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OT: Pirates Ke'Bryan Hayes a bust?

I'm sure the same bunch on here think the Pirates should sign Reynolds to that 9 figure big 6 year contract too, even though he is another one for long long stretches does nothing at the plate. He stunk most of last season, and after his amazing first week he's hitting under .200 in his last 53 plate appearances. His only extra base hit is a double. He's 0 for his last 10 and 10 for his last 53. But yeah, let's get him signed for $20+ million dollars a season for 6 straight years!! And watch him hit under .200 for months like he did last season and probably will again this season lol.
Do you expect him to hit .400 all season? He’s still hitting .294 with an OPS in the upper .800s. And he was a 3.0 WAR player last year and 6.0 the year before. Oh no he had a few slumps, like almost every player ever. Plus he was on terrible teams.
 
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So I'd like to point out that he's actually not had two straight seasons of below average hitting.

The MLB league average in 2021 was .244 and Hayes hit .257. In 2022, the league average was .243 and Hayes hit .244.

He's also been above league average in OBP both years.

He's also only had 20 at bats this year so I don't know how anyone can make a meaningful assessment of his hitting with such a small sample size.
I love threads like this. In one month since this thread was started, he’s raised his average 127 points and is at .252.

I think we would all love to see more power out of a 3rd baseman that’s batting .252. But he still can get better. I wouldn’t call him a bust though. Not all 1st round picks are superstars.
 
Just an example to show what I mean, here are some of the players who were picked in the first round of the 2008 MLB draft. I picked 2008 because that was 15 years ago, which means that nearly all of those guy's careers are over, some long over (although a few are still playing), so you can get a full accounting of what they did or did not do.

The number one overall pick was Tim Beckham. I think it's fair to call him a bust. The Pirates took Pedro Alvarez second. He had a couple pretty good seasons, but he's probably in the bust category as well (and anyone who thinks that Hayes is a bust at this point has to think that Alvarez was one). Other top ten picks included Brian Matusz, Kyle Skipworth and Aaron Crow. The only top ten picks that year to end their careers with at least 10 WAR were Eric Hosmer and Buster Posey. I don't know that I'd ever call Hosmer a superstar, but Posey was perhaps the best catcher in the game for a few years. So that's one.

Then that was also the year that Gerrit Cole was picked by the Yankees in the first round out of high school, but didn't sign. If you count him, that would be two superstars. Hosmer has the 3rd highest WAR and Brett Lawrie is 4th, so I think it's fair to say that you got two superstars out of that draft.

Now compare that to the 16 players who ended their careers with less than 3.0 WAR, including three who never played a game in the majors and five more who ended their career's with negative WAR.

There are way, way more bust in the first round of the MLB draft than there are stars.
 
Hayes is a unique player. I can't think of another all glove third baseman.

It's concerning that his hitting is getting worse if anything. His glove makes him a useful player even with no pop. But the buccos need more from him if they are going to put together a real contender.
 
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Um like I wrote earlier, Ke'Bryan Hayes stinks and is a total bust.
Without looking, I bet he’s better than a majority of 1st rounders. But yeah, he’s back down to .220 again, which is not very thrilling.
 
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Without looking, I bet he’s better than a majority of 1st rounders. But yeah, he’s back down to .220 again, which is not very thrilling.
1 for 14 in this latest series with 8 k's and he left 6 men on base just in today's game. Awful
 
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Nope not wrong at all, dude sucks.
You’ve provided blatantly false information from the get go to back up your claim he’s a bust. You criticize posters for hyper focusing on a small sample size, yet the minute he has a bad stretch at the plate after he raised his average 100 points from the time you made your first post you magically show up. Just like clockwork.

He’s not a bust. He will end up hitting above league average.
 
You’ve provided blatantly false information from the get go to back up your claim he’s a bust. You criticize posters for hyper focusing on a small sample size, yet the minute he has a bad stretch at the plate after he raised his average 100 points from the time you made your first post you magically show up. Just like clockwork.

He’s not a bust. He will end up hitting above league average.
Common sense logical minds say you’re both partially right. You’re vigorous sticking up for Hayes is just as bad as Poker calling him a bust.

