OnlyBucs

694F4E594F5F2C0 wrote: I think that most, and probably every MLB agent, player, and competitor GM has reached that conclusion.



Leopards take a long time to change spots.






in the olden days the Bucs struck quickly when signing free agents like Russell Martin and Derek Bell.  Didn't give other teams a chance to get them (if I remember correctly).  Maybe BC will do that for next season.




Heck, I'm old enough that I remember The Olden Days.....when the Bucs STRUCK.



These days, we don't know what that even means.



It reminds me of that old commercial. "Any day now......Annnny day now."

Are we seriously labeling the signing of Derek Bell as the "good old days" of Pirate free agency signings? I know some of you are obsessed with bashing Cherington before he even gets a chance to begin (he's already one of our worst GMs ever, right?) but, newsflash, the Pirates have NEVER been active in free agency.



Derek Bell? Are you kidding me? You want to get back to the good old days of Operation Shutdown? Once a productive hitter, Bell fell off drastically in his 9th season (.236/.306/.350/.656). He bounced back the first half of 2000 but after the all-star break he hit .187. That was enough for GM Cam Bonifay to quickly scarf him up off the FA market before anyone else could add Bell to their roster. Bell hit .173 and Bonifay was fired 6 months after signing Bell.



Russell Martin was a good signing despite questions about his hitting. In the 3 years prior to being signed he hit .248, .237 and .211. But he was an excellent catcher and even gave the Bucs 1 good offensive season before leaving for more money. The Bucs had to overpay just to get him to agree to a 2-year deal and then he was gone. Ahh, the good old days of Pirate free agency. Other than reclamation projects and bench warmers, there isn't much else to discuss on the topic of the rich Pirate free agency history that Cherington is failing to live up to. Let's run this bum out of town! We've given him enough-time already! Let's form a mob! I'll bring the torches. Someone get the pitch forks!   



[Edit:] Also, Martin was signed in Nov 2012 by NH who had been on the job 5 years. BC hadn't even been on the job for 2 weeks yet by the end of November. But that's no excuse for not convincing the guy who nails the purse strings shut to change his policy and jump into the FA market before they even get his name stenciled on his door. Not to mention they didn't even have a manager until Nov 27. Not to mention that the Pirates are not an organization that productive free agents are anxious to go to. Guards! Take BC to the dungeon! Maybe a little time on then rack wearing thumb screws will teach him a lesson!

When does Cherington begin to "begin"?



You're saying he hasn't begun.  He has. 



Though no one would know it.



No one has said that he is the worst ever, but you say we have.



What I've written is that, so far, I'm not impressed by him

That's fair.

5F6A7D7D764F7D7D76717D180 wrote: When does Cherington begin to "begin"?



You're saying he hasn't begun.  He has. 



Though no one would know it.



No one has said that he is the worst ever, but you say we have.



What I've written is that, so far, I'm not impressed by him

  That's fair.
Oh sure, he has the job. But he hasn't begun watching the minor leaguers play because they haven't. He hasn't begun to evaluate during ST because there hasn't been a real one. He hasn't begun watching the team play competitively because they haven't. Some players on other teams don't even know if they want to play this year.



This is a bizarre time. It started when NH was doing the mgr search and then got fired midstream. Then BC doesn't get the job until Nov 18. Then he has to hire a mgr. Before anyone can start playing the country is rocked by a pandemic that shuts everything down including professional baseball. And on top of everything else, he still has Nutting for a boss and we know how that hamstrings any GM.



I've never held back on criticizing Nutting, NH and Littlefield before him. And I have no idea if I will think BC does a good job or not. But I find it comical that a few of you just ignore all the factors (late hire, no mgr, cheap owner, pandemic, nobody playing) and jump right into deciding that BC is doing a poor job as if he lived in a parallel universe where he had walked into a normal situation. It just sounds like complaining for the sake of complaining.

The Pirates don't have tape on guys for him to see?



Regardless, my point has been- no discernable difference between what this organization is doing today from the team that finished dead last in 2019.



Do you see any?



Heck, a second grader without video knows the players we can replace.  Shed told us the reason we haven't.   Some is on BOB, sure.  Some is on the new same guy who goes by a different name now. Hair dye.

6E434E5F58495E1E1D2C0 wrote: Are we seriously labeling the signing of Derek Bell as the "good old days" of Pirate free agency signings? I know some of you are obsessed with bashing Cherington before he even gets a chance to begin (he's already one of our worst GMs ever, right?) but, newsflash, the Pirates have NEVER been active in free agency.



