796440424C290 wrote: I think he is pretty spot on with this. At this point, I can't see the Bucs increasing payroll much over this year and it could be less.
Hard to see the team he is projecting winning the division as there are a tremendous number of questions.
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/zeis ... 1608040190
Uncreative article. His premise may be accurate, but there are places to raise pay roll.
1. Go out and sign a couple top relief pitchers. Make sure games aren't going to slip from the young pitchers.
2. Sign Andrew Cashner
3. Trade Meadows (or someone like that) for a top SP. I didn't look around baseball to see who this may be (Archer, Tehran, Quintana???), but last year the talk was trading Marte for one of Cleveland's pitchers. Meadows has probably proven himself enough now to be a centerpiece for a bigger trade. Don't expect Meadows to be traded because Huntington wont trade top prospects he just wont do it. He is scared too and has proven it time and time again. Huntington has said time and time again he is not going to risk the future for right now by trying to acquire one piece to try and win by trading away good young players from the farm system. Now maybe he will actually do it this offseason and I will be proven wrong. But until he actually does this is a pretty fair assumption to make.
I have no idea how anybody can suggest the Pirates trade Meadows after seeing what Cutch has done this year. It makes all the sense in the world to have Meadows replace McCutchen once he is ready. McCutchen may yet rebound to be a good player again but I seriously doubt he ever gets back to the heights of '12-'15.
A couple of things responses:
First, I'm a person who thinks that he will rebound (either this year or next) and be much better than he is now. Maybe not MVP, but get the average back up to .275 or above and cut down on the strikeouts. I'd bet on that rather then the current.
Secondly, he's actually doing fine for a 6-7 hitter and third best OFer on the team. In fact, they are probably getting proportional value for what they are paying him. Looking into next year, if Bell produces and Polanco continues to produce, they don't need McCutchen to be an MVP for the team to be a WS team.
That is a good point about Cutch, he is having a down year but he is probably still going to earn his salary. Unless there is something wrong with him, he should be able to improve along this season even if he is no longer an MVP contender.