For as good as his defense may be his offense for a corner infielder is definitely below par and doesn’t/won’t cut it for what is needed on an hope-to-be eventual contending team. And the offensive deficiency assessment isn’t based on a small sample size.

Bottom line, he needs a significant improvement in offense at some point or it won’t be hard to move him to the bust category.
 
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I love threads like this. In one month since this thread was started, he’s raised his average 127 points and is at .252.

I think we would all love to see more power out of a 3rd baseman that’s batting .252. But he still can get better. I wouldn’t call him a bust though. Not all 1st round picks are superstars.
Brooks Robinson is in the HOF for playing defense at third base.
Lifetime .268 hitter who averaged 11 HR's/season.

Not saying Hayes is Brooks Robinson by any stretch, but the point remains that preventing runs from scoring is just as valuable as driving them in at the plate.

Hayes is still a puppy. Look how Barry Bonds "changed" over his career!
 
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Common sense logical minds say you’re both partially right. You’re vigorous sticking up for Hayes is just as bad as Poker calling him a bust.

For as good as his defense may be his offense for a corner infielder is definitely below par and doesn’t/won’t cut it for what is needed on an hope-to-be eventual contending team. And the offensive deficiency assessment isn’t based on a small sample size.

Bottom line, he needs a significant improvement in offense at some point or it won’t be hard to move him to the bust category.
I’ve acknowledged, in this thread and elsewhere, that Hayes needs to hit better. I just find Poker’s hyperbolic overreacting and calling him a bust to be ludicrous.
 
Brooks Robinson is in the HOF for playing defense at third base.
Lifetime .268 hitter who averaged 11 HR's/season.

Not saying Hayes is Brooks Robinson by any stretch, but the point remains that preventing runs from scoring is just as valuable as driving them in at the plate.

Hayes is still a puppy. Look how Barry Bonds "changed" over his career!
I get it. I’ve seen him secure wins this year with his glove. But as Poker alluded to, days like yesterday leaving all those runners on base lost the series for the team. But he’s young. I’m not ready to make any bold proclamations. But i will certainly say he’s not a bust.
 
I get it. I’ve seen him secure wins this year with his glove. But as Poker alluded to, days like yesterday leaving all those runners on base lost the series for the team. But he’s young. I’m not ready to make any bold proclamations. But i will certainly say he’s not a bust.
No doubt. Stranding runners seems like a team wide epidemic lately.
Still, Hayes is signed long term, and needs to step it up as a team leader.
If he could raise his average another 20 points, and be a solid .275-.280 guy with maybe a dozen HR's he'd be perfect.

You don't need a big HR guy at third. Especially if you get one at SS or RF or 1B.
Don Hoak hit .280 with 16 HR's for the 1960 Pirates, and he wasn't close to the fielder that Hayes is.

He's far from a bust! Plus the verdict is still very much out on him. He may not be a star, but he won't be a bust either. He's already proven that with his defense. His contract isn't exorbitant, and seems like a fair deal for what he brings to the table in today's salary structure.
 
He's far from a bust! Plus the verdict is still very much out on him. He may not be a star, but he won't be a bust either. He's already proven that with his defense. His contract isn't exorbitant, and seems like a fair deal for what he brings to the table in today's salary structure.


As I pointed out earlier in this thread, people can only think that Hayes is a bust if they don't know what an actual bust is.
 
Hayes was drafted in the supplemental round at the end of the first round of the 2015 draft. He was the 32nd overall pick. Of the 31 players picked ahead of him, only seven have higher career WARs at this point. Eight of those 31 have never spent even one day in the major leagues, including the 6th and 10th overall picks, who are both currently playing independent league baseball. Six of those 31 have negative career WARs, including the 8th overall pick who is now out of baseball entirely.

The funny thing is that Hayes was a supplemental round pick. The Pirates "real" first round pick that year, 19th overall, was Kevin Newman. Hayes, by far, has been a better major league player than Newman. It's not even close. And yet pretty much no one ever bitched that Newman was a bust. I wonder why that is?
 
