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2014 Pirates thread

Grilli does not look comfortable on the bump right now, hopefully it is not injury/elbow related. His placement has been off all season.

And three wins right now would look nice. It's early hopefully he gets it turned around .... what's option #2?
 
I KNOW it's early, but.... didn't do anything to upgrade 1st and RF, Grilli struggling a little, Wandy is terrible. Was last year a fluke? Did the planets align just right for one season?
 
a wasted effort by Cole. they should have let Cole go for the Complete Game. But no we'd rather have Grilli who hasn't been right all year blow another save.
 
a wasted effort by Cole. they should have let Cole go for the Complete Game. But no we'd rather have Grilli who hasn't been right all year blow another save.

Cole was pitching well, still had a relatively low pitch count. No reason to take him out today.
 
Grilli hasn't had it since his injury. Every single night he would strike out Phillips votto Braun rizzo etc ..any teams best players would come up and he would shut them down. His command is shakey at best. I'm worried about him.
 
So Gomez is a tool... and Maldanado gets two cheap shots in during the same series... that guy should have to remove the next pitch we pitch to him from his ear with a shoe horn... Gomez as well... Maybe he wouldn't flare up so much off of getting called out for bush league behavior if he wasn't juicing like his buddy Braun still is.
 
Considering the lack of moves they made to upgrade the team, this is going exactly as I expected.

Well our new first baseman Ike Davis got a broken bat Grand Slam tonight and has been scoring runs like crazy since we got him sooo
 
Buccos get back on track tonight. Our new light hitting 1B hit a Grand Salami and Cutch hits a clutch 8th inning homer to tie it back up.
 
Buccos get back on track tonight. Our new light hitting 1B hit a Grand Salami and Cutch hits a clutch 8th inning homer to tie it back up.

and Neil Walker with a clutch hit where I think he had remote control over the ball... the ball made Phillips look like he should never get a Gold Glove and then the hop on the throw from the outfield was unreal...
 
And then we ruined that great game yesterday with a stinker today..... I really hope we can get this season on track. Where is the pitching that looked so great last year?
 
anyone else notice that the strike zone has moved up a little this season?
 
this team has a very good chance at really suckin' hard this year.


is Jack Wilson available somewhere?

there has to be a semi-talented headcase SS available out there somewhere.....Mercer/Barmes is really annoying the hell outta me lately.

a wasted good start for Cumpton, who helped beat himself....but you'd think they wouldn't strand 8 guys either.

off to St.Louis to see if we can beat the Cubs out for disaster of the year.
 
I feel confident that they will get back on track and put together some win streaks in the near future but they are very frustrating to watch right now. On the days our pitcher throws well (today), they can't buy a hit and lose 2-1 or 3-2. On the days when they are hitting balls all over the park, our pitcher gives up 7 runs and they lose 7-6.
 
I feel confident that they will get back on track and put together some win streaks in the near future but they are very frustrating to watch right now. On the days our pitcher throws well (today), they can't buy a hit and lose 2-1 or 3-2. On the days when they are hitting balls all over the park, our pitcher gives up 7 runs and they lose 7-6.

It's been that way for years.

A lot is going to hinge on how Cole and Liriano pitch going forward. Volquez has been a great surprise, but if you were to tell me in February that he, by a large margin, would be their best pitcher through the first month of the season, I'd tell you they're in some deep sh1t, which is the case.

The offense is a joke. They need to call Polanco up NOW and stop making excuses.
 
It's been that way for years.

A lot is going to hinge on how Cole and Liriano pitch going forward. Volquez has been a great surprise, but if you were to tell me in February that he, by a large margin, would be their best pitcher through the first month of the season, I'd tell you they're in some deep sh1t, which is the case.

The offense is a joke. They need to call Polanco up NOW and stop making excuses.

I'm definitely in the camp that if you are going to control Polanco for an extra year by keeping him in AAA for the next 4 or 5 weeks, you keep his *** there, I don't care if he's hitting .700. It's a no brainer IMO. You have to have big picture thinking sometimes.

