The near-future of the franchise rests on five guys

[ChitownBucco]

7A575A4B4C5D4A0A09380 wrote: The FA system is kryptonite for the Pirates. Other than some (but not even all) Hall of Famers, history shows that most good pitchers take several years to reach their prime. After 5 years a player becomes a FA. Letting them walk brings nothing in return other than compensation draft picks, which are hit or miss. Trading players with less than a full season left on their contract doesn't bring much in return. So generally it requires players to be dealt with 1 or 2 years left on their contracts to get even a decent return. Which means if your Pirate pitcher hasn't reached his prime by year 3 or 4, he'll have to do that for another team. And even if he does reach his prime by year 3, he'll be gone soon so there is a very limited window from which to take advantage. And that is further complicated by the team waiting to fill holes with prospects who may be a year or 2 away instead of spending to adequately fill holes during the small window they might have. 


great point. and I can't think of any pitchers in my lifetime (i'm 42) that were good and that the Pirates extended or Re-Signed before they left or were traded. But we all can give a Looooooong list of Pirate Pitchers that left and went on to super years/careers.

[2drfischer@gmail.c]

163B36272031266665540 wrote: The FA system is kryptonite for the Pirates. Other than some (but not even all) Hall of Famers, history shows that most good pitchers take several years to reach their prime. After 5 years a player becomes a FA. Letting them walk brings nothing in return other than compensation draft picks, which are hit or miss. Trading players with less than a full season left on their contract doesn't bring much in return. So generally it requires players to be dealt with 1 or 2 years left on their contracts to get even a decent return. Which means if your Pirate pitcher hasn't reached his prime by year 3 or 4, he'll have to do that for another team. And even if he does reach his prime by year 3, he'll be gone soon so there is a very limited window from which to take advantage. And that is further complicated by the team waiting to fill holes with prospects who may be a year or 2 away instead of spending to adequately fill holes during the small window they might have. 


So basically, we're a similar version of the 1950s-'60s Kansas City Athletics, who sent away players to the Yankees, where they helped the Bombers win numerous World Series'. :'(

[Bobster21]

3B6D7B6F607A6A616C7B496E64686065276A090 wrote: The FA system is kryptonite for the Pirates. Other than some (but not even all) Hall of Famers, history shows that most good pitchers take several years to reach their prime. After 5 years a player becomes a FA. Letting them walk brings nothing in return other than compensation draft picks, which are hit or miss. Trading players with less than a full season left on their contract doesn't bring much in return. So generally it requires players to be dealt with 1 or 2 years left on their contracts to get even a decent return. Which means if your Pirate pitcher hasn't reached his prime by year 3 or 4, he'll have to do that for another team. And even if he does reach his prime by year 3, he'll be gone soon so there is a very limited window from which to take advantage. And that is further complicated by the team waiting to fill holes with prospects who may be a year or 2 away instead of spending to adequately fill holes during the small window they might have. 


So basically, we're a similar version of the 1950s-'60s Kansas City Athletics, who sent away players to the Yankees, where they helped the Bombers win numerous World Series'.   :'(
As I mentioned in my book, 10 of the 25 Yankees in the 1960 WS came from KC. And KC had previously agreed to a deal of Maris, Hal Smith and Joe DeMaestri to the Bucs for Groat, Kline, Foiles and either Virdon or Mejias after 1959. Brown/Murtaugh had 2nd thoughts and called it off. They made a different deal to get Smith (thank goodness) and KC sent Maris & DeMaestri to NY. The Smith deal cost them reliever Dick Hall who went on to become a top reliever for KC, Phil and Balt for over a decade. (But it was worth it!) And Maris and DeMaestri were on the field on 10/13/60 frowning as former teammate Smith smiled and circled the bases in the 8th inning of game 7.

[Lecom]

We can talk about core players as they are very important but you guys know it is always about pitching something the Pirates have little depth at. They are going to have to get very lucky with their staff as it is now. Musgrove is slowly working his way into being the ace of the staff. I have not seen Archer yet but Keller has stunk it up so far.

