OnlyBucs

7A6743414F2A0 wrote:

And if he's just ticked off at the Pirates' front office for screwing up this year, well I get that. But still, he has to look squarely in the mirror and realize he himself is a HUGE part of the problem this season.




This is pretty much it.  Every one on this board has been railing for weeks/months about the FO messing up the offseason.  You know what, if McCutchen would have put up a year like the last few, this team would be the number one wildcard.  Secondly, if Liriano would have pitched like he did the last couple years, they may be contending with the Cubs.  Seriously, if those two guys would have performed as expected, I don't think it's a stretch to say they'd be 6-7 games better.  None of that is the FO fault.  If they were 6-7 games better, no one would be complaining about many of these other issues. I agree that if Cutch had played better and not just Liriano but Cole as well would have pitched better the Pirates definitely would be leading one of the two wildcard spots. However, I still don't think it would have been enough to compete with and overtake the Cubs. The Pirates came out before the season started when everybody was picking them to finish 3rd in the division and already picking the Cubs to win the division and saying things like "We will see how good the Cubs are" real arrogant and sarcastic like. And here we are with about 50 games or so left and where are the Pirates at?? In 3rd place and nowhere near the Cubs in the standings. They didn't do enough with this rotation to win the division.



You cant have a rotation of consisting of Niese,Nicasio and Locke coming off a 98 win season and expect to win a division and overtake a team with as much talent as the Cubs had. It was a losing battle from day 1 and the results at the present time speak for themselves.




See, you went where the masses keep going with this conversation. I don't think they expected to win the division this year with the strength of the Cubs and their future pitchers being in AAA.  Rather, they expected to make another WC game and run the odds with two guys that can be an ace any night and a really good offense.  I don't think they had any crazy expectation for Locke, Niese, and Niscasio.  They are what they are.  I think they just wanted them to pitch passably to June July.  The problem simply was the guys they had paid and were absolutely counting on failing in epic fashion.  What Liriano and McCutchen have done so far is shocking and, IMO, the sole reason why this team isn't a WC team at the moment.


Add Kang to the mix. Especially since he looked so good the first month or so he came back.

You can add Cervelli to the mix too. His offense has taken a dive. His OPS is more than 100 points lower than last year.

http://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post ... tar-hitter Thought about making this a separate thread but that feels like piling on. This article shows just how historic this year is from Cutch-historically bad. This is the story of this season for the Pirates. No player of Cutch's pedigree has ever had a year 29 like his. The question still is: What the heck is at the root of this?

I just read the same Schoenfeld story this morning. And it's truly amazing how far Cutch has fallen ... as in OFF A CLIFF. If he was having a "normal" down year, that would be one thing. But somehow overnight he's turned into a bad, below-average player. But how on earth to explain it?



I have no idea. But I know in Pittsburgh this weekend I saw a player (and watched him very closely for 3 days) whose body language exuded "I'm not excited about being here and I'm not going to expend any more energy than I have to."



Just very disappointing all the way around.

627D716C7F7D716B6C180 wrote: http://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post ... tar-hitter  Thought about making this a separate thread but that feels like piling on. This article shows just how historic this year is from Cutch-historically bad. This is the story of this season for the Pirates. No player of Cutch's pedigree has ever had a year 29 like his. The question still is: What the heck is at the root of this?


Wow! Interesting and disconcerting. Thanks for posting!

I agree Cutch is having a bad year and it is unprecedented for his age. However, other players have had drops in production too. Look at Bryce Harper (although his OPS+ is still 115 and Cutch's is only 91). Dale Murphy had a big drop off but it didn't happen until he was 32.



The thing that worries me about Cutch is the article in the paper where he is just chalking this up as a down year, like the year he hit 259. The reports of his hustle and not playing smart are worrisome too. Would really like to see him finish strong so it is easier to tell if this is down year or a decline.

Don Mattingly (my idol as a kid) dropped off the cliff too, but he had a terrible, and widely reported, back injury.

If people in the stands can tell he's playing as if he's disinterested and so forth, it has to be affecting the team as well. They know the whole story, how he is in the clubhouse and meetings, etc.

I think losing in general brings down everyone. Winning solves everything.

The Pirates do have options to replace Cutch in the next year or two if they wish to trade him. Whether that means putting Bell in right field and moving Marte to center and Polanco to left, or replacing Cutch with Austin Meadows and keeping Marte and Polanco in right and left and leaving Bell at 1st. Neither doesn't look like too bad of a choice right now if this whole Cutch saga isn't an aberration.