitt’s problem, just need to improve the grub and drinks we give ‘em.
They didn't draft those players. They found them in a tryout camp and took a chance. There's plenty to criticize without making stuff up.
 
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Similar to youth sucker, I mean, soccer 😄 I think it is just more that parents force their kids into playing organized sports, whether because they are stage dads (moms), or frustrated that their own sports careers never happened, or merely just so they are not playing endless video games at home and tearing the house apart.

My street has one of those little league baseball fields that I have to pass every time I go in and out of the neighborhood, I see those youth league games, and it is pretty typical, the kids look bored out of their skulls while the parents in the bleachers are either using it to socialize with each other and not paying any attention, or the flip side you have two or three helicopter parents screaming and b*tching at the 16 year old umpire as if they are Billy Martin abusing Shag Crawford.

What I don’t see at ALL are kids playing pick up games (of any sport) on their own, as we did as kids. That was way more fun than Little league or Pee Wee Football (the latter name now evoking a whole new perspective after learning of the Sandusky/Paterno scandal).
i watched a ton of youth baseball games this summer, my kid played rec and travel. Im gonna disagree, the kids and parents were super engaged man, they loved it. Went to many tournaments and it was good. Maybe you are watching tee ball or coach pitch games where the kids are like 6-7 years old and dont have the attention span yet.

Not a soccer fan but my little kid plays rec and they like it. They run around for an hour and have a blast.
 
Similar to youth sucker, I mean, soccer 😄 I think it is just more that parents force their kids into playing organized sports, whether because they are stage dads (moms), or frustrated that their own sports careers never happened, or merely just so they are not playing endless video games at home and tearing the house apart.

My street has one of those little league baseball fields that I have to pass every time I go in and out of the neighborhood, I see those youth league games, and it is pretty typical, the kids look bored out of their skulls while the parents in the bleachers are either using it to socialize with each other and not paying any attention, or the flip side you have two or three helicopter parents screaming and b*tching at the 16 year old umpire as if they are Billy Martin abusing Shag Crawford.

What I don’t see at ALL are kids playing pick up games (of any sport) on their own, as we did as kids. That was way more fun than Little league or Pee Wee Football (the latter name now evoking a whole new perspective after learning of the Sandusky/Paterno scandal).
no one played pick up baseball games, it didnt happen. Sorry boomers, your stories of you and your 10 buddies meeting at the sand lot and taking on 11 other kids in a pick up baseball game NEVER HAPPENED.

yeah, you played wiffle ball, as all kids did and kids do to this day and maybe you and two other kids got a ball and a bat and hit a few balls for 15 minutes but that's it. This idea that there were pick up baseball games back in the days is pure fabrication. Stop with this "we played pickup baseball in our neighborhood" nonsense. no one believes you.


the reason you dont see pick up games in other sports is because parents now dont let their kids out of the yards without supervision. If your 9 year old kid has to ask you to leave the yard, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, not the kids. the same parents that talk about how they played pick up games as kids are now parents who are putting on helmets and knee pads on their 11 year old kids before they allow them to ride a bike..

These are the parents that are on the playgrounds, following their kids around and are on the jungle gyms as 35 year olds when they should get their tired fat ass off of it and let the kids play with other kids.
 
Hey, there are like a billion people in India. If half of them bought a Pirate hat, Nutting cashes in big time!
Brilliant!!!!
I have ALWAYS acknowledged that the guy was brilliant in leveraging a seriously bad financial model to reap untold millions for next to zero investment or effort.
 
no one played pick up baseball games, it didnt happen. Sorry boomers, your stories of you and your 10 buddies meeting at the sand lot and taking on 11 other kids in a pick up baseball game NEVER HAPPENED.

yeah, you played wiffle ball, as all kids did and kids do to this day and maybe you and two other kids got a ball and a bat and hit a few balls for 15 minutes but that's it. This idea that there were pick up baseball games back in the days is pure fabrication. Stop with this "we played pickup baseball in our neighborhood" nonsense. no one believes you.