[fjk090852-7]

2D04020E0C610 wrote: We can talk about core players as they are very important but you guys know it is always about pitching something the Pirates have little depth at. They are going to have to get very lucky with their staff as it is now. Musgrove is slowly working his way into being the ace of the staff. I have not seen Archer yet but Keller has stunk it up so far.
I would hope that the Pirates extend Musgrove with a 4 or 5 year deal. It is a risk to sign a pitcher to a long term deal, due to possible injury, but he appears to be a pitcher to build a staff around.

[Ecbucs]

3C30316A636A626F68776D5A0 wrote: We can talk about core players as they are very important but you guys know it is always about pitching something the Pirates have little depth at. They are going to have to get very lucky with their staff as it is now. Musgrove is slowly working his way into being the ace of the staff. I have not seen Archer yet but Keller has stunk it up so far.
I would hope that the Pirates extend Musgrove with a 4 or 5 year deal. It is a risk to sign a pitcher to a long term deal, due to possible injury, but he appears to be a pitcher to build a staff around.


how much should he get though? Trevor Bauer is getting 17,5 million in 2020 after getting 13 million last year.



Do you think the Pirates should (or would even consider) offering him say 4 years and $60 million?



if he has a good year he will probably get at least 10 million for 2021 and fourteen or fifteen million for 2022.

[2drfischer@gmail.c]

1D303D2C2B3A2D6D6E5F0 wrote: The FA system is kryptonite for the Pirates. Other than some (but not even all) Hall of Famers, history shows that most good pitchers take several years to reach their prime. After 5 years a player becomes a FA. Letting them walk brings nothing in return other than compensation draft picks, which are hit or miss. Trading players with less than a full season left on their contract doesn't bring much in return. So generally it requires players to be dealt with 1 or 2 years left on their contracts to get even a decent return. Which means if your Pirate pitcher hasn't reached his prime by year 3 or 4, he'll have to do that for another team. And even if he does reach his prime by year 3, he'll be gone soon so there is a very limited window from which to take advantage. And that is further complicated by the team waiting to fill holes with prospects who may be a year or 2 away instead of spending to adequately fill holes during the small window they might have. 


So basically, we're a similar version of the 1950s-'60s Kansas City Athletics, who sent away players to the Yankees, where they helped the Bombers win numerous World Series'.   :'(
As I mentioned in my book, 10 of the 25 Yankees in the 1960 WS came from KC. And KC had previously agreed to a deal of Maris, Hal Smith and Joe DeMaestri to the Bucs for Groat, Kline, Foiles and either Virdon or Mejias after 1959. Brown/Murtaugh had 2nd thoughts and called it off. They made a different deal to get Smith (thank goodness) and KC sent Maris & DeMaestri to NY. The Smith deal cost them reliever Dick Hall who went on to become a top reliever for KC, Phil and Balt for over a decade. (But it was worth it!) And Maris and DeMaestri were on the field on 10/13/60 frowning as former teammate Smith smiled and circled the bases in the 8th inning of game 7.




I'm up to mid-September in your book, Bob, and enjoying every bit of it. I've been learning new things along the way. Great job!

[dmetz]

Well, filling in by trades is the main way of doing it, not signing FAs.   



You need a GM who can draft and develop and who doesn't lose trades as consistently as NH did. I'll give him credit, he was able to extract value from dumpster dives more than others. But the guy couldn't sell value to save his life.



The baseball people really weren't any good at what they were doing.   The ownership is worst in baseball.   I find it a perfect summation of their incompetence when Newman and Reynolds became rookie stars last year.



Two guys they had little interest in as answers, and Newman they went so far as to block. They guys they "pounded the tables" for suck, and the guys they write off as b-tier prospects are ROY candidates.

[maher.timothy20@gm]

666F677678020 wrote: Well, filling in by trades is the main way of doing it, not signing FAs.   



You need a GM who can draft and develop and who doesn't lose trades constantly the way NH did.



The baseball people really weren't any good at what they were doing.   The ownership is worst in baseball.   


Speaking of trades, Chris Sale might need Tommy John surgery now. They'll know for sure soon. Between the Red Sox and Yankees I could see the market for Chris Archer heating up, presuming he gets off to a decent start.

[DemDog]

I've been following this thread and have come to the conclusion that the only way the near-future of the Pirates to be successful is to have the ghosts of the 4 players on the OBN masthead in the everyday lineup. It is so sad that these guys must be rolling over in their graves seeing how Nickles has ruined the proud Bucco tradition.