Hayes was drafted in the supplemental round at the end of the first round of the 2015 draft. He was the 32nd overall pick. Of the 31 players picked ahead of him, only seven have higher career WARs at this point. Eight of those 31 have never spent even one day in the major leagues, including the 6th and 10th overall picks, who are both currently playing independent league baseball. Six of those 31 have negative career WARs, including the 8th overall pick who is now out of baseball entirely.

The funny thing is that Hayes was a supplemental round pick. The Pirates "real" first round pick that year, 19th overall, was Kevin Newman. Hayes, by far, has been a better major league player than Newman. It's not even close. And yet pretty much no one ever bitched that Newman was a bust. I wonder why that is?
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Hayes was drafted in the supplemental round at the end of the first round of the 2015 draft. He was the 32nd overall pick. Of the 31 players picked ahead of him, only seven have higher career WARs at this point. Eight of those 31 have never spent even one day in the major leagues, including the 6th and 10th overall picks, who are both currently playing independent league baseball. Six of those 31 have negative career WARs, including the 8th overall pick who is now out of baseball entirely.

The funny thing is that Hayes was a supplemental round pick. The Pirates "real" first round pick that year, 19th overall, was Kevin Newman. Hayes, by far, has been a better major league player than Newman. It's not even close. And yet pretty much no one ever bitched that Newman was a bust. I wonder why that is?
I hate to say this, but he is trending into the bust territory. Newman never really lit it up and created expectations like Hayes has. I mean....Hayes started off like he was the next Nolan Arendo or Scott Rolen.
 
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Hayes was drafted in the supplemental round at the end of the first round of the 2015 draft. He was the 32nd overall pick. Of the 31 players picked ahead of him, only seven have higher career WARs at this point. Eight of those 31 have never spent even one day in the major leagues, including the 6th and 10th overall picks, who are both currently playing independent league baseball. Six of those 31 have negative career WARs, including the 8th overall pick who is now out of baseball entirely.

The funny thing is that Hayes was a supplemental round pick. The Pirates "real" first round pick that year, 19th overall, was Kevin Newman. Hayes, by far, has been a better major league player than Newman. It's not even close. And yet pretty much no one ever bitched that Newman was a bust. I wonder why that is?
And the funny thing is, where he was drafted, who was drafted ahead of him and how they’re doing now, etc, etc, have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Hayes is a bust or trending in that direction. Only thing that determines that is what he himself does on the field. It gets amplifies some by how the Pirates market him, which has been him being one of the cornerstones of their rebuild.
 
And the funny thing is, where he was drafted, who was drafted ahead of him and how they’re doing now, etc, etc, have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Hayes is a bust or trending in that direction. Only thing that determines that is what he himself does on the field. It gets amplifies some by how the Pirates market him, which has been him being one of the cornerstones of their rebuild.
Obviously, he's a piece of the rebuild. Is he the cornerstone? Doubt it.
Right now, he isn't surrounded by much talent, especially with Cruz on the DL.
However, when some of the rest of the young talent gets up here and starts building out the lineup, Hayes will be protected in the lineup and he won't feel the pressure to be "the man".

A lineup with Cruz, Reynolds, Rodriguez, Davis, this year's #1, and maybe a seasoned Castro and Suwinski and now there's room for a career .270 guy with a gold glove at the hot corner.

He's currently trending towards a decent ML player. He's today's version of Jeff King, but with his D being the ticket and not the bat so much.
King was another #1 who had a decent career, not great, but decent.
 
Obviously, he's a piece of the rebuild. Is he the cornerstone? Doubt it.
Right now, he isn't surrounded by much talent, especially with Cruz on the DL.
However, when some of the rest of the young talent gets up here and starts building out the lineup, Hayes will be protected in the lineup and he won't feel the pressure to be "the man".

A lineup with Cruz, Reynolds, Rodriguez, Davis, this year's #1, and maybe a seasoned Castro and Suwinski and now there's room for a career .270 guy with a gold glove at the hot corner.