We had a pretty good thing going about 12 - 15 years ago. Baseball every Sunday, and there were 20-30 people showing up every week. Of course, you have to take what you can get when there are that many, and you'd have some guys smoking a blunt in left field while the ball was being pitched.
 
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no one played pick up baseball games, it didnt happen. Sorry boomers, your stories of you and your 10 buddies meeting at the sand lot and taking on 11 other kids in a pick up baseball game NEVER HAPPENED.

yeah, you played wiffle ball, as all kids did and kids do to this day and maybe you and two other kids got a ball and a bat and hit a few balls for 15 minutes but that's it. This idea that there were pick up baseball games back in the days is pure fabrication. Stop with this "we played pickup baseball in our neighborhood" nonsense. no one believes you.


the reason you dont see pick up games in other sports is because parents now dont let their kids out of the yards without supervision. If your 9 year old kid has to ask you to leave the yard, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, not the kids. the same parents that talk about how they played pick up games as kids are now parents who are putting on helmets and knee pads on their 11 year old kids before they allow them to ride a bike..
Sorry, you are wrong there, we didn’t always have the exact number for baseball or any of the other sports, that’s true… but we had a solid number from our neighborhood who would head outside mid morning and play for hours on end. Little league ‘practices’ and games were actually in the way of what we really wanted to be doing. Yeah there was one or two freakish players who dominated the league who probably really liked it, but for the rest it was tedious. We didn’t even get to go for ice cream after most games, I think it only happened at the end of the season (which was appropriate to celebrate).
 
I have zero data to back this up but baseball seems to be flourishing (around the pgh area at least) with little kids. these rec leagues have a ton of kids and the local communities around the south hills have multiple travel league teams and that's not even mentioning the 'pay for club team" types..

So I think kids like playing it, just not watching it on tv..
Check out some local D2 and D3 rosters. Most have 40-60 players listed.
 
no one played pick up baseball games, it didnt happen. Sorry boomers, your stories of you and your 10 buddies meeting at the sand lot and taking on 11 other kids in a pick up baseball game NEVER HAPPENED.

yeah, you played wiffle ball, as all kids did and kids do to this day and maybe you and two other kids got a ball and a bat and hit a few balls for 15 minutes but that's it. This idea that there were pick up baseball games back in the days is pure fabrication. Stop with this "we played pickup baseball in our neighborhood" nonsense. no one believes you.


the reason you dont see pick up games in other sports is because parents now dont let their kids out of the yards without supervision. If your 9 year old kid has to ask you to leave the yard, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, not the kids. the same parents that talk about how they played pick up games as kids are now parents who are putting on helmets and knee pads on their 11 year old kids before they allow them to ride a bike..

These are the parents that are on the playgrounds, following their kids around and are on the jungle gyms as 35 year olds when they should get their tired fat ass off of it and let the kids play with other kids.
Are you the guy who runs super 70’s sports on twitter? Lol. You’re spot on.

Not to sound like a boomer (I’m not) but what’s up what’s up with all these young people and their use of boomer as a derogatory slur? When I was a young kid, not only did I walk 5 miles to school each way (kidding) and play baseball from 9am to 9pm every day in the summer (true), but I also respected my elders. They were smarter because they had life lessons.
 
I have ALWAYS acknowledged that the guy was brilliant in leveraging a seriously bad financial model to reap untold millions for next to zero investment or effort.
He has enough cash coming in from ticket sales, merchandising and ML welfare checks to make a tidy profit year over year.
BUT, the real $$$$$$$$$ is in the growth of the value of the franchise. Well over a $Billion dollars and growing.
Imagine how you can borrow against that asset???

Why would he EVER sell????? I know I wouldn't. And MLB loves the guy. He doesn't create waves, is a nice reservoir of players for teams that need a boost, and doesn't give a shit about public perception.

Get used to it because nothing is going to change here.
 
Sorry, you are wrong there, we didn’t always have the exact number for baseball or any of the other sports, that’s true… but we had a solid number from our neighborhood who would head outside mid morning and play for hours on end. Little league ‘practices’ and games were actually in the way of what we really wanted to be doing. Yeah there was one or two freakish players who dominated the league who probably really liked it, but for the rest it was tedious. We didn’t even get to go for ice cream after most games, I think it only happened at the end of the season (which was appropriate to celebrate).
no you didnt. you are just thinking of an episode of "leave it to beaver" that you watched as a kid and mistakingly think it happened in real life..
 