Liriano hasn't been bad at all really. Just seems that on his days to pitch the offense doesn't provide much help. Cole looks like the real deal and yeah I am also pleasantly surprised with Volquez, he looks like Liriano did last year...a guy with something to prove. Charlie Morton has been pretty disappointing so far...I expecteded him to be more steady this year and he hasn't been able to establish any consistency so far. Wandy looked utterly lost and I think they put him on the DL just to get him out of the rotation ASAP. It really hurts that Tallion won't be suiting up this year to take up the slack.

That said Brandon Cumpton has been nothing but steady over the last 2 years when he has gotten an opportunity. I would give him a spot in the rotation until he proved that he wasn't capable, but so far he has shown that he isn't intimidated. I'm not totally sold on Locke either. He had a great first half last year then imploded after the All Star break. I don't know if it is all mental or what but I don't trust him to be a full time starter at this point.
 
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I'm definitely in the camp that if you are going to control Polanco for an extra year by keeping him in AAA for the next 4 or 5 weeks, you keep his *** there, I don't care if he's hitting .700. It's a no brainer IMO. You have to have big picture thinking sometimes.

My understanding is that it's more about the number of arbitration years than it is about the number of years he's legally a Pirate.

Nutting definitely has the "bigger picture" in mind, but it has much more to do with his pocket book than anything that's actually going on on the field.
 
My understanding is that it's more about the number of arbitration years than it is about the number of years he's legally a Pirate.

Nutting definitely has the "bigger picture" in mind, but it has much more to do with his pocket book than anything that's actually going on on the field.

In this case he's being intelligent as well as cheap. The sooner Polanco gets to years of contract freedom, the sooner he is an ex-Pirate, especially if he blossoms into a star. I'd rather increase the likelihood that he is here into his prime as long as possible. Gladly sacrifice 5 weeks for that.
 
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In this case he's being intelligent as well as cheap. The sooner Polanco gets to years of contract freedom, the sooner he is an ex-Pirate, especially if he blossoms into a star. I'd rather increase the likelihood that he is here into his prime as long as possible. Gladly sacrifice 5 weeks for that.


The point is that the number of years of control doesn't change. The only difference is that he hits arbitration a year earlier.

He's absolutely sodomizing AAA pitching right now. There's little justification in keeping him down there anymore just so Nutting can save a few bucks a few years from now.
 
The point is that the number of years of control doesn't change. The only difference is that he hits arbitration a year earlier.

He's absolutely sodomizing AAA pitching right now. There's little justification in keeping him down there anymore just so Nutting can save a few bucks a few years from now.

Hey, making newspapers ain't cheap....
 
I do not follow the minors at all....but it is kind of hard to not notice Polanco. Sometimes I wish there were a salary cap in MLB and no penalty for bringing a kid like him up. "The numbers the 22-year-old Polanco is putting up at Triple A Indianapolis would be hard to replicate on your PS4. On Thursday, Polanco hit a solo home run, a go-ahead double and an infield single, finishing a triple shy of the cycle with his 11th multi-hit game. He improved his line for the year to .420/.460/.679 and now has four home runs, five doubles and two triples in 20 games. This insane start comes after a winter in which he won both the MVP and Rookie of the Year awards in the Dominican Winter League."

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ml...gregory-polanco-next-big-thing/#ixzz2zzx3A5GL
 
I do not follow the minors at all....but it is kind of hard to not notice Polanco. Sometimes I wish there were a salary cap in MLB and no penalty for bringing a kid like him up. "The numbers the 22-year-old Polanco is putting up at Triple A Indianapolis would be hard to replicate on your PS4. On Thursday, Polanco hit a solo home run, a go-ahead double and an infield single, finishing a triple shy of the cycle with his 11th multi-hit game. He improved his line for the year to .420/.460/.679 and now has four home runs, five doubles and two triples in 20 games. This insane start comes after a winter in which he won both the MVP and Rookie of the Year awards in the Dominican Winter League."

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ml...gregory-polanco-next-big-thing/#ixzz2zzx3A5GL

He was the MVP of a league made up of a ton of existing major league players and a few of them are stars.... that is all you need to know about his talent.
 
Finally got some runs today to go with the pitching 6-1 win.
 
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