He's currently trending towards a decent ML player. He's today's version of Jeff King, but with his D being the ticket and not the bat so much.
King was another #1 who had a decent career, not great, but decent.
Yeah, when these debates of Hayes come up I think of Jeff King a little as well. But my memory may not be so good, King wasn’t a big time bat but I’m still thinking his offensive resume was a good bit better than what Hayes has showed so far.
 
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And the funny thing is, where he was drafted, who was drafted ahead of him and how they’re doing now, etc, etc, have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Hayes is a bust or trending in that direction.


That's true, but what comparing him to those other players does is that is shows people, or at least the ones who care to really think about it more in depth than just "Hayes sucks", what their expectations should be. It is obvious that some people here think that the guy who was a supplemental first round draft pick should be one of the best two or three players taken in that draft. The fact that he isn't doesn't mean that he isn't meeting reasonable expectations, it means that some people have unreasonable expectations.
 
Hayes, by far, has been a better major league player than Newman. It's not even close.
How do you figure this? Hayes stats and Newman are very similar with Newman leading in hits, runs, BA, HR's, rbi's , Hayes has struck out 53 more times than Newman with 500 fewer PA's ? Plus Newman plays short and second base, much more emphasis on defense over offensive production in those positions. This seems flat out wrong to me based on those facts.
 
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If you go off draft position, it's pretty hard to be a bust unless you are a top 10 pick- the hit rate in the MLB draft is so low. Based on where Hayes was ranked as a prospect in the minors, he is a borderline bust. He has a decent sample size in the majors at this point, and he hits like a backup catcher.
 
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If you go off draft position, it's pretty hard to be a bust unless you are a top 10 pick- the hit rate in the MLB draft is so low. Based on where Hayes was ranked as a prospect in the minors, he is a borderline bust. He has a decent sample size in the majors at this point, and he hits like a backup catcher.
How does he field?
 
That's true, but what comparing him to those other players does is that is shows people, or at least the ones who care to really think about it more in depth than just "Hayes sucks", what their expectations should be. It is obvious that some people here think that the guy who was a supplemental first round draft pick should be one of the best two or three players taken in that draft. The fact that he isn't doesn't mean that he isn't meeting reasonable expectations, it means that some people have unreasonable expectations.
The MLB draft is a total crapshoot beyond the first few picks. Same with international signings. Gregory Polanco was signed for dirt cheap as a teenager. That doesn't mean it was wrong to consider him a bust when he destroyed minor league pitching then stunk in the big leagues. The minor league production and prospect rankings are a better framework to base "bust" expectations around then draft slot.
 
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Very well- good enough to be an OK starter with a bad bat. Not good enough to justify the extension he received nor to be a cornerstone to rebuild a team around, which is what he was billed as.
This x 10000000000000000
 
How do you figure this? Hayes stats and Newman are very similar with Newman leading in hits, runs, BA, HR's, rbi's , Hayes has struck out 53 more times than Newman with 500 fewer PA's ? Plus Newman plays short and second base, much more emphasis on defense over offensive production in those positions. This seems flat out wrong to me based on those facts.


Seriously? You can't figure out why the guy with over 500 more at bats has more hits and runs and other counting stats?

Hayes has a better OBP and a better slugging percentage. His OPS is .696, while Newman's is .664. Hayes' OPS+, which takes into account his home park, is 93, which means he hits 7% worse than your average major leaguer. Newman's is 80, which means that he hits 20% worse than your average major leaguer. Hayes' career WAR is 9.0, Newman's is 2.7. And that's because in addition to Hayes being the better hitter, Hayes is one of the best defensive third basemen in the game, whereas Newman is nothing more than a mediocre fielding shortstop.

Seriously, if you don't think that Hayes has been a better player so far in his career than Newman, you probably ought to sit this one out.
 
Seriously? You can't figure out why the guy with over 500 more at bats has more hits and runs and other counting stats?

Hayes has a better OBP and a better slugging percentage. His OPS is .696, while Newman's is .664. Hayes' OPS+, which takes into account his home park, is 93, which means he hits 7% worse than your average major leaguer. Newman's is 80, which means that he hits 20% worse than your average major leaguer. Hayes' career WAR is 9.0, Newman's is 2.7. And that's because in addition to Hayes being the better hitter, Hayes is one of the best defensive third basemen in the game, whereas Newman is nothing more than a mediocre fielding shortstop.

Seriously, if you don't think that Hayes has been a better player so far in his career than Newman, you probably ought to sit this one out.
Just fyi here Hayes got a day off after his 4 Ks on Sunday. Of the 166 MLB players with enough ABs to qualify, Hayes ranks 146th with a .221 batting average. His OBP of .275 ranks 159th out of 166. In OPS he ranks 156th. I truly don't know how you and these other Hayes fanboys continue to defend this and claim he's worth the money. He's not.
 
Just fyi here Hayes got a day off after his 4 Ks on Sunday. Of the 166 MLB players with enough ABs to qualify, Hayes ranks 146th with a .221 batting average. His OBP of .275 ranks 159th out of 166. In OPS he ranks 156th. I truly don't know how you and these other Hayes fanboys continue to defend this and claim he's worth the money. He's not.


If you could point to one post, literally just one, where someone argued that Hayes' hitting has been good I would greatly appreciate that, because I must have missed it.
 
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If you could point to one post, literally just one, where someone argued that Hayes' hitting has been good I would greatly appreciate that, because I must have missed it.
Mystified about people finding Hayes' contract exorbitant! It is a pretty tame deal by today's MLB standards and seems about right for someone of Hayes' abilities, especially defensively.

Of course the PIrates played the signing up. They are in business and they hype like any other business.
Going forward, especially when other key pieces mature and actually get here, Hayes WILL be a solid piece of the lineup and team.

He's scuffling right not, but he's very young. How did Willie Mays first few months in the majors look? Hint, not very damn good!
 
If you could point to one post, literally just one, where someone argued that Hayes' hitting has been good I would greatly appreciate that, because I must have missed it.
Ski wrote in numerous posts his past 2 seasons were fine and was worth the money. And Hayes was billed as a cornerstone building block for years and years to come to get the Pirates winning again. Those hitting numbers especially in relation to all the hype = BUST territory.
 
Ski wrote in numerous posts his past 2 seasons were fine and was worth the money. And Hayes was billed as a cornerstone building block for years and years to come to get the Pirates winning again. Those hitting numbers especially in relation to all the hype = BUST territory.


He's "fine" because he is an outstanding defender. It's like you forget that your team only gets to bat half of the game.

Hayes' contract by average amount per season makes him the 191st highest paid player in the league. You act like the contract he signed is some huge deal, when in fact it is no such thing. One spot above Hayes on the list is Hunter Greene. That's the Hunter Greene with a career record of 6-17 with a 4.36 era. The guy right below Hayes on the list is Willy Adames. This season he's hitting .205/.292/.384. For his career he's at .251/.307/.443. The guy just above Greene on the list is Eddie Rosario, career slash line .269/.303/.459 as a left fielder. The guy below Adames is Nick Martinez, a guy who swings between starting and the bullpen and who has never had an above .500 record in any of his six years in the majors (although he's 2-2 this year, so he's got a chance!).

In short, you just don't really have any idea what typical major league baseball players make.
 
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He's "fine" because he is an outstanding defender. It's like you forget that your team only gets to bat half of the game.

Hayes' contract by average amount per season makes him the 191st highest paid player in the league. You act like the contract he signed is some huge deal, when in fact it is no such thing. One spot above Hayes on the list is Hunter Greene. That's the Hunter Greene with a career record of 6-17 with a 4.36 era. The guy right below Hayes on the list is Willy Adames. This season he's hitting .205/.292/.384. For his career he's at .251/.307/.443. The guy just above Greene on the list is Eddie Rosario, career slash line .269/.303/.459 as a left fielder. The guy below Adames is Nick Martinez, a guy who swings between starting and the bullpen and who has never had an above .500 record in any of his six years in the majors (although he's 2-2 this year, so he's got a chance!).

In short, you just don't really have any idea what typical major league baseball players make.
Hayes sucks and the $70 million was huge by Pirates standards. You are clueless.
 
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