Sorry, you are wrong there, we didn’t always have the exact number for baseball or any of the other sports, that’s true… but we had a solid number from our neighborhood who would head outside mid morning and play for hours on end. Little league ‘practices’ and games were actually in the way of what we really wanted to be doing. Yeah there was one or two freakish players who dominated the league who probably really liked it, but for the rest it was tedious. We didn’t even get to go for ice cream after most games, I think it only happened at the end of the season (which was appropriate to celebrate).
Baseball, football, and Star Wars was my life as a kid. Then girls replaced Star Wars but baseball and football remained.

now as an adult I matured, and football remains, but baseball was replaced by soccer and girls were replaced by a wife and daughters. And somehow Star Wars crept back into my life but it sucks worse than baseball.
 
He has enough cash coming in from ticket sales, merchandising and ML welfare checks to make a tidy profit year over year.
BUT, the real $$$$$$$$$ is in the growth of the value of the franchise. Well over a $Billion dollars and growing.
Imagine how you can borrow against that asset???

Why would he EVER sell????? I know I wouldn't. And MLB loves the guy. He doesn't create waves, is a nice reservoir of players for teams that need a boost, and doesn't give a shit about public perception.

Get used to it because nothing is going to change here.

Like the Grinch, I think Mr. Nutting is going to see the light and his payroll will grow three sizes one day.

mewithyou-myheart.gif



No, I don't actually think that at all.
 
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He has enough cash coming in from ticket sales, merchandising and ML welfare checks to make a tidy profit year over year.
BUT, the real $$$$$$$$$ is in the growth of the value of the franchise. Well over a $Billion dollars and growing.
Imagine how you can borrow against that asset???

Why would he EVER sell????? I know I wouldn't. And MLB loves the guy. He doesn't create waves, is a nice reservoir of players for teams that need a boost, and doesn't give a shit about public perception.

Get used to it because nothing is going to change here.
Yep. Good people like us who grew up loving the Pirates are left only with the hope that the family plane will experience engine failure on the way to Turks And Caicos or wherever uber-wealthy jaunt off to. But (sigh) if even one family member survives to inherit the team, the scourge will continue…
 
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Baseball, football, and Star Wars was my life as a kid. Then girls replaced Star Wars but baseball and football remained.

now as an adult I matured, and football remains, but baseball was replaced by soccer and girls were replaced by a wife and daughters. And somehow Star Wars crept back into my life but it sucks worse than baseball.
my little man keeps me engaged big time in star wars. i do like them. he takes it to a new level though, askining me about Darth Plageius. Im like, WTH is that? Then i got to look him up.

a week ago, he asked me who would win in a fight, R2D2 or BB8.
 
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no one played pick up baseball games, it didnt happen. Sorry boomers, your stories of you and your 10 buddies meeting at the sand lot and taking on 11 other kids in a pick up baseball game NEVER HAPPENED.

yeah, you played wiffle ball, as all kids did and kids do to this day and maybe you and two other kids got a ball and a bat and hit a few balls for 15 minutes but that's it. This idea that there were pick up baseball games back in the days is pure fabrication. Stop with this "we played pickup baseball in our neighborhood" nonsense. no one believes you.


the reason you dont see pick up games in other sports is because parents now dont let their kids out of the yards without supervision. If your 9 year old kid has to ask you to leave the yard, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, not the kids. the same parents that talk about how they played pick up games as kids are now parents who are putting on helmets and knee pads on their 11 year old kids before they allow them to ride a bike..

These are the parents that are on the playgrounds, following their kids around and are on the jungle gyms as 35 year olds when they should get their tired fat ass off of it and let the kids play with other kids.
Wrong, as usual.
I do agree that the world has changed, and not for the better.
You haven't got a clue about what growing up in small town America in the 50's and 60's was like, so best to just shut up, as usual.
 
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