Thread of Optimism

BucsFaninGA · Post by **BucsFaninGA** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 6:26 pm

Only some 30+ days til Spring Training, Pitchers and Catchers Report! I am hoping NH and Front Office are not done with adding value to the team!

Bucs Fan in GA

mouse · Post by **mouse** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 7:13 pm

When do the buses with equipment leave Pittsburgh? That's always the day I'm eager for.

SammyKhalifa · Post by **SammyKhalifa** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 7:30 pm

4C4E545244210 wrote: When do the buses with equipment leave Pittsburgh? That's always the day I'm eager for.

You're going to stow away in the luggage bins, aren't you? ;D

OrlandoMerced · Post by **OrlandoMerced** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 7:56 pm

With the ST talk, I was motivated to do an early NL PowerRanking.

Tier1

Cubs

Nationals

Dodgers

Tier2

Giants

Pirates

Cardinals

Mets

Tier3

Rockies

Marlins

D'Backs

Tier4

Reds

Braves

Phillies

Padres

Brewers

I think those tier1 teams can basically coast to a playoff berth, and the real battle will again be in that tier2 for the WC game. I think it's notable that the NL is starting to have little parity.

mouse · Post by **mouse** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:09 pm

"You're going to stow away in the luggage bins, aren't you?"

(SammyK)

What an excellent idea!

MaineBucs · Post by **MaineBucs** » Wed Jan 11, 2017 10:25 pm

There is hope.

Love the summation of the system by Fangraphs.

Years past, we would have been wetting our pants to have 6 prospects in the top 100, particularly when 3 of these prospects likely will be in the majors this year.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/top-21-p ... h-pirates/

dogknot17@yahoo.co · Post by **dogknot17@yahoo.co** » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:17 pm

10 of the 21 players listed are projected to be on the Pirates at some point in 2017. That is a lot of players. I am predicting only Bell and Hanson make the team out of spring training. Brault has a shot too.

OrlandoMerced · Post by **OrlandoMerced** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 5:16 pm

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-zip ... h-pirates/

Things that stood out for me:

Polanco and Marte projections, it has their slg % at .436 and .420 respectively. Marte has been averaging over .450 the last three years and Polanco finished 2016 at .463. So those low numbers are hard to justify.

The low WAR predictions for Nova and Taillon would have to come from them only projecting them to throw 119 and 112 innings respectively. Both of those guys pitched over 160 innings in 2016, with Taillon getting 100 in MLB and 60 in AAA.

OrlandoMerced · Post by **OrlandoMerced** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 6:17 pm

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/baseball ... dle-class/

Some strong commentary on the idiocy of the MLBPA's "NO SALARY CAP" tenet. 39% of the players are playing on rookie deals, at least that's how I think the one chart is reading. But there are a couple of charts that are showing how much money the players are leaving on the table by not implementing a cap flood.

Ecbucs · Post by **Ecbucs** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 7:06 pm

615C424F404A41634B5C4D4B4A2E0 wrote: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/baseball ... dle-class/

Some strong commentary on the idiocy of the MLBPA's "NO SALARY CAP" tenet. 39% of the players are playing on rookie deals, at least that's how I think the one chart is reading. But there are a couple of charts that are showing how much money the players are leaving on the table by not implementing a cap flood.

interesting article, thanks for posting.