Derek Bell? Are you kidding me? You want to get back to the good old days of Operation Shutdown? Once a productive hitter, Bell fell off drastically in his 9th season (.236/.306/.350/.656). He bounced back the first half of 2000 but after the all-star break he hit .187. That was enough for GM Cam Bonifay to quickly scarf him up off the FA market before anyone else could add Bell to their roster. Bell hit .173 and Bonifay was fired 6 months after signing Bell.



Russell Martin was a good signing despite questions about his hitting. In the 3 years prior to being signed he hit .248, .237 and .211. But he was an excellent catcher and even gave the Bucs 1 good offensive season before leaving for more money. The Bucs had to overpay just to get him to agree to a 2-year deal and then he was gone. Ahh, the good old days of Pirate free agency. Other than reclamation projects and bench warmers, there isn't much else to discuss on the topic of the rich Pirate free agency history that Cherington is failing to live up to. Let's run this bum out of town! We've given him enough-time already! Let's form a mob! I'll bring the torches. Someone get the pitch forks!   



[Edit:] Also, Martin was signed in Nov 2012 by NH who had been on the job 5 years. BC hadn't even been on the job for 2 weeks yet by the end of November. But that's no excuse for not convincing the guy who nails the purse strings shut to change his policy and jump into the FA market before they even get his name stenciled on his door. Not to mention they didn't even have a manager until Nov 27. Not to mention that the Pirates are not an organization that productive free agents are anxious to go to. Guards! Take BC to the dungeon! Maybe a little time on then rack wearing thumb screws will teach him a lesson! 




talk about misunderstanding a post. My post did not say signing Derek Bell was a good thing. It also didn't bash Cherington for not signing anyone this off season.



It said maybe he will sign some early next off season.

I am at the point where I would rather see Cherington sign a Derek Bell type rather than see him sit there and do absolutely nothing while other teams (small market teams) are signing FA left and right to improve their clubs while all we get is the standard PR "he has to see what he has". Everybody knows what he has and that is that he doesn't have enough to compete with the other teams in our Division.

All we have done so far is change the name that's on the door.



The last guy never did anything during most of his off-seasons. This guy? Enough said on that matter.



As I used to say, "Nothing says "off" like a Pirates off-season. They take it off.



We must have had a pretty good year last year. We can coast for a while.

193439282F3E29696A5B0 wrote: When does Cherington begin to "begin"?



You're saying he hasn't begun.  He has. 



Though no one would know it.



No one has said that he is the worst ever, but you say we have.



What I've written is that, so far, I'm not impressed by him

  That's fair.
Oh sure, he has the job. But he hasn't begun watching the minor leaguers play because they haven't. He hasn't begun to evaluate during ST because there hasn't been a real one. He hasn't begun watching the team play competitively because they haven't. Some players on other teams don't even know if they want to play this year.



This is a bizarre time. It started when NH was doing the mgr search and then got fired midstream. Then BC doesn't get the job until Nov 18. Then he has to hire a mgr. Before anyone can start playing the country is rocked by a pandemic that shuts everything down including professional baseball. And on top of everything else, he still has Nutting for a boss and we know how that hamstrings any GM.   



I've never held back on criticizing Nutting, NH and Littlefield before him. And I have no idea if I will think BC does a good job or not. But I find it comical that a few of you just ignore all the factors (late hire, no mgr, cheap owner, pandemic, nobody playing) and jump right into deciding that BC is doing a poor job as if he lived in a parallel universe where he had walked into a normal situation. It just sounds like complaining for the sake of complaining.    




I can appreciate Shedman's desire to have the Pirates become competitive as soon as possible. We all want that. But it's not going to happen in one offseason, especially one like we just all endured. Most importantly, as you mentioned, I think it's imperative that BC personally see the players in his system. The eyes still matter. If that takes a half season to a full season, I'm okay with that. It's better to take a little more time to get it right than to make premature moves that end up delaying the return to competitiveness.

Has anyone expected it or written that it should happen in one off-season?



In essence, what we've written is- that stagnation is not the way to improve this or any team. It's the 2019 team, which, as we shouldn't need to remind anyone, is not the 27 Yankees.



And, that is exactly the start that this BC guy has done, any way someone may attempt to spin it.



If this is what we should come to expect, then we might as well have kept Huntington and Connelly. That was painful. This will be no less so.