Four players that define the Neal Huntington era

[rucker59@gmail.com]

74464A4A5E6C4F464B4E4146270 wrote: Nobody is really wrong in this thread.



Dogknot's point that those players contributed to the playoff run is correct.



VaP's point that overall, the combined careers of those players have been disappointing and haven't contributed enough is also correct.



Why does it have to be one or the other?


Well, both could be right (certainly the playoff teams were helped) but my point was to create some prospective.  Each of these four carried expectations that no one else has (Cutch as already proving to be a great player) in this era of Pirate baseball.



I think a lot of people are sort of dazed by the last year or two - "what happened to this franchise that looked so solid...". I know I've focused on poor performance by Neal, Nutting and Clint, and they all bear responsibility for roles.  But...



But the greatest failure is these four players, with off the charts expectations, simply haven't/didn't perform at a level anywhere near expectations.  And EC is correct, above. I'm not talking about for a year or two, I'm talking about building a team that looked to have staying power for a long time.




To your point, I think a lot of people were taking the "Dream Outfield" more-or-less for granted for the next few years (a dream outfield that didn't include Bubba Starling, haha).




Maybe Taking Cole over Bubba is the problem - in a Pirate uniform he may have exploded, carried the Pirates all the way to multiple WS championship.



I was right after all!

[IABucFan]

The thing I don't get is how the Nats got so lucky as to be so bad to get BOTH Harper and Strasburg, THEN have Rendon fall to them. If I'm not mistaken, the other guy who was garnering attention at the top of the draft for awhile was Matt Purke from TCU. He's never panned out, and I think maybe injuries derailed him. But HE fell to the Nats too, if I'm not mistaken. I hate that team.

[Ecbucs]

7F77744355705758360 wrote: The thing I don't get is how the Nats got so lucky as to be so bad to get BOTH Harper and Strasburg, THEN have Rendon fall to them. If I'm not mistaken, the other guy who was garnering attention at the top of the draft for awhile was Matt Purke from TCU. He's never panned out, and I think maybe injuries derailed him. But HE fell to the Nats too, if I'm not mistaken. I hate that team.


yeah and so far those 3 have been better than any 3 draft picks made by NH. Also, the Jayson Werth signing didn't destroy the team as many predicted.

[mouse]

Or it could be we want our prospects to be good so we listen to the good stuff and ignore anything negative about them. In the end it's a crap shoot with prospects.

[dogknot17@yahoo.co]

684E4F584E5E2D0 wrote: The thing I don't get is how the Nats got so lucky as to be so bad to get BOTH Harper and Strasburg, THEN have Rendon fall to them. If I'm not mistaken, the other guy who was garnering attention at the top of the draft for awhile was Matt Purke from TCU. He's never panned out, and I think maybe injuries derailed him. But HE fell to the Nats too, if I'm not mistaken. I hate that team.


yeah and so far those 3 have been better than any 3 draft picks made by NH.  Also, the Jayson Werth signing didn't destroy the team as many predicted.


Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasberg were no brainers. You have to go back to Alex Rodriguez for draft hype compared to Harper. Pitcher wise, probably Mark Prior or David Price.



Werth hasn't been werth (ha ha) his contract the last few years. The players around him are hiding him. He is batting .236 with 46 HRs the last three years. That isn't werth (I did it again) $63 million in my opinion.

[Bobster21]

6062787E680D0 wrote: Or it could be we want our prospects to be good so we listen to the good stuff and ignore anything negative about them. In the end it's a crap shoot with prospects.
I think it's that and also it's because during a 20 year losing streak, all we had to look forward to was the emergence of prospects to hopefully improve the team. So this became a selling point for the organization to keep fans interested in "a better tomorrow."



By contrast, look at the Yankees who for many years traded their prospects and bought the best free agents. There was not as much reason for their fans to become invested in who was in the system. But that's all Pirate fans had to look forward to. The FO will not pay to acquire top players. So the prospects represent our hope in a better team in the near future. We want to believe every positive thing we hear and the organization wants the fans to stay interested in a better tomorrow when today's team isn't so good.

[SammyKhalifa]

745954454253440407360 wrote: Or it could be we want our prospects to be good so we listen to the good stuff and ignore anything negative about them. In the end it's a crap shoot with prospects.
I think it's that and also it's because during a 20 year losing streak, all we had to look forward to was the emergence of prospects to hopefully improve the team. So this became a selling point for the organization to keep fans interested in "a better tomorrow."



By contrast, look at the Yankees who for many years traded their prospects and bought the best free agents. There was not as much reason for their fans to become invested in who was in the system. But that's all Pirate fans had to look forward to. The FO will not pay to acquire top players. So the prospects represent our hope in a better team in the near future. We want to believe every positive thing we hear and the organization wants the fans to stay interested in a better tomorrow when today's team isn't so good.




I agree, though to be fair it wasn't just the Pirates and their fans that were foreseeing great things for most of those guys. The talk was industry-wide.

[dogknot17@yahoo.co]

That's exactly it. I used to go to Curve games because that is what I had to look forward to. I haven't been to a Curve game in years.

[Ecbucs]

4E454D4144455E1B1D6A534B4245450449452A0 wrote: The thing I don't get is how the Nats got so lucky as to be so bad to get BOTH Harper and Strasburg, THEN have Rendon fall to them. If I'm not mistaken, the other guy who was garnering attention at the top of the draft for awhile was Matt Purke from TCU. He's never panned out, and I think maybe injuries derailed him. But HE fell to the Nats too, if I'm not mistaken. I hate that team.


yeah and so far those 3 have been better than any 3 draft picks made by NH.  Also, the Jayson Werth signing didn't destroy the team as many predicted.


Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasberg were no brainers.  You have to go back to Alex Rodriguez for draft hype compared to Harper.  Pitcher wise, probably Mark Prior or David Price. 



Werth hasn't been werth (ha ha) his contract the last few years.  The players around him are hiding him.  He is batting .236 with 46 HRs the last three years.  That isn't werth (I did it again) $63 million in my opinion. 




Werth hasn't been worth his contract but the Nats have justified by saying it hasn't stopped them from making other moves and it set the tone that the organization was going to do whatever it took to improve.



Since then the Nats have been pretty aggressive, signing Schzerer, trading for Eaton, Melacon, etc.



Their aggressiveness has paid off as they have won 4 divisions in past 6 years. Rizzo was hired when I lived in Washington area and until last year I thought NH was a lot better gm than Rizzo. Now I think Rizzo is much better than NH and he would be one who might be able to get the Pirates over the hump.

[mouse]

I don't see how you can compare GMs without taking budgets into consideration. If NH had the Nationals budget I'm sure he could do some positive things as well.