OnlyBucs

65677D7B6D080 wrote: That’s always been the argument, with people favoring offense over defense. Hits are impressive and runs scored do make a difference, but I’ve always suspected that offense gets it’s favorable treatment because it’s easy to quantify.  There always have been offensive stats that are meaningful - we know how many home runs Babe Ruth hit. Defense is really difficult to quantify. A play made or not made can change an opponents score dramatically. I recall a play where Doumit dropped the ball on a potential inning ending double play at second. No error, as you can’t presume the double play and the other team went on to score something like six more runs. In the end it gets chalked up to bad pitching, and in a sense it was, but still. It takes a lot of offense to make up for the runs you give away.


I agree, also everyone knows great pitching beats great hitting. But when you don’t have great pitching, is it easier to prescribe to adding hitters in the short term to try and balance that? We know arms are a luxury right now, but bats can be had. Why not try to outscore folks this year? if we suck, move the bats at the deadline

Didn't the Pirates last year (and the last few) go the route of hitters? Moran at third, Bell at first, and Polanco (when healthy) in right couldn't be considered defense first moves. My thought is it might be time to try upgrading the defense.

2D2F353325400 wrote: Didn't the Pirates last year (and the last few) go the route of hitters? Moran at third, Bell at first, and Polanco (when healthy) in right couldn't be considered defense first moves. My thought is it might be time to try upgrading the defense.


I would suggest Bell is the only hitter of those. Gimme a guy that hits .250 and 25 jacks. I want to see some hitters in which 20% of their hits are hr’s.

Good point. The Pirates seem to have a lot of players who are a tad weak defensively but play on the hope they can develop offensively at some unknown point of time